Artomat

artomat

“ARTOMAT is a system for the automated production of art. Select an object, apply certain methods to it, combine it with another object, place it in an appropriate space, and your unique work is ready!
In our era, there are evermore products, both material and virtual, that are created entirely or to a large extent through automated processes. Art is the last bastion where one-off, unique products are made. What’s more, they are linked to the myth of the individual “internal world of the artist.” Nevertheless, if we closely observe the processes that have been underway in art in recent decades, we can see that behind the apparent variety in the works that are appearing lies a fairly limited selection of algorithms employed in their creation:

— taking something small and powerfully magnifying it;
— taking a single object and multiplying it;
— taking a large object and turning it upside down;
— building a recognizable object from “inappropriate,” paradoxical materials, or covering it in a strange pattern or colour;
— taking two or more objects from different, unconnected contexts and combining them;
— recombination — deconstruction with subsequent “inappropriate” assembly.

The ARTOMAT works by employing algorithms akin to those given above and generating art in an automated or semiautomated mode. The viewer becomes a user-artist, creating genuine works of art to suit his or her own taste. Hooked
up to a 2D or 3D printer, the ARTOMAT allows material objects to be created — pictures and sculptures. Thus, the entire production cycle for the creation of the work is automated, from conception to realization.”

ARTOMAT is a project by Aristarkh Chernyshev and Alexei Shulgin, 2013. See a gallery here.

FOMO: The Fear of Missing Out

lund

The Fear Of Missing Out” is a project by Jonas Lund:

“The title derives from a social network induced anxiety condition. One brought on by trying to keep up with a rapidly moving world. A fear of constantly being one-step behind, in the wrong place, and missing out on the most exciting events. The Fear Of Missing Out proposes that it is possible to be one step ahead of the art world by using well-crafted algorithms and computational logic.

The works in the show are the result of a computer algorithm written by Lund. By analysing and categorizing a wide range of artworks, by the most successful contemporary artists, a set of instructions were generated explaining, step by step, how to make the most successful works of art. The artist then simply made the work following the instructions. In The Fear of Missing Out, important categories from the art world such as authenticity, artistry, talent, and creativity are questioned. The title also refers to the urge to be a part of a transparent information society made up of an overarching digital network.”

An open letter to Apple

“an open letter to Apple + experimental prosumer manifesto on the issues of planned obsolescence, upgrade culture, technological self-reliance, control and copying. A [re]mix/make of Phil Morton’s 1976 video tape ‘General Motors’, in which contemporary Chicago [dirty] new media artists explain their love && hate relationship with the ‘default art computer’. by Nick Briz, copy<it>right 2013″

Amazon Random Shopper

Darius Kazemi wrote a bot that buys him random crap:

“I’ve had an idea for a long time now. It’s inspired by one of my favorite feelings: when you order something on Amazon, and it’s put on backorder, and then you forget you ordered it, and a year later it arrives—and it’s like a gift you bought yourself.
Well, I thought: what if I just wrote a program to buy stuff for me? The first iteration of this was going to be a program that bought me stuff that I probably would like.
But then I decided that was too boring. How about I build something that buys me things completely at random? Something that just… fills my life with crap? How would these purchases make me feel? Would they actually be any less meaningful than the crap I buy myself on a regular basis anyway?
So I built Amazon Random Shopper. Every time I run it, I give it a set budget, say $50. It grabs a random word from the Wordnik API, then runs an Amazon search based on that word. It then looks for every paperback book, CD, and DVD in the results list, and buys the first thing that’s under budget. If it found a CD for $10, then the new budget is $40, and it does another random word search and starts all over, continuing until it runs out of money, or it searches a set number of times.”

[via kottke]

You Glitch. Corrupt Yourself

 

YouGlitch is a website where the Corrupted GIFs created with Corrupt.Video are displayed.
The Software (Corrupt.Video) allows its users to glitch videos stored on their computer, videos from their webcam or their desktop in realtime. When a clip is recorded, a 10 seconds video and an animated GIF are saved locally and automatically uploaded to uglitch.com

 

Youtube Insult Generator

The YouTube Insult Generator by Adrian Holovaty is a hilarious search engine that sifts through YouTube comments for insults:

“This is a basically a “search engine for insults.” Type in a search term, and it’ll give you insults you can use against a person who doesn’t like that term.
For example, enter “the godfather,” and it’ll give you “You sleep with the fishes,” “You sleeps with horsehead in bed” and “You will get an offer you can’t refuse.” Enter “alfred hitchcock” and it’ll say “You had your eyes plucked out by crows” and “You have Vertigo.” Enter “mario brothers” and it’ll say “You aren’t Super enough for Mario,” “You can’t beat world 1-1″ and “You are bowser.” You get the idea.
It finds stuff only about 50% of the time, but it works surprisingly well when it does work. Try general terms (“car”) and pop culture (“michael jordan”, “i love lucy”). Each insult includes a link to its source YouTube video.”

[via the laughingsquid]

Adding Objects Into Photos

objects

Kevin Karsch and his team at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are developing a software system that lets users easily insert objects into photographs, complete with convincing lighting and perspective:

We propose a method to realistically insert synthetic objects into existing photographs without requiring access to the scene or any additional scene measurements. With a single image and a small amount of annotation, our method creates a physical model of the scene that is suitable for realistically rendering synthetic objects with diffuse, specular, and even glowing materials while accounting for lighting interactions between the objects and the scene. We demonstrate in a user study that synthetic images produced by our method are confusable with real scenes, even for people who believe they are good at telling the difference.

(via Laughing Squid)