About the experiments
Experiments
What are Google Arts & Culture Experiments?
At the Google Cultural Institute’s Lab, a team of Google software engineers, artists and creative coders come together to experiment at the crossroads of art and technology. We believe that through the collaboration with the cultural sector, curators and artists we can develop the best tools and technology for cultural institutions around the world. We created this space for you to explore the Google Arts & Culture Experiments. The Experiments are aimed at discovering new ways people can explore art and browse the collections of our partner museums from around the world.
Discover more Google Arts & Culture Experiments
What is Google Arts & Culture ?
Google Arts & Culture is a new, immersive way to experience art, history, culture and world wonders from over a thousand organizations worldwide. Google Arts & Culture has been created by the Google Cultural Institute and it is available for free for everyone on the web, on iOS and Android.
Experiments
Try out experiments at the crossroads of art and technology, created by artists and
creative coders with Google Arts & Culture.
The selection of artworks are from
Google Arts & Culture, shared by museums and archives around the world. Due
to the limitation of some devices performances you should open one experiment at a
time.
Could computers help identify artworks?
Using an algorithm the machine looked at the artworks and used thousands of tags, without the intervention of humans. The keywords were generated by an algorithm also used in Google Photos, which analyzed the artworks by looking at the images without any metadata. The algorithm used over 4,000 unique tags like “morning” and “happy”. The experiment explores if Machine Learning could help people browse artworks similarly to how they search on the web. Watch the talk
Watch the TED talkImage Classification
Serendipity
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The hidden paths through culture
They say any two people in the world can be connected through friends of friends, just in a few steps. How about artworks? Using Machine Learning techniques that analyze the visual features of artworks, X Degrees of Separation finds pathways between any two artifacts, connecting the two through a chain of artworks. This network of connected artworks allows X Degrees of Separation to take us on the scenic route where serendipity is waiting at every step: surprising connections, masterful works by unknown artists or the hidden beauty of mundane objects.
Serendipity
Image Similarity
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Explore artworks in one 3 dimensional space
Mathematical formulas are used to place the artworks in a 3D environment, where you can choose to visualise what a cultural big bang might look like, or travel through the sea of artworks decade by decade. Artworks are animated in realtime in the web browser using WebGL and with resolutions up to 1024px, made possible by a mix of data pre-processing and “level-of-detail” mechanisms. This allows you to interact with the artworks and identify patterns at scale.
Watch the TED talkData Visualization
Timeline
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Discover connections between artworks
Use the Curator’s table to discover new insights and connections between
artworks.
Inspired by curators around the world, we applied the principle of laying out
prints on a table when planning an exhibition, to our virtual gallery. Assets are
animated in realtime. You can search objects, styles and artists, and view them
in one 3D space.
Timeline
Meta Data
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T-SnE map
Artworks mapped using Machine Learning.
Artworks mapped using Machine Learning.
You can explore an interactive 3D landscape created by Machine Learning algorithms that organised thousands artworks by visual similarity. The more similar two artworks, the closer they are. The algorithms only “looked” at the artworks. No meta data was used, the visual similarity was calculated with a computer image algorithm used in Google Search purely based on the images. We then applied the t-SNE algorithm, usually used to debug static images, to create an interactive virtual space that you can navigate, and look at artworks from any angle and at scale.
Watch the TED talkMachine Learning
Image Similarly
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