When Computers Look at Art

David Stork
Ricoh Innovations

Thanks to cutting edge advancements in computer science, questions and controversies in the study of art are now being answered in ways that were not previously possible. For example, computer analysis is currently being used to authenticate paintings attributed to artists such as Jackson Pollock and Vincent Van Gogh. And analysis of perspective, shading, color and form has thrown a wrench into David Hockney’s bold claim that as early as 1420, Renaissance artists employed optical devices such as concave mirrors to project images onto their canvases. How do these computer methods work? What can computers reveal about images that even the best-trained connoisseurs, art historians and artist cannot? How much more powerful and revealing will these methods become? In short, how is computer image analysis changing our understanding of art?

Join us as David Stork addresses these questions and more. David is Chief Scientist at Ricoh Innovations. He is also a Consulting Professor of Statistics at Stanford, and a Fellow of the International Association for Pattern Recognition. He has authored and co-authored many publications, including Seeing the Light, the leading textbook on optics and the arts; Pattern Classification, the best-selling textbook in the field, and other critical works. He is also the creator of the PBS Documentary, 2001: HAL’s Legacy.