Home Page

Do Androids Make Good Critics

July 26, 2010

by:

Joe Patti

Science fiction often has a motif of technology seeking to become human. Its a story as old as Pinocchio or even Pygmalion and Galatea. Star Trek: The Next Generation series had an android named Data who painted and played music as part of his quest to achieve humanity. His work was often praised for its technical proficiency but lacking that intangible quality of self that artists imbue in their work. There is often a sense of pity that for all the sophistication possessed by the entity, the gap can’t be bridged. Perhaps it is out of ego that we create these stories which suggest there are some things in which technology can’t surpass us.

But what happens when we abdicate our aesthetic judgment to technology? Via Tyler Cohen’s Marginal Revolution blog, is a link to a prototype camera that rates the aesthetics of the picture you are about to take. Move the camera around to different angles to improve the percentage to achieve a better picture. According to the Today and Tomorrow web page, right now the camera, Nadia, communicates via Bluetooth with a Mac that does all the evaluating. The camera was created as something of a statement about the artistic experience, but you know it won’t be long before someone develops this as a feature for digital cameras. I’ll bet they get it linked up with Google Maps to automatically create notes about the best place for tourists to stand in relation to monuments.

Also on the Today and Tomorrow page is a camera that actually inserts smiles on people’s faces regardless of their expression. So if you are standing in the ideal spot to take pictures in front of the Grand Canyon, but your moody teenage offspring are scowling, the picture and memories need not be ruined. Say the camera creators:

“To achieve this camera takes a picture but overlays it with a smiling mouth drawn from a pre-existing pool of pictures with smiling faces. To generate to maximum level of exaggeration the replaced smiling mouth impression is matched as realistically as possible to that of the initial portrait taken.”

Again, the camera was created by German art students and is not a commercial development for cameras. But as the creators point out, digital cameras can already automatically retouch pictures in real time.

I know a couple photographers who figure they are the only ones keeping the makers of camera film in business since everyone else is going to digital. I am not going to debate characteristics of film photographs which are lost in digital. I am sure they have been beaten to death in books, blogs and magazines ad infinitum.

The question I want to ask is the I asked earlier–what are the repercussions of abdicating judgments to a piece of technology? In our science fiction, we always assume we retain the characteristics we value into the future and some are envied by those who do not possess them. But what if we, as a whole, don’t really care about some thing enough to work at developing and retaining them?

For those of us in the arts and our long time patrons, we know that developing discernment takes time and experience. One of the primary instructions to formal students and interested others has always been–go see stuff and then see some more. But it is conceivable that an artificial intelligence fed the judgments of thousands could synthesize an authoritative one of its own. It may not be perfect, but it would be enough to get by, right? Oh wait, Pandora already does this for music and Amazon does it with…everything.

But you know you can’t trust those Amazon reviews. People can manipulate them! A computer algorithm is an objective source! For those who are intimidated by the arts it may provide a sense of confidence that gets them to attend events more often. There are no critics to agree or disagree with. You take your device (and I am imagining more widely than just photographs) to a performance or gallery, let it absorb what you are seeing and hearing and rate it.

Except what if you point it at the stuff you already know you like and it says it sucks? What does the device know? It was programmed by elitist arts lovers. It has no credibility with you! What if it is like Pandora and has a feature that suggests you might like x because you like y based on a computer program? That might be bad for the arts people because it just reinforces people’s consumption of experiences they pretty much already like. It can’t sneak in suggestions to encourage people to take chances too much because it will lose credibility.

Also in my experience with Pandora, technology can’t yet measure that intangible quality based on beats per minute. Some people are great because of so many other factors. I stopped using it very quickly when I hated nearly everything it suggested alongside my favorite groups.

Do people care about learning about quality or about what already appeals to them? Is there too much work and risk involved in experiencing the unknown even at a highly accurate computer’s recommendation?

The use of such technology doesn’t have to necessarily have such a stark dichotomy, of course. Devices that evaluate aesthetics can help Pro-Ams sharpen their skills at creating things. They may only enable people to advance to a certain level, but can bring great enjoyment in the process.

It is a complicated subject all around. About as complicated as the idea that being able to create high quality original works is exclusively a trait of humanity.

Arts in an Age of Technology

No Comments

Do You Fight For Your Rights?

July 21, 2010

by:

Joe Patti

Artsjournal is doing another one of their special week long conversations on a topic. This week it is the issue of artists and intellectual property rights. There are too many topics being bandied about to summarize them all, but as you might imagine one of the central themes is in regard to the whole tension between wanting to protect your creative rights and the ability and desire of the public at large to integrate or reimagine your great ideas into their own.

Bill Ivey does a good job of summing up the need for changing how rights are controlled.

“The notion that artists and companies share the same values when it comes to the character of our arts system is a crock. Companies worry about the theft of assets; artists worry about obscurity. These two concerns overlap at times, but often they don’t. What’s the real benefit to an artist of copyright protection that reaches beyond three-quarters of a century? What’s the real benefit to an artist if your publishing company or record company uses licensing fees to prevent your composition from being sampled. or prevents your film clip from being part of a documentary. We need to begin the organizational conversation Marty envisions by figuring out what an artist-oriented regime of laws and regulations would look like.”

There is also a discussion about whether artists are investing appropriate time and attention into protecting their rights. There was actually some pretty extensive discussion, tied together by Tim Quirk, refuting the idea that artists are/should be primarily focused on their art and can’t be bothered with mundane details of business and rights management. Quirk says:

“I had always assumed this ridiculous idea that artists are delicate otherworldly creatures who can’t and shouldn’t concern themselves with prosaic business or policy matters was being fed to them (along with other helpful notions, such as being a drunk or an addict is all part of being creative) by malicious middlemen and mendacious media.

But now I’ve read Vickie’s insightful analysis of how this dynamic is perpetuated by art schools and universities, and Bill’s observation that “things like intellectual property, media policy, unions, performance rights, and so on not show up in art schools or music conservatories, they have precious little traction in arts management programs.”

He goes on to acknowledge that intellectual property laws and the convoluted system of entities that administer them are really tough to comprehend and can be frustrating, but it is something that is worth mastering. It was interesting to me to read Bill Ivey’s thoughts on how this was an area that arts training programs fell short in. When I was pursuing my MFA, I had direct experience with different contracts, including negotiating music performance rights. Even still, the first thing I mentioned at my degree defense when asked what additional instruction would have been helpful during my studies was more contract and rights law. This was 15 years ago so I am surprised to learn that more isn’t taught given all the challenges technology presents in this area.

Though to be fair, as Brian Newman notes, there is a lot to be taught already. I was intrigued to learn in one of his posts that in film at least, the very people who are now clamoring for film makers to become involved in policy debates helped to dismantle the organizations which could have been instrumental in driving that discussion. I wonder if that is the case in other disciplines.

“In the world of film, we used to have a very strong network of media arts centers around the nation. As foundations shifted priorities (and the NEA’s support changed dramatically), however, many of these organizations have shut down or refocused energies to where the money is – social issue action, youth training or corporate support for large activities, like film festivals. When attending a Grantmakers in the Arts conference a couple of years ago, I was amazed that there was a group of funders upset that they couldn’t get filmmakers active in the policy debate – but they had helped disband the very network that could have served to rally filmmakers around these issues.”

Intellectual properties rights is likely to continue as an important topic for years to come so it is worth following the whole conversation. I have barely represented the breadth of it here. They are covering nuances between people who live or die by the strength of protections versus people who need loose protections to thrive and further develop their work. There is also the inevitable discussion of how money determines whose voices and interests are being heard and transformed into policy and law.

Arts in an Age of Technology, Government Relations, State of the Arts

No Comments

Buying From The Source

July 20, 2010

by:

Joe Patti

I recently became a member of my local public radio station. I “came out” as a non-member while a guest on the Spring Fund drive and declared I was ready to sign up. My hope was that it would inspire others to do the same. What I didn’t mention was that while I really enjoyed the high quality news and information, what tipped me into the membership column was the show This American Life. I am crazy about the show and wish I had gone to see host Ira Glass speak at the Arts Presenters conference when I was there a few years back.

The thing is, I am not usually listening to the radio when the show is on so I generally consume the program over my computer while I am at home. Consume is an appropriate word because there have been times where I have listened to three shows from the archive in one sitting. (Well, often I am dusting, mopping the floor or folding laundry, but you get my point.) Not long ago, before you could listen to any episode, a short segment would play with Glass asking you to donate to support the rigorous story gathering process they engage in.

If you aren’t aware, generally your donation to the radio station goes to pay for the programming you hear. Your support of the station indirectly supports shows like This American Life. It made me think–I am not listening to the show on the radio. Even though my donation is going to support the show, should I perhaps not be supporting the show more directly? I am using their internet bandwidth to listen to the show. Coupled with some other recent occurrences, I realized this sort of thinking may end up impacting arts organizations in the near future.

In the last week or so, National Public Radio decided it was changing its name to NPR just like Federal Express changed to FEDEX some years ago. Their decision is based on the fact that the content is no longer only delivered and received over the radio and can be heard on the web and in podcasts, among other media. In fact, often you can scan the transcripts of a segment on their website rather than listening at all. They are beginning to increase their focus on online presence and delivery of content. But what if the individual shows do their own fund raising? It might be possible that they will undermine the local stations’ fund drives. This American Life does some really impassioned and well argued promos for the local radio fund drives. But as funding gets tighter, might shows like their shift focus to their own survival?

The national office of PBS is looking at making a nationwide fund raising appeal directly to donors and it is making local television stations nervous that it might undermine their own efforts. It might be a bad idea if it did since PBS needs the television stations as a distribution system. Unless they are seeing more people interested in viewing their content online rather than on television.

But nothing can compare to live performance right? Well, as you may be aware, the Metropolitan Opera has a fairly successful program where they broadcast their shows to movie theatres. And a writer for the London Telegraph says watching the National Theatre in a movie theatre is better than attending the event live. You already have the opportunity see the National Theatre productions at about 50 cinemas around the US this summer.

One thing NPR has going for it is the variety of programming it offers. If I donate $50 to This American Life, that is all I have supported. If I donate the same or more to my local NPR station, I am supporting a wider variety of programming I enjoy. That is the potential advantage the cinema owners have. There is a possibility of curating a wide experience from the very best in the field. This is what I and many others around the country do now, only the guys with the movie screens won’t have to pay for hotels and travel which immensely increases the pool from which to select. Their curated season might include opera from the Metropolitan Opera, classical music from the Philadelphia Symphony, theatre from the Guthrie Theatre and Oregon Shakespeare Festival. While I would argue you miss half the experience by not attending the latter two in person, such a program would bring excellent performance to people who don’t have the means to travel. (Though you will still have to shush those damn kids in the back rows.)

Of course, it also changes expectations of performances by everyone else. So the question is, will a rising tide raise all ships as people become more interested and less intimidated by the attendance experience or will the cinema events cannibalize local audiences who would rather see the Broadway production rather than the local production or the bus and truck tour. Likely it is a time will tell situation which hinges upon how wide the cinema project spreads and how invested those with the means become in creating and promoting these shows.

Arts in an Age of Technology, State of the Arts

No Comments

They May Be Big Brother, But At Least They Have Good Customer Service

July 19, 2010

by:

Joe Patti

So last week I was deluged with phone calls for the college admissions and records and financial aid offices. For a long while I thought the phone system went haywire and the voice mail system was misdirecting my calls. I pleasantly redirected peoples’ calls, silently reminding myself that it wasn’t their fault and as I am fond of saying, marketing is everyone’s job. I may be king of my castle, but I am a member of a larger organization whose interests I serve.

I soon discovered though that people were actually directly dialing my number and were not being redirected by a voice mail system. I also discovered that people only have a really vague idea about where they get pieces of information. Eventually I deduced that people were being misdirected by search engines –specifically Google. I did a search for the college on Google and to my horror found that my office number was listed as the main switchboard number. This was only true for Google. Yahoo and Bing didn’t have erroneous information.

I am not sure how it happened, but my theory is that someone tagged the theatre on Google Maps and put our phone number. My building is one of the few on campus tagged on Google maps and somehow it may have become the default phone number. Once it became the top search result, everyone started calling.

Fortunately, Google has a link that allows you to submit corrections. In fact, if you have an account, you can fix it right away. So I submitted a couple corrections from different IP addresses and submitted one from my Google account. It took about 48 hours, but the listing disappeared…..

…And was replaced by a listing for the ATM machine in the library, the location of which was also tagged. Since the telephone number listed is that of the bank, I am willing to bet that the bank has been getting calls from people who haven’t been paying attention.

But the story doesn’t quite end there. Today I received a call from someone at Google Maps verifying where it was exactly that the erroneous listing was directing people. Google may be massive, but they apparently aren’t too unwieldy to fix and then follow up on problems in a timely manner. You often don’t get that sort of response from utilities and companies whose service you actually pay for.

Probably the big lesson here is that even when you are depending on other people’s labor to contribute and correct content, the endeavor can never entirely be without cost. It would be inconceivable for Google and Wikipedia to collect and present in a meaningful way the amount of information they do if they depended solely on paid staff, but they still need to create a structure and invest resources to monitor the veracity and suitability of the material they provide. In fact, I just read today that Google doesn’t outsource the review of content flagged as inappropriate and provides counseling to the staff that processes it.

I don’t mean to turn this into a plug for Google. The whole experience just reveals the importance of monitoring and addressing mistakes and that it is possible to do so no matter what your size should you make the conscious decision.

Arts in an Age of Technology, General Musings

No Comments