The “art” of reproduction

For those of you who use web searches extensively for your lectures or presentations, check out the post “The Art Of Reproduction” on the blog Visual Hint — the color of data:

“Type “Danae Klimt” into your favorite search engine, and you conjure up a high-resolution image of Gustav Klimt’s Danaë: tan limbs, a shower of gold, red hair.”

“Or did you find pink limbs? Or were they gray or even green? There’s the rub: the seemingly perfect museum holds dozens of Danaës—with dozens of different palettes. Even the shape changes as reproductions are subtly cropped.”

“Curious just how far reproductions stray from each other, we began an investigation. (Go directly to the results if you like.) For a set of famous artworks, we downloaded all the plausible copies we could find. Then we wrote software to reconstruct each artwork as a mosaic, a patchwork quilt where each patch comes from an individual copy.”

hat tip: Nancy Alexander

3D printing to produce … a house?

Red Dot does not pretend to understand how 3D printers work, although we’re trying hard.  It’s just all so sci-fi.

Using this additive process, designers have figured out ways to apply the technology to clothing and jewelry design, industrial design, medical and dental devices, and much more.  You can see many applications, from simple to advanced, and from frivolous to useful, on the site Thingiverse.

In a recent article in CNet, we learned that Dutch architect Janjaap Ruijssenaars is hoping to soon produce the Landscape House (below).  The 3D printer will process sand and a binding agent into 20′x30′ building blocks.

If you want to learn more about 3D printing, you might watch this 15 minute Ted Talk video primer.

Thinglink – a new way to make images interactive

Thinglink is a new tool that lets you add multiple interactive elements to an image or page.   It could be very useful, for example, in linking websites, photos or events to a map (click the map below for an example).   It is used a lot in filmmaking and advertising, but has potential in educational uses.  It is apparently fairly easy to use, and there are some good examples and tips on the website.   If you try it out, please share your examples!

Santa Croce main chapel restoration digitally documented

The Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence announced the reopening of its main chapel with the completion of its extensive restoration. If you find yourself in Florence within the next year, the scaffolding used for the restoration remains and visitors can have a rare opportunity to see upper registers up close. However, even those of us who won’t be traveling to Italy soon can still view the before/during/after process of the restoration on the basilica’s website, along with previous projects. The software used to digitally document the work, Modus Operandi, allows users to zoom in on details of Angolo Gaddi’s brushwork from the 1380s as well as the restoration.

via artdaily.org

Engaging topics abound on Ottoman History Podcast

Launched in Spring of 2011, Ottoman History Podcast is an online radio program dedicated to accessible and academic discussion of new topics in the history, society and culture of the Ottoman Empire and Middle East. Guests and contributors include over 40 scholars and students from a variety of disciplines. To date there are 83 podcast entries (with two more forthcoming), and each episode page not only posts the podcast, but a bibliography on the subject being discussed (for a more extensive bibliography, click here). The site also offers an image collection (organized by topic and hosted on Flickr), archival documents (tagged by topic, location, and or historic figure), historical maps, and musical selections with track lists.

Rembrandt Database offers a rich research resource

The Rembrandt Database is dedicated to gathering and presenting past and current scholarship (with their sources) about the 17th-century Netherlandish artist. Still in beta, the goal of the site is to foster “a platform for the presentation of new interpretations” through a collaborative effort between numerous museums, research institutions and individual scholars worldwide. Currently there are twelve paintings available, but the accompanying documentation for them exceeds over 1,000 records with a strong emphasis in technical analysis and conservation history. Visit often, as the site plans to expand both the number of paintings and participating institutions.

IRC workshop this Friday: Photoshop I

The third workshop offered through the IRC this quarter will take place on Friday, November 16, from 3-4pm in Ellison 1811.  The topic is “Photoshop I – Simple Editing Tools and Tips for Better Digital Images.”

This workshop will cover overviews of common image file types and sizes, how to improve lighting, color and clarity, as well as simple ways to insure your metadata stays with your image. If you have a specific question or topic request, please send it to Christine (christinef-h@hfa.ucsb.edu). The IRC will offer a “Photoshop II” workshop next quarter, which will cover more advanced tools.

Two Picassos for the price of one

There is an item in the New York Times today about how infrared photography revealed a portrait of a man with a mustache painted on the canvas before Picasso painted Woman Ironing.  The painting was recently cleaned and the ghost portrait is quite clear.

And the NYT employs some nifty technology to illustrate it: Rotate the canvas upside down, and move your mouse over the surface to reveal the image below.  They also give some clues about who the man in the portrait could be.

artlibraries.net, a virtual catalogue for art history

The ”meta catalogue” artlibraries.net searches through more than 12 million records across 45 libraries. The records include books, articles (in periodicals, conference papers, festschriften, and exhibition books/catalogues), some archival and photographic materials and online resources. Users can also choose searches from particular libraries or return only digital media. For tips on searching through the multi-language catalogue, click here.

An app to keep you writing: Write or Die

If you suffer from writer’s block, or just need to put “the ‘prod’ in Productivity,” there’s an app for that: Write or Die. The app (for iPad or desktop) works when you preset goals with “consequences for distraction and procrastination” if they are not met. You can even set different modes for the consequences, including Gentle, Normal, or Kamikaze (this last one’s merciless: you have to keep writing or your work will unwrite itself).

via LA Times