Photo by Listen Missy! on Flickr

The term actually refers to a phenomenon experienced with robots designed to look human, in which a person’s emotional response to robot design is increasingly positive as the design becomes more human-like, but only to a point. Designs that are very close to human but fall short tend to have an eerie quality, and these are considered to be in the uncanny valley. Both in robots and animation, the response can be different depending on whether the robot or character is in motion.

Let’s start at the safe end. There are many great examples from Pixar where humans are rendered in a cartoon style, perhaps most notably The Incredibles and Up. The artists at Pixar also excel at portraying human emotion and storytelling via non-human forms.

The Incredibles, Pixar Animation Studios, 2004

To come a few steps closer I’ll take a side step into the video game arena, where we have fine examples of anime-style characters rendered in 3D from Square Enix’s Final Fantasy series. There are many fan sites that have screenshots from the full motion video sequences in these games. Being familiar with anime, these characters don’t seem as strange to me as they might to someone else, but I think that the use of this style does place them in an intermediate zone that isn’t quite at the valley, but perhaps approaches it.

When the Final Fantasy brand hit the big screen with The Spirits Within, Square Pictures had done a fantastic job with the digital models, particularly for Aki, the main character.  At the time, though, we still hadn’t perfected the look of skin, and to do that well also requires significantly more computation. I also think this was about the time when we were just starting to develop face tracking algorithms to capture the facial motions of actors, so the lip syncing also was not as good as it is today. These close-but-not-quite qualities are what give viewers an eerie feeling.

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, Square Pictures, 2001

I’ve heard some people say that Beowulf didn’t look right either, but I thought it was amazing. I hadn’t seen this movie until it came out for rent and hadn’t read about it much, so as I was watching I didn’t realize that it was an entirely CG film until a minute or so after the camera was focused on the characters in the first scene. After that point the fact that it was entirely digital never distracted me from the story. This makes me wonder if the effect is reduced if you’ve seen enough CG films.

No matter how many CG films you’ve seen, though, I think that the work done by Weta Digital on Gollum in The Lord of the Rings surpasses the valley. State of the art face tracking, motion capture, and rendering algorithms combined in the hands of that team to integrate a highly compelling digital character with a real environment. Although… I guess Gollum is supposed to be eerie, so maybe he’s not a great example.

Gollum, Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Weta Digital, 2001-2003

Avatar showcases what the state of the art can do today. From what little I’ve read so far, the motion capture system used here afforded James Cameron a real-time virtual rendering of the scene, allowing him to adjust the camera and order new takes as if they were working on a real set. There were also improvements to face tracking and rendering algorithms that might make you wonder if you’re watching real actors in makeup. It’s really amazing how far this craft has come.

Avatar, Lightstorm Entertainment, 2009

What do you think? Have you seen other movies that have (or even exploit) that eerie quality, or are great examples of avoiding or surpassing the valley?

Image from iainclaridge.net

I’m not afraid to admit it: I rarely have an original idea.

And this blog post is a perfect example. As I was reading Emily’s latest musings on inspiration, it got me thinking about how my own creative process works. More often than not, the ideas I come up with are born only after I have seen/read/heard something from someone else. Most people work like this, right? Don’t get me wrong, I never want to outright steal an idea, I just like to start with a well-established ball of clay and mold/spin/tweak it until it’s my own. That’s right folks, I’m a tweaker.

I’m also the collage queen. The very first picture I ever ripped out of a magazine was of Gwen Stefani (back when she was covered in henna tattoos and wore a bindi) on the cover of Seventeen. Ever since then, when I see a person, place, or thing that strikes my fancy, I rip it out and paste together with others in a way that expresses what I am all about.

Gwen Stefani, style icon

And while there will always be a place in my heart for print, my latest obsession is something called ImgSpark, a web tool that lets you create an inspiration board of sorts (up to 1GB), for any reason you please.  I’ve started harvesting digital photos (its pretty easy, you just right-click on a desired image wherever you happen to be on the web to add it to your library.) Every image is inspiring to me in some way: be it by color, design, or general message…

Part of my collection

I can use it to get my creative juices flowing whether I’m looking for a new tattoo design or trying to decide what color to paint my bathroom. Check out my collection so far. Others might aspire to be completely original, but I’m OK with being inspired.

The X Room, shortly after the IMA reopened in 2005

2009 will bring a new approach to this tech environment, that I hope encourages our museum visitors to talk back to us.

We have a couple of strategies in place here.  For one, we’ll be showcasing a large portion of the video art content we produce, in a theater-like environment.  I’ve always been critical of the traditional museum orientation video space, because I’m not convinced our visitors want to sit through a 10-minute introductory video that essentially, is a one-way, passive form of communication (I know I don’t).  To counter this, we’re going to offer our visitors choices.  You will be able to search our video collection and then hear directly from experts in the art field and excitingly, directly from contemporary artists.  The choices will be at your fingertips, and the viewing experience will go beyond traditional methods (sort of top secret at the moment).  Did I mention that those choices will include artists like Maya Lin, Robert Irwin and much, much more?

We really do want to hear honest feedback from our visitors, so we’re also installing a series of computers that will allow to access our images on Flickr, our collection online (not as good as the real thing, but we have more art viewable online), and access to this blog.  All of these applications will allow tagging and comments.  We also know that we have good readership on the IMA blog, but I’m intrigued to see what will happen when any of our IMA – museum (not online) visitors have the opportunity to read blog posts and comments.  I’m sure a lot of our visitors are unaware that we have such a diverse online presence.

In 2007 for the exhibition Nature Holds My Camera: The Video Art of Sam Easterson, we debuted a similar strategy where visitors could ‘talk back’ in the gallery.  They could, in a blog-style design, ask questions directly to Sam.  It was a big success and I hope we have similar participation in this new environment.

I’ll keep you posted on this space, but in the meantime I would love to hear feedback about your thoughts -

• about art and interpretive technology
• museums that incorporate technology into gallery areas
• and if you think we will get more feedback by providing computers in the museum

…talk back!

In the comments on that last post Karen T discussed the importance of being able to make a 1:1 comparison between a radiograph and a painting, and then Christina responded with some first-hand experience with our new system. I confess, though: I cheated a bit and asked Christina to answer that question because, after all, Christina is an experienced paintings conservator here at the IMA, and I’m not.

Christina and I were talking about all of this when the Chief Conservator, David Miller, walked into the lab and joined the discussion (you can find out more about both of them on the Mainardi web page). To make a long story longer, the three of us decided to put together an example that illustrates how the new system handles the 1:1 comparison issue. So David and Christina printed out an image to demonstrate a 1:1 comparison of the radiograph and the painting. The photo above is of Christina holding a 13” x 19” print out of a radiograph of the IMA’s Edward Hopper’s 1943 painting Hotel Lobby. The painting was fully radiographed as part of a technical study of Hopper’s painting technique for an exhibition (and catalogue) opening at the IMA in August of 2008, called Edward Hopper; Paper to Paint, that explores the relationship of the artist’s drawings and studies to the finished painting.

Here you can see a close up of the 1:1 comparison. You’ll have to wait for the exhibition to open later this year to find out more about what was being looked at in this painting, but in the mean time have a look in the bottom right corner of the radiograph and you can see a piece of hardware that is helping to keep the painting’s stretcher in place.

In case you want to know, here’s a spec sheet on our new printer and here’s a spec sheet on the 13” x 19” photo paper we used. Finally, you can go here and here to see two documents that discuss the Print Permanence Ratings for this printer and paper combination. And, if your super geeky like me you can watch part 1 and part 2 of our printer in action. Weeee … watch it print!

In addition to the two images I’ve shown here, I’ve uploaded some more to my Flickr page that attempt to illustrate the printing process and to show our comparison in the gallery.

Beyond the 1:1 comparison issue, there are a couple of other things to consider when comparing the use of film radiographs to digital. A lot of paintings (and objects) are bigger than a single piece of film or photo paper. With film, conservators often trim and combine multiple sheets onto a light box so that the assembled radiograph can be compared to a painting. It seems logical that the exact same thing could be done with a print out, but we haven’t had a reason to try it yet. However, one of intriguing tools of CR is the ability to make enlargements of certain sections of radiographs. And, within these images you can make measurements and a variety of annotations. The image below illustrates some of these functions.

As for the other comments about the conservation of radiographic images, I’d like to say thanks, Alison, for keeping the CR topic close to the broader issues. I think it’s important to keep it in context and I certainly don’t mind at all if the discussion gets broadened to include the archiving and sharing of film-based radiographs (though I think we should draw the line and not include the whole topic of conservation documentation in the digital form in this post – we could be here for months if not years if we got started on that one!).

Taking this post off topic, I want to point out one of my favorite punk bands: the X-Ray Spex; it doesn’t get much better than Warrior in Woolworths, and besides what conservator wouldn’t like a lead singer named Poly Styrene.

Anyway, please feel free to add a thought, comment, or question. As I mentioned, we haven’t had this equipment for very long and though we’ve mastered some aspects of it, to some extant we’re still finding our way with it.

Those who know me at all know that I am a Mac sympathizer and will take every opportunity to shamelessly plug Apple products. (And use as many as I can get my hands on.) So it is not surprising that I would have iTunes U at the top of my favorites list. But there is another reason to love iTunes right now….IMA is on it! We launched an iTunes U page on January 28^th allowing anyone with an iPod (or iPhone) to download free IMA videos and audio tours. In addition to finding our digital stuff on YouTube and imamuseum.org, now you can also find it where you already play, in the iTunes store. Search for “Indianapolis Museum of Art” and take your pick of free art videos! (Did you know it is good karma to share this newfound knowledge with friends? Who wouldn’t want to score some free downloads?) BTW, it is definitely bad karma to think to yourself, “Nobody wants free art videos.”

Reading my last blog post will expose my relatively new love of Facebook. The only Web 2.0 thing I love more than Facebook is the super fantastic app ArtShare. Developed by the talented crew at the Brooklyn Museum, it is an easy-to-use tool that allows you to share art you dig with anyone who visits your Facebook page. Just install the app, select art you like and watch it cycle through a loop as you poke strangers, dish out your daily zombie bites and digitally scribble inside jokes onto friends’ walls.

To make it even more awesome, I spent a morning last week uploading a sampling of IMA-owned works of art so that soon all of my peeps (and hopefully people I don’t know) will start choosing some of our stuff. I will also mention that any artist can upload work to share with friends too. (The only thing I like to promote more than Apple stuff is the talent of underappreciated artists.) There are many practical reasons why artists and museums should love ArtShare. I am, of course, referring to things like marketing, networking, mission statements, etc. But, none of these describe the reason I love it. I simply love art and ArtShare lets me indulge that interest and share it with others.

So, I hope you will investigate these on-line opportunities and find that you like them too. Otherwise there would have been little point to your reading this humble post.