September is an anniversary month
\nfor Google, especially this year. On September 27, Google celebrated its 20th
\nanniversary, when Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page opened the first
\nGoogle office in a garage. It was restored to almost exactly its original 1998
\nlook, and it can be seen as such on Google Maps Street View.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
In 20 years,
\nGoogle never ceased to come up with surprises. One of the most recent fun
\ncreations they put out is an attempt to allow users to experiment art in a
\npersonal manner. Art Selfie takes the face of a person from a selfie and finds
\nits closest match in a work of art stored in the Google Arts and Culture
\ngalleries. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Google Arts
\n& Culture has associations with 1,500 galleries and institutions in 70
\ncountries, giving them access to as many on-line images as possible. Google’s
\nslogans, according to The Independent,
\nare ‘Be Your Own Curator’, and ‘Find Your Preferences, Create Your Own
\nCollection, and Share with Your Friends’. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The Art Selfie
\napp works on Android and iOS. Google does not use the resulting picture for its
\nown purposes, only keeping it until the results are delivered. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Gabriela
\nChiorean, Google Communication Manager for Central and Eastern Europe, told us
\nabout Art Selfie: <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Art Selfie started out as an exciting solution to experience art. It is
\na way to find your affinities with currents in art. You take a photo, and our
\nplatform finds your match in fine art, in the Google Arts and Culture
\nGalleries. It was launched in January 2018, and initially it was available only
\nin a few countries, mainly English speaking, but last week it was made
\navailable worldwide, including Romania. We saw a very good reaction early in
\nthe year, where in the few countries it was available we had 78 million
\npictures taken. In Romania we had an equally enthusiastic response. As we can
\nsee in Romania, people have a great appetite for experimenting with art, not
\njust physically, but also in terms of knowledge. Each time we have art related
\nproducts, we get a great response in Romania, which is great.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
You may think you resemble a face
\nfrom a painting by Tonitza or Grigorescu. Or maybe you think you look like Mona
\nLisa or the Girl with the Pearl Earring. Anything is possible. Unfortunately,
\nit is up to the system to make the association. Gabriela Chiorean:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
I tried to find my art twin, and I found out that I could be a man, or
\na child. Generally, even if the twin may be a surprise, it is a good way of
\ndiscovering something new. We’ve had surprising reactions, for instance we had
\na situation in which a woman in the US found her selfie associated with a
\nportrait of her grandmother. There have also been situations where people were
\nnot impressed with their associated image, but you have to understand that this
\nis not a 100% accurate match, they are made through machine learning that
\ncompares facial features. I can give you an example: Elen DeGeneres, the famous
\ntalk show host, was matched with The Birth of Venus by Boticelli. Of course, many matches were not flattering, but there
\nare some surprises, like my match, which was with a man, but at least it was a
\nnobleman.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
With this joke, Gabriela Chiorean
\nwent on to tell us where this experiment is going: <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Right now we have over 60 partners all over the world, but there will
\nbe more in the future, definitely. I hope that one day we can add to the
\ntwinning project the museums in Romania. The face match can take you all over
\nthe world. The Google Arts and Culture platform has digitalized collections of
\nworks from over 1,500 collections, in over 70 countries. In Romania we already
\nhave 10 partnerships, and if you want to see who these partners are, you can go
\nto our website or download the app that matches you with paintings across the
\nworld.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Gabriela Chiorean told us about the
\ncultural value of this app: <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
This way of getting to know art may
\nbe superficial, using a selfie to getting familiar with art, but in fact
\nit is a great way to know more, not just about art in your own country, but art
\nacross the world.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A simple selfie can now be a tool to
\ndiscover art, the end result providing information about the painting, the
\nartist who created it, and the collections and museums that house it. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
(Translated by C. Cotoiu)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Google app that gained momentum in Romania<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":126,"featured_media":135401,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42520],"tags":[43134,43136,43135,32250],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-135400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inside-romania","tag-art-selfie-app","tag-fine-arts","tag-gabriela-chiorean","tag-google"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n