New publication: Art History and Artificial Intelligence: Looking at Images in an Algorithmic Culture, Kathryn Brown (Ed.)
CRCC member Kathryn Brown has recently edited a new book: Art History and Artificial Intelligence: Looking at Images in an Algorithmic Culture in collaboration with the British Academy.
A timely publication
Art History and Artificial Intelligence investigates tensions and opportunities that are arising in human-machine ‘dialogues’ about visual art. Contributors explore recent developments in machine learning and computer vision and debate whether algorithmic analyses of art open new possibilities for human seeing. The book demonstrates how a range of technologies falling under the umbrella of ‘AI’ challenge the epistemological ambitions of both humanistic and scientific study while also addressing the consequences of understanding ‘vision’ as a metaphor for computational processing. By investigating how AI and computer vision are working – or might work – in partnership with art historical research methods, this volume also interrogates urgent ethical questions that are impacting on research agendas in this interdisciplinary field.
About the editor
Kathryn Brown is Reader in Art Histories, Markets and Digital Heritage at Loughborough University. Her books include Women Readers in French Painting 1870–1890 (2012), Matisse’s Poets (2017), ed. Digital Humanities and Art History (2020), Henri Matisse (2021), Dialogues with Degas (2023), and Art Auctions: Spectacle and Value in the 21st Century (2024). She has held visiting fellowships at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts (Washington DC), the Humanities Research Centre of the Australian National University, Tulane University, the Beinecke Library (Yale University), and the Getty Foundation. Brown’s research has been funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK), the British Academy, the Independent Social Research Foundation, and the Terra Foundation for American Art. She is the series editor of Contextualizing Art Markets for Bloomsbury Academic.