Second Nature - Event Details

The Painting Fool

Computers might be able to spew out facts and tally your accounts, but could they ever make great art?

Simon Colton from Imperial’s Department of Computing thinks so. With colleagues Maja Pantic and Michel Valstar he’s created an award-winning system called The Painting Fool , which paints stylised portraits after analysing facial expressions. If, for example, it sees an angry face, the portrait might incorporate strong brushstrokes in fiery colours, while a depressed person might be rendered in dismal hues.

The results are impressive and last month bagged the team a prestigious award for machine intelligence at a British Computer Society conference.Simon joined us on Second Nature to talk about his progress and ambitions for the project.

Additional Resources

• The Painting Fool
• Award winning software
• Nature Network interview with Simon