The second annual Art Data Hackathon event, organised by the Slovak National Gallery as part of the Art, Collections and Data Across Borders project together with the Norwegian Nasjonalmuseet in the period from 7 to 8 October 2016 was a success with both the organisers and participants. Teams have been created so that the abilities and skills of the contestants complemented each other - by bringing together participants with a different focus (programming, graphic design, marketing) so that five competing teams of 3-4 members were created. The project of one of the winning teams is also available online now.
The Art Data Hackathon participants worked for 24 hours on innovative projects linking art, software, and technology. Data on works of art from the collections of the SNG and Nasjonalmuseet, artists biographies, source codes and API documentation and a three-dimensional model of the building reconstruction of SNG were all provided for the participants. During the Hackathon, they were also able to participate in various workshops - work with data from galleries, working with OpenCV or collaboration through GitHub platform. Among the mentors who were available for participants during the event were General Director of SNG Alexandra Kusá, Chief Curator of Collections of Old Art Dušan Buran, visual artist Amalia Roxana Filip, programmer Matthias Fandl, members of the lab.SNG platforms and professional staff from the Norwegian Nasjonalmuseet. The international nature of the event was given, considering the participation of Norwegian partners, the fact that the even was carried out in the English language and that the final performance was by the Viennese musical producer Cid Rim.
The winners in the categories "Best Concept,” "Best Presentation" and "Best Prototype" (Main Prize) were decided by “non-competing audiences" - fans of art and technology, who visited the Art Data Hackathon in Berlinka Café.
The winner in the category Best Prototype was the team called Klima. Competitors on the team decided to create an app for iOS, which considers the current weather and the time of day and chooses a fitting piece of art from the Nasjonalmuseet collections, displaying it together with climate data and a link to the gallery (with the information about how many hours until the closing or the opening of the gallery). The application can also be potentially used as an info panel in public areas.
The team called VampArt developed the idea of matching artworks with the face of the visitor of the site - when you upload your picture, the algorithm will evaluate and match your face with similar portraits from the collections of the SNG and Nasjonalmuseet. In addition, depending on how old are the portraits matched with the uploaded face, VampArt will calculate a vampire score of the visitor (high score corresponds to an old age of a vampire). If the algorithm finds a likeness of users in the distant past, it means that the user is an ageless vampire. The project of this team was awarded in the categories "Best Presentation" and "Best Concept" and is available on http://vampart.webumenia.sk.
Contestants in The Mirror team created a prototype software for an interactive object in the gallery, which will scan the visitor’s face next to the exhibited artwork and transform them into a video with an art style corresponding to the related items. The Mirror will create a portrait of the gallery visitor who then becomes an imaginary model for the artist. The Mirror team has also received an award in the category "Best Concept”.
Another team worked on a program called Composition Analyzer, which extracts compositional lines and basic shapes from the uploaded artwork. These may then serve as the basis for a poster or educational material.
Team Art Flies worked with a virtual reality for Google Cardboard. The user moves through a three-dimensional space through which the "flocks" of objects, representing works of art, fly and move. The user may catch them and create their own collections from them. With the help of atmospheric soundtracks, the authors want to create a relaxing experience.
Non-competing project Photobooth also dealt with a user's face. Their photograph was transformed through a variety of artistic styles. This creates a collage of different artistic design reminiscent of Pop Art portraits variations.
Art Data Hackathon | 7.-8.10. 2016 | SNG from Web umenia on Vimeo.