Under the framework of the MIRA Digital Arts Festival of Barcelona that will take place the 8-10 November, IAAC is offering a Workshop on Computer Vision and Machine Learning for Interactive Art for the interested public on the days before this event (Tuesday 6th & Wednesday 7th November). This is a great opportunity to delve into this field with the expert Kyle McDonald.

Kyle McDonald is an artist working with code. He creates interactive and immersive audiovisual installations, performances, and new tools for creative exploration. He uses techniques from computer vision, machine learning, networking, and computing to create unusual experiences.

Computer vision (CV) refers to a broad collection of techniques that allow computers to make intelligent assertions about what’s going on in digital images and video. Interactive art has incorporated techniques from computer vision since the 1970s. In the last five years, machine learning (ML) has played a greater role in related problems like object recognition and image segmentation. This workshop will cover both topics.

We will start with a brief historical introduction to CV and ML and media art. Then we will move into hands-on examples that run in the browser or on remote machines. We will investigate JavaScript-based toolkits for realtime computer vision: jsfeat for pixel manipulation, optical flow and object detection, clmtrackr for understanding faces, and proprietary APIs for image recognition. Then we will focus on more experimental machine learning techniques that use Python for creating visualizations of large datasets or imitating text or images.

To get the most out of this workshop, you should have at least one year of experience with a text-based programming language like JavaScript or Python. Attendees should bring a laptop with a webcam and Chrome installed, and an account with Google.

Kyle McDonald is an artist working with code. He is a contributor to open source arts-engineering toolkits like openFrameworks, and builds tools that allow artists to use new algorithms in creative ways. He has a habit of sharing ideas and projects in public before they’re completed. He creatively subverts networked communication and computation, explores glitch and systemic bias, and extends these concepts to reversal of everything from identity to relationships. Kyle has been an adjunct professor at NYU’s ITP, and a member of F.A.T. Lab, community manager for openFrameworks, and artist in residence at STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon, as well as YCAM in Japan. His work is commissioned by and shown at exhibitions and festivals around the world, including: NTT ICC, Ars Electronica, Sonar/OFFF, Eyebeam, Anyang Public Art Project, Cinekid, CLICK Festival, NODE Festival, and many others. He frequently leads workshops exploring computer vision and interaction.

Computer Vision and Machine Learning for Interactive Art

Dates & Hours: 6th & 7th November from 10:00h – 18:00h

Workshop Language: English

Four free seats will be awarded to women on a first come basis.

Fee: 175€