Many are the music lovers who have the automated personalized radio station, Pandora, to thank for the discovery of a new favorite song or artist. Now, art lovers have Art.sy. Featuring a growing repository of 20,000 images from major art institutions around the globe and heavily backed by high-profile investors, the public version of the much buzzed about start-up went live Monday, Oct. 8, 2012. As with Pandora or Netflix for films, users will be directed to artworks based on congruent labels, which Art.sy calls “genes.” Some of the labels, such as “abstract painting” are fairly basic while other labels are more fanciful, such as “contemporary traces of memory.” The curating issues are complex but through this combination of computer technology and human curators, Art.sy hopes to have built an algorithm by which people, especially those new to art, can discover more of it. As Seb Chan of the Cooper-Hewitt, a recent Art.sy partner, states “You shouldn’t need to be a scholar to discover works of art that you might be fascinated by,” he said. “You go to museums and you browse — chancing upon things is what it’s all about. The Art Genome is another way of creating serendipitous connections.” Explore the world of Art.sy here.
