All works of art face the same fate of aging. But for the 12 organizations involved in the PERCEIVE project supported by the European Union, a solution has never seemed more attainable: reconstructing authentic colors with the aid of rapidly evolving artificial intelligence tools.
Launched at the beginning of last year, PERCEIVE is an international collaboration that aims to create “a service-based AI architecture and toolkit”, intended for use by experts and laypeople alike. Institutions such as the MUNCH Museum in Oslo, Norway; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Victoria & Albert Museum in London; and the National Archaeological Museum in Naples have joined the three-year project, providing data on the works of art in their collections. Technology companies such as Fraunhofer-IGD and imki, among others, have offered the manpower to train and create AI infrastructure using this data as a base.
The hope is that the development of a suite of tools will strengthen the ability of conservators, curators and others to study and digitally reconstruct the original colors of five main groups of art: statues, paintings and works on paper, textiles, photographs and augmented reality artworks.
A group from PERCEIVE, under the conceptual guidance of Arthur Clay from Lucerne University, presented what they call the “Autochrome Demonstrator” a device that allows users to digitally restore Autochrome plates and then enlarge restored and original layers for side-by-side comparison. InART visitors also had the chance to try out the VR Chroma Demonstrator, a virtual environment that displays and preserves augmented reality art.
By Eduardo Quive
