Artificial Intelligence and Art History: Looking at Images in an Algorithmic Culture

Artificial intelligence is transforming human creativity and the study of art. Yet it is a technology that is difficult to understand from a position outside computer science. This timely volume, Artificial Intelligence and Art History, investigate tensions and opportunities that are arising in human-machine ‘dialogues’ about visual art. Contributors explore recent developments in machine learning and computer vision and debate whether algorithmic analyses of art open new possibilities for human seeing. Do quantitative methodologies threaten humanistic discourses about cultural artefacts? Alternatively, can working at scale offer fresh perspectives on traditional conceptions of, and approaches to, artistic style, methods, and techniques? The chapters in this volume demonstrate how a range of technologies falling under the umbrella of ‘AI’ challenge the epistemological ambitions of both humanistic and scientific study while also addressing the consequences of understanding ‘vision’ as a metaphor for a computational processing. By investigating how AI and computer vision are working – or might work – in partnership with art historical research methods, this volume also interrogates urgent ethical questions that are impacting on research agendas in this interdisciplinary field.