Janell Baxter > work > generative art | bios
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In exploring the translation of content from one medium to another (for example, text to visuals), and the serendipity that can result from the process, this application ("bios") reads biographical data and interprets it visually. The anthropomorphic description: Portraits created from an application's misguided but perhaps well intentioned algorithmic analysis. In attempting to visualize someone based on text in their biography, the application applies a set of rules; it evaluates each person based on information collected from their "bio" on the Interactive Arts and Media website. Averaging the length of all the biographies provides a guideline for determining those who are more or less verbose. It also calculates the number of words that are eight characters or longer; these are words that it doesn't yet "know", so it is biased towards those who have a large amount of these "interesting" words. The bias has less to do with actual content as with arbitrary rules. For example the font choice is more ornate when the person has used words containing eight or more characters. Since the application does not "know" words that are eight characters or longer it doesn't understand the meaning of those words, whether or not they are spelled correctly, or if they are in fact real words. It is merely "fascinated" with words that exceed a specific character length. The images are labeled with the biography subject's name, and either titled with a word from the text, or untitled if the material doesn't meet certain criteria. Each iteration produces a slightly different result; there are a range of choices that the application can make as it reads through the text and begins to form the image. For those who know the person, abstracting out a single word from a biography and pairing it with the person's name can form an insightful connection, an ironic twist, or perhaps simply give one word from so many an unjust weight.
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