Friday, July 22, 2011

The Color Of


Have you heard of "The Color Of" yet?  I just saw it yesterday on Twitter and I have been having fun trying it out.  From their website,
This is a system created to find out the colour of anything, by querying and aggregating image data from Flickr, a popular online photo sharing community. It is an attempt at answering a potentially complex and abstract question in an objective manner, by using simple algorithms on data originating from subjective human perceptions.
THE COLOR OF uses an averaging algorithm on the colour pixel values of the queried images, displaying the result incrementally as each picture is loaded. Taking the assumption that random images will average out to become grey, we can attribute any colour bias which deviates from grey, to the term as searched. Any further interpretation is then up to the user.

So basically, you can search for just about anything and it shows you what "color" the term is as a result of compiling lots of images.  I think it's pretty interesting and fun!  I also think it has some possibilities in the classroom.

You could use it as a starting point for color symbolism...


It's fun to search for artists, movements, and even specific works of Art...



Or even sounds!


I see a lesson plan inspired by this in my students' future!

3 comments:

  1. Thanks, Katie! I couldn't stop trying words! What fun for the kids when we get back to school. Watercolor word paintings? A great tie-in to language arts!

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  2. I accidentally deleted this comment from Mrs.Art Teacher:
    Ok I just tried it right away. I think watching the layers of photos add to the image is the most interesting thing. It would be interesting to compile one word every week for a year and see how it changes based on what images are uploaded to the web!

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