Can a computer understand art?
Researchers have developed software that uses math to distinguish between a Jackson Pollock drip painting and an imitation of one.
Jackson Pollock's famous "drip painting" style is both arresting and divisive. Although he's hailed as one of America's greatest abstract expressionists, others see nothing but random splashes of paint that look like something anyone could do. And therefore anyone can imitate.
Do you think you could tell the difference between an original Pollock and a talented artist trying to paint like him? No? Well maybe that's because you're not a computer!
Lior Shamir, a computer scientist at Lawrence Technological University in Michigan. He and his colleagues have developed software that uses math to understand the art of a Pollock painting.