the pedestrian
...wandering around, finding favorite things...
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Must film. Must film.
The Filmmaking Robot

The eyes consist of a small computer with a camera and wifi card mounted upon the front of a public bus collecting video. When an open wireless connection is traversed, the video is uploaded to the body.

For about 12 hours a day the robot dwells on its memories, recalling well liked or pertinent imagery, and attempting to connect it through a sequence of frames, which is shown as video. Each frame is analyzed to give 20 numbers summarizing its qualities, and these numbers are treated as coordinates in a 20 dimensional space. Proximity in this space is used to determine similarity for the purposes of creating a video sequence.

These numbers are also feed to neural networks which have been trained to like selections of fine art and images identified as well-composed by human subjects, and the response of these networks determines whether the robot likes an image. At the end of the day, it looks over its production, and picks out a few minutes to release as a finished film.
Find it filming you in the Interactive City.