geekosystem

Researchers at Brown University have developed a computer program that can recognize rough sketches, and may one day prove a capable -- or even too capable -- digital opponent for human players in games like Pictionary and Draw Something. While it might sound a little silly, this is actually a pretty big step for computing. As we've mentioned elsewhere on the site, as smart as computers are at raw processing, they are about that dumb at abstract reasoning, and there's no reasoning more abstract than trying to figure out what the hell someone is frantically scrawling on a pad of paper from across the room. Is that a foot? Shoe? Wait, now there's a flower coming out of it?

When most of us are confronted with a ripe banana we either turn it into banana bread or send it hurtling toward the trash but Australian artist Jun Gil Park turns your run-of-the-mill banana into astounding works of art by drawing on the fruits with a toothpick. Park uses a standard toothpick to scratch pictures on the skin of bananas; the harder he presses the darker the bruise on the fruit becomes. After about five minutes, the oxidation will start to show, and after a day or two it will become pretty dark, contrasted against the fruit's yellow skin. So, why bananas? For Park, the inspiration to create banana art was really just a matter of finding himself with the necessary materials at his disposal. Park was sitting at a table with family one day with a toothpick in his mouth, when he picked up the banana in front of him and started to draw on it. When he saw the oxidation effect on the bruised fruit and how cool it made the skin look, Park decided to try for more complex designs. Check out more of Park's banana artwork after the jump.

Vimeo user clement valla gave users an exceptionally simple task: Trace the figure you see on the screen. The twist was that the next user didn't see the original shape, just the previous user's trace. Very quickly, the line barely resembled the original image, became shakey, foreshortened, and then just a collection of hash marks veering off to the right of the screen. The result is not only interesting to watch, but a commentary on communication. Like the telephone game, it becomes impossible to reconstruct the original information, and that even the simplest form of communication -- drawing a line -- is hardly perfect. So, marvel at the horror of our collective isolation, or marvel at the beauty of the animation; but please, marvel. (Vimeo via BoingBoing)