• About SLJ
    • Subscribe to SLJ
    • Contact SLJ
  • SLJ Content
    • Latest Posts
    • Technology Posts
    • Books & Media Reviews
    • Print Issue Archive
  • SLJ Newsletters
    • Extra Helping
    • Curriculum Connections
    • SLJ Teen
    • Be Tween
  • SLJ Resources
    • Events
    • Webcasts
    • The Digital Shift
    • JobZone
  • SLJ Blog Network
    • 100 Scope Notes
    • Adult Books 4 Teens
    • Battle of the Books
    • A Chair, a Fireplace & a Tea Cozy
    • The Classroom Bookshelf
    • Connect the Pop
    • A Fuse #8 Production
    • Good Comics for Kids
    • Heavy Medal: A Mock Newbery Blog
    • Neverending Search
    • Some Day My Printz Will Come
    • Teen Librarian Toolbox
    • The Yarn
Subscribe to SLJ
Follow This Blog: RSS feed
Neverending Search
Inside Neverending Search
  • Teacher Librarians
  • Instruction
  • Information Literacy
  • Google
  • Search Tools
  • Research
  • About/Contact

Thinking about Google Arts and Culture’s “Is your portrait in a museum?”

January 22, 2018 by Joyce Valenza Leave a Comment

You may remember that the Google Arts and Culture App was selected as an AASL Best App for 2017. The app’s new “Is your portrait in a museum?” feature uses facial recognition to connect your own selected selfie to a Google Arts and Culture doppelganger, a look-alike from among its millions of collected portraits.

Screen Shot 2018-01-21 at 8.40.34 PMScreen Shot 2018-01-21 at 8.36.02 PM

Introduced quietly in mid-December with the goal of enhancing user engagement and fun with the art, the feature has resulted in the app’s viral popularity as a top download as has spawned a frenetic sharing of selfie twinsies by celebrities and regular folks all over social media.  Check out the action with a search of the #GoogleArtsAndCulture hashtag.

Developed by the Paris-based nonprofit Google Cultural Institute, the app leverages the powers of thousands of partner museums and organizations to share millions of works of art.  The app is available on Google Play or the App Store.

Scroll down to find the “Is your portrait in a museum?” feature and you’ll be prompted to tap “Get Started” and to snap a selfie.

Using facial recognition software, a form of biometrics and machine learning, the app isolates distinctive facial features often called faceprints.

(The use of facial recognition is controversial. It is heavily used by law enforcement. Here is some background on Google’s own FaceNet algorithm.  Since 2014, Facebook has been using DeepFace.)

Is your portrait in a museum? sorts algorithmically through the art in its database to find matches and create side-by-side pairings that describe percentages of resemblance between two images.

This is fun and the matches surprise. Who knew I look like Pat Nixon?

Screen Shot 2018-01-21 at 8.41.03 PM Screen Shot 2018-01-21 at 8.41.28 PMScreen Shot 2018-01-21 at 8.41.49 PM Screen Shot 2018-01-21 at 8.41.39 PM

Note: I first tried accessing this feature during an airport layover in Chicago. Apparently, Illinois andsharingScreen Shot 2018-01-21 at 8.40.45 PM Texas have enacted legislation to protect biometric privacy and the feature does not display when you use the app in those states.

That brings up a point well worth considering.  Despite the fun and the buzz, should we worry about sharing our selfies with Google?

When we work with kiddos, of course, it’s best to be careful and to model concerns for privacy.

Google assures there is no reason for concern.

When you take a photo with this feature, your photo is sent to Google to find artworks that look like you. Google won’t use data from your photo for any other purpose and will only store your photo for the time it takes to search for the matches.

Indeed, so many of us have already opted in and now share so much in our Google Photos because of its affordances relating to cloud storage, organization and very smart searching and finding. And then there’s what we voluntarily share on Facebook, etc.

You’ll need to make your own decision about encouraging use of this feature of the app with students, but perhaps this is a good opportunity for conversations about privacy decisions. It may also inspire conversation about another topic worthy of concern in the worlds of art and literature.

Others point to the app’s limited ability to face match people of color, largely due to a possible regional imbalance in portraiture across the collection, representing limited historical representation in general. In a post on Digg suggesting We Need a Bigger Palette, Benjamin Goggin notes a Western-centrism in the limited number of available Asian faces to match and he asks, “Is Google’s Arts and Culture App Racist?”

Nevertheless, this activity is an entrance point to an already fabulous free app that pretty much puts a global museum in every student’s pocket.  It could potentially connect our learners with art and with history in a pretty personal way. And it should also inspire discussion about technology and ethics and history and culture.

If you choose the side of privacy, you may also be interested in Google Arts and Culture’s How the Self-Portrait Has Evolved into the Selfie.

And, just in case you are interested in a few more of own results:

whitaker norway

 

Share
Filed Under: Google, Google Apps, Google Arts & Culture, images Tagged With: apps, Google, Google Arts & Culture, images
Joyce Valenza About Joyce Valenza

Joyce is an Assistant Professor of Teaching at Rutgers University School of Information and Communication, a technology writer, speaker, blogger and learner. Follow her on Twitter: @joycevalenza

Speak Your Mind Cancel reply

*

*

Recent Posts

  • Choosing Choice Boards
  • Launching SchoolLibraryNJ (and some models beyond)
  • Reading is Self-Care
  • TeachingBooks Launches Free Chrome Extension
  • Enough with the CRAAP: We’re just not doing it right
  • Reach out!: Web-Based Advice Service for School Librarians
  • New from the Library of Congress: Newspaper Navigator
  • New from Netflix: Bookmarks: Celebrating Black Voices
  • The Epic eBook of Web Tools and Apps: a new crowd-sourced manual for back-to-school and beyond
  • A couple of new remote teaching tricks

Recent Comments

  • LiveBinder: Covid-19 Resources for Students and Staff – Raquel Brabender on Curation Situations: Let us count the ways
  • LIS Professional Development during a Pandemic – Book Ramblings on A couple of new remote teaching tricks
  • Facebook Contact on A couple of new remote teaching tricks
  • Carrie Ann Taylor on A couple of new remote teaching tricks
  • Terri Stile on Creating your virtual library (quickly) using Slides and Bitmojis as Hyperdocs

Sign the Declaration

We've signed the declaration. Have you? ilovelibraries.org/declaration

Advertisements

Archives

Tags

aasl advocacy apps art authors books books and reading collaboration conferences creative commons creativity credibility curation databases digital citizenship digital publishing digital storytelling ebooks Google images infographics information ethics information literacy intellectual property librarians libraries media media literacy news new tools posters primary sources reading research school libraries search search tools students student work tribes twitter video websites wikis writing

About NeverEnding Search

News, thoughts, and discoveries at the vortex of libraries, literacy, learning, discovery and play. Joyce is an Assistant Professor at Rutgers University's School of Communication and Information, an edtech Sherpa, and a connector. Her interests include: social media curation, digital/media fluency, transliteracy and youth, online communities of practice, digital storytelling and creativity, youth information-seeking behavior, social networking, online learning, and the evolving role and powers of the teacher-librarian.

LEARN MORE ABOUT NEVERENDING SEARCH

Follow @joycevalenza

Tweets by @joycevalenza

SLJ Resources

  • Subscribe to SLJ
  • Manage Your Account
  • SLJ Newsletters
  • SLJ Blog Network
  • Events
  • Contact Us
    • Advertising Information
    • Submissions
    • Information for Reviewers
  • About SLJ
    • Comment Policy
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use

Return to top of page

Copyright © 2021 · Lifestyle Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in