Douglas Bagnall’s interactive work Cloud Shape Classifier2006 asks the question as to whether one of our most sublime “natural” experiences, the aesthetic appreciation of clouds, can be systematised and automated.
Like for his previous work, A Film-making Robot, where a robot edited short films, Douglas Bagnall has made a computer programme with an in-built ability to make aesthetic decisions. Danny Butt suggests that Cloud Shape Classifier perhaps contains a critique of our focus on aesthetic products over the process of looking, as Bagnall’s commentary on the project website suggests, perhaps sardonically, that “many people would like …
