Seeing Art Through the Eye of the Algorithm: Artificial Intelligence in the Museum

Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques are currently receiving much attention in art and curatorship—and in museum experience design. This chapter asks: How can AI affect the experience of art in a museum? Can seeing art through the eye of the algorithm show us something new? We present a range of examples of applications of AI in museum experience design and discuss three main approaches: image analysis, generative AI and critiquing AI. Based on insights from testing and evaluation of former designs, we reflect on the ways in which AI can highlight details and interpretations, synthesise the aesthetics of a large collection or even all of art history—and what it might also obscure and distort.