It can be hard to think of emoticons as art. On one end of the emoji spectrum you have a technically precise, surprisingly appetizing slice of pepperoni pizza, and on the other … a smiling pile of poop. Viewed individually, the icons’ quality and beauty vary wildly, but taken as a set, your emoji can actually become an interesting artistic medium. A new app by VoidWorks, a Singapore-based app development studio, allows users to transform boring photos into pop art pieces by replacing pixels with colorful emoticons. “It really started out as a thought experiment on image representation,” says Kwok Pan, founder VoidWorks. “Like what if the pixels which made up an image are not just dots of colors but have something more to it?”
“We know that there is something there beyond their immediate entertainment value.”
Emojify’s process is closely related to ASCII art, which explained most basically, uses typed text to form a shape. To do this, first Emojify figures the average pixel value and brightness of each emoji icon and arranges them in an ascending ordered list. Then the image you choose is uploaded and divided into a grid where each pixel’s average brightness is calculated. From there each pixel is assigned an emoji based on its corresponding brightness and color.
So, Pan explains, “If the average brightness value in a section is 234, you pick the icon number 234 in the [emoji] list to replace the section.” Pan says he chose to keep the icons as-is, so the integrity of the emoji set remained intact. “This means that I am limited to the range of brightness and colors which the emoji icons offer, and you can see that they are mostly yellow, blue or red,” he explains. Both the contrast and algorithm can be tweaked to increase definition and pixelation.
Solitary images like close-up portraits that have high contrast between light and shadows work particularly well, while photos of landscapes or ill-defined subjects tend to turn into an unrecognizable flurry of emoji. So are the resulting images really art? That depends on your definition. But Pan believes like video games, emoji could eventually evolve from cultural phenomenon to legitimate contemporary art. “Emoji are so accessible and readily available that we don’t see the icons in that artistic light,” he says. “But we know that there is something there beyond their immediate entertainment value, and we are only starting to acknowledge that.”
Have a photo you’d like to Emojify? Buy the app for $.99 at the iTunes app store.
-Wired
No comments:
Post a Comment