The September Ask a Scientist event features David Stork: Chief Scientist of Ricoh Innovations, Consulting Professor of Statistics and Visiting Lecturer in Computer Science at Stanford University.

Thanks to cutting edge advancements in computer science, questions and controversies in the study of art are now being answered in ways that were not previously possible. For example, computer analysis is currently being used to authenticate paintings attributed to artists such as Jackson Pollock and Vincent Van Gogh. And analysis of perspective, shading, color and form has thrown a wrench into David Hockney’s bold claim that as early as 1420, Renaissance artists employed optical devices such as concave mirrors to project images onto their canvases. How do these computer methods work? What can computers reveal about images that even the best-trained connoisseurs, art historians and artist cannot? How much more powerful and revealing will these methods become? In short, how is computer image analysis changing our understanding of art? Come find out.

This event takes place at: Axis Café, 1201 8th Street (btw. 16th & Irwin, bottom of Potrero Hill) San Francisco.