Google’s Arts & Culture application has just received a new facelift. The American firm has added a function, Art Selfie 2, which allows selfies to be transformed into real artist portraits. Enough to have a little fun!
By launching its Arts & Culture application in 2018 – based on the online service of the same name – Google had met with great success. Over the years and updates, the tool has allowed users to discover art and culture in a fun way. Thus, users could create poems, postcards and even search for works of art. As a reminder, Google had indeed integrated its famous Art Selfie module in 2020. An entertaining feature that allowed users to find their lookalikes throughout art history. To do this, all you had to do was import a selfie into the application and start searching. Four years after the introduction of this function, Google has just moved up a gear by updating its application. Now with the new version, users can create their own artwork from a selfie.
Art Selfie 2: your portrait by an artist
This Wednesday, January 24, Joe Shepherd, product manager at Google Arts & Culture, announced the deployment of Art Selfie 2. This new function, boosted by generative artificial intelligence, allows users to import their selfies and turn them into portraits in different art styles. “Prototyped from our Artists in Residence program, this feature invites you to take a selfie alone or with friends and choose a style, then see how generative AI creates a stylized image around your face, based on seamlessly integrating your selfie into your chosen scenario”, indicates Google in the communicated published on his blog. More concretely, it is now possible to select themes, art styles and even significant historical facts to transform selfies.
By uploading a selfie, you can transform yourself into a Roman gladiator, an aviation pioneer, an astronaut in space, a medieval knight, an explorer on Everest or even a festival-goer at Woodstock. In total, more than 25 themes are offered by Google. A great way to have fun and learn more about certain periods of History. Because, yes, for each of the situations proposed by the application, Google has added a short description of the context and links to related online exhibitions. To take advantage of it, simply log in to the application after downloading the latest update and click on the button Play.