A virtual perspective
 Qualitative Research
 This describes a research project which attempts
to analyze human perception of and interaction
with virtual art representations in an online,
three-dimensional graphic environment.
 This paper introduces and defines concepts along
the ‘real-virtual’ continuum including augmented
reality (AR), augmented virtuality (AV) and mixed
reality.
 The main body of this paper is concerned with an
experiment undertaken to determine how
immersion with a virtual art experience is related
to user interest in the subject matter, to levels of
engagement, to levels of interactivity and to user
familiarity with the tools.
 A series of experiments are described, involving
participants who experienced virtual artworks in
multiple gallery environments and utilize different
viewing perspectives.
 This study utilized 24 participants who were
recruited around the State University of New
York, Oswego campus through social networks,
bulletin board postings, and academic incentives
for select courses. The participant group was
composed of a range of demographics, although
heavily weighted towards 20–25 year olds.
 Users were surveyed and data was collected
regarding the factors that contributed to a
successful user experience. A number of
demographic factors pertinent to each participant
were collected, these included gender, age,
assertiveness, computer use, and their interest
level in art. These factors were then correlated
with variables measured in the virtual
environment, where the perspective of the user
and the mode of presentation of the artworks
were assessed.
 During the experimental sessions, the user
experiences were recorded and the users were
surveyed. This allowed for the acquisition of
quantitative data.
 This paper concludes with an insight into the
usability and effectiveness of designing,
presenting and experiencing art in a three
dimensional virtual environment.
 This project showed that increased engagement
of the user can be achieved through an increase in
the quality of graphics, interaction and content.
This analysis of the experimental data has
provided an insight into the components that
make up an engaging and productive virtual art
Quantitative approach to painting style
 Quantitative Research
 This quantitative approach is not meant to surpass
the qualitative approach but to contribute in the
understanding of human history.
 This research extends a method previously
applied to music and philosophy, representing the
evolution of art as a time-series where relations like
dialectics are measured quantitatively
 A corpus of paintings of 12 well-known artists
from baroque and modern art is analyzed. A set of 99
features is extracted and the features which most
contributed to the classification of painters are
selected.
 This study also analyzes a set of features which
most contribute to the classification of paintings. The
historic evolution of painting styles is analyzed by
means of geometric measures in the feature space.
Those measures are based on key concepts from
Philosophy: opposition, skewness and dialectics.
 In this study, thesis, antithesis and synthesis are
defined as states in a time-series. The dialectics is
then calculated as a quantitative measure: it is
defined as the inverse distance between the
synthesis state and the perpendicular bisector
between thesis and antithesis states.
 The effective characterization of selected paintings
by means of these features allowed the definition of
a ‘‘painting space’’. While represented as states in
this projected space, the baroque paintings are
shown as an overlapped cluster. The modern
paintings clusters, in contrast, present minor
overlapping and are disposed more widely in the
projection. These observations are compatible with
the history of art: baroque painters shared
aesthetics while modern painters tend to define
their own styles individually.
 A time-series – composed by prototype states
representing each painter chronologically – allowed
the concepts of opposition, skewness and dialectics
to be approached quantitatively, as geometric
measures. The painting states show a decrease in
opposition and dialectics considering the first
members of the same movement (baroque or
modern) followed by increasing opposition and
dialectics until it reaches the strong opposition
momentum between the two movements. Also, the
skewness curve increases during almost entire time-
series. This could reflect a strong influence role of a
experience for the user.
movement in its members together with an  Although this study promotes a quantitative
increasing desire to innovate, present in each artist, approach, qualitative features can be used, as done
stronger in modernists. in a previous work for musicians and philosophers.
A comparison between results obtained for
quantitative and qualitative features can then be
applied.
 This model complements a framework to the study
of creative evolution in arts.