Art Walk… and Talk

The Arts Fund has announced that its Funk Zone Art Walk is back, albeit in a reimagined, COVID-19-safe format, which, of course, means virtually. The Funk Zone Art Walk Artist Spotlight is slated to take place over the next three months, when the normal in-person, bi-monthly gathering in the thriving artist studio, gallery, and boutique business/restaurant community will instead spotlight four artists and a business representing an artist in the Funk Zone, including watercolor veteran Ruth Ellen Hoag. Art lovers can explore their work virtually or download a map and visit the actual sites as protocols allow. Surf over to www.artsfundsb.org for the details.

Justin Underhill, Ph.D., who runs the Visualization Lab for Digital Art History at UC Berkeley and co-edits the International Journal for Digital Art History, is the next guest in the Santa Barbara Museum of Art’s Zoom conversation series. Underhill’s talk, “Artificial Intelligence and Art: The Case of Harold Cohen,” explores the work of Harold Cohen (1928-2016), a pioneer of art made by artificial intelligence who taught for decades at UC San Diego and wrote the pioneering art-making computer program AARON that draws and paints stylized still lifes and portraits of human figures out of its programmed “imagination” way back in the 1970s. Reserve free tickets for the 4 pm talk on Tuesday, December at tickets.sbma.net.