Colleague’s CAPTCHA

I thought I’d take this opportunity both to congratulate my friend and colleague Gautam Rao on having some of his works chosen for display at the Athens (Georgia) Institute for Contemporary Art, and to share one of his works that has been honored, a painting entitled “Human Error”:

Gautam says (in an article about this on the Butler University web site): “The idea that humans, on an almost daily basis, have to prove their very humanity via a test administered by a computer strikes me as both amusing and indicative of the information overload of our times. What’s even more absurd is that CAPTCHA codes get cracked all the time, meaning that scientists have to constantly develop new tests for humans to prove their humanity.”

All bloggers and blog users are familiar with these “CAPTCHAs”. But they are worth reflecting on, and can even become art!