The Post-Interpretive Criticism (PIC) Engine is a diagnostic tool designed by the Museum of One to analyze art critical texts. It moves beyond sentiment analysis to measure the structural proximity between the critic, the artwork, and the viewer.
The Concept:
Rather than evaluating what a critic thinks or feels about an artwork, the PIC Engine calculates the structural relationships and pressures embedded in critical language. The arithmetic is continually clarified so the same parameters produce the same results: transparent, repeatable, and accountable.
What the App Measures:
It applies the Canonical Rule Set v2.0 to calculate four key indices:
- Rhetorical Density (RD): The saturation of metaphorical language, how densely figurative or abstract the critical text becomes
- Interpretive Load (ILI): The ratio of meaning-assignment to sensory witnessing, how much the critic explains versus describes what is actually visible
- Viewer Displacement (VDR): The extent to which the critic speaks for the viewer, how much space remains for the audience to form their own encounter with the work
- Ethical Proximity (EPS): The frequency of "braking" mechanisms (uncertainty, refusal to conclude), how often the critic acknowledges limits, resists closure, or maintains epistemic humility
Key Features:
- Analyzes critical texts using deterministic calculations based on linguistic patterns
- Measures structural relationships: density, interpretive load, viewer displacement, ethical proximity, and institutional alignment
- Processes texts via the Google Gemini API for diagnostic purposes only
- Produces transparent, repeatable, and accountable results
Privacy Note: All analysis happens via the Google Gemini API. Texts are processed for diagnostic purposes only.
What Makes It Different:
This tool doesn't judge whether criticism is "good" or "bad" it reveals the structural conditions of critical language, making visible how much space a text leaves for direct encounter versus interpretive authority.