The New Black & White

For 95 years, the 1928 Olympic champion Sonja Henie's skating costume appeared white in all the original photos. The St. Moritz Documentation Library now embarked on an experiment and colored the costume with the help of a newly developed artificial intelligence (AI) program from the Fotostiftung Graubünden (photo foundation Grisons). The result: the artificial intelligence interpreted the dress in pink. The program is based on so-called deep-learning algorithms that recognize patterns and certain image motifs in black-and-white photos and then colorize them. For example, the figure skater's dress was colored pink because the image's motif appears girlish.

This photo is part of the exhibition "The New Black & White" at the St. Moritz Design Gallery. On display are, amongst others, pictures of horse races on the frozen Lake St. Moritz, bathers at Lake Staz, Charlie Chaplin in the snow, winding car rides on the Bernina Pass or the Via dal Bagn with Switzerland's first electrically powered streetcar. The colored pictures are on display until December 2023 in the St. Moritz Design Gallery in the Serletta parking garage, which is open 24/7 and can be visited free of charge.