Author: Pia Tikka

Neuroadaptive dance project “Trisolde”

TRISOLDE – Neuroadaptive Gesamtkunstwerk: The Biocybernetic Symbiosis of Tristan and Isolde”

Exploring the final frontier of human-computer interaction with a neuroadaptive opera…performed by the audience, dancers and computational creativity .

Team of “TRISOLDE” (Tiina Ollesk, Simo Kruusement, Renee Nõmmik, Ilkka Kosunen, Hans-Günther Lock, Giovanni Albini) performed in Festival “IndepenDance” in Göteborg, nov 29 and Dec 2, 2019.

A symbiotic dance version of Wagner´s “Tristan and Isolde” where dancers are controlling the music via body movements and implicit psychophysiological signals. This work explores the next step in this coming-together of man and machine: the symbiotic interaction paradigm where the computer can automatically sense the cognitive and affective state of the user and adapt appropriately in real-time. It brings together many exciting fields of research from computational creativity to physiological computing. To measure audience and to use the audience’s reactions to module the orchestra is new way of doing “participatory theatre” where audience becomes part of the performance.

“Tristan and Isolde” is widely considered both as one of the greatest operas of all time as well as beginning of modernism in music, introducing techniques such as chromaticism dissonance and even atonality. It has sometimes been described as a “symphony with words”; the opera lacks major stage action, large choruses or wide range of characters. Most of the “action” in the opera happens inside the heads of Tristan and Isolde. This provides amazing possibilities for a biocybernetic system: I this case, Tristan and Isolde will communicate both explicitly (through movement of the dancers) but also implicitly via the measured psychophysiological signals.

Dance artists: Tiina Ollesk, Simo Kruusement

Choreographer-director: Renee Nõmmik

Dramaturgy and science of biocybernetic symbiosis: Ilkka Kosunen

Composers for interactive audio media: Giovanni Albini, Hans-Gunter Lock

Video interaction: Valentin Siltsenko

Duration: 40’

This performance is supported by: The Cultural Endowment of Estonia, and Enactive Virtuality Lab and Digital Technology Insitute (biosensors), Tallinn University.

Presentation of project: November 29th-30th and December 1st, 2018 at 3:e Våningen Göteborg (Sweden) at festival Independance. The event is dedicated to the centenary of the Republic of Estonia and supported by program “Estonia100-EV100”.

PREMIER IN TALLINN FEBRUARY 2019 (see more Fine 5 Theater)

 

Neurocinematics @ the Worlding the Brain Conference, Aarhus University

Enactive Virtuality Lab presented the collaborative research with the Brain and Mind Lab of the Aalto School of Science at the Worlding the Brain Conference in Aarhus University, Nov 27-29.

Image: The son (Juha Hippi) confronting his father (Vesa Wallgren). Short film The Queen (Kuningatar) is directed by Pia Tikka, Production Aalto University in collaboration with Oblomovies Oy 2013.

 


TITLE: Narrative priming of moral judgments in film viewing

Authors: Pia Tikka, Jenni Hannukainen, Tommi Himberg, and Mikko Sams

How does narrative priming influence the moral judgements of the film viewers? In two studies we focus on the evaluation of the rightness of the perceived action of the characters and the acceptability of these actions, in relation to the viewers experience of sympathy and filmic tension.
Providing additional narrative information beforehand for the viewers is an effective method to manipulate how they perceive and make sense of the film narrative. Our experiment data is collected from two different studies, behavioral and psychophysiological. In both experimental settings two groups receive additional background information of either the male or the female character, while the third controls are not primed. All subjects view the same 25 minute long drama film and reply to post questionnaires online.
Based on the collected data in the first experiment using parallel mixed method analysis we showed that the narrative priming itself does not increase the spectrum of the moral judgment statements and the acceptance of the wrong-doings by the characters but more influential factor seems to be the type of the action and its relation to the generally accepted moral norms. Yet, the narrative priming increased the explanatory spectrum of the subjects, which showed to some extent the trend for accepting or trying to understand actions that embody socio-emotionally complex situations. In the second currently on-going psychophysiological study (HR, EDA; EEG) we expect the explanatory spectrum collected via online questionnaires to correlate with the results of the first behavioral study. However, we also expect to show more priming dependent and spatio-temporal film-event dependent differences in arousal between all groups, indicating the influence of priming to the unconscious emotional and cognitive processes related to moral judgements

The Booth @ Worlding the Brain conference in Aarhus Uni

The Booth

Due to on-going experiments more details added about this art/science project only after the experimental data collection has been completed. Our presentation in Aarhus University Worlding the Brain Conference, 27–29 Nov, 2018, showed initial findings.

Team: Pia Tikka, Ilkka Kosunen, Lynda Joy Gerry, Eeva R Tikka, Victor Pardinho, Can Uzer, Angela Kondinska, Michael Becken & Ben Ighoyota Ajenaghughrure, with others.

Finnish Cultural Foundation Huhtamäki Fund; Virtual Cinema Lab Aalto University School of ARTS; BioLab by Digital Technology Insitute, Tallinn University; Tikka & Kosunen: EU Mobilitas Pluss Top Researcher Grant (2017-2022), Estonian Research Council in association with Tallinn University.

Talk at Sergej Eisenstein Workshop, The Brandenburg Centre for Media Studies (ZeM), Potsdam, Nov 22-24

Sergej Eisenstein and the Game of Objects 

Workshop at The Brandenburg Centre for Media Studies (ZeM), Potsdam

In the year which marks both the 120th anniversary of Sergej Eisenstein’s birth and the 70th anniversary of his death, the Brandenburg Centre for Media Studies (ZeM) in Potsdam and “Cinepoetics – Center for Advanced Film Studies” at the Free University Berlin are jointly organising a workshop that will take place in Potsdam from the 22th to 24th November 2018. More here.

Title of the talk by Pia Tikka: Simulatorium Eisensteinense: Eisenstein’s legacy in art and science dialogue 

Image form Sergei Eisenstein Elokuvan muoto, p 121 ISBN 951-835-004-3

Neurocinematic film “The Queen” – collaboration with Aalto Behavioral Lab

Enactive Virtuality Lab is collaborating with the Brain and Mind Lab of the Aalto School of Science, studying how narrative priming affects the viewer’s narrative story construction. Study on-going.

Images: Tea (Maria Järvenhelmi), Henrik  (Vesa Wallgren) and his son Daniel (Juha Hippi). Short film The Queen (Kuningatar) directed by Pia Tikka, screenplay by Eeva R Tikka. Production Oblomovies Oy and Dreammill Productions and in association with Aalto University 2013.
The film has been produced for experimental brain research purposes, which cannot be revealed at this point, as the study is on-going.
In the image Enactive Virtuality Lab’s student team Angela Kondinska and Michael Becken at Aalto University Behavioural Lab measuring physiological signals of volunteers at the end of October.  Collaborators from Aalto School of Science, Brain and Mind Lab are professor Mikko Sams,. Dr.Tommi Himberg, Veli-Matti Saarinen, and project researcher Jenni Hannukainen, Enactive Virtuality Lab, Tallinn University.

A talk at Estonian Art Academy conference “The Collaborative Turn in Art”

The two day conference The Collaborative Turn in Art: The Research Process in Artistic Practice deals with artistic research, in particular the expanded understanding of this term and the questions raised by collaborative creative practices. Venue: Estonian Academy of Art s, Põhja pst 7, room A501.

Image: Julijonas Urbonas. “Talking Doors” 2009 (Doors Event) Fo more, click the Link to the conference webpage.

Pia Tikka:

My talk “Neurocinematics & Art-Science Collaboration” concerned the first hand knowledge gained from several collaborative projects in which I have worked as a consulting film expert, and my own neurocinematic projects in which I have functioned as the principal investigator. I highlighted the diversity of issues one faces in collaborations between artists and scientists. Especially interesting was to reflect conceptual, technological and methodological differences between arts and sciences. The discussion ranged from conceptual to technological issues, however the focus  on challenges such as finding shared language, working methods, best division of labor and responsibilities and authorship.

Image shows a view to the lecture room: Chris Hales guides the audience through his talk tilled “From Tacit Knowledge to Academic Knowledge”

Talking about AI & MEDIA with ACE Producers

AI & Media Afternoon by Aalto Studios with ACE Producers / 12.10.2018 / Helsinki
 
Drs Pia Tikka and Ilkka Kosunen (image) gave a joint talk at the AI & Media Afternoon event on Friday the 12th of October, 2018. The event was held at Miltton offices at Vuorikatu 15, Helsinki, from 16:15 until 19:00.
Mika Rautiainen, Valossa Oy:  Applying Video Recognition and Content Intelligence to Media Workflows
Pia Tikka & Ilkka Kosunen: Creating Autonomous Behavior of Virtual Humanlike Characters in Interaction with Human Participants

Tallinn Summer School in St. Petersburg August 26–31

Ilkka Kosunen

With the support of the Estonia 100 programme, Tallinn University, Tallinn Summer School, and ITMO University  offered a summer school course “Experimental Interaction Design: Physiological Computing Technologies for Performative Arts.”

The main goal of the one-week extensive hands-on course in interaction design was to empower people to shape their digital environments thus providing a new level of digital literacy. This edition focused on Neurotheatre, a specific type of interactive theatre, where audience and/or actors can communicate via brain and neural computer interfaces using multimodal sensors and actuators.

The course introduced core design and interaction design topics in a provocative stance, inviting participants to reflect upon ongoing shifts, connections, and re-framings in just about every area of interaction design, and inciting a rebellion against passivity. This was complemented with the development of skills in systematic evaluation of usability and user experience of interaction designs. The expectation is to see participants take ownership of the interaction design process.

http://summerschool.tlu.ee/russia/