News

Aalto MA evaluation on Robots & Poetics

Examination of Johanna Lehto’s MA thesis “Robots and Poetics – Using narrative elements in human-robot interaction” for the Department of Media, programme New Media Design and Production on the 16th of May 2018.

As a writer and a designer, Johanna Lehto sets out to reflect upon the phenomenon of human-robot interaction through her own artistic work. To illustrate plot structure and narrative units of the interaction between a robot and human, she reflects upon how Aristotle’s dramatic principles. In her work, she applies Aristotelian drama structure to analyse a human-robot encounter as a dramatic event. Johanna made an interactive video installation in which she created a presentation of an AI character, Vega 2.0 (image). The installation was exhibited in Tokyo in Hakoniwa-exhibition on 22.-24.6.2017 and in Musashino Art University Open Campus -festival 10.-11.6.2017.

Neurotech drama VFC by Charles S. Roy in Cannes Next May 8-13

News from our international network.

Since connected by Storytek Content+Tech Acceleator in fall 2017 Pia Tikka has consulted the VFC project directed by Charles S. Roy on screenplay and audience interaction.

Charles S. Roy, Film Producer & Head of Innovation at the production company La Maison de Prod, develops his debut narrative film+interactive project VFC as producer-director. VFC has been selected at the Storytek Content+Tech Accelerator, the Frontières Coproduction Market, the Cannes NEXT Cinema & Transmedia Pitch, the Sheffield Crossover Market, and Cross Video Days in Paris.  In the vein of classic portrayals of female anxiety such as Roman Polanski’s REPULSION, Todd Haynes’ SAFE and Jonathan Glazer’s BIRTH, VFC is a primal and immersive psychological drama about fear of music (cinando.com). Its main innovation is in bringing brain-computer interface storytelling to the big screen by offering an interactive neurotech experience.

On the premises of the Cannes Film Market, as a grant holder for the Estonian innovation and development incubator Storytek Accelerator, Charles presented his work to the audience of the tech-focused NEXT section (8-13 May).

 

Collaboration meeting @ Virtual Cinema Lab, Aalto University

Our Enactive Avatar team Victor Pardinho, Lynda Joy Gerry, Eeva R Tikka, Tanja Bastamow, and Maija Paavola planning the volumetric video capture of a screen character with a collaborator in Berlin. The team’s work is supported by the Finnish Cultural Foundation, Huhtamäki Fund, and Virtual Cinema Lab (VCL), School of Film, Television and Scenography, Aalto University, and by Pia Tikka’s EU Mobilitas Top Researcher Grant.

Testing behavioral strategies for Enactive Avatar

Testing facial expressions of the viewer driving the behavior of a screen character with the Louise’s Digital Double (under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 license). see Eisko.com

In the image Lynda Joy Gerry, Dr. Ilkka Kosunen and Turcu Gabriel, Erasmus exchange student from the  University of Craiova @Digital Technology Institute, TLU) examining facial expressions of a screen character driven by an AI.

“Sümbiootiline helilooming” – New publication by Ilkka Kosunen

The manifesto for the new field of science, Symbiotic Composing, by Dr. Ilkka Kosunen, was recently published in the Teater. Muusika. Kino.

Symbiotic composing connects the topics of deep learning, physiological computing and computational creativity to facilitate new type of creative process where technology and human aesthetic judgment merge into one.

The article is in Estonian language.

 

TMK_aprill_2018

RIOT by Karen Palmer

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A visiting researcher Ellen Pearlman, hosted by MEDIT and DTI at Tallinn University in November 2017, introduced the Enactive Virtuality team with filmmaker Karen Palmer and her team. Karen spent 6 months at ThoughtWorks as the Artist in Residence in NYC working on her emotionally responsive immersive film RIOT. Our interaction with Karen’s team was focusing on joint interest in the advanced facial recognition technologies that would allow driving the narrative in real time.

Meeting with Andrew Gordon at the ICT/USC

Andrew Gordon  leads the Narrative Group at the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies where his research is devoted to getting computers to be able to read and generate stories and to use the knowledge in stories in order to become more intelligent. He is also a professor in the USC Department of Computer Science. His project involves reimagining a 70-year-old social science experiment for the digital age.

In 1944, Fritz Heider and Marianne Simmel created a simple animated film depicting the motion of two triangles and a circle as they moved in and around a box that alternated between being opened or closed. Heider and Simmel asked people to describe what they saw. Now a classic work in the field of social psychology, the subjects responded with creative narratives that ascribed human-like goals, plans, beliefs, and emotions to the moving objects. Popular themes included romantic relationships and prison breaks. See also an article by professors of psychology Fritz Heider and Marianne Simmel: “An Experimental Study of Apparent Behavior,” American Journal of Psychology 57.2 (April 1944): 243-59.

ICT’s Andrew Gordon Brings Seminal 1940’s Social Science Experiment Online

Invited young lecture Ilkka Kosunen at Tohoku Forum for Creativity, Tokyo

Image: Ilkka Kosunen presenting as the Invited Young Lecturer at the Tohoku Universal Acoustical Communication Month 2018 October 20.

Seminar on music, sound, speech and artificial intelligence

TOKYO ELECTRON House of Creativity 3F, Lecture Theater, Katahira Campus, Tohoku University [Access]

 

Doctoral Defense: Ilkka Kosunen “Exploring the dynamics of the biocybernetic loop in physiological computing”

ILKKA KOSUNEN: EXPLORING THE DYNAMICS OF THE BIOCYBERNETIC LOOP IN PHYSIOLOGICAL COMPUTING

Enactive Virtuality team member Ilkka Kosunen defended the doctoral dissertation entitled “Exploring the dynamics of the biocybernetic loop in physiological computing” in the Faculty of Science, University of Helsinki, on 22 March 2018 at 12:00. The public examination  took place at the following address: Exactum, D 122, Kumpula. Professor Fairclough Stephen, Liverpool John Moores University, will serve as the opponent, and Professor Jacucci Giulio as the custos.
The dissertation is published in the series Series of publications A / Department of Computer Science, University of Helsinki. The dissertation is also available in electronic form through the E-thesis service.