News

Common VR/AR grounds with TTÜ and EKA Jan 25

Pia Tikka

Enactive Virtuality team in search for the common grounds with TTÜ and EKA at Ericsson Connectivity room in Mektory House (Raja 15, 12618 Tallinn) 25.01.2018. In order to cultivate successful research environments to study and develop innovations within virtual reality, augmented reality and other related audiovisual fields, collaboration across distinct academic institutions with their specific expertise is essential.

Hosts@TTÜ: Aleksei Tepljakov Research Scientist, Eduard Petlenkov Associate Professor, and Ahmet Kose Junior Researcher at TTU;  Guests: Kristjan Mändmaa, Dean of Design, Ruth Melioranski Design Researcher, Tanel Kärp Interaction Design Program Manager at EKA; Suk-Jae Chang, AR/VR businessman; Pia Tikka, Professor TLU.

Link to Recreation Lab at TTU: https://recreation.ee

Doctoral defense: Kaisu Lankinen at Aalto Uni Jan 19

Pia Tikka

The doctoral defense of my neurocinematic co-author and collaborator Kaisu Lankinen, M.Sc.(Tech.) defended her dissertation “Dynamics of cortical brain activity during movie viewing” on 19 January 2018 at 12:15 noon at the Aalto University School of Science. In her thesis work, Lankinen has examined brain activity during movie viewing as measured with magnetoencephalography (MEG).Movies trigger perceptual, cognitive and emotional processes at multiple levels of the viewer’s brain, and they thus provide useful tools to study human brain function. Furthermore, movies—as relatively natural stimuli—can help understand brain activity occurring during our everyday life. See more here: http://www.aalto.fi/en/current/events/vaitos_lankinen_kaisu/

Image (from the left): Opponent Assistant Professor Laura Astolfi, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy; Custos professor Lauri Parkkonen, Aalto University School of Science, Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering; Kaisu Lankinen.

In the excited audience the core innovators and developers of the brain imaging method of magnetoencephalography (MEG): Matti Hämäläinen (left) and my collaborators in neurocinematics, Riitta Hari and Elina Pihko (left).  In early 1980’s, Riitta Hari pioneered the use of MEG to follow the spatiotemporal dynamics of brain activity, providing fundamental insights into auditory, somatosensory, visual, and pain and motor processing in healthy subjects and patient groups. In her thesis Kaisu Lankinen  developed new data analysis methods for use of  MEG in studying movie viewing processes in collaboration with her supervisor Miika Koskinen and others.

NeuroCine collaborator Professor Emerita Riitta Hari awarded due to excellence in brain research

Olav Thon Foundation grants the 2018 international research award to Academician, Professor Emerita Riitta Hari

The researcher prize was awarded due to excellence in brain research.

Picture: Mikael Ahlfors, The Women Leaders Program of Finland Chamber of Commerce.

 

The Norwegian Olav Thon Foundation has named Professor Emerita Riitta Hari the recipient of its international researcher award for excellence in brain research. The award totals 5 million Norwegian kroner, which is approximately 518,000 euros.

According to the foundation’s chairperson Olav Thon, Professor Emerita Riitta Hari is a highly respected brain researcher. Many breakthroughs have been made in the field of brain science thanks to Hari.

According to Ole Petter Ottersen, head of the Olav Thon Foundation’s Expert Committee and President of Karolinska Institutet, Hari has been a pioneer of magnetoencephalography (MEG) since the 1980s.

‘This award came as a complete surprise to me. I have been Professor Emerita at the Aalto University Department of Art since 2016, with the aim to lower the borders between art and neuroscience. I take great delight in the award, as well as in the possibility to continue my interesting research, and even to participate in the ceramics courses at the Departments of Art and Design,’ says Professor Emerita Riitta Hari.

Hari directed brain research at Aalto University for over three decades. In 2010, she was granted the honorary title of Academician of Science. Hari has published over 300 peer reviewed articles and numerous other publications. In 2009 Hari was the recipient of the Finnish Science Award, in 2003 she received the Louis Jeantet Prize for Medicine and in 2001 Hari was granted the Matti Äyräpää award.

Previous awards

Pia Tikka

Celebrating Academician Riitta Hari, the director and leading neuroscientist of our globally unique neurocinematics research project aivoAALTO at Aalto University (2009–2014). And the inspiring dialogue between arts and sciences continues – now across the Finish Gulf 

See our co-authored papers at neurocine.net

 

 

TALK by Bruce Sheridan on Creativity: Embodied, Extended, and Enactive 19 Jan 2018

Speaker: Bruce Sheridan (University of Auckland) 
Time: January 19th (Thursday) at 15:00
Place: M-213

Creativity: Embodied, Extended, and Enactive

Cognitivism and computational theories of mind drove approaches to creativity through the 20th century, and formal education across arts and sciences continues to draw on assumptions that are increasingly challenged by developments in neuroscience and artificial intelligence. By emphasizing the physically embodied, socially extended, and inherently enactive nature of human mentation, creativity can be understood as a fundamental, ubiquitous, and highly dynamic capacity central to all human activities. In this presentation I consider ways to conceptualize creativity and learning holistically, and how this approach can both draw from and contribute to work in the biological, physical, and social sciences.

Professor Bruce Sheridan is a filmmaker and educator based in Chicago. He began his filmmaking career in New Zealand, where he produced and directed drama and non-fiction projects for cinema and television, and won the 1999 Best Drama Award for the tele-feature Lawless. From 2001-2017 he was Chair of Cinema Art + Science at Columbia College Chicago, where he led the creation of the Media Production Center, a unique laboratory for modeling and investigating professional collaborative filmmaking practice. Professor Sheridan is Chair of the North American region of CILECT, the international organization of screen education institutions, and a member of the Creativity Research Initiative team at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, where he is currently completing his PhD in philosophy.

With Bruce and Pia in the middle: Vice-Rector for Creative Activities and Cooperation Andres Jõesaar, Head of BFM Katrin Saks, and our EU Mobilitas Plus -project coordinator Maria Hansar.

Keynote @ ITMO St Petersburg Nov 2017

Pia Tikka

Keynote titled

Lighting the neural scene of storytelling – A neurocinematic approach

at the International research-to-practice conference Lighting Design in St Petersburg, hosted by CLD ITMO University and RULD
The main goal of the conference is to connect Science with Business through Art and Innovative technology to develop a competitive market of lighting design and produce new ideas and trends. Over 500 architects, lighting designers, engineers, IT and multimedia specialists, scientists, representatives of Russian government, top-managers, set designers, producers and artists are expected to attend this year’s conference and discuss the main theme “Identity”. The two-day event features four general panel discussions, more than 20 presentations, workshops and lectures given by key Russian and international experts. In addition to the main program, there will also be cultural and social events arranged, as well as open lectures for the city to promote the development of lighting culture and to increase awareness and knowledge amongst the local citizens in the field of science and light.

Mid-point examination: Einar Egeland Nov 2017

Pia Tikka

I served as a Commentator for the mid-evaluation of the professional film editor Einar Egeland’s 3 year project at the Norwegian Film School, conducted in collaboration with the University of Oslo, Department of Psychology. The Norwegian Artistic Research Programme is stately funded, and divided into two: A​ doctoral research programme (PhD), and one which is concentrating purely on artistic research, as that of Egeland’s study on his editing process of the film “King’s Choice” (image), the film also selected to compete for the prizes of the European Film Academy 2017.

 

See here The King’s Choice – Norway’s number one in the cinemas

 

TALK by Hosana Celeste Nov 2017

Pia Tikka

Hosana Celeste Oliveira gave a talk @ TLU on her research at the São Paulo State University (UNESP), Institute of Arts São Paulo, Department of Fine Arts, Brazil. Previously she worked in my research team at  Aalto Uni as a visiting research fellow 2016-2017.

Title: Assistive interfaces for the arts: From diffusion to inclusion

In this presentation we introduce the activities carried out in our research group GIIP at São Paulo State University (UNESP, Brazil) focusing on the project “Assistive interfaces for the arts: From diffusion to inclusion”. This project brings together the efforts of several researchers from Brazil and Spain. It aims to create low cost and free access assistive interfaces to teach and make art by using reengineering, customization and open source. We will present an overview and some partial results on four prototypes that we developed, such as Kit Facilita, Artia.V, Artia.C, and TECLAUT. The creation process of these prototypes is mainly inspired by the case studies of Samara Andresa Del Monte (journalist) and Dr. Ana Amália Tavares Bastos Barbosa, as well as her teaching method in art education. Dr. Barbosa is artist, art educator and postdoctoral researcher at GIIP, she became the first quadriplegic to obtain a doctorate degree in Brazil.

Hosana Celeste Oliveira

Ph.D. Candidate in Arts, Institute of Arts, São Paulo State University (UNESP, Brazil) Artist and researcher in the field of art, science and technology. She got a bachelor degree in Fine Arts and master in Multimedia, both at UNICAMP (Brazil). Currently, she is PhD candidate in Arts at UNESP, funded by Capes (Ministry of Education of Brazil). She accomplished one year of her doctoral studies at the Media Lab – School of Arts, Design and Architecture of Aalto University (Finland, 2015-2016) under de supervision of Dr. Pia Tikka. She was visiting researcher at KISD (2007-2008), funded by DAAD-STIBET, and at KHM (2009-2010), both in Cologne, Germany. Also, she collaborated with En-Fer Atelier (The Netherlands, 2005-2007) developing web and graphic design projects. Her research agend is built around neuroscientific approaches on perception, emotion, biofeedback interfaces, and embodiment.

 

Recently Hosana Celeste contributed to the book Projective Processes and Neuroscience in Art and Design ( Advances in Media, Entertainment, and the Arts) (9781522505105): Rachel Zuanon: Books.