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.

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

 

Doctoral defense: Thorbjörn Swenberg, 15 Sept 2017

Pia Tikka

I had the pleasure to serve as an opponent for the public defense of film editor Thorbjörn Swenberg’s doctoral thesis in Innovation and Design at Mälardalen University, room Raspen (Eskilstuna Campus, Verktyget) at 10.00 on September 15, 2017.

Title: “Framing the Gaze: (Audio-)Visual Design Intentions and Perceptual Considerations in Film Editing”

The faculty examiner is PhD Pia Tikka, Aalto University  [Tallinn University, starting Sept 1] and the examining committee consists of Professor Jonas Löwgren, Linköping University, Barbara Tversky, Professor emerita på Stanford University och Professor at Teachers College Columbia University and Docent Tomas Axelson, Dalarna University. Reserve: Docent Peter E Johansson, Mälardalen University.

Abstract

How we perceive a film, and what we focus on when following a film story, is to a great extent dependent on how the film is compiled. In other words, how the film is edited by the film editor. This study has been designed to enable a better understanding of the film editor’s profession, how s/he assesses the edits, as well as how the editing precision influences the attention of the film viewer.

This doctoral thesis shows how a film editor strives to direct the film viewer’s attention across film edits by means of a principle I term “framing the gaze”. The film editor considers perceptual properties of sound and image when s/he processes the audiovisual material. Either, the viewer should notice a passing edit, or the shots joined into a film sequence should be merged in a seamless manner so that they are experienced as one ongoing flow of moving image, without breaks between shots. This is called continuity.

In compiling each edit, the editor decides whether that particular edit should be noticeable, or not, depending on his/her intention. The question is, how meticulous the editor must be about the point where shots meet if the edit is to remain un-noticed, and how the best precision is achieved.

In this study, a documentary film sequence is edited by a film editor, and the process, including the considerations made about each edit, has been recorded. The editing process and the film sequence are then discussed by the researcher and the editor together. In this thesis, film editing is thus considered as a kind of design work, which is a new approach to analysing film editing.

When the film sequence in the study was screened before a test audience, accompanied by a version of the sequence with less precision at the edit points, the film viewers’ gazes varied according to the precision of the edits. Less precision (as in the altered version) rendered signs of high cognitive load, and, hence, poor understanding of the film.

The conclusion of this research is that the film editor’s perceptual precision at the edit point is crucial for reaching his/her intention regarding the film viewer’s gaze. When the perceptual precision is low, it is likely that the film viewer does not experience continuity.

Thus, the study demonstrates how tiny audiovisual details can make a huge impact in film editing, giving us a better understanding of how film editors think and work. We also gain some tentative implications for the role of perception in other kinds of design work.

More here.