Tag: academic publications

Publications, journals, academic disseminations

EEVR #21 Community meeting @SuperNova Kino Dec 15

TIME Dec 15, Noon

LOCATION SuperNova Kino, room 406, 4th floor, Narva mnt 27

 

An inspiring EEVR community event organised by MEDIT, including presentations, vivid discussions, technical and artistic demos with highlights by visiting  Finnish media artist Hanna Haaslahti (middle) and producer Marko Tandefelt (right).

Announcement by Madis Vasser:

EEVR #21 will once again find itself in familiar territory on the fourth floor of the BFM school in Tallinn, but this time around our host is MEDIT – TLU Center of Excellence in Media Innovation and Digital Culture. We’ll be mixing film, photogrammetry, and some very interesting hardware. Everyone interested in VR/AR are very welcome! The event is free, but do click the attend button early if you plan to show up! Go to FB.

On the schedule:
* Hanna Haaslahti (http://www.hannahaaslahti.net/) – some cool photogrammetry projects
* Madis Krisman & Johannes Kruusma (Avar.ee) – some more cool photogrammetry projects
* Rein Zobel (MaruVR.ee) – VR Days 2018 recap etc

Demos:
* State of Darkness VR – Enactive Virtuality Research Group
* Magic Leap (curtesy of https://www.operose.io/)
* “Hands-on” with some prototype hardware (top secret)

 

Highlighting:
CAPTURED

Captured is a narrative simulation about social injustice where your digital double has a role to play. In the installation, people are captured as 3D Avatars who become actors in a scenario where individual freedom is taken over by collective instincts.

Team

 

 

 

 

 

Hanna Haaslahti is a Finnish media artist working with ideas from technological theater, expanded image and interaction. She holds MFA from Medialab in University of Arts and Design Helsinki (Aalto). Currently Hanna Haaslahti lives and works in Helsinki. She has been artist-in-residence at MagicMediaLab, Brussels (2000), Nifca NewMediaAir, St.Petersburg (2003), Cité International des Arts, Paris (2008) and SculptureShock organized by Royal British Society of Sculptors, London (2015). She has received honorary mention at Vida 6.0 Art and artificial life-competition (2003) and was selected in 50 best category in ZKM Medien Kunst Preis (2003). She has received the most prestigious Finnish media art award, AVEK-award (2005).

 

Marko Tandefelt is a Helsinki based concept designer, educator and musician with extensive experience in art, design, media and technology fields. Among his interests are: Concept design, sensorbased interface prototyping, immersive multisensory cinema, and experimental visualization systems.

Marko has lived in New York for 20+ years, working at companies such as NEC R&D Labs, ESIDesign, Antennadesig and the Finnish Cultural Institute. During 2007-2015 Marko worked as the Director of Technology & Research/Senior Technology Manager at Eyebeam Art & Technology Center. Marko taught Masters Thesis courses at Parsons School of Design MFADT program in New York from 2001 til 2016.

In his native Helsinki Finland, Marko has worked since 2016 as a Technology Consultant and Producer in various interactive projects, including Hanna Haaslahti’s realtime 3D Body scanning installation system “Captured”. Marko works currently at Kunstventures as a media art producer, concept designer and prototyper.

Marko holds a B.M. degree Summa Cum Laude in Music Technology from NYU, and a Master’s degree from NYU Tisch School of the Arts Film & TV School Interactive Telecommunications Program ITP. He is a longtime member of ACM, AES, IEEE, SIGGRAPH, and SMPTE, and has worked as a paper reader and jury member for SIGGRAPH and ACE conferences.

 

 

 

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”

Neurocinematic publication – Narrative comprehension beyond language

Pia Tikka, Janne Kauttonen & Yevhen Hlushchuk (2018): “Narrative comprehension beyond language: Common brain networks activated by a movie and its script”

A young girl Nora stares shocked at her mother Anu. Anu stands expressionless by the kitchen table and scrapes the left-over spaghetti from Nora’s plate into a plastic bag. She places the plate into the bag and starts putting there other dining dishes, takes a firm hold of the bag and smashes it against the table. Nora is horrified: “Mother! What are you doing?”. Anu continues smashing the bag without paying attention to her daughter. Nora begs her to stop. Anu collapses crying against the table top. Nora approaches, puts her arms around the crying mother and starts slowly caressing her hair.

The dramatic scene describes a daughter witnessing a nervous breakdown of her mother. Its narrative content remains the same should one read it in a textual form or viewed it as a movie. It is relatively well known how narratives are processed in the distinct human sensory cortices depending on the sensory input through which the narrative is perceived (reading, listening, viewing; [1–5]). However, far less is known of how the human brain processes meaningful narrative content independent of the media of presentation. To tackle this classical dichotomy issue between form and content in neuroimaging terms, we employed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to provide new insights into brain networks relating to a particular narrative content while overlooking its form.

In the image Nora (actress Rosa Salomaa); director Saara Cantell, cinematography Marita Hällfors (F.S.C), producer Outi Rousu, Pystymetsä Oy, 2010.

Abstract

Narratives surround us in our everyday life in different forms. In the sensory brain areas, the processing of narratives is dependent on the media of presentation, be that in audiovisual or written form. However, little is known of the brain areas that process complex narrative content mediated by various forms. To isolate these regions, we looked for the functional networks reacting in a similar manner to the same narrative content despite different media of presentation. We collected 3-T fMRI whole brain data from 31 healthy human adults during two separate runs when they were either viewing a movie or reading its screenplay text. The independent component analysis (ICA) was used to separate 40 components. By correlating the components’ time-courses between the two different media conditions, we could isolate 5 functional networks that particularly related to the same narrative content. These TOP-5 components with the highest correlation covered fronto-temporal, parietal, and occipital areas with no major involvement of primary visual or auditory cortices. Interestingly, the top-ranked network with highest modality-invariance also correlated negatively with the dialogue predictor, thus pinpointing that narrative comprehension entails processes that are not language-reliant. In summary, our novel experiment design provided new insight into narrative comprehension networks across modalities.

Article “Screendance as enactment…” DATJournal Design Art and Technology

In this article Deren’s film At Land is analyzed as an expression of a human body-brain system situated and enactive within the world, with references to neuroscience, neurocinematic studies, and screendance.

TIKKA, Pia. Screendance as enactment in Maya Deren’s At Land. DATJournal Design Art and Technology, [S.l.], v. 3, n. 1, p. 9-28, june 2018. ISSN 2526-1789. First published in The Oxford Handbook of Screendance Studies Edited by Douglas Rosenberg,Aug 2016. Available  online here

Hybrid Arts and Science Collaboration Day dedicated to Leonardo 50

Hybrid Arts and Science Collaboration Day, Celebrating Leonardo’s 50th Anniversary  

The full day event brought together the local and international long term supporters and authors who have contributed to the 50 years of Leonardo, the leading international peer-reviewed journal on the use of contemporary science and technology in the arts and music and, increasingly, the application and influence of the arts and humanities on science and technology.

Upper image: The executive director of Leonardo-journal Roger F. Malina at the map that visualizes the broad international activity of the Leonardo community Below: Vice-dean of Aalto Arts Rasmus Vuori, Leonardo board member artist-curator Nina Czegledy, and Leonardo’s executive director  Roger F. Malina with Leonardo author Pia Tikka.

The journal Leonardo was founded in 1968 in Paris by kinetic artist and astronautical pioneer Frank Malina. Malina saw the need for a journal that would serve as an international channel of communication among artists, with emphasis on the writings of artists who use science and developing technologies in their work. After the death of Frank Malina in 1981 and under the leadership of his son, Roger F. Malina, Leonardo moved to San Francisco, California, as the flagship journal of the newly founded nonprofit organization Leonardo/The International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology (Leonardo/ISAST). Leonardo/ISAST has grown along with its community and today is the leading organization for artists, scientists and others interested in the application of contemporary science and technology to the arts and music.

 

Hybrid Labs The Third Renewable Futures Conference

Hybrid Labs Symposium
The Third Renewable Futures Conference
May 30 – June 1, 2018, Aalto University, Otaniemi Campus

June 31 NeurocinemAtics on narrative experience

Hybrid Labs is the third edition of Renewable Futures conference that aims to challenge the future of knowledge creation through art and science. The HYBRID LABS took place from May 30 to June 1, 2018 at Aalto University in Espoo, Finland, in the context of Aalto Festival. Celebrating 50 years of Leonardo journal and community, the HYBRID LABS conference looked back into the history of art and science collaboration, with an intent to reconsider and envision the future of hybrid laboratories – where scientific research and artistic practice meet and interact.
http://hybridlabs.aalto.fi/hls2018-symposium/

Pia Tikka and Mauri Kaipainen:
Triadic epistemology of narrative experience

We consider the narrative experience as a triangular system of relations between narrative structure , narrative perspective , and physiological manifestations associated with both. The proposal builds on the fundamentally pragmatist idea that no two of these elements are enough to explain each other, but a third is always required to explicate the interpretative angle. Phenomenological accounts altogether reject the idea of objective descriptions of experience. At the same time, a holistic understanding must assume that a narrative is shared on some level, an assumption narratology must make, and that even individual experiences are also embodied, as is evident to neuroscientists observing brain activity evoked by narrative experience. It cannot be that these accounts are incompatible forever. Using these elements, we discuss a triadic epistemology, a mutually complementary knowledge construction system combining phenomenological, narratological and physiological angles in order to generate integrated knowledge about how different people experience particular narratives.

Our approach assumes a holistic, or even deeper, an enactive perspective to experiencing, that is, assuming systemic engagement in the embodied, social, and situational environmental processes. Consequently, we propose understanding narrative content needs to be analyzed not only based on subjective reports of theexperiencer, but they also need to be related to neurophysiological manifestations of the experience. Or, describing the associated neural activity during the viewing of a film is not enough to relate it to subjective reports of the viewers, but the observations also need to be interpreted to conventions of storytelling. A selection of cases are described to clarify the proposed triadic method.

Κeywords: neurophenomenology, narrative experience, narrative perspective, enactive theory of mind, epistemology

eFilm: Hyperfilms for basic and clinical research presented by
my aivoAALTO collaborator professor Mikko Sams showed highlights of neuroscience findings related to viewing films in fMRI and introduced the concept of eFilm, a novel computational platform for producing and easily modifying films to be used in basic and clinical research.

June 1 VR TALKS at Aalto Studios

VR Research Talks organised with Virtual Cinema Lab and FiVR Track dedicated on research in and around VR, with a focus on artistic praxes around sound, alternative narrations and the self.

Daniel Landau: Meeting Yourself in Virtual Reality and Self-Compassion
Self-reflection is the capacity of humans to exercise introspection and the willingness to learn more about their fundamental nature, purpose, and essence. Between the internal process of Self-reflection to the external observation of one’s reflection – runs a thin line marking the relationship between the private-self and the public-self. From Narcissus’s pond, through reflective surfaces and mirrors, to current day selfies, the concepts of self, body-image and self-awareness have been strongly influenced by the human interaction with physical reflections. In fact, one can say that the evolution of technologies reproducing images of ourselves has played a major role in the evolution of the Self as a construct. With the current wave of Virtual-Reality (VR) technology making its early steps as a consumer product, we set out to explore the new ways in which VR technology may impact our concept of self and self-awareness. ‘Self Study’ aims to critically explore VR as a significant and novel component in the history and tradition of the complex relationship between technology and the Self (—).

See more on Daniel’s work here)

 

 

On neurocinematics in magazine Lehtiset

In May the online magazine Lehtiset published a Finnish Language article  on “Cinema, storytelling and the mind” by Pia Tikka.

 

Elokuva, tarinankertoja ja mieli

Tarinankerronta muodostaa ihmisen mielen perustan. Evoluution näkökulmasta tarinoiden kertomisen on myös täytynyt muokata ihmisen biologisia aivorakenteita. Tarinoilla on aina näkökulma; sen joka kertoo tarinan. Tässä mielessä tarinat kiinnittyvät yksilöllisiin kokemuksiin. Toisaalta ne ovat osa jaettua kulttuuri-sosiaalista ekologiaa.

Uusin numero

 

“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

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