http://bit.ly/ux-xr-everyday-vrscifest
How technology can help us to stay connected despite any crises?
How can we create meaningful scientific and artistic projects without being able to be close to each other?
Enactive Virtuality Research Group, Tallinn University
Activities related to narratives, and narrative systems, art-science, academic and popular events, including related industry engagements
http://bit.ly/ux-xr-everyday-vrscifest
New dates for the 8th ECREA conference: 6-9 September 2021
Dear ECC 2020 conference applicants, dear ECREA members,
We would like to inform you that in consultation with the Local Organising Committee, the ECREA Executive Board has approved new dates for the 8th European Communication Conference: 6-9 September 2021. The conference was scheduled for 2-5 October 2020 but we had to make the uneasy decision to postpone. The different timelines and strategies of gradual withdrawal of pandemic prevention measures adopted by individual European countries have made it impossible to organise the event according to our standards of academic quality and hospitality.
The conference calendar will be revised and new important dates will be announced in the conference website.
We are looking forward to seeing you in Braga from the 6 to 9 September 2021.
The submission: ECC20-1152 title Addressing loneliness by means of enacted co-presence in XR has been accepted to the 8th European Communication Conference to be held in Braga, Portugal, October 2-5, 2020.
Braga, Portugal ECC Abstract submitted tikka et al.
Addressing loneliness by means of enacted co-presence in XR | |
Authors |
Pia Tikka1, Gholamreza Anbarjafari Shahab2, Doron Friedman3, Sergio Escalera4, Mauri Kaipainen5. 1University of Tallinn / BFM / MEDIT, Enactive Virtuality Lab, Tallinn, Estonia. 2University of Tartu, Intelligent Computer Vision iCV Lab, Tartu, Estonia. 3The Interdsiciplinary Center Herzliya, Sammy Ofer School of Communications / Advanced Reality Lab, Herzliya, Israel. 4University of Barcelona, Dept. Mathematics and Informatics / Computer Vision Center, Barcelona, Spain. 5Perspicamus Ltd, Company, Helsinki, Finland. |
Abstract Text |
The very nature of the human species is social. Loneliness correlates with mental and physical ill-being within, for instance, the elderly, or people with disabilities, or other conditions causing reduced life-environment. Simultaneously, an increasing trend in the European lifestyle is to outsource taking care of such members of family into the hands of professional social and medical care. Yet, in the light of recent studies, loneliness can be considered a fatal condition. Loneliness reduces the ability to improve one’s life-conditions, motivation of taking care of one’s health, and affects negatively the functions of society. As an indication of the urgency of the matter, UK has even appointed a Minister of Loneliness. The issue dictates the need to figure out all plausible ways to fight loneliness. While human company must be the primary solution, other solutions must be considered to provide socio-emotional comfort to those who suffer of the lack of human accompaniment.
We propose storytelling and narratives as the key component of satisfactory social interaction. Stories told provide supportive structures for maintaining one’s identity and connectivity as part of the world. This talk takes a look at the intriguing question, whether advanced audiovisual technologies which allow immersive interactive experiences within virtual narratives, in some form, might contribute to relieve this sore issue. To emphasize, immersive technologies, here, VR/AR/XR, cannot as such provide fully satisfactory solutions for complex human issue of loneliness. However, as a range of solutions for socially assistive robot technologies have already been proposed by others, it may be appropriate to balance the so far technology-dominated discussion with the deeply human approach of storytelling. The talk outlines efforts to combine the art of interactive audiovisual storytelling with already existing advanced technologies to explore the interconnections between loneliness and technology. It discusses empowering solutions to loneliness, while being mindful of technological determinism. ECREA’s Executive Board and the Local Organizing Committee of the 2020 ECC in Braga are closely monitoring the rapidly evolving COVID-19 pandemic as we are concerned about the health and well-being of our members and conference attendees. The conference dates (2-5 October, 2020) remain unchanged at the present time but we wish to announce changes to the deadline for the acceptance of invitations and the registration period to take account of this period of uncertainty and give you more time to make decisions about attendance. We would greatly appreciate it if you could log in through the link below and confirm or decline the presentation of your paper at the conference. The new deadline for your decision is June 15, 2020. Registration will open on June 15, 2020 and the early bird registration will be correspondingly extended. To reiterate, our intention at present is to go ahead with the physical conference in October but we will review this on an ongoing basis as well as engaging in contingency planning. We are not contemplating a virtual conference as an alternative to the physical conference. Please take care of yourself, your family and your loved ones. Further updates will follow in due course. ABSTRACT REVIEW RESULTS: Link: https://www.czech-in.org/cmPortalV15/Portal/ECC20/normal
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Paper Presentation accepted to NECS conference – Postponed 2021 (covid-19)
Panel members: Ian Christie, Ana Olenina, Julia Vassilieva, Pia Tikka
Conference cancelled due to cover-19.
Appointed examiner for a PhD thesis of doctoral candidate Marie-Laure Cazin, CINÉMA ET NEUROSCIENCES – du Cinéma Émotif à Emotive VR, for Université d’Aix-Marseille.
The lecture series for international online workshop titled “Enactive Mind and Media” was held 3-6 December, 2019 as online Zoom sessions, where students from Hong Kong Baptist University, Aalto University and Tallinn University were invited to participate.
The presentation on “Narrative Sense-Making – A Neurocinematic Approach” was part of a Creative Media and Practice Cluster Event, 7 November, 2019, at Shaw Tower, HKBU campus.
Presentation at the seminar on the topic of “Triadic Epistemology of Narrative Experience” as a part of the “Arts Does Method” Series, 24 October, 2019, in Oen Hall Building (Main), Ho Sin Hang Campus.
The 8th International Conference on. Affective Computing & Intelligent Interaction ( ACII 2019). 3rd-6th September, 2019. Cambridge, United Kingdom.
Enactive Virtuality team has two abstracts accepted for multidisciplinary Special Tracks :
(1) Neural and Psychological Models of Affect and (2) Technological and Biological Bodies in Dialogue: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Multisensory Embodied Emotion and Cognition.
Image: Jelena Rosic in action during an TLU ‘s internal pre-presentation of the ACII conference talk “Phenomenology of the Artificial” by Kosunen, Rosic, Kaipainen and Tikka,
An invited keynote at the two day conference “Actor and Avatar” organised by Professor Anton Rey, IPF, ZHdK August 29th and 30th 2019 at the Toni Areal, Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK). The “Actor and Avatar” project explores aspects of actor performances particularly aimed to provide facial expressiveness for a virtual character (avatar) and is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.
The VR Installation The State of Darkness previously exhibited in the Science Gallery, Dublin (Dec 2018) and in the 360 degrees (Prague 2019) will be presented at the conference. In addition, Enactive Virtuality Lab’s team member Victor Pardinho will run a Master’s Class for ZHdK students and staff.
The keynote by Pia Tikka 29th of August will address a range of topics related to the actors and humanlike virtual characters in the collaborative setting as described under the image.
Images: Two examples of the recordings of a dyadic realtime setting where the two actors are seated in front of a Green Screen in the ZHdK IPF Film studio looking at each other through a display in front of them directly connected to the camera in front of the other actor. The other actor takes the role of an asylum seeker’s interviewer (I), while the other actor plays the role of an asylum seeker (AS). Both are listening to the dramatised background story of the latter while engaged in evaluation of each others emotional state within the dramatised context. The performances are applied to humanlike virtual characters in the project Booth developed at the Enactive Virtuality Lab. Actors (upper row) Dr. Gunter Lösel [AS] and Tim Woody Haake [I]; (row below) Corinne Soland [I] and Samuel Braun [AS]. Images©IPF courtesy of Dr. Rey and Miriam Loertscher from ZHdK research group.
Images: Derek Bradley, Walt Disney Research Studio Zürich (above) and Matthias Wittmann, Digital Domain (below)
Industry engagement: Derek Bradley, Walt Disney Research Studio Zürich was one of the enactive experienters of facing Adam B in the State of Darkness. Here with Pia Tikka and Victor Pardinho (Sense of Space, Finland).
VR installation The State of Darkness exhibited at the ZHdK Sept 28–30.
Master’s Class by Victor Pardinho at the ZHdK September 28,2019
Topic:
In this workshop, the author will introduce a framework for virtual characters based on the volumetric scanning of real actors and 3D real-time engines. Participants will have an opportunity to check the system used at “The State of Darkness”, a biosensor driven VR art installation where human and non-human narratives coexist. The structure of the meeting is flexible and can be adjusted accordingly to the participant’s interests. We will discuss topics such as 3D asset workflows, real-time engines, volumetric capture and the design and production of XR experiences.