Monthly Archives: November 2016

Guest lecture at Media Lab DA seminar: Timo Honkela

Welcome to the seminar lecture 8th December from 17:00 at Miestentie:

THE BIG PICTURE OF HUMAN-MACHINE COEVOLUTION

by Timo Honkela, University of Helsinki

ABSTRACT
Invention of linguistic communication, symbolic representation, writing and printing have been important steps in human cultural evolution. Computers and networks have have enabled further developments. During the past fifty years human knowledge and skills have progressed increasingly with the help of computers. The knowledge and skills of digital systems have been usually limited by the knowledge and imagination of humans. There are exceptions to this and they are increasing because of the use of machine learning, evolutionary algorithms and other adaptive systems, growing amount of open data, and computational resources becoming close to human capacities. Clear risks related to these developments. For instance, large proportion of professions will be taken over by computers and robots. This is, however, a limited problem if the development leads into improved understanding of our societies and decision making, improved mutual understanding, and better use of resources. This kind of cultural evolution can lead into very beneficial developments. We can discuss what kind of design-in-the-large is needed to reach such a positive track.

SHORT BIO: TIMO HONKELA
It may be fair to say that professor Timo Honkela has unusually wide scientific and work experience. He has served as a professor earlier in the University of Art and Design Helsinki, Media Lab and Helsinki University of Technology, Laboratory of Information and Computer Science and currently at the University of Helsinki, Department of Modern Languages. Honkela’s research and development work has covered since 1980s areas such as natural language processing, artificial neural networks, participatory media art, visual information retrieval, text mining, socio-cognitive modeling, and analysis of complex societal phenomena.

Stephen Mayes lectures

Welcome to attend two lectures given by Stephen Mayes on Friday, November 25 at Photography premises, 9th floor:

10 am: Building a Professional Photographic Practice in the New Media World

1 pm: Digital Trends and Computational Photography

Stephen Mayes is a free lance writer and curator. He has been Secretary to the International Jury of World Press Photo Foundation from 2004–2012, and CEO at VII Photo agency from 2008–2013. The new MA students of Photography study program read his article The Next Revolution in Photography last spring as part of their application process. Now you have a unique chance to meet him live! The lectures are part of our course On Photography.

The lectures are open to other media and art students as well.

Art as technology – Symposium

Art as technology

Symposium 15.12.2016
Organized by: Art and Technology network, University of the Arts Helsinki
Location: WHS Union Theatre, Unioninkatu 45/Siltavuorenranta 18, Helsinki

Art and technology have been closely related to each other throughout the history of Western culture. Their relation, however, is highly variable and constitutes a multifaceted set of questions for the Humanities. Within past few years, lively debates have emerged around “digital humanities”. New challenges in the areas of big data processing, open source practices and hybrid cognition have opened up a gap between “critical humanities” and “big humanities”. How do the new computational conditions influence the arts? Is there a gap between “critical arts” and “big arts”? Should we speak of “digital arts” analogously to “digital humanities” or should we envision “arts of the digital” in parallel with “humanities of the digital”? The question whether and how new technologies change the arts has been discussed widely over decades, but how to consider the arts as technologies in wake of a series of theoretical turns, shifts and new eras? Is there something new to the arts as technologies today?

PROGRAMME
9:00 Coffee and a compilation of Pilvari Pirtola’s videos
Pilvari Pirtola is an artist and a doctoral student at the Academy of Fine Arts Helsinki.
10:00 Mika Elo: Opening words
10:15 Susanna Lindberg: “Liberation – of art and technology + discussion”
”This lecture is a philosophical reflexion of the way in which art in the contemporary technological turn of art deals with the ancient rivalry between art and technology. Firstly, I will draw a schematic picture of the conceptual problems inherited from classical philosophy of art and technology, and that this art necessarily confronts. Secondly I will see how certain contemporary works of art attempt to solve some of these problems (e.g. Rebecca Horn, Anaïs Tondeur, Eduardo Kac, Tomás Saraceno). Through these reflextions I will finally ask if and how a dialogue between art and technology contributes to the liberation of one through the other.”
Susanna Lindberg is a philosopher. After a PhD at the University of Strasbourg, she has worked as lecturer and professor at the Universities of Helsinki and Tampere; at the moment she is an associate resercher at the Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense. Her publications include Le monde défait. L’être au monde aujourd’hui (Hermann, 2016), Heidegger contre Hegel: Les irréconciliables and Entre Heidegger et Hegel : L’éclosion et vie de l’être (L’Harmattan, 2010). She has also edited, with Sergei Prozorov and Mika Ojakangas, Europe Beyond Universalism and Particularism (Palgrave, 2014) and with Gisèle Berkman Limite – illimité, questions au présent. (Nouvelles Éditions Cécile Defaut, 2012). She has also published many articles on German idealism, phenomenology and contemporary French philosophy, as well as translations of French philosophy into Finnish (for instance Derrida, Nancy and Blanchot).
12:00 Lunch
13:00 Electronic Chamber Music – Otso Lähdeoja, Alejandro Montes de Oca, Aino Eerola, Nathan Thomson – Music + discussion
13:45 Morten Søndergaard: Sound + Art + Technology +
“It is hard to ‘fit’ sound art into any known discipline or research area. Sound art is a transdisciplinary and experimental practice drawing on as various sources as modern physics, technology, electronic media, psychology and more. It may not even be ‘art’, as it does not ‘fit’ any traditional categories or genres. Thus, ‘sound art’ is not a perfect ‘fit’ for any discipline, at all. Yet it exists as perhaps one of the most distinct expressions of innovative explorations of space and time, and for that very reason it calls for a study of sound art within the framing of art and technology. In my talk I will generally discuss this framing by presenting and analysing a ‘modern genealogy’ of sound + art + technology +.”
Morten Søndergaard is Curator and Associate Professor of interactive media art at Aalborg University Denmark. International co-coordinator of the Erasmus Master in Media Arts Cultures; Head of research on the Unheard Avant-garde Research Project since 2010 and co-founder of ISACS – International Sound Art Curating Conference Series. Curator and deputy director at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Roskilde (1999-2008). Served as General chair and Senior Curator at re-new digital arts festival in Copenhagen 2010-13 and as contributing editor at Leonardo Electronic Almanac 2011- 2014. He has published, edited and curated extensively in the field of media art and sound art.
14:45 Coffee
15:15 Jari Kauppinen: Performance + discussion
“My research aims to examine and experiment with different strategies of combining voice, space and media technology in performative contexts. I focus on the onset of the act of speaking, the brief moment of unfolding potentiality, the minute gradations of expression that operate there, in and between voices, texts, and technologies.”
Jari Kauppinen is Professor in Sound Design at Theatre Academy, Uniarts Helsinki. He is also a doctoral candidate at the Performing Arts Research Center.
16:00 Fernando José Pereira: “Besides all that (a deliberate dip in technology to build the possibilities to resist it)”
“The relationship between art and technology is now unquestionable and consensual. And yet, nothing tells us that we should not keep the degrees of scepticism at high levels. On one hand the widespread dazzle in what the latest technology relates; on the other hand, the fascination that obsolete technology produces both in artists and market. Both are presented as visible signs of a reality that is ours: the technological and digital society in which we live. The central issue still remains the determining of the origin of decisions: the utopia of artistic gesture or the aporia of the technological primacy. From the attempt to resolve this duality may arise the possibility of a critical and operational vision for contemporary artistic practices.”
Fernando José Pereira is an artist, co-director of the site www.virose.pt and a member of the electronic music project Haarvöl. He teaches at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto, where he is also the coordinator of the PhD program and researcher at the I2ADS (Institute for Research in Art, Design and Society).
17:00 Panel with the speakers of the day and Tuomo Rainio, Dominik Schlienger, Päivi Takala 18:00 Closing

KuvA Research Days 12.-14.12.2016

Welcome to – Tervetuloa – VÄLKOMMEN!
KuvA Research Days 12.-14.12.2016 KuvAn Tutkimuspäivät
KuvAs Forskningsdagar

FULL PROGRAM AND INFORMATION ABOUT ALL SPEAKERS AND TOPICS:
https://www.uniarts.fi/kuvan-tutkimuspaivat-2016

Facebook event
https://www.facebook.com/events/714456778719942/

MAANANTAI 12.12.2016 MONDAY
The Images, Rituals and Notions of Life and Death
Host: Petri Kaverma

John Troyer: Spectacular Human Corpses: Looking at Death. Seeing Dead Bodies

Johanna Sumiala: Death in the Media Society – Re-thinking Rituals, Liminality and Immortality

Stacey Pitsillides: Textures of Death: Digital, Physical and Hybrid Things

Maija Butters: Aesthetic experience and ritual as metaphysical meaning-making

Meri Jalonen: The evolution of a package concept through encounters between humans and artefacts

Terhi Utriainen: Closing remarks

TIISTAI 13.12.2016 TUESDAY
Ecologies of Artistic Research
Host: Mika Elo

Tuula Närhinen: Phenomenotechnique in Visual Art Practise. A hands-on approach towards embodied epistemologies

Michael Schwab: Experimental Systems: Contemporaneity, Untimeliness and Artistic Research

Dieter Mersch: Art and Non-propositional Thinking

Miika Luoto: Aesthetic judgement and the exigencies of thinking

Eija-Liisa Ahtila: Studies on the Ecologies of Drama

Annette Arlander: Closing remarks

KESKIVIIKKO 14.12.2016 WEDNESDAY
Particles
Host: Maija Närhinen
Martta Heikkilä: À fleur de peau: Of Blossoming Surfaces in Maija Närhinen’s Work
Saara Hacklin: Rock, Paper, Scissors: Material, representation and perception

Tuomas Nevanlinna: Parts outside the whole

Jouni Kaipia: On Primary Images in Architecture

sekä / and

Poetic Archeology presents: Deutsches Lager – On the Relationship Between Artistic and Archeological Research
Host: Jan Kaila

Jan Kaila and Japo Knuutila: Introduction

Jan Fast: The Conflict Archaeology of “Deutsches Lager Hanko”

Suzie Thomas: Archaeologies of Conflict and Dark Heritages: Unpicking the painful past

Ian Alden Russell: The Art of the Past: Before and after Archaeology

Turo-Kimmo Lehtonen: Closing remarks and discussion

Paikka / Location
Exhibition Laboratory
Merimiehenkatu 36, Helsinki

http://www.uniarts.fi/en/exhibition-laboratory

Call for papers: T 14_03 Data-driven management decision-making

With our theme “Managing Knowledge: Making Knowledge Work”, we from EURAM invite you to participate in debate about how we can use and develop our knowledge better so that solving problems and dealing with issues can become more effective. We look forward to receiving your submissions.

Call for papers:

T 14_03 Data-driven management decision-making (see attachment)

Submission Deadline: 10 January 2017

T 14_03 Data-driven Management Decision Making 4

http://www.euram-online.org/annual-conference-2017.html

 

Intersectional Perspectives on Design, Politics & Power – Symposium Programme

Decolonising Design Platform is announcing that the program for the symposium “Intersectional Perspectives on Design, Politics and Power” is out now (file link below). The symposium will be held at the School of Arts and Communication, Malmö University, Sweden on 14-15 November 2016.
This event is open to the public but seats are limited. If you are interested in attending, please register here.

3D Open-source Digital Heritage and Sustainable Technologies Workshop

1-3 December 2016
Aalto Media Factory (AMF)
Hämeentie 135 A, Helsinki

Aalto UniversitySchool of Arts, Design and Architecture’s Media Lab is hosting a workshop and training with public presentations and discussions on open source methodologies, practices and ideologies. The event will take place on 1-3 December, 2016 at the Aalto Media Factory (AMF) in Arabia. The objective of the workshop is to discuss key issues and hopefully come up with some guidelines that can help to make open source initiatives more feasible, successful, and sustainable.

Wether in the arts or the sciences, ultimate success in creative projects is often the result of indefatigable effort. Therefore, during the workshop we will discuss and showcase examples of both failed as well as successful open source projects. In particular we want to focus on the use of open source tools as part of activities involving exhibition and storytelling design. Participants are encouraged to come to the workshop prepared to share, discuss and work on their own projects. Two themes, each featuring an actual project, are offered as signposts, in order to guide the discussion. These themes are:

  • Data acquisition automation – portable 3D scanning device for heritage communities case study.
  • From virtual to material – realizing high quality 3D tangible interaction objects for museum exhibition using FabLab.

Working schedule:

1 December, 2016

9:00 – 9:30 Opening of the workshop (Lily Díaz, Andrew Paterson)
9:30 – 10:30 Keynote presentation (Robert Chave)
10:15 – 10:30 Discussion & coffee
10:15 – 10:30 Presentation of DigGLAM project (Lily Díaz)
11:00 – 12:00 Group and work organisation into teams
12:00 – 13:00 Lunch
13:00 – 14:00 Keynote presentation (Raúl Nieves Pardo)
14:00 – 14:15 Discussion & coffee
14:15 – 14:30 Presentation of Veselius VR Facsimile (Angela Hernández)
14:30 – 18:00 Workshop
19:00 Dinner

2 December, 2016

9:00 – 11:30 Group 1 meets at AMF FabLab, Group 2 in [TBA].
11:00 – 11:30 Light lunch
12:00 – 14:00 Public examination of dissertation, M. Arch. Samir Bhowmik,
Deep Time of the Museum: The Materiality of Media Infrastructures
14:00 – 15:00 Coffee and snacks
15:00 – 18:00 Workshop
19:00 Dinner (everyone pays for themselves).

3 December, 2016

10:00 – 12:00 Workshop
12:00 – 13:00 Lunch
13:00 – 15:00 Presentations and documentation of work done.
15:00 – 15:30 Discussion and concluding remarks.
15:30 – 16:00 Closing of workshop.

17:00 – 20:00 Trashlab and pikkujoulu (little Christmas) party at Temporary.fi (BYOB).
https://temporary.fi/experiments/trashlab/trashlab-december-2016-pikkujoulu

If you wish to take part, send us a 200 word project description, link, and up to 200 word expression why you want to share your failed or successful project in this context. Deadline for proposals submission is 25th November 2016.

Submissions: Saara Mäntylä, saara.mantyla -at- aalto .fi.


http://sysrep.aalto.fi/research/renewable-futures-network/3d-open-source-and-sustainable-technologies-workshop/

Systems of Representation research on heritage and digital culture is the context for these initiatives. The work is supported by EU Creative Europe program, Renewable Future Network project and Hybrid Labs project funded by Nordplus.

Featured artwork: Oldouz Moslemian’s and Martin Genet’s collective MA Thesis project. Oldouz did her thesis last spring as MA student in the Fashion, Clothing and Textile Design MA Programme. The supervisors at Aalto were Adjunct Professor Maarit Salolainen from 3D Surface Design,
Textile and Collection Design and professor Jouni Partanen from Aalto ENG / ADDLab.

Studies in Artistic Research: Ruukku #6 is online now!

CHANGE AND ARTISTIC RESEARCH

Ruukku #6 is online now!

http://ruukku-journal.fi/en

This new issue of RUUKKU shows how artistic research and the ways in which art is made can contribute to not only societal debate but also to methodologies in other disciplines. The articles are grouped around four themes, albeit ones with porous and fluid boundaries. These are socially responsible art, the methodology of art research, the political nature of making art and new forms of making art. The issue features research expositions from Susanna Helke, Kalle Lampela, Barbara Lüneburg, Tero Nauha, Minna Rainio, Denise Ziegler, Maria Huhmarniemi and Satu Miettinen, Inkeri Huhtamaa & Taina Kontio.

The journal RUUKKU uses the Research Catalogue internet platform for presenting multi-medial and multi-lingual expositions. The Research Catalogue requires the authors to register for an account to edit text and images on a single or multipage layout. The international RC repository features a growing number of accounts on artistic research.

RUUKKU encourages artists and artistic researchers to submit expositions that extend the written journal paper format: images, slideshows, video, sound and navigational elements are possible within the RC publishing platform. The platform enables artists to display different aspects of their work and experiment with ways of presenting artistic research.

RUUKKU receives support from the following institutions: Aalto School of Arts, Design and Architecture and the University of the Arts Helsinki. For further information, see http://ruukku-journal.fi/en/presentation.

Issue editors:

Mari Mäkiranta & Eija Timonen

RUUKKU editorial board:

Mika Elo (chair), Annette Arlander, Hanna Järvinen, Esa Kirkkopelto, Harri Laakso, Maarit Mäkelä, Teemu Mäki, Margit Rahkonen, Taina Riikonen, Hannu Saha, Jyrki Siukonen, Riikka Stewen, Eija Timonen

Contact Ruukku: ruukku-journal@uniarts.fi

Call for Contributions: International Conference on Artistic Research

International Conference on Artistic Research

Helsinki, April 28th and 29th, 2017

Society for Artistic Research
University of the Arts, Helsinki
Venue: Theatre Academy Helsinki

Followed by the General Assembly of the Society for Artistic Research April 30th.

CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS:

PLEASE SPECIFY!
Sharing Artistic Research Across Disciplines

THE CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS IS OPEN NOW 
UNTIL 23:59 ON 3 JANUARY 2017.

Please, submit your proposal and find more information about the Conference here.

The Conference is a collaboration between Society for Artistic Research (SAR) and University of the Arts Helsinki (Uniarts Helsinki) and it is hosted by the University of the Arts Helsinki.

Contact

Riitta Pasanen-Willberg
Conference Manager
Senior Advisor, D.A. (Dance)
Theatre Academy at the University of the Arts Helsinki

sar@uniarts.fi

www.sarconference2017.org
www.uniarts.fi/en

Doctor of Arts Seminar at Media Lab: TIME-BODY STUDY – Exploring the impact of narrative re-embodiment experiences in virtual reality on the boundaries of body, identity and self

Welcome to the Doctoral Seminar at Media Lab:

NOTICE THE DATE/TIME CHANGE:
Wednesday 16 November 2016, from 14:30-16:30

Miestentie 3, OTANIEMI, 4th floor, room 433 (Paja)

TIME-BODY STUDY
Exploring the impact of narrative re-embodiment experiences in virtual reality on the boundaries of body, identity and self.

by Daniel Landau

Short description:

“An identity is a set of meanings applied to the self in a social role or as a member of a social group that define who one is.” (Burke and Tully, 1977)

What does it feel like to own, to control, and to be inside a body? Exploitation of immersive virtual reality has allowed a reframing of this question to whether it is possible to experience the same sensations towards a virtual body inside an immersive virtual environment as toward the biological body. In the present era, questions regarding one self are constantly being asked and challenged. Issues of personal identity affect how we relate to others. Identity has become one of the single most important issues for human development and adjustment in today’s turbulent times.

Time Body Study is a narrative base re-embodiment experiment set to explore the boundaries of body, identity and self. In the experiment participant, wearing a virtual reality head-mounted display (HMD), is re-embodied in the body of a 7, 40 and 80 year old person. Inspired by the classic Rubber Hand Illusion (Botvinick & Cohen 1998) and the work of Prof. Mel Slater (Barcelona University), The Time-Body Study creates the re-embodiment illusion by having a participant see his virtual hands being touched in the virtual space while, simultaneously and in perfect sync, his real hands are being touched, by a live performer. Both Botvinick and Slater’s experiments used this mechanism to demonstrate how easy it is to manipulate our body representation so that a subject can experience a rubber or virtual hand as his own. In Time-Body Study Daniel Landau adds narrative layers to the re-embodiment experience in an attempt to explore this cognitive mechanism on an emotional level.

———————–
Daniel Landau | www.daniel-landau.com

Daniel Landau – is a media artist, lecturer and researcher. He completed his second degree in music composition and new-media at the Royal Conservatory in The Netherlands where he lived and worked for nearly a decade. In his work Daniel explores the complex relationship between body and technology, tracing techno-political processes and their impact on social and private spaces. His work has been presented in major venues, museums and festivals worldwide including: Jerusalem, New-York, London, Amsterdam, Berlin, Tokyo, Paris Hungary and Mexico City. Between 2012-15 Daniel led the Media Studies at the Midrasha Faculty of the Arts, Beit Berl Academic College. Daniel is the Co-founder and Director of oh-man, oh-machine – an art, science and technology platform that includes an international conference, workshops and a research lab.