Author Archives: Helinä Kuusela

Archiving the new media 23-25 Nov 2015

Maximum obsolescence or digital permanence?

ARCHIVING THE NEW MEDIA

Media Lab doctor of arts seminar

23-25 November 2015, Aalto Media Factory, Hämeentie 135, 00560 Helsinki

The seminar is open to Doctor of Arts and advanced Master of Arts students at Aalto University. Please sign up by 16th Nov 2015.
Prof. Lily Diaz

 

Keynote speakers

Raitis Smits Artist, curator and researcher on new media culture and networked arts, founder of E-Lab – electronic arts laboratory and RIXC – artist collective and new media cultural center in Riga

Jukka Savolainen, Director of Design Museum Helsinki

Perttu Rastas: “Archive media now, not when it’s obsolete!”

Founder of AV-arkki, the Distribution Centre for Finnish Media Art, Senior Planning Officer in the Collections Department, Finnish National Gallery

Ora Lassila , Semantic Web expert, technology architect at Pegasystems

Minna Tarkka, researcher, producer, critic and educator of media arts and design, director and co-founder of m-cult co-founded m-cult, centre for new media culture in Helsinki

Raimo Lång, Yleisradio

Head of Content Developement and Skills Training

 

Raimo is in charge of program/concept developement in TV, radio, web and transmedia. Additionally he leads the developement of professional training in feature journalism, docs, reality, drama and transmedia creation.

Summary of topic

To archive means to set aside for preservation and an archive is a storage site where materials deemed worthy of remembrance are kept. The objective of this seminar/workshop is to examine major points related to the preservation of new media art and practices. We will focus on the phenomenon of maximum obsolescence that currently permeates the new media and our digital world with the objective to investigate the possibility of digital permanence.

Ours could be labelled as the era of the “new-new”. Constant and relentless change has become a way of life. A non-stop stream of new artefacts rapidly supersedes the cultural matter created within one generation. In this context, our objective during the three days of the seminar/workshop will be to ponder about this current state of existence in our Information Society.

Among the topics we would like to focus, from a new media perspective that includes both the technical and the theoretical are: What is change? How does it affect our own practices as cultural producers? Is change now a permanent condition of being in our digital culture? What drives it? Are there proactive ways – or strategies that could be devised – which could lead us to some kind of digital permanence? How does this continuous change affect both the creation of new media art and design works as well as their collection? How does this in turn affect our cultural memory?

 

Methods of work

We will have keynote presentations as well as work time in groups. In order to participate, you need to bring a project or aspects of a topic that you will present and work with during the three days.

Learning outcomes

Participants will identify key landmarks and strategies that enable them to create their own Map for Change that they can continue to develop for their own practices.

Participating

The seminar is open to Doctor of Arts and advanced Master of Arts students at Aalto University. Please send a 300 word abstract of your project or topic with your contact information and coordinates to Helinä Kuusela (helina.kuusela@aalto.fi) no later than 19th Nov 2015.

 

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DOCTOR OF ARTS SEMINAR Sept 17, 2015

Sept 17, 2015

In the Doctoral Studies room on the 4th floor

Miestentie 3B, Otaniemi.

Media Lab presentations will begin at 17:00-19:00, but please join us to listen to the Graphic Design presentations from 15:00-17:00.

 

POST-OIL MUSEUM

Samir Bhowmik

The thesis explores a participatory and sustainable framework for open access and sharing of artifacts and narratives between museums and their user communities. It examines current mechanisms utilized by museums for synchronizing digital and cloud assets with online audiences and museum spaces to encourage participation. It investigates how social sharing and open access to digital collections affects energy-use and audience engagement. By implementation and analyses of various museum-installation projects and museum-energy studies undertaken by the author between 2012-15, this project-driven thesis attempts to synthesize the learning outcomes into working principles for museums. The principles constitute a multidisciplinary social, digital and spatial framework and may help structure creative and collaborative processes in museums that could be sustainable.

Keywords: digital, museum, cloud collections, community, participatory, sustainability, sharing, energy-use, spatial, social

FRAMING ARTISTIC RESEARCH

Heidi Tikka

How to frame one’s artistic research for the dissertation? In the current stage of my work, the key questions concern framing and structure. For the dissertation I will draw on the artistic productions completed since year 2000. The long  time span of productions will enable both lateral and vertical approaches. It is possible to follow the transformations of a particular project over time, or the development of a particular artistic research question in different projects over a number of sites and technical platforms. I will begin my talk, relating to these artistic projects, and will work towards the articulation of a frame for artistic research. My aim is to insist in the openness of the framing process. Therefore the focus of my presentation will be in the problems and the questions that I am encountering in the work of framing.

Documentation of my artistic projects at heiditikka.com

Symposium: New Media Research in Taiwan 7.9.2015 in Media Lab

Please join us for a small symposium on New Media Research in Taiwan.
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Our special guest speaker, Prof. Wendy Lai, the director of transArt NCTU and her colleagues will give a series of talks to share their researches and the current New Media Researches in Taiwan, a sci-tech island.
Four talks will take place in Room 420, 4th Floor, Media Lab(Miestentie 3, Otaniemi Campus) 7.9.2015 from 10:00 to 15.00.
 
You are all very welcome!
Please contact the Coordinator, doctoral candidate, Chen hung.chen@aalto.fi if you have questions.
Introduction of the presentations:
TITLE
Dance-technology: Uncertainty Based on Deterministic System
TIME
10.30-10.45
SPEAKER
Dr. Chi-Min HSIEH, Assistant Professor/ transArt NCTU team, Institute of Applied Arts, National Chiao Tung University, email: chimin.hsieh@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
In this talk, we will present a branch research project in dance-technology, focusing on “uncertainty based on deterministic system”, i.e. quasi-chaos. We distinguish the fundamental differences in comparison with Merce Cunningham’s “chance operation based on dice and I-Ching”. Secondly, we will share our on-going performance “Impermenance”. The work is a combination of dancing, interactive technology, and visual arts, which integrates powerful body languages and skillfully designed group dances with elegantly flowing images produced by fluids simulation and complex changes of communities imitated by flocks simulation. It explores the “permanence” and “impermanence” of life through the observation of various flow phenomena in the nature as well as intricately changing interpersonal relationships—either be it crazy love, dependence, competing, betraying or vacillating. Lastly, we will discuss the dichotomy of “usual” and “unusual.” While the usual represents what is accumulating slowly in everyday life, the unusual reflects the yearning for escaping from the present moment. Whichever can be considered another mode of being of “impermanence.”
 
chimin.hsieh
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TITLE
Social Design & Media Maker Project
TIME
11.00-11.15
SPEAKER
Dr. Chun-Cheng Hsu, Associate professor/ transArt NCTU team, Department of Communication and Technology, National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan chuncheng@mail.nctu.edu.tw
TITLE
Optical Fibers with Micro Physical Sensors in Art and Design
TIME
14.05-14.20
SPEAKERS
Dr. Wen-Shu Lai, Associate Professor/Director of transArt NCTU team Institute of Applied Arts, National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan wndylai@gmail.com
Dr. Hsi-Pin Ma, Associate Professor/NTHU EE Cognitive Applications R&D Group. Department of Electrical Engineering, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan hp@ee.nthu.edu.tw
ABSTRACT
This research is to explore the innovative applications of optical fibers with the ECG/RESP sensor technology in art as well as its emerging aesthetics derived from the application. An optical fiber is capable of transmitting messages. Through integrating optical fibers with the ECG/RESP sensor technology, we constructed an interactive clock titled ‘Clock Inside Out’. The physical data from the audience’s breathing and heartbeats are transformed into a stream of light by real-time signal processing and represent the second hand of the clock. The ‘Clock Inside Out’ not only reflects the existence of the audience, but also coexists with the audience in reality. Therefore, both a natural sensory world and temporality can be experienced at the same time. Besides the analysis of the work, we also discuss the aesthetic questions arising from it. Lastly, a conclusion of the new meanings of the ‘Clock Inside Out’ from the phenomenological point of view is drawn.   
wndylaiwndylai ​


TITLE
Botanic Workshop: Summon the Discourse
TIME
14.35-14.50
SPEAKER
Dr. Yueh-Tuan Li, Institute of Applied Arts / transArt NCTU team
ABSTRACT
The workshop: “Botanic Workshop: Summon the Discourse” was hosted by the transArt NCTU team in July 2015. Three artists are invited to lead the students from brainstorming to final presentations. The main goal of the workshop is to rethink the definition of plants, including whether plants have consciousness and the ability to communicate, whether plants should be considered to have rights as human beings do. With that in mind, students are expected to respond to the following questions in their final presentation: What kind of ‘plants’ will exist in the current world that would appear half-human and half-plant? And how will humans interact with them? Why will these ‘plants’ appear? How will they look like? What will they do? What is their relationship with human? What is their relationship with this world? The final presentations are therefore the team-effort artworks that would invite people to communicate with the plants.
yuehtuan

Call for Papers: HELSINKI PHOTOMEDIA 2016

Call for Papers

HELSINKI PHOTOMEDIA 2016

The third international photography research conference
March 30, 2016 – April 1, 2016
Organized by Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture, University of the Arts/Academy of Fine Arts Helsinki and University of Tampere.

Theme: Photographic Agencies and Materialities

 

Keynote Speakers:

Geoffrey Batchen (New Zealand)

Annika von Hausswolff (Sweden)

Liz Wells (UK)

As a new feature, Helsinki Photomedia 2016 introduces the Photographic Education conference panel for presenting education related research and projects under the conference theme.

Deadline for 500 word abstracts: 31st of October 2015

Helsinki Photomedia 2016 offers various platforms where artistic, philosophical, social, cultural, economical and technological approaches to photography meet. We welcome submissions from all areas of photography research. The conference language is English.

Recently, the critical focus in photography studies has increasingly moved towards the materiality or different materialities of photographic representation. Semiotic and iconic readings have become challenged by material and multisensory conceptions. As Elizabeth Edwards puts it: ‘Our understanding of photographic representations is not merely a question of visual recognition or semiotic but that visual experiences are mediated through the material nature and material performance in the formats and presentations of visual images.’ This applies to all fields of photography, from fine art to journalism and the amateur image culture.

In contemporary debates, matter is no longer seen as passive material formed by human actors – matter, materials, and materiality are actors. Inasmuch as the photographic apparatus incorporates technology, practice, and discourse, material agency should be recognized on all these levels: technologies, practices, and discourses all have their particular materialities. Our challenge is to study how they interact.

The emphasis on materiality and agency subscribes to the larger drift in social sciences and humanities where different forms of ‘new materialisms’, ‘non- representational’ approaches or ‘thing theories’ encompass descriptions about the materiality of objects and their agency in social networks. In the context of

photography studies, among the important questions are: What are the materialities of the traditional photographic image? How have they changed in the course of digitalization? What is the relation between iconicity and materiality? How do different agencies and materialities contribute to the formation of meaning in the photograph? What and how do matters matter, in the first place?

Multi-disciplinary photography research and photography education are the fields where questions of agency and materiality are raised, shaped and put into practice. Helsinki Photomedia 2016 will take up the multifaceted issues of photographic agencies and materialities by focusing on topics including (but not limited to):

– Agency, materiality and historical images

– Questions of materiality in contemporary art photography

– Material conditions of digital photography

– Affordances of photography

– Photography education

http://helsinkiphotomedia.aalto.fi

For Helsinki Photomedia 2012 conference, see Photographies 1/2013.
For Helsinki Photomedia 2014 conference, see Photographic Powers (published online June 2015)

Important Dates:

31 October 2015 — Deadline for submissions (500 word abstracts) By 23.59 Finnish time (UCT +2:00)

1 December 2015 — Notification of Acceptance

1 March 2016 — Deadline for Registration

30 March – 1 April 2016 — Conference

The Future of the Museum and Gallery Design – Call for Proposals

Call for Proposals

The Future of Museum and Gallery Design

An international conference exploring creative research and practice in museum making

Are you involved in the practice of designing or redeveloping museums and galleries? Are you undertaking research into an aspect of museum design or visitor experience? Are you interested in learning from and with others involved in museum design internationally?

The organisers are seeking proposals for papers, presentations, creative research-led workshops and training workshops.

As well as seeking submissions which explore creative approaches to the design of meaningful and engaging visitor experiences, the conference seeks case studies and research which will expose the potential for design processes and design thinking to make a significant contribution to the strategic development of museums and cultural organisations internationally, challenging conventional approaches to museum and gallery making and seeking to unleash the potential of design and creativity for the cultural sector.

Themes might include but will not be limited to:

  • Spaces for people and design for use
  • The production of social spaces and sites for dialogue in the context of a consumer driven society
  • The integration of art, culture and everyday life
  • The development of sites for social engagement, wellbeing and place-making
  • New museum and gallery design processes and the challenges of creating a framework for interpretive design
  • Collaborative museum making
  • Narrative environments and storytelling-in-space
  • Designing for visitor participation and experience
  • Experimental approaches to museum and experience making which place the visitor at the heart of the design process
  • Community art and community-led design
  • Understanding the needs of visitors – perception, embodiment and sociality
  • The role of design and ‘design thinking’ in museum making
  • The challenges of cross-cultural exchange in museum and gallery design
  • Design research and its contribution to museum making

Deadline: 30th June 2015. Decisions on accepted proposals by end July 2015.

https://thefutureofmuseumandgallerydesign.wordpress.com

Dates: 13-15 November 2015

 

Invitation: Aalto Digi Breakfast on Digital Cultural Heritage 19.5.2015

 

Aaltofest

Dear recipient,

welcome to the Aalto Digi Breakfast on “Digital Cultural Heritage”!

May 19, 2015, at 8:00-9:30 o’clock, at Open Innovation House (OIH), Otaniementie 19, Espoo

Please register no later than 11 May at

http://www.aalto.fi/en/research/platforms/digi/cultural_heritage/digital_cultural_heritage_registration/

and forward this invitation to your colleagues, too. Details at

http://www.aalto.fi/en/research/platforms/digi/cultural_heritage

Today our topic is how to make the collections held by libraries, archives, museums and audiovisual archives available online, and how this is a win-win for culture and research.

Programme:

8:00 Breakfast is served
8:15 Opening by professor Lily Diaz
8:25 Presentations:

  • Professor Eero Hyvönen: Publishing Cultural Heritage on the Semantic Web as Linked Open Data – Tools, Services, and Applications of the Semantic Computing Research Group (SeCo)
  • Jukka Savolainen: Digital media in the museum – a tool for visitor engagement or material for collections
  • Hannu Häkkinen: Digital Cultural Heritage and the Picture Collections of the National Board of Antiquities: objectives and challenges
  • Heli Kautonen: Access improved – Finnish culture for creative industries in Finna

9:25 Wrap-up and next steps at Aalto

Digitalization of the cultural heritage of humanity is one of the pressing issues in the Information Society. As the keepers of the nation’s heritage, heritage institutions such as archives, libraries and museums are implicated not only in the safeguarding of the patrimony that tells history of the people, but also in how that history is narrated. In our contemporary world that mission has been rendered into a task that translates to more that being repositories of artefacts. Nowadays museums for example, are expected to provide a wide array of services, from the ubiquitous guided tours, to more challenging activities including sessions in which visually challenged patrons can handle 3D forms, such as sculptures, to activities in which young audiences might learn about ‘sonification’ techniques to render accessible visual works of art, to workshops where immigrants and first-generation citizens search to find a way to reflect themselves into the fabric of the nation. During this session we will hear from experts who are involved in this important work.

Today’s event is also part of Aalto Festival http://www.aaltofestival.fi/2015/en/

Aalto Festival showcases the talents of Aalto University students, graduates and faculty. The festival is a collection of over 30 events, exhibitions, and seminars, and takes place in Helsinki and Espoo 18–31 May 2015.

In the Digi Breakfasts, Aalto university’s key digi themes are discussed within the Aalto community and with outside stakeholders. The events are open for everyone and they are arranged by Aalto Digi Platform which is Aalto’s new means of collaboration in the field of ICT and digitalisation, to maximize Aalto’s internal synergies in a non-exclusive manner, and to increase Aalto’s external visibility.

Aalto University is the leading university in Finland in the field of digitalization in the number of students, professors, publications or funding. In the field of ICT, Aalto belongs to the best 1% of all universities worldwide. http://aalto.fi/digiplatform

More information from: ella.bingham@aalto.fi and yrjo.neuvo@aalto.fi (Digi Platform), lily.diaz@aalto.fi (Digital Cultural Heritage), mauri.airila@aalto.fi (Aalto’s Platforms).

Welcome!

Mauri Airila

Professor, Assoc. VP

Aalto University

Invitation_pdf

Events in May 2015

 May 2015

12th Sound Theory at The Researchers’ Breakfast

8.30-10.30am Service Factory (Runebergsgatan 14-16, Helsinki) e37afabe-9dab-45e1-abfe-f6cb9e63398b

Join us to talk about urban planning by Sound Theory at The Researchers’ Breakfast on May 12th! A doctoral student and researcher Olli Hakanen will present his theory on sustainable creative action through a case study: how the introduction of a new system of mobility and a new concept of daily working hours converts a city of 600,000 inhabitants into a metropolis of 4,5 million. We have aslo invited professor Matti Vartiainen from the School of Science and the managing director and reseacher Seppo Laakso from Urban Research Ltd. to join the discussion on the topic.

The breakfast is served at the Service Factory (Töölö) at 8.30-10.30. Olli Hakanen starts his speech at 9:00. You are most warmly welcome to bring a friend – the breakfast event is open for everyone. To ensure there’s enough breakfast for everyone, please sign up here for the event or via banner below.

The Researchers’ Breakfast is organized in collaboration with Aalto Factories (Media, Design, Service and Health) as well as Research Institute (Aalto ARTS), Research support services and International Relations.

18th Aalto Festival Opening

2–5pm at Bio Rex, Lasipalatsi (Mannerheimintie 22–24, Helsinki)

The opening launches a two-week festival showcasing the talents of Aalto University students, graduates, and academics.

At the opening you will hear interesting talks by top experts in various fields, all of whom are alumni of Aalto University. The speakers are Doctor of Arts, Professor Olga Goriunova, Doctor of Science (Econ.) Heikki Lempinen and Doctor of Science (Tech.) Ilmo Kukkonen, Professor of Solid Earth Geophysics.

After the talks, we’ll enjoy some refreshments in good company.  A selection of Helsinki School’s finest photographs from its 20-year history will be on display in the foyer.

Please register for the opening, preferably by 11 May at the Aalto Festival website. The opening programme will be held in English.

Welcome!

Aaltofest

18th -30th  Aalto festival 2015

Aalto Festival showcases the talents of Aalto University students, graduates and faculty. The two-week festival is a collection of over 30 events, exhibitions and seminars. Aalto Festival takes place in various locations in Helsinki and Espoo 18–31 May. Come enjoy new experiences and hear interesting talks!

http://www.aaltofestival.fi/2015/en/

 19th  Digi Breakfast on Digital Culture Heritage

8-9.30 am Open Innovation House (OIH), Otaniementie 19, Espoo

Please register no later than 11 May at

http://www.aalto.fi/en/research/platforms/digi/cultural_heritage/digital_cultural_heritage_registration/

and forward this invitation to your colleagues, too. Details at

http://www.aalto.fi/en/research/platforms/digi/cultural_heritage

Presentations by:

Prof. Eero Hyvönen, Research Director and Professor/Aalto University & University of Helsinki: Publishing Cultural Heritage on the Semantic Web as Linked Open Data – Tools, Services, and Applications of the Semantic Computing Research Group (SeCo)

Jukka Savolainen, Director/ Design Museum Helsinki: Digital media in the museum – a tool for visitor engagement or material for collections 

Heli Kautonen, Head of Services/ The National Library of Finland: Access improved – Finnish culture for creative industries in Finna

Hannu Häkkinen, Intendent & Keeper, The Picture Collections, National Board of Antiquities: Digital Cultural Heritage and the Picture Collections of the National Board of Antiquities: objectives and challenges

19th-24th Exhibition: SPRING—STEAM 2015 –  Footnote to a Graphic Design Programme

Design Forum Showroom, Erottajankatu 9 B (inner courtyard), Helsinki

Opening reception, Tuesday 19 May from 16.00 – 21.00 Featuring Matti Kunttu (Tsto), Marion Robinson (Sanakuva Collective), Timo Berry (BOTH), Henri Pulkkinen (Paperi T), a performance by KOM MO NIS MI, and drinks and DJ.

Wednesday 20 May

10:00 Muotoilijan aamiainen

18.00 Guest speakers: Johannes Ekholm, Elisabeth Klement and Laura Pappa, (Asterisk Summer School), Åbäke

Thursday 21 May
17.00 Guest speakers: Indrek Sirkel and Anu Vahtra (Lugemik), Kaarle Hurtig (Kaarle & Kumppanit), Lauri Toikka (Schick Toikka)The exhibition will be open through Sunday 24 at the Design Forum Showroom, Erottajankatu 9 B (inner courtyard), Helsinki.Detailed event happenings and list of special guests: http://springsteam.aalto.fiJoin the Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1590938304486063/

28th Media Lab Demo Day

2-5pm 1st floor, Miestentie 3, 20150 Espoo

28th – 29th Contextualizing Marxism – Open Seminar and PhD Course

Aalto University Töölö Campus, Aalto BIZ Main building, Class room A-407 Runeberginkatu 14-16, Helsinki.

This is a great and rare opportunity during the Spring term 2015 to participate on Aalto/BIZ seminars and collaborate and interact with the students from BIZ/Department of Organizational Communication, as well as an opportunity to study with the teaching faculty:

Aalto Distinguished Visiting Professor A. Fuat Firat, University of Texas – Pan American, USA, Professor Alan Bradshaw, Royal Holloway, University of London, and Professor James Fitchett, University of Leicester.

We all, Aalto ARTS/DoM Phd students, are warmly welcomed to attend the seminar by Professor Johanna Moisander, Dep of Org. Comm. Aalto BIZ students who wish to get credit points (1-3) for participating in the seminar may write a reflective essay on the lectures and learning material (TBC). Questions concerning information on credit points for us, Aalto ARTS/Dom Phd students, as well as signing up for the seminar, contact first Professor Lily Diaz.

If you know of future events that might interest the Department of Media research community, please let me know: helina.kuusela@aalto.fi