Author Archives: Karl Ketamo

Defence of dissertation in the field of New Media, MM Daniel Landau

Event Schedule

This defence was held remotely via Zoom (https://aalto.zoom.us/j/66171694442)

on 10.12.2020 14:00 – 18:00

Event language(s)

English

Title of the doctoral thesis:

Becoming Other. Virtual Embodiment – Blurring the Self-Other Binary

Opponent: Professor Mel Slater, Universitat de Barcelona

Custos: Professor Lily Díaz-Kommonen, Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Department of Media

Abstract

“The research presented in my dissertation explores the impact of virtual reality (VR) and virtual embodiment technologies on the distinction between ‘self and other’ in interpersonal and intergroup contexts. In a series of five empirical experiments and three art projects, I investigated this self-other distinction in the context of the ever-evolving relationship between technology and the self.

Using stereoscopic 180º video, I explore the impact of virtual encounters transitioning from meeting others to becoming ‘the other.’ The first study shows that meeting in VR a person who shares a painful story elicits a high degree of empathetic care and facial synchrony. The next study shows that experiencing ingroup aggression from an outgroup perspective increases empathy towards the outgroup compared to seeing the same scenario from the ingroup’s perspective. Next, I present an art project devising a novel and effective technique to induce virtual embodiment using 180º stereoscopic video, followed by empirical evaluation and validation of this technique. Next, I show that meeting yourself in virtual reality as an experimental paradigm can increase self-compassion. And finally, in a VR museum installation, I demonstrate the potential of VR for social impact.

This manuscript explores various VR methods of placing participants “in others’ shoes” and provides both new insights and novel methods for using VR and virtual embodiment for storytelling, art installations, and social interventions. ”

The dissertation is publicly displayed online 10 days before the defence at:https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/doc_public/eonly/riiputus/

Doctoral Seminar // 19.11.2020

New Media / Doctoral Seminar (DOM-L0007)

Welcome to November’s New Media Doctoral Seminar!

Presentations are open to everyone!

Join us in Zoom:

Thursday // 19.11.2020 // 16:30-19:30

https://aalto.zoom.us/j/61913960646

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Mediated by Professor Lily Diaz-Kommonen we will have two fascinating presentations + Q&A discussion after the presentations.

Presentations by:

Yrjö Tuunanen

Doctoral Candidate / Aalto University / Department of Media / School of Arts, Design and Architecture

Heidi Hirsto

DSc(Econ), works as Associate Professor in University of Vaasa, School of Marketing and Communication and Digital Economy Research Platform.

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Yrjö Tuunanen

Narrative Frames and Framing Narratives – Narrative transparency in news discourse

Abstract

Narrativity and transparency in news media can be regarded as reactions to the ubiquitous communication online where numerous actors seek for audience attention and compete for claims to truth. Yet, the relationship of narrativity, transparency, and truth, is complex, and there is a need for studying their relations from the perspective of narrative persuasion. Nevertheless, definitions of and research on narrative transparency in journalism has had little attention among news media scholars. The research of the author aims to contribute for filling this gap.

In his dissertation the author seeks to contribute to an increased need for knowledge about narrative structures, how these are used in the news, and the effect they have in the attribution of truth-value. In order to do that, he explores possibilities and challenges brought about by the internet, social media, and digitalization, as well as the shift in professional journalistic ideals and practices from objectivity towards transparency and narrativity. The research indicates that while there are some studies that analyze the challenge of “false narratives” in news discourse as well as media manipulation in online environments, there is still a need for studying subtle forms of narrative persuasion in both digital and more traditional forms of journalism.

The current mediasphere can be seen as a complex discursive environment where numerous known and unknown storytellers deploy narrative framings to direct attention toward certain interpretations of news. Digital media and the internet facilitate openness, interaction, and instant access to media discourses for media professionals and audiences alike. It enables new discursive platforms and facilitates new narrative forms as well as transparency practices online. While the potential of social media to promote diverse voices is widely acknowledged, there are also several problems and challenges associated with social media and their relation to professional journalism. Fake news, social bots, internet trolls, and echo chambers on social media platforms are phenomena related to disinformation campaigns and manipulation on public opinion in news discourse.

In this presentation, in addition to the etiology of some of the central concepts of the research, the author focuses specifically on how non-journalist participants affect news discourse. In other words, the presentation sheds light on a form of narrative persuasion through which non-journalist participants may affect news discourse by importing content from outside the primary “news frames” and cueing into underlying “framing narratives”. The author introduces a conceptual analysis model, titled Narrative Transparency Model, and discusses how it may help to theorize and demonstrate how framing narratives may be imported into news stories to unsettle journalistic narrative frames, and how imported content, such as vague or misplaced references, may generate discursive power through mobilizing framing narratives.

Bio

Yrjö Tuunanen is doctoral candidate in Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Department of Media, Media Lab, Helsinki, Finland. He holds a Master’s Degree in Photography from University of Industrial Arts, Helsinki, Finland. His research interests concern critical, multimodal, and narrative approaches to media discourses in both digital and more traditional forms of journalism. His dissertation focuses on discursive functions of narrative assets in media discourses. In his current research, he studies how narrative transparency may support credibility of professional journalism as well as advance analytical and critical news discourse skills for media audiences and professionals alike.

During 1990 – 2012, he worked as a photojournalist and a teacher of digital and documentary photography. During 2012 – 2013, together with Heidi Hirsto, D.Sc. (Econ.), he implemented an international collaborative research project titled, M-Scopes, Mediated Significations of Finance, focusing on the ways in which economic phenomena and mechanisms are represented in the web-based news media. He has produced, organized, and hosted Talous kuvina Seminar 2010 in Lahti University of Applied Sciences, Finland. Together with Heidi Hirsto, D.Sc. (Econ.), he produced, organized, and hosted international M-Scopes Seminar in 2012 in Helsinki, Finland.  During 2013 -2017 he worked as a consultant on digital visualization of financial information for the Ministry of Finance, Finland. His work has appeared in international scholarly publications and in a book titled, Crisis Talk and the Media – Narratives of crisis across cultural settings.

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Heidi Hirsto

Encounter, relation, constitution: Views from the organizational communication field

Abstract

In this presentation, I seek answers to what happened when I recently opened a box of “The Golden Piggybank” magazines (Kultapossu) published in the 1980s. Drawing on topical reflections in the field of communication studies, particularly in the “communication as constitutive of organizations” (CCO) tradition, I discuss the materiality, affectivity, and relationality of communication, and the resulting, tentative reunion of “transmission” and “constitution” views to communication. It turns out that my plans to “use” the magazines as (textual) data backfired as my encounter with them turned affective and performative.

Bio Heidi Hirsto, DSc(Econ), works as Associate Professor in University of Vaasa, School of Marketing and Communication and Digital Economy Research Platform. She is specialized in the study of discourse and communication across a range of disciplines and topics, spanning from media studies and consumer studies to organizational discourse and communication. Her current work focuses on the ways in which digital culture and digital spaces reorganize people’s possibilities to exert social influence as economic citizens. Her work has appeared, e.g. in Organization Studies; Consumption, Markets and Culture; and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, as well as in research books.

 

CAAD Futures 2021 Design Imperatives: The Future is Now

CAAD Futures 2021 is now open for submissions under the title “Design Imperatives: The Future is Now.” The conference and its workshops are scheduled to take place between the 11th and 19th of July 2021.  

 

CAAD Futures is a biannual international conference on computational architecture that, among similar events, stands out as a more reflective meeting intending a comprehensive perspective of the field. It was founded in 1985 by theCAAD Futures Foundation with the mission to “advance Computer Aided Architectural Design in the service of those concerned with the quality of the built environment”.

 

Open Call: Under the title “Design Imperatives: The Future is Now” this iteration of CAAD Futures intends to inquire into the contemporary relevance of the conference mission, extending its call to the various research areas relevant to design computing and its practice. Main tracks include: Past Futures Present Futures (Histories, theories and critique of design computing; antecedent futures; intersectionality, politics, aesthetics and ethics of space; CAAD literacy and methodologies); Architectural Automations & Augmentations (in the scope of Design, Fabrication and the Environment); Policies & Practices (Participatory and Collaborative Practices; Rethinking Sustainability; New Models of Architectural Diplomacy); as well as an Open Track.

 

Venue and format: The conference is formally hosted by the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles, USA. However, given the current circumstances regarding the COVID-19 pandemic the conference chairs are planning for a hybrid and distributed conference, accessible remotely both to registrants and to the wider public alike. Whether the conference will have a main physical venue at USC remains to be announced by the end of the year by evaluation of the global circumstances and in compliance with public health and safety directives regarding mass events and travelling.

 

Paper submissions are open until January 18th 2021. We expect full papers in short and long formats (up to 10 pages and between 15-20 pages respectively). Papers go through a two-phase double-blind peer review. Accepted papers are included in a Conference Proceedings volume published by the CAAD Futures Foundation (indexed in the CumInCAD database) while a smaller selection of the best contributions is published in a CCIS series volume by Springer.

 

Workshop submissions are open until February 15th 2021. Workshops precede the conference, taking place between July 11-15 2021, and are intended to inform it with their results. CAAD Futures 2021 is interested in exploring a range of hybrid viable workshop formats, from purely digital to purely physical options. We are open to distributed workshops, with components taking place in geographic locations and time-zones different from that of the formal venue. We also welcome different workshop types (e.g. tutorials, seminars, discussions) as well as delivery scenarios that applications are required to specify. 

 

Conference chairs
Dr David Gerber (University of Southern California)
Dr Evangelos Pantazis (IBI Group; University of Southern California)
Dr Alicia Nahmad (UCalgary; Architectural Association)
Biayna Bogosian (University of Southern California; Florida International University)
Constantinos Miltiadis (Aalto University) 

 

For the Open Call, important dates, paper and workshop submission guidelines and further information visit the CAAD Futures 2021 website at http://caadfutures2021.org/

Doctoral Seminar //  15.10.2020

New Media / Doctoral Seminar (DOM-L0007)

Welcome to the second New Media Doctoral Seminar of the semester.

Presentations are open to everyone!

Join us in Zoom:

Thursday // 15.10.2020 // 16:30-19:30

https://aalto.zoom.us/j/68065435302

Mediated by Professor Lily Diaz-Kommonen we will have two fascinating presentations + Q&A discussion after the presentations.

Presentations by:

Andrew Gryf Paterson(Doctoral Candidate / Aalto University / Department of Media /  School of Arts, Design and Architecture)

Vytautas Michelkevičius(Curator, researcher and associate professor. Head of Photography and Media Art Department and Doctoral Programme in Fine Arts in Vilnius Academy of Arts)

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Andrew Gryf Paterson (Doctoral Candidate / Aalto University / Department of Media /  School of Arts, Design and Architecture)

Autoarchaeologies / of an artist-organiser

(doing fieldwork) in Finland and Latvia.

Abstract

As we live our lives in environments which are increasingly digitised—pervasively recorded in databases and archival systems, with each social exchange and encounter—the more concerns exist about personal data, metadata, and the digital shadow or footprint that we leave behind in our mobilities using mobile devices. How to make sense of and re-present activities and experiences— that have happened as open-ended events and processes in multiple contexts—over time? How do seemingly disparate activities or agencies relate to each other? How do past, present and future practices relate to each other in timelines? What do gaps reveal within our personal data archaeological record, and the stories we make? How does linear-temporal objectification of lived experience and work relate to non-linear foldings and relationships of what I—and we—organise, research, create, make and do?

This article-based doctoral dissertation develops a particular practice-based methodology, named here as autoarchaeologies, to reflect upon the author’s ‘artist-organiser’ practice over an extended durational period of 2002-2020, mostly in Finland and Latvia, with particular focus on the later decade. There are 5 roles of ‘Artist as’.. -organiser, -researcher, -archivist, -archaeologist and -activist which are presented as interweaving into a hybrid arts method. Each of these roles are elaborated with reference to practice-based inspiration or literature. The author presents themselves as a researcher with an autoethnographic ‘artistic fieldwork’ approach to reflecting and contextualising hybrid arts in the social process and environment of its development, which includes media arts festivals & network culture scenes in North-East Europe. However, innovatively, the methodological perspective is to combine perspectives and data-recording methods from traditional and contemporary archaeologies ‘of the recent contemporary past’, which address the data records we are leaving in databases as we live, work, and travel in the contemporary world.

Early inspiration in the research process extended earlier augmented reality research using stratigraphy as an authoring metaphor, which then morphed into explorations of metadata and context with the emerging mobile media interfaces and concepts, such as locative media, in the early-mid 2000s. Participatory arts, design and online platforms have influenced a non-mediated, post-media perspective, and led towards a mix of meta-data coding, printing and mapping large-scale diagrams of the author’s Curriculum vitae. Additional hand-drawn lines were added with the imagination of recovering a literally-personal touch to the mass of objectified and abstract data  (2011a).

Each of the 4 single-author case articles (2011b, 2013a, 2016, 2020) offer a different way to reflect and narrate the process that the author has been involved in over shorter or longer time periods. Each have their own loci, context, and stories, but are heterogeneous to each other, which—with the exception of author centred in narrative each in reflection—need their own meta-narrative. Hence, the ambition of the stratigraphs. However, as the thesis comes to it’s conclusion, there are still subjectivities and externalities that typically are left out from the narrative. It is this very personal data and perspective which the author tries to face up to at the end of the process as an outcome, to move onwards, still outgoing.

In the context of increased meta-data-augmented documentation of practices and everyday life, via ubiquitous mobile computing and online publishing platforms, there is arguably an increasing amount of personal (small or big) data to interpret and analysis. Critical activist-scholars are increasingly concerned with the age of surveillance capitalism, data-(self-)colonisation. As a contribution to this field, this thesis chimes with the multitudes of data available about our own and others past activities, and the need to develop interpretative tools independent of corporate online platforms. It argues alongside prominent contemporary archaeological theorists that we can all (potentially) be archaeologists and narrators of our own personal data. This author joins the argument that we urgently need ways to take back control of our personal data on our own terms, and find ways to de-colonise ourself from platform capitalism. It offers a slow research, long-overview and personal approach, via practice-based research, of self-determination in how we can tell about our past, but also the potential freedom to share our lives in present and future societies.

Articles included within thesis

#1  Paterson, A. G. (2011a). Stratigraphical recall: An auto-archaeological interpretation for artistic fieldwork, In Lily Diaz (ed.), Special issue of Journal of Visual Arts Practices, Vol. 10 # 1, ISSN 1470-2029. Bristol: Intellect Ltd. https://doi.org/10.1386/jvap.10.1.51_1

#2  Paterson, A. G. (2020). ‘Kitchen labs: Spilling one’s guts / Deep fry together’. Accepted September 2020 as full paper to ‘Art of Research’ Symposium, Helsinki, 3-4.12.2020.  https://artofresearch2020.aalto.fi/

#3  Paterson, A. G. (2016). Reflections on soil future(s), present(s) and past(s), In Rasa Smite, Armin Medosch, Kerstin Mey, Raitis Smits (eds.), Acoustic Space #15: Open fields, Peer-reviewed Journal for Transdisciplinary Research on Art, Science, Technology and Society, Riga-Liepaja: RIXC-MPLab, 2016. Accessible from: https://archive.org/details/agryfp-2015-soil-presents-pasts-futures

#4  Paterson, A. G. (2013a). Mountain crowberries: Foraging and measuring knowledge or experience, In Laura Beloff, Erich Berger & Terike Haapoja (eds.), Field_Notes: Field and Laboratory as Sites for Art&Science Practices , Helsinki: Finnish Bioart Society, 2013. Accessible from: http://bioartsociety.fi/book/Field_Notes-From_Landscape_To_Laboratory-2013.pdf

#5  Paterson, A. G. (2011b). From a pull-down screen, fold-up chairs, a laptop and a projector: The development of Clip Kino screenings, workshops and roles in Finland, In Geert Lovink & Rachel Somers Miles (eds.), Video Vortex Reader II: Moving images beyond YouTube, Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, 2011. p.81-94. Accessible from: http://networkcultures.org/videovortex/vv-reader/

Additional Reference links

• Presentation in the ‘Creative Disruption in Archaeological Theory and Practice’ track within 2018 Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA) international conference, 19-23.3.2018, at University of Tübingen, Germany. ‘Towards Autarchaeological Archiving’ [EN]: https://archive.org/details/agryfp-2018-towards-autoarchaeological-archiving

• Presentation at National Centre for Contemporary Arts (NCCA) Kaliningrad, Russia, with title ‘Artistic Fieldwork in Finland and Latvia’ [EN/RU]: https://archive.org/details/agryfp-2013-artistic-fieldwork-in-finland-latvia-ncca-kaliningrad

Bio

‘Artist-organiser’, cultural producer, educator and independent researcher. Specialises in developing and leading inter- and trans- disciplinary projects exploring connections between art, digital culture and science, cultural activism, ecological and sustainability movements, cultural heritage and collaborative networks. Originally from Scotland, Andrew has been most active in the past decades in Helsinki, Finland, aswell as Latvia and the Baltic Sea region, in particular. He works across the fields of media/ network/ environmental arts and activism, pursuing a participatory practice through workshops, performative events, & storytelling.

His main involvement of recent years has been with memembers of Pixelache Helsinki node of Pixelache Network. From early 2011 until end of 2014, he was coordinator and facilitator of the ‘Pixelversity’ around-the-year informal educational programme for Pixelache [http://pixelache.ac]. Within Pixelache context, he was most recently involved in the collaborative work-group project ‘Ferment Lab’ (2015-2018) and BioSignals (2018-2020). Over the longer period since 2003, his experience, reflections and findings have been written as articles in various international cultural publications, journals, presented in inter and trans-disciplinary festivals.

He is currently completing a long-term Doctor of Arts candidacy at Aalto University School of Art and Design, Media Department, with working thesis titled “Autoarchaeologies”. Paterson already holds a multi-disciplinary education, with a BA(Hons) Fine Arts degree from Glasgow School of Art (1997), and a MSc degree in Computer-Aided Graphical Technology Applications from University of Teesside (2001).

Download abstract, table of contents & bibliography 

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Vytautas Michelkevičius (Curator, researcher and associate professor. Head of Photography and Media Art Department and Doctoral Programme in Fine Arts in Vilnius Academy of Arts)

“Atlas of Diagrammatic Imagination” (2019): How Can Maps Transfer Knowledge in Artistic Research”

Abstract

How does a diagram differ from a text? What are the pros and cons of diagrams when compared to text? Can a map be a research component, an artwork, and a scientific means of communication, all at the same time? How do diagrams mediate between different cognitive systems? How can diagrams convey bodily experiences and gestures? How do they facilitate education? These are only few questions that delineate a general research territory where the book authors’ imaginations overlap.

Even though cartographic references play an important role, many of the maps presented and discussed in this atlas go beyond the geographical notion of map, and they often bear no reference to either a location or its representation. They may involve multilayered diagrams, trajectories of a freely moving body or a hand, visual signs of hesitancy, tools of material or visual thinking, charts of tacit knowledge, notations of sensual data, or the models of research hypotheses or findings.

This research is also a response to the times we live in. In the face of ever-increasing information flows and the challenges of big data processing and rendition, a linear text is not always the most suggestive form of communication. Meanwhile in maps, within a single plane, we can operate with multiple layers of knowledge, and use different means of expression in order to discover unexpected links.

And yet, in the context of our lifestyles as driven by ubiquitous touchscreens, this atlas might appear as a capricious act of dissent.  We call our readers and users to slow down, get comfortable, and immerse or even lose themselves in the essays, diagrams, and fold-out maps.

“Atlas of Diagrammatic Imagination: Maps in Research, Art and Education”, Lina Michelkevičė & Vytautas Michelkevičius (eds.), Vilnius Academy of Arts Press, 2019

Bio

Dr. Vytautas Michelkevičius (Vilnius, LT) is a curator, writer and researcher whose focus was gradually shifting from photography in expanded field to media art & theory and lately to artistic research in academia and beyond. He is teaching art practice & theory BA, MA and DA/PhD students in Vilnius Academy of Arts and served as artistic director of Nida Art Colony (2010-2019). Since 2019 he is the head of Photography and Media Art Department and Doctoral Programme in Fine Arts in the same academy. He has curated numerous symposiums and exhibitions, among them Lithuanian Pavilion in Venice Biennale. He has edited and authored more than 10 books on art, media and residencies.https://vilnius.academia.edu/VytautasMichelkevicius

Doctoral Seminar // 24.09.2020

New Media / Doctoral Seminar (DOM-L0006)

Welcome to the first New Media Doctoral Seminar of the semester!

Thursday // 24.09.2020

16:30-20:00

Join us in Zoom

https://aalto.zoom.us/j/61323477009

We start by having a catch up with the M’Labbers between 16:30-17:00

The presentations are OPEN TO EVERYONE and will start at 17:00

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Mediated by Professor Lily Diaz-Kommonen we will have two great presentations + Q&A discussion after the presentations!

Massimo Menichinelli (Doctoral Candidate / Aalto University / School of Arts, Design and Architecture)

Open and collaborative design processes. Meta-Design, ontologies and platforms within the Maker Movement

ABSTRACT

The emergence of the Maker Movement has taken place in the context of a design practice and research that is now open, peer-to-peer, diffuse, distributed, decentralized; activity-based; meta-designed; ontologically-defined; locally-bounded but globally-networked and community-centered. For many years the author participated and worked in the Maker Movement, with a special focus on its usage of digital platforms and digital fabrication tools for collaboratively designing and manufacturing digital and physical artifacts as Open Design projects. The author’s main focus in practice and research as a meta-designer was in understanding how can participants in distributed systems collaboratively work together through tools and platforms for the designing and managing of collaborative processes. The main research question of this dissertation is: How can we support and integrate the research and practice of meta-designers in analyzing, designing and sharing open and collaborative design and making processes within open, peer-to-peer and distributed systems?

The focus evolved and changed with three main phases: from facilitating collaborative design processes with 1) guidelines for a generic design approach, process and tools, to the use of 2) design tools and workshops that encode the methodology to developing 3) a digital ontology and the related digital platform. In the latter, the ontology for describing, documenting, sharing and designing collaborative design processes was developed as part of a broader conceptual framework, OpenMetaDesign, that builds the ontology on top of concepts describing design processes, and encodes it in a digital platform. The role of the ontology is to support the practice and research with a Research through Design approach that works not just on understanding the practice but also informing it, navigating it and continuously redesigning it. This dissertation is an exploration of the possible role, practice and profile of meta-designers that work in facilitating distributed, open and collaborative design and making processes in the Maker Movement. As a result, it provides insights on the practice and artifacts of the author and also a strategy and tools for applying the same exploration to other meta-designers. Following a Research through Design framework for bridging practice and research, the dissertation redefines Meta-Design in the Maker Movement as the design of digital ontologies of design processes as design material. Ultimately, the practice of designing a Metadata Ontology for Ontological Design through the design of bits (digital environments) and atoms (physical artifacts) with and for Open, Peer-to-Peer, Diffuse, Distributed and Decentralized Systems. Finally, it redefines meta-designers as designers, facilitators, participants, developers and researchers embedded in social networks that define their activities, profiles and boundaries for the ontologies they design.

 

BIO

Massimo Menichinelli is a designer and researcher who works on open, collaborative, and co-design projects and the systems that enable them since 2005. Massimo has published several books and scientific articles about Fab Labs, the Maker movement, Open Design and collaborative design processes; furthermore, he has given lectures and workshops in various countries including Italy, Spain, Finland, Germany, United Kingdom, Mexico, Colombia, South Korea and Singapore. He worked on the development of several Fab Labs including the Aalto Fab Lab (Helsinki), the MUSE Fab Lab (Trento) and Opendot (Milan), and has facilitated more while working as a Director at Make In Italy Italian Fablab & Makers CDB Foundation where he researched and facilitated Fab Labs and Makers in Italy. He lectured on Digital Fabrication and Open Design at Aalto University, SUPSI (Lugano) and at the Fab Academy edition at WeMake and Opendot (Milan). He also worked as a project manager for research projects at IAAC | Fab City Research Lab / Fab Lab Barcelona, especially in the MAKE-IT, SISCODE and DSISCALE Horizon 2020 European projects, as coordinator of the DDMP – Distributed Design Market Platform project of Creative Europe and as project manager of Fablabs.io, the official and open source platform for the global Fab Lab Network. He currently is Research Fellow at RMIT University – Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, in its European Hub in Barcelona, managing the Horizon 2020 MSCA-RISE project OpenInnoTrain.

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André Rocha(Adjunct Professor at the Higher School of Education from the Polytechnic of Lisbon)

ABSTRACT

GROUU is a Research through Design process aimed at understanding the role of Tacit Knowledge (TK) in an Open Source Agriculture ecosystem. To do so, different iterations of the same system – GROUU – will be introduced to different real agricultural contexts and communities.

‌GROUU is also an Open Source modular system formed by a set of sensors and actuators. GROUU automates some agricultural tasks, like fertilizing and watering, to optimize it by recognizing success patterns from Sensor and User-Generated Data. Optimization is directly related to the amount and diversity of data and users.

This Research project explores the hypothetical formation of Digitized TK through a diverse implementation of Open Source Agriculture, and by assuming that some of the sensor data recorded throughout the process is formed by practical actions of the Farmer over its surrounding environment (the farm) and therefore by TK.

The project is divided into three stages:

  • The first focuses on GROUU’s adoption by diverse Users and tries to understand it by testing different dissemination strategies.
  • Then, it will address the engagement of users in the design process. Open Source is fundamental, but what about the engagement of the actual Users: Apart from Makers and motivated designers, how can Farmers and Farming communities engage in developing Open Agriculture?

The last step is about the possible implications and applications of TK in Open Agriculture:

    • On a technical level, to digitize and integrate it into Open Source Agriculture.
    • On a design level, to generate new Open Data streams between different agricultural contexts and communities:

Can Agricultural TK become Open Agricultural Knowledge? So, therefore, a Common?

Bio

André Rocha is Adjunct Professor at the Higher School of Education from the Polytechnic of Lisbon.

André ran his own design office (EVOL/LEVO) between 2003 and 2017 when he decided to dive into full-time design education and research.As a senior designer, André has the privilege of working in a wide variety of contexts.This mixture turned him into a maker, enchanted by creative and productive processes.His research also tries to blend these, by continually looking at expanding design into/on fields such as informal education (fabschools.pt) or agriculture (grouu.cc).

The later – GROUU – being the project through which he pursues his PhD at Nova University of Lisbon / University of Porto Digital Media Program.He recently (2019) graduated from Fab Academy, an intensive 6-month digital manufacturing and rapid prototyping program led by Neil Gershenfeld at MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA).

At the Higher School of Education from the Polytechnic of Lisbon, where he teaches Product and Interaction Design, he co-manages the local Fablab (Fablab Benfica), coordinates its participation in the Distributed Design Platform, and is in charge of Maker Faire Lisbon.

Lastly, as an Open Culture and Design activist, he co-founded DAR – a non-profit association – and is currently Open Design and Tech Lead at the Creative Commons Portuguese Chapter. At DAR, he was director, manager at the Fablab and ran a one hundred episodes interviews radio show/podcast about Open Culture. He is an active collaborator of the Creative Commons Global Network and an organizing committee member of the CC Global Summit since 2016.

Doctoral Seminar // 14.05.2020

Media Lab / Doctoral Seminar

14.05.2020  / 16:30-19:30

Moderated by Lily Diaz

Presentations by Andrea Mancianti & Outi Condit

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JOIN THE MEETING

https://aalto.zoom.us/j/66346852666

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Andrea Mancianti

The Sonic and the Viral

A very unsystematic account of the state of thoughts in a time of isolation

Bio

I am a composer, performer and sound artist mostly devoted to experimental sonic arts. I studied composition with Rosario Mirigliano in the Conservatory of Florence. I hold an MA in composition and music technology from the same conservatory (2012) and a Bachelor in Philosophy from La Sapienza, Rome (2006). I also completed the IRCAM Cursus in Paris (2013-2014). Currently I am a PhD candidate in the department of Media, of Aalto University, Helsinki, researching case-specific immersive experiences. My artistic work includes music compositions, installations and mixed media performances, where material phenomena extend in the virtual digital world and complex feedback networks are established between the two realm.

With the media artist Roberto Fusco I work in the audiovisual project quietSpeaker. I am also in the board of the association Äänen Lumo (Charm of Sound), to promote experimental music and sound art in Helsinki. I am a strong supporter of open and DIY culture, and my work is all available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike licence.

My works have been performed or exhibited in Europe and Usa, for institutions such as Ircam (FR), Biennale Musica (IT), Ars Electronica (AU), Helsinki Festival (FI), Musica (FR), Impuls and KUG (AU), Muziekcentrum De Bijloke (BE), Centre Henri Pousseur (BE), STUK (BE), Boston University (USA), Nuova Consonanza (IT), Sibelius Academy (FI) and others.

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Outi Condit

Remote Control Human 

Bio:

Outi Condit is an actor, performance maker and self-professed pedestrian cyborg, currently in the indefinite final stages of her artistic doctorate in the Performing Arts Research Centre, University of Arts Helsinki. Her research was triggered by sense of wonder at the pliability of bodily selves, both as a theatre actor and an (in)queering body. She takes on theatre as a machine (and vice versa), digging into the politics of staged bodies (and bodies as stages), producing glitched embodiments in process.

In an often-repeated truth of the rehearsal studio, an actor’s body is their tool. And thus I am trained to be part of the theatre machine, its fantasies become my flesh, I am patterned by its patterns, shaped by its rhythms, haunted by its gestures, I am its recurrent reifying dream
singular pluralmore than one, less than many

Theatres have since closed, the proximity of bodies deemed dangerous. We must identify as vectors, transmitters and carriers; we are all media now.

In this moment(um) of enforced telepresence, I take the opportunity to add another screen into the mix: a human body, absented and at-hand as a techno-metabolic (re)actor for thespian ghosts and transmedial affects.

 

 

 

New Media Doctoral (remote) Seminar

New Media Doctoral (remote) Seminar
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Following  Aalto Universities protocol under the COVID-19 epidemic, New Media Doctoral seminar will be arranged remotely. 
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Thursday  // 19.03.2020 // 16:25-19:30
(Simply click on the link to join the seminar! It is advisable to download zoom before joining the meeting. For further instructions please see https://www.aalto.fi/en/services/zoom-quick-guide)
 
Participants can download the presentation slides (the presentations will be held with audio only!) 09:00 on the morning of the presentation.
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Lead by Professor Lily Diaz the presentations for the March seminar are held by:
 Constantinos Miltiadis // Gerriet K. Sharma 
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The Situation of Space in Contemporary Media Environments
– two part talk by Constantinos Miltiadis and invited guest Gerriet K. Sharma  
 
Virtual reality and spatial audio technologies bring about a new paradigm in the fields of architecture and music. Works developed in these media produce experiences beyond what is perceivable in the physical world, extending therefore our capacities to design/compose as well as our sensibilities for spatial and temporal perception. By operating in the spatiotemporal domain, these new media, question our disciplinary understandings of space and time as well as their aesthetics, requiring an altogether new post-disciplinary conception of design/composition and experience. 
 
The imperative for a new shared paradigm is even more prevalent in the so called “immersive media.” The production of spaces has become the modus operandi for the creation of artificial worlds and sound designs for concerts, VR, cinema and event culture – motivating an industry for hardware and software solutions. However, a closer look at the use of the term “space” reveals an astonishing inconsistency regarding contextualization, meaning and occupation. 
 
Within this problematic, the aim of this research is the conception of a common space of the perception of spatiotemporal phenomena – a domain that we call the Shared Perceptual Space (SPS). Eventually, we ask whether post-disciplinary and artistic research, drawing from multiple disciplines from mathematics to musicology, architecture and philosophy, can construct a SPS as a common platform for the understanding of spatiotemporal phenomena and as aesthetic strategy for the orchestration of time and space. 
 
Constantinos Miltiades  
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Space-Writing 
Within Architecture’s Expanded Field 
 
Space, as the substrate that conditions design and architecture is often taken for granted. Through a brief archeology of the evolution of spatial concepts from Greek mathematics through Renaissance perspective and 20th century physics, this talk intends to present how design-space is a culturally embedded “ideology” that adheres more to tradition rather than to any current scientific theory. Contemporary space-making media however can allow for us to experiment with and explore perceivable spaces beyond the traditions of design, as well as of what is constructible in physical reality, requiring thus a new set of conventions for engagement with space. Akin to writing spaces rather than designing in space, “choropoietic media” from drawing to videogames, VR and spatial audio, challenge us in considering an “expanded field” of architecture and spatial praxis, while providing vehicles for uncovering latent spectra of aesthetic experience.
 
Constantinos Miltiadis (studioany.com/)
 
Constantinos Miltiadis is a transdisciplinary architect, whose research and practice focus on virtual spatiotemporal environments, as a means of expanding the scope of architecture and its aesthetics. He has studied architecture at NTU-Athens, at the Chair for Computer Aided Architectural Design of ETH Zurich, and pursued studies in computer music at the Institute of Electronic Music of Kunst Uni Graz. His work has been presented in exhibitions, seminars, published in academic conferences as well as by international press, and received awards in international competitions. He has taught creative programming and experimental computation in academic contexts, as well as in conferences and art festivals. In addition, he was founder and curator of the “IAM Open Lectures” and co-founder of “Tabletalks on Architecture” as well as of the experimental electronic music event series . Between 2015 and 2019 he has been assistant professor at the Institute of Architecture and Media of TU Graz, while currently he is a doctoral student between the departments of Design and Architecture at Aalto ARTS, part of the Experience Platform.
 
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Spatial Aesthetics 
in Auditive Media Composition
 
In the cases both of music and of science, detachment involved the use of mechanical aids: scientic instruments helped discover a world, musical instruments to build one (D. Burrows)
 
We as composers and sound artists have never confronted a machine of the collective, networked, and externally defined media perception design as we experience it today. So what do we share with our audience, the engineers and scientists working on perceptions in media spaces, and how can we still detect potential for aesthetic experiences and make them useful for the acoustic arts? It seems unavoidable that this question causes us to fall back on our ears and the aesthetic reflection of what is experienced and experienceable in situ. Spatialization is the synthesis of spaces and spatial properties of sounds for audiences using numerous loudspeakers. Although one of the most important developments in music within the past century it is still an area of confusion and fundamentally different opinions between researchers, sound engineers, composers, and audiences. Great advantages in computer and audio technology have not necessarily yet led to similarly greater artistic advances in spatialization strategies and concepts within the past decades when compared with pioneering electro-acoustic music in the 1950s, in which visions of sculptural sound phenomena from the 1930s were firstly created and publicly performed. Moreover, as spatial computer music matures and consolidates within institutions and organizations, it is increasingly involving 3D audio systems which can create auditory virtual environments (AVEs). Quite likely in the very near future AVEs will be part of many people’s everyday life, e.g. in cars, working spaces, intelligent homes, concert halls and computer games. The emerging general question is, who creates these ‘virtual’ environments with which intention and how can music, sound art and sound design aesthetically contribute to this reality with their own strategies?
 
Gerriet K. Sharma (gksh.net)
 
Gerriet K. Sharma is a composer and sound artist. He studied Media Art at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne and composition/computer music at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz. In 2016 he completed his doctorate at the scientific-artistic doctoral school Graz. His thesis is titled “Composing Sculptural Sound Phenomena in Computer Music”. Within the last 15 years he was deeply involved in spatialization of electroacoustic compositions in Ambisonics and Wave-Field Synthesis and transformation into 3D-soundsculptures. From 2009 to 2015 he was curator of “signale-graz” concert series for electroacoustic music, algorithmic composition, radio art and performance at the MUMUTH Graz. His works were presented and premiered at festivals in Europe and abroad. Scholarships by the German Academic Exchange Programme (DAAD) in 2007 and 2009. In 2008 he was awarded with the German Sound Art Award. In 2007 and 2010 he was Artist in Residence at Pact Zollverein Essen working on his concept of sculptural sound projection and formation. Within his Residency at the Institute of Musicology Wuerzburg 2011 – 2013 he conceived and established the Atelier for Sound Research. In spring 2014 he was composer in residence at ZKM Karlsruhe/Germany. 2015 – 2018 he was senior researcher and composer within the three year artistic research project “Orchestrating Space by Icosahedral Loudspeaker” (OSIL) funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). He had been appointed as DAAD Edgar Varèse guest-professor at Electronic Music Studio, Audio communication (AK), TU Berlin for WS 2017/18. In 2019/20 he is visiting professor (Music and Technology) at IKG DART doctorate school Madrid. Publications in international journals and books on spatial practices and sound. “Aural Sculpturality. Spatio-temporal Phenomena within Auditive Media Techniques” was published by ZKM in 2019, his text “Surrounded by Immersion – Means of Post-Democratic Warfare” was released in the book Ultra Black of Music by Mille Plateaux in March 2020. He lives in Berlin.
 
Constantinos and Gerriet are founding members of the Special Interest Group on “Spatial Aesthetics and Artificial Environments” (2019) as part of the Society for Artistic Research (SAR).

New Media Doctoral Seminar

Welcome to the New Media Doctoral Seminar!

Join us!

Thursday 20.02.2020 / 16:30-19:30 / Väre / R113

PhD student at Aalto Media Department / Jelena Rosic

Guest lecture / Dr Janne Kauttonen

Moderated by Professor Lily Díaz-Kommonen

Abstracting and modeling experience – The view from a neurophenomenological isomorphism

In the 2020 seminar, I will look into epistemological and methodological convergence in research on media (artefacts) that combines empiricism of natural sciences with computational approaches. The line of research linking media and neuroscience has been prone to overinterpretation and misconceptions often due to the levels of abstraction and complexity regarding computational tools in neuroimaging. I will present my research that draws on the neurophenomenological programme (methodological bridging of subjective/objective gap) with an aim to underline levels of formalism between multisource data for the meaningful interdisciplinary study paradigms. These sources in my work include 1st/2nd person data (empirical phenomenology) with neuroimaging paradigms and models to characterize different approaches to brain connectivity. I have been using this conceptual and methodological framework with the specialized micro-phenomenology method to research augmented sense-making in interactive media, frameworks for affective computing and more extensively neurocinematics studies (cognitive neuroscience using films as stimuli) in order to model experience in a rigorous manner. The recent experimental work done as an Early-Stage researcher at Enactive Virtuality Lab at Tallinn University builds on previous work of understanding how film and its formal aspects constitute ecologically valid paradigm considered to approximatereal-life dynamic situations. In these terms, the perspective of expert annotation methods of stimuli, the so-called ‘stimulus error’ between the content of stimuli, experience and their brain mapping with the narrative context are addressed.

Finally, methodological aspects of this interdisciplinary approach are discussed with Dr Janne Kauttonen through his interdisciplinary expertise and research in human brain functions during naturalistic conditions using fMRI.

Introducing the guest

In 2019 review of naturalistic neuroscience and its stimuli (Sonkusare et al.Trends in CogSci), authors point out to Kauttonen et al. (2018) study: “A recent study deserves particular mention as it took advantage of cinematic style of the nonlinear narrative structure of ‘Memento’ (C. Nolan), a film that depicts successive scenes in reverse chronological order… (…). Analysis using MVPA identified patterns of activation in higher order cortical networks (precuneus, angular gyrus, cingulate gyrus, frontal poles) during presentation of key-frame scenes, which revealed contextual information about prior events.” 

“Now I know what this goes with!” – recall and narrative reconstruction in Memento

In this study we looked into how the human brain recalls and connects relevant memories with unfolding events. We hypothesized that repeating key-frames in Memento serve as immediate recall cues and would facilitate reconstruction of the story piece-by-piece. The chronological version of Memento, shown in a separate experiment for another group of subjects, served as a control condition. Using fMRI BOLD measurements and multivariate event-related pattern analysis method and representational similarity analysis, focal fingerprint patterns of hemodynamic activity were found to emerge during presentation of key-frame scenes. Despite the highly differential sensory-feature content of the key-frames, focal fingerprint patterns of BOLD activity were shared across the second presentation of the key-frame scenes (i.e., when they served as immediate recall cues) in various higher-order cortical regions. The distributed patterns of brain activity within these regions appear to underlie ability to recall relevant memories and connect them with ongoing events to facilitate understanding of what goes with what in a complex narrated story. Interestingly, there also seems to be anticipatory component in the higher-order sensory areas with the effects preceding onset of the key-frames.

BIO

Dr Janne Kauttonen

Dr Janne Kauttonen works as a staff researcher at Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences. His research background is strongly inter-disciplinary, including aspects from statistical physics, computational sciences, neuroscience and behavioral sciences. His particular areas of expertise are dynamical systems, analysis of large datasets, statistics, machine-learning and mathematical modelling. After obtaining his PhD in physics from University of Jyväskylä in 2012 in the field of statistical physics, he has worked as a researcher at Aalto University, Carnegie Mellon University and Laurea University of Applied Sciences. At Aalto and Carnegie Mellon, he developed computational tools and did research in human brain functions during naturalistic conditions (fMRI data) and visual system of rodents at neuronal level (2-photon imaging data). At Laurea University of Applied Sciences he studied cognitive biases of humans and voting behavior using text analytics and statistical methods. His current research at Haaga-Helia involves studying human interaction with other humans and artificial agents using physiological and behavioral measurements.

Image. Kauttonen, J., Hlushchuk, Y., Jääskeläinen, I. P., & Tikka, P. (2018). Brain mechanisms underlying cue-based memorizing during free viewing of movie Memento. NeuroImage, 172, 313-325.

BIO

Jelena Rosic, MA

Jelena Rosic is a PhD student at Aalto Media Department and Early Stage researcher at Enactive Virtuality Lab, Tallinn University. She has a background in professional film editing (&dramatic arts studies), cognitive film studies with embodied perspective and neuroaesthetics of film. Her interdisciplinary research combines empirical phenomenology and enactive cognitive sciences to study embodiment in the spirit of neurophenomenology (Varela 1996). She has specialized in the second-person methods, in particular, the micro-phenomenological interviewing and analyses method (trained with Prof Claire Petitmengin,) to explore usually unrecognized or inaccessible dimensions of lived experiences. Her micro-phenomenological research in the context of augmented sense-making has focused on identifying the conceptual and empirical groundings of meta-perceptual modalities that are reported to emerge in lived experiences of technologically enhanced embodiment. As a member of the NeuroCine research group led by Professor Pia Tikka at Aalto University, she gained several years of experience in conducting interdisciplinary research within neurocinematics, a line of research that applies cognitive neuroimaging methods to study intersubjectively shared narrative experiences of film viewers. In the NeuroCine she participated in developing systematic annotation methods of film stimuli for optimising the linking of cinematic features to fMRI data. As a PhD candidate at the Crucible Studio, a research group at Aalto University that investigated interactive media combining theoretical and empirical methods, she applied her neurophenomenological approach to the study of enactive narratives. Jelena’s current research at Enactive Virtuality Lab applies the micro-phenomenological method to provide understanding on the lived experience of narrative sense-making in the context of movie viewing and engaging immersive environments.

Welcome everyone to the last New Media Doctoral Seminar of the year!

Thursday 12.12.2019 / 16:30-19:30 / Väre / R113

PRESENTATIONS:

Virtual Embodiment and the Transformation of the Self

Daniel Landau

Abstract:

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.

Bio:

Daniel Landau – is a media artist, researcher, and lecturer. He is the founder and co-director of the Mediated Body Lab at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya.  The lab’s activities reside at the intersection of Art, Science, and Technology – critically exploring the Human-Technology co-evolution.

Daniel’s work has been presented in major venues, museums, and festivals worldwide. He was recently invited to teach at UCLA’s Media Arts department and he is currently a Doctoral candidate at Aalto University’s Media Lab.

Guest lecture: 

Using VR to build an empathic brain in times of Conflict

Johnathan Levi

Bio:

Yoni (Jonathan) Levy is a social neuroscientist at Aalto University and in IDC Herzliya.

He studies mechanisms in our brain that govern the way we perceive and relate to social groups, for instance, Locals vs Immigrants, Israelis vs Palestinians, Rightists vs Leftists.