Category Archives: Art

EXHIBITION: ‘Sarajevo Roses and Clouds of June’ – Third Space, Helsinki – From 4th – 10th October 2021

Samra Šabanović and Sheung Yiu, as the duo I was there but you didn’t see me*, are having a week-long pop-up screening of their video work on mass protest photography at Third Space starting from next Monday 4th of October. The exhibition is part of Third Space open call selected projects for the year 2021 with the theme ” Vulnerability, collaboration, exchanges”, supported by Taike. The opening will be on Thursday, October 7th, from 17:00 – 20:00.

Exhibition period: 4th – 10th October 2021 from 14:00 – 18:00. Welcome!

*** To visit the exhibition please wear a face mask and consider the safety distance ***

INFO

“Unless we stop indulging in metaphors and start to recognise the politics of visibility and invisibility within the power structure, ‘photography’s future will be much like its past. It will largely continue to illustrate, without condemning, how the powerful dominate the less powerful.’” (Excerpt from video)

Photography has always been a game of hide-and-seek — what to make visible and invisible — but at times of wars and mass protests, these decisions have real consequences. Humans and images are now entangled in the network, each controlling the life and death of the other. Visibility is not just a picture; visibility is lethal.

Amid global protests to support the Black Lives Matter movement, some have called for photojournalists to blur out protesters’ faces to protect their identities. The encrypted communications app Signal released a feature to blur faces in photos. Software developer Noah Conk created an iPhone shortcut that does the same thing and erases their metadata. Some photojournalists oppose blurring and insist that the key issue is consent. That argument misjudges the lethality of visibility, especially in the context of overt and expansive state surveillance. On the other side of the world, Hong Kong pedestrians are filming the arrest of the protestors on their smartphones as they shout their names and ID number, in the hope that their families and lawyers know which police station to look for them and in the fear that they won’t see the sun again — visibility as a means to protect.

“Sarajevo Roses and Clouds of June” (2020) is a 22-minute video essay on images and their relation to peace. Reflecting on personal experience and photographic practices in general, the video essay contemplates the role of photography in the recent waves of mass protests and social activism. The title is a reference to the memorials of the Bosnian War and the months-long protest in Hong Kong that began in June 2019. The video essay, made during the pandemic in 2020, is composed entirely of video footage found on popular free stock websites. In five chapters, the essay delves into the ever-complex politics of visibility and invisibility, offering a critical examination of how photography may or may not contribute to peace in the age of mass surveillance enabled by hyper-connectivity and the omnipresence of cameras.

“Sarajevo Roses and Clouds of June” (2020) is the third chapter of I was there but you didn’t see me*

BIO
I was there but you didn’t see me* is a series of research-based public interventions on photographic images curated by Samra Šabanović and Sheung Yiu. These interventions use images as starting points of inquiry about their indisputable impacts on philosophy, history, literature, technology, science and visual culture. Through prolonged looking and peripheral vision, the duo revisits images (or the lack of them) and situates them in new discourses that extends beyond visual arts. This involves doing double-takes on images seriously and regularly, writing footnotes on and around photographs to rediscover ‘what was there’ and ‘what was not seen’ at first glance.

LINKS

More about Third Space

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 //  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.

ELLIPSIS- Media Lab Exhibition

Participants in the Systems of Representation: Culture Laboratory (DOM-E5003) at the Department of Media, Media Lab have created an exhibition named Ellipsis that is on display at the Harald Herlin Learning Centre, Otaniementie 9, 02150 Espoo, from 15 May – 6 June 2019. The exhibition, that is a collaboration with the Aalto University Archives, depicts speculative design interventions related to three case studies presented in the course: Time and its Representation in Narrative, Exhibiting the Body, and Space in Digital Media.

Five works are exhibited. These include: Marko Alastalo, A Dress as an Interactive Artwork; Teemu Korpilahti, The Things that Make Us Remember; Ning Feng Zhang, Fleeting Moments that Never Exist; Jennifer Greb, Dekorativ Vorbilder and Aino-Nina Saarikoski, Herääminen-Awakening.

How is the representation of time constructed differently in genres and narratives across different cultures and epochs? What are some of the parameters involved when exhibiting the body? How can we use media to augment our notion of space in an exhibition? Aside from historical documentation what other roles do archives fulfill in art and design productions? These are some of the topics pondered in the works presented.

Opening hours are: Monday through Friday 8:00 AM to 21:00 PM; Saturdays 10:00-15:00; Closed on Sundays.

Thermocultures of Memory by D.A Samir Bhowmik 

W E L C O M E  E V E R Y O N E
T O  T H E  L E C T U R E   

Thermocultures of Memory by D.A Samir Bhowmik 

12.04.2019 16.00-17.30 at Aalto Learning Center // Seminar room JUHO (1st floor room 126) 

Memory institutions depend on heating-cooling infrastructures for the long-term preservation and mediation of cultural heritage. The energy-intensive thermal regulation of object and data storage environments is guided by the need to ward off decay and to safeguard computer hardware and operations. Despite the tremendous dependence of memory institutions on thermal regulation, temperature has been regarded as merely metaphorical in media studies (Sterne & Mulvin, 2014; Starosielski, 2014). Digital studies in cultural heritage (Cameron and Kenderdine, 2007) have also bypassed the topic of temperature and humidity as it affects the representation of cultural memory. In fact, there hardly exists any literature on the evolution of thermal cultures of memory institutions even though they might be considered as thermally-dependent media institutions.

This talk explores how thermal infrastructures are entangled with the preservation of cultural heritage in order to show how the latter is linked to the expanding use of energy and the embodied energy of natural resources. Understanding the energetic and material impacts of thermal infrastructures and practices in museums and archives demands us to ask ourselves: What are the origins of temperature control and humidity in memory institutions? How did the superimposition of the thermal cultures of the factory affect the practices of the museum? In addressing these questions, my goal is not only to direct attention to the materialities of thermal practices but also to provoke an ecological approach for the future of the memory institution. Could a re-evaluation of thermal infrastructures and practices shape an ecological institution?

Bio

Samir Bhowmik’s multi-disciplinary art practice deals with contemporary issues in Media, Memory and the Environment. His research at Aalto Media Lab and the Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin examines the architectural, infrastructural and energetic entanglements of Cultural Memory. Samir graduated as a Doctor of Arts in New Media from Aalto University, Finland, and holds a Master of Architecture from the University of Maryland, United States. Samir’s current artistic research project “IMAGINARY NATURES: Extractive Media & the Cultural Memory of Environmental Change” is funded by the Kone Foundation (2019-22). His latest infrastructural performance art project ‘Memory Machines’ opened at the Helsinki Central Library in January 2019, as part of the Library’s Other Intelligences project organized by the Finnish Cultural Institute of New York.

 

 

CfAR: Post Doc Art event 4.12.2018: Artists, Institutions and Social Responsibility

https://sites.uniarts.fi/en/web/cfar/artists-institutions-and-social-responsibility-4.12.2018

CfAR – Centre for Artistic research, Uniarts Helsinki
Post Doc Art event 4.12.2018

Artists, Institutions and Social Responsibility

Tuesday 4.12.2018 at 15:00–19, Theatre Academy, Room 525, Staircase C (Haapaniemenkatu 6, Helsinki)

The group ‘Socially Responsible Arts Institutions and Artists’ is a collective of artists and researchers. They are part of Cupore and ArtsEqual, specializing in promoting the potential in art to create equal encounters between people from different backgrounds. The group’s art and research take place in and with communities, on their own terms or for them. The forms of activity are prison theatre, community museum, community art, audience involvement courses and guided walks in the city. This is the first opportunity to share their work with CfAR. The session is led by Mari Martin and Pekka Kantonen.

Refreshments will be provided – Welcome!

Program 4.12.2018

Anu Koskinen: Participatory observing in prison theatre – An attempt to a thick description in the contexts of artistic action research
Demonstration

Pekka Kantonen: Aesthetical and ethical reflections of the invited outsider cameraman
Reflection with a video

Katja Thomson: Katja and a viola

Ajauksia artist group: Sensory exercise
The group’s work is based on equal decision-making and anonymity. Collective working method is based on bodily and sensory exercises. You can participate in the exercise, in your way, or you can follow it from the outside.

Ehvivaija group: A collective song on artistic research (in Finnish)
The audience can participate in repeating the phrases.

Sari Karttunen: What motivates this group of artist-researchers and how does it relate to the ArtsEqual research initiative

Joint discussion with the audience

Getting by: Negotiating Future Livelihoods in the Arts

A Symposium organised by Kiasma, University of the Arts Helsinki, University of Helsinki and Aalto University.

Tuesday, November 13, 2018
at 10:00 – 14:00
Kiasma Theatre
Free entrance

This symposium addresses the future of the artists’ livelihood. Hosted by Kiasma, and co-organised by Uniarts Helsinki, Aalto University and the University of Helsinki, the event focuses on the rapid changes in contemporary society and new affordances that those changes introduce for the professionals working in the arts field. The precarious work market suggests new roles for arts professionals and their education, but also opens up new opportunities for art researchers to probe into the complexities of the late modern society, culture and working life. These and other questions around artists’ future livelihood, along with questions of societal responsibility, are discussed during the symposium.

The symposium invites artists, art-related researchers, art educators, art students, and other stakeholders interested in the artist’s livelihood on Tuesday November 13, 2018, 10 am – 2 pm, at the Kiasma Theatre. Participation is free of charge.

The symposium language is English.

From: Uniarts.fi website

Visiting lecture: HORST HÖRTNER, Ars Electronica Futurelab

Welcome to an open visiting lecture:

Department of Media is pleased to host

HORST HÖRTNER

Senior Director, Ars Electronica Futurelab

Wednesday 24 October 2018
from 17:00–18:30
Väre, room F101 (by the main entrance)

Topic: Art Thinking and Artificial Intelligence

Horst Hörtner will introduce the Ars Electronica Futurelab and by referring to “Art Thinking“ focus on the power and importance of Visions to our future. The necessity of Visions become more important at times of fundamental changes, as we currently experience under the influence of the so called “digitalization” in its appearance as Artificial Intelligence.

Horst Hörtner is a media artist and researcher. He is expert in design of Human Computer Interaction and holds several patents in this field. He started to work in the field of media art in the 1980ies and co-founded the media art group x-space in Graz/Austria in 1990. Hörtner is founding member of the Ars Electronica Futurelab in 1996 and since then directing this atelier/laboratory.

Since 2013, Horst Hörtner also holds a position as conjoint Professor at the University of Newcastle/Australia. He is working in the nexus of art & science and giving lectures and talks at numerous international conferences and universities.

 

Get to know Ars Electronica Futurelab:
https://ars.electronica.art/futurelab/en/ 

Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria:
https://ars.electronica.art/news/en/

This lecture is open to all!

Welcome!

New Media Doctoral Seminar, September 27

Welcome to the Media Lab Doctoral Seminar
TIME: Thursday September 27, 2018, from 16:30–19:30
LOCATION: Aalto University, Väre, room O112.

DOM-L0007 New Media Doctoral Seminar
Responsible teacher: Prof. Lily Díaz-Kommonen

Presentations by: Neha Sayed and Roberto Pugliese. See abstracts below.

The seminar is open for all. Welcome!

Roberto Pugliese aka ALIASING

(M.Phil., D.Sc. (Technology), ITA/FI, b. 1980)

https://www.robertopugliese.net

Roberto Pugliese is a media artist and researcher based in Helsinki, working with time-based digital and physical media. His work consists of compositions, installations and performances. Often concerned with memories, recordings and loss, his pieces can incorporate animation, sound, moving objects and the modification of physical media using programmed hardware and software. By collecting, processing and coupling audio and visual material, he works towards a common language among visual and sonic imageries. The installations often use sound and its transformation to establish alternative relations between the visitor and the space.

“My installations deal with the passage of time by creating objects and spaces that embody memories, in their disappearance, transformation and potential for reinterpretation.
My compositions and performances explore the relationship between sound and images, their perceptual integration in time and space and intertwined choreography as one medium.”

He collaborates with dancers and choreographers for the creation of alternative stages and new forms of media performance (SocEmo, Aalto University, Helsinki), and with scientists and researcher to develop interactive settings targeting special groups (Asperger’s syndrome) to facilitate social interaction and promote creativity (MEDIAT, CNRS, Paris).

‘Place’ as New Media architecture

by Neha Sayed

Abstract: ‘Internet of things’ promises a new configuration of space augmented with data sensing and sharing technologies challenging the notion of ‘PLACE’. The advent of these surveillance technologies promises an ‘openness’ affecting the way we live our daily life. The ‘place’ that is bound to change in this process altering the way we perceive it. This research aims at exploring the evolution of this place in ‘Internet of things’. Building on the Posthuman Ontology of Karen Barad, I began the research by trying to investigate the notion of place. The research is autoethnographic and the place that I studied is a market square I have grown up in. For last two years, I have conducted observations with the community and I am now formulating the notion of place as a resultant phenomena of a correspondence between human activity and space. In this ever evolving cultural phenomena the role of cultural interfaces is crucial. I am identifying these interfaces which will transform as they get embedded with sensor driven technologies. This research will attempt to test these technological interventions and assess the resulting place.

Neha Sayed: Basically an architect from Mumbai I have done a combination of architectural practice and teaching for last eighteen years. I did my masters in experience design from Konstfack, Stockholm, which added another skill of being a researcher. My work in the masters was focused on developing user centered design and studying research methodologies to achieve the expected outcome. Since 2009, apart from teaching and architectural practice I have been conducting research within communities and their relationships to space and in turn place. In 2012-13, I lead a team of researchers to draft street furniture manual for a heritage town of Matheran, which is the only pedestrian tourist destination having a very unique community dynamic. The manual is being adopted for the policies and design. The project inspired me to think of place specific design interventions with active participation of the community. My practice as a designer has remained strong all this while, which is mostly around interior architecture, where the smart technologies are treated as a material. My concern about the role of sensor driven environments grew and it led me to explore the changing nature of place in the case of Internet of Things.