Category Archives: Lecture

For independent lectures.

Media Lab Doctoral Seminar; Environmental Media: a study on the mediation of technology in ecological artistic practices.

On the 25.04.19, at 16.30-19:30, led by Professor Lily Díaz in Learning Centre, JUHO the doctoral student Juan Duarte will present his on-going research titled:

Environmental Media: a study on the mediation of technology in ecological artistic practices

Abstract:

The research aims to work around technologies on location, that are used on open environmental data sensing for intermedia art context. The production of devices aims follow a usability process of Interaction Design focusing on principles of sustainability and maker culture. As an outcome of the research, I expect to collect field experiences active communities Accompanying study cases, the research wants to question the role of media technologies in the field of environmental arts to support the development of both art and science collaborations.

The existing scientific proof of planetary issues such as global warming still seems trivial to an important sector of the population. Thus a data platform for environmentalist art could support scientific research by bringing attention to environmental degradation. Artistic research could help reconcile society with a planetary vision through citizen initiatives that empower us with tools that help with making decisions, such as monitoring pollution levels or mapping relations between technological footprints, and planetary cycles.

Bio:

Mexican-born media artist Juan Duarte Regino works on interaction as a tool for generative art experiments. He is part of Pixelache – art and activist group based in Helsinki. Currently a doctoral student in New Media in Aalto University in Helsinki, Finland, he reflects on the information society paradigm from the point of view of his background in media art, with a special focus on open source technologies developed in DIY communities and grassroots initiatives. Duarte’s work has been presented in IAMAS, Spiral Gallery, Ljudmila, Radio, and TV Museum of Lahti, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Mänttä Art, Generate! Festival, CTM Festival, Lofoten Sound Art Symposium.

His background is in Audiovisual Communication (Bachelor of Arts), and New Media Arts (Master of Arts). His research is around technologies on location, to be used for open environmental data sensing in an intermedia context. The sensing devices developed follow an Interaction Design process focusing on principles of sustainability and maker culture. The outcome of the research (consisting of workshops, lectures exhibitions, and live media performances) expects to collect field experiences from a community of creators, specialized on potentialities of locative media, in order to serve environmental queries through artistic and scientific procedures.

Guest speaker: Martin Howse

Abstract:

Symbiotic ur-networks of silent fungal and root chatter and earth vibration, named chemical gradients tasted by rooty and human tongues fruit forest-wide in fairy rings, rising up in form and outgrowing Jodrell bank and Arecibo, outclassing them unknown in bringing down the stars to Earth.Martin Howse, 2017

Noting simple parallels between the scaled formations of radio telescope arrays, and the arrayed forms of certain mushroom bodies such as those of Amanita Muscaria, Martin Howse aims to further explore this spored coincidence of cosmos and micro-cosmos, initiating the first forest Radio Mycelium Array.

Conventional radio telescope arrays make use of a technique called interferometry to combine signals received on multiple smaller antennas, creating a larger, more precise view of the electromagnetic Universe. In the case of the RMA, the arrayed Amanita mushrooms act as receiving antennas for deep space signals, to be combined in underground mycelial electrochemical signals. Star dust and mushroom spore combine imaginatively, with both technologies provoking potentially meaningful earth and cosmic signals.

Radio Mycelium Array (RMA) is exhibited both as a speculative prototype (mushroom bodies connected to a digital interferometer device and display), and as documentation of “working” forest studies with similar equipment. Audio recordings of received signals are also available (inscribed on vinyl in sleeves printed with copper spore patterns from the Amanita mushrooms, the antennae).

Bio

Martin Howse’s work spans the fields of computing programming, writing, education and performance. A true explorer of urban scapes, his ideas consider our intimate and embodied relationship with our environment. His work has been received several awards (including first prize at Art & Artificial Life competition VIDA 8.0, 2005) and he has curated and participated in several seminars and performances (ICA, London, Transmediale, Berlin, Tuned City, Berlin & Brussels). In 2006 Martin co-founded xxxxx, organising one large-scale conference and concert series in London (xxxxx) and publishing the acclaimed xxxxx [reader]. From 2007 to 2009 he has hosted a regular workshop, micro-residency and salon series in Berlin, most recently under the banner of _____-micro-research. More recently micro-research has been established as a mobile platform for psychogeophysical research with ongoing projects in London, Peenemuende, Lyme Regis and Berlin. For the last ten years he has collaborated on numerous open-laboratory style projects and performed, published, lectured and exhibited worldwide.

http://1010.co.uk/org

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.

 

 

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!

Media Lab Doctoral Seminar May 3

Welcome to the Media Lab Doctoral Seminar
TIME: Thursday May 3, 2018, from 16:00–19:00
LOCATION: Aalto University Harald Herlin Learning Centre, Otaniementie 9, Espoo (Otaniemi), 1st floor Johanna meeting room.

DOM-L0003 Doctor of Arts at Media Lab Seminar
Responsible  teacher: Prof. Lily Díaz-Kommonen

Presentations by:
Pentti Määttänen, PhD (invited guest speaker)
Marikki Hakola

See more below.

The seminar is open for all. Welcome!

Pragmatism

by Pentti Määttänen

Abstract: Pragmatism emerged at the 1900th century as an answer to the question: What has to be changed in philosophy if Charles Darwin is right? First and foremost we are embodied creatures within nature. Culture is a product of nature in the sense that one animal species has created for itself a special kind of social and historical environment. Second, the classical view of experience as sense perception is too narrow. Experience consists of perception and action. Overt action (with or without various instruments), a stock of practical skills, sensorimotor transaction with the environment, is the basic form of experiencing, interpreting and understanding the world. The unit of analysis in the study of cognition (meanings, beliefs, emotions and values) is the organism environment interaction, not the brain or the body. The relation between knowledge and the world is not abstract correspondence between linguistic or other symbolic expressions and the world; it is mediated by various practices. Thinking is anticipation of action, to know is to know what to do, and this holds also for language.

Pentti Määttänen, PhD (Philosophy), is a Docent & Lecturer at the University of Helsinki and at Aalto University.

List of publications: http://personal.inet.fi/tiede/penttimaattanen/

SEMEION – Virtual Action Space and Cinematic Interaction

by Marikki Hakola

Abstract: SEMEION is a study about  the new concepts and possibilities of virtual action space and cinematic interaction as an essential part of it. The theoretical part of the study is carried out in the framework of Charles Sanders Peirce’s and John Dewey’s pragmatism, semiotics and aesthetics. At the heart of the study is experimental artistic activity to form a practical platform for testing theoretical ideas, concepts and findings. The practical  platform consists of four independent cinematic works.

The objective of this study is to enlarge the theory of cinema to cover new cinematic features, such as real-time, interactive, tactile, performative and spatial VR/AR forms of moving image. However, to understand interactive moving image and virtual cinematic action space and their future potential, one should first understand what the cinematic interaction itself is in an ontological sense. This guides the study into quintessential philosophical and semiotic questions. The aim is to build a theory that is relevance not only in film related issues, but also to the general questions of philosophy and aesthetics.

Pragmatist semiotics by Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) crystallizes into the following philosophical approaches: Naturalism, nature constitutes understanding. Experience and acquisition of knowledge are not only observations but also activities: Being is acting. Meanings take shape through action. According to John Dewey’s (1859-1952) pragmatist aesthetics, experience (art) is a collective and cultural activity. Physical and symbolic practices are inseparable and a part of nature.

Referring to Peirce and Dewey , the theoretical approach of the study is based on the following philosophical conceptions:

–       The basis of the cinematic experience is in symbolic thinking

–       Cinematic signs have the ability to refer beyond themselves

–       Understanding the interaction between cinematic signs and the spectator is the same than understanding the interaction between human and the world (nature)

–       Pragmatism in a case of cinema means use and situational meaning of all kinds of cinematic signs

–       The cinematic object and the subject are always inseparable

–       Art of cinema is a special symbolic practice and will only become a work of art through experience.

The focus is to develop the tools for understanding the structure and montage of the interactive moving image from author’s, especially concept designer’s, screenwriter’s and director’s points of view. The special attention is paid to the challenges of concept design, to the designer’s situation between the new idea and the finished artistic plan, script or screenplay.

The study is implemented through artistic approach and cinematic works produced by the professional film and performing artists’ teams. Practical testing gives useful, illustrative, instructive and sensory feedback from the tested ideas, subjects and concepts. The study also benefits greatly from the direct feedback and observations of the team members, the professional artists and film makers.

The goal is to help deepen screenwriter’s, designer’s and director’s understanding and views on the potential of a cinematic virtual space and interactive moving image and thus provide opportunities for new thinking and concept development. The aim is that the study would encourage future authors in their artistic work to create courageous and interesting concepts for future interactive cinema.

Marikki Hakola is a Doctoral Student at the Department of Media. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts Helsinki as a visual artist in 1984. Her works include dance and music films, documentaries, video artworks, performances, stage designs, web projects and artistic research projects. Hakola’s works have been broadcast and screened international on television channels, in art museums and festivals. Her works have been exhibited at several art museums, collections and archives, such as the Musée National d’Art Moderne in Centre Pompidou, Paris, the Helsinki Art Museum and Museum of Contemporary Arts Kiasma Helsinki.

Hakola’s works include music films Luonnotar (2010), Otto (2009), Butterfly Lovers (2005), L’Enfant et les sortiléges (2004), the live performances Scaramouche (2015) and Piipää (1987-2011), telepresence project Triad (1998-99), video works Stilleben – Milena’s Journey (1989), TransVersum (1993) and Continuum (1999), installations The Time is Right for… (1984), PRE (1984), Pinus (1990), Ferris Wheel (1991), Milena Distanz (1992), Figure (2000), Moloch (2010) and Frontiers (2014).

Marikki Hakola CV: https://www.kroma.fi/marikkicv/

Media Lab Doctoral Seminar April 19

Welcome to the Media Lab Doctoral Seminar
TIME: Thursday April 19, 2018, from 17:00–20:00 (NOTE: Starting time one hour later)
LOCATION: Aalto University Harald Herlin Learning Centre, Otaniementie 9, Espoo (Otaniemi), 1st floor Johanna meeting room.

DOM-L0003 Doctor of Arts at Media Lab Seminar
Responsible  teacher: Prof. Lily Díaz-Kommonen

Presentations by:
Sally Davison (guest lecture)
Andy Best: Social Empowerment through Dance and Media Performance
See more below.

The seminar is open for all. Welcome!

Invited guest speaker:

Sally Davison is a dance artist and choreographer whose work deeply attends to the existential qualities of the moving body and life more broadly, focusing in particular on aspects of inclusion, accessibility and equality. Davison is Chairperson of DanceAbility Finland ry an organisation dedicated to promoting inclusion through dance, and Artistic Director of Kaaos Company an inclusive professional dance company based in Helsinki since 2010.

 

Social Empowerment through Dance and Media Performance

by Andy Best

Abstract: This presentation illustrates research carried out with individuals from Dancehearts, a performance group for young people with disabilities. I seek to show that interactive media technologies can significantly increase the level of social empowerment experienced by individuals taking part in group public performance by magnifying the effect of their own actions and movement in the space. Using custom designed wireless electronic controllers, the dancers “play” music and sound using the movements of their bodies and wheelchairs. They are no longer purely a choreographed performer, but in addition they cause affect to the whole performance space through aural interaction, controlling the soundscape used in the performance. For the differently-abled person, the ability to harness media technologies for artistic expression challenges their perceived public role as passive object. They become, through their own actions, active subjects causing affect to the whole audience experience.

Andy Best is a media artist, sculptor and educator, specialising in playful and provocative interactions and installations. Andy’s work tackles social and political themes, and he seeks collaboration in diverse spheres such as data visualisation, live performance, and physical interaction design. Between 2002 and 2013 Andy was principal lecturer of Digital Arts at Turku University of Applied Sciences. Since 2014 he has been lecturer in sculpture at Aalto University. Andy is currently Head of the Center for General Studies. He is a doctoral student at Aalto Media Lab, researching possibilities for social empowerment through collaborative interaction in media environments, with emphasis on working with people with disabilities.

 

 

Media Lab Doctoral Seminar March 22

Welcome to the Media Lab Doctoral Seminar
TIME: Thursday March 22, 2018, from 16:00–19:00
LOCATION: Aalto University Harald Herlin Learning Centre, Otaniementie 9, Espoo (Otaniemi), 1st floor room 116 (Johanna meeting room).

DOM-L0003 Doctor of Arts at Media Lab Seminar
Responsible  teacher: Prof. Lily Díaz-Kommonen

Presentations by:
Heli Rantavuo, Spotify (guest lecture): Designing for People in the Age of Machine Learning
Iida Hietala: Self-Creation Through Arts Consumption and Digital Content Production
See abstracts below.

The seminar is open for all. Welcome!

Designing for People in the Age of Machine Learning

by Heli Rantavuo

Abstract: Heli’s talk discusses challenges to the user-centred design process in internet companies where, increasingly, the products designed are algorithm-based ‘algo-products’. At the level of their practice, designers and researchers need to develop new skills, work effectively with new disciplines such as data analytics, and formulate new questions and problematics. At a more fundamental level, for user-centred design to remain human-centred design, questions of ethics and morality gain importance, and conventional methods of knowing about human and user experience need to be re-examined. The talk discusses these topics in light of recent studies in algorithmic bias and data anthropology and through industry practice in companies such as Spotify, Google and eBay.

IMG_4734Heli Rantavuo, is Director of insights for global growth at Spotify R&D. She graduated as Doctor of Arts from the Media Lab in 2009 and has since then worked as design researcher and research leader at Spotify, eBay, Microsoft and Nokia in London, Stockholm and Helsinki. Heli’s particular focus in the tech industry is creating practices that are multi-method and multi-disciplinary: understanding people across product, engineering and design in a way that combines ethnography, user experience and data analysis. At the moment Heli investigates what it means to design with algorithms for global audiences.

Self-Creation Through Arts Consumption and Digital Content Production

by Iida Hietala

Abstract: Visitors to contemporary art exhibitions and museums take pictures of the artworks with their smartphones. They edit the best one and upload it on a social media platform (e.g. Instagram) with hashtags such as #art, #contemporaryart or #museumselfie. Sometimes this has caused some undesirable consequences; selfie-takers have even smashed artworks when trying to take the perfect shot. Albeit not everyone takes pictures in an exhibition, Instagram is a pivotal part of the everyday visual environment of its 600 million active users.

Drawing on new media studies and consumer research, the project investigates how one’s arts consumption experiences and digital practices are connected in an art exhibition context. It also explores how this might contribute to an individual’s creation of self and subjectivity. By means of ethnography, the research aims at answering the following questions: What kind of an art experience is taking place? What kind of creativity is enabled? By producing content, are these people producing themselves as artists? Will people choose an art exhibition based on its ’instagrammability’?

iidakuvaIida Hietala is a doctoral candidate at Aalto University Media Lab. She is a Master of Science (Econ.) in Marketing, and a Master of Social Sciences in Journalism and Mass Communication. Her research focuses on the intersections of arts, consumerism, digital culture, and subjectivity.

Open guest lecture by Yannick Rochat

Welcome to an open guest lecture:

Yannick Rochat, University of Lausanne (UNIL)

The Time Machine: Dynamics of Information in the Digital Humanities

Friday February 2, 2018, from 10:00–12:00
Otakaari 1 X, lecture hall A1
Otaniemi, Espoo

This guest lecture is part of a course Topics in Visualization and Cultural Analytics DOM-E5103 at the Department of Media, Media Lab, but open for everyone interested!

Warmly welcome!

Abstract: Through the concept of «time machine» as it is understood in the digital humanities, Yannick Rochat will present some of the current problematics of creating interactive information systems in that field: reading and interpreting archives, architectural modeling, game design, new media studies.

09_Yannick_Rochat_72dpi_DSC_7967©SLiphardtYannick Rochat is a junior lecturer at the faculty of arts of the University of Lausanne (UNIL). He owns a MSc in mathematics and a PhD in mathematics applied to humanities and social sciences. His fields of study are digital humanities, new media and game studies. He is an occasional contributor to Swiss newspaper Le Temps.

 

yannick_rochat_1

Topics in Visualization and Cultural Analytics DOM-E5103 – Responsible teachers: Prof. Lily Díaz-Kommonen, Mamdooh Afadile, Khalil Klouche

Media Lab DA Seminar: Guest lecture by Prof. Dagny Stuedahl

Welcome to an open guest lecture:

Prof. Dagny Stuedahl, OsloMet – city university (Norway), Department of Journalism and Media studies:

Making dialogues work

Time: Thursday January 18, 2018, 4pm–6pm
Location: Harald Herlin Learning Centre, Johanna meeting room, 1st floor

This guest lecture is part of Media Lab DA Seminar at the Department of Media but open for everyone interested!

Warmly welcome!

More information:

This presentation will describe a participatory exhibition design prosess including public hearings, interviews, and round table sessions related to the exhibition FOLK which opens at Norwegian Museum of Science, Technology and Medicine (NTM) in March 2018. Also a participatory project used methods from participatory design ( PD)  for a year long process involving a group of 9 multiethnic young people to discuss identity, ethnicity and belonging. The goal of the participatory process was originally to design engaging activities for young people related to the theme of the exhibition, race and ethnicity, but ended with making a participatory sound installation that will become part of the exhibition.

The particiaptory process became part of research and communication activities of the curatorial study, which compared contemporary views on ethnicity with perspectives in historical racial science and contemporary research on human biological variation and their multiple entanglements with society, culture, economy, politics, and technology. Hence, the curatorial research interweave understandings of individual and group identities with broader political and ethical issues such as concerns on migration, the rise of racist and discriminatory attitudes, or indigenous peoples rights.

The way the curatorial research focus shaped the participatory process, and the way the young people where at each workshop responded to the current state of the curatorial work with the exhibition will be the main focus of the presentation. The museum did paralell to the participatory design process arrange multiple encounters through diverse communication formats including, focus-group workshops, public lectures, and hearings, and the presentation will reflect on the outcome from each of these compared to the longterm collaboration in the youth participation project.

NTM has earlier developed a record of research-based exhibitions and activities and has methodically been investigating the integration of research with communication and management of cultural heritage. Meanwhile, the participatory design proces was new to them, and the presentation will describe how the museum professionals approached the method, and how they integrated a participatory thinking in their curatorial reflections.

See: stuedahl.no

Welcome!

—
DOM-L0003 Doctor of Arts at Media Lab Seminar
Responsible teacher: Prof. Lily Díaz-Kommonen

PhD François Pachet, Spotify – A Guest lecture

Welcome to an open lecture at Media Lab!

PhD François Pachet, Director of Spotify Creator Technology Research Lab

‘Artificial Intelligence for music generation: the making of the album “Hello World”‘

Time: Thursday January 11, 2018, 4pm–6pm
Location: Harald Herlin Learning Centre, Johanna meeting room, 1st floor

This guest lecture is part of Media Lab DA Seminar but open for everyone interested!

Warmly welcome!

François Pachet is director of the Spotify CTRL (Creator Research Technology Lab).

He is the former director of the SONY Computer Science Laboratory Paris, where he led the music research team. He received his Ph.D. and Habilitation degrees from Université Pierre et Marie Curie (UPMC). He is a Civil Engineer (Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées) and was Assistant Professor in Artificial Intelligence at UPMC until 1997. He joined the Sony Computer Science Laboratory in 1997 and created the music team to conduct research on interactive music listening, composition and performance. Since its creation, the team developed several award winning technologies (constraint-based spatialisation, intelligent music scheduling using metadata) and systems: MusicSpace, PathBuilder, Continuator for interactive music improvisation, Flow Composer, etc.).

He has been Principal Investigator of the Flow Machines ERC Advanced Grant, and has launched the first multi-artist mainstream music album composed with AI. His current goal in Spotify is to build a new generation of tools to assist music creation.

François Pachet has published intensively in artificial intelligence and computer music. He was elected ECCAI Fellow in 2014 and he is Doctor Honoris Causa of the University of Pernambuco (Brazil).

He is also an accomplished musician (guitar, composition) and has published two music albums (in jazz and pop) as composer and performer.

See: www.francoispachet.fr

DOM-L0003 Doctor of Arts at Media Lab Seminar
Responsible teacher: Prof. Lily Díaz-Kommonen