Category Archives: New Media

Defence of Doctoral Thesis in the Field of New Media, MA Neha Sayed

Cover of Neha Sayed's dissertation book

MA Neha Sayed will defend the thesis “The Changing Meaning of an Urban Place” on Friday 17 June 2022 at 14:00 in Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Department of Art and Media at Otakaari 1, lecture hall A1 (Otaniementie 14, Espoo) and online in Zoom (please click here to join). The event language is English.

Doctoral Candidate: MA Neha Sayed
Opponent: Professor Brendon Clark, Umeå University, Sweden
Custos: Professor Lily Díaz-Kommonen, Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Department of Art and Media

The audience is kindly asked to enter the lecture hall or join Zoom no later than 14:00.

Information at Aalto University web page: EnglishFinnish

The doctoral thesis is available and publicly displayed 10 days before the event here

Doctoral theses in the School of Arts, Design and Architecture available here.

 Image related to Neha Sayed's dissertation "The Changing Meaning of an Urban Place". A busy street crossing view from India.

ABSTRACT

The meaning of an urban place for a traditional trading community on Ṭapāl Nākā develops in response to the development policies enforced by the government’s planning department. The government policies are enforced through artefacts such as maps and reports. The analysis of these artefacts reveals their purpose to control the development. Their operational role also assigns a certain meaning to the place. These policies are adapted to by the community as a post-implementation response. Their concerns are expressed through mobilising trade networks to emphasise the trade practices and property ownership patterns. The ethnographic data of networks and spaces analysed using the collective cultural memory framework of Assmann(1995) reveals the meaning of Ṭapāl Nākā generated by the community. The government is now implementing smart technologies to enforce their regulatory control, strengthening their meaning of Ṭapāl Nākā. The community is already well-versed with technologies such as surveillance cameras connected to smartphones. The Internet of Things (IoT) technology can reinforce the voice of the community addressing their concerns related to development. This is shown by an exemplary design concept for traffic management to be implemented by the community. This design concept which improvises upon the way the community already manages traffic indicates the possibility of enhancing the community’s meaning of place. The research contribution lies in presenting an approach to study the meaning of place for design intervention and exploring the role that IoT technology may play in the changing meaning of place. It also contributes to the IoT paradigm by indicating a pro-community approach for technological development. The research contributes to the urban planning discipline by revealing the disparity in the meaning of a place. More immediately, the project contributes to New Media research by highlighting the role of media studies in the developing understanding of IoT.

THE DOCTORAL CANDIDATE

Profile picture of the doctoral candidate Neha Sayed.

MA Neha Sayed

Neha Sayed started her PhD in the Department of Media in 2016. In her doctoral research she investigated the role IoT can play in the changing meaning of an urban place. She conducted a two-year-long field work with a trading community in India to establish the change such a ubiquitous technology can play in traditional community networks. The research was conducted using ethnographic methods such as narrative-ethnography to understand the communitie’s relationship with technology. She also did geospatial mapping in GIS to understand the urban fabric which has a complex transformative nature responding to urban planning.

She graduated as an architect from the university of Mumbai in 2000. Since then, she has done a combination of architectural practice, teaching and research in Navi Mumbai. Her masters in Experience Design from Konstfack, Sweden, added a new dimension of design research based in User Centered Design to her skill-set. In her career she has remained focused on the role and identity of media in the changing times of last twenty years.

Contact information: email

THIRD NEW MEDIA DOCTORAL SEMINAR of SPRING 2022 – Thursday, 28 April, 16:30 – 18:30

WELCOME TO THE THIRD NEW MEDIA DOCTORAL SEMINAR OF THE SPRING SEMESTER!

The seminar will take place in Zoom on Thursday, 28 April, starting at 16:30 and ending at 18:30 (UTC/GMT+2, Helsinki, EEST). Mediated by Professor Lily Díaz-Kommonen, we have an interesting presentation by Mamdooh Afdile about his work Toward implicit cinema. A search for a Numinous filmic experience.

Before the presentation we will also have a guest talk titled ‘Composing the Performance’ by Professor Kent Olofsson who is a collaborator in Mahdooh Afdile’s recent work ‘Implicit Cinema’. Kent Olofsson is a Professor of performing arts for the research area Concept and Composition at the Stockholm University of the Arts.

In his presentation, Professor Olofsson will discuss how he has been exploring musical composition as a dramaturgical device in the creation of performing arts. He will use examples from his works in theatre, dance, radio plays and opera to demonstrate the artistic processes that aim to integrate the elements in performances into polyphonic theatre experiences. He will also discuss artistic methods in the collaborations with performers, scenographers, playwrights, and directors. His methods challenge traditional hierarchies and working structures, which change and expand working roles in productions.

Zoom link: Please click here to join the seminar!

PRESENTATION

‘Toward implicit cinema. A search for a Numinous filmic experience.’
by Mamdooh Afdile

Image related to Mamdooh Afdile's presentation.

ABSTRACT

Predicting how cinematic experiences will evolve in the future is a challenging task, arguably because the fundamental question of why we watch movies is still not clear. A number of theories were proposed to answer this question, yet the debate is still ongoing. In this brief presentation I will propose my answer to this question based on novel results from unpublished data providing an insight on the leading motivation for watching fictional movies. Furthermore, I will also present preliminary results from my current artistic research “Implicit cinema”, that builds upon these findings. Implicit cinema is a meditative and reflexive audiovisual experience inspired by Carl Jung’s Active Imagination method. This audiovisual experience aims to give an alternative to the hyperstimulative media we are currently surrounded with, by engaging in a self-reflecting experience, facilitated by projective viewing mode.

BIOS

Image of New Media Doctor of Arts candidate Mamdooh Afdile.

New Media DA candidate Mamdooh Afdile.

Mamdooh Afdile is a filmmaker and researcher interested in interdisciplinary approach to filmmaking and production by integrating neuroscientific and psychological perspectives to audiovisual art practice. In 2019 Afdile developed PMSM; a method for investigating the subconscious brain with movies, in collaboration with neuroscientists at the brain and mind lab in Aalto. In his latest publication in 2021 he introduced the Scientific Hypothesis Approach to filmmaking practice, which was showcased in his short film “Helsinki Accord”. Currently Afdile is an Assistant Professor in the film and media department at Stockholm University of the Arts.

Kent Olofsson is a composer and an artist in the field of performing arts with an extensive artistic output that spans a broad range of genres, ensemble types, art forms and contexts including music for orchestra, chamber music, electronic music, contemporary theatre, dance performances, opera, radiophonic art, and rock music. In recent years his artistic work and research has been particularly focused on exploring musical composition as dramaturgical strategies in interdisciplinary and intermedial theatre performances. In his thesis Composing the Performance: An exploration of musical composition as a dramaturgical strategy in contemporary intermedial theatre from 2018 he discusses artistic and collaborative processes in performances that are situated in the intersection between contemporary theatre, new music, radio plays and performance art. Recent works and productions include the highly acclaimed Independence Day and In Search of Lost Time (a staging of Proust’s novel), two intermedial stage works created in collaboration with actor, writer and director Nina Jeppsson. Olofsson is a Professor of performing arts for the research area Concept and Composition at the Stockholm University of the Arts.

Defence of Doctoral Thesis in the Field of New Media, MA Ilan Manouach

MA Ilan Manouach will defend the thesis ‘Estranging Comics – Towards a novel comics praxeology’ on 22 April at 12:00 in Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Department of Art and Media.

The defense is organized as a hybrid event and will be held both live at Väre, lecture hall F101 (Otaniementie 14, Espoo) and in Zoom (please click here for link).

Doctoral Candidate: MA Ilan Manouach
Opponent: Dr. Jan Baetens, KU Leuven, Belgium
Custos: Dr. Bassam El Baroni, Assistant Professor in Curating and Mediating Art at the School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Aalto University.

Information at Aalto University web page: EnglishFinnish

The doctoral thesis is available and publicly displayed 10 days before the event here.

Image of Shapereader by Ilan Manouach, a system for tactile storytelling specifically designed for blind and partially sighted readers/makers of comics .

Shapereader by Ilan Manouach.

ABSTRACT

The industry-wide adoption of digital and network technologies has produced long-lasting and unevenly distributed effects in all the sectors of the comics industry. The globalization of markets and services has profoundly reshaped comics labor. Its effects are economic (the precarization of craftsmanship traditions), social (the rise of entrepreneurial fan culture and the consolidation of increasingly diversified communities with novel forms of amateur and semi-professional activity), technical (the introduction of digital tools for the distribution, the archival and retrieval of media artefacts) and aesthetic (the gradual integration in the production pipeline of AI and synthetic media). As is demonstrated by the recent emergence of radical forms of experimentation documented in the Conceptual Comics media collections of Ubuweb and Monoskop, comic artists are often able to leverage the dependencies of the ever-growing network infrastructure of the comics industry. Nevertheless, these disruptions foreground an epistemic crisis in the understanding of contemporary comics, both in academia and in more traditionally established professional spheres.

This thesis embraces an attitude of productive estrangement towards the medium’s forms, material qualities and operations, and constructs comics as a “contemporary object”. According to philosopher Anne-Françoise Schmid, a contemporary object is an extra-disciplinary entity that is massively distributed in space and time. Understanding such an object depends on the increasingly aggregate nature of knowledge production and dissemination in the computational age. Both in theory, with a series of papers in peer-review journals, and in artistic practice, by way of published comics and commissioned curatorial projects, this thesis examines the mutations of the comics ecology as an expansion of the scope of knowledge. It embraces the cumulative impact of digital transformation and articulates a novel comics praxeology predicated on two conditions. First, the thesis appeals for a systematic exploration of comics outside of narrow media purviews, the implicitly disciplinary conceptions, and the dominant historical perspectives in Comics Studies. It aims to develop a conception that embraces a rigorous application of a non-hegemonic interdisciplinarity in comics research. Second, and most importantly, the thesis argues for the expansion of operational agency on the part of comics professionals. This agency is described as a heightened contextual appreciation of the industry’s infrastructural backend, an awareness of its imbricated institutions and a diversification of the professional toolbox. I argue that a novel comics praxeology is a necessary attribute in order to embrace future, speculative, unclaimed or hitherto impossible forms in comics expression.

THE DOCTORAL CANDIDATE

Profile picture of doctoral candidate, MA Ilan Manouach

MA Ilan Manouach

Ilan Manouach is a researcher, a musician and a multidisciplinary artist with a specific interest in conceptual and post-digital comics. His research examines how this century’s frontier technologies such as AI, financial technologies and globalized logistics reshape the comics industry. He is mostly known for Shapereader, a system for tactile storytelling specifically designed for blind and partially sighted readers/makers of comics. He is the founder of Echo Chamber, a Brussels-based non-profit organization with the mission to produce, fundraise, document and archive radical and speculative artistic practices in contemporary comics. The topics of his research and artistic practice include conceptual comics, post-internet publishing, and synthetic media and AI. On the side, Ilan works as a pirate/librarian for the Conceptual Comics Collections at Ubuweb and Monoskop, is an appointed expert in experimental comics for the Belgian government for its national public funding program (CCAP) and works as a strategy consultant for the Onassis Foundation and its visibility through its newly funded publishing activity.

Contact information: email / +30694169008

LAST NEW MEDIA AND VCD JOINT DOCTORAL SEMINAR OF THE YEAR – Thursday, 16 December 2021

WELCOME TO THE LAST JOINT DOCTORAL SEMINAR OF 2021!

The last joint seminar for this year will take place on Thursday, 16 December, and will be held virtually on Zoom starting from 15:15 (UTC/GMT+3, Helsinki. Please see link below).

Mediated by Professor Masood Masoodian, we have a very interesting presentations by New Media DA candidate Dr. Eunice Sari.

Zoom link: Click here to join the seminar!

PRESENTATION

‘Toward Digital Transformation in Education in Indonesia’
by Dr. Eunice Sari

ABSTRACT

When the Covid-19 pandemic struck the world, most schools could not operate like normal and a lot of stakeholders were deeply affected including students, teachers, parents, and governments. The emergency mode has pushed every stakeholder to go beyond their comfort zone, to ensure appropriate education can still run and we do not rob the students’ rights for education. This talk will highlight several insights gained toward digital transformation in education in Indonesia from three personal case studies (2020-2021). These insights will be discussed also in light of the works done by the author in a similar area in the past.

BIO
Image of New Media DA candidate, Dr. Eunice Sari.

New Media DA candidate, Dr. Eunice Sari.

Eunice Sari is a UX Design Researcher with more than 18 years of experience serving corporate clients around the world. She is also the CEO and Co-Founder of UX Indonesia and Customer Insight Pty Ltd (Australia), leading service design projects and initiatives in empowering digital transformation for global organizations. As a Designer and Researcher, she loves working in the field, building empathy with people she designs for.

 

FIRST NEW MEDIA AND VCD JOINT DOCTORAL SEMINAR OF THE SEMESTER – Thursday, 21 October 2021

WELCOME TO THE FIRST JOINT DOCTORAL SEMINAR OF THE AUTUMN!

This first joint seminar for this academic year will take place on Thursday, 21 October, and will be held virtually on Zoom starting from 15:15 (UTC/GMT+3, Helsinki. Please see link below).

Mediated by Professor Masood Masoodian, we will be starting strong with two very interesting presentations by VCD DA candidates Nicola Cerioli and Dohee Lee.

Zoom link: Click here to join the seminar!

PRESENTATIONS

‘Understanding complexity to improve the visualisation of complex datasets’
by Nicola Cerioli

ABSTRACT

In the context of information design, the term “complexity” is often used without a clear definition. This implies a lost opportunity to frame the design problem and structure the design process in a way that is conscious of complexity. My research aims at building a coherent design framework to work with complex datasets in the domain of information design and data visualization. Firstly, a definition of complexity is proposed; drawing from the work of Murray Gell-Mann, and hybridizing his definition with semiotic theory. This will open up different design possibilities on three different, although interconnected, levels: the nature of the represented data, the interface, and the mental model of the user. By adopting this new perspective, several tools and paradigms from philosophy, cognitive psychology, mathematics, and computer science will become available as support to the design process. The object of this research is to explore the different possibilities that a comprehensive understanding of complexity can bring to the information design and the data visualization design process.

BIO

Nicola Cerioli is a doctoral candidate in the Aalto Visual Communication Design group. He is interested in the visualization of complex data, to further the understanding of multifaceted phenomena. For this purpose, he studies the synergies of design methodologies, mathematical methods, and philosophical frameworks.He is collaborating as a project researcher in the FINNGEN project, exploring new methods to visualise molecular biology and health care data.

Image of VCD DA candidate Nicola Cerioli

VCD DA candidate Nicola Cerioli

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“A systematic co-creative approach to evaluating arts and health interventions for creative well-being of older adults”
by Dohee Lee

ABSTRACT

Although older adults’ engagements in arts and design-based interventions have shown positive outcomes in terms of their health and well-being, evaluations of such interventions have rarely taken into account various elements that they consider important in contributing to their creative well-being and quality of life. We will present a narrative interview-based study we have conducted in Korea and Finland with multiple stakeholders, investigating ageing-friendly co-creative approaches to evaluation of arts and design-based interventions for health and well-being. By considering a range of factors – such as artistic and aesthetic values, ethical concerns, and evaluation measures – we propose an evaluation framework that would enable multiple stakeholders – including older adult participants, arts and health practitioners and facilitators, and arts organizations and agencies – to monitor, support and inspire each other systematically through better partnerships in resolving transdisciplinary challenges in such interventions. In particular, we focus on the potential of late-life creativity in supporting older adults in becoming more active participants in such processes, by utilising the knowledge they have accumulated through their own ageing. The aim of the framework is to take a cyclic approach to fostering collaborative co-creative relationships that seek alternative solutions, while dealing with the complexity of implementing arts and design-based interventions.

BIO

Dohee Lee is a doctoral candidate in the Aalto Visual Communication Design group. She has a MA in Material Futures with international working experiences in different communities in collective forms. She believes in the combination of design narratives and social aspects that she has been doing qualitative social design research and project coordination in various geographical, ecological, cultural, and social contexts. Her research aims at developing design strategies for social integration and social well-being of older adults through arts & design practices.

ARTIST TALK: Art Studio Kimchi and Chips

Image of Kimchi and Chips artist talk event containing event time (Oct 19, 6pm - 8pm), location (WHS Teatteri Union, Helsinki, Siltavuorenranta 18), and event organizers (Aalto Media Lab, WHS Teatteri Union, Object Festivatl)

Seoul based art studio Kimchi and Chips, founded in 2009 by Mimi Son (KR) and Elliot Woods (EN), will be giving an artist talk on October 19 at WHS Teatteri Union, Helsinki, from 6pm to 8pm (18:00 – 20:00). Mimi Son and Elliot Woods introduce their research-based approach to creating artworks that often involve volumetric images in fog and 3D projection onto non-designed forms.

Kimchi and Chips’ practice begins at the recognition that the arts, sciences and philosophy are not distant disciplines which must be bridged, but act as alternative maps onto the same territory, and that employing these maps in tandem allows the territory to be navigated more readily.

Free entry, but pre-registration is required. Register to the event by filling this form:
https://forms.gle/ZB7mtk1dfCw3YVR59

More information: Kimchi and Chips

TIME AND LOCATION

October 19, 2021
18:00-20:00

WHS Teatteri Union
Siltavuorenranta 18, Helsinki
https://teatteriunion.fi/

The event is organized by Aalto Media Lab,WHS Teatteri Union, and Object Festival

NEW MEDIA DOCTORAL SEMINAR – Thursday, 18 March 2021, 16:30 – 19:30

Welcome to the third New Media Doctoral Seminar of 2021! The seminar will be held virtually on Zoom on Thursday 18th March from 16:30 to 19:30 (GMT + 02.00, Helsinki, EEST).

Mediated by Professor Lily Díaz-Kommonen, there will be two extremely interesting presentations with a Q&A discussion taking place afterwards.

Presentations are open for everyone, welcome!

PRESENTATIONS

‘Weaponized memes in China: Multimodal discourse analysis of the visual rhetorical appeals of Chinese political memes’

by Ningfeng Zhang

Picture of Ningfeng Zhang

New Media DA candidate, Ningfeng Zhang

ABSTRACT

This study aims to apply multimodal discourse analysis as a theoretical point of entry to define the taxonomy of different rhetorical appeals of political memes in China’s most popular mobile application Wechat. The study views “internet memes” as a form of visual rhetoric, planning to analyze them respectively from representational, compositional, and interpersonal perspectives. The material consists of 357 internet memes posted on Wechat and collected by 10 active Chinese Wechat users in China during July 2019 – January 2021, their referential contents covered a series of social and political events occurring in China, including the Hongkong protest, the outbreak of Covid-19, the Sino-West relationship during the pandemic period and so on.  Multimodal discourse analysis was applied to understand the visual contents, compositional forms, and visual arguments formed communicated via those memes, and ultimately concludes the different visual rhetorical appeals reflected in them. It is both a methodological and theoretical attempt to expand the understanding of the visual rhetorical study and how political memes function in the participatory media culture within a specific social, cultural, and political context.

BIO

Ningfeng Zhang is a doctoral candidate currently working as a new media researcher with Prof. Dr. Lily Díaz -Kommonen. His research interest focuses on the social, cultural, and political relevance and the generation mechanism of internet memes in the context of Chinese media environment, exploring the mechanism of how internet memes, as a form of visual rhetoric, a propaganda entity, as well as a facet of citizen journalism, generate, mutate and proliferate in a highly homogeneous media environment.

‘Intergroup Contact via Telerobtic Puppetry’

by Avner Peled

Picture of Avner Peled

New Media DA candidate, Avner Peled

ABSTRACT

Following the premise of Intergroup Contact, established by Gordon Allport in the 1954 publication The Nature of Prejudice, I am investigating forms of communication that can reduce prejudice between groups in conflict and improve intergroup relations. Technological mediation supports contact in violent conflict scenarios where organizing face-to-face contact is challenging, even more so in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Online contact forms suffer from a lack of agency, a limited set of nonverbal cues, and an impaired turn-taking flow. Virtual Reality supports user engagement but enforces a mind-body split and a dissociation from terrestrial grounds. I, therefore, propose remote-controlled robots (telerobots) as a way to add corporeal depth to mediated contact, situating a midpoint between online communication and a face-to-face meeting. For this research, the chosen form of implementation for intergroup contact is Telerobtic Puppetry. Puppetry (as well as virtual presence) evokes a hybrid state between object and subject, puppet and puppeteer. A hybrid object absorbs prejudice and problematizes it. Deindividuation of the puppet-avatar turns into a performance of group identities and categorization; a lack of signification opens up a path for self-expression. Design-based research and user surveying are now underway toward a telerobotic, textile-based puppet theater workshop and public performance event that occurs in two locations simultaneously.

BIO

Avner Peled is a creative technologist and media artist with a background in computer science, neurobiology, and philosophy. Currently, as Doctoral Researcher at Aalto Media Lab, Avner is exploring the use of telepresence robots as mediators for intergroup contact and conflict resolution in Israel and Palestine. He is also developing 3D web visualizations of big data for the New York Times.

The research is supported by the Kone Foundation.

NEW MEDIA DOCTORAL SEMINAR – Thursday, 25 February 2021, 16:30 – 19:30

WELCOME TO THE SECOND NEW MEDIA DOCTORAL SEMINAR (DOM-L0007) of 2021!

The seminar will be held virtually on Zoom on Thursday, 25 February, from 16:30 to 19:30 (GMT+02:00, Helsinki, EEST).

Mediated by Professor Lily Díaz-Kommonen we will have two very fascinating presentations. A Q&A discussion will take place after the presentations. The presentations are open for everyone!

PRESENTATIONS
Rtualising Exhibitions: In Search of Novel Engagement Approaches In Experimental Museology

VRtualising Exhibitions: In Search of Novel Engagement Approaches In Experimental Museology. © Cvijeta Miljak

‘VRtualizing Exhibitions: In Search of Novel Engagement Approaches In Experimental Museology’

by Cvijeta Miljak

New Media DA candidate, Cvijeta Miljak

ABSTRACT

The research is carried out in the framework of a pan-European interdisciplinary project that brings together Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture and ZKM – Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe (Germany), the Centre Pompidou, Paris (France), the Ludwig Muzeum, Budapest (Hungary), Tallin Art Hall (Estonia) and Tirana Art Lab (Albania), the institutions encompassing fields of cultural heritage, digital art conservation, digitalising heritage, new media art and experimental museology.In broadest terms, this artistic practice-based research in the emerging field of virtual museology is concerned with developing novel engagement approaches with the aim to encourage co-creative participatory practices for community involvement and social inclusion. The research will take a particular interest in documenting and studying museum audiences’ responses to digital cultural heritage and to virtual exhibitions. The research will support further development and implementation of Performance-oriented Design Methods for Audience Studies and Exhibition Evaluation (PORE), a methodology coined by Lily Díaz-Kommonen.

Miljak’s interest focuses on exploring emerging narratives, visual language and implications of digital tools in relation to immersive media, through developing methods for nonintrusive participatory evaluation practices to re-examine and expand forms of storytelling in digital media.

BIO

Cvijeta Miljak is a doctoral candidate working as a researcher with Prof. Lily Díaz -Kommonen on the Creative Europe co-funded project Beyond Matter – Cultural Heritage on the Verge of Virtual Reality (2019-2023).

For a more detailed bio, please check:

‘Gamification In Mixed-Reality for Digital Cultural Heritage’

by Gautam Vishwanath

New Media DA candidate, Gautam Vishwanath

ABSTRACT

This study is focused on the mechanisms through which gamification can be implemented within mixed reality in order to support museum-based activities in the realm of digital cultural heritage. A large part of the work carried out in this study takes place within the context of an EU-H2020 funded project dedicated to citizen curation of cultural heritage called SPICE. Through the use of workshops and tools for design, end-user communities and other stakeholders from the SPICE Case Studies are involved using participatory methods for design and development in order to discern new ideas as well as create prototypes. The research involves a component of practice and draws upon a mixed-method approach employing a variety of qualitative as well as quantitative methodologies such as case sampling, visual thinking strategies, user-experience evaluation, and ethnographic interviews. The projected results of the entire research process are anticipated to provide novel insights regarding mechanisms for gamification in mixed-reality as well as a series of methods that need to be taken into consideration in order to support museum-related activities for digital cultural heritage. In order to ensure maximal ethical integrity and conduct the research in a respectful manner, this study follows the guidelines of the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity TENK as well as other relevant ethical guidelines.

BIO

Gautam Vishwanath is a doctoral candidate at the Department of Media having begun his tenure in June 2020. As a member of the Research group ‘Systems of Representation’, he is advised and supervised by Prof Lily Díaz-Kommonen. His research is focused on integratingserious games and new forms of media such as mixed reality into digital cultural heritage.

For more info on Gautam, please visit: Gautam Vishwanath at Systems of Representation research group in the Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Media Lab

Event at Aalto.fi

Defence of dissertation in the field of New Media, Msc Massimo Menichinelli

 

Title of the doctoral thesis:

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

Opponent: Professor Elisa Giaccardi, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlandsa

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

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 and defining; 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.”

Public display of the doctoral thesis is arranged as online display:

http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-64-0091-4

Slides available here

Post-doctoral Party

Contact information of the doctoral candidate: Massimo Menichinelli

 

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

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/