Aalto Studios 2017

Posted on December 7, 2016 by Jon Fabritius

Time to move on.

We have packed up our Arabia facilities on December 16th 2016 and joined Media Centre Lume in building a new, ambitious initiative and facility at the Aalto campus in Otaniemi during the next years. While this was made public some time ago, we didn’t yet have a name to go by. Now we do.

We call ourselves Aalto Studios.

To stay up to date, make a note of studios.aalto.fi, where we’ll build up more information on what we are aiming for, and how we’re starting to plan it together with you.

And be sure to like our New Facebook Page to get the latest behind-the-scenes view on our relocation and reignition for 2017!

Aalto Media Factory Video Clinic

Posted on September 27, 2016 by Jon Fabritius

The next Aalto Media Factory video clinic takes place during November and December 2016

Want to make better videos about your research or study project? Want to discuss how to popularise science through videos?

Media Factory is organising a three-day video clinic, targeted to people who are using video as a tool in their work or studies, and want to develop their storytelling, shooting, audio recording or editing skills further. The clinic is an advanced version of our popular “Media Factory video school” -course.

During the course we will watch your previous videos and learn from them. Between the contact teaching days you will continue your current video project and get personal tutoring in developing your project further. Cinematographer Hans Barck, sound designer Ville Katajala and editor / script writer Anna Berg will be tutoring you.

We will have three full contact teaching days: 14.11. 29.11. and 15.12 on Arabia campus. Between these days you will need time to work on your video project. The main teaching language is English, but we also accept video projects which are in Finnish.

Register through this link before the 22nd of October. There will be a limited number of seats available and the participants will be selected on the basis of their need for these skills in their work / studies. We gladly welcome group registrations. If you’re register as a working group, please fill only one application (for the contact person).

More information from info (at) annaberg.fi

Grant for Exchange Studies in Russia

Posted on September 20, 2016 by Juhani Tenhunen

For all the students of Aalto University this is a great opportunity to get to know Russia. A grant will be given for the studies .Student exchanges from Finland to Russia are intended for Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctoral students enrolled in a partner institution. Student grants are only available for full-time study or practical training which is part of the partner institutions’ working life co-operation. Students can also undertake exchanges without a student grant.

The students can choose from the following six universities covering almost all the Russia; Yekatrinburg, Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk, Saratov, Moscow, Saransk

Interested, click here for more information!

Thu 19 May: Satyajit Ray and Modern Indian Cinema

Posted on May 17, 2016 by Juhani Tenhunen

Dr. Ritwij Bhowmik (Department of HSS, IIT Kanpur, India) will give a talk on Thursday 19th May at 17:00 about the most famous Indian film-maker, Satyajit Ray at Aalto Media Factory. The talk will focus on Satyajit Ray’s very first movie “Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road, 1955).” The movie considered as one of best films ever, and received numerous awards and recognitions, which also include the Palme d’Or at Cannes,the Selznick Golden Laurel for Best Film (Berlin), the Kinema Jumpo Award in Japan, the Bodil Award in Denmark and many more. In 1958 it had been nominated for Best Film at the 11th British Academy Film Awards.

Satyajit Ray was one of India’s first internationally recognized film-maker and, even after his death, still remains the most well-known Indian director ever. Despite India’s early entry into the world arena with powerful directors like Chetan Anand and Bimal Roy, Satyajit Ray will be remembered as the first Bengali director to win a Palme d’Or for his very first film Pather Panchali in 1956. Satyajit Ray’s career as a filmmaker is about 37 long years, which exchanged and influenced with the distinguished transformation in the postcolonial history of India. This brief lecture will provide a glimpse on Indian post independence art cinema movement through the work of its most famous proponent. The lecture will offer details of Ray’s early career and his Bengali roots and will try to trace his cinematic genius through very first film Pather Panchali (Song of the Road, 1955) which has been widely perceived as the precursor of a new cinematic realism in India as well as one of the very first entry of Indian cinema into the world stage of modern cinema.

You can find the details of the film here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048473/?ref_=nm_flmg_dr_37

Dr. Ritwij Bhowmik: Trained as a visual artist, Dr. Ritwij Bhowmik obtained his MFA degree from Visva-Bharati University (Santiniketan); later he pursued Chinese Art and calligraphy from Northeast Normal University (China), where he was awarded with a PG. Dip. He earned his Doctorate in Visual Culture and Cinema-Study from National Chiao-Tung University (Taiwan). His research interest lies in the area of Modern Bengali Cinema, Indian Partition films and the works of Satyajit Ray. He is working on his fourth coming book on Satyajit Ray’s partition films, which will be published in 2017. Dr. Bhowmik joined Department of HSS, IIT Kanpur in 2013 where he currently teaches Cinema-Study, Visual Culture, Art History, Art Appreciation and simultaneously working as a professional painter and researcher.

AMF Video School 5.0 in May 2016!

Posted on April 11, 2016 by Jon Fabritius

AMF Video School 5.0 in May 2016!

Do you need to make an interview-based video related to your research or study project? Want to get familiar with Media Factory’s AV equipment?

Come to the next Media Factory video school in May and learn how to make short, interview based documentary videos, such as the Aalto Snapshots. We will also learn how to use Media Factory’s own video equipment that you can borrow for your production later on!

During the five-day course we learn the basics of shooting video and recording quality audio with hands-on exercises. We will also learn how to edit video and audio with Adobe Premiere. During the course the attendants will produce their own, short interview based video in groups. Please bring your own idea for a 3-5 minute interview based documentary film and prepare to present it to your group in the beginning of the week. One idea out of four will be actually produced in each group!

Course topics in brief:

– shooting video with a DSLR: Canon 5D mark II (focus on interview situations)

– recording speech with professional gear

– editing image and sound with Adobe Premiere cc 2015

The course teachers are a cinematographer, a sound designer and a film editor who have graduated from Aalto’s Department of Film, Television and Scenography. They are now ready to give you tips on improving your story and how to make your video look and sound better!

Register here: https://www.webropolsurveys.com/S/151586703121C5B4.par 3rd of May the latest! We will inform you on the whether you were selected for the course before 9th of May. Your professional needs for video skills are the basis of the selection so please fill in the questions carefully.

The course will be held on 16.5. – 17.5. & 23.5. – 25.5. at Aalto Media Factory (Hämeentie 135 A, Arabia Center, Arabia campus). Notice that the group exercises will be shot between 17.5. and 25.5. (requires about one day’s or half a day’s work or more if you’re project is ambitious).

Course schedule:

MON 16.5.

Morning 9:00 – 12:00: Brief introduction lecture: planning your production, basic concepts of camerawork and audio recording. Going briefly through the camera- and recording equipment used during the course.

Afternoon 13:00 – 18:00: Four guided interview exercises in four groups: camera, lighting, recording audio, directing/interviewee. Getting to know the equipment better and learning the roles in a video production.

TUE 17.5.

Morning 9:00 – 12:00: Reviewing the material produced during previous day’s exercises. Lecture: Analysis of the structure of an interview based short documentary (one of the Aalto Snapshots). Starting the group work: presenting and choosing the ideas.

Afternoon 13:00 – 17:00: Group work: planning each groups’ own documentary. Tutoring with equipment and planning.

From 2.12. to 4.12. Shooting the group works (each group approx. 4 hours)

MON 23.5.

Morning 9:00 – 12:00: Lecture: Basics of digital video formats. Editing with Adobe Premiere: importing the material, syncing image and sound, basic editing principles.

Afternoon 13:00 – 17:00: Editing workshop.

TUE 24.5.

Morning 9:00 – 12:00: Lecture: Where to find creative commons licensed music, images etc. that you can use on your video. Group work: editing the videos, guidance provided.

Afternoon 13:00 – 17:00: Lecture: Adding titles and basic color correction. Smoothing sound in Premiere. Group work: editing the videos, guidance provided.

WED 25.5.

Morning 9:00 – 12:00: Finishing touches. Exporting the videos.

Afternoon 13:00 – 17:00: Premiere of the exercise documentaries. Feedback.

No previous knowledge on video productions is required for attending the course. We will use Media Factory’s equipment in the productions but you can also bring your own DSLR for example if you wish. The teaching language is English and the course is only for Aalto’s students and staff members.

More information from Anna Berg – anna.berg (ät) aalto.fi

Archiving the New Media 23.-25.11.

Posted on October 23, 2015 by Leena Narekangas

ARCHIVING THE NEW MEDIA – Maximum obsolescence or digital permanence?

23-25 November 2015, Aalto Media Factory

Media Lab doctor of arts seminar

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

Keynote speakers

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

Jukka Savolainen, Director of Design Museum Helsinki

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

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

Ora Lassila , Semantic Web expert, technology architect at Pegasystems

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

Summary of topic

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

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

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

Methods of work

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

Learning outcomes

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

Participating

The seminar is open to Doctor of Arts and advanced Master of Arts students at Aalto University. Please send a 300 word abstract of your project or topic with your contact information and coordinates to Helinä Kuusela (helina.kuusela@aalto.fi) no later than 16^th Nov 2015.

Preliminary schedule .

For more info, please contact:

Helinä Kuusela
Research Secretary
Department of Media
Aalto University
School of Arts, Design and Architecture
Tel. +358 50 4644494
helina.kuusela@aalto.fi

AMF Video School 4.0 in Dec 2015!

Posted on October 14, 2015 by Leena Narekangas

Do you need to make an interview-based video related to your research or study project? Want to get familiar with Media Factory’s AV equipment?

Note: this page covers the 2015 event. See the 2016 edition of the Video School for a more recent course.

Come to the next Media Factory video school in December and learn how to make short, interview based documentary videos, such as the Aalto Snapshots. We will also learn how to use Media Factory’s own video equipment that you can borrow for your production later on!

The course teachers are three master students from the Department of Film, Television and Scenography. They study the fields of cinematography, sound recording and sound design, and film editing and are now ready to give you tips on how to make your video look and sound better!

Registrate here (https://www.webropolsurveys.com/S/ACB18D74527243E8.par) before 16th of November! We will inform you on the whether you were selected for the course on 23^rd of November.

The course will be held on 30.11. – 1.12. & 7.12. – 9.12 at Aalto Media Factory (Hämeentie 135 A, Arabia Center, Arabia campus).

Course topics in brief:
– shooting video with Canon 5D mark II (focus on interview situations)
– recording speech with professional gear
– editing image and sound with Adobe Premiere

Course schedule:

MON 30.11.

Afternoon 13:00 – 17:00: Four guided interview exercises in four groups: camera, lighting, recording audio, directing/interviewee. Getting to know the equipment better and learning the roles in a video production.

TUE 1.12.

Afternoon 13:00 – 17:00: Group work: planning each groups’ own documentary. Tutoring with equipment and planning.

From 2.12. to 4.12. Shooting the group works (each group approx. 4 hours)

MON 7.12.

Morning 9:00 – 12:00: Lecture: Basics of digital video formats. Editing with Adobe Premiere: importing the material, syncing image and sound, basic editing principles.

Afternoon 13:00 – 17:00: Editing workshop.

TUE 8.12

Morning 9:00 – 12:00: Lecture: Where to find creative commons licensed music, images etc. that you can use on your video. Group work: editing the videos, guidance provided.

Afternoon 13:00 – 17:00: Lecture: Adding titles and basic color correction. Smoothing sound in Premiere. Group work: editing the videos, guidance provided.

WED 9.12

Morning 9:00 – 12:00: Finishing touches. Exporting the videos.

Afternoon 13:00 – 17:00: Premiere of the exercise documentaries. Feedback.

No previous knowledge on video productions is required for attending the course. The teaching language is English.

More information from Leena Närekangas – leena.narekangas@aalto.fi

Visualizing Knowledge 10 Sep 2015

Posted on September 4, 2015 by Juhani Tenhunen

University of Helsinki (Centre for Research Methods & Department of Social Research), Aalto University Media Factory and Informaatiomuotoilu.fi present

Visualizing Knowledge: Visualization, Data & Research Meetup
Minerva-tori (K226), Siltavuorenpenger 9, Helsinki (http://www.helsinki.fi/teknos/opetustilat/keskusta/s5aminervatori/default.htm).
September 10, 13:00 to 17:00

Registration required! See below.

Are you a researcher interested in a data-driven approach to social science or the humanities? Are you a design or engineering student or graduate interested in collaborating with researchers in these fields? Are you interested in using visualizations to present your research results? Or do you simply want to learn more about the possibilities visualization and data-driven methods might offer for you?

Join us for an opportunity to meet with others interested in similar topics and to hear about some of the ways in which such methods and tools are applied to research conducted in Aalto University and University of Helsinki!

The event features an international keynote speaker and four researchers from the two universities presenting their work. Participants may also present their own projects in “open mic” style lightning talks (see below).

The meetup is open for all faculty, researchers and post-graduate students at University of Helsinki and Aalto University. A registration is required.

If you need study credits (ECTS), you may create a short report of your experiences of the event – please discuss the details with your own university.

***

The keynote presentation is delivered by Sandra Rendgen, an art historian specializing in the history of interactive media and information visualization. She has worked with Taschen Publishing and edited two well-received popular books on the topic, Information Graphics (2012) and Understanding the World (2014). She teaches at the University of Applied Sciences in Potsdam.

Other talks will be given by:

Dr. Lily Díaz-Kommonen, professor at the Media Lab, Department of Media, Aalto University. Her research interests include visualization methods and tools, as well as systems of representation for the digital media. She is the leader of the Systems of Representation research group in the Aalto University Media Lab and heads the Dynamic Visualization in New Media minor at the Master of Arts program there.

Dr. Matti Kortteinen, professor of Urban Sociology at the Department of Social Research, University of Helsinki. His research interests include mixed methods type urban analysis combining sociological and geographical perspectives, GIS, statistical analysis and qualitative in-depth interviews. He has received two state prices (“valtion tiedonjulkistamispalkinto”) based on his books.

Dr. Tomi Kauppinen, docent and postdoc researcher at the Department of Computer Science, Aalto University, and Privatdozent (PD) at the Institute for Geoinformatics at the University of Münster. His research agenda is to advance spatial information usability, for instance to study and evaluate the role of the web and linkages to support the creation and use of spatial information. A central theme in his work and teaching is handling of time, for example in a form of modeling of changes.

MA Wesa Perttola, University Instructor in Archaeology at the Department of Philosophy, History, Culture and Art Studies, University of Helsinki. His main interests include archaeological fieldwork methodology and the use of GIS, LIDAR and geophysics in archaeology. Topic for his talk will be Under the Ground, Beneath the Sea, From the Air: How to See Archaeological Sites.

All presentations will be in English.

Participants may also give a 5 min lightning talk on their own research interests or projects they’re working on. (The 5 min time limit is strictly enforced!) If you are interested in giving a lightning talk and want to be sure of getting the time slot for doing so, please email info@tietonakyvaksi.fi to pre-register your talk. The time reserved for the talks will be allotted on a first come, first serve basis. If there is time left over from pre-registered talks, anyone can give a lightning talk on an “open mic” basis.

For any questions about the event please email info_at_tietonakyvaksi_dot_fi

Introduction to Wearable Technology

Posted on September 1, 2015 by Leena Narekangas

Location: Aalto Media Factory Auditorium & FabLab
Lectures: Sept 22nd & 23^rd, 10am-3pm
Workshop: Sept 24^th, 10am-3pm
Enrollment: https://www.webropolsurveys.com/S/1EDB7C5574312BD1.par

The lectures and workshop introduce participants to the world of wearable technology applied to fabric or any other medium. After an introduction, in which we will see various projects from artists and designers who are working with these techniques, participants will learn to design and develop an interactive fabric piece. We will experiment with flexible conductive materials, basic electronics and some smart materials. We will learn about different types of sensors and actuators. We will study some flexible circuit design techniques and develop a LED controlling device together.

Programme:

1. Introduction to wearable technology. Project presentation.

2. Basic concepts of electronics: components, circuits, sensors and actuators.

3. Interactivity concepts and techniques in a wearable project. Presentation of various techniques.

4. Develop a prototype.

The teacher Maria Cuevas teaches at the UCM’s Fine Arts School in Madrid (Spain). She is interested in projects relating to art, design, science and technology and is currently developing a creative conceptual proposal around Wearable Computing Art(ifacts). The research focuses on the language of the new models for man-machine interaction and also the analysis and creation of devices related to these mobile technologies.

For more information contact:
Juhani Tenhunen
Factory Manager
juhani.tenhunen@aalto.fi

Media Factory at Aalto University

Category Archives: Education