It´s a wrap. Merry Xmas from HapLab!

Posted on December 19, 2016 by Harri Heikkilä

The Grande Finale

We will humbly thank all participants, customers, students and supporters. These new deliverables will finalize the HapLab as a project within Aalto University.

The HapLab report II is available here in English, and in Finnish.
The eTextbook report has been published in English as a shortened version. Available here, the Finnish version is here.
The pedagogic HapLab app has reached the Apple Store.
Available here for iPhone, (sry no tablet- nor Android version at this time).

HapLab project manager Harri Heikkilä will start as a researcher in The Federation of Finnish Learned Societies (Tieteellisten Seurain Valtuuskunta) in an Electronic Book Platforms -Project 2.1.2017. New plans for research and dev. on touch screens and on eReading are forming up. See the end of the report II. Further info: Harri Heikkilä +358 400 214724, harri.heikkila@aalto.fi

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!

3D Open-source Digital Heritage and Sustainable Technologies Workshop Dec 1st – Dec 3rd

Posted on November 21, 2016 by Jon Fabritius

Aalto University, School of Arts, Design and Architecture’s Media Lab is hosting a workshop and training with public presentations and discussions on open source methodologies, practices and ideologies. The event will take place on 1-3 December, 2016 at the Aalto Media Factory (AMF) in Arabia, Helsinki. The objective of the workshop is to discuss key issues and hopefully come up with some guidelines that can help to make open source initiatives more feasible, successful, and sustainable.

Whether in the arts or the sciences, ultimate success in creative projects is often the result of indefatigable effort. Therefore, during the workshop we will discuss and showcase examples of both failed as well as successful open source projects. In particular we want to focus on the use of open source tools as part of activities involving exhibition and storytelling design. Participants are encouraged to come to the workshop prepared to share, discuss and work on their own projects. Two themes, each featuring an actual project, are offered as signposts, in order to guide the discussion. These themes are:

Data acquisition automation – portable 3D scanning device for heritage communities case study.
From virtual to material – realizing high quality 3D tangible interaction objects for museum exhibition using FabLab.

Working schedule:

Thu 1 December, 2016

9:00 – 9:30 Opening of the workshop (Lily Díaz, Andrew Paterson)
9:30 – 10:30 Keynote presentation (Robert Chave)
10:15 – 10:30 Discussion & coffee
10:15 – 10:30 Presentation of DigGLAM project (Lily Díaz)
11:00 – 12:00 Group and work organisation into teams
12:00 – 13:00 Lunch
13:00 – 14:00 Keynote presentation (Raúl Nieves Pardo )
14:00 – 14:15 Discussion & coffee
14:15 – 14:30 Presentation of Veselius VR Facsimile (Angela Hernández)
14:30 – 18:00 Workshop
19:00 Dinner

Fri 2 December, 2016

9:00 – 11:30 Group 1 meets at AMF FabLab, Group 2 in [TBA].
11:00 – 11:30 Light lunch
12:00 – 14:00 Public examination of dissertation, M. Arch. Samir Bhowmik,
Deep Time of the Museum. The Materiality of Media Infrastructures
14:00 – 15:00 Coffee and snacks
15:00 – 18:00 Workshop
19:00 Dinner (everyone pays for themselves).

Sat 3 December, 2016

10:00 – 12:00 Workshop
12:00 – 13:00 Lunch
13:00 – 15:00 Presentations and documentation of work done.
15:00 – 15:30 Discussion and concluding remarks.
15:30 – 16:00 Closing of workshop.

17:00 – 20:00 Trashlab and pikkujoulu (little Christmas) party at Temporary.fi (BYOB)

If you wish to take part, send us a 200 word project description, link, and up to 200 word expression why you want to share your failed or successful project in this context. Deadline for proposals submission is 25th November 2016.

Submissions: Saara Mäntylä, saara.mantyla (at ) aalto.fi

http://sysrep.aalto.fi/research/renewable-futures-network/3d-open-source-and-sustainable-technologies-workshop/

Systems of Representation research on heritage and digital culture is the context for these initiatives. The work is supported by EU Creative Europe program, Renewable Future Network project and Hybrid Labs project funded by Nordplus.

Featured artwork: Oldouz Moslemian’s and Martin Genet’s collective MA Thesis project. Oldouz did her thesis last spring as MA student in the Fashion, Clothing and Textile Design MA Programme. The supervisors at Aalto were Maarit Salolainen and professor Jouni Partanen from Aalto ENG / ADDLab.

Welcome!

Open job: Media Factory Needs a Student AV-assistant

Posted on October 26, 2016 by Juhani Tenhunen

Media Factory is looking for a student for AV-assistant position. We will need a person about one month starting as soon as possible and lasting till 21 Nov 2016.

Job description: taking care of Media Factory equipment lending, organising rooms, helping with edits and other tasks. The working time is mainly office time and most preferably full time work.

Contact: Juhani Tenhunen (firstname.lastname@aalto.fi) or tel. +358 505184087

Virtual Reality workshop

Posted on August 17, 2016 by Juhani Tenhunen

The first Virtual Reality workshop at Aalto Media Factory gathered about 50 VR-enthusiasts to make virtual reality films and meet others. It shows that the new technology in film making has been well received in Finland. You are welcome to explore the state of the art of VR short-films in Finland at Tennispalatsi on Wednesday 17th August 17:30-19:30. Buy tickets here.

MTV3 made a news insert of the workshop. Please click here to check the insert!

VR workshop website: http://vrworkshophelsinki.fi/

Virtual Reality Filmmaking Workshop

Posted on August 9, 2016 by Juhani Tenhunen

VR-glases

The first 8-day workshop on VR filmmaking 13-20 August 2016

The workshop is a non-profit endeavour to introduce VR to filmmakers, who are eager to explore the exciting artistic possibilities of the format, but may find themselves intimidated by the sometimes daunting practical and technical realities that VR involves.

The goal of the workshop is that by the end of the 8-day-workshop, filmmakers will have acquired a level of proficiency and familiarity with the technology and its storytelling implications sufficient to make them see the unprecedented potential of 360° videos. The idea is to empower artists to use this technology creatively, so that it becomes a new expressive tool in the arsenal they have at their disposal to move the audience and engage with them like never before.

VR-filmmaking workshop website: http://vrworkshophelsinki.fi

Media Factory is on summer holiday till August

Posted on June 30, 2016 by Juhani Tenhunen

We are on summer break. The doors will open again in August. Wish you a nice summer! Its really time to rest,

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.