Academic Methodologies

Prof. Dr. Lena Gieseke | l.gieseke@filmuniversitaet.de | Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF

Academic Methodologies
- Abstracts

Abstracts

SS22

Mad Designer Arena: On the lookout for an optimal projection mapping toolkit

Marton Gasparik

Live Projection Mapping toolkits have been around for over two decades in a range from free and open source to unaffordably expensive and opaque. Yet when it comes to handling a project with a higher complexity, live visual artists still have to come up with hacky ideas or creating their own toolkits. Since all of the leading software packages (MadMapper, TouchDesigner and Resolume Arena) have some features that make the users’ lives easier, we might just need to combine them to get a toolkit to rule them all. To gain better understanding over the optimization methods, I benchmark each software and compare the results with each of their infrastructure to understand which approach is the cheapest. As an outcome of this study, I prepare the ground for a new projection mapping toolkit that is optimized for low hardware usage and holds features that come handy when dealing with large-scale projects.

Gamification in Warehouses: Are the ethics mentioned?

Vivien Schreiber

Gamification is a topic among researchers and companies looking to improve workers’ performance. This paper examines existing literature on gamification for warehouses on whether they address the ethical ramifications of their work. It argues that ethical considerations need to be taken into account when researching a topic which may have considerable impact on employees. The methodology used in this literature review is a keyword search with Google Scholar, where mentions of keywords are counted and the reviewed papers are sorted into four categories. This paper comes to the conclusion that a significant amount of reviewed papers do not mention ethical considerations and therefore advocates for more research into this direction.

Effects of Imaged-Based Shading of Virtual Objects in 360° Mixed Reality

Jannis Volz

Object shadows have been shown to serve as depth cues in visual perception and to improve user experiences in virtual envi- ronments. Previous work has achieved accurate virtual object shading in 360° video-based mixed reality (MR) environments through image-based lighting. Other works have explored and researched the shading effects on object localization and user experiences in various environments. No relevant research has been performed to investigate the effects of object shading in MR environments, however. We explored the shading effect in a perceptual user study in an MR environment, in which we com- pared object localization with and without object shading. The results indicate, that virtual object shading through image-based lighting improves user experiences and object localization accuracy in MR environments.

Manipulating Minds: Applying Behavior Modification Strategies in New Media Art

Anna Brauwers

Behavior modification has become an intrinsic part of social media. Free services depend on user engagement - the more time users spend on a platform the more revenue will be produced. Combining the areas of behavior modification and media art has potential for transporting a message effectively and for gaining insights into human behavior from an artists perspective. Manipulation strategies are explored by analyzing existing media art. Subsequently a guideline for implementing behavior modification strategies in media art is being proposed. This research contributes to future research and artistic work in the field of creative technologies, specifically in the area of interactive installations and web applications.

Our Place: On the Emergence of Visual Artifacts in Collaborative Art in Reddit’s r/place

Jonathan Ho

This paper builds on an analytical framework by Litherland and Mørch (2021) to examine the driving forces behind the emer- gence of coherent artworks and visual artifacts in Reddit’s collaborative art experiment r/place. Reddit’s r/place was a 72-hour social experiment first launched on April 1, 2017, in which anyone could set the color of a single pixel on a 1000 x 1000-pixel canvas, every 5 to 20 minutes. In April 2022, Reddit re-launched r/place, with nearly the same ruleset. We validate Litherland and Mørch’s three-level analytical model (creativity, group interaction and instruction) with new data from the more recent 2022 experiment. We find that the analytical framework is still useful in describing emergent artistic output in a large-scale online artistic collaboration. However, in 2022, a greater focus was placed on instruction due to developer intervention during the experiment and the presence of coordination efforts outside of Reddit, such as Twitch streamers.

The Thrill of the Game: Four Game Design Approaches to Creating Suspense

Marco Winter

In this paper, I investigate design approaches to creating suspense in video games. Through a Rapid Analysis of a sample of games, I identify four different suspense designs. The four designs are A) Omitting Suspense, B) Increasing Difficulty, C) Switching Game Mechanics and D) Obscuring Game Mechanics. To investigate design D) further, I present a game prototype as a case study. Play-testing sessions with this prototype demonstrate the potentials and limitations of design D), in particular regarding player motivation.

Digital Galleries: The Creative Opportunity of Exhibiting Digital Graphical Artwork in VR - A Case Study

Tillman Schäuble

Digital graphical artwork (DGA) is becoming increasingly popular amongst visual artists and new generations [Mar07] [PCE18]. As well as the increased accessibility and reduced cost of digital hardware to create DGAs, this development is also driven by advances in technology that allow for high resolution presentation of DGAs in exhibition spaces and galleries [BOL] [RR13]. But there is a missed creative opportunity in simply presenting DGAs as such within the traditional canvas-on-a-wall paradigm. We present a case study for exploring this creative opportunity through analysing the VR experi- ence, Shortcut: A VR Dreamscape by Tillman Jex. Through our analysis we question the creative and technical considerations when presenting DGAs within a purpose built VR environment, and discuss the potential advantages and disadvantages of such an approach. This work contributes to artists and curators alike who are interested in the development of technology, art and curatorial practice.

Tim Rumpf

Ever since computer vision delivered sufficient ways for real-time tracking of human bodies and especially since depth sensing cameras where introduced, interactive art based on human motion was created. In this paper we will review a range of different interactive computer-based audio-visual artworks that use human motion and draw comparisons between them to identify common approaches and to define a common taxonomy of stylistic and textual elements. Virtual representations of the human body are examined as well as the influence of the bodies motion on the virtual environment. The substantial matter of the artistic pieces is inspected based on observations as well as based on the projects‘ descriptions. Conclusions drawn from this analysis should be seen as a valuable base for reflection on existing art but also as a starting point and source of inspiration for emerging computer-based audio-visual art projects that work with human motion recognition.

SS21

Virtual Production: The Future Of Real Time Filmmaking

Orkun Aydinli

Real-time computer graphics in film production has come a long way. Filmmakers such as George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, Robert Zemeckis and James Cameron initially embraced virtual production enhanced by real-time rendering. Since then virtual production has been a rapidly growing approach to filmmaking that utilizes innovative technologies such as 3D software, virtual camera systems and motion capture technology. With recent advances in real-time computer graphics, real-time virtual production has become even more accessible to filmmakers than ever. This paper gives an overview of the various virtual production concepts and types, technologies, tools and processes for real-time filmmaking.

A Model For Classifiying Content Based Music Visualizations

Malte Hillebrand

Visualizing music by transforming sonic into visual data can serve as helpful aid for musicians and experts as well as enhance the musical experience for the general public by incorporating a visual dimension. This paper proposes a new model for classifiying the variety of content-based music visualizations. Furthermore different existing examples of visualizations are classified with the proposed model and the robostness and usefulness of it is discussed.

SWARM VR: A Post Human Sensory Experience

Urszula Przybylska

SWARM is a fiction-documentary VR journey through a city swarmed by a group of protesting women together with a colony of bees. Thanks to VR’s immersive qualities users are put in a body of a bee for 15 minutes. From this perspective, they are confronted with Polish protests of women against a proposed abortion ban. SWARM imitates bee’s cognition: all events are happening in the sensory sphere, without the use of the human-constructed language. The experience acknowledges existing systems of inequalities and proposes an alternative, post-human perspective on human politics, by subverting anthropocentric hierarchies that promote absolute human superiority. By applying the post-humanist notion of performativity proposed by Karen Barad [Bar03], SWARM aims for intersectional, embodied storytelling, which incorporates social and scientific, human and nonhuman as well as natural and cultural factors. At the same time it leaves the users with a dream of utopia and inspires a call for action.

The Emotional Impact Of Targeted Visual Style Changes In Animated Film

India Aparicio

In Western culture, the amount of visual stimuli is constantly increasing. Due to the accelerated and high density of offerings, fleeting information intake seems to take precedence over active participation. We want to circumvent the passivity in media content and hypothesize that by changing the visual style within an animated film, several targeted emotions can be triggered. Through a qualitative survey, various aesthetic features were examined for their emotional impact and generalizability. The results were summarized into five aesthetic worlds within an animated film. The evaluation of the film shows that aesthetic stimuli can become the most important signifiers of a story. Furthermore, the results show that the change of aesthetics generates attention and thus intensifies the experience. These results may also be relevant for future animation projects, as they show the potential of using aesthetic stimuli to generate attention, mindfulness, and specific emotional impact.

Meta Algorithmic Art In Clojure: Making A Case For The Functional Programming Paradigm In The Context Of Creative Coding

Sebastian Wilhelm

The debate around programming paradigms received more attention in recent years, with the functional programming paradigm becoming increasingly more popular. This started to raise questions about its advantages over more established paradigms like object orientation or procedural programming. This paper reevaluates these claims from the perspective of the practice of creative coding using a case study on a past project which was implemented with Clojure. This case shows how core features of the paradigm — such as referential transparency and higher-ordered functions — are beneficial while coding in an artistic context thanks to more expressive power, flexibility, and iterability.

Proxemics As Design Concept For An Interactive Installation

Lucas Gray

Proxemics deals with the spatial behaviour of people among each other. It forms part of non-verbal communication and was originally coined by the anthropologist Edward T. Hall. This paper is motivated by the concept of proxemics and how to make use of it designing an interactive installation. While previous installations have focused more on the interaction of people with each other, the installation in this paper works on proxemic behaviour between human and artwork. For that, the interactive part is modelled according to the principles of proxemics. This is achieved by programming a framework in the visual programming language vvvv. Therein data of depth cameras can be combined with the generation and distortion of procedural noise. By means of an internal midi interface, a communication to the modular software VCV-Rack is established and enables the synthesis of generative sound. Thus, a lively behaviour towards the visitors of the installation is achieved.

Ellina Nurmukhametova

Remnants: Kind Acts of Cruelty is a digital art project that visualizes microaggressions to make them perceptible for non- marginalized people. The project is designed to raise awareness of racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of discrimi- nation. As a strategy to increase public empathy, we envisioned creating a hybrid participatory format, which consists of the educational website and the real-time physical installation. The website invites the user to share their own experience of facing microaggressions, which then becomes a part of the visualization that gives an abstract emotional representation of the topic in an immersive installation. In this paper, we describe the conceptualization of the digital art project in the social justice context and address the design choices for achieving empathy through such an installation. Our case study sheds light on the benefits of using technology with new media arts to foster public empathy.

Website Defacement as a Hacktivist Tool

Sylvia Rybak

Hacktivism, which is a form of activism based solely on computer-based methods, is a phenomenon that has initially grown in popularity in the late 1990s. Its form and social perception have significantly morphed in the span of the last 30 years, however hacktivist communities and individual actors still remain active to this day. One of the main forms of hacktivist actions or ‘hacktions’ is website defacement. It is often labeled as a form of digital graffiti, which consists of altering the content of a target website in order to either block its content or to display an ideological message. This article consists of a comprehensive review of literature already available on this topic in order to establish the main motivations for hacktivist defacement and the patterns these actions follow. Furthermore, the article also addresses the difficulties related to the proper documentation of hacktivist defacements and examines the possible implications of unauthorized website modification.

Review of Public Consultation Submissions Regarding Biometric Identification in the EU Artificial Intelligence Act

Johanna Hartmann

In April 2021, the EU commission proposed the worldwide first regulatory framework for artificial intelligence including a ban of remote real-time biometric identification for law enforcement. Even though biometrics is a controversial topic, especially given the rise of facial recognition in monitoring, there is no overview of expert recommendations for this law. To that end, we coded public consultation submissions to the EU Commission. We found that companies and business associations mainly criticize the ambiguity about low-risk applications such as biometric authentication. Civil rights organizations and research institutions are concerned about this proposal, as it enables systems outside of the narrow scope. Their arguments refer to the danger of mass surveillance, discrimination, and threats to democracy. Our analysis demonstrates that the Artificial Intelligence Act in its current state does not sufficiently prevent possible harms of remote biometric identification.

SS20

Abyss: Blurring Boundaries between Virtual Reality and Reality

Zainab Tariq

Virtual Reality has not only been rapidly evolving but has also become more popular as well as accessible among artists in recent years. This new medium is encouraging artists to experiment and open new spaces for artistic creation by blurring the boundaries between reality and virtuality. In this paper we analyse the differences between an audiovisual installation in the real world and in a virtual world, taking Abyss as an example project. We aim to explore and study the novel possibilities virtual worlds have to offer, as these are not bound by the physical limits imposed by our reality.

Kafka:Reimagined – A Visual Reinterpretation in Virtual Reality

Jacky Lai

As innovation has always been a driving force in the continuing revolution of art and culture, creatives and visual artists must look at new ways of how interactive media and technology shape, translate and extend artistic expression. Among these technologies is virtual reality, which not only opens a myriad of opportunities to explore the unknown and enables to break new grounds, but it also enables us to take on different perspectives on art that preexists in established forms of media, such as literature. In this paper, we describe the design and evaluation of Kafka:Reimagined, an interactive storytelling experience, which reinterprets Franz Kafka’s novel “The Judgement” within the realms of virtual reality. This work is an artistic contribution that should serve as an attempt to give new impulses for rethinking the interplay of art and technology by making use of interactivity and non-linear storytelling concepts.

Procedural generation of Non-Player-Characters for Role-Playing-Games

Denise Bischof

With gaming being the biggest entertainment industry in the world, the demand for new games with engaging game play is rapidly rising. But with this rapid growth it gets harder to create new and interesting content for video games. Especially the development of engaging non-player-characters (NPCs) is constricted to the bare minimum to keep costs low. In most productions, the main emphasis is put only on the development of artificial intelligence for combat NPCs. Friendly NPCs are mostly hard coded and do not react to global events in the ever-changing game world and consequently strip away from the immersion of the player. In this paper, we propose a procedural way of creating different types of NPCs which could lower the costs of development and give players a unique gaming experience on every play through, as well as enhance the immersion into the game world. We also propose a dynamic dialogue system, as well as an artificial intelligence memory system, that boosts the authenticity of the game world and gives the player different experiences on each play through.

Can You And I Be Even More Connected? Indirect Communication Between Two Humans Through Technology In 2020

Rita Eperjesi

Before the invention of literacy, our ancestors had to share time and space to build a relationship with an other human. Through the evolution of technology, we got to a point, when for keeping contact with someone, after adding somebody as a “friend” on a certain application, our data is automatically being transferred to our chosen person, without us being in the same place, time, or even intentionally handpicking the information we share. Does sharing our location, heart rate, or skill development, instead of having a conversation, bring us any closer to somebody? This is a state of the art paper about current digital technologies indirectly connecting two people, with a classification focused on the different data types we share.

Shaped by Motion: Artistic Approach to visualize Sensor Data from Smart Devices

Anna Eschenbacher

Smart devices are equipped with various sensors to enhance the usability, controllability, and management of these devices. However, the available sensor data is rarely used for artistic purposes, such as generating a personalized design. While design plays a vital role in the success of an application, it is usually the same design for every user. During the last decade sectors like advertising, entertainment, and healthcare profited from user-specific products. It seems like a natural progression to combine design and personalization to generate custom visuals. This work introduces a new artistic approach to personalized visualizations. Shaped by Motion uses sensor data from a smartwatch to generate visualizations of several sport disciplines. The data was captured using essential components of most smart devices, including accelerometers, gyroscopes, magnetometers, and the device’s internal microphone.

SS19

Cinesphere: Artistic Exploration and Reinterpretation of Atmosphere and Mood in Film

Phil Clausen

The affective dimension of film plays an important role in the reflection of viewing experiences and the distinction of genres. However, even films of the same category can differ vastly in atmosphere and mood, which is – aside from narrative means – also based on stylistic devices. Following recent publications about the concept of film mood and the analysis of film style, this paper introduces a new approach to examine the correlation between the aesthetic and affective dimension of cinema through an artistic piece. The audiovisual installation Cinesphere visualizes and sonifies multiple features of film sequences, namely brightness, color, motion, editing and sound spectrum, and thus creates a new output that is connected to the affective impact of the input.

A Spherical-Shaped Array of Light Bulbs for Displaying Particle Movements in an Art Context

Simon Stimberg

This work introduces an array design for a three-dimensional, spherical-shaped hanging of light bulbs, where upon visual animations can be mapped. While most other 3D light arrays employ a grid structure, this approach offers an alternative that is more suitable for emulating the volumetric form of a sphere. This is realized through the implementation of an algorithm, derived from the sunflower’s manner of distributing its seeds in optimal density. Onto the light array a swarm of particles is being mapped. To achieve an optimal mapping, a method is proposed, in which the intensity for each bulb is directly gauged from the particle simulation. The described setup was developed for the art installation The Hive, for which the artistic concept and technical implementation are being outlined briefly.

Feasible Approaches to Ethical Decision Making of Autonomous Cars

Markus Traber

Autonomous driving is prognosticated to be the biggest leap in car safety. But before a greater adaption of this technology can happen, there are some difficult ethical hurdles to overcome. An autonomous car might find itself in a position, where it has to decide between multiple individually harmful outcomes. Such decisions are problematic insofar, that we do not have the one ethics toolkit to resolve these decisions. On the contrary, there are various philosophical concepts. Also the individual perception of what is right or wrong in such a situation can vary a lot. We provide an overview of current approaches to forced decisions in regard to autonomous cars and come to the conclusion that there are currently no universal solutions to these ethical dilemmas, but promising first steps.

Arduino as a low-cost MIDI controller

Franziska Pätzold

Musicians use the effect of novelty and change to yield creative output and reaching their productive plateau of composing this way. [GFRJ13] So playing new instruments in uncommon ways, as for instance, the Roli Seaboard does by making music through Five Dimensions of Touch, can be a creativity trigger. To offer an inexpensive alternative, the Arduino MIDI controller is a tool that produces sounds without the need to touch any hardware, just by moving a hand in the air around the device. It can be build by combining an Arduino board, some wires and a couple of ultrasonic sensors.

Shader boom in computational art: Creative applications, advantages, and shortcomings

Valeria Barvinska

Graphics shaders are notoriously difficult to program and often seen as a black box. Despite this, creative applications of shaders gain in popularity among visual artists and creative technologists. The challenge which comes along is to provide a theoretical framework to better understand this phenomenon: what motivates artists to use shaders and how they are being applied in art. This paper helps to progress the state-of-the-art by examining the usage of shaders in computational art and creative technologies. The shader application and the motivation for their use are analysed based on the feedback of 26 shader artists. The constraints of artistic shader application and important open challenges are also highlighted to better understand shader advantages and shortcomings.