News
The Media Innovation Circle#11 took place on May 6 with a talk by Matteo Bittanti, IULM University, Italy, followed by a participated discussion on the topic “Machinima. How a vernacular practice became a new artistic avant garde”, moderated by Pedro Cardoso (DigiMedia/UA).
The video is already available on DigiMedia YouTube channel. Watch HERE. We invite you to subscribe the channel.
Matteo Bittanti is an Associate Professor in Media Studies at IULM University in Milan, Italy, where he teaches at undergraduate and graduate level. He lives in Milan and San Francisco. More information is available here.
Abstract
In this talk, Matteo Bittanti discusses the origins and the evolution of machinima, a genre of video art that deliberately appropriates and repurposes video game content, providing an overview of an ever expanding practice. Bittanti argues that although machinima emerged both in vernacular and avantgarde contexts, it the the latter that has evolved in remarkable ways, while the former has largely plateaued. The talk will touch upon several examples of artists engaged with contemporary machinima and chart the possible future of the medium.
Title: Grassroots of Digital Europe: from Historic to Contemporary Cultures of Creative Computing
Acronim: GRADE
Funding: COST | Proposal Reference OC-2021-1-25404
DigiMedia team: Nelson Zagalo
Coordinator: University of Turku, Finland
Number of Proposers: 20 (Australia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, India, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom)
Abstract:
In a time when academics and citizens are increasingly concerned with surveillance capitalism, Europe takes on a leadership role in the global transformation towards a digital future that treats users fairly. It fosters initiatives such as the right to repair, pushes privacy and security policies such as the GDPR, and highlights citizens’ digital rights. These developments have their historical precedents in the 1980s and 1990s, when enthusiasts across Europe started to take part in grassroots culture of creative computing, or the participatory use of computers for experimentation, self-expression, or activism. Besides laying groundwork for commercial successes, these communities created important specimens of digital cultural heritage (e.g. the demoscene or seminal computer games) and universally adopted technical solutions (e.g. the Linux operating system). To successfully implement the values of participation, social inclusion, and bottom-up innovation in today’s technology policy, we need to understand these historical developments. However, the historical knowledge about creative computing in Europe has so far been fragmented and lacking in transnational and interdisciplinary dialog. GRADE aims to build a robust and diverse network of researchers from across Europe who will integrate the existing knowledge and work on new transnational projects. Within its work packages, the action will focus on investigating user communities, their interaction with state and European-level policies, and the preservation of digital cultural heritage. Together, GRADE will contribute to a participatory technological agenda for Europe that is informed by historical research and sensitive to the cultural contexts of the various regions of Europe.
Key Expertise needed for evaluation
Media and communications
History and philosophy of media and communication
Keywords
grassroot movements
creative computing
digital cultural heritage
Margarida Almeida (DigiMedia member) was one of the experts invited to talk about Digital Health in the 1st Binational Seminar on Global Health, that was held in Colégio Almada Negreiros (Lisbon), on May 26, dedicated to 4 thematic areas of Health – Comunicação em Saúde, Saúde Única, Saúde Digital, Inovação em Saúde.
To debate processes, practices and development of health services, the event had the participation of 10 specialists: Rita Spain (CIES-ISCTE); Graça Rosendo (Dr. Communication Hospital da Luz); Patricia Way (FIOCRUZ/ ENSP); Cecilia Andreazzi (FIOCRUZ); Josman Dantas Palmeira (UPorto/UA/CESAM); Ana Margarida Almeida (DIGIMEDIA/UA); Ivana Barreto (FIOCRUZ/UFC); Judite Gonçalves (NOVA SBE); Ana Rita Londral (Value For Health CoLAB), and Luís Lapão (NOVA FCT).
This initiative was organized by the GI in Strategic Communication and Decision Making Processes (Ana Margarida Barreto – ICNOVA/ NOVA FCSH & Cláudia Pernencar – ICNOVA/ PICTIS) in partnership with FIOCRUZ (José Cordeiro – PICTIS/CESAM).
Vania Baldi (DigiMedia member) presented a seminar entitled Social click :: Comunicación interpasiva, on May 24, in the Escuela de Humanidades y Educación of the Tecnológico de Monterrey (México).
Digimedia hosted the event “Digital Interaction 2022”, under the theme “Multimedia…”. The main activities were held at the José Grácio Auditorium, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Aveiro.
Full of activities, the morning started with the welcome session delivered by the Vice-Rector, João Veloso, the Head of DeCA, Ana Isabel Veloso, and the Director of DigiMedia, Nelson Zagalo.
Afterwards, a talk between some representative faculty members of several UA departments focused on “The University of Aveiro and Multimedia”.
Similarly, and just before lunch, directors of Multimedia-related courses from other Portuguese Higher Education Institutions debated the topic “The basic training in Multimedia”.
During the afternoon, a moment on “Media innovation centred in the consumer/producer” was delivered by Alexandre Ulisses, representing MOG Technologies, followed by the presentation of undergraduate and master’s projects to the several companies attending the event – TICE.PT, Pixelmatters, Ubiwhere, Critec, Mindera and AlticeLabs.
De jogadores a criadores de jogos: Promover a Educação Ambiental e Sustentável através de atividades de criação de jogos
Pedro Beça, Centro de Investigação em Média Digitais e Interação (DigiMedia)
Painel: Educação de Qualidade IV
Sessão no Youtube e comunicação
FlavourGame: design de interação em jogos híbridos
Ana Patrícia Oliveira, Centro de Investigação em Média Digitais e Interação (DigiMedia)
Painel: Ciências Exactas e da Computação
Sessão no Youtube e comunicação
POSTERS
Comunicação digital de atividades participativas em contextos de turismo cultural
Cátia Silva
Assistente proativo para a TV como atenuador do isolamento social de idosos
Juliana Camargo
Ambientes colaborativos com abordagem transmedia na promoção da motivação e autonomia nos estudantes com aprendizagens matemáticas
Marina Pereira
Modelo de interação para a promoção do bem-estar da demência
Pedro Reisinho
Empathic playable characters in digital games: a model proposal for the design of playable characters
Tânia Ribeiro
Painel de indicadores de saúde para o envolvimento do cidadão em cidades inteligentes
André Castello Branco
Open seminar with JANIKA LEOSTE:
Title: Supporting social interaction in hybrid STEAM learning
When: May 18 @ 2:30 pm -3:30 pm (Lisbon Time)
Where: Anfiteatro João Branco, DeCA, UA
Zoom link: https://videoconf-colibri.zoom.us/j/81600940428
JANIKA LEOSTE is a researcher in educational robotics and chief specialist in entrepreneurial cooperation and Innovation at the School of Educational Sciences, Tallinn University, Estonia. Janika’s research focuses on the sustainability of technology enchanced educational innovations, including robot integrated learning, and the didactics of STEAM learning at all school levels. Her short bio https://www.etis.ee/CV/Janika_Leoste/est?lang=ENG&tabId=CV_ENG
Carlos Santos (DigiMedia member), Luís Pedro (DigiMedia member) and Fabrício Carvalho (DigiMedia PhD Student) are involved in the design and evaluation process of the gamification strategy of the Ser+ program, launched by the Rectory: https://www.ua.pt/pt/sermais/gamificacao
Fabrício Carvalho’s PhD is focused on evaluating the impact of this gamification strategy on student involvement in extra-curricular activities.
Catarina Lélis, DigiMedia member, participated in the keynote session dedicated to “As Marcas, a Multiplicidade e as Mulheres” in the VI International Conference on Branding, that look place in Lages (Brazil), between April 27th to 30th.
Besides that, Catarina Lélis also presented the Workshop “Antecipando o impacto da marca na sociedade — contributos práticos para os ODSs das Nações Unidas”, which included higher education students and teachers, as well as business executives.
On May 4, 2022, between 3 pm and 4 pm, the seminar “Digital Storytelling in Education: a few case studies and future opportunities” took place, led by Professor Massimo Zancanaro, from the University of Trento.
Massimo Zancanaro is a full professor at the Department of Psychology and Cognitive Science, at the Università di Trento in Italy. His primary research interest is in the field of Intelligent Interfaces and presently his main focuses are on User-Centred Design of co-located shared interfaces and automatic analysis of behaviour.
Home page: https://webapps.unitn.it/du/it/Persona/PER0004568/Didattica
Linkdin: https://it.linkedin.com/in/massimozancanaro
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.it/citations?user=oH1ScJkAAAAJ
In this seminar, Professor Massimo presented some of the work he has been developing in the field of Digital Storytelling and he shared some case studies and thoughts as to future opportunities identifiable in this research area. The seminar was opened to anyone interested in digital storytelling and its application in education.
The Media Innovation Circle#10 took place on March 25 with a talk by Débora Saade, Fluminense Federal University (UFF), Brazil, followed by a participated discussion on the topic “e-Health Rio Project: Research and Innovation Network for Digital Healthcare Applied to Chronic Diseases”, moderated by Rita Oliveira (DigiMedia/UA).
The video is already available on DigiMedia YouTube channel. Watch HERE. We invite you to subscribe the channel.
Débora C. Muchaluat-Saade received the bachelor’s degree in computer engineering (1992) and the M.Sc. degree (1996) and Ph.D. degree (2003) in computer science from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio). She is currently a Full Professor with the Department of Computer Science, Fluminense Federal University (UFF), Brazil. She is also one of the founders and heads of the MídiaCom Research Lab. She received several research grants from the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), the Rio de Janeiro State’s Research Support Foundation (FAPERJ), the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES), and other funding agencies. She is the PI of the e-Health Rio Project: Research and Innovation Network for Digital Healthcare Applied to Chronic Diseases, supported by FAPERJ. She has contributed to the design and development of the Ginga-NCL middleware, used in the Brazilian Digital TV Standard and ITU-T H.761 IPTV services. Her main research interests include multimedia systems, computer networks, smart grids, IoT, and digital healthcare.
Abstract
Project e-Health Rio aims at building a research and innovation network for the development of activities related to Information and Communication Technologies applied to e-health, specifically to Chronic Diseases. The project activities are structured in five major themes, which are: neurodegenerative diseases, breast and thyroid cancer, psychiatric diseases, remote monitoring of cardiac patients and tele-health. The project team is composed of Brazilian universities (UFF, UFRJ, UERJ and LNCC) and international partners from the United Kingdom, Spain and The Netherlands. The main project goals are: proposing clinical decision support systems; proposing multimedia cognitive exercises with sensory effects to aid health therapies; proposing new techniques for analysis of thermographic images for detection of breast and thyroid tumors; development and application of pattern recognition techniques, using artificial intelligence mechanisms to predict psychiatric symptoms; proposing new communication protocols for wireless body networks for efficient monitoring of cardiac patients; and development of support systems for teleinter-consultation. This talk is focused on the use of interactive media for healthcare therapies, using multisensory experiences for helping treatment of dementia and autism spectrum disorder.
The article entitled “An Intervention with Technology for Parental Involvement in Kindergarten: Use of Design-based Research Methodology” by researchers Dionisia Laranjeiro, Maria João Antunes (DigiMedia member) and Paula Santos, presented at the 14th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU), was awarded the “Best Industrial Paper Award”.
About Dionísia Laranjeiro’s doctoral thesis, the article written together with her supervisors was selected from a set of works that stood out, based on quantitative and qualitative classifications, and on the comments provided by the reviewers of the scientific committee, in its final classification as a complete work, and in its oral presentation at the conference.
The conference took place in online format between the 22nd and 24th of April 2022.
