Preserving story choreographies across multiple platforms: an approach to platform-independent reuse of characters' behaviors for games, simulations, animations and interactive videos

This article presents an approach that allows the reuse of choreographies of digital stories, regardless of the platform for which they have been developed. Nowadays, story choreographies are linked to either game technology, simulations or interactive animations for which they have been implemented, so they become unavailable as these platforms become obsolete. This limits their reuse, because to perpetuate these digital stories requires new and repeated efforts and investments in its re-creation for new technological platforms that appear in substitution of the previous ones. We propose a methodology to safeguard the semantics of this "narrative choreographies" in an independent way, allowing them to be automatically adapted to new technological platforms when the original ones become obsolete.Tis work is co-financed by the ERDF – European Regional Development Fund through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalisation - COMPETE 2020 and the Lisboa 2020 under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, and through the Portuguese National Innovation Agency (ANI) as a part of project CHIC «POCI-01-0247-FEDER024498».info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

We Have Always Been Virtual: Gilles Deleuze and the Computer-Generated Image

The use of computer-generated imagery is becoming increasingly ubiquitous across many fields including media, advertising, architecture and art. This represents a fundamental shift within visual culture, as imagery can now be produced routinely by means of rendering algorithms based on spatial representations. We propose that the account of the image provided by Gilles Deleuze in his books on cinema provides a rich philosophical framework for understanding such contemporary imaging practices. By providing a Deleuzian reading of James Kajiya\u27s 1986 rendering equation we argue that there is a tacit ontology of the image underwriting both Deleuze’s work on cinema and current computer graphics technologies. This ontology frees the image from traditional transcendent categories of subject positions or vantage points and instead revolves around the concept of an immanent image. We argue that these considerations lead us to a reformulation of the notion of the virtual, one that challenges its rigid segregation from the real

Expanding the mosaic of transmedia learning experiences: application of a transmedia storyworld in ESL Formal Learning Environments

Artech 2019. Conferência realizada em Braga de 23-25 de outubro de 2019.This paper sets out to address the gap in current research with respect to the application of transmedia storytelling in educational settings by reporting on the use of a transmedia storyworld in English as a Second Language (ESL) formal learning environments. It zooms in on students’ experiences and perceptions of the transmedia storyworld to take a closer look at how its exploration can foster situated language learning practices by shaping and expanding it. Outputs of this design-based research study indicate students share a positive attitude towards the application of a transmedia learning storyworld in ESL settings and that it allows for the development of socially and culturally contextualized second language acquisition processes.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Eq A Sketch 360, a Serious Toy for Drawing Equirectangular Spherical Perspectives

Eq a Sketch 360 is a simple program for raster sketching VR panoramas in equirectangular spherical perspective. It is built as a serious toy, to develop sketching intuition regarding equirectangular drawing as proper perspective drawing, with its specific constructions of vanishing points, geodesics, line projections, antipodes, and grids. It is useful as a teaching aid and as a production tool for preliminary perspective sketches to be further rendered with other digital or traditional tools. It is naturally adapted for the input variables adequate for observational sketches. In this paper we survey the operation and purposes of the program. We also show how it calculates the equirectangular geodesic through two given points, which enables one of its main drawing features.I was sitting for quite a while on the result of section 2.3 and its application. My thanks to Michael Scherotter of Microsoft, the author of Journalist and Sketch 360, and a fellow urban sketcher, whose questions pushed me to get on with it and write it down. I hope Michael and other developers will find the result useful for their own software and art. I was financially supported by Portuguese national funds through FCT project UID/Multi/04019/2013.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A/r/cography: art, research and communication

This article aims at establishing the foundations for a/r/cography as an “art and communication”-based research methodology, inspired by a/r/tography yet more encompassing, and particularly suitable for the digital art world. As part of the larger family of practice-based research methodologies, a/r/tography presents various ways through which it can be explored, but since it is aimed at the arts and education, its scope is forcibly hampered by the fact that not all researchers and art practitioners are necessarily teachers. However, since most of its underlying principles can be extended for non-teachers, thus arose the idea to propose a methodology that would retain ontological, epistemological and methodological assumptions, but would expand beyond the limitations imposed by the role of the teacher. This extension is called a/r/cography and is structured upon the interchangeable roles of artist, researcher and communicator, as being intrinsic to the underlying living inquiry processes. Furthermore, this proposal is supported by the author’s own experience from a/r/cographic processes in the creation, exhibition and communication of digital artworks.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A work-in-progress on technologically expanded performance

UID/EAT/00693/2019 PTDC/ART-PER/31263/2017 CEECIND/02302/2017Embodying Sound is a performing art project that integrates dance, music and digital technology, it explores a real-time sonification of human motion, captured by inertial sensors, using the XSens system. First and foremost, it is not a demonstration of technical virtuosity, but an attempt to put technology at the service of imagination and creativity. In a world dominated by computation - tending to a dystopic future of "artificial intelligences" (Minsky, 1998) we tend to forget that present-day machines cannot really think or feel; Computers do not have purposes, do not love or understand reality the way a living organism does (c.f. António Damásio 2017). In this presentation, we explore how technology can act as a mediator between dance and music. The quest of this performative process is to investigate the sound signature of the body. Here we discuss how such phenomenological experience might challenge self-consciousness and the perception of identity. Furthermore, within a more general approach, we question how does this artistic and technological interaction stimulate the expansion of artistic expression, which might result in new aesthetics.publishersversionpublishe

HIMmaterial: exploring new hybrid media for immersive drawing and collage

We propose an installation that explores Hybrid Immersive Models (HIM), the conjunction of digital VR panoramas with physical, handmade spherical perspectives and anamorphoses, as a new hybrid art medium that connects traditional drawing with digital, immersive art, creating a dialogue between material and immaterial forms of visual expression.Author A. B. Araújo was partially supported by Portuguese National Funds through FCT project UID/Multi/04019/2013. Special thanks go to Prof. Adriana Rossi from University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, Prof. Salvatore Barba from University of Salerno and NAOS Consulting Ltd.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Mobile social hybrids and drone art

Contemporary global society is not just intercultural, but also mobile. On one hand, a plurality of social actors originates from different societies (citizens, tourists and immigrants). On the other hand, many of them are economically and geographically mobile, which reinforces the tendence of their cultures to hybridize. Moreover, such social processes are more and more undertaken by using technological devices, e.g. mobile devices and drones. This last appliance and sociocultural instrument is becoming so ubiquitous and omnipresent, that we are entering into a global society and culture not just supervised by the internet, but mainly by drones, a dronic reality/society. The present text aims to discuss some social and cultural processes and arenas where such transformations take place, and to give some examples of concrete works of art that represent or present such issues. For this purpose, firstly the contemporary mobile society, culture and arts are discussed, and related to a reflection on the hybrid nature of numerous current entities. Secondly, some exemplifying case studies of technological art that underlies such context are shown, e.g. Sociological Games and Drone art.A sociedade global contemporânea não se mostra apenas intercultural, mas também móvel. Por um lado, uma pluralidade de atores sociais origina-se em diferentes sociedades (cidadãos, turistas e imigrantes). Por outro lado, muitos deles são económica e geograficamente móveis, o que reforça a tendência para a hibridação das respetivas culturas. Além disso, tais processos sociais são cada vez mais empreendidos usando dispositivos tecnológicos, como os telemóveis e os drones. Este último aparelho e instrumento sócio-cultural está a tornar-se tão ubíquo e omnipresente, que nos encontramos a entrar numa sociedade e cultura globais não apenas supervisionada pela Internet, mas principalmente por drones, ou seja, uma realidade/sociedade drónica. O presente texto tem como objetivo discutir alguns processos e arenas sociais e culturais, onde tais transformações acontecem, e dar alguns exemplos de obras de arte concretas que representam ou apresentam tais questões. Para este fim, em primeiro lugar, são discutidas a sociedade, cultura e artes móveis contemporâneas, e relacionadas com uma reflexão sobre a natureza híbrida de numerosas entidades atuais. Em segundo lugar, alguns exemplos de estudos de caso de arte tecnológica que sustentam tal contexto são apresentados, por exemplo, os jogos sociológicos e a arte drone.(undefined

Cadavre Exquis: motion-controlled interactive film

This interactive film, a variation on the surrealist game Cadavre Exquis, seeks the possibility of subverting the filmic discourse by exploring psychosomatic processes that may give the viewer different perceptions of cinematic time, by providing the possibility of intervening into the narrative in a disruptive way.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

ARCAA: a framework to analyse the artefact ecology in computer music performance

This paper presents ARCAA (Actors, Role, Context, Activity, Artefacts), a framework that supports designers in understanding the artefact ecology in the music performance scenario, in particular, allowing to frame the role of the different actors. The ARCAA framework is the result of the combination of two different areas of HCI: artefact ecology concept, and design framework for digital musical instruments. The model borrows three categories from MINUET an established design framework and rethinks them from an ecological perspective. In ARCAA, these three categories are used as three lenses to connect each human actor to her artefact ecology. Finally, the framework allows comparing how the various artefacts create connections among the different people involved. The second part of the paper describes a case study that shows a practical adoption of the framework