At the intersection of science, art and technology, this project is focusing on the limits between neuroscience and psychology. The matter and the location of human memories has been shown to be linked to the experienced emotions at the time they where stored. The emergence of powerful new radiological measurement techniques (e.g., fMRI, PET, SPECT) combined with experimental techniques from cognitive psychology allows neuroscientists and psychologists to address abstract questions such as how human cognition and emotion are mapped to specific neural substrates.

A-me is an emotional memory recall device.
Following the state of the art knowledge on brain atlases to map out the location of human experiences this device allows the reproduction of them by providing visual and auditory feedback.

An Optical See-Through display is used to overlay the virtual information into a phantom head (a medical term for a dummy head). The user will be able to navigate the brain by using a tracked probe in a similar way the neurosurgeons use it in pre-operative planning. While navigating the brain, the user will find active areas in specific parts of the nervous structure. Pointing at them with the probe will trigger an stored emotional experience in the form of a voice coming from the phantom and a visual interpretation of its neural activity.

Developed at SenseIT, funded by Q2S and Picturing The Brain.

Four days of conference, one full day of Workshops and Tutorials providing insights current challenges of MR and AR.

3 keynote speakers:
Oliver Grau, an art historian and media theorist, Mark Bolas, a research scientist, an artist, and a designer exploring perception, agency, and intelligence and Adrian David Cheok, a research scientist focusing on mixed reality, HCI, wearable computers and ubiquitous computing.

Two conference tracks: Science and Technology + Arts, Media and Humanities
Science and Technology combines work in computer vision, computer graphics, user interfaces, wearable computing, mobile computing, displays, and sensors.
Arts, Media and Humanities invites artists, designers, architects, urbanists, and scholars to explore Mixed and Augmented Reality within their respective fields.

Workshop on Visualization in Mixed Reality Environments
Focusing on the aspects of visualization in MR/AR, this workshop gave a promising future for the study of perceptual methods in the field of AR. By far it was the most related topic to our project, and it gave fantastic resources for our current research.

Anja Johansen and Merete Lie (in the project "Inside out: New images and imaginations of the body ") and Rita Elmkvist Nilsen, Aud Sissel Hoel and Annamaria Carusi (in the project Picturing the Brain: Perspectives on Neuroimaging). The picture also shows Anders Skare Malvik (NTNU) and Anna Dahlgren (Stockholm University). Photo by Bård Ivar Basmo.

The media acts conference dealt with the following topic:

Recent technological changes that involve digitization have been claimed to erase the differences among individual media, and fundamentally to alter the conditions of perception and experience. In the art world, formerly dominant conceptions of art forms such as poetry, painting, sculpture, and even video art, which in the 1960s were codified as channeled sensory portals, have been replaced by blurred domains of new media art, of sound art and tangible media. What, then, in the current situation, does the disputed concept of “medium” mean? Certainly, media still matter – but why, how, and in what ways?

Keynote speakers: Jacques Rancère, University of Paris (St-Denis), James Elkins, School of the art institute of Chicago, Sara Danius, Södertörn University College, Frederik Tygstrup, University of Copenhagen, and Aud Sissel Hoel, NTNU.

Panels of special interest to the Picturing the Brain project was the three panels “Medical Media: Bodies, Spaces, Apparatuses” with papers by Anja Johansen, Rita Elmkvist Nilsen and Kathrin Friedrich, “Images, Visual Technologies and Knowledge” with papers by Anne Beaulieu, Annamaria Carusi and Henrik Gustafsson, and “Performative Mediation: The Transformation of Places, three case studies” with papers by Susanne Østby Sæther, Ragnhild Tronstad and Liv Hausken. We would also like to mention Sarah de Rijcke’s talk on enacting artful realities through digital photography.

For more information: http://www.ntnu.no/ikm/mediaacts

We are very delighted to welcome A.Prof. Weisi Lin, Nanyang Technological University, who will visit Q2S during Oct. 17-19. Weisi Lin’s research areas cover image processing, perception-based modeling, signal compression, object recognition, multimedia communication, and fast implementation.

He will give a lecture entitled “Perceptual Quality Evaluation: An Overview and Several New Contributions” on Oct. 17, Monday at 14:15 in E-258 (Q2S lunch room). You are all welcome to attend.

You are also welcome to meet Weisi during his stay at Q2S.

http://q2s.ntnu.no/q2s_colloquium

International seminar Visualizing the Brain: Re-conceptualizing Selfhood, Desire and Sexuality through Neuroimaging, at Pufendorf Institute, Lund University. Speakers: Aud Sissel Hoel, who presented the Picturing the Brain project, and Isabelle Dussauge, who is an Associate Professor in the Department of Thematic Studies – Technology and Social Change, Linköping University and who gave an exciting lecture about her research project, which ‘explores the neuroimaging experimental science of sex. It attends to experimental dispositifs, the political esthetics of brain images, and the ties to brain research on other human pleasures. I suggest that in its current use, neuroimaging participates in a re-orientation of the human towards “a neural economy of desire” which re-defines the world of social interactions.’

The seminar forms part of the collaborative series of seminars and workshop Biomedical Transformations of Life: Knowledge, Learning and the Rise of Biocitizens, jointly organized by the Genetics and Democracy (GaD) Network, Lund University and the Learning and Media Technology Studio (LETStudio), University of Gothenburg.

The organizers of this seminar was Max Liljefors (GaD), Department of Arts and Cultural Sciences, Division of Art History and Visual Studies, Lund University and Hans Rystedt (LETStudio), Department of Education, Communication and Learning, University of Gothenburg.

The two lectures were followed by a lively and highly productive discussion, and to quote Mark Elam (LETStudio), who was chairing the discussion, ‘what a great audience!’. Sissel will meet up with members of the GaD network in Berlin in November, and the Picturing the Brain project will definitely stay in touch with Isabelle, the LETStudio and other participants in this inspiring event.

View from hotel Concordia in Lund, 6 October 2011.

29 October 2011

In October 2011 James Elkins visits in Trondheim. On Wednesday 26 October he delivers a keynote speech about the boredom involved in looking at photographs (!). Elkins’ talk is based on his new book What Photography Is (Routledge 2011). (By the way, Sissel has reviewed this book for the journal Ekfrase: Nordic Journal of Visual Culture 2/2010.)

Saturday 29 October Elkins participates in a workshop organized by the Picturing the Brain project. Participants in the workshop include: Annamaria Carusi, Liv Hausken, Rita E. Nilsen, Jordi Puig, Anja Johansen, Kathrin Friedrich, Sarah de Rijcke, Anne Beaulieu, and Aud Sissel Hoel.

At Twente University in Enschede, Netherlands, there is an interesting department: A philosophy department where everyone studies the philosophy of technology! On Thursday 22. September Sissel presented the Picturing the Brain project in their departmental colloquium – as well as some ideas about “differential mediation”. Very good discussion.

Recent technological changes that involve digitization have been claimed to erase the differences among individual media and fundamentally to alter the conditions of perception and experience. In the art world, formerly dominant conceptions of art forms such as poetry, painting, sculpture, and even video art, which in the 1960s were codified as channeled sensory portals, have been replaced by blurred domains of new media art, of sound art and tangible media. What, then, in the current situation, does the disputed concept of ‘medium’ mean? Certainly, media still matter – but why, how and in what ways? The 10th NorSIS international conference addresses these questions by changing focus from what a medium is (in terms of substantial characteristics) to what media do.

http://www.ntnu.no/ikm/mediaacts

Keynotes: Jacques Rancière, James Elkins, Sara Danius, Frederik Tygstrup, and Aud Sissel Hoel.

Sissel guest lectures and presents the Picturing the Brain project at the School of Communication, Media, and IT in the Department of Rhetoric at Södertörn University College, Huddinge, Sweden. Invitation by Mats Rosengren, whom Sissel knows through her work on Ernst Cassirer.