Manthos Santorineos

In the following paper, the case of Experiments in Automatic Writing, a festival-project that took place in October 2011 at Fournos Centre for Digital Culture in Athens, Greece, and involved collabora-tive writing and performance with the use of digital media, is presented and discussed. The project lasted for 4 days and involved 42 writers, playwrights, journalists, artists, poets, chat users, performers, actors, musicians, a visual artist and a chat bot. The article reflects on the so-cial, theoretical, writing and performative circumstances that gave rise to the project as well as its intentions and outcomes. By analyzing in depth the project, a reflective contribution to the field of digitally enhanced performance and theatre gamification practices is intended, from the point of view of the designer of the event as well as that of the practitioner. Some suggestions are made with regards to possible future uses of the methodology developed within the project framework in the arts...

The majority of children and students play computer games and are familiar with their terminology. However, they may not know how they are constructed and, primarily, they are not aware of their importance for contemporary digital culture. The same applies, also, for educators. In this paper, we present a proposal for an open prototype workshop, a combination of software and methodology, introducing art students and educators to concepts of contemporary digital culture (e.g. ecosystems of humans and artificial entities), through a construction and composition approach, based on powerful tools of multiuser games. The proposed workshop is named Creation of the world, precisely because it concerns the construction of an original multiuser world, collaboratively by educators and students. It is organized in a scalable way, adaptable to different levels of education and technological knowledge. Creation of the world is built upon the infrastructure of @postasis platform (apostasis.eu), which we have specially designed to support distance, collaborative education and artistic creation. This platform has been implemented based on Unity game engine and provides customizable tools for creating virtual entities with dynamic behaviours (avatars, Non-Player-Characters (NPCs), Internet-of-Things mechanisms) that coexist in a multiuser access space. The role of the educator is important throughout the workshop as to the definition of the world's main concept, the rules of its development (e.g. NPCs' behaviours) based on platform's tools, and the transfer of these to the students through targeted lessons. Students are encouraged to jointly construct elements of realistic or imaginary artificial worlds and their characters, by using composite means, starting from existing knowledge (e.g. painting, texts, digital elements, scripting). Their creations are gradually transformed and integrated in the platform's space, thus developing an ecosystem of interacting virtual characters and humans. Students and educators dressed as avatars jointly experience the constructed world and discuss on its concepts and redesign. Through this process they both acquire practical skills, and a critical view of the production cycle of such a world, and thus are able to reflect on creative ideas. Results are presented from cases of secondary and higher art education and directions of further research are proposed.

This paper presents the Global Earth Artistic Project, an ongoing project developed by the artist Manthos Santorineos and the computer scientist Stavroula Zoi. Ιt is a virtual exhibition in which, through the Geo-located Augmented Reality technology, virtual artworks will be exhibited in different areas of the earth related to major important but also minor but equally important events to the evolution of humans. These events show different paths of humanity.

In order to access this “geo-exhibition”, visitors have to download the relevant Android app from the web site of the exhibition, go to the specified geographical points and view the corresponding exhibits through their smart phones or tablets.

The creation of the Global Earth Artistic Project will be completed in three years, that is, when it is said that probably there will be the first colony on the Moon. The next stage is that this exhibition is transferred as a set of images to the implied Moon colony.

Regarding the technological implementation, it will also evolve based on corresponding technological advances in Geo-located Augmented Reality, accessible through smart devices. An important aspect will be to make the visitors conscious of the “pyramidal” space formed by their smart phone and the, at least three, satellites calculating Geographical Positioning System (GPS) coordinates, and, on the other hand, to provide the creator a framework for developing structures, in order to explore all the dimensions of this particular space.

The first version of the technological platform supporting the above functionality (the Geo(augmented)CulturalSpace platform) has been designed and is under implementation by the authors, based on the Unity game engine.

Τhe first experimental tests took place, in the form of a virtual exhibition in the context of the 2nd «Κοινωνώ»  Art Festival, Tinos, Greece, 15/7/- 2/9 2017 (https://www.kinono.gr/). A number of artists that come from the island of Tinos were asked to create a small artwork and link it to a specific point in the landscape of Tinos. The exhibition was curated by Manthos Santorineos and Christos Artemis and was transferred to the Geo(augmented)CulturalSpace platform. The public was asked to participate through their GPS enabled Android smart phones.

The use of digital technology and interactive games as educational tools, after a period of skepticism on behalf of the educational system itself, has been adopted by the latter, giving very positive results. One of the most important reasons for this acceptance has been the use of these tools in the area of special education, particularly in the areas of general knowledge or main school subjects through specialized software and peripheral computer devices. What happens however in music education that appeals to deaf students? Can technology be used to educate the deaf on music?
So far in this area, technology has established its presence through peripheral systems, especially analog, such as chairs or accessories transporting vibrations that focus on music pleasure and not on music education. Music education however is particularly important, since through this process someone is able to develop abilities such as synchronization and harmony, be developed emotionally and mentally, cultivate new skills, improvise, create, and be given the opportunity to leave his imagination free. Moreover, music helps in language skills development and in socialization.
This study aims to integrate digital technology, in particular low-cost virtual reality systems (HMD combined with hand movement tracking systems) in the process of music education for the deaf. The ultimate goal of this research is to offer the deaf a new or a different form of contact with sound through a ludic and interactive environment. An important feature of this effort is the use of technological aids as flexible and affordable solutions, which could easily be used by music institutions, schools, cultural places or even at home.
In addition, interactivity in such an application can result into two more benefits. On one hand due to the active participation of the user, the experience itself becomes more effective and interesting. On the other hand, the system of interaction is able to grant various statistics, such as recording the user's performance, the user's interaction timespan or the repeatability, aiming at further development and upgrading of the application.
The project presented in this paper consists of a composite immersive visual and audio system. For its realization a HMD is used, combined with a hand movement tracking system, as well as a special construction consisting of specialized speakers (low frequency) which surrounds the user at a certain position and distance. The application constitutes of three main categories: a) visual performance of oscillations of the sound in order to make its structure clear, b) creation (by the user) of rhythmic patterns through default processes and c) representation through three-dimensional space of musical compositions specifically made for this purpose in order to describe the frequency range and the meaning of timbre.

Is there a distinct difference between the perception of «crisis» within a linear narrative medium and in a medium of interactive storytelling? Do games of interactive storytelling, which have beenaccused as corruptors of youth, contribute significantly to the practice of problems solving, since most
of these games exploit the «crisis» in their central narrative structure? Can they be compared with the news or the mass media? These issues are raised by the Επιλογή in Crisis project, comprising a) the production of a virtual reality artwork where crisis is simulated in an arbitrary artistic way and b) an experiment with different groups of participants aiming to explore the view of crisis through this interactive construction and an audiovisual linear narrative. The most important conclusion is not eventually extracted by the statistical data, but by the fact that approaches of this type are interesting tools for experimentation and research about crisis. This research lies in an intermediate space
concerning art, sociology, psychology and media. The fact that the experiment was performed with a low cost virtual reality device that everyone can obtain - and recently this device was purchased by an important social media company - shows that the direction of this type of research is particularly interesting and could have different ways of evolution.

This paper presents Action Room II, a low cost experimental hypermedia platform for the creation of hybrid stages targeting the needs of experimental performances and spectacles, or for interactive narratives. The main characteristic of this platform is that different media streams, theatrical lighting, humans, objects, and robotic parts can be synchronized through a software console running at a laptop. The design of such a platform was based on a thorough study of performing arts requirements, both referring to audiovisual production and to experimental programming. The adopted technical architecture of the Action Room II platform is presented, along with its implementation. The fact that the Action Room II was used for a full season theatrical play for children, which is presented in this paper, gave the opportunity for further development of the platform and conclusions for the next version.

In this paper we argue that teaching Digital Arts, which is more than teaching new media, requires collaboration beyond national characteristics, state-of- the-art technology, and powerful expressive means which are found in multi-user virtual environments and games platforms. We present our experiences from the Delphous experiment, on a prototype multi-user platform for artistic training and collaborative creation.

The web site mouchette.org is animated by the persona of Mouchette, an on-line identity created by an anonymous artist. Toni Sant's introduction places this work in the context of other aspects of identity play on the Internet, and the interview presented here sets out the artist's purposes in creating Mouchette and the understanding of on-line experience underlying the work shown on the site.

Προσεγγίζοντας το έργο του μέσα από σύγχρονα ψηφιακά περιβάλλοντα Πρόταση για ένα πειραματικό μάθημα μέσω μιας καλλιτεχνικής δράσης
με την πλατφόρμα @postasis - Approaching his work through contemporary digital spaces Α proposal for an experimental course through an artistic action with the @postasis platform