paper
ESSYS* Sharing #UC: An Emotion-driven Audiovisual Installation
Sérgio M. Rebelo, Mariana Seiça, Pedro Martins, João Bicker, Penousal Machado
ESSYS* Sharing #UC is an audiovisual installation artwork that reflects upon the emotional context related to the university and the city of Coimbra, based on the data shared about them on Twitter. The installation was presented in an urban art gallery of Círculo de Artes Plásticas de Coimbra during the summer and autumn of 2021. In the installation space, one may see a collection of typographic posters displaying the tweets and listening to an ever-changing ambient sound. The present audiovisuals are created by an autonomous computational creative approach, which employs a neural classifier to recognise the emotional context of a tweet and uses this resulting data as feedstock for the audiovisual generation. The installation’s space was designed to promote an approach and blend between the online and physical perceptions of the same location. We applied multiple experiments with the proposed approach to evaluate the capability and performance. Also, we conduct interview-based evaluation sessions to understand how the installation elements, especially poster designs, are experienced by people regarding diversity, expressiveness and possible employment in other commercial and social scenarios. http://sharing-uc.dei.uc.pt/
Artists bio
Sérgio M. Rebelo is a Portuguese graphic designer, researcher, coder, and cross-media artist. His work practice is focused on the exploration of procedural and simulation approaches to craft audiovisual artefacts and experiences. His research and commercial work have been distinguished in several cultural events and venues, such as the Portuguese National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC), the Círculo de Artes Plásticas de Coimbra (CAPC), the Electronic Literature Organisation Media Arts Festival (ELO), the Golden Bee Biennale, or the Cultural Week of the University of Coimbra. Sérgio is a PhD candidate at the Cognitive and Media Systems group of the Centre for Informatics and Systems of the University of Coimbra. Since 2017, he is an invited teaching assistant in the Design and Multimédia bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of Coimbra.
Mariana Seiça is a crossmedia designer, trained in the Bachelor and Master's Degree in Design and Multimedia in the University of Coimbra. She is currently reaching the final year of her PhD journey at the same institution, and a teaching assistant in the Master degree course. Her research and artistic practices focuses on the use of sound as a communication tool, embodying her enthusiasm for musical forms that travel between the fields of Sonification, Sound Design, Human-Computer Interaction and Collaborative and Social Computing. Her PhD theme deals with the proposal and exploration of a systemic structure to conceive a sonification, materialised through an auditory field of sound beings. The main exploration deals with the interaction possibilities with sound forms, and how can they embrace new forms of dialogue that may, ultimately, enhance the emergence of aesthetic experiences that expand new forms of perception.
Pedro Martins holds a PhD degree in Computer Science, and an MSc degree in Informatics and Systems (University of Coimbra). His interests are in the fields of Computational Creativity, Computer Vision, Computer Graphics, and Computational Art. He has participated in several projects in his areas of interest. He is also a referee of journals in the fields of Image Processing, Computer Vision, Multimedia, and Artificial Intelligence. He is a researcher at the Centre for Informatics and Systems of the University of Coimbra and an Assistant Professor at the Department of Informatics Engineering of the University of Coimbra.
João Bicker is a Professor at Universidade de Coimbra and is the creative director of the Computacional Design and Visualization Lab (CISUC). He is also founder and creative director of FBA., a graphic design practice in Coimbra, Portugal. In 2015 he published FBA: o design gráfico como prática de clarificação, Almedina. His work has been exhibited in several venues, like the Triennale di Milano (2004), Centre du Graphisme de Échirolles (2008), MoMA, New York (2011). His work has been awarded in Prague Quadriennal Gold Medal, Best Stage Design, Prague, 2007; Red Dot Award – communication design, Germany, 2009 and 2010; National Design Award – Troféu Sena da Silva, Portugal, 2009; European Design Awards, 2010, 2013 and 2016; 50 books/50 covers, AIGA, New York, 2010 and 2011; Type Directors Club, New York, 2013 and the D&AD Award, 2020.
Penousal Machado is an Associate Professor at the Department of Informatics Engineering of the University of Coimbra and coordinator of the Cognitive and Media Systems group of CISUC. His research interests include Artificial Intelligence, Evolutionary Computation, Computational Creativity, and Information Visualization. He is also the president of SPECIES - the Society for the Promotion of Evolutionary Computation in Europe and its Surroundings. He is the author of more than 200 refereed journal and conference papers, and his publications have been awarded as best papers multiple times. He is the recipient of several scientific awards, including the prestigious EvoStar Award for Outstanding Contribution to Evolutionary Computation in Europe. He has been a keynote speaker at several major international conferences. His work was presented in venues such as the National Museum of Contemporary Art and MoMA, NY.
