Events

Mehdi Karamnejad presented two posters at co-located venues SIGGRAPH/Expressive 2013. The posters represented the latest research being conducted at the Pain Studies Lab on Human-Computer Interaction, Biofeedback, Game Design, and Social Sciences. SIGGRAPH is one the most prestigious venues for showcasing breakthroughs in practices and production in Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques.

Dr. Gromala and Dr. Shaw along with the Pain Studies Labs graduate students Mark Nazemi, Mehdi Karamnejad, Maryam Mobini, Amber Choo, Ozgun Eylul, Jeremy Mamisao, and Bryn Ludlow attended GRAND 2013 / Canada 3.0 joint conference in Toronto. Well-knowns such as Chris Anderson, Jane McGonigal, and Jian Ghomeshi were among the keynote speakers for the event.

The project leaders of GRAND NCE coordinated meetings to discuss and assess current progress within each project and discuss future research paths. The conference also facilitated networking sessions in order to assist project leaders and graduate students find potential collaborators.

Additionally, graduate students presented their papers and posters in various tracks and showcased their new revolutionary approaches  for  different projects addressing problems in computer science, graphics, sound design, visual analytics, and social sciences.

The fourth annual digital media conference of GRAND will be held in Toronto from May 14-16.  The conference aims to demo multidisciplinary research being conducted across Canada in  digital media. The Pain Studies Lab will present four posters which showcase the research being conducted by the lab members. The title of the posters are as follows:

• Soundscapes: A prescription for managing anxiety in a clinical setting
• Immersive virtual reality and Affective computing for gaming, fear and anxiety
• The Science, Poetics and Theories of Touch
• Aesthetics: GRAND Definitions

Professor Gromala was invited to PAINBC’s radio show to discuss the research in the fields such as virtual reality, biofeedback, social media, and robotics, that are explored in Pain Studies Lab. The studies are meant to assist chronic pain patients manage their pain, engage in physical activity, and be socially active.  To listen to the archived version of the show, please follow this link.

Ozgun Eylul Iscen presented her paper and poster  titled “One’s Expression of Embodied Experience in Transcultural Contexts Through Media Art” at The Euphoria & Dystopia Book Launch, Symposium & Graduate Student Workshop, presented by OCAD University and & GRAND NCE, held in Toronto, January 31- February 1.

“The ISEA Board is pleased to announce that ISEA2015 the 21st International Symposium on Electronic Art will be held in Vancouver, Canada.  ISEA2015 has been awarded to Simon Fraser University in a bid led by Prof. Diane Gromala who holds a Canada Research Chair and teaches in Simon Fraser University’s (SFU) multidisciplinary School of Interactive Arts & Technology (SIAT).  The Vancouver team presented their proposal at ISEA2012 in Albuquerque in a very competitive round alongside proposals from the Netherlands, Mexico and Indonesia. The ISEA Board was impressed with the proposal’s developments since its original presentation at ISEA2011. Improvements included a stronger positioning of ISEA2015 within Vancouver’s local culture while maintaining an international perspective.  With the theme ‘Raw and the Cooked’ the symposium fill have the following focus:  “As one of the most  “green” cities on the planet, Vancouver’s inhabitants are committed to the struggle of re-visioning human relationships. Our conference will expand these human relations to non-humans—creatures, technology,  art, etc.—that have the potential to alter the relations in their collectivity through processes of individuation and transduction, among others.  The theme is meant not to bring us back to culture wars, but to provoke conversations about the impact of cultural practices on the technologies we make and use. Too often, technology is viewed in simple paradigms of so-called Western or industrialized nations vs. under-developed nations, yet the relevance of such a dichotomy fades daily. Instead, we hope to generate open discussions on the intertwining of culture  and technology.”  The development and the implementation of ISEA2015 will be managed through Simon Fraser University’s School of International Arts & Technology with the team of: Symposium Directors – Diane Gromala, Philippe Pasquier, Thecla Schiphorst Artistic Directors – Malcolm Levy, Kate Armstrong Assistant Director – Tyler Fox  With an academic conference, accompanied by a program of exhibitions, performances and workshops, ISEA2015 will be an international gathering of leading and emerging thinkers and practitioners working at the interface of art and technology to be held in July/August 2015.  This is the second time ISEA will be held in Canada with ISEA1995 being staged in Montreal.  For further details please contact ISEA Director Sue Gollifer at info@isea-web.org or http://www.isea-web.org

Profs. Diane Gromala, Thecla Schiphorst and Philippe Pasquier, with Vancouver Tourism, won the bid to host the International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA2015) in the summer of 2015. ISEA is one of the world’s most prestigious interactive art conferences. Each year, cities around the world compete to host this conference, which is scheduled to be in Sydney, Australia in 2013 and Dubai, United Arab Emirates in 2014. In the year 2015, the focus of ISEA will be on Art+Science.