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The Editorial Board of the Journal of Science and Technology of the Arts (CITARJ) has decided to formally withdraw the article “Avoid Setup: Insights and Implications of Generative Cinema", by Dejan Grba. After investigation, we have concluded that this article is substantially similar to previous publications by the same author:- Grba, D. (2016). AVOID SETUP Insights and Implications of Generative Cinema. Retrieved from http://dejangrba.dyndns.org/lectures/en/2016-avoid-setup.pdf- Grba, D. (2016). Avoid Setup: Insights and Implications of Generative Cinema. In R. Bogdanovic (Ed.), Going Digital: Innovation in Art, Architecture, Science, and Technology - Conference Proceedings. Strand.- Grba, D. (2016). AVOID SETUP: INSIGHTS AND IMPLICATIONS OF GENERATIVE CINEMA. In C. Soddu & E. Colabella (Eds.), Generative Art 2016 - Proceedings of XIX Generative Art conference.

Today, the importance of sound and music in film is well established and an integral part of professional workflows within the audio-visual production industry. However, Sound and Music Design in film has been explored creatively since the advent of Talkies in the 1920’s. The most well-established practices for the use of sound in film always came from the inspiration of film directors, editors and composers, but in recent years the systematic use of Sound and Music in this media has become increasingly relevant in academic domains, as a subject of study and research. This article proposes a possible direction in addressing challenges presented by this growing academic field, by introducing a process for codifying and systematizing an initial grammar of Sound in Film, entitled the Film Sound Analysis Framework (FSAF). The FSAF is a tool for critical analysis of Sound and Music in Film, that is based on the relationship between Sound Semantics and Syntax from a Taxonomical and Applied perspective. Using the FSAF in longitudinal studies of film, allows for a systematic analysis by the observation of similar variables through the identification and assessment of patterns or trends, when using Sound to convey meaning and foster emotions.

O discurso dos media tem uma grande importância na construção da imagem do Outro e, por consequência, influencia as relações interculturais. Neste estudo, procurou-se analisar o discurso de cinco jornais europeus para caraterizar Portugal na crise financeira de 2011. Para a consecução deste objetivo, foram analisados 25 artigos sobre a crise portuguesa, publicados em 5 jornais de diferentes países europeus. Nas notícias estudadas, os Portugueses são associados a atributos pouco valorizados na escala de valores europeia, como a pobreza, a desorganização, a corrupção ou a preguiça. Dominam, ainda, as referências a instituições e personalidades ligadas às União Europeia, em detrimento da alusão aos cidadãos portugueses. Portugal e outros países que enfrentam a crise financeira, como Espanha ou Grécia, são apresentados através de uma terminologia frequentemente pejorativa. As notícias analisadas adotam um estatuto moralizador, insistindo na identificação dos responsáveis pela crise e associando a austeridade a uma “pena” que conduzirá reabilitação do país.  Neste estudo, observa-se uma clara demarcação entre o Nós e os Outros, associando-se os Outros a um duplo estereótipo: diferentes e pobres. 

Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca is part of the series of 1940s gothic films. In this essay, one of the most common tropes of this subgenre of the psychological thriller is identified and analysed: perceptual ambiguity. Based on this element, I justify the formal choices of an (audio)visual essay - "Some Visual Thought about Perception in Rebecca" - made with images and sound from that film, which explores the gothic dimensions of the video-essayistic practice itself: research, contradiction, quotation and evocation.

In this article, we present Akson, a web-based audio-visual (AV) environment for networked interaction and performance. It is demonstrated as an emerging artefact of an investigation in computer music and media art from collaborative interfaces exploring the cloud. Akson allows both the generation of content in a customized network and the structuring of agents connected in different interaction models. There are detailed experiments carried out during the development process, their existence taking advantage of the Internet and the way in which the software works technically is detailed extensively. As an interface that extends the artistic gesture, it is presented as a result of research in the context of Braga Media Arts, a creative city of UNESCO (UCCN).

It is hard to deny that the notions of creativity and intelligence are inherently connected. But what does this correlation amount to? The aim of this paper is to explore this question and to contribute to the discussion regarding the connections between creativity and intelligence. In order to do so, I draw on the results of a study on the public perceptions in relation to the use of AI in the creative sector conducted at the University of Nottingham. Through this discussion I aim to test the hypothesis that the key features of creativity correspond to the aspects that are essential for the realization of Artificial General Intelligence, e.g. flexibility, domain knowledge, and common-sense. I close the paper by contending that while creativity is a crucial component of general intelligence, the constituents needed to build an AGI may not be sufficient to design creative artificial systems.

The evolution of philosophical views on art is interwoven with trajectories of accelerating technological amelioration. In the emergence of generative algorithms there is a need for making sense of modern technologies that step in a realm previously reserved for humans – creativity. This paper aims to understand the role of the human in generative art by demystifying implications of black-box generative algorithms and their applications for artistic purposes. First, we shortly canvas the current state of practice and research in generative art, especially music. Then, we introduce Anastatica, a part performance, part installation built using data-driven generative live coding. Finally, we discuss implications of AI in art through a case study of Anastatica’s development and performance. We trace the path from algorithms to intelligence, applying musical and computer science theory to a practical case of generating a live coding musical performance, while focusing on aesthetic, compositional, conceptual, and phenomenological implications.

We present an approach for composition and performance with speculative complex biological systems. This iterative approach engages with both the content and the context of science through generative visual and sound art. We offer a conceptual framing as well as practical exercises, demonstrated in two cases. By distinguishing the system, its representation, and human observer(s), we clarify influences, material artifacts, and sources of tension. In the case of Dismantling, a live performance using a simulation adapted from a model of the acellular slime mold Physarum polycephalum, we explore a shifting locus of agency during the performance between the observer and the representation. In the case of Feed, a visual and sound installation realizing addiction as a multi-scale process, we explore the generative tension of re-use of a representation to engage with different systems. The underlying biological phenomena can be viewed as complex networks with powerful performative agency and multi-scale behaviors.

In the early 17th Century, the Spanish painter Francisco Pacheco railed against his apprentices, telling them that the image should stand out of the picture. The topic was the one most debated in the art of the Counter-Reformation, whose main directives, outlined in the Council of Trent, would be put in motion simultaneously with urban "Christianisation". They presupposed a social contract, established between producer and receiver, implying maximum clarity of the message, which involved an ambiguous grey area that would be reserved for the outside of the focus. In painting, which sacrificed everything that was incidental or extraneous to the story, showing the essential and neglecting the accessory, the binary radicalism of the concept became more explicit, through the Caravaggian illumination or in the case above, the Spanish tenebrism of Velásquez, to whom Pacheco's admonition was addressed. In our Doctoral Thesis presented at the School of Architecture in Barcelona, we sought to demonstrate that the Plastic Arts were not the only field for the application of Luminist principles. In this article we aim to summarise this thesis by exposing the important relationships between image, ritual and urban form in 16th Century Porto, after a time, therefore, the late Middle Ages, which Huizinga classified as deeply iconophile , in which image and ritual were put at the service of the reformulation of a State becoming increasingly centralised and interventionist, whose action extended to the sphere of the Church: with King João II, and especially King Manuel I, the Crown was an active sponsor of religious reform that was pursued with redoubled energy and systematisation, from the reign of "the Pious", then already within the political system of close bilateral cooperation that was designated the Confessional State. We therefore believe that this type of approach to anthropological and symbolic components, which seeks to take into account the increasing importance that is given in contemporary research on the city's history, can be very fruitful.

A considerable number of contemporary films are now using narrative models that allow several adaptations on digital and interactive operating systems. This trend is seen in films such as Memento by Christopher Nolan (2000), Irréversible by Gaspar Noé (2002) and Smoking / No Smoking by Alain Resnais (1993), concerning the chronological organization of their narrative parts – here it is a question of order. Or in films such as Elephant by Gus Van Sant (2003), Groundhog Day by Harold Ramis, 1993 and Rashômon by Akira Kurosawa (1950), for the diegetic repetition – a question of frequency. Or even, in films such as Magnolia by Paul Thomas Anderson (1999) and Short Cuts by Robert Altman, 1993 which use the idea of expansion or compression of the narrative – a question of simultaneity. To change the accessibility of the cinematographic experience and to constantly re-evaluate the way in which the narrative tool is used, is from now on considered the interactive potential of the contemporary film narrative.

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Over the centuries, people have combined fields, leading to the creation of new domains. For example, artists have used technology to widen the range of their medium to express ideas in new ways. Similarly, technology has leveraged art to expand its range of application. Both art and technology continue to inspire innovation in each other. A contemporary example of this process is evident in interactive art era; this article covers this topic focusing on tangible interface pieces. There have been many compelling demonstrations that involve tangible interaction to increase audience interests through their embodied interaction. However, most existing approaches are limited to engaging a user’s immediate, temporary experience with setting some context of the environment with story elements. This article presents an interactive installation that engages the audience, building an immersive environment based on the synergy between embodied interaction and storytelling in a more active and meaningful way. It is based on the belief that tangible interfaces have the potential to convey narratives more meaningfully based on physical interaction and human senses and fundamentally, aims to supply another potential of tangible interfaces to spark further discussion in this area.

Multiphonics on the classical guitar is currently being researched by the present authors in regard to the reproducibility of the sounds originated and the suitability of the technique as a compositional element in writing for amplified guitar. Our hypotheses are to be tested, for which criteria for the data collection and treatment were established and are here detailed.

In this essay I introduce the notion of transducer function in the fields of electronic literature and digital art. Firstly, I survey the transduction concept throughout its history in such domains as physics, genetics, microbiology, biochemistry, physiology, psychology, philosophy, logic and computer science. Secondly, I discuss the relevance of a transduction theory versus the advantage of a transducer function. I migrate the transduction concept into the fields of electronic literature and digital art, showcasing the contexts of application, and several transfer processes and functions. Finally, I apply the transducer function as a theoretical typology and a recognizable system, highlighting some artworks by R. Luke DuBois, André Sier and Scott Rettberg that can be read within this framework. Thus, it means taking into account a set of transfer and conversion processes: information, patterns and data among mechanisms, technologies, themes, creative and theoretical guidelines. In this sense, I develop a critical framework that operates as a method for analyzing and comprehend further digital artworks.

The references for interpretation at the beginning of musical learning constitute the core of group piano teaching. Its stratification in technical, theoretical and tonal references enables an early, organized and effective approach to learning in which interpretation constitutes an agglutinating element. The systematization of positions at the piano, resulting from the organization of technical references, is central to this article since these are essential to the viability of the execution. The remaining references, theoretical and tonal, which are transversal, complete the theoretical frame discussed here. The proposed methodology, aimed at the 1st and 2nd grades of group piano teaching, it not intended to be unique but one of the methodological possibilities in an increasingly emerging area in Portugal, in which interpretation is the final goal.

This paper presents and examines several examples of digital interactive art in Japan. It analyses its roots in traditional East Asian philosophy, which grants the senses a prominent role in perceiving the world. By reflecting on traditional beliefs and contemporary art and technology in Japan, the essay reflects on the expansion of this culturally and traditionally inspired spirituality from its original context in the socio-cultural interpretation of the natural world to contemporary digitally mediated environments. The goal of this paper is to make explicit some of the main traditionally transmitted characteristics and historically conditioned approaches to technology and its use, focusing on multisensory experience. The treatment presents several multimodal artworks by Japanese artists, such as Ryota Kuwakubo, Masaki Fujihata and Kumiko Kushiyama.

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We present an overview and discussion of the Colloquium «Narrative, Media and Cognition», which took place at Porto's Centre of Catholic University of Portugal in July of 2015, under the organization of the Research Centre for Science and Technology of the Arts (CITAR). Several scholars of different areas presented research about the uses and advances in narrative study and practice in a broad range of areas, giving some important insights about the latest developments in Narrative Studies, Ontology of Narrative and the uses of Narrative in Art, Cinema, Performance, Journalism, Marketing and Literature, among other fields. After briefly describing the main points of each presentation in the Colloquium we try to draw some conclusions and possibilities raised by the Colloquium and take a glimpse of future paths that the use of Narrative can end up taking.

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