CALLAS Community Club
Introducing the user in the project
Irene Buonazia, SNS
i.buonazia@sns.it
info@callas-newmedia.eu
Building Communities in the Digital Arts and Humanities
Research Practice and Research Infrastructures
Ediburgh, 2008-11-25
National e-Science Centre
CALLAS is…
Conveying Affectiveness in Leading-edge Living
Adaptive Systems
..as Maria CALLAS provided a more emotional
approach to her music, the CALLAS project will
introduce emotional and natural interaction into New
Media applications ...
IP FP6 - 2005 - IST - call 5 Multimodal Interfaces (2.5.7)
November 2006 - May 2010
http://www.callas-newmedia.eu/
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The consortium
Engineering (IT)
VTT Electronics (FI)
BBC (UK)
Studio Azzurro (IT)
XIM (UK)
Digital Video (IT)
Humanware (IT)
Nexture (IT)
University of Augsburg (DE)
ICCS / NTUA (GR)
University of Mons (BE)
University of Teesside (UK)
Helsinki Univ. Technology (FI)
Paris 8 (FR)
Scuola Normale Superiore (IT)
University of Reading (UK)
Fondazione Teatro Massimo (IT)
HIT Laboratory (NZ)
3 axes consortium:
1) Universities and
research centres
2) Large IT or
broadcasting
companies
3) Small and medium
enterprises, similar to
potential CALLAS
users
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Project structure
Shelf: a set of software components for affective
human machine interaction, already developed
and/or under R&D, to be assembled through a
Framework: a Software Engineering Approach to
allow different modes of integration, supporting rapid
prototyping demonstrated during the project through
Showcases: real development cases to demonstrate
how digital artists and entertainment companies can
use the system for creative purposes
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Showcases
Prototypes of Multimodal interaction with emphasis on
emotional aspects
Improving the state of the art of research in emotional
models, by increasing corpora of user emotional
interaction in the complex domain of artistic
experience
Bridging the gap between on-going research and
commercial applications, promoting technology
transfer towards SMEs and replicating results into
close domains
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Showcases
1. Interactive entertainment and TV
• interactive storytelling with Emotional
Conversational Agents aside the human audience
2. Installation in public spaces
• Puppet wall: a virtual wall where multiple users can
create with personal contents, activate and modify
puppet stories
3. New media - 3.a.A/R art
• emotional tree: an A/R tree grows according to
users’ emotional feedbacks
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Showcases
3. New media - 3.b Digital Theatre
• Actors’ motion detection and interaction with virtual
stage during the opera “Virtuali/Virtuosi” (Helsinki,
Feb. 2008)
• “Galileo all’inferno”: audience interaction with digital
stage apparel with emotional voice and speech
detection (Milan, Teatro degli Arcimboldi, July 2008)
• “Orchestra celeste”: an orchestra conductor interacts
with a baton activating video streams (Rome, S.
Cecilia, Oct. 2008)
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Showcases
3. New media - 3.b Digital Theatre
• “Music kiosk”: multiple users “conduct” an orchestra
execution, getting into different virtual rooms and
playing various instruments (demo Sept. 2008,
Sapporo; planned with users for spring 2009 at S.
Cecilia).
• “Virtual opera” for Teatro Massimo di Palermo: kids
act opera characters in an interactive storyboard
(planned 2009).
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Showcases approach
1. Cooperation of many shelf components - in e-tree
TEES applied on its emotional model various modules, as
emovoice (UoA), motion tracking (VTT), gaze detection (NTUA)
2. Cooperation of many partners with different skills “Galileo all’inferno” is a show by SAZ, UoA provided emovoice
module, TKK users’ evaluation
3. Inclusion of technological components not originally
in the shelf (flexibility of the framework): baton
developed by SAZ in “Orchestra celeste”
4. Involvement of institutions and researchers out of the
consortium: e.g. S. Cecilia Academy
5. Involvement of users for evaluation (saving privacy!)
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The community
CALLAS set up traditional communication and
dissemination strategies to raise the awareness of
the project
• Public web site http://www.callas-newmedia.eu
Topics, contacts, consortium, public deliverables,
abstract of papers, project events, demonstration
material
• Newsletter
• Participation in conferences, workshops
• Negotiation and concertation with other projects or
bodies
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…something more
CALLAS intended to create a
community of people / bodies
interested in the project
and in the topic of
emotional and affective interaction
•
•
•
•
less formally, more proactively
during the development of the project
contributing to research
without forgetting sustainability
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Why?
Research and methodology
- have feedbacks on proof of concepts, demos
- create connections with other researchers in close
domains, achieving a wider state-of-the-art
Creation of events (further dissemination)
- imagine, with potential new users, other applications
of already existing showcases
Sustainability and replicability
- identify potential new scenarios to replicate CALLAS
outcomes
- have a direct glance on our competitors used/known
by our potential future users
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How? Before…
In previous projects, we used to sign singular
agreements with people / bodies
– Letter of interests
– Agreements of cooperation (formalized, usually financed),
contracts
+ clear tasks from both sides
- very formal
+ good for public or large private bodies (it will be
replicated to support training sessions)
- too long to manage for single users
- very time / cost consuming in international projects
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How? Today…C3
a virtual community on the model of a social network:
The CALLAS Community Club
http://callaseu.ning.com/
+/- It’s cool :) is it still cool? :(
+ tools easy to put in place by dissemination team with
a free software (NING - http://www.ning.com/)
+ supporting multiple media (video, pictures, mp3),
mandatory for a project on multimodal interfaces
and new media
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Who?
Artists in new media
academies, schools, residencies, artists’ networks, museums
Performing arts events producers / organizers
Theatres, ballet companies, music
Researchers in IT, psychology, arts,
universities, departments, labs, single scholars, research projects
Small and Medium Enterprises
new and traditional media production, video / web games,
interfaces design, IT…
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Who? invitations
C3 is by invitation only and after a private agreement
(let’s avoid spam!)
The rationale for recruitment has been:
•
All project partners suggest potential candidates
•
A wish list is updated (collecting info on contacts, organization
profile, core research / business, direct contact, status of
invitation)
•
Single email of invitation are sent (or direct contact in
conferences etc.)
•
After an explicit interest the invitation to the C3 is sent
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Members can…
• (must) describe thierself, declaring main interests
• Participate in and start discussions
• Post events (RSS feed) and use the platform to
arrange them
• Add material video, picture, texts, links
• Create direct friendship links with other members
• Invite other people
• Participate in surveys (evaluation of demo,
screencast etc.)
• Have preview access to contents and (to be)
releases
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First two months
Tested during August 2008
Launched in the end of September 2008
So we are at the beginning!
76 Members including consortium
29%
44 newcomers from: Italy, France, Spain,
Switzerland, UK, USA, NZ, Greece 52%
researchers
artistic institutions
independent artists
IT & creative companies
8%
11%
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Who, now
Members typology
(breakdown
updated to
67 members)
29%
researchers
artistic institutions
52%
IT & creative companies
8%
11%
a) Including
consortium
b) only external
members
(newcomers)
independent artists
29%
researchers
23%
artistic institutions
39%
52%
researchers
independent artists
artistic institutions
IT & creative
independent
artists
8%
companies
IT & creative companies
19%
11%
19%
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Who, interests
M ultimodal
interfaces
Emotion synthesis
Emotion research
M ultimodal
interfaces
Digital
art
Emotion synthesis
Entertainment
Augmented reality
Emotion research
Interactive media
Digital art
Entertainment
Augmented reality
Interactive media
Interests declared by newcomers during selfprofiling (multiple options on a closed list)
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Who, expectations
share knowledge (generic) (3)
none at the moment (2)
evaluate CALLAS frameworks and ontribute with personal experience in close field with a critical point of
view (1)
create cooperations between own AR and MixedR applications and other platforms (1)
create contacts with companies working on emotional input (1)
have news and info on the project (2)
how to develop applications / artistic works with affective interfaces (2)
know art project based
on use (and
of technology
(2)
67 members
to abuse)
date (October
28,2008),
share knowledge and experiences in human computer interaction (2)
collaboration (specially between different disciplines) (2)
29%
1
8%
Free
answer,
textual,
52%
facultative
researchers
artistic institutions
independent artists
IT & creative companies
11%
0
2
4
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access, from where
Data
updated at
28
October,
67 members to date (October 28,2008),
2008
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Lights…
• High answer in short time (far better then a
traditional involvement)
• Positive feedback (in joining) by
– Artists: curiosity, possibility to self promotion,
networking, hope in possible funding by the project
or EC…
– Researchers (young): curiosity, will to promote their
scientific results and events
– SMEs: will to be involved in the project, to test
prototypes
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… shadows
• Negative feedback (in joining) by Senior
researchers:
- direct mail amongst directly known people is
easier (e.g. in arranging events)
- the community is a good strategy for the
project but not for external users (“we give
you info for free, but what do we gain?”).
• Scarce action by newcomers: they respond
to direct input from moderators / animators,
but are very few independent
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In a glance
Strenghts
easy to manage,
appealing to non
business, young
audience,
Free software
platform
Weaknesses:
the boring side of communities is emerging (time
waste, spam mail alerts),
business users don’t know how to protect IPR
(NDA have no sense),
for a part of the project consortium is considered
too time consuming,
more skilled users of communities are aware of
how much info they provide for free;
Threats:
self-referential,
dying community,
animated only by
consortium
Opportunities:
have feedbacks during the work,
have a market analysis from the inside, create
new possibilities of dissemination
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Next steps
• Suggest the creation of groups of interest (e.g.
emotional model), defining a moderator /animator
– On more general questions, on specific examples, events
• Provide preview access to framework releases (after
evaluation by review)
– Must be set up a sort of help desk to follow the feedback by
developers
– IPR issue: framework software, as a product of the IP, will be
jointly released with open source licence (the same is not for
shelf components, where pre-existing licences are in force)
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Thank you!
For your attention and for your help, in giving suggestion
from your experience!
To join the community http://callaseu.ning.com/
access the CALLAS web site
http://www.callas-newmedia.eu/
left menu Your C3 Club
Subscribe to your C3 (compile the form)
or write to
info@calla-newmedia.eu or to me i.buonazia@sns.it
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