A contemporary Ukrainian research-based digital art game for developing narrative skills and cinema literacy

In collaboration with Kharkiv State Academy of Culture

The MSCA4Ukraine research program

Part of the European Commission’s Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Project No. 1233058

Implementation time: 01/04/2023-31/03/2025

Researchers: PhD Yuliia Kovalenko, scientific supervisor Ieva Gintere

Budget: 146 659,20 EUR

The two researchers are working on an educational virtual environment "CineGame Ukraine" to represent modern Ukrainian cinema, as well as, in cooperation with the Kharkiv State Academy of Culture, to support cinematography students in the process of creating cinema narrative and studying contemporary aesthetics.
The project envisages further development of modern cultural heritage and research on serious art games carried out at ViA since 2018.

In this interdisciplinary project, we will study the determining factors of nationalism and patriotism as forms of national attachments and their influence on the formation of a democratic civil society. By studying in detail the expression of patriotism and nationalism in cognition and attitudes, as well as the relation of these forms of national attachment to the individual\'s political beliefs and behavior, it is possible to understand how to build and strengthen national identity in a way that strengthens a democratic civil society. In the project, we will develop a patriotism/nationalism orientation scale and test its psychometric properties, we will conduct a series of experiments to test the relationship between patriotism and nationalism with cognition. With the help of qualitative methods we will find out how patriotism/nationalism orientations are represented in the content of citizenship education and how they are related to the political views and behaviour of young people. We will disseminate the results at scientific conferences and publish scientific articles at political science and psychology conferences. We will inform policymakers, teachers, NGOs about the results, thus demonstrating the importance of social sciences in strengthening national security and state defence.

Implementation period: 01.01.2023. - 31.12.2025.

Project No. LZP-2022/1-0456

Funding/ programme: Fundamental and Applied Research Programme

HESPI role: Project implementer

Cooperation partners: N/A

Project funding: 299916.00 EUR

Project scientific manager (e-mail): Ieva Bērziņa (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

Involved staff: HESPI research staff Vineta Silkāne, Anna Broka, guest researcher Ivars Austers, master's students - guest research assistants Liene Zīvere, Kristīne Jaunzeme

APPLICATION TO THE EXCHANGE RESEARCH PROGRAMME

FOR PHD STUDENTS AND POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHERS

EMPLOYED AT THE VIDZEME UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES

Application is prolonged until December 31st, 2024

PhD students or candidates: to qualify for this research exchange program, the candidate must have a Master degree in physics, computer science and engineering, environmental engineering or other relevant fields by the start date of the position.

Post-docs or junior researchers with PhD: to qualify for this research exchange program, the candidate must have PhD or equivalent in physics, computer science and engineering, environmental engineering or other relevant discipline by the start date of the position, or awarded no more than seven years (according to European standards) prior to the application deadline.

This is an internal competition at the Vidzeme University of Applied Sciences.

The exchange research program requires documented expertise in software like MATLAB, PYTHON and  sound verbal and written communication skills in English.

Salary or grant will be provided according to university policy and agreement with junior researcher based on achieved results (accepted publications).

Research topics

Goal of the grant

APPLICATION PROCEDURE

Applicants should send an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. including:

• CV (European format)
• Context of the research within the Latvian University (topic, team, project, supervisor etc.)
• Short description of the research plan
• Motivation for application (a few lines)

Please specify “TED4LAT research scheme application” as the title of your application email.

Interviews of applicants shall take place in the period of one month after submission of the application. The interview will start with a presentation from the candidate about their research topic, the context and their motivation. Final decision will be communicated after one month.

Relevant research articles

See the call in the Ted4Lat homepage

General information

TED4LAT is a Coordination and Support Action (CSA) proposal targeting the overarching objective of the call HORIZON-WIDERA-2021-ACCESS-03-01: Twinning to reach high international standards in research and innovation in Latvia (widening country). Project No. 101079206

Project objectives: 

- Encourage institutional reforms and transformation processes of the R&I system at national and regional level in Latvia in line with ERA principles

- Mobilise national investments in R&I capacity in widening countries

- Increase participation and success rates of Latvian actors in research and innovation projects in other parts of Horizon Europe programme

- Promote the creation of new innovation ecosystems and scale up existing ones by a set of measures, which include, among other, place based and international collaboration between academia and business in widening countries

- Implement a detailed programme of research Staff-Exchange, Short-Visits, Workshops and PhD schools to foster brain circulation, including inter-sectoral mobility for researchers and innovators and turn it into brain gain for widening countries

- Develop a common strategic research agenda in the multidisciplinary area of Data Science and Dynamical System Modelling

Work packages

WP1 - Project management

WP2 - Networking and communication

WP3 - Training and up-skilling

WP4 - Common research agenda and shared laboratory set-up

WP5 - Dissemination and exploitation

Implementation period: 01.10.2022-30.09.2025

Partners

Riga Technical University, Liepāja University, Baltic Open Solution Centre (Latvia)
Politecnico di Torino (ITALY)
INSTITUT NATIONAL DE RECHERCHE POUR L'AGRICULTURE, L'ALIMENTATION ET L'ENVIRONNEMENT (FRANCE)

Scientific leader of the team from Vidzeme University of Applied Sciences: Dr.sc.ing. Ginta Majore

Researchers: Sarma Cakula, Mairita Zaķe, Andris Lapāns, Ivars Majors, Andris Fjodorovs

PhD students: Krišjānis Zaķis, Roberts Volkovičs, Viesturs Bambāns

Administrative coordinator: Ieva Gintere, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

More about the project: https://www.ted4lat.eu/

Co-funded by Latvian Ministry of Culture

ImGame is an innovative digital environment that interweaves the fields of serious gaming and immersive aesthetics. It will serve as a dissemination tool to interactively demonstrate the research results concerning the phenomenon of immersiveness in contemporary art. Globally, there are almost no playful and educational media that would teach the history of contemporary art, inform about its antecedents, its conceptual background, and the network of related ideas. ImGame invites the user to dive into the immersive stylistics used in new media art and other types of modern culture. It will help build a new and currently underrepresented category of serious games that explains the rich intertextual context of digital artefacts today. The objective of the project is to develop a new genre of gaming in the crosscut of serious and art games that documents the cultural capital of contemporary aesthetics, especially focusing on the young artists’ work in the three partner states – Latvia, Hungary, and Greece. As well as, the objective is to transfer knowledge about contemporary artistic thought to the public not just to the connoisseurs of art. The project will develop new technological knowledge (node-based shader creation workflow for A-Frame) and thus offer the possibility to create multi-platform interactive experiences without the need to have programming skills. The main expected result is an increased knowledge transfer between the sector of artistic research and serious gaming. The planned activities are research into the phenomenon of immersiveness, the creation of the prototype and its dissemination. There are eight persons working in the project including artists, researchers, and managers. The project continues to develop the prototype of game designed through a post-doctoral project of Vidzeme University of Applied Sciences. Next to the prototype of ImGame, a scientific article will be published to represent the results of the project.

Team

Latvia

Head of the team: lead researcher, PhD Ieva Gintere (HESPI)

Lead artist: mag.art. Alvis Misjuns (HESPI, Latvian Academy of Art)

Hungary

Researcher: PhD Ágnes Bakk, Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design (MOME)

Assistant of the digital artist: Kristóf Szabó

Greece

Researcher: PhD Emmanouel Rovithis, Ionian University

Sound artist: Vasilis Georgakopoulos

Project results

Q1 article (Open access e-journal)

Gintere, I., Rovithis, E., Bakk, Á. K., Misjuns, A. (2024). ImGame Project: a Comprehensive Theory of Immersive Aesthetics and Innovation in Serious Gaming. International Journal of Game-Based Learning, W. H. Tan, ed., vol. 14(1), available here.

Reports in international scientific conferences and seminars

1. Gintere, I., Rovithis, E., Bakk, Á. K., Misjuns, A. (2024). ImGame: An Immersive Educational Environment to Teach Contemporary Art. Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU), May 2nd-4th, 2024, Angers (France).

2. Gintere, I. (2024). Projects of Serious Art Gaming: New Concepts and Trends. International Scientific Conference «Society. Technologies. Solutions» (STS), Vidzeme University of Applied Sciences, Valmiera, April 12th, 2024.

3. Gintere, I. (2023). Insights of the ImGame project in the European Science Night at the Vidzeme University of Applied Sciences, Valmiera, September 29th, 2022.

4. Gintere, I., Misjuns, A. (2022). The ImGame project: Refinements to the Theory of Immersive Aesthetics and Innovation in Serious Art Gaming, UNLOCK conference November 28th-29th, 2022. Extended abstracts in the UNLOCK proceedings.

ImGame prototype in progress: https://imgame.va.lv/