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

Budget: 146 659,20 EUR

 

TEAM

Yuliia Kovalenko
Researcher
Vidzeme University of Applied Sciences
Associate professor
Kharkiv State Academy of Culture

Kristaps Biters
Producer and technical director

Matīss Stepiņš
Digital artist

Daņiils Goba
Programmer

Ieva Gintere
Scientific consultant
Lead researcher
Vidzeme University of Applied Sciences

The team is 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.

 

Results

D1.2 Master's thesis, supported by academic mentor Ieva Gintere

Oleksandr Poberaylo (Master’s degree program Audiovisual Art and Production). The thesis entitled “Interactive cinema: history, typology, artistic techniques” 

D3.2, D3.3, the CineGame prototype: https://cinegame.va.lv/

D3.1, CineGame design document

Q2 article: Gintere, I., Kovalenko, Y., Misjuns, A., Peters, J. (2025). The Weirdness – Openness Paradigm in Contemporary Aesthetics. Cogent Arts & Humanities (Q2). Taylor & Francis, doi: 10.1080/23311983.2025.2469438, available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23311983.2025.2469438

D2.1 Article in the proceedings: Kovalenko, Y., Gintere, I., Misjuns, A. (2025). Using Serious Art Games to promote the Circulation of Ideas Embodied in Contemporary Aesthetics. Proceedings of the 17th International Conference of Computer Supported Education (CSEDU2025). Institute for Systems and Technologies of Information, Control and Communication, Prague, SciTePress library, available here.

 

Presentations at international scientific conferences

D2.2 Kovalenko, Y., Gintere, I., Misjuns, A. (2025). Using Serious Art Games to promote the Circulation of Ideas Embodied in Contemporary Aesthetics. 17th International Conference of Computer Supported Education (CSEDU). Porto, 1st-3rd April 2025.

Kovalenko, Y. (2025). CineGame Ukraine: Integrating Gamification in Filmmaking Education through Interactive Storytelling. Innovations in Publishing, Printing and Multimedia Technologies. 18th International scientific-practical conference. Kaunas Kolegija, Lithuania, 10th April, 2025.

Kovalenko, Y. (2024). Immersive Narratives: Blending Cinematic Storytelling with Serious Gaming and Interactive Filmmaking. International Scientific Conference of Vidzeme University of Applied Sciences “Society. Technologies. Solutions”, April 12^th, 2024.

Kovalenko, Y. (2024). Updating and preservation of audiovisual collections in the digital space of Ukraine. The 9th Baltic Sea Region Film History Conference. Latvian Academy of Culture, Riga, June 6th-8th, 2024 “Exploring the Past and Future of Audiovisual Media in the Baltic Sea Region: Archives, Digital Platforms, Researchers and Spectators”.

 

Seminars and networking events (D1.2)

On October 22nd 2024, the results have been presented at the Ted4Lat Doctorate school of Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, Paris, https://ted4lat.workshop.inrae.fr/program

Kauno Kolegija Higher Education Institution International Days (Lithuania, 14-16 May 2024)

Staff training/teaching visit to the University of Donja Gorica (Montenegro, 22-26 April 2024), approved by MSCA as Erasmus+ funding

International Week “Connecting Europe!” (St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences, Austria, 25-28 November 2024)

Staff Training Week “Local and Global Education” (University of Akureyri, Iceland, 6-10 May 2024)

European Research & Innovation Days 2024 (Brussels, 20-21 March 2024)

2024 Philipp Schwartz and Inspireurope Stakeholder Forum (Berlin, 18-19 April 2024)

Steminist - Women in Science Week, organized by MSCA, February 2024

Final seminar ar Kharkiv State Academy of Culture, March 2024

 

Professional development: language and cultural education

Latvian Language Course (B1 level) at the Educational Center “BUTS” in Valmiera (4 October – 29 November 2024)

English for Tourism and Latvian Language & Culture courses at Vidzeme University of Applied Sciences

Press release at the end of the project

Communication in the local journal e-liesma: https://eliesma.lv/izaicinajumi-uzved-kalna

Image from the CineGame VR environment, credit: Matīss Stepiņš 

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: Ph.D. Oskars Java

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

Agency Pro-Progressione in Hungary

Municipality of Tripolis in Greece

 

 

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

Lead partner: Vidzeme University of Applied Sciences, Latvia

Lead researcher, PhD Ieva Gintere

New media artist: mag.art. Alvis Misjuns (ViA, Latvian Academy of Art)

Creative engineer: Rogier Jupijn (Netherlands), RISEBA

 

Pro Progressione, Hungary

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

Assistant of the digital artist: Kristóf Szabó

 

Municipality of Tripolis, Greece

Researcher: PhD Emmanouel Rovithis, Ionian University

Sound artist: Vasilis Georgakopoulos

 

Project results

Research papers

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.

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, May 2nd-4th, 2024, Angers (France).

 

Article representing a synergy of ImGame and CineGame, the MSCA4Ukraine project No. 1233058: 

Kovalenko, Y., Gintere, I., Misjuns, A. (2025). Using Serious Art Games to promote the Circulation of Ideas Embodied in Contemporary Aesthetics. Proceedings of the 17th International Conference of Computer Supported Education. Porto, 1st-3rd April 2025.

 

The ImGame project has strongly supported young researchers and artists, four members of the team in total. The project is a part of the research assistant’s Alvis Misjuns PhD thesis “System for intuitive shader programming for virtual reality web content” that is foreseen to be defended in 2026 in the ViA study program “Socio-technical systems engineering”. His artwork "Peace on web" was used in the ImGame virtual gallery that aims to promote the young artists' work. The project has likewise supported the artistic activities of Hungarian young creative engineer Kristóf Szabó who helped building the VR environment, and Greek composer Vasilis Georgakopoulos who created the sound for the game. In the framework of the project’s research work, Ágnes Karolina Bakk defended her PhD thesis on immersiveness Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Budapest, on 31st March 2023 entitled “Hunting the impossible: the science of magic and the experience of immersion in analogue and VR theatre”.

 

 

Reports in international scientific conferences 

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, May 2nd-4th, 2024, Angers (France). Presentation available here.

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

3. 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. Abstracts available here.

4. Misjuns, A., Cīrulis, A. (2024). Creation of virtual reality experiences for the web: shader programming for artists. The 11th IEEE Workshop on Advances in Information, Electronic and Electrical Engineering (AIEEE), Valmiera, June 14th.

 

 

The results disseminated at:

1. Valmiera Business Incubator, 13th July, 2023

2. European Researchers Night, 29th September, 2023

3. Ionian University, October 26th, 2023

4. Valmiera Secondary School of Design and Art, November 21st, 2023

5. RISEBA University of Applied Sciences, February 14th, 2024

6. The doctoral school of Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, Paris, October 22nd, 2024

7. Final seminar at Vidzeme University of Applied Sciences, May 6th, 2025. Presentations available here and here

8. LR3 National radio broadcasting (in Latvian) PārMijas May 29th, 2025. 12:30 https://klasika.lsm.lv/lv/lr3/raidijumi/parmijas/ - interview with the project's team

 

 

 

The ImGame VR environment is being used as a matrix for the actual creative research project EcoMind granted by European Regional Development Fund with ViA and École Supérieure d’Art et de Design d’Orléans No. 1.1.1.9/LZP/1/24/009. The WebXR technology used in ImGame will be developed in the current project EcoMind by researchers Ieva Gintere and Alvis Misjuns (LV), and the ImGame platform will be home for the future art gallery devoted to ecology issues in new media art.

 

Furthermore, the team has published another research article in the 2nd quartile journal that is a continuation of the ImGame research work:

Gintere, I., Kovalenko, Y., Misjuns, A., Peters, J. (2025). The Weirdness – Openness Paradigm in Contemporary Aesthetics. Cogent Arts & Humanities. Taylor & Francis, doi: 10.1080/23311983.2025.2469438, available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23311983.2025.2469438.

 

  

 

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

Image from the ImGame VR environment, credit: Alvis Misjuns