鶹ý

News

Presented by Aalto’s School of Arts, Design and Architecture, SCSMI2017 offers a rare international film conference in Finland.

For 4 days in June Aalto’s Töölö Campus will be crowded by enthusiastic film and media professionals, researchers and students, gathering around 100 talks on philosophy, aesthetics, history and cognitive psychology of cinematic storytelling.
maiden_sc06_22_en_en.jpg

Running 11 - 14 June, this interdisciplinary conference is unique in its kind - in addition to bringing over 80 international key figures of contemporary cognitive film research to Helsinki, it also highlights several artist presentations and offers film viewing sessions.

Says organizer Pia Tikka, “We could not be more excited to have this incredible programme here at Aalto University.  It could not happen at a better time of year and the discussions promise to be engaging and inspiring. In fact, while Finland is famous for several international film festivals, it has not hosted a film research conference of this volume and internationality for several decades."

The Society for Cognitive Studies of Moving Image (is an interdisciplinary organization made up of scholars interested in cognitive, philosophical, aesthetic, historical, psychological, neuroscientific, and evolutionary approaches to the analysis of film and other moving-image media.

The SCSMI2017 conference is organised by the Department of Media and the Department of Film, Television, and Scenography at Aalto University's School of Arts, Design and Architecture, in association with the department of Film and Television Studies, University of Helsinki. The film department goes back to 1959 when it started as a department of cinematography. Today Aalto offers one of the most prestigious educations in film and media studies. Almost a half-decade later Medialab was a pioneer in teaching emerging technologies in digital media, and has since been applying cinematic storytelling in computer games and virtual reality projects.

The highlights of the conference are many, including a keynote by Philosopher Dr Paisley Livingston on "cinema as philosophy” discussing Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman’s relation to the ideas of Finnish philosopher and psychologist Eino Kaila.  As one of the key members of the Aalto University’s celebrated neuroscience project aivoAALTO, Lauri Nummenmaa will discuss how cinema may help to understand the brain mechanisms supporting human emotions.  Virtual reality is a word on the lips of many filmmakers today, and Dr. Asta Kärkkäinen, a Principal Researcher in Digital Media R&D Spatial Audio in Nokia Technologies will talk about “3D audio in immersive movies."

These lectures and many more can be found online in the .

  • Updated:
  • Published:
Share
URL copied!

Read more news

Person sits by a glowing screen with pixel smile and floating heart chat bubbles between them
Press releases Published:

AI companions can comfort lonely users but may deepen distress over time

Long-term use of AI companions may give comfort, but research indicates it may negatively impact users’ wellbeing and their ability to navigate real world relationships.
Research often involves choosing a single analytic path, but there are other options available, Picture: Matti Ahlgren, Aalto University.
Press releases Published:

Scientific conclusions depend on who performs the analysis

More than 450 independent researchers from around the world conducted over 500 re-analyses of datasets from one hundred previously published studies in the social and behavioural sciences. All analysts received the same data and the same central research question, but they were free to carry out the analysis based on their own expert judgment.
Old cream building beside modern beige block with many tall windows and a rust-coloured sculpture in front
Appointments, Cooperation Published:

Teaching and collaborating across Europe: Aalto researchers at TU Darmstadt

Hear from Aalto researchers about their experience at TU Darmstadt.
Iris Seitz
Awards and Recognition Published:

Iris Seitz awarded for exceptional early-career achievement

Dr. Iris Seitz, former PhD student of Professor Mauri Kostiainen, has been awarded the 2026 Robert Dirks Molecular Programming Prize for her work on programmable protein architectures with nucleic acid origami.