report activities 2004-2006

Obviously, as indicated in the reference(s) above, part of the time was spent in construction a new course visual design (1), a new course that took considerable time to create and was also time consuming in its delivery to the students. Much effort went inot the development of the Computer Science specialisation Multimedia (2), not in the least due to the realization of the multimediazaal (3), in cooperation with Henk Schut and Mikhail Zouskov. One thing leads to another, so the masterclass game development (4), made possible by the multimediazaal, originated from the request to create a game for the VU lustrum, which was actually cancelled due to the financial situation of the faculty. The development of the masterclass was an urgent request from the publicity department, to attract more students for our faculty.

Although, as explained in a presentation of my research (5) to the IMSE section in jan 05, see the timeline below, that education and research should go hand in hand, the technical aspects of multimedia required much attention, and were needed to assist the students in their projects. In particular, the end of the WASP/RIF project (6), together with the loss of the programmer for that project, again due to the financial situation of the faculty, necessitated a re-thinking of my research goals and their underlying scientific and technological foundation.

As part of this process, the revision of the manuscript for introduction multimedia (7) took considerable time, not so much because this was needed for the course, but as a consequence of an invitation by an editor from Thomson to present the manuscript for publication. Hopefully, the mansucript will be published in due time.

Apart from my explorations in multimedia technology, in particular DirectX (8), the ever present student projects (9), although to my professional satisfaction, always require time and attention. In particular, the multimedia casus (10), and subsequent individual projects, have produced promising results and external visibility, albeit no academically recognized publications sofar. Papers to be presented to conferences are in preparation, among which [Dossier], see below.

In that period I also prepared an application for research in Japan (11), with game technology as a focus, an application that I did not pursue for personal reasons. Instead, I went to Japan for one month and reduced my work for the rest of 2005 with two days per week.

The activities in the area of game development are met with much enthusiasm by the students, and now that the number of students selecting Multimedia as the specialisation for their master Computer Science is growing, I am confident that this provides an interesting area for education, and for that matter also a potentially interesting new line of research.

timeline 2004-2006

• march 04 -- end on WASP/RIF (6)
• febr - april 04 -- multimedia casus 04 (boezem) (10)
• april 04 -- june 04 -- introduction multimedia (7)
• june 04 -- june 05 -- explorations directX (8)
• nov 04 - jan 05 -- multimedia casus 04/05 (abramovic) (10)
• nov 05 - jan 06 -- multimedia casus 04/05 (shaw) (10)
• jan 05 -- presentation research at IMSE meeting (5)
• jan 05 - april 05 -- first course visual design (1)
• jan 05 - ... -- development multimediazaal (3)
• april 05 - june 05 -- introduction multimedia (7)
• may 05 - aug 05 -- preparation research japan (11)
• june 05 - ... - research papers digital dossiers (10)
• june 05 - march 06 -- development masterclass game @ VU (4)
• jan 04 - ... -- mCS-MM: multimedia @ VU (2)
• jan 04 - ... -- mCS-MM/MMC: student projects (9)

Dossier

Anton Eliëns, Chris van Riel, Yiwen Wang (200x), The Abramovic dossier -- presentation and navigation of contemporary art in 3D digital dossiers , to be submitted to: 2nd Int Conf on Concept Mapping (cmc.ihmc.us/),
paper at: www.cs.vu.nl/~eliens/media/@text-paper-dossier.pdf

Game

A. Eliëns, S.V. Bikharie , game @ VU -- developing a masterclass for high-school students using the Half-life 2 SDK, to be submitted to: GAME-ON 2006, paper at: www.cs.vu.nl/~eliens/media/@text-paper-game.pdf

Odyssee

A. Eliëns, Odyssee -- explorations in mixed reality theatre using DirectX 9, to be submitted to: GAME-ON 2006, paper at: www.cs.vu.nl/~eliens/media/@text-paper-odyssee.pdf

Based on our work on digital dossiers, a concept research proposal was sent to a call for concepts from CATCH. The proposal was however rejected in the concept phase, because contemporary art seemed not to be an active focus of research in that area.

research proposal(s)

• 2005: I-GUARD (CATCH) -- www.cs.vu.nl/~eliens/research/@text-i-guard-concept.pdf
• 2004: AVID (NWO) -- www.cs.vu.nl/~eliens/research/avid.html
• 2003: IMMEDIATE (NWO) -- www.cs.vu.nl/~eliens/research/immediate.html

The AVID and IMMEDIATE proposals built on our work in intelligent multimedia and were not accepted because of there widely divergent evaluation by the reviewers.

digital dossier(s)

I believe that our notion of digital dossiers is a valid notion, and potentially interesting from a scientific point of view. So far the reviews of our work has indicated that it bis too practical and as such lacks a scientific basis, or at least a scientific justification.

digital dossier(s) -- multimedia casus

• 2004/05 -- abramovic dossier -- www.few.vu.nl/~dossier05
• 2005/06 -- dossier shaw -- www.few.vu.nl/~casus05

It seems to me, however, that the practical applicability is an argument in favor of our approach, and as such I am happy with the positive responses and continued cooperation with institutes such as ICN and Montevideo.

digital dossier(s) -- external visibility

• abramovic dossier: on front page INCCA -- www.incca.org/ (*)
• presentations at ICN (**) and Montevideo (***)
• presentation at various meetings and conferences

(*) INCCA -- International Network for the Conservation of Contemporary Art
(**) ICN -- Instituut Collectie Nederland -- www.icn.nl
(***) Montevideo -- Nederlands Instituut voor Mediakunst -- www.montevideo.nl

It is interesting to note that also other elements of my work have external visibility, among which introduction multimedia that has gained attention from a local amsterdam (hotspots) site, and for I have been asked to present a guest lecture at UvA for the second year.

introduction multimedia -- external visibility

• guest lecture(s) -- UvA College Informatiekunde Wouter Jansmeijer
• masterdam hotspots (roundup) -- www.amsterdamhotspots.nl/links.html

education and management

As coordinator of the Computer Science master specialisation Multimedia I have, among others, contributed material for the accreditation 2006, that is for the self-evaluation, written by Roel de Vrijer. Other activities for this master specialisation include the selection of software for the curriculum, and in particular the multimediazaal. With most of the load of the multimedia-related curricula for MMC on my shoulders, together with the coordination of the CS specialisation multimedia, and supervision of individual student projects, I think my education load is above average. Also, I would like to remark that the current setting of the multimedia-related activities is, as my discussions with the section leader prof dr van Vliet indicate, far from ideal. However, I would like to keep the development of the Multimedia curriculum, for both MMC and mCS-MM, at the focus of my activities, as a new line of education and research.

publication(s) -- 2004

For completeness, I have included my publications for 2004, publications that belong the the intelligent multimedia research, that was more or less halted in 2004.

ECA

A. Eliëns, Z. Huang, J.F. Hoorn, C.T. Visser, ECA Perspectives -- Requirements, Applications, Technology , Dagstuhl Seminar 04121 -- Evaluating Embodied Conversation Agents www.dagstuhl.de/04121 14-19 march 2004

Constraints

Ruttkay Z., Huang Z. and Eliëns A., The Conductor: Gestures for Embodied Agents with Logic Programming, , in: Recent Advances in Constraints, K.R. Apt, F. Fages, F. Rossi, P. Szeredi and J. Vancza (eds.) LNAI 3010, Springer 2004

AWC

Hoorn J., Eliëns A., Huang Z., van Vugt H.C., Konijn E.A., Visser C.T., Agents with character: Evaluation of empathic agents in digital dossiers, Emphatic Agents, AAMAS 2004 New York 19 July - 23 July, 2004

STEP

Zhisheng Huang, Anton Eliëns, and Cees Visser, Facial Animation in STEP, AAMAS 2004 New York 19 July - 23 July, 2004

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additional material

• richtlijnen beoordelingsgesprek
• jaargesprek

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[_] CV media links resources _ # @ !

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(C) Æliens 2014