evomusart* 2020: 9th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Music, Sound, Art and Design

9th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Music, Sound, Art and Design

15 — 17 April 2020 Seville, Spain

The use of Artificial Intelligence for the development of artistic systems is an exciting and significant area of research. There is a growing interest in the application of these techniques in fields such as: visual art and music generation, analysis, and interpretation; sound synthesis; architecture; video; poetry; design; and other creative tasks. The main goal of evomusart* is to bring together researchers who are using Artificial Intelligence techniques for artistic tasks, providing the opportunity to promote, present and discuss ongoing work in the area.

Submission Details

Submissions will be rigorously reviewed for scientific and artistic merit. Accepted papers will be presented orally or as posters at the event and included in the evo proceedings, published by Springer Verlag in a dedicated volume of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science series. The acceptance rate at evomusart 2018 was 39% for papers accepted for oral presentation, and 26% for poster presentation. Submitters are strongly encouraged to provide in all papers a link for download of media demonstrating their results, whether music, images, video, or other media types. Links should be anonymised for double-blind review, e.g. using a URL shortening service.

Submission Link

easychair.org/conferences/?conf=evo2020

Sumission Deadline

1 November 2019

Special Issues

Networks in Art, Sound and Design: The journal Neural Computing and Applications (Q1, IF: 4.66) will publish a Special Issue called Networks in Art, Sound and Design. The editors of this Special Issue will be Juan Romero and Penousal Machado. Some authors from evomusart* 2020 will be invited to submit a new paper to this special issue.

Artificial Intelligence and Complexity in Art, Music, Games and Design: Juan Romero and Colin Johnson will publish an Entropy (IF 2.419) Special Issue on Artificial Intelligence and Complexity in Art, Music, Games and Design for the evomusart*. All the papers accepted are encouraged to submit to this special issue.

Conference Chairs

Juan Romero: University of A Coruña, Spain jj(at)udc.es

Anikó Ekárt: Aston University, UK a.ekart(at)aston.ac.uk

Publication Chair

Tiago Martins: University of Coimbra, Portugal tiagofm(at)dei.uc.pt

More information

See flyer

PhD scholarship at the University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney)

Understanding aesthetic experience using multisensory extended reality

The University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney) is seeking expressions of interest from bright-minded and highly energetic individuals who are ready to apply for a Scientia PhD scholarship to support their multidisciplinary research training in a project focusing on the science and art of aesthetics in multisensory experience.
The supervisory team includes Dr Juno Kim (School of Optometry and Vision Science, Faculty of Science), Professor Branka Spehar (School of Psychology, Faculty of Science) and A/Prof Tomasz Bednarz (School of Art & Design, Faculty of Art & Design)
 
 
PROJECT DESCRIPTION

We rely on information from all our senses when making aesthetic judgments. Recent work on visual perception has established fractal- and natural scene statistics-based frameworks to identify characteristics of image structure predictive of aesthetic preference. However, little is known about whether these fractal and structural characteristics are shared across senses. This multidisciplinary project will be the first to combine cutting-edge methods in computer graphics, virtual reality, 3D printing, psychological science and computational modelling to understand the cross-sensory perceptual processes that govern our experience of surfaces and materials in realistic everyday scenarios.

IDEAL CANDIDATE

The ideal candidate will be a self-starter who is highly capable of applying research subject matter across diverse fields of the arts, psychology and computer science. They should currently hold an undergraduate Bachelor’s degree with honours in psychology, computer science, vision science or equivalent Master’s program of study. The ideal candidate would have already initiated a publication track record in the area of the proposed project.

The ideal candidate will have demonstrated relevant multi-disciplinary knowledge and experience in the following key research approaches relevant to the project:

*Psychophysics or Human Computer Interactivity (HCI) research on the quantification of human experience.
*Knowledge of methods used in Computer Graphics and 3D simulation.
*Understands lighting simulation and rendering material properties of surfaces
(e.g., diffuse and specular shaders).
*Knowledge and experience with programming applications (e.g., using C/C++, Unity or Unreal engines).
*Able to implement best practices in data analysis and computational modelling.

VSAC 2019: Visual Science of Art Conference 2019

VSAC 2019: Visual Science of Art Conference 2019
Leuven, Belgium, August 21-24, 2019

Dear colleagues,
It is my pleasure to announce the details regarding this year’s edition of VSAC, incl. the preliminary program and the call for submissions.

Call for submissions

The 7th edition of the Visual Science of Art Conference (VSAC) is an interdisciplinary conference intended to bring together vision scientists and visual artists to discuss joint interests in how vision works and how it affects the visual pleasures we get from art and images. VSAC started as a satellite meeting to the European Conference on Visual Perception (ECVP), but over the years it has gained its own flavor and dynamics. Special effort will be made to also attract academics from disciplines other than vision science (e.g. art history, visual studies, cultural studies, philosophy of art, computer graphics, biology, physics, …) as well as established and young artists and art students. We have added a large number of special events to facilitate cross-talks between artists and scientists (e.g., meet & greet, tutorials, integrated symposia, workshops, arts-science dialogues, and an extensive exhibition program.

For more information on VSAC 2019, visit https://www.vsac2019.org/ .

Submission Guidelines

Everyone who wishes to present at VSAC will first need to be registered. Information about registration can be found on the conference website.
The word limit for all abstracts is 250 words. Supplementary material can be uploaded as a PDF (possibly including links to websites, movies, …).
Participants can be the first author of only one abstract of the same submission type.

All accepted abstracts will be published as conference proceedings in the journal Art & Perception (ISSN: 2213-4905). A special issue with a selection of full papers derived from the conference will also be considered.

The following submission types are possible:

Scientific contributions, describing progress in an empirical study on a scientific topic at the intersection between visual science and art. A solid review of a relevant body of scientific literature or a report of substantial progress in a theoretical line of work is also possible.

Artistic contributions, usually in the form of an original piece of visual art such as a painting, lithograph, etching, graphic design, photograph, film, sculpture, digital artwork, cross-media artwork, installation …

Art-Science dialogues, taking the form of a joint submission between a scientist and an artist, ideally presenting work resulting from a close collaboration.

Important dates

The conference will be held in Leuven (Belgium) on August 22-24, 2019.
The deadline for abstract submissions is May 15, 2019, 23:59 CET (i.e., UTC + 1h).
A notification of decision will be provided to first authors by June 15, 2019.

Topics

VSAC 2019 topics of interest include but are not limited to:

  • Visual art
  • Visual perception of art
  • Empirical aesthetics (psycho-aesthetics, neuro-aesthetics)
  • Art history relevant to visual science of art
  • Visual studies relevant to visual science of art
  • Philosophy of art relevant to visual science of art
  • Computer graphics relevant to visual science of art
  • …

Submission types

There are 4 types of submissions.

1. TALK preferred

Standard talks are limited to 15 min (12 min talk + 3 min Q&A). Because we can probably not accommodate all requested talks, authors submitting in this category are assumed to be willing to present a poster in case their abstract is not accepted for a talk. Selection is by the Scientific Committee, based on abstract reviews by an official Abstract Review Committee (consisting of a mixture of our own staff, faculty and postdocs, as well as regular reviewers of previous VSAC editions). Selections will be based on the scientific quality of submissions (original research, conducted according to the best methodological standards, interesting findings and discussion) as well as thematic coherence of the session. In addition, we aim to balance age, gender and geographic distribution.

2. POSTER only

Posters are valued as highly as short talks because they are better suited for in-depth discussion and receiving feedback on ongoing research. They will receive sufficient time and space in the program to get the attention they deserve. Poster sessions will be preceded by 1 min blitz presentations in the main lecture hall. Selection is by the Scientific Committee, based on abstract reviews by an official Abstract Review Committee (consisting of a mixture of our own staff, faculty and postdocs, as well as regular reviewers of previous VSAC editions). Selection criteria will be sufficient scientific quality and fit with the aims and scope of the conference. If the budget allows for it, we will provide Best Poster Awards for presenting PhD students (e.g., 1 per session). Award criteria will be scientific quality (original research, conducted according to the best methodological standards, interesting findings and discussion) as well as poster layout (visual efficiency and elegance). Selection will be done by an ad hoc Poster Award Committee consisting of a subset of the Abstract Review Committee.

3. ART contribution

We invite a number of established artists to present their work at VSAC. We have selected several great venues, ideally suited for presentation of artwork, all within walking distance from the city center and from STUK (https://www.stuk.be/), the main venue for the scientific program. We will include a short description of the invited artists and art works on the VSAC website as soon as possible. In addition, we invite art contributions through a call for submissions, which is open to established as well as emerging artists. All submissions consist of a short description of the nature of the work and why this would be interesting to VSAC attendees. If artists have specific topics or questions they want to discuss with other artists and scientists during the meeting, they can add these here as well.

In addition, artists can upload a PDF with supplemental material of their art work (e.g., portfolio, website, images or video material).

Finally, artists can specify the desired presentation circumstances in terms of required space, lighting, …

Artworks will be selected based on their quality and fit with the overall aims and scope of the conference, as well as the fit with the other art works presented jointly. The team responsible for the selection consists of two artist-scientists (Stefanie De Winter and Wendy Morris), and Christina Seyfried (Cultural Office KU Leuven), all of whom have considerable experience with art-science cross-over projects and exhibitions. This team can rely on advice from Wim Lambrecht (a highly experienced curator from LUCA School of Arts, Brussels), Geert Bouckaert (President of the Commission of Contemporary Arts, KU Leuven), Stéphane Symons (member of the Commission of Contemporary Arts, KU Leuven, with experience as a curator) and Johan Wagemans (regular VSAC attendee with a lot of experience with art-science projects and exhibitions).

4. ART-SCIENCE dialogue

We will do all we can to foster a continuous dialogue between artists and scientists during the complete program. In addition, we open up the possibility to submit specifically as a pair of an artist and a scientist. The scientist can submit a regular science contribution (talk or poster, options 1 or 2 above) and the artist can submit a regular art contribution (option 3 above). They can refer to each other’s contribution to clarify the connection and we, as organizers, can then ensure that the connection is facilitated by scheduling and organizing the sessions appropriately. Moreover, a specific art-science dialogue session could be organized, if we receive enough high-quality proposals of this type. Here we would require an abstract (submitted as option 1) highlighting the collaborative work, adding supplemental material about the artwork as needed.

Contact

For more information on VSAC 2019, visit https://www.vsac2019.org/ .
All questions about submissions can be emailed to vsac2019submissions@kuleuven.be .

On behalf of the scientific and organizing committee,

Johan Wagemans

University of Leuven (KU Leuven)
Department of Brain & Cognition
Laboratory of Experimental Psychology
Tiensestraat 102, box 3711
B-3000 Leuven
BELGIUM
Email: johan.wagemans@kuleuven.be
Web: http://www.gestaltrevision.be/en/

Mark your calendar: VSAC 2019 Leuven August 21-24, ECVP 2019 Leuven August 25-29