Uniarts Helsinki receives funding for virtual theatre and digital artistic activities

For the first time ever, Uniarts Helsinki received research infrastructure funding from the Academy of Finland as part of the MAGICS consortium together with Aalto University and Tampere University.

MAGICS is a joint effort of three Finnish universities to form a network of infrastructures to accelerate research into the virtualisation of people and their surroundings. The main theme in the project will be immersive and naturalistic remote presence. The consortium received a little over a million euros from the Academy of Finland for 2020 and 2021.

In addition to research, the project will utilise the latest digital technologies to create artistic performances, lifelike games and solutions that enable remote presence. The infrastructure’s services will be open to the needs of both the academic personnel and the industry and their product and solution development.

In the project, Uniarts Helsinki will focus on applying virtual and digitally augmented realities in artistic activities and research.

“We want to develop opportunities for virtual theatre and remote presence in performing arts. Virtual presentation and performance methods have increased over the last few years, and their demand shows no signs of slowing down,” says Jaana Erkkilä-Hill, who is vice rector of Uniarts Helsinki and one of the leaders of the consortium.

Service model for the infrastructure

New investments will improve the collaboration between art institutions and the lighting and sound design industry. The field of performing arts has begun to capitalise on technological innovations in increasingly versatile ways, and the MAGICS infrastructure will offer additional tools to develop operations between universities and various collaboration partners.

Uniarts Helsinki will acquire remote-presence technologies on the Sörnäinen Campus, for example, to execute virtual and digitally augmented art performances.

“Many art institutions already utilise virtualisation in different ways. It is our job as a university to ensure that our teaching and research are equally adept at utilising technology,” says Tero Heikkinen, whose work involves data management in artistic research processes at Uniarts Helsinki’s Centre for Artistic Research (CfAR).

According to Heikkinen, the intention is to develop a service model for using the research infrastructure.

“The goal is to make students, researchers and teaching staff aware of these new possibilities and the fact that there are people within the university who can assist in the use of the necessary equipment.”

Heikkinen emphasises that even though MAGICS is about research infrastructure, the term research is understood broadly in this context.

“All art making is research-oriented, an all concrete making of things is experimental, especially when it involves new technology.”

Multiple uses for the same technology

As for the focus areas of other universities in the MAGICS project, Aalto University will measure, analyse and digitise human behaviour and experiences in as realistic situations as possible. Tampere University will establish and utilise virtual worlds and remote presence in game research, for example.

“The advantage of a joint project lies in the fact that the same technology can cater to the needs of many different causes and operators. The game research that will be carried out by Tampere University, for example, can utilise the same equipment that we at Uniarts Helsinki will use for creating art,” Heikkinen says.

The director of the consortium is Professor Miko Sams from Aalto University. Professor Atanas Gotchev from Tampere University is the deputy director.

The call for applications was based on a 20 million euro increase in the Academy of Finland’s budget authority allocated through the Finnish Government’s fourth supplementary budget. Thanks to the additional funds, the Academy of Finland was able to launch a new type of funding opportunity to support the development of research infrastructures in collaboration with the business sector, in particular. The funding contributes to finding a common ground between research infrastructures and the business life.  The aim is to enhance collaboration platforms where research, education and innovation can intersect and evolve.

The Academy of Finland’s call for applications attracted 54 applications, and funding was granted to 19 consortia. The sizes of the projects vary between approximately 0.4–2.4 million euros.