SNAPlab

Yesterday, I was lucky to visit the Creative Computing Institute (CCI), and specifically Tim Smith‘s team, at the University of the Arts London. Tim invited me to give a short presentation about the research I am conducting at Royal Holloway under the supervision of Adam Ganz and Szonya Durant. Besides that, Tim showed me their facilities, and we had a talk about computer vision in cinema research.

In my talk, I presented a selection of the most interesting findings from the last 18 months: a) the difference between watching videos in vertical and horizontal frames, b) a null result regarding the effect of screen time on gaze patterns (both soon to be published in Projections), c) how people simultaneously watch narrative stimuli on TV and TikTok on a tablet (article just before submission), and d) which formal elements of narrative stimuli pull visual attention from a tablet to a TV screen (what I am working on). My main argument was that, contrary to my initial assumption, TikTok (and short video platforms in general) is probably not changing how we watch films. Rather, short videos (among other things) have made us aware of the audience’s inattentiveness. However, the fact that people are distracted is not new and it was always like that. It is just more visible now.

On a personal level, it was amazing to see the Creative Computing Institute and how Tim approaches research in the arts and humanities. I know very well from CoSTAR that arts research can look very different from what I was trained in. The CCI combines research activities with teaching, and it is inherently interdisciplinary. Truly, one can hardly say where one discipline ends and another begins. An illustrative example was when Tim showed me how they connected a virtual production studio with fNIRS and used it in a dance performance. The dancer’s brain activity produced a visualization on the LED panels behind him. This single example clearly shows how art can merge with neuroscience, technology, and programming, proving that these disciplines are not only communicating but also mutually beneficial.