Archives

  • ADAMarts
    Vol. 4 (2023)

    ADAMarts comprises essays dedicated to architecture and media arts. The architectural contributions in this volume focus on a wide range of areas. In response to the question of whether it is possible to create a new place with a new functional and sociocultural purpose by recycling and reusing existing degraded landscape structures, Anna Saurova provides spatial design guidelines for the creation of a community village of aviation enthusiasts on the territory of the former military airfield in Vaiņode. Efe Duyan focuses on the emphasis on the meaning of architecture according to semiotics, which has been prominent since ecology and social concerns became essential issues in architecture. The article revisits semiotics in architecture in light of recent neuroscientific research on perception. “What course will architecture take in the wake of the post-digital?” – this hard question is raised by Rudolfs Dainis Šmits, and for him, it seems to a resonance today with the topics of the 1970s: new technologies, civil protests, the environment, the oil-natural gas crisis, and energy conservation The articles by media arts researchers also include a broad spectrum of topics. The article “A Use Case for Diffusion Models in the Generation of Hybrid AI, Multi-Modal Live Performances” by Sabrina Durling-Jones & Aigars Ceplitis offers insight intothe importance of experimentation by artists as new AI approaches become accessible in the public sphere. This paper by Chris Hales presents artistic research based on experimentation with image generation representing the River Daugava. The contribution by Ellen Pearlman discusses certain aspects involved in creating the GPT cloud-based character AIBO.

    Jānis Lejnieks
    Editor-in-chief,
    PhD in Architecture,
    Senior Research Fellow at RISEBA University

  • ADAMarts The 6th International Conference of the European Narratology Network
    Vol. 3 (2022)

    The 6th gathering of the European Narratology Network (ENN), organized by RISEBA University of Applied Sciences, brought together scholars, artists, and international experts working in the field of narratology, literature, and film, with shifting focus toward new technologies, the archaeology of immersive narrative systems, neurocinematics, and expanding vectors in narrative studies.

    Wide in the scope of its topics and complexity, the conference honed in on the fusion of novel applications with unreliable/paradoxical narratives, which draw readers and viewers into a story, geospatially and cognitively, by means of blurring the boundaries between real, virtual and alternative spaces. At the center of the discourse exists the ‘Gaslight’ structure, which undermines or destroys impartiality in narrative perception because the ‘modus operandi’ of the emerging technologies, under the guise of various ‘immersive’ scenarios, whether text-based, film, game design, or Mixed Reality (MR), significantly alters the storytelling apparatus. The residual effect of such interactions is a set of narrative strategies that seek to destabilize the critical faculties of its target audience through misdirection, contradiction, psychological disturbance and cognitive manipulation in both content and at the textual level.

    This volume presents a selection of evocative presentations and papers offered to highlight the success of the gaslight narratives model in targeting intended effects. The edition also includes AI illustrations that have been generated from presenters' texts by American artist Sabrina Durling-Jones, who specializes in machine learning and generative AI techniques. Ultimately, this volume is intended to signal an expansion of boundaries in narrative research and contextualize how emerging technologies can support a broader understanding of narrative structures and the different ways they might be perceived by audiences.

    Assist. Prof. Aigars Ceplītis
    Dean, Faculty of Media and Creative Technologies
    ADAM Arts Editorial Board

  • ADAMarts
    Vol. 2 (2021)

    ADAMarts comprises essays dedicated to architecture and media arts. The architectural contributions in this volume focus on a wide range of areas, from research on the space under bridges, seen as an opportunity or a threat in our busy everyday life, by Zane Vēja, to an analysis of disused territory next to Ķīšezers in the Čiekurkalns neighbourhood, by Ramon Cordova and Signe Pērkone. “Can newly built structures embody and endure the uniqueness of past nobility?” – this hard question is raised by Igors Malovickis and Reinis Saliņš, authors of a competition design for a future learning centre, the House of Courage.

    The articles by media arts researchers also include a broad spectrum of topics. Chris Hales describes new practices in experimental film, emerging as a result of artificial intelligence developments in machine learning, as a latent revolution in filmmaking. Aigars Ceplītis focuses on the embodied activity of perception and expression within 360° stereoscopic spherical film. Voyce S. Durling-Jones presents a brief overview of colonial assimilation practices and explores how digital humanities can enhance the process of documenting and revitalizing endangered Indigenous languages.

    All authors are united by an immersive environment and enthusiasm for their subject area, whether it is the man-made environment of Riga Historical Centre, disused territory on the outskirts of Riga, or the passionate story of the future of endangered Indigenous languages in the broad natural landscape of Canada.

    Jānis Lejnieks
    Editor-in-chief,
    PhD in Architecture,
    Senior Research Fellow at RISEBA University

  • ADAMarts
    Vol. 1 (2018)

    Europe’s broad assortment of academic journals has a newcomer – ADAMarts. This journal, dedicated to both architecture and media arts, constitutes a rarity. Architecture is usually more associated with engineering, given the close ties between the two fields, especially in practice, while media arts is more often affiliated with literature, from where it draws considerable inspiration and material.

    Ever since the Dutch cultural historian Johan Huizinga discussed the importance of play in culture and society in his 1938 work Homo Ludens, we continue to construct our identity in a deliberate fashion. Today’s individuals, having lost their ties to nature, perceive their surrounding environment conditionally and are subject to the power of authorities and technologies. For architects, the construction of the physical environment goes hand in hand with media artists’ simulation and modification of layouts in the virtual environment. RISEBA’s motto “Business Meets Art” is not an empty phrase. ADAMarts is ready to meet the challenge of combining research on architecture and media arts with another element – analysis of market players’ economic interests. Meanwhile, some contributors’ excursions into the history of twentieth-century city planning and architecture may serve not only as reference material for future researchers, but also as instructions for correcting future mistakes.

    The first issue includes a broad spectrum of topics, from artistic research in the network society and the aesthetics of 360˚ filmmaking to analysis of uninhabited quarters of the shrinking capital city and the challenge of interpreting Riga’s early medieval centre in architectural forms pleasing to contemporary society.

    Editor-in-chief Janis Lejnieks, PhD in Architecture, Senior Research Fellow at RISEBA University