Liikkumisen ja kokemusten yhteys virtuaaliympäristöissä

The aim of this study was to build a model and analyze how users move in a virtual environment and to explore the experiential dimensions connected with different ways of moving. Due to the lack of previous research on this subject, this was an explorative study. This study also aimed to identify different ways how users move in virtual environments and the background variables connected to them. It was hypothesized that fluent movement in virtual environments is connected to high presence, skill and challenge assessments. Test participants (n = 68) were mostly highly educated young adults. A virtual environment was built using a CAVE -type virtual reality interface. The task was to search for objects that do not belong into a normal house. The participants movement in the virtual house was recorded on a computer. Movement was modelled using a cluster analysis of information entropy based movement measurements, acceleration, amount of stops and time spent being stationary. The experiential dimensions were measured using the EVEQ -questionnaire. We were able to identify four different ways of moving in virtual environments. In respect of background variables, the four groups differed only in the amount of weekly computer usage. However, fluent movement in virtual environments was connected to a high sense of presence. Furthermore, participants who moved fluently in the environment assessed their skills as being high and regarded the use of virtual environment as challenging. The results indicate that different ways of moving affects how people experience virtual environments. Consequently the participants assessment of their skills and level of challenge have an impact on the affective evaluation of the situation at hand. Entropy measures have not been previously applied when studying movement, and in addition the role of movement on the experiential dimensions of virtual environments is an unexplored subject. The movement analysis method introduced here is applicable to other research problems. Finally, this study expands on our knowledge of the special characteristics connected with the experiential dimensions of virtual environments.

4QMMT - The Problem of the Epilogue

The main focus of this study is the epilogue of 4QMMT (4QMiqsat Ma aseh ha-Torah), a text of obscure genre containing a halakhic section found in cave 4 at Qumran. In the official edition published in the series Discoveries of the Judaean Desert (DJD X), the extant document was divided by its editors, Elisha Qimron and John Strugnell, into three literary divisions: Section A) the calendar section representing a 364-day solar calendar, Section B) the halakhot, and Section C) an epilogue. The work begins with text critical inspection of the manuscripts containing text from the epilogue (mss 4Q397, 4Q398, and 4Q399). However, since the relationship of the epilogue to the other sections of the whole document 4QMMT is under investigation, the calendrical fragments (4Q327 and 4Q394 3-7, lines 1-3) and the halakhic section also receive some attention, albeit more limited and purpose oriented. In Ch. 2, after a transcription of the fragments of the epilogue, a synopsis is presented in order to evaluate the composite text of the DJD X edition in light of the evidence provided by the individual manuscripts. As a result, several critical comments are offered, and finally, an alternative arrangement of the fragments of the epilogue with an English translation. In the following chapter (Ch. 3), the diversity of the two main literary divisions, the halakhic section and the epilogue, is discussed, and it is demonstrated that the author(s) of 4QMMT adopted and adjusted the covenantal pattern known from biblical law collections, more specifically Deuteronomy. The question of the genre of 4QMMT is investigated in Ch. 4. The final chapter (Ch. 5) contains an analysis of the use of Scripture in the epilogue. In a close reading, both the explicit citations and the more subtle allusions are investigated in an attempt to trace the theology of the epilogue. The main emphases of the epilogue are covenantal faithfulness, repentance and return. The contents of the document reflect a grave concern for the purity of the cult in Jerusalem, and in the epilogue Deuteronomic language and expressions are used to convince the readers of the necessity of a reformation. The large number of late copies found in cave 4 at Qumran witness the significance of 4QMMT and the continuous importance of the Jerusalem Temple for the Qumran community.

Psychologically-Based and Content-Oriented Experience in Entertainment Virtual Environments

In daily life, rich experiences evolve in every environmental and social interaction. Because experience has a strong impact on how people behave, scholars in different fields are interested in understanding what constitutes an experience. Yet even if interest in conscious experience is on the increase, there is no consensus on how such experience should be studied. Whatever approach is taken, the subjective and psychologically multidimensional nature of experience should be respected. This study endeavours to understand and evaluate conscious experiences. First I intro-duce a theoretical approach to psychologically-based and content-oriented experience. In the experiential cycle presented here, classical psychology and orienting-environmental content are connected. This generic approach is applicable to any human-environment interaction. Here I apply the approach to entertainment virtual environments (VEs) such as digital games and develop a framework with the potential for studying experiences in VEs. The development of the methodological framework included subjective and objective data from experiences in the Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE) and with numerous digital games (N=2,414). The final framework consisted of fifteen factor-analytically formed subcomponents of the sense of presence, involvement and flow. Together, these show the multidimensional experiential profile of VEs. The results present general experiential laws of VEs and show that the interface of a VE is related to (physical) presence, which psychologically means attention, perception and the cognitively evaluated realness and spatiality of the VE. The narrative of the VE elicits (social) presence and involvement and affects emotional outcomes. Psychologically, these outcomes are related to social cognition, motivation and emotion. The mechanics of a VE affect the cognitive evaluations and emotional outcomes related to flow. In addition, at the very least, user background, prior experience and use context affect the experiential variation. VEs are part of many peoples lives and many different outcomes are related to them, such as enjoyment, learning and addiction, depending on who is making the evalua-tion. This makes VEs societally important and psychologically fruitful to study. The approach and framework presented here contribute to our understanding of experiences in general and VEs in particular. The research can provide VE developers with a state-of-the art method (www.eveqgp.fi) that can be utilized whenever new product and service concepts are designed, prototyped and tested.

Tiedostumaton nykytaiteessa : Katse, ääni ja aika vuosituhannen taitteen suomalaisessa nykytaiteessa

Leevi Haapala explores moving image works, sculptures and installations from a psychoanalytic perspective in his study The Unconscious in Contemporary Art. The Gaze, Voice and Time in Finnish Contemporary Art at the Turn of the Millennium . The artists included in the study are Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Hans-Christian Berg, Markus Copper, Liisa Lounila and Salla Tykkä. The theoretical framework includes different psychoanalytic readings of the concepts of the gaze, voice and temporality. The installations are based on spatiality and temporality, and their detailed reading emphasizes the medium-specific features of the works as well as their fragmentary nature, heterogeneity and affectivity. The study is cross-disciplinary in that it connects perspectives from the visual culture, new art history and theory to the interpretation of contemporary art. The most important concepts from psychoanalysis, affect theory and trauma discourse used in the study include affect, object a (objet petit a) as articulated by Jacques Lacan, Sigmund Freud s uncanny (das Unheimliche) and trauma. Das Unheimliche has been translated as uncanny in art history under the influence of Rosalind Krauss. The object of the study, the unconscious in contemporary art, is approached through these concepts. The study focuses on Lacan s additions to the list of partial drives: the gaze and voice as scopic and invocative drives and their interpretations in the studies of the moving image. The texts by the American film theorist and art historian Kaja Silverman are in crucial role. The study locates contemporary art as part of trauma culture, which has a tendency to define individual and historical experiences through trauma. Some of the art works point towards trauma, which may appear as a theoretic or fictitious construction. The study presents a comprehensive collection of different kinds of trauma discourse in the field of art research through the texts of Hal Foster, Cathy Caruth, Ruth Leys and Shoshana Felman. The study connects trauma theory with the theoretical analysis of the interference and discontinuity of the moving image in the readings by Susan Buck-Morss, Mary Ann Doane and Peter Osborn among others. The analysis emphasizes different ways of seeing and multisensoriality in the reception of contemporary art. With their reflections and inverse projections, the surprising mechanisms of Hans-Christian Berg s sculptures are connected with Lacan s views on the early mirroring and imitation attempts of the individual s body image. Salla Tykkä s film trilogy Cave invites one to contemplate the Lacanian theory of the gaze in relation to the experiences of being seen. The three oceanic sculpture installations by Markus Copper are studied through the vocality they create, often through an aggressive way of acting, as well as from the point of view of the functioning of an invocative drive. The study compares the work of fiction and Freud s texts on paranoia and psychosis to Eija-Liisa Ahtila s manuscripts and moving image installations about the same topic. The cinematic time in Liisa Lounila s time-slice video installations is approached through the theoretical study of the unconscious temporal structure. The viewer of the moving image is inside the work in an in-between state: in a space produced by the contents of the work and its technology. The installations of the moving image enable us to inhabit different kinds of virtual bodies or spaces, which do not correspond with our everyday experiences. Nevertheless, the works of art often try to deconstruct the identification to what has been shown on screen. This way, the viewer s attention can be fixed on his own unconscious experiences in parallel with the work s deconstructed nature as representation. The study shows that contemporary art is a central cultural practice, which allows us to discuss the unconscious in a meaningful way. The study suggests that the agency that is discursively diffuse and consists of several different praxes should be called the unconscious. The emergence of the unconscious can happen in two areas: in contemporary art through different senses and discursive elements, and in the study of contemporary art, which, being a linguistic activity is sensitive to the movements of the unconscious. One of the missions of art research is to build different kinds of articulated constructs and to open an interpretative space for the nature of art as an event.