The Republic of Estonia celebrated its 100th anniversary on February 24, 2018. In order to celebrate this wonderful occasion, the Republic of Estonia is organising lots of different events in and outside of Estonia.
With the support of the Estonia 100 programme, Tallinn University, Tallinn Summer School, and ITMO University are offering a great way to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Estonia by participating in a summer school course “Experimental Interaction Design: Physiological Computing Technologies for Performative Arts.” Participation is Free of Charge.
Experimental Interaction Design / August 26 – 31, 2018
This is a one-week extensive hands-on course in interaction design. The main goal of the course is to empower people to shape their digital environments thus providing a new level of digital literacy. This edition of the course focuses on Neurotheatre, a specific type of interactive theatre, where audience and/or actors can communicate via brain and neural computer interfaces using multimodal sensors and actuators.
The course introduces core design and interaction design topics in a provocative stance, inviting participants to reflect upon ongoing shifts, connections, and re-framings in just about every area of interaction design, and inciting a rebellion against passivity. This is complemented with the development of skills in systematic evaluation of usability and user experience of interaction designs. The expectation is to see participants take ownership of the interaction design process.
The is a one-week long, full-time course. Students will be exposed to selected challenges in Neurotheatre, will explore existing prototypes and will have the opportunity to either refine them or to work on alternatives based on their own interests.
Students will work in teams and are expected to actually build hardware and/or software prototypes using Max MSP, Isadora, Python, Arduino-based controllers and different brain and peripheral physiology sensors, and actuators.
During the course, the students will be supported by experts in Physiology, Interaction Design, Physiological Computing, and Max/MSP, Isadora, Arduino developers.
The main language of instruction is English, but support is also available in Russian.
Teachers
Mentors:
David Lamas
Aleksander Väljamäe
Instructors:
Yuri Didevich
Ilkka Kosunen
Taavet Jansen
Loore Martma
Hanna-Liisa Pender
Location
ITMO University
Гривцова 14-16, Sankt-Peterburg, Russia, 197101
Room: TBC
Timetable
From Sunday to Friday
August 26 | August 27 | August 28 | August 29 | August 30 | August 31 | |
Morning | Induction lecture | Scenarios and sketching | Prototyping | Prototyping | Prototyping | |
Afternoon | 17:00 Opening Lecture | Ideation | Prototyping | Evaluation | Evaluation | 21:00 Demos and presentations |
Participants
Public in general but especially relevant for new media artists, performers, and technologists interested in new media. Selection will be based on previous background/work experience of the applicants.
Credit points
Upon full participation and completion of the course work students will be awarded 2 ECTS points and a certificate of completion from Tallinn University.
Course fee
Free of charge
Contact
tss@tlu.ee
Application procedure
Applications include a few sentences (max 500 characters) on:
- Motivation
- Field of study
- Other relevant background
The application deadline is May 30th
Applicants will be notified by June 6th
Registration for the course
The event is dedicated to the centenary of the Republic of Estonia

Open Events
26.08.2018 17:00 – Opening lecture for the Experimental Interaction Design course on Neurotheatre @New Stage of Alexandrinsky Theatre (Open for everyone!)
31.08.2018 20:00 – Demos and presentations @New Stage of Alexandrinsky Theatre (Open for everyone!)