ʵ

News

Presented by Aalto’s School of Arts, Design and Architecture, SCSMI2017 offers a rare international film conference in Finland.

For 4 days in June Aalto’s Töölö Campus will be crowded by enthusiastic film and media professionals, researchers and students, gathering around 100 talks on philosophy, aesthetics, history and cognitive psychology of cinematic storytelling.
maiden_sc06_22_en_en.jpg

Running 11 - 14 June, this interdisciplinary conference is unique in its kind - in addition to bringing over 80 international key figures of contemporary cognitive film research to Helsinki, it also highlights several artist presentations and offers film viewing sessions.

Says organizer Pia Tikka, “We could not be more excited to have this incredible programme here at Aalto University.  It could not happen at a better time of year and the discussions promise to be engaging and inspiring. In fact, while Finland is famous for several international film festivals, it has not hosted a film research conference of this volume and internationality for several decades."

The Society for Cognitive Studies of Moving Image (is an interdisciplinary organization made up of scholars interested in cognitive, philosophical, aesthetic, historical, psychological, neuroscientific, and evolutionary approaches to the analysis of film and other moving-image media.

The SCSMI2017 conference is organised by the Department of Media and the Department of Film, Television, and Scenography at Aalto University's School of Arts, Design and Architecture, in association with the department of Film and Television Studies, University of Helsinki. The film department goes back to 1959 when it started as a department of cinematography. Today Aalto offers one of the most prestigious educations in film and media studies. Almost a half-decade later Medialab was a pioneer in teaching emerging technologies in digital media, and has since been applying cinematic storytelling in computer games and virtual reality projects.

The highlights of the conference are many, including a keynote by Philosopher Dr Paisley Livingston on "cinema as philosophy” discussing Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman’s relation to the ideas of Finnish philosopher and psychologist Eino Kaila.  As one of the key members of the Aalto University’s celebrated neuroscience project aivoAALTO, Lauri Nummenmaa will discuss how cinema may help to understand the brain mechanisms supporting human emotions.  Virtual reality is a word on the lips of many filmmakers today, and Dr. Asta Kärkkäinen, a Principal Researcher in Digital Media R&D Spatial Audio in Nokia Technologies will talk about “3D audio in immersive movies."

These lectures and many more can be found online in the .

  • Updated:
  • Published:
Share
URL copied!

Read more news

From left: Prof. Stefan Weinzierl (TU Berlin), Prof. Johannes M. Arend (Aalto University), and Prof. Christoph Pörschmann (TH Köln) after the Lothar-Cremer Award ceremony at DAGA 2026 in Dresden, Germany.
Awards and Recognition, Research & Art Published:

Professor Johannes M. Arend from Acoustics Lab receives Lothar-Cremer Award

Professor Johannes M. Arend was honoured for his innovative and groundbreaking work in the fields of binaural technology and virtual acoustics
Person in dark suit presenting ELLIS Institute Finland slide with colourful icons in a lecture room
Cooperation, Press releases, Research & Art Published:

ELLIS Institute Finland is launching machine learning fundamentals out of the lab

Research moonshots, foundation models for healthcare, and AI for RDI
Research & Art Published:

ACRIS service restored

The ACRIS research information management system is now open following the planned service break on 13–20 April 2026.
Design Methods class smiling faces during group work. Photo: Ayse Pekdiker
Research & Art Published:

Science must have a voice in society – but how?

Trust in science has fallen in Finland by almost ten percentage points in two years