[diss] Taiteiden ja suunnittelun korkeakoulu / ARTS

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Strategic questions in the development of interactive television programs
(2001) Jääskeläinen, Kari
School of Arts, Design and Architecture | Doctoral dissertation (monograph)
The aim of this research was to identify questions that a person developing interactive television programs could ask himself. The topic was chosen because it is currently an emerging issue in many of the countries launching digital television. The previous research in this field was reviewed including academic research, field trials in Finland, selected field trials abroad, consumer attitude surveys and expert panels. As it turned out, not much academic work had been done in the subject. The most promising work had been done in the fields of distance education and interactive narration. Five other fields were surveyed as potential sources for suitable ITV development strategies. These fields were linear drama, infomercials and homeshopping, multimedia production, www-production and virtual communities. A group of potential strategies were identified from these fields. Several methodological choices were considered. Among them were predicative methods, scenario analysis, case study method, action research, knowledge brokering and Zetterberg’s method. Finally a combination of knowledge brokering and the Zetterberg’s method was found most suitable for this research. The initial strategies were picked by the researcher from the above mentioned fields. They were then tested with a survey form that was presented to persons involved with the ITV industry. The respondents were identified from various sources and also the snowball method was applied to gather more respondents. Altogether 103 responses were received from persons in significant posts in key companies and institutions of the field. The research can be considered valid and reliable. The main conclusion of this study is that it pays in ITV-development to use the questions that have been found useful in developing film and TV scripts, www-applications, multimedia productions, virtual communities or home-shopping advertisements. Different sets of questions are useful for different ITV-genres. A useful set of questions could be identified for six different ITV genres. These genres were ITV advertising, computer game type of ITV applications, News on Demand applications, Electronic Program Guide (EPG), distance learning applications and background information for TV programs. Other results were also discovered. The following three questions were found important for all genres: 1) How can we make the program aesthetically appealing as possible? 2) How can we make the program visually compelling? 3) What type of an interface should the program have? Another result was that the following two questions that are central in film industry were not considered important for any of the ITV genres: 1) How can we have a three act structure in the program? 2) How can we arrange a happy ending for the program? The identified sets of questions will provide a good starting point for a person developing a program in the respective genre.
Architecture in Consumer Society
(2002) Ahlava, Antti
School of Arts, Design and Architecture | Doctoral dissertation (monograph)
Background: This is a study of the foundations of architecture’s position in Western consumer society as well as its potential for future actions. Method: 1) A bibliographical research of the background to the problematics. Of central importance here is the French sosiologist Jean Baudrillard, who has broadly theorised the principles and manifestations of consumer society. 2) A qualitative analysis of both architectural works related to the main problematics in consumer society and the strategies of certain architects in answering to the changed situation in the developing consumer society. 3) The mythological character of architecture, as well as its current stage of development, is demonstrated by comparing it to another medium, moving images (cinema, television, video, moving digital images), that is, the typical art of the consumer society. 4) The work concludes with practical proposals for architectural design. Here the author applies a method developed earlier in the thesis, where he analysed architecture’s means of influence in consumer society. Baudrillard’s theories on symbolic exchange and ‘fatal strategies’ have been used as the main starting points of the method. Results: The work results in the following conclusions: a) Architectural issues are simultaneously functional, aesthetic, organisational and economic, but the decisive level is social (collective) and mythical. The eventually aimless and purposeless control realised through myths takes place through reproduced and mass-promoted principles of individualism, techno-optimism, pluralism, regionalism, personalization, alternativity, flexibility, usefulness and aestheticism. b) The newest phase of consumer society (mass media society) tackles the impact of digital consumption: the new information technologies, the liberated market economy, realtime communication, and globalization. These tendencies manifest themselves in contemporary architecture in the new possibilities for alternativity: pluralism, "open" architecture, the flexible interrelationship between producers and consumers, interactivity, and the notion of innovative consumers or users. All in all, the increasing possibilities for alternatives and flexibility in consumption cannot necessarily solve the problems with fragmentation, loss of reciprocity, the diminishing altruism in society and the increasing banalization of culture. c) Moralism against consumer society and commercial architecture does not work because it is characteristic of consumer society itself to spread moralities concerning how people should live and in which kinds of environments. Neither architecture-without-architects nor pragmatist architecture are likely to make better architecture in society, because these phenomena are already included in the mythologies of the consumer society. The author proposes two spontaneous and case specific strategies that should increase communal welfare according to the theoretical background used in this research.
Tietoverkot taideväylänä - lunastus vai lupaus: tietoverkkojen käyttö kuvataiteen tuntemuksen opetuksessa
(2004) Issakainen, Anna-Maija
School of Arts, Design and Architecture | Doctoral dissertation (monograph)
The purpose of the thesis is to study what opportunities young people who live far away from major museums of art have of getting acquainted with visual arts when studying art in the comprehensive school. Computer media, especially video-conferences and the internet, were used as a support in the introduction to visual arts. The distance between the studied schools and the major museums of art was a central problem. The objective of the thesis is to find out whether new information technology will help young people to connect to the visual arts. Working methods, operations models and operational environments utilized in the introduction were assessed during the research process. The research problems were defined as follows: firstly, is virtual or cyber space formed by ICT-technology -based computer media a feasible game environment where young people can get acquainted with visual arts; secondly, where is the museum of art of a present-day youngster; and finally, will a work of art only come to meet the beholder halfway. The objective of the theoretical part of the thesis was to form a general view of the whole consisting of learning, guiding and teaching, where the activities took place within the domains of school, art, of the young or the virtual world, and where the shared focus of the different players was the work of art. Playing the game was based on learning about visual arts and on guiding the learning process. The pedagogical and didactic methods were chosen according to the user. They were simultaneously applied by school, art and museum pedagogues as well as by teachers of visual arts. Since the process also took place in a virtual world and utilized computer media, even education of media and communication as well as conformity to the laws of web pedagogy had to be taken into consideration. The prevailing attitudes in society played an important role in assessing the institutional prerequisites for the work. The empirical part of the thesis was realized as a study of activities, a process that continuously re-assesses itself. The study focused on three groups of eight-formers in three different comprehensive schools studying an optional course in visual arts. The schools lay far from any major museums of art, one in the countryside and two in medium-sized towns. The empirical material consists of the researcher’s observations as well as of survey results, observational material, the pupil’s works and other output collected by the teachers and the researcher in different stages of the research process. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were applied when studying the material. The empirical part was carried out between 1996 - 1998. However, the material is analysed from the perspective of the 21st century. The theoretical analysis manifested that there were no differences that would cause conflict in the pedagogical or didactic approach of the teachers coming from different game worlds. A shared perspective was the constructivist viewpoint on learning with its various emphases. On the other hand, in the midst of a game, different players are both competing against and supporting each other at the same time. Moreover, both the real and the virtual world of the game environments have to be defined in relation to the time, space and location. In addition to focusing on the game environment, the players and the virtual worlds of the games, the analysis has to focus on the objective of the game, i.e. visual art as both a transmitted and an immediate experience and object of interpretation. The pupil’s parents were interviewed in order to gain a clearer conception of the youngsters’ perception of the world. Questionnaires to Finnish art teachers as well as to museum pedagogues in Finland and abroad provided additional information on how the domains of school and art function. The significance of the study is twofold. On one hand, the aim was to test the opportunities of new information technology to provide young people with valuable cultural content. On the other hand, the aim was to find new dimensions to the traditional objective, the museum of art, as well as to build a functional model of cooperation between the domains of school, art, of the young and the virtual world. The favourable results of the study show that visual art offers interesting and significant content for young people. Their interest can be aroused with very modest investments, provided that the introduction is carried out in a competent manner.
Co-experience: understanding user experiences in interaction
(2004) Battarbee, Katja
School of Arts, Design and Architecture | Doctoral dissertation (article-based)
The topic of this article-based dissertation is the definition of user experience in user centred design. In particular, the work discusses user experiences in social interaction. To provide a framework for understanding these experiences, the concept co-experience borrows from symbolic interactionism, a theory of meaning in social interaction. The work in general follows a pragmatist philosophy. The cases in the study include one large field study on mobile multimedia messaging, one smaller field study of a new product and examples from a few concept design cases. The dissertation consists of an introduction part and six published articles.
Experiences in Theatrical Spaces. Five Scenographies of Miss Julie
(2004) Gröndahl, Laura
School of Arts, Design and Architecture | Doctoral dissertation (monograph)
The study asks how different scenic solutions make meanings through visual and spatial experiences. Five performances of Strindberg’s Miss Julie are examined: Staged in Tampere Draamastudio 1970; in the Turku Swedish Theatre 1979; in KOM-teatteri 1983; in the Finnish National Theatre 1984; and in Q-teatteri 1999. The central conclusion is that contemporary scenography increasingly focuses on the perceptual process as an interaction between the observer and the observed world. That makes possible the rich use of the scenic language and the great variety of visual styles that can be seen in the Miss Julie scenographies.
Löytäjät Elokuvantajua rakentamassa. Yhteisöllinen WWW-palvelun tuotanto
(2005) Raike, Antti
School of Arts, Design and Architecture | Doctoral dissertation (monograph)
The research was carried out between 1999-2004 at the University of Art and Design Helsinki in collaboration with the Classroom Teacher Training Programme for Finnish Sign Language Users of Jyväskylä University, Finland. The design research is positioned in the areas of film (art), media, cinematic research, as well as the field of pedagogy. By merging participatory action research and WWW production an Internet based collaborative study concept dealing with cinematic expression entitled, CinemaSense, was developed and produced as part of the research work. It can be accessed in web form at [http://elokuvantaju.uiah.fi/]. The usability and accessibility of the flexible learning WWW service was observed during web-based courses in cinematic expression during 2001, with the help of a concept survey and network-based communication. The aim was to produce an accessible web-based study product, as well as to clarify, in support of the production, the sign language students' deepening of knowledge and conceptualization related to the subject of cinematic expression, as well as their collaboration during the web-based course. The aim is connected to the general aim of inclusion, for a shared and open university, which adapts flexibly to the needs of different students. The research problem was to solve how to produce an accessible WWW service on cinematic expression, which supports both collaborative web-based learning as well as individual development of knowledge in the field of film. The methodology was based on user-centric and participatory design methods in which, with the help of design research, a service concept for flexible collaborative web-based study of film was developed and the accessible CinemaSense portal was produced. The WWW service was tested and developed into an accessible and multi-cultural, art subject, web-based study format with the help of sign language students. Thirdly, observations and experiences from the design research were sought for theoretical consilience with the help of constructive and collaborative learning theory, the cognitive sciences and research of cultural evolution. The data of the research is made up of the concept maps, questionnaires, e-mail messages, dairies and documentary films of the research group participants as well as the concept maps and initial questions of the control group. The material is complemented with the e-mail communication of the CinemaSense production group members as well as the MA thesis project, dealing with the CinemaSense production process (Laitinen & Viikari 2001). Results: 1) Theoretical investigation and description of the design research process as to how to produce a web service and basic level, net-based learning material for the study of cinematic expression. 2) The research group participants' concept maps became more conformed and their concepts became more professional whilst studying cinematic expression in the web-based course. 3) By the end of the web-based course the concept maps of the participants had developed from film viewer maps to filmmaker maps. 4) The research group traced professional production, designed and developed the subject of a documentary film, organized the production and produced three documentary films. 5) The accessible and multi-language CinemaSense v1.0 service and a web-study course concept for flexible art subject studies was produced. The research also increased understanding in interactivity of multi-lingual, web-based study. The results can be applied in the production of multi-modal web courses, interfaces and services that, for their own part, promote inclusion as well as multi-cultural and flexible university study.
Merkityksellinen museoesine : kriittinen visuaalisuus kulttuurihistoriallisen museon näyttelysuunnittelussa
(2005) Turpeinen, Outi
School of Arts, Design and Architecture | Doctoral dissertation (monograph)
Miten esine on esillä museossa ja minkälaisia merkityksiä sen esillepano tuottaa? Miten visuaalinen näyttelysuunnittelu tuottaa museoesineelle merkityksiä? Teos tuo uutta näkökulmaa museoiden näyttelysuunnitteluun. Kirjassa on esimerkkejä siitä, miten näyttelyiden visuaalisuutta voi analysoida kriittisesti. Visuaaliset yksityiskohdat ja niiden yhdistelmät ovat olennaisessa roolissa merkityksiä rakennettaessa. Esimerkiksi vitriini on keskeinen näyttelysuunnittelun elementti, jonka tuottamia merkityksiä tarkastellaan monipuolisesti. Näitä semioottisia analyysitapoja voi soveltaa sekä näyttelyitä rakennettaessa että niistä puhuttaessa ja kirjoitettaessa. Voiko taide tuoda uusia merkityksiä kulttuurihistorialliseen museoon? Miten taiteellinen työskentely on yhdistettävissä tutkimukseen? Myös taide voi tuoda vaihtoehtoisia ja kokeellisia merkityksiä museoesineiden esittämiseen. Kulttuurihistoriallisen museon ja taiteen vuorovaikutuksellinen suhde on noussut erityisen kiinnostuksen kohteeksi 1990-luvulta lähtien. Tutkimuksessa on analysoitu taiteilijoiden tekemiä uudenlaisia näyttelyitä kulttuurihistoriallisissa museoissa. Lisäksi tutkija-taiteilijan itsensä tekemät kuvitteelliset museoinstallaatiot ovat toimineet koetiloina. Tutkimus onkin luonteeltaan monialainen ja kokeellinen. Työn kannustavana teemana on ollut ajatus kulttuurihistoriallisesta museosta, jossa on enemmän leikkiä ja kokeilua. Näin museot voivat tuoda historiaa esille tuoreesti ja eri näkökulmista käsin.
Design probes
(2006) Mattelmäki, Tuuli
School of Arts, Design and Architecture | Doctoral dissertation (monograph)
The study focuses on an innovative user centred design approach called probes. Probes are based on self-documenting, they are explorative and design oriented, and they aim at revealing users’ personal perspectives to enrich design and support empathy. They have been applied both to experimental and business projects but a detailed consideration has not yet appeared. This book describes the probes, discusses the reasons and practices of applying them.
Go with the flow : architecture, infrastructure and the everyday experience of mobility
(2006) Delalex, Gilles
School of Arts, Design and Architecture | Doctoral dissertation (monograph)
Glass can be recycled forever : Utilisation of end-of-Life cathode ray tube glasses in ceramic and glass industry
(2006) Siikamäki, Raija
School of Arts, Design and Architecture | Doctoral dissertation (article-based)
The aim of this study was to find possible applications, in which glass materials from End-of-Life (EOL) Cathode Ray Tubes (CRT) can be utilised in ceramic and glass industry. The qualitative objective of the study was to find utilisation targets and applications, where the properties of EOL CRT glass material can be as beneficial as possible.
Minihameesta mummonmekkoon. Teollinen vaatesuunnittelu ja keski-ikäisten naisten vaatekäytännöt sosiaalista ikää rakentamassa
(2007) Iltanen, Sonja
School of Arts, Design and Architecture | Doctoral dissertation (monograph)
The focus of this study is the dressed aging body, a unit formed by clothes, the biological and the social age, and bodily features. The main concept used is an age act: an act that constructs and defines a person’s social age. Theoretically the study adopts a social constructionist approach, especially with a critical realist interpretation. The study is multidisciplinary. It is situated between the disciplines of design studies, with a social science and cultural studies approach, and that of social and cultural gerontology.
Prototyping Social Action
(2007) Kurvinen, Esko
School of Arts, Design and Architecture | Doctoral dissertation (article-based)
Information technology has made social interaction an increasingly important topic for interaction design and technology development. Today’s mobile technology provides for rich communication and awareness between people, regardless of their whereabouts. When people are gathered together, technology is also often present, influencing or even actively taking part in the social activity. Social action is the essence of many systems studied, developed and prototyped by the design and research community. The problem is that this is often done without proper methodological backing. There is no lack of methods, but a need for an adequate approach: how should circumstances for social action to happen be created, how should it be observed, how should systematic, detailed inferences about it be produced for the purposes of design, and what design-related activities does such research serve? Drawing from ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, this study addresses social action and social prototypes in various settings: at a workplace, in the area of mobile multimedia and the domain of ubiquitous context-aware systems. The main contribution of this study is that it articulates how this framework can be brought into design studies. The cases in this study also demonstrate empirically that this approach works.
Taidekasvattajaksi varhaiskasvatukseen : kuvataiteen opintojen kehittäminen lastentarhanopettajien koulutuksessa
(2007) Rusanen, Sinikka
School of Arts, Design and Architecture | Doctoral dissertation (monograph)
The research, which was carried out as a professional development project in kindergarten teachers’ education at the University of Helsinki in the years 2000– 2002, was an action research aiming at the development of studies in visual art. The aim was to construct the professional identity of an art educator. The focus was on both the changing identity of the lecturer and the students’ developing identity as art educators. The method of collecting the research data was action research and hermeneutic approach was used in the interpretative phase. The relation of future kindergarten teachers to their future role as art educators and their relation to art and art education were analyzed in the research. The research showed that it was possible to construct a kindergarten teacher’s role as an art educator during the studies. The students in this research approached their future role as art educators first as a responsibility belonging to their professional tasks. Another way the students observed their role was from the point of view of the children. A third possibility was to emphasize their relation to art as a basis of their role as an art educator. The research showed three dimensions in the students’ relation to art. In the first place the students regarded themselves as ordinary viewers and their relation to art did not essentially change during their studies. Another dimension was to observe art from an educational standpoint. Thirdly the students expressed a relation to art based on their own experiences in art. The research proved that art education has a specific place in early childhood education. To assume an art educator’s role the students had to create space for art education in their future professional identity. The future kindergarten teacher’s role as an art educator was connected to the practices and traditions of both early childhood and art education. Visual activity as hobby craft, visual expression as aesthetic education and visual activity as art and cultural education were all found to be historical layers of Finnish early childhood art education. As a lecturer in art education the research made me conscious of changes in my professional identity and of its connections to time and place and to the traditions and practices of both art and early childhood education. Reflection proved to be a relevant tool of professional development.
Connecting Photos: A Qualitative Study of Cameraphone Photo Use
(2008) Rantavuo, Heli
School of Arts, Design and Architecture | Doctoral dissertation (monograph)
Syrjän tiloja ja soraääniä: Performatiivista tutkimista ja kirjoittamista Gambian ja Suomen välimaastoissa
(2008) Oikarinen-Jabai, Helena
School of Arts, Design and Architecture | Doctoral dissertation (monograph)
My main research question is, how cultural and gender identities are formed within aesthetic experiences and expressions, and how those experiences and expressions themselves also contribute to the formation of identities. I am concerned with aesthetic experiences in multicultural and diasporic contexts. My approach to the issue of identity is mainly grounded in the work of feminist, postcolonial and postmodern theorists, who emphasize the hybridity and performativity of identities on the one hand, and emansipatory and political dimensions or contextuality on the other hand. With the above mentioned question I discuss about the transmission and transformation of the visual and body culture. I examine how my informants negotiate their different cultural, ethnic and social identities and positions in the cultural interstices characterized by such concepts as third space, hybrid and diasporic space. Especially interested I am to examine what happens in the hybrid in-between zones and in diasporic spaces and positions. These in-between spaces are experienced border landscapes, there different symbolic and imaginary meanings and images cross with other meanings and possible merge with and form new ones. My data has been collected from Finnish multicultural art education projects and from Gambian community projects and personal encounters. I also draw on my own experiences of processing the identity of an immigrant and being a mother of multiracial children. My approach is feminist, narrative and critical. I am looking for the routes and approaches for understanding different ways of knowing and make use of different performative ways of writing and researching. This will be a central methodological and epistemological contribution of my study. In this way I hope I can do something to further creation of a common language for artistic and scholarly ways of doing research. I also want to examine the possibilities of art education in improving the multicultural understanding and critical pedagogy.
Enactive Cinema: Simulatorium Eisensteinense
(2008) Tikka, Pia
School of Arts, Design and Architecture | Doctoral dissertation (monograph)
The dissertation at hand explores the very grounds, within which the phenomenon of cinema emerges. It is a study of the intrinsic dynamics of cinema author’s mind in the process of creating moving image. Alas, it is not a historical, cultural, or ideological study into the handicraft, the narrative genres, or technological developments of cinema. Instead, it discusses possible foundations of cinema in the human nature, as seems viable in the light of the contemporary biological and psychological constraints. The dissertation is set to define a kind of cinema, which reflects the recent scientific knowledge about neural underpinnings of human activity, and which draws its emotional power from one’s experimental resources of understanding and interacting with others within the everyday world. While attribute of ‘enactive’ carries the explicit sense of pragmatic doing and meaningful acting in the world, it is the embodied simulation of the world, which will provide the cognitive environment for creative enactment. Emotions, in addition to determining unconscious, involuntary understanding about the state of things, also determine all conscious, intentional, and imaginative aspects of cognition. Faithful to the spirit of Eisenstein the dissertation deliberately deviates from other mainstream cinema research: instead of the spectator, the focus here is on the author’s cognitive processes.
Paperness : expressive material in textile art from an artist's viewpoint
(2009) Nimkulrat, Nithikul
School of Arts, Design and Architecture | Doctoral dissertation (monograph)
Although textile artists realise the importance of physical materials through their physical and expressive qualities, no explicit account has been made of how a material is important for them, for their creative processes and artworks. This study sets out to scrutinise the expressivity of paper string as a material in textile art, exploring the relationship between paper string and artistic expression. While paper string is touchable, artistic expression can be conceived as subjective, known only by a person. Nevertheless, the physical and the subjective components might not function independently in a creative process but instead rather intertwiningly. The possible incorporation of these components becomes the problem field of the study. To tackle it, the study calls for a closer look at paper string used in actual textile art practice. Being a textile artist myself, a way to look closely into a creative process is to take the role of a practitioner, carrying out artistic productions that use paper string and taking them into research as case studies. In order to discuss in detail my own artistic productions, making and exhibiting artworks becomes one of the approaches applied to this research. As the artworks made of paper string are put on display, to know how an audience views the material can possibly help investigate the relationship between paper string and artistic expression. This aspect supports the choice of questioning visitors to the exhibitions. When the art productions or information collected from the visitors’ surveys needs some explanation, literature related to the research problem is used, especially on the following subjects: phenomenology of perception (e.g., Heidegger 1962/1990; Merleau-Ponty 1962/2005), expression theories in aesthetics (e.g., Collingwood 1938/1958; Dewey 1934/2005), exhibition design and history of modern art display (e.g., Lefebvre 1991; O’Doherty 1999), and Finnish design history (e.g., Kruskopf 1975; Wiberg 1996). For the research, I employ various means of documentation, such as diary writing, diagram drawing, photographing, sketching and questionnaires. These form the data, which can be organised, communicated and discussed. By focusing on paper string, various themes have evolved during the study, demonstrating the active quality or expressivity of paper string in textile art, or what I call “paperness”. With this quality, paper string can inform me (the artist) through its physical qualities about how to proceed with the creative processes of “Seeing Paper” and “Paper World” physically and conceptually. Conceptually, the experience with paper string can gradually give rise to artistic expression; thoughts and feelings are stimulated, leading to the conceptualisation of the design and context of the art production. Physically, the results of the art production are artworks and an exhibition, which, however, not only appear as material objects but also possess artistic content expressible to an audience. Materialness thus formulates both the physical form and subject matter of each artwork and exhibition into which artistic expression incorporates the material. This study has changed and improved my way of creating textile art. This detailed account can be useful for textile pedagogy and everyone who is interested in textile art. I believe that some readers will benefit from it and change their way of doing things after reading it, just as I have benefitted and changed during the conduct of this research.
Where product design meets investor behavior : how do individual investors' evaluations of companies' product design influence their investment decisions?
(2009) Aspara, Jaakko
School of Arts, Design and Architecture | Doctoral dissertation (monograph)
Design management research has increasingly advocated strategic perspectives to product design. However, one important, strategic business aspect has been rather completely ignored in extant research. That is, the role and behavior of investors in respect to a company’s product design. The purpose of this dissertation is to address this research gap by examining, in particular, the following research question: How do investors’ subjective perceptions and evaluations of a company’s product design influence their investment decisions towards the company’s stock? My theory and hypothesis development concerning the underlying psychological and behavioral mechanisms are based on (social) psychological theories of personal relevance and involvement, identification and self-expression, and affect – as related to products and product design. The theory development is also supported by recent notions from behavioral finance research on investor behavior. The focus is on individual/ private investors, who actively invest in the stock market (rather than institutional or professional investors). In order to test a set of hypotheses developed, I conducted three studies by gathering quantitative (survey) data on investors who are active investors in the Finnish stock market. Two of the studies involved a correlational survey dataset (n approx.300), analyzed with causal (path) modeling. The third study was a conventional randomized experiment (n approx.190). As to the results of the dissertation, my theoretical analysis and empirical evidence reveal two important, product design -related factors that influence investors’ willingness and decisions to invest in companies’ stocks. The first factor is (1) the personal relevance or importance that an investor attaches to “life domains” that the company’s products represent or support. Such life domains can be various activities or areas of interests (e.g., road traveling, gardening, sport) – or more abstract themes or ideas (e.g., healthcare, mobility, environment-protection). The second factor is (2) the investor’s overall affect or liking for a company’s product design. This factor reflects the degree to which the investor perceives the company’s products to be pleasant, attractive, good, and likeable overall. The results show, first of all, how these two product design -related factors have positive effect on an investor’s optimism about the company’s financial returns and negative effect on the consideration that he/she gives to alternative investment targets. Moreover, the results suggest that the two factors also contribute to investors’ investment decisions beyond the financial returns expected from companies. Indeed, the two product design factors are found to have positive effect on investors’ determination to invest in the focal company rather than in other companies that have approximately similar expected financial returns. And even further: the factors are found to elicit preparedness to invest in the company with lower financial returns expected from the company than from other companies (i.e., by easing up on financial return requirements on the company). In sum, the findings suggest that the more personally relevant a company’s product domain is to an investor – and/or the more overall liking the investor has for the company’s product design – the greater is the investor’s willingness to invest in the company. The results considerably extend the design management notion of the strategic benefits that a company can enjoy from designing pleasurable and personally meaningful products – especially by showing that product design will not only create strategic distinction for the company in the product markets, but also in the stock markets. In so doing, the present findings have implications for (design) management practice when it comes to attracting investments (especially from investors who are appealed by the company’s product design) as well as creating hybrid business models (that take into account, already at the outset, certain investors’ potential fondness of the company’s current or future product design).
Kielletyt kuvat : suomalais- ja virolaisnuorten piirtämällä esittämät kielletyt aiheet
(2009) Kiil, Karolina
School of Arts, Design and Architecture | Doctoral dissertation (monograph)
The present research is for a doctoral dissertation addressing the meanings and special nature of young people’s requested drawings in a process of research. I focus on a visual entity constructed via research question. I asked all the participants in the study the same question: What are the forbidden images of art teaching in school? The entails the forbidden subjects of art teaching as defined by young people in the research situation. My approach is constructed with reference to theories of symbolic and sexual representation. The empirical material of requested drawings consists of pencil drawings by 186 pupils and students of the upper-comprehensive and high-school level of the selected schools from Finland and Estonia, in addition to interviews with 7 art teachers. The drawings made by the young people in the research section are of bold and open-minded expression. They tell of forbidden themes in a partly caricaturistic and provocative manner. The underlying theory and method the study are based on the following focuses: the concept of representation in visual expression, gender differences and their visual representation, and the specific nature of drawings by young people. In art teaching, discourse and visual expression can be understood with reference to the concept of representation. It can be comprehended as presenting an absent object or concept with the aid of an image or sign (language). As a process, representation also entails the transformation of an existing phenomenon through thought processes to be presented to the senses. Art teaching entails the fact that teachers and their pupils interact with the aid of various representations employed in culture, e.g. through symbols and language, and that they react to them. The images provide a good starting point for studying the views of young people regarding the forbidden images through their own concepts.
Käsityksiä kuvataiteesta : kuvataideopettaja taiteen tekijänä ja kokijana
(2009) Niiniskorpi, Soile
School of Arts, Design and Architecture | Doctoral dissertation (monograph)
What does creating art mean to an art teacher both personally and professionally? How do art teachers view art and the creation of art? This study examines these questions via interviews and conversations with art teachers. The starting point for the conversation data was either the teacher’s own work of art or visit to an art exhibition together with the researcher. The discussion on the art teachers’ views focuses on their personal views outside the teaching situation. The research examines views on art both on individual and general levels. The study shows that art enables dialogic thinking. Dialogism is seen as a dyad between people, and people and works of art. A work of art is an activeparty both in situations where art is created and where it is experienced. A work of art is not a passive object of doing or experiencing. According to the conclusions, pictures are an instrumental property of thinking. A work of art awakens, mediates and creates thoughts. People think and theorize with and through pictures. Creating and experiencing works of art is intellectual human activity. The study shows that art teachers’ creation of art only creates positive professional effects. Both teaching and creating art require interaction and discussion. Open question and error -process may lead to using new and contradicting alternatives. Teaching art is similar to creating art but, as similar as it is, it is not the same as creating art. In the conclusions, the thoughts of the theorist central to this study, Juho A. Hollo (1885–1967), on imagination, images, imagination logic, imaginary information and productive perception discuss with the modern art and art education researchers. The central concept of this study, dialogism, is based on Martin Buber’s (1878–1965) dialogic philosophy. The results of this research can be used in further research and art teacher training. If an art teacher feels that the creation and experiencing of art is centrally characterized by thinking, thoughts and the dialogism of art, how and to what extent will they be realized in practice in art education?

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