Reverse Graffiti Art in Tampere Centre

Over centuries dust have arrived to cities with the spring migration of birds.

Dust have become the largest species in towns, and builds every spring incredible huge communities almost on every surface.

Dust is a well known disadvantage to city dwellers and especially allergic persons suffer from the vast prevalence of this brand.

This spring a group of artists decided to make something virtuous of this epidemic.

The Spring Cleaning Art Project aims at making the walls come into flower and to expose the other side of dust.

Ten young artists from Tampere participate in this event produced by Jukka Silokunnas, a fine art student from TAMK School of Art and Media:

Outi Tuomainen
Maija Kovari
Mika Ylinen
Martta Tuomaala
Petra Lukkari
Jussi Riihelä
Sampsa Kuha
Päivi Viinikainen
Karoliina Paappa
Jukka Silokunnas

The exhibition is seen in the pedestrian's tunnel leading to Satakunta bridge in central Tampere.

You can also enjoy the exhibition on video

Finnish Short Films Successful in Berlin

KYKY, a brand new short film event was held in the Finnish Institute in Berlin, Germany. A group of students from TAMK UAS School of Art and Media and Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences organized an evening that included six finnish short films and a panel discussion with two directors, AJ Annila and Maria Kaurismäki. Pekka Ollula, who is studying producing and creative thinking, and sound designer/composer Miro Laiho a.k.a. Michael Law joined the discussion about the films that were shown, culture export and finnish short films in general.

KYKY was launched in fall 2008 by Jussi Laaksonen, Pekka Ollula and Pauli Kopu. Later, Emmi Nuorgam joined the group. The connections to the Finnish Institute in Germany came from inside the group and the co-operation between the our group and the institute was tremendous.

Yesterday, on April 23rd, it was finally time to present the films to the audience in Berlin. And what an audience it was! The co-workers at the institute counted approximately 110 participants, which is a great number! The people enjoyed the show, the applause was nice after every film and many people took part in the panel discussion - that could be called a successful night in Berlin. It was nice to recognize, how everybody was able to make international connections and to discuss about the Finnish film scene in general with a nice glass of wine or even juice.

A project like this made it possible for us to give the audience a nice piece of Finnish culture. The feedback was very positive and we are looking forward to take more Finnish short films to other culture institutes all over the world, which was the main goal to achieve with KYKY. Thank you Berlin, we'll be back with more films and creative ideas! If you are interested getting your film abroad, please don't hesitate to contact us.

Story by KYKY

The films:
Winterlong Director: Timo Puukko
Hard Student IV: The Ultimate Battle D: AJ Annila
Ennustus – Rain Must Fall O: Anna-Kaisa Haapala
Norjalainen huora - Norwegian Whore D: Timo Vuorensola
Sivutyö – Sideline D: Maria Kaurismäki
HERA D: Sanni Rajapolvi

The Finnish Institute in Germany, presentation of films (in German)

Hard Student IV, Rain Must Fall, Sideline and Hera are made by TAMK School of Art and Media students.

Rain Must Fall and Hera are also screened at Tampere Art Factory May 15-16

TAMK Goes Green on Thursday

'Go Green' examines the future of green business and research; in addition to introducing ways to get involved in green actions both locally and globally. 'Go Green' presents lectures and challenging films to spark dialog.

Schedule on Thursday April 23

09.30 Material and energy saving through Engineering Mechanics, Dr. Gerd Mühlenbeck (Room D1-02)
10.30 Aspects of Change, mini-lecture series (Room D1-02)
11.30 Lunch break
12.00 Garbage: The Revolution Begins At Home, Documentary Film (Auditorium D1-04)
13.30 Green in Everyday, Sanna Huikuri (Room D1-02)
14.30 Recipes for Disaster, Documentary Film (Auditorium D1-04)

10.00-15.30 Exhibition area open for all

All lectures and films will be presented in English.
Free popcorn for movie-goers!

Lectures

Material and energy saving through Engineering Mechanics, Gerd Mühlenbeck (45 min) Dr. Mühlenbeck demonstrates what we can achieve by using engineering mechanics to save material and energy in addition to explosion protection in accordance with European Standards such as ATEX.

Being Green Everyday, Sanna Huikuri (45 min) Sanna Huikuri (Dodo ry) is an Environmental Engineer (Tamk '03), Master's student in Environmental Sciences/Renewable energy and active in environmental organizations. Huikuri will discuss daily green questions and decisions affecting us all.

Aspects of Change, mini-lecture series (50 min)

• The Green Party (Tampereen Vihreät nuoret- Virnu ry) will discuss how environmental issues can be approached and affected from a political point of view.
• The Carrot Mob (Porkkanamafia) will introduce the activities of The Carrot Mob and the successes they have achieved in environmental areas.
• Elle Yli-Ojanperä, Creative Producer - Ethical business and customer decisions.
• Suntrica - Solar charging goes personal. Suntrica will spark a conversation about utilizing green technology and business practices.

Films

Go Green will be presenting two must-see feature length documentary films which will challenge the viewer to rethink the disposable lifestyle that is draining our environment.

Recipes for Disaster (FIN, 85 min) This is a film about climate change. About catastrophe. And it's funny, painfully funny. We love to blame the corporations and industries for what's going wrong with the planet, but we are mistaken. It's us, baby. You and me. We're the real bad guys.
Director and Writer John Webster.

Garbage! The Revolution Starts at Home (CAN, 76 min) Garbage! The Revolution Starts at Home is a feature documentary about how the family household has become one of the most ferocious environmental predators of our time.
Writer and director Andrew Nisker

Exhibition

The Exhibition area will be open 10-15.30, with a selection of green companies, projects and organizations. A variety of tables will be set up around the info café lobby, presenting a variety of goods, ranging from; organic, recycled, fashion, solar energy, thermal heating, etc. Tampere local brand Trad. will be presenting the idea of social design and recycled materials with a gallery of fashion pieces.

Go Green is organized by TAMK Consulting Academy with the support of the Research & Development Department and International Business Programme of TAMK. TAMK Consulting Academy is a group of International Business students working on a variety of projects throughout Finland as well as internationally. The event is produced in cooperation with students from the School of Art and Media of TAMK.

TAF Presents Interactive Movies

TTVO Interactive Film Show 2001-2009
May 15 2pm - 3pm
Werstas Auditorium, Finlayson Language: English
Admission free

One of the highlights of Tampere Art Factory is the TAMK School of Art And Media (TTVO) Interactive Film presentation performed by Dr Chris Hales.

Chris Hales has been teaching the secrets of Interactive Film design in our annual Interactive Film Workshop since 2001. Now Chris has prepared a 60 minute show with a collection of the most interesting outcomes of the workshops. He will also present one of his own interactive films.

Dr Chris Hales comes from the SmartLab, University of East London. In addition to his research work in London, he gives interactive film workshops in art, film and media schools all over Europe. The Cause&Effect Interactive Film Shows Chris does with Teijo Pellinen have been screened at more than 30 festivals. Cause&Effect has been shown in Tampere at Tampere Film Festival, MindTrek and last year also at Tampere Art Factory.

Interactive film show is a cross between cinema and live theatre, offering a programme of original short films which are designed to allow interaction from the audience.

Photo: One of the Cause and Effect shows at Werstas, Finlayson. As you can see, the audience does not sit silently, but does its best to interact with the film.

Read all posts about Tampere Art Factory

Ethical Consumption Information System (ECIS) collaboration

Ethical consumption is very interesting but insanely difficult field. Customers want to buy greener and socially more sustainable products, but don't know which one to buy. Many innovative online projects provide ethical information, even ethical online shops, but none of them seem to really attract the consumers. Yet.

Demola project 45: "Ethical recommendation engine Firefox extension" is building a tool that injects ethical information to Amazon pages, giving the ethical information in the easiest possible way. The project group is attempting to build bridges to ethical information of external sources. There are already a handful of open ethical information providers and the list is growing all the time.

Jonathan Melhuish and Annesley Newholm from easyethical.org have been arranging a series of online conferences between different projects around the world during the past six months. The ultimate goal is to find a way to get the scattered resources work together, to build something (a lot) bigger than individual projects can achieve. Jonathan has made a Skype interview with many of the participants and published them as a podcast series in his blog: http://jonathanmelhuish.com/category/ethical-consumerism/

"This category features a series of interviews with many projects around the world that deliver ethical information to consumers. These podcasts are designed to give some background information on each project to help identify potential for collaboration between projects. We are also organising regular teleconferences aimed at sharing knowledge and facilitation collaboration."

We'll be following the collaboration and hopefully someday contributing to it in various TAMK or Demola projects.
Story: Wesa Aapro

Photo by Jonathan Melhuish: Interview with Jake de Grazia from CarrotProject

Open doors at Demola during Tampere Art Factory festival May 15-16

Tampere Art Factory Soon Ready for You

The second edition of Tampere Art Factory (TAF) is taking shape. You can already find the basic programme information at TAF website, and shortly there will be loads of more.

TAF is above all a demonstration of the skills and talent of the graduates and other students of the School of Art and Media at TAMK University of Applied Sciences, and their friends. This year also the music and media students of Pirkanmaa University of Applied Sciences contribute to TAF programme.

The main structure of both festival days, May 15 and 16 is the same, there will be:

• Screenings of fictional short films, documentaries and animations. There are seven sets of screenings, each with its own titel like "This Story is True - Documentaries", "Escape or Decision - life is a set of choices" and "Tobacco, Booze and Wild Ladies - Music Films". A schedule of the screenings will later be published also in English.
• Diskurssidisko – Fine art students' graduation exhibition at Art Centre Mältinranta and TR1 Exhibition Centre. Diskurssidisko has a website which will soon be published in English.
• Games and web media at Demola
• TAF lounge – music videos, animations etc. all day long
• Clubs at restaurant Laterna both nights
• much more

Also the workshops of the International Week of the School of Art and Media will present their results at TAF. Some 40 teachers and students from our international partner universities will attend the international week and TAF.

On Saturday there are two other events TAF is going to cooperate with, the Night of The Museums and the Markets of Possibilities of Tampere Social Forum. TAF will contribute to both with dance shows and performances.

Tampere Art Factory
The Night of the Museums
The Markets of Possibilities
Demola

Read all stories about TAF in this blog

MA in Screenwriting Application Period Started

MA in Screenwriting is a joint masters programme arranged by University of Salford (Manchester, UK) and TAMK University of Applied Sciences (Tampere, Finland).

The programme wishes to develop film scripts that are innovative and creative but which are also commercially viable. For appropriate film scripts the School has the capacity to assist in developing production contacts at the Berlin Film Festival, Cannes and the American Film Market in Los Angeles.

Some short film scripts written in Finland will be produced by the Media Production programmes of Salford and Tampere.

The programme is taught entirely in English. Semester One will be taught in Tampere and Semester Two in Manchester. Semester Three, where the students write their MA Film Project, may be completed in either the UK or Finland.

The course will run from September 1st 2009 until December 30th 2010. Deadline for applications of Finnish students is May 18th 2009.

Application info (in Finnish)
Application info (University of Salford, non-Finnish applicants)
More stories about MA in Screenwriting

Photo: The Electrician is a film developed during MA in Screenwriting
Read all stories about the Electrician
The Electrician website

EUROPRIX MULTIMEDIA AWARDS: Don´t Cry - Create!

Feeling the Credit Crunch? Tired of paying off that student loan with measly freelance pay-checks? Think you were born for bigger and better things? Help is at hand! The EUROPRIX Multimedia Awards, Europe's biggest competition for young digital-media creators, is open - with the aim of addressing the financial crisis with creativity and innovation.

The EUROPRIX Multimedia Awards give students and young professionals the chance to be promoted and exposed on the European stage. The competition benefits those who want to know exactly how well their university coursework, freelance work or hobby-projects compare internationally.
Deadline for the 12th EUROPRIX Multimedia Awards is June 30, 2009

The categories:

• Online / Web Projects
• Offline Projects / Interactive DVD
• Mobile Applications
• Games
• Interactive Computer Graphics
• Content Tools & Interface Design
• Interactive Installations
• Interactive TV
• Digital Video & Animations
• EUROPRIX Special Award for the project with the best business potential

EUROPRIX MULTIMEDIA AWARDS Winner 2008: müPrizes will be awarded in each category, with an overall winner. Projects which are well-received by the jury will be awarded a Quality Seal in recognition of good work - a certificate which could make a big impression on future employers. In addition, 2009 sees a new, special award on the list - for the project with the most promising business potential.

Nominees will receive a host of benefits, including:
+ An all-expenses-paid trip to the EUROPRIX Multimedia Festival in Graz, Austria
+ Presentation of their project in the EUROPRIX yearbook
+ Unique networking and promotion opportunities throughout Europe
+ Cutting-edge software packages

TAMK School of Art and Media has close cooperation with EUROPRIX since 1999.
EUROPRIX is present at our Tampere Art Factory festival May 15-16.

EUROPRIX
Tampere Art Factory

Score Teams Successfull in Imagine Cup

Two teams from Game Development Club Score have advanced to the second round of Microsoft Imagine Cup Competition! Thousands of competition entries were submitted from all around the globe to the competition, but only 150 teams continued to fight for the grand prize. Teams have now two months time to finish and polish their games before the second deadline in May. We wish great success for the Score teams and hope to see them in the finals in Egypt in July!

Did you know...

Score is a game development club founded in 2007 by interactive media students at TAMK School of Art and Media. Their goal is to promote Finnish game industry and helping students who hope to build career in games but don't know how. There are currently around 65 members in the club, mostly students from Tampere region. Score has also involved in organizing workshops with subjects like work flow in teams and agile development.

Microsoft Imagine Cup Competition is an annual global event in which competitors are required to create innovative prototypes. This year's theme is to promote the eight UN Millennium Development Goals, create potential solutions that address the toughest problems facing our world today.

There are many contest categories to choose between, robotics and algorithms for example. The Score teams are battling in game development category. The grand prize is 25 000 US$ divided between the members of the team, in addition to various development kits.

The successful games:
Unity
Villa Penguila

Ruffian Games Gareth Noyse comments the games

Imagine Cup
Imagine Cup Game Development competition
Score
UN Millennium Development Goals

You can try out these + other games and meet Score members in Demola during our Tampere Art Factory festival May 15-16.
Tampere Art Factory
Demola

Picture: Screenshot from Unity

Read about other activities of the School of Art and Media to promote the Millennium Development Goals

The Electrician: TAMK - Salford Collaboration

"The Electrician tells the story of Marvin, an executioner in charge of an electric chair. After becoming unemployed when the government prohibits executions, and with his profession now illegal, Martin struggles to find a new way to use his unusual skill - showing no emotion at people's deaths."

The shortfilm "The Electrician" is a collaboration between TAMK School of Art and Media and School of Media, Music and Performance of Salford University.

The film was shot in Manchester last spring, from Tampere there was a crew of ten students.

The script, written by Jussi Jokihaara, was developed during the joint MA in Screenwriting programme. Derek Melling is Marvin, and the 14-minute film is directed by Miina Alajärvi. It is also the graduation work of four students at TAMK School of Art and Media.

You can enjoy a trailer and "making of" of the film at the film website. The Electrician was screened at Tampere Film Festival. Next change to see this film is at Tampere Art Factory, May 15-16.

Electrician website
Tampere Art Factory
MA in Screenwriting
Read all stories about the Electrician