MindTrek Diary, Day One

One of the exciting and inspiring reasons to enjoy working at TAMK School of Art and Media is the annual MindTrek Conference we arrange together with other Tampere universities and companies every year since 1997.

MindTrek always has a state of the art content in digital media with world class speakers and tracks. The best part however in my opinion is that 800 wonderful people from all over the world gather here, a lot of old friends and partners, and so many new people to make friends and contacts with.

In the morning I escorted Swanhilde de Jong to TAMK main campus to meet our Head of the International Office Riku-Matti Kinnunen.

Swanhilde is exchange lecturer from one of our partner universities in the Netherlands, the NHL-university in Leeuwarden. She is teaching our MA in Screenwriting programme this week, I will write a story about this later. It is easy to attract visiting lecturers to our university during the MindTrek Week, they love to come, because they have also the option to be a part of MindTrek.

The colours of Swanhilde matches excellent with the autumn colours of Tampere.

Going back to TAMK School of Art and Media Campus at Finlayson I realized one reason why MindTrek attracts people from all over the world. Tampere is just fantastic in the beginning of October.

Today was the MindTrek pre-conference day with partner events. Most of them were at Rosendahl, but some also at Finlayson.

The Chair of Nokia Ubimedia MindTrek Awards Artur Lugmayr is here opening the nominee presentations event of the competition at Demola, Finlayson. The nominees did great presentations, and I was happy almost all of the IMPs, the students of our international Media Programme were present.

In the evening I participated in the Open Media event get-together. "The rivals", the nominees of Nokia Ubimedia MindTrek Awards finally found each other at the same table. Who will win the first prize? My lips are sealed, but the secret will be revealed tomorrow 16:45 at Rosendahl.

From left to right: A member of the Traffic Light Detector delegation, sorry, I didn't get his name yet, Joost van Eeden, DonkeyPedia (Netherlands), Kirsi Lindfors, co-chair of the Ubimedia contest (Finland), Katrina Bekessy's mother, Frank Alsema, DonkeyPedia, Katrina Bekessy, PING, the Smart Trash Bin (USA) and Jan Roters, Traffic Light Detector (Germany).

MindTrek

Joost van Eeden Revealed to IMPs the Keys to Success

Joost van Eeden from Amsterdam is this week in Tampere to visit the MindTrek Conference - like 800 other MindTrekkers from all over. But Joost has a special reason: he represents DonkeyPedia, which is one of the three nominees of the Nokia Ubimedia MindTrek Award. Donkeypedia is also nominated for the online category in EUROPRIX Multimedia Awards, so Joost will attend also the EUROPRIX Multimedia Festival in Graz in November.

Today Joost presented some of his other projects to our Media Programme students, the IMPs.

Tomorrow Joost and other Nokia Ubimedia Award nominees will present their their projects at Demola, the joint innovation and project space of ICT and Media students of all Tampere universities. The IMPs will be there, as well as on the MindTrek Conference on Thursday also to see the awards ceremony.

Joost van Eeden has a broad background as project manager for media companies, producers, artists, architects and academies. In 2006 he started as freelance project manager, after studying Arts & Media Management at Utrecht School of the Arts, where he researched strategic management for cultural entrepreneurs. Joost works at 4xM – Mixed Media Match Makers. He is also partner at The Maze Corporation and as guest teacher on ‘conceptualisation’.

4XM
The Maze Corp.
Donkeypedia

MindTrek
Nokia Ubimedia MindTrek Awards

Nokia Ubimedia MindTrek Awards in this blog
Pictured on our roof garden: Joost van Eeden on left, accompanied by our exchange student Jos van der Meij from The Hague University of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands

Tartu Fine Art Students Graduation Show in Tampere

Lend n 2009
26. 9.—18.10.
Tartu Art College Graduation Show 2009Galleria Emil
Old Library, Keskustori 4, Tampere
Open Mon-Fri 10-18, Sat-Sun 11-17

Tartu Art College is one of our close partners, student exchange and other cooperation is intense. The cities of Tartu and Tampere are also twin cities. The XIX Estonia Weeks in Tampere were opened this weekend with the vernissage of the graduation show of Tartu students from last spring.

The exhibition was opened by Jaakko Masonen, City of Tampere Director of Culture, and Vallo Kalamees, Senior Lecturer in Photo Art at Tartu Art Colleg. Vallo is also a TAMK School of Art and Media graduate.

Vallo Kalamees told that actually you can see only a part of the gradualtion show here, all the exhibition is too big to transport on the ferries between Tallin and Helsinki.

But the exhibition shows photographs, graphics, fashion and other great pieces of fine art. Definitely worth a visit!

Tartu Art College

Pictured: Senior Lecturer Vallo Kalamees introduced the exhibition

The Electrician Won Three Prizes in Beginning, St.Petersburg

VIII Open St.Petersburg Student Film Festival "BEGINNING" took place this week in St.Petersburg, Russia. The global contest of the festival invited again this year two films from TAMK School of Art and Media to be shown in the category for Fiction films.

This time it was success for the Electrician. Sound designer Jarno Muhonen was awarded as the Best Sound Supervisor and scriptwriter Jussi Jokihaara with the Best Script of Fiction Film. Director Miina Alajärvi was granted a diploma for the image of the cinematographic language.

The Electrician is the story of Marvin - an executioner in charge of the electric chair, who has to find a new way to use his unusual skill when he becomes unemployed. The film is a co-production with Salford University, UK.

Jussi Jokihaara's script was a result of his work when he was a student of the MA in Screenwriting programme, jointly arranged by TAMK and University of Salford.

Earlier this month the Electrician became second in the Audience Award Competition of the Reikäreuna Film Festival.

The Electrician will keep busy this autumn, it has been invited to:
Upcoming International Film Festival Hannover
Shnit International Short Film Festival in Berne and Cologne

Beginning festival&winners

The Electrician home
All posts about the Electrician
The Electrician@Facebook

IMPs at FinnGraf, Print Media Exhibition

Students of the Media Programme had a chance of attending the largest event in the graphical arts industry in Northern Europe, and obviously many of them took advantage of it.

The exhibition consisted of many small areas where companies presented and marketed their products and services. I, unfortunately, couldn't resist the temptation of a new Wacom drawing table, so I indulged myself to buy one from the Apple/Mac tent. There was also several live presentations taking place at the B-hall "bulletin area" by various industry professionals.

All in all, the whole exhibition was very interesting and informative (along with the delicious sweets), and it gave us all a lot to think about. Print design (and the print and graphical industry in general) is indeed very intriguing... Especially if you get to print your own name with an ancient printing machine ;)

Text and photos: Anna Tikkanen

FinnGraf/FinnVisual 2009 exhibition

Click the image to enlarge

IMPs are students of the Degree Programme in Media of TAMK School of Art and Media (Interactive/International Media Programme)
More stories about IMPs
Media Programme home

Postcard from IBC, Amsterdam

Best greetings from Amsterdam. We were lucky to attend the IBC-show. The most attracting thing was the develpomet of 3D-stereotelevision. 3D-videopicture was visible on several stands and it was quite natural to view.

Thinking of a total TV-network in 3D-format seems futuristic, but never say never!

Text and photo: Rolf Achrén, Technical Supervisor

Our Technical Supervisor Rolf Achrén and Senior Lecturer in cinematography Ilkka Järvinen made a study trip to Holland. They familiarized themselves with multicamera solutions in two companies and participated in the IBC, the leading international forum for the electronic media industry.

IBC

Photo: In the centre Ilkka Järvinen

Our Students are Gems!

A couple of weeks ago Rosa Pons and Cristina Perales from University of Vic, Barcelona, did their five day staff exchange at the School of Art and Media. They did a workshop with our students, who loved it. The visit once again showed that carefully prepared and implemented visits of lecturers really make sense and pay off.

More joy was to follow: Rosa and Cristina send their feedback, and it was so uplifting I simply have to publish it in our blog:

• We found your students very well prepared for team and autonomous working and they have a huge capacity for work.
• They are quick in learning and seem they aim to improve their skills.
• They are respectful with the others and have a positive attitude. They accept having a leader to guide the production.
• They know how to comprehend the subtext of a scene.
• They can play a role and do it properly, they have intuition and talent.
• They can handle a problem, improvise and organize an audiovisual production in a short time.
• They listen and value the teacher’s suggestions.
• They have a strong cultural background which gives them the ability of having criteria and opinion.
• They know the economical worth of an audiovisual production.

It is very important that friends now and then remind us, how privileged we are working with such brilliant students :-)

Read the story about the visit
University of Vic


Pictured: Cristina Perales and Rosa Pons at our roof garden

Ikuinen Gallery presents: Closed But Open by Vera Arjoma

16.9. – 2.10.2009
Vera Arjoma: Closed But Open
Ikuinen Gallery
Finlaysoninkuja 3, Tampere, Finland
Open Mon - Fri 12 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The autumn season of Ikuinen Gallery has opened with a photo art exhibition by Vera Arjoma; "Closed But Open".

Ikuinen gallery is a contemporary art project space located in the old factory complex Finlayson in central Tampere. The gallery is run by a board of fine art students in TAMK University of Applied Sciences as part of their study program.

Ikuinen gallery’s main focus is in presenting interesting and high quality student work, whereas work from other art school students and teachers as well as visiting artists are regularly also at show.

More detailed presentation of the exhibition in Finnish

First Tampere Guerilla Lighting a Stunning Success

YO-talo, design by Essi Santala, photo Riikka Kunnari

Song Stage, design by Otto Suojanen, photo Riikka Kunnari

Song Stage, design by Tiina Järvinen, photo Riikka Kunnari

Ojakatu, design by Elina Nopanen, photo Riikka Kunnari

Old Customs House, design by Crista Parviainen, photo Riikka Kunnari
(Click on images to view a larger version)

On Thursday night a big audience gathered on Tampere main square Keskustori to follow the first Guerilla Lighting event in Tampere. Fifty tourch carriers in uniform coats, followed by the light designers, organisers and some one thousand citizens marched around the city center to four destinations. The procession was accompanied by the Swaeg Collective.

The aim of the show by the lighting design students was to invide the streets with light for a moment and illuminate some forgotten architectural gems. This was a demonstration of the power of light in skilful hands.

Arrangers of this event were SuperMukava Design Store, lighting design students from TAMK School of Art and Media headed by light designers Annukka Larsen and Antti Hiltunen. Torch carriers were people recruited by DesignOnTampere event and students from TAMK School of Art and Media.

See video on Tampere Guerilla Lighting (Aamulehti)

Read more about the background
Read about the international Guerilla Lighting Campaign

Guerrilla Lighting –events

IMPs at Naamat in Ruma

Yesterday the students of the Media programme attended the annual Naamat party in Ruma, organized by Tarina, TTVO's own student club. Tarina's objective to arrange such party is to bring together new and old (as well as already graduated) students. The evening went well and everyone seemed to have great time dancing and chatting with friends.
Like they say, "a picture tells more than a thousand words" so here you go, enjoy!
Story and pics: Anna Tikkanen
Naamat = Faces
TTVO = TAMK School of Art and Media
IMPs are students of the Degree Programme in Media of TAMK School of Art and Media (Interactive/International Media Programme)
More stories about IMPs
Media Programme home

The Nokia Ubimedia MindTrek Award Nominees Are Here

The best Ubimedias have been found
The purpose of the competition was to encourage makers of digital media to generate ideas and develop new and innovative ubimedia products & services. Ubimedia means technology that is embedded in its surroundings. The word “Ubi” comes from the Latin word “ubicue” which means “everywhere”. The competition was open to all kinds of artists, practitioners, and industries and the total prize sum is 7.000 Euros.

MindTrek 2009 Conference
The Nokia Ubimedia competition is part of the international MindTrek 2009 conference. It is being held for the 13th time in Tampere, Finland from Sep 30th – Oct 2nd. Last year the conference gathered together over 800 people from 32 countries, with around 150 international visitors. The key speakers are David Coleman, an expert in social media in business, "Everyware: The dawning age of ubiquitous computing" –author Adam Greenfield, Chris Messina from OpenID Foundation, the world renowned Information society researcher Pekka Himanen and Jyri Engeström, founder of microblog Jaiku, currently works at Google's headquarters.

The final three
There were 30 entrants in the Ubimedia competition and according to the internationally distinguished jury, the contest was on the whole quite tight. But after a long and hard elimination process they determined these three and unique finalists (in alphabetical order)

• Donkeypedia

Donkeypedia is an appealing idea that mixes both low-tech and high-tech components with the help of a real live donkey. A man and the donkey travels by foot through cities gathering information that tourists are interested in. The information comes from interested children that come and say hello to the donkey. The info stored on a computer on the donkey`s back and is available via the Internet. This is a brave foray into a new way of thinking.

• PING: The Smart Trash Bin

Ping is a trash bin that by using embedded technology gives its own input into intelligent recycling. This is a good example of how we can relate to and record our everyday life in a non-obtrusive way in order to make us act better and understand our surroundings. The trashcan serves as an example of the possibilities of the technology at hand, and other similar possibly interactive objects that we do not daily reflect upon would benefit from a development of this kind.

• Traffic Light Detector

What if ubimedia is not used to extend our senses, but to replace a sense lost due to a disability? Translating stimuli from one sense to another may also have implications on the usability of services outside the area of assisted living technologies. The traffic light detector is a simple, application of that concept and is an example of encouraging research in this area.

TAMK School of Art and Media is one of the Ubimedia Award organisers.


The winner will be announced on the 1st of October 2009 at 16.45 in the Hotel Scandic Rosendahl. Register now!

MindTrek
Nokia Ubimedia MindTrek Awards

Donkeypedia
PING: The Smart Trash Bin
Traffic Light Detector

Pictured: In the centre 2008 First Prize Winner Peter Frohlich (Point-to-Discover, Telecommunication Research Centre, Austria), on left Head of Jury Björn Stockleben, and on right Competition Chair Artur Lugmayr.

Greetings from EUROPRIX Jury in Salzburg

EUROPRIX Multimedia Awards is a contest in nine categories for young talents (under 30) who create digital contents. EUROPRIX has been arranged since 1998 and has had participants from 34 European countries.

The Jury, with 14 members this year, met from Thursday until today at ICNM (International Centre for New Media) headquarters in Salzburg, Austria. During four days the jury had to identify the nominees and winners of the categories and the overall winner + the best business potential special price winner among the 333 entries. It was a hard job, but finally we made it after hard but friendly debates and lots of votings.

TAMK School of Art and Media has been very active in the EUROPRIX network. It has had a member in the jury since 1999. A lot of cooperation, joint conferences and workshops have been arranged as a part of MindTrek several years. The EUROPRIX gala was arranged during MindTrek in Tampere 1999.

The nominated EUROPRIX teams are invited to and celebrated at the EUROPRIX multimedia Festival in Graz November 12-14. The highlight of the festival is the EUROPRIX Gala. Parallell to the festival there will also be the Academic Network Conference for digital media lecturers from all over Europe.

EUROPRIX
EUROPRIX in this blog

Photos: Debating and voting

Mugshot and Karate Power Photo Sessions

Yesterday the students of the media program had a long day of visual design, consisting of two photoshoot sessions. The day started at 1 o'clock in the afternoon with mugshots themed as "insane asylum". The group performed well as always. Once the photos have been edited, we will hopefully see them displayed on the walls of Neptunus.

After a bit of practice with the camera and flashlights, the group headed to the big film studio for the Karate Power photoshoot. Getting the lighting set up properly took a while, but once everything was ready, very nice shots were taken of the black belt Karate masters. The purpose of these photos is to work as an inspiration for the Karate logo competition that the media students are taking part of.

Story: Anna Tikkanen
Photographers: The three on top, Miska Wilhelmsson, the fourth, Anna Tikkanen

IMPs are students of the Degree Programme in Media of TAMK School of Art and Media (Interactive/International Media Programme)
More stories about IMPs
Media Programme home

Cristina and Rosa - Exchange Lecturers from Vic

University of Vic, Barcelona, is one of the universities we have really intense cooperation with. We have students from Vic here all the time, and our students go to Vic.

Staff exchange is also frequent. This week Cristina Perales and Rosa Pons give a 5-day workshop titled “Visualizing: from the idea to the screen” to our 3rd year film and television students.

The student and staff exchange is really important for us. It gives new views, ideas and inspiration. And above all new international contacts and friends.

Most of our incoming staff exchange takes place during our annual International Week, when lecturers and students from up to 15 universities come to our campus at Finlayson. This academic year the International Week takes place May 3-7.

University of Vic

Pictured: Rosa Pons and Cristina Perales at our roof garden

IMPs go to Tursajaiset 090909

The long-awaited Tursajaiset party was finally here. After a long wait (3 h) at Keskustori, fellow Imps finally made it to the Härmälä Camping area.

The group of 13 students and two tutors were divided in half, creating teams called "The Very Most Bestest" and "The Order of Fail". Despite the first team's name, no great success was achieved as the team was able to finish only four checkpoints. Fortunately the point of this event was just to have fun, so no sad faces were seen.

Instead of going to Onnela afterwards, TTVO's own after-party took place at Doris where the DJ's Mikko and Arttu lead the Pretty in Pop club.

Story: Anna Tikkanen

Tursajaiset = First year student's traditional party
TTVO = TAMK School of Art and Media
Keskustori = Central square of Tampere

Photo: First year students at TAMK main campus preparing to march to the city centre to join IMPs for Tursajaiset

IMPs are students of the Degree Programme in Media of TAMK School of Art and Media (Interactive/International Media Programme)
More stories about IMPs
Media Programme home

Today Guests from Japan

Today we had visitors from Japan. Six students from Miyagi University, Sendai, made a tour around the School of Art and Media, followed a presentation about TAMK University of Applied Sciences, saw some films, and of course had a look at the proAcademy.

The students are on a three week study trip in Tampere, hosted by PIRAMK University of Applied Sciences. Miyagi University is one of PIRAMK partner universities, soon also TAMK partner, TAMK and PIRAMK will merge at New Year.

Three of the students study architecture, two business and one graphic design. During the visit they compare Finnish and Japanese architecture, culture and design, they also have assignments related to their field of study.

Miyagi University
Other stories about cooperation with Japan

Photo: Guests on our roof garden, on left PIRAMK International Coordinator Marika Kyllönen

New Partner from Salzgitter, Germany

 Dr. Helmut Voulliéme, Professor in Interactive Media from Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences (earlier Braunschweig/Wolfenbüttel UAS) paid a visit to TAMK School of Art and Media yesterday.

Ostfalia UAS has been TAMK partner for a long time and the exchange and cooperation has been intense, but there have been no contacts in the fields of art and media.

Helmut Voulliéme is head of the Media Design Programme which started a couple of years ago in Salzgitter Campus of the university.

Cooperation between Ostfalia and TAMK were extended to include exchange and other cooperation between the Ostfalia Media Design Programme and our Media Programme during the visit. We might see professors and students from Salzgitter already in May participating our International Week May 3-7.

After the School of Art and Media tour we visited our neighbour, the ProAcademy study programme in entrepreneurship, which was introduced by Jukka Siltanen.

Of course we also visited Demola, Helmut Voulliéme was very impressed about how we have arranged student projects in this joint innovation space of companies and students of all Tampere Universities.

On Wednesday Helmut Voulliéme visited TAMK main campus to meet international office and R&D staff members. TAMK-Ostfalia cooperation looks good.

Ostfalia UAS
Demola
ProAcademy

Pictured: Dr. Helmut Voulliéme in the roof garden of School of Art and Media

The Third MA in Screenwriting Started Today

The third implementation of the joint MA in Screenwriting Programme of TAMK University of Applied Sciences and Salford University started today.

Fourteen students form UK, Czech Republic and Finland will learn film scripting this autumn in Tampere, next spring in Manchester. There will additionally be distance learning and project next summer and autumn. Salford University will finally give the Master's certificate.

TAMK School of Art and Media and the School of Media, Music & Performance of Salford University have had cooperation since 1994. There has been frequent student and staff exchange, joint film projects and finally the joint MA Programme.

Master of Art in Screenwriting
All stories about MA in Scriptwriting in this blog

Photo: MA in Screenwriting students at the main entrance to School of Art and media