Video Report: Academy of Popculture Workshop

Leeuwarden video workshop from joonas tikkanen on Vimeo.

Earlier we published an illustrated story by Veera Niemi about the Brick by Brick installation our student made together with Academy of Popculture students in Leeuwarden, Netherlands.

Now we are happy to present a video by Joonas Tikkanen, which documents the trip and installation.

Read the report by Veera Niemi

Academy of Popculture in this blog

IMPs design logos for the 2014 European Karate Championships

This year's IMPs had their first dip in the professional pool these last few weeks when we were asked to design a logo for the 2014 European Karate Championships that will take place right here in our lovely Tampere.

The championships are organized by the Finnish Karate Federation in colaboration with the European Karate Federation and there are more than 600 competitors from 50 countries attending. The games will also be broadcasted in more than 30 countries.

The logo competition in which IMPs participated had to deliver a well-designed, catchy and for multiple purposes logo.

The IMPs did not disappoint, of course, as the entries featured a great array of styles, ideas and interpretations of the championships and karate in general. The logos range from more simple and minimalistic ones to really fancy and colorful ones. Still and animated, as well.

The feedback has been very positive and if our visual design tutor's inability to find the words which express just how well it went is any indication, the 09IMPs can feel very proud of work well done!

The winner was recently announced to us so congratulations to Danko Pantovic for designing an awesome logo!

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

Greetings from Canada!

I have spent my autumn semester as an exchange student in Toronto, Ontario College of Art & Design on The Faculty of Art. Studying in another country has been an eye-opening experience that has helped me to concentrate to develop the content of my artistic work as much as improve technical part of artistic process.

Best part in my exchange has been interaction with the people from different cultures. An exchange has enriched my ways to express myself on the field of photography and refresh my perception through interesting conversations with other students and faculty members.

I have been also lucky enough to get some custom-works to do. That has really improved my financial situation.

Besides working in here I have continued my studies in Finland with art project Route Couture, which was part of AVO – Cotton Wool Revolution in Tampere 24.10- 22.11.09. Route Couture presented a fur-fashion collection made of the fur and skin of the Finnish roadkill. By showing the skin of a roadkill as an expensive piece of high fashion, Route Couture questioned general opinions on beauty, luxury, marketing values and truths, and justification of the use of “common” space.

Karoliina Paappa

Read more about the exhibition:

Route Couture (in English)
Article on Fifi (in Finnish)

Picture: Series: Tyttö on kova suustaan, untitled, 2009.

IMPs Study also Languages

The students of the international Degree Programme, the IMPs, have courses like Visual Design, Animation and Multimedia, Web Design, Programming and Print Design. But this is not all, they also study media culture and languages.

The non-finnish students have a course in Finnish language taught by Marja-Sisko Oksanen. Learning Finnish seems to be amusing and fun, I learned visiting a class.

Our exchange students have a course called Introduction to Finnish Language and Culture, but some exchange students are ambitious enough to join the more demanding course in Finnish with the Degree Programme students.

Here are some photos of IMPs and exchange students presenting their countries - in Finnish!

GuanJun Liu, Media Programme Student from People's Republic of China, demonstrated how big China is and of course introduced Chinese cuisine

Jaume Sala, exchange student from Vic University close to Barcelona, revealed the secrets of Spain and Catalonia

Amir Abdi, the Media Programme student from Iran, told us also about the Persian cat.

Erin Lewis, exchange student from OCAD, Toronto, presented Canadian architecture

Danko Pantovic, the Media Programme student from Serbia, made the audience familiar with Serbian Climate, among other things

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

Also German Audience Loves the Electrician

The Electrician won the Audience Award in the Up-and-coming International Film Festival, Hannover, Germany last night.

The Electrician had premiere last spring, and has already been invited to film festivals in more than ten countries. The awards so far are:

• Audience Award, Up-and-coming International Film Festival, Hannover, Germany
• Jury Special Mention, Imaginaria film festival in Conversano, Italy
• Gold Panda Special Jury Award at the 10th Sichuan International TV-festival in Chendu, China
• Vimma09 (Fury09) Award (=Main Prize) at the Arctic Fury Film Festival in Rovaniemi, Lapland
• Audience Award at the Arctic Fury Film Festival in Rovaniemi, Lapland
• 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 in St.Petersburg Student Film Festival "BEGINNING"
• Second in Audience Award competition in Reikäreuna Film Festival, Orivesi

The Electrician was produced in cooperation between Tampere UAS, Finland and Salford University, UK.

The Electrician is a story about an electric chair executioner, Marvin, who becomes unemployed when the government decides to prohibit capital punishment. Marvin’s unique profession and job becomes illegal. Unemployment makes a big hole in his life and he doesn’t really know how to continue. He has to find a new way to use his exceptional skill: not feeling bad when people die.

The Electrician home
Electrician group@Facebook

Electrician in this blog

Pictured: Editor Arttu Salmi and director Miina Alajärvi in Hannover

Pre-task for Media Programme Application Now Online

Next application time for our BA programme run in English is January 11 - February 12. For the Media Programme it is not enough that applicants fill in the online form, they also have to complete and send by the deadline a pre-task with three assignments.

60 applicants with best points for the pre-task are invited to the entrance exam in April.

The focus of the programme is in interactive media content design and production. The students learn about current digital media issues and they specialise in visual design, interaction design or project management.

The areas of application include web design and services, games, mobile media, multimedia, cross media and interactive installations.

The Degree Programme in Media started this autumn at TAMK School of Art and Media. The working language of the programme is only English. The first edition of students are coming from China, Iran, Peru, South Africa, Greece, Serbia, UK and most of them from Finland. The programme is also known as IMP.

Download the pre-task
Media Programme home
TAMK Admissions website

Picture: A tag cloud based on interests and dream jobs of the present Media Programme students. (Design by Wordle.net)

Memento Mori [Latin, = remember you must die]

Sari Tervaniemi: Memento Mori
2.-29.11.2009
Gallery Alkovi
Helsinginkatu 19
Gallery Alkovi is located in Helsinki at Kallio district as a window gallery.


Sari Tervaniemi’s photography series Memento Mori currently installed at Alkovi gallery deals with unsafety in traffic. Aggressive drivers remind pedestrians daily of human mortality.

• According to Helsinki City planning department there was 562 accidents leading to bodily injuries in 2008.
• From previous year accidents with bodily injuries increased by 7 %.Traffic decreased in the same period about 2 %.
• After year 2006 there has been a increase in bodily injuries. In the year 2008 according to preliminary records 343 people died in traffic.

Sari Tervaniemi is lecturer at the School of Art and Media Degree Programme in Fine Arts.

Alkovi Gallery

Postcard from EUROPRIX Festival, Graz

EUROPRIX Multimedia Festival, now third time in ever so wonderful and hospitable Graz, was once again unforgettable. Populated by members of the 20 nominee teams, digital media industry representatives, lecturers and students the three days were filled with energy and creativity plus all other fun stuff.

On Thursday the festival was opened at the regional TV-station with an exhibition of nominee projects and get-together. Friday morning I participated in a project consortium meeting, and then moderated the Academic Lounge with my friend Jak Boumans, secretary general of European Academy of Digital Media. We had most awarding discussion and networking with colleagues from universities cross Europe.

In the afternoon we joined other festival participants for the "4 SCREENS 4 YOU CREATING CONTENTS" event with inspiring keynotes by Alois Ferscha (Research Studio Pervasive Computing), Juha Kaario (Nokia Research Centre), Charly Pall (Google) and Madanmohan Rao (Mobile Monday Global), moderated by Latif Ladid (IPV6 Forum) and tasted with excellent discussion.

Friday evening we opened another nominee project exhibition at Kunsthaus Graz, then young people disappeared to Graz by night and elderly gentlemen like me went to hotel.

Saturday was the most important part of the festival. All day long we saw the nominee teams present their projects. This has always been the most giving content for me; after having seen all the entries already during the jury work and having fell in love with a number of them it is a hilarious experience to see the young talents showing them alive.

Saturday evening witnessed the most exiting part of the festival: The EUROPRIX Awards gala. The winners this year are:

• Online/Web projects: Donkeypedia, Netherlands
• Mobile applications: Showtime!, Austria
• Games: Swords & Soldiers, Netherlands
• Category Interactive Computer Graphics: Vuvox, Israel
• Content Tools & Interface Design: Flow-er, Israel
• Interactive installations: Akustisch, Switserland
• Digital Video & Animations: Desconstruct, a stereoscopic experiment, Germany

Overall winner: Swords & Soldiers, Netherlands

The Special Award for the project with the best business potential went to Moogo.com (Finland), and The Adventures of Tinger (Germany) got the Special Jury Mention for a game with a high level of interactive storytelling.

Donkeypedia also won the Nokia Ubimedia MindTrek Award in October.

More info about winners and nominees (europrix.org)
More about EUROPRIX in this blog

During the festival it was also agreed that the cooperation between EUROPRIX and School of Art and Media will be continued in many ways. EUROPRIX will be present at our International Week and Tampere Art Factory Festival in May.

Pictured: The Moogo.com team (Finland) was awarded with The Best Business Potential Award, from left to right Antti Ala-Ilkka, Mikko Nurminen, Kimmo Pekari

Forces of Light Festival in Helsinki

Our fine art students are an active part of the fifteenth Forces of Light Festival in Helsinki November 11-15.

"Climate change and it’s prevention have created a new challenge for a light event to exist. What is the role and responsibility of a light event in the energy consumption? Is the new technology the answer for saving energy in the future? Can an artist have an influence and participate on the discussion about climate change with his/her work?"

Jukka Silokunnas is one of the School of Art and Media students present at the festival with his installation "Youth Stoppers". You can find "Youth stoppers" at Telekkakatu 8, and read more about the installation in English in Jukka Silokunnas' blog.

Jukka Silokunnas blog
Forces of Light Festival

Pictured: Youth stoppers

DEMOLA is The Place for Game Design Workshop

TAMK´s two day Game Design Workshop was organized for the second time in DEMOLA. This time we were able to experience how it works to have a virtual lecturer as one participant of the workshop.

This was not the original plan. It was the second best solution after our lecturer Gareth Noyce (Ruffian Games, UK) called us from Aberdeen airport and told that he cannot fly to Tampere because his passport has expired.

We were really lucky because Demola is now equipped perfectly for virtual (e.g. Skype) meetings. We were also very lucky having DEMOLA activists Teemu Haila (in picture) and Antti Salomaa as teachers and organizers who knew how to use the equipments for shaping virtual lecturing experiences. E.g. when Gareth was listening the discussions among the students we saw him from "small" Mac screen, which Antti propelled according the interaction going. And when he was lecturing we saw him from big screen.

In the two hours rapid game design workshop the students created an awesome board game called "Status Update". It was tested and rated high among the students and the teachers in the Game Evening after the workshop. We believe that nobody who is working at Demola can avoid playing it in the future:)

Leena Mäkelä

Ruffian Games
Demola

Pictured: Teemu and Gareth

The Electrician took Sichuan and Rovaniemi!

The Electrician won the Gold Panda Special Jury Award at the 10th Sichuan International TV-festival in Chendu, China last weekend. Simultaniously the film became winner of the Vimma09 (Fury09) competition at the Arctic Fury Film Festival in Rovaniemi, Lapland. The Electrician was also winner of the Favourite of the Audience award in Rovaniemi.

The Electrician is directed by Miina Alajärvi and produced in cooperation between Tampere UAS, Finland and Salford University, UK.

The film already won three awards in St. Petersburg, Russia, and has been invited to film festivals in Italy, Germany, Austria and Finland this month.

Read more about the Electrician

Combining interaction design with agile methods

TAMK’s interaction design student Vappu Leinonen has studied in her final thesis “Interaction Designer in Agile World” how the shift from traditional waterfall process models towards agile methods in software development affects the work of interaction designers.

“It has been a widely known fact for a long time that the waterfall model does not work in ever changing situations, which are the essence of software development. Developers created agile methods as an answer and they have proven that it works. But when they created agile methods, they forgot one thing: the design.”, Leinonen writes.

“Interaction design is an important part of creating software, but agile does not even suggest anything related to that in the process descriptions.” According to Leinonen the combination of agile and interaction design is not so simple as it may sound to be. “Both have to give up on some principles in order to gain something more: a better product for the end user.”

Leinonen did a case study about the process model, which is used by one project in Nokia Devices R&D. “The survey results show that while interaction designers don’t have big issues with the process model, they are too busy to fully concentrate on the design work and they feel that they are not yet part of the scrum teams. While agile methods might seem threatening from interaction designer’s point of view, they have proved to work much better than waterfall process model. With agile methods it is possible that the final product will actually be what interaction designer intended it to be.”

Workshop at the Academy of Popculture, Leeuwarden, Holland

The lecturers and the students of our partner Academy of Popculture in northern Netherlands have given already two workshops at our school.
Now it was finally time for the return visit. We are happy to present a photo gallery and below it the report, both made by Veera Niemi.

Wall art at Academie voor Popcultuur

Planning the installation

Installation "Brick by Brick"

Installation "Brick by Brick"

Jussi Autio, Satu Leskinen, Joonas Tikkanen, Veera Niemi and Jori Kemppi, part of the installation

We arrived in Leeuwarden Monday last week after travelling roughly 6 hours. We took lodgings at our hosts and got acquainted with the city.

On Tuesday our workshop started with brief introductions although most of us had already met in Tampere in May during the VJ-workshop arranged in connection to our Tampere Art Factory Festival.

We started reflecting the similarities and differences between Holland and Finland, searched exemplary materials on the Internet. Finally - inspired by our city tour the previous night - we ended up with the installation "Brick by Brick".

In the installation we would use materials filmed and recorded in advance in Finland and new stuff from Leeuwarden, additionally photos and music from both countries.

Our group members found easily the different roles: Jori mixed a mash up of the music, I made sound scapes, Jussi illuminated, Joonas and Satu joined their forces with Academy of Popculture students Richard, Gerrald and Willemijn for projections.

The installation was presented on Saturday on the Academy of Popculture open doors day. We got good feedback and lots of brilliant ideas for the future.

The participants of the workshop were School of Art and Media theatre and event audio-visual design students Satu Leskinen, Jussi Autio, Joonas Tikkanen and Jori Kemppi and sound design student Veera Niemi, Academy of Popculture students Richard Toepoel, Gerrald van der Kolk, Willemijn van Arnhem, Bea Grootscholten and Jamila Faber.

With tired but happy regards

Veera Niemi (Sound Design 06)

International New Media Art Week in Liepaja

University of Liepaja in Latvia, by the Baltic Sea, is one of TAMK's partner universities. Last week they had the opening of the New Media Art study and research environment and International New Media Art Week with workshops, presentations and lectures.

From TAMK to Liepaja travelled two lecturers, Björn Aho from Fine Arts and Sohvi Sirkesalo from Media, to attend the event. On Thursday, 6.11. in the programme were presentations and discussions about New Media and Art education, including, among others SMARTLab From London, Academy of Popculture and Utrecht School of Media and Technology from the Netherlands and Estonian Academy of Arts from Tallinn. Björn Aho gave a presentation about Media Art education at TAMK.

On Friday 7.11. there was a series of open lectures about different topics around new media and research; Rob van Kranenburg talked about "The Internet of Things", Chris Hales presented world's first interactive movie, Kinoautomat, and Carole Gray's theme was reflective practice on research of creative disciplines. Sohvi Sirkesalo's presentation was about social media tools as part of a content creation process.

Presentations raised plenty of talking and also ideas for new international projects and new ways for cooperation. Evening programme was also inspiring with an unique experience of Latvian wet sauna - and on the last evening there were two Finnish rock bands in the club next to our hotel!

Photo: Rob van Kranenburg introducing "the rebel road" through the jungle of RFID tags.

New Media Art at University of Liepaja

Portfolio Review by Visitors From St.-Petersburg

A group from St.-Petersburg Informational Center FotoDepartament visited our Fine Art Programme today, to meet our students and review their portfolios.

FotoDepartament is prepering an exhibition for young Nordic photography- and media-artists. The group has already visited the other Nordic countries.

At TAMK the project is prepared in cooperation with the curator of the Nykyaika Photographic Centre Ulrich Haas Pursiainen as a part of the TAF on Tour internationalisation project.

Photo and story: Antti Haapio


Informational Center FotoDepartament

Ania Ciuba Made the Soundly Sleeping Dragon Web Site

The most international project of TAMK School of Art and Media has turned out fine. Ania Ciuba from Poland, a multimedia student from our partner school SDE College in Odense, Denmark, made a web site for Tan Minh Single Woman's group, Vietnam, during her exchange period in our school.

The Tan Minh women are farmers, but as farming land is getting smaller and smaller, they have to arrange other forms of income. They have founded a cooperation to produce their first product, Soundly Sleeping Dragon silk sleeping bag liners.

CED, Coalition for Environment and Development (Ympäristö ja Kehitys ry. in Finnish) is a voluntary organization, which helps the Tan Minh cooperative in developing their business. The sleeping bag liners have become quite popular in Finland. To extend the sales with a online service a web site was needed.

The School of Art and Media promised to help CED with the web design, and Ania needed a topic for her thesis work. So many needs met and meshed with each other, and now the project is online.

"This project has taught me a lot about design, implementation and also about development work. I am still involved and enjoying it.", says Ania Ciuba about her experience. Ania has graduated, and moved to Helsinki, where she's working for a software development company.

Soundly Sleeping Dragon

Pictured: Ania Ciuba on our roof garden