Ars Viikinsaari 10: Fine Art meets nature

ARS VIIKINSAARI 10
Environmental Art Exhibition
July 1 - August 11 2010
In July daily, not on Mondays in August
Departure from Laukontori harbor every hour
Boat tickets: Adults 10 €, senior citizens and students 8 €, children (age 4–17) 5 €.

Welcome to the vernissage Thu 1.7. 5pm

Viikinsaari is a beautiful summer recreation island only 20 minutes boat trip away from Tampere city center. Every summer the Fine Art students of TAMK School of Art and Media host an environmental art exhibition on the island in cooperation with the City of Tampere Cultural Office and Suomen Hopealinja (Finnish Silverline). This year the exhibition is called Ars Viikinsaari 10.

The artists are: Liisa Ahlfors, Anne Lehtelä, Jyri Lisowsky, Ninni Luhtasaari, Minna Mukari and Viika Sankila.

The exhibition deals with the relation between the reality of the nature and human created culture using the methods of contemporary art. The features of city culture are brought to be a part of a nature reserve, and the scenery you are used with shift at a closer look. Some of the works are participatory, the viewer is a part of her environment for a moment.

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Viikinsaari Island (City of Tampere)
Viikinsaari Island (Finnish Silverline)
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Ars Viikinsaari 2009
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Close deadlines: WSYA (June 27) EUROPRIX (July 30)

Deadline for World Summit Youth Award submissions is already on Sunday. Online Projects can be entered in one of the six categories, which are directly linked to the eight UN Millennium Goals. Winners will be celebrated in New York in autumn. So if you know any project by people under 30 promoting a better world, ask the producers to register online now.
The categories:

1. Fight Poverty, Hunger and Disease !
2. Education for all !
3. Power 2 Women !
4. Create your Culture !
5. Go Green !
6. Pursue Truth !

WSYA home

EUROPRIX Multimedia Awards, is the contest for students and young producers in 9 categories. The 20+ nominee teams will be invited with expenses covered to EUROPRIX Multimedia Festival in Graz in November. (Twenty of our IMP-students will be as well.) Deadline for registration is 30th July,.

The Categories:

• Online / Web Projects
• Offline Projects / Interactive DVD
•  Mobile Contents & Applications
• Games
• Computer Graphics & Design
• Interactive Installations
• Online & Digital Video / TV
• Content Tools & Interface Design
• Animations

EUROPRIX Special Awards for:

• Innovative multimedia concept
• Project with the best business potential
• Most creative design

EUROPRIX home
Read more
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TAMK is partner of both campaigns.
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5D2: second game

The second game from the 5D2 project group was released last Friday! RRR or Rotating Robot Rumble is a sidescrolling shooter in NES style, where you take control of a robot that's on a rampage destroying everything in its path! Just because!

Go try it out!

(Note that you may need to click the screen to start the game)

Friends from Frankfurt: Birgit Richard and Jutta Zaremba

Dr. Birgit Richard and Dr. Jutta Zaremba from the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt am Main arrived yesterday to Tampere for a two day visit at TAMK hosted by our Degree Programme in Fine Art.

There are two main reasons for the visit;
First, the guests are organisers of the Inter-Cool 3.0 exhibition in Dortmund this year. Inter-Cool will show the Promoting Changes Exhibition by our students, now open at the  Finnish Labour Museum Werstas. They will meet the fine art students and discuss the arrangements. Pekka Niskanen, the supervisor of the exhibition, and the students will travel to Dortmund to set up the exhibition.

Second, an Erasmus agreement on staff and student exchange was signed last autumn. The guests made a tour at our premises at Finlayson and learned about our degree programmes and projects.

Pictured on our roof garden: Head of Degree Programme in Fine Art Juha Suonpää, Birgit Richard, Jutta Zaremba, artist and lecturer Pekka Niskanen and artist & our former students Riikka Kuoppala.

Read more about:
Inter-Cool 3.0
Promoting Changes

TTVO Backstage: Love is a Parody (short animation project)

Love can come in an unexpected time and place whereas ideas might sometimes take longer to mature. The animator Amir Abdi had the story in his pocket for five years before he finally got a chance to carry it out. The first year in TTVO’s media programme entailed the course of animation & multimedia when Amir seized the opportunity.

The technical process took the writer-director and Johanna Peltola just about three months to complete. Adobe After Effects was used as a key software for pulling things together. More traditional artistic techniques were also used as the unique background scenery was hand painted with oil by Amir.

The team behind the project consists of five people including Amir’s older brother Hamed Abdi, who wrote and presented the enchanting piece of music.

The most valuable things are not always easy to notice in the middle of everyday rush and routine. We constantly lose ourselves in the flow of life and need unordinary bumps to get us back in control again. Love is a Parody is a story of unusual love that breaks the boundaries and changes the daily routines.

Acknowledgements go to our indispensable team who made the project possible.

Text  and picture: Johanna Peltola
The author starts her second year in our Degree Programme in Media in August
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More stories about media programme and the students of it
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Love is a Parody... from Amir Abdi on Vimeo.

EuroITV conference today at Finlayson

Pertti Näränen (TAMK) and Artur Lugmayr (TUT), two of the organisers and chairs

The eight edition of the annual conference  on Interactive TV & Video EuroITV started today with the pre-conference workshop day in the premises of TAMK School of Art and Media in the Finlayson.area. The theme of the conference is “web.sharing.TV.content”, reflecting the increasing connections between TV and web services.

EuroITV is attended by academia and professionals from all over the world to discuss latest advances and research of media technology, HCI, media studies, and the content creation community. The conference is organized by the EMMi Lab., Department of Business Information Management & Logistics, Tampere Univ. of Technology (TUT) , Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK), and the School of Science and Technology, Aalto University in cooperation with major players in the field of TV and video in Finland.

Professor Artur Lugmayr as general chair of the conference is expecting more than 170 attendees from over 30 countries worldwide:
– We have organized the largest EuroITV conference ever. We also have re-invented the conference by adding a global competition – the EuroITV Grand Challenge – with a price sum of 3000 Euro, new themes such as art & content, and a visionary club gathering leading researchers in a think tank to develop the future vision of video and television in the age of Web3.0. 

The conference will continue tomorrow and on Friday in Hotel Holiday Club Tampere.

EuroITV2010.org

FLASH ATTACK!

For some strange reasons I was always bound to believe that flash is something one should avoid in photography. Alexander Lembke’s three-day-workshop Fiat Lux – Let there be light, concentrating on flash photography, took place on international week in May and opened up new spheres for me.

Whether artificial or natural, light is an essential part of any photo. Lembke’s workshop answered to several questions asked by many even professional photographers. He gave us a lot to think about and a good basis for developing as a photographer. Creating the intended atmosphere in a photograph can be done in several ways by altering the lighting. Cool tips & tricks for optimal usage of flash will keep us playing with our cameras and flashes for long time to come.

The students learned not only the different techniques of using flash but they also had to face a completely new side of themselves. The workshop’s last assignment “Flash Attack!” really put the students’ ethics to the test. Courage was needed when students were sent to the field to take close-ups of random people around the city in the darkened night and of course, using flash. Some of us were wilder, some more shy. The students managed to shoot strangers rather successfully despite the “uncomfortable” circumstances. The task also provoked a long fruitful conversation with themes of privacy and individual’s rights, what we are allowed to do as photographers for the sake of art and where do we draw the line.

Professor Alekxander Lembke (Bauhaus Universität Weimar) on right

Photographer Alexander Lembke’s works

If you are into photography, with or without flash, be sure to participate in the open & free photography marathon Aika valotuksia in Tampere next Wednesday 9.6.  (in Finnish)

Text  and pictures: Johanna Peltola
The author starts her second year in our Degree Programme in Media in August

5D2: games in 25 hours

Five people make five games in five weeks, working five days a week and five hours a day. Impossible? No. Challenging? Yes.

5D2 is continuation to the original 5D project, which was held in summer 2008. The format is the same, but the people are different. The point of this project is not to make awesome games (though they might be a very nice side product), but to learn about games and game production process. This is the reason why the project includes making five small games instead of one big one. You can explore the original 5D project at Score's website

5D2 members are Tero Koskela, Henri Kuismin, Jani Rissanen, Jori Kemppi and Eevi Korhonen. Our first game, Poltergeist!, was released just a couple of hours ago. You can go check it out yourselves here. Remember also to follow our project blog this summer!

Text and photo: Eevi Korhonen

Screening - 7 video works by our students in Helsinki

From Sleep of Reason, directed by Aino Suni

Alkovi Galleria
Screening - 7 video works
28.05. - 03.06.2010
Helsinginkatu 19, Helsinki

Students from Tampere UAS School of Art and Media present their works in a screening in Alkovi Gallery.

Janne Keränen, Outi Tiehaara, Aino Suni and Nalle Mielonen deal each from their own perspective the issues of revealing, finding and liberalizing. The pieces play with the interlacing of different levels of reality and of the crossing of those layers.

Laura Rytkönen examines the inner power relationships of a family in her video piece Family Act.

Päivi Viinikainen and Mikko Keskiivari present a video called BURN-IN that questions the borders of social conduct in a a work community.What happens when a child-like behaviour turns into reality as an acceptable solution.

Karoliina Paappa's A small study of Woe (Woe is me!) is a surrealistic animation, thru which she studies self-destructive behaviour in  extreme situations.

The works have been made mainly as a part of a course of cinematic studies in the years 2009-2010. The instructive teachers for the course were Fanni Niemi- Junkola and Tellervo Kalleinen. 
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Gallery Alkovi
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Laura and Fanni are Tampere official Summer Artists

Fanni Maliniemi and Laura Laukkanen. Photo: Heidi Hemmilä

Pienet - mixed media sculpture
Between the Academic Bookstore and Stockmann
Vernissage  1.6. 3pm-4pm

This summer the streetview in Tuomikirkonkatu will be enriched by a new work of public art.  The very first Summer Artist competition was arranged by the city of Tampere in 2003, the competition got this year 51 entries.  The competition is annually encouraging the artists to plan a site specific work of art for the pedestrian street. Essential part of  the competition is that  the chosen artwork should also communicate with a  stationary black granite pedestal. Pedestal is purchased by the city and was designed originally for a permanent piece of public art.

 The jury behind the competition ended up awarding the proposition from TAMK first year Fine Art students Laura Laukkanen and Fanni Maliniemi. The mixed media sculpture called Pienet ” The Small Ones” will be already the third awarded consept upsrang from the fertile grounds of the University of Applied Arts.

Pienet will be an layer of plastic animals cast into resin and placed on the top of the black granite pedestal. The circa 5 centimeters thick and 4 meters long work of art comprises of 4 panels of cast resin. Pienet will be a carnevalistic metaphor for public social behaviour, mass culture and power relations. It dares traditional monumental public art by the unconventional form and propotions, just being plastic and deeply serious blast of plain fun.

Story: Laura Laukkanen