Sunday, 25 November 2018

Finest Sounds in Music & Media 2018


The 29th Music and Media in Tampere in October, from Thursday 4th to Friday 5th, was a huge international event with more than 650 participants from Finland and abroad. Finest Sounds was an essential partner in the event, inviting Japanese delegation of music professionals and festival organizors and organizing three panel discussions with themes like Japan listens!, Sub-Publishing in Japan and Branded Japan. 

Finest Sounds University partners get together for a kick-off meeting on Wednesday evening before the event. From Tallinn University / Baltic Film, Media, Arts and Communication School arrived a group of 15 students with professor Andres Jõesaar and project manager Ele Arder. From TAMK attended six students with lecturers Harri Karvinen and Sohvi Sirkesalo. Katja Pyykkö, student from HUMAK, took the role of coordinating all groups working with Estonian and Finnish artists. Three teams were formed: Team Tampere, Team Tokio and Team Tallinn.

During Music & Media days all teams had the opportunity to meet managers or people from music companies of the musicians or bands. Team Tallinn even enjoyed the concert of PK Keränen & Valtteri Pöyhönen.


The teams and artists
Finest Sounds Students’ teams planning the programme and tasks for Music & Media.
Japan listens!
And students listen...
The Networking Session was a real success! The students met Japanese music professionals and they got to know each other. The seminar room was full with lively and effective face-to-face meetings.
November 13-16 in Tokio was the Hokuo Music Fest, where Nordic delegates brought Finnish and Estonian Music for Japanese music business to find Japanese audiences.

Text & photos by Sohvi Sirkesalo 2018
Photo & text edits by Carita Forsgren

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Monday, 20 November 2017

Finest Sounds Autumn News Vol 2.

Autumn news from Finest Sounds, part 2: Music & Media 05 - 07.10.2017


Finest Sounds hosted several sessions focusing on Japanese music business during Music and Media Conference in the beginning of October. Delegation from Japan brought 10 experts to Tampere. The intensive days offered a unique opportunity for professionals and business people as well as to the students to get insight information about Japanese market. For the students, this was an awesome chance to get direct feedback about their concepts and demos.

On Thursday morning the students and teachers from Tallinn University, Humak and TAMK got together, checked and confirmed the timetable for coming three days – it was tight but not too much. The first open session was Folk, World and Jazz Music Market in Japan, panel discussion with four Japanese representatives, moderated by Tapio Korjus. Right after that keynote Marc Wesseling, the co-founder of UltraSuperNew aggregated big audience into the lounge with fascinating examples of how their gallery works and how they combine brands with artists – cases included, ao. Heineken, RedBull and Supercell’s Clash of the Clans. Wesserling’s key words were the opinion leaders from different communities: skateboard, rap, heavy music – how to make them to work for the brand and make successful campaign, both within social media and in live events.



After Wesserling started the Matchmaking session, where 15 Finnish and Estonian brands and bands pitched their music and products, famous brands like Kyrö Distellery, Nokia Technologies, Ivana Helsinki and Festivality, and artists and bands from different genres, like Elifantree, Lieblings, Tuuletar, Steven Seagulls’ and Mokoma – the session was followed with active discussions and sharing cards, contacts and ideas among the participants.

Thursday evening was filled with gigs around the city – Lost in Music festival made students and teachers go from club to club listening and enjoying old favourites and exploring new artists.

On Friday, Finest sounds presented two sessions: “Big in Japan?” and “Still a Goldmine?” – both were full, students were active and the Japanese delegation was busy. In the afternoon students worked in a workshop to prepare their ideas for the hackathon on Saturday.



Music and Media had only three sessions on Saturday, conference rooms in Hotel Torni were not busy and most of the participants had left. But Finest students were working hard in their Hackathon. Ideas and concepts were developed and sharped, with the tutoring help from the teachers. Some concepts get really wild and crazy, many of the groups had visions for environmental, interactive campaigns. They get tutoring and feedback also directly from the Japanese experts, personal guidance for each group. Five hours work and then it was time for final presentations and feedback from Japanese delegates and Finnish companies – like this:
  • Kyrö Distillery & Mokoma & Visit Tampere: limited edition of Kyrö’s spirits, own bottle for every band member and augmented reality on the bottles – Feedback: interesting, “yeah!”
  • Kyrö Distillery & Moomin Museum & Elifantree: Moomin Garden Party in Japan, activities for adult Moomin lovers.. – Feedback: looks great, this could happen, but how about the Moomin characters with licencing alcohol?
  • Morrow Games & Tuuletar: four different elements with relaxing rooms & landscapes, combined with Koti-cabin or Lingvist (the language learning platform) with Mokoma – Feedback: crazy enough!
  • Kyrö Gin & Cranberry floating in the icepool, with music of Joonas Widenius Trio – feedback: Great Idea!


-Text by Sohvi Sirkesalo

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Wednesday, 22 October 2008

Game project with Okayama University continues

Story: Elle Yli-Ojanperä


For the third year running, students from TAMK School of Art and Media and Okayama University are continuing their cooperation on a game project that started in autumn in 2006. The goal is to create concepts and prototypes for educational training tools used by the chemical industry in Japan. Game elements and interaction are an essential part of the work, as both teams have acknowledged the potential in games as an educational method.

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Tuesday, 5 May 2009

Chepetto 2009 Japan trip


Story: Jani Palovuori

In October we published a story about a joint game project between TAMK and Okayama University students. Our team went to Japan again in April, this time the students of the School of Art and Media were accompanied by a group of students from the Degree Programme in Business Information Systems. Here's the diary:

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Tuesday, 8 September 2009

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.

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Wednesday, 12 April 2017

From Tampere to Tallinn to Japan – TAMK Delegation in Tallinn Music Week 30.3.-2.4.2017



The Finest Sounds project got to full speed in March, when eight students from TAMK Media & Arts and Head of DP in Media & Arts Timo Kivikangas, lecturers Harri Karvinen and Sohvi Sirkesalo travelled to Tallinn to participate to Tallinn Music Week, in order to work together with students from Baltic Film, Media, Arts and Communication School (Tallinn University) and HUMAK in a Hackathon session and meet the Japanese delegation.

The programme was intensive. On Thursday evening, the students from three universities gave short presentations about their ideas for combining a music artist or band with Finnish and Estonian companies and brands. Students from Media & Arts had stylish and fresh demos with Finnish band Tuuletar and artist Venior. In the end of the session, three groups were formed by eight students from TAMK, two from HUMAK and three from BFM.




Friday's programme concentrated on the TMW conference with a special Finest Sounds session: “The Trials and Tribulations of the Japanese Music Market”, during which panelists Aya Ohi (JVCKENWOOD Victor Entertainment Corp), Takayuki Suzuki (ParadeAll), Onta Shiroh Kawaguchi (Creativeman Productions) and Tomoyuki Ohsawa (Office Ohsawa) talked about the uniqueness of music market in Japan - how to break into this lucrative market and what the future holds for their country. In the afternoon, everybody attented “Case study: The Moomin Story” by Paulina Ahokas (Tampere Hall) and Virpi Uimonen (Fullsteam Management). Tampere Hall and the new Moomin Museum will be one case in the Finest Sounds Project.

Saturday was the day for a hackathon, starting at 10 am with an intro and ideas, then working in groups and getting ready to present the ideas to the Japanese delegation. This was an exciting moment; what will the specialists of the music market say, how is their feedback? Their feedback was very informative, with sharp comments about audiences' and consumers’ behaviour in Japan. At the end of the day it was finally time for a pitching session of the companies and mentors with demos. There were three examples for brand developing and marketing co-operation for Tuuletar & Lapuan Kankurit, Venior & Aarikka and Alma & Angry Birds. Good ideas, great presentations and very inspiring for the Finest Sounds project!

Tallinn Music Week was great experience also with the huge variety of concerts and gigs. Luckily the TAMK team also had time to enjoy the music!




Text: Sohvi Sirkesalo
Photos: Benny Majabacka (HUMAK)
Text & image edits: Carita Forsgren


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Wednesday, 3 September 2008

Visit from Japan today


A group of Project Design students from Miyagi University, Sendai City in Japan, guests of Pirkanmaa University of Applied Sciences, visited today the Finlayson campus of TAMK.

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Monday, 20 November 2017

Finest Sounds Autumn News Vol 1.

Autumn news from Finest Sounds, part 1: Logomo sessions 07 - 08.09.2017


FinEst Sounds project has reached the Demo season 2, with new activities and first cases with bands and brands, artists and companies. In the beginning of September 33 students and 7 teachers from Tallinn University, Humak and TAMK get together in Logomo, Turku. The programme started on Thursday 7.9. with a short introduction of all the students. It was truly an international group, since the students of TAMK and Tallinn were not only from Estonia or Finland but from 10 different countries, including Venezuela, Mexico, Latvia, Russian among others.

Most of the students joined the project for the first time, so lecturer Jyrki Simovaara from Humak started the session with overview of Finest sounds and explained the roles of universities and students. Assignment number one was free brainstorming for ideas for demos. Combining any Estonian or Finnish artist with one creative industry brand, so that they can support each other in order to reach Japanese market successfully.

Even though the students met each other for the first time and working time was short, in the end of the day we could see creative, crazy and potential combinations like Estonian artist Noëp combined with Ivana Helsinki; Finnish vocal group Tuuletar with Saana and Olli; heavy rock band Mokoma with Morrow Games; Finnish artist Suad with Gemmi; The Lieblings with Lingvist, among others. Intensive afternoon with inspiring ideas!



On Friday 8.9. Finest teams had the opportunity to listen to two lectures about Japan, Japanese culture and consuming habits. First speaker, Jenny Moberg from 07design. She has been working in the Japanese market for several years as an agent for Finnish design and has broad a knowledge about the culture, values and habits in Japan. She underlined the importance of IPR process and also reminded that the “old media” should not be underestimated channel in marketing.

“Japanese people appreciate high quality, fairness and loyalty”, she told and said that Nordic lifestyle has great value.


Tuomo Saikkonen from Sakara Records told us the good story how a Finnish heavy rock band Mokoma ended up to play in Loudpark, one of the biggest festivals in Japan. Ichiro Aono, from Japanese Creativeman, visited Tuska festival in 2012 and got enthusiastic so next year Music Finland organized Mokoma to a showcase gig at Studio Coast for an entranced audience of 1500 people. Couple of years silence, negotiations and then 2016 Mokoma was in Loudpark. About the differences in business culture Tuomo told that it was impossible for the Japanese business people to believe that one artist of the band is also the CEO of the record company. It is important to learn in advance the hidden meanings and metaphors of things, like the case “Stam1na and Hawaii shirts” educated.

Two intensive days in Logomo ended with the new presentations of student groups and feedback from the companies. The representatives from Bafe’s Factory and Vita Pictura were surprised about the visual demos and creativity of students. Next step is Music and Media, groups will continue their work online and results will be shown to Japanese delegation in Tampere in the beginning of October.


-Text by Sohvi Sirkesalo

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Thursday, 20 September 2012

Canada, Japan, South Korea and USA - Find the exchange blogs!


Some of our Media students have started blogs to share their experiences during their exchange period or internship abroad. Here you have four of them:


Tia made her internship in New York, where she started this blog. This week she arrived in Japan and APU (Asia Pacific University) and has already posted her first stories from there
http://hiwyhi.wordpress.com

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Friday, 18 May 2012

From one side of the world to another – Japanese girl in Tampere

TEXT: Tia Tuovinen
PHOTOGRAPHS: Ikuko Ishida 

Ikuko Ishida in a Kurdish house near Ercis,Turkey, on 4th Nov 2011.
Ikuko Ishida came to Tampere last August, after graduating from BA of oil painting and having worked as a wedding and school event photographer in Japan. At TAMK she took courses on Fine Arts and Journalism, and she is now studying photography in Kymenlaakso Folk High School.

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Monday, 19 December 2011

After Earthquakes and Tsunami in Japan 2011



Story: Ikuko Ishida
Now I exhibit my photos which I have taken in earethquakes and tsunami-hit places from May to July this year, at entrance space of Finlayson campus. The exhibition lasts until 23rd December.

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Friday, 27 January 2012

Game Schools in Tampere and Around the World

Story by Johanna Lievemaa
A whole new course complex on games is starting at TAMK. I was thinking of game studies here and elsewhere.

Tokyo Game Show

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Saturday, 24 October 2015

Get ready for INTAC - International Art Collaborations Course


 Intac was born in 2010 as a tandem project between two schools, TAMK University of Applied Sciences and OCAD University in Toronto, Canada.
The core idea was that students from the two universities would ideate and realize art projects working together, using skype and other social media to communicate, and at the end they would organize a joint art exhibition.

Five years passed by, and Intac is stronger than ever. Six universities are taking part in the project right now(TAMK, OCAD in Canada, Chung-Ang University in Seoul, Osaka University of Arts in Japan, BTK from Berlin and NID from India)and for the first year this year, the international students from the new Fine Arts study path are taking part in the project.

Intac is a non conventional course. You might find yourself working late in the night as there might be seven time zones in between you and the person working on the same project.
Even lessons have  to be scheduled according to other partners availability, as we're dealing with the full extension of time zone, from extreme west to east(and I might add we and the guys at BTK are the lucky ones, as we all live roundabout in the middle).


It was pretty exciting to meet all the other people from the other universities! Here you can see our first contact with the students from Canada:



So, basically Intac has a blog on tumblr ( http://intac.tumblr.com ) which is where most of the action happens. Every participant publishes a presentation at the beginning of the year, and then a Project Proposal. Every participant has to take part in three different projects, so everyone needs to contact and work with people from different countries. Before the exhibition all the works will go through the screening and evaluation of the teachers. 

This year the exhibition is going to be in Berlin, in Bethanien Gallery(http://www.bethanien.de/en/) and we'll be there the 1st and 2nd December to set it up, and we'll have our opening on December, 3rd, 2015.

Another important feature of the Intac course is that we're self funded. While in December the exhibition is going to be in Berlin, which is a pretty cheap destination from Finland, next year it might be in Canada, or India, and of course being art students we really can't afford flying all over with our own money; for this reason we have to take commissions and work to get the Intac course going on. 
Right now, we're working for Technopolis(who own the Mediapolis premises, where our school is located); we're planning a 16 meters high artwork which will be used in one of Technopolises main business building, Yliopistonrinne in Tampere. The building offers high class facilities for few very known companies in Tampere. We had few meetings with Mediapolises manager Saara Eskola , the architects who have been planning the building and we even went to visit the printing shop where the final artwork will be printed!








This is Intac, and we'll keep you updated as soon as events are happening! 

If you want to follow us more closely, visit:  http://intac.tumblr.com 
If you are interested in the Fine Arts Study Path, follow us on facebook  or Instagram on our page Art Media TAMK  with always fresh and updated infos on our courses! 




                                                                                                                                                                  


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Sunday, 12 August 2012

Exchange in Japan


This fall is once more the period of departures for studies abroad. Along with Tia, I'll be leaving the dark-to-be Finland to the Land of Rising Sun in September.
I'll be staying a semester in Ōita, on the Kyushu Island. The city is considered small on the Japanese scale but it is still around the size of Helsinki. For various reasons, there is a blog to follow at kamioita.wordpress.com. There isn't much there yet, but with time content should be appearing. But I am not promising anything, as I am not an enthousiastic writer and I might loose my motivation mid-trip! 

There is also Tia's blog to follow at http://hiwyhi.wordpress.com/

Sayonara!



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Tuesday, 7 February 2012

IMPs as Student Volunteers in SIGGRAPH Asia

Story by Johanna Peltola
The third year of media studies brought along a moment of epic proportions for two IMPs: Amir Abdi and I had been accepted as student volunteers in Asia’s biggest computer graphics –event – in Hong Kong! It was going to be a smashing trip, and so it was, I tell you.

Last December we were getting ready for an 11,5-hour flight from Paris to the massive Eastern metropolis of over seven million city dwellers. The destination was no less than SIGGRAPH Asia 2011 –conference.

Can you hear? The world is calling!

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Friday, 26 October 2018

360 Friday @ University of Tampere - Friday 12th October


Following Mindtrek 2018, the International Technology Conference (10-11th October) at Tampere Hall, the first 360 Friday event was held at the University of Tampere. Those who registered for the free side event were able to explore a number of VR, AR and 360 productions presented by representatives from the University of Tampere, Tampere University of Technology and TAMK.


Attendees were welcome to enjoy some beers and snacks as the host, Juhani Linna from the University of Tampere introduced and interviewed some of the creators. Markku Turunen, professor of Interactive Technology at the university also shortly introduced TAUCHI (Tampere Unit for Computer-Human Interaction), a ‘research center focusing on human-technology interaction’ at the Faculty of Communication Sciences. After a few talks and presentations about work processes, the guests scattered to delve into the various demos.


The following productions from staff and students at Media and Arts were displayed at the event:

Virtual Art Gallery - Liya Pirkuliyeva, Ignasi Granell Vendrell and Tatu Heinämäki
Attendants were able to view the VR art gallery presenting works from the degree show ‘HOT FUTURES’ held this spring exhibiting the works of the graduating class of 2014. The viewer was able to pick the artist whose works they wanted to see by picking up a tape with their name and inserting it into a player. They could also throw black paint onto the paintings and watch video works.

Virtual Art Gallery

Locked Up - Carita Forsgren
Those who dared got to watch the 4-minute 360 thriller, co-produced by TAMK and YLE, at the first public viewing of the short film.

First public viewing of 'Locked Up'

Fintan Sauna Experience - Antti Perälä
A VR collaboration between TAMK and the Finnish Embassy in Tokyo aiming to bring Japan an authentic sauna experience, incorporating Fintan, the embassy’s mascot. Guests were able to shower and enjoy the virtual sauna by putting on the VR gear.

Fintan Sauna Experience

The event also featured projects from other associations such as the premiere of ‘Eternal Youth’, a 360 experience with a peaceful finnish winter environment, created by the University of Tampere and Helsingin Sanomat. The purpose of the collaboration was to explore the concept of meditation in a VR environment. ‘Captain Karl’, a short VR documentary by Rakka Creative and an  interactive omni-directional video (iODV/360) editor presented by Kimmo Ronkainen from the university were also featured.

'Eternal Youth' meditation experience

All in all the small event succeeded in displaying a compelling range of examples of how 360 technology can be put to use for different creative purposes, giving an insight to the future of more interactive and immersive media.


Text and photos: Hilma Nurmi 2018

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Monday, 27 August 2012

Welcome - 28 Exchange Students are here!

13 of our Exchange students were by our main entrance at same time! 
Some of them were attending course on Design Management
or others were around town arranging their practical things..

The academic year at Finlayson has started! On Wednesday our new exchange students arrived! All together 28 students from 15 countries - their home universities are in Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Germany, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom and USA.

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Saturday, 8 December 2012

IMP - Incredibly Magnificent Parties

The expectations got high looking at the posters attracting Media students & friends to the yearly Pikkujoulu Party:


Our International Media Programme (IMP) annual pre-Christmas party was totally different from and absolutely as fabulous as the previous. It is a mystery to me how we find these fine young people whose brilliant talent in creative media projects is challenged only by their gift in implementing most welcoming and joyous parties.
VJ:s Markku and Moon made a stunning audio visual show with Professor
Joronen and Santa Claus in main roles
Three first IMP editions sharing a sofa and a heartfelt evening

It is a rule first year students arrange the "pikkujoulut"; the traditional Finnish pre-Christmas party arranged by all organisations and communities in this far-away country on the edge of the tundra. So 12IMPs had the hard challenge of reaching the standards set by the previous IMP editions. They did it. With glance.
Yulia played a wonderful collection of the best music 

There were more participants than ever, because it is the first year IMP has all four annual editions of students in. Additionally there were numerous magnificent exchange students and not yet graduated students from the old Finnish Media programme and a record of professors.

Good food is the nitty-gritty of a successful party
Shopping team Ryoko, Bobo, Krista, Federico
Photo Joanna NH Wong
Making of Arancini - Riika and Sindy
Photo Joanna NH Wong
Yonathan the Pizza Man
Photo Joanna NH Wong
Bruschetta - Bobo and Joanna
...mmm...so tasty...bring us more...

Eating and drinking is one of the essential components of the enterprise. A nice combination of Finnish Christmas traditions and Italian/Sicilian cuisine it was this time. Finnish traditional season's dish was represented by riisipuuro (rice porridge) and sekametelisoppa (kind of arctic tutti-frutti mess) and the Mediterranean by pizza, bruschetta and arancini. There are no options with drinks: it must always be glögi, the Finnish variation of the Nordic Mulled Wine Glögg.

Good music is the nitty-gritty of a successful party
Joanna can sing sooo lovely - and Dylan is The Accompanist for her!
And we've got The DJ:s too! Markku and Jungsoo! Good times ahead!
Demola, Daria, Josef rock...
Demola was the venue of the party

The dance floor was not sown with mines
..and the dance floor got crowded...
..and the dance floor got wild!

Extras and networking and meeting with friends are the nitty-gritty of a successful party
There was enough time for networking and discussion and sufficient time for programme to give stimuli to the jolly crowd. And this party danced - maybe more than the previous parties together, it was hilarious!
There was also the photo booth where you could be
photographed - well with ... - Yonathan
Pictured Emilija and Emilia with the birthday child
Joel was everywhere with his camera. Wonder where the pics are?
The Japan circle with Johanna, Ryoko and Anayte
Thumbs up with Sindy, Caro and Isabelle
The Grand Old IMP's Lounge
The IMP pikkujoulut query race was an important part of the fun.
Here Riikka and Noora testing their skills and fortune.
Noora won the award!
IMP extremes - 09IMPs and 12IMPs - connected. Here 12IMP
Yonathan and 09IMP Amir!

Here are the credits copied from the thanks by the party producer Joanne NH Wong: "Big thanks to the organising team specially dedicated to Bo Kyung Kim, Sindy Giraldo, Yonathan Wolowelsky, Krista Erkkilä, Iina Kuula for the great food. Joel Forsman and Žoa Pacal for photo booth, Teppo Nieminen, Federico Di Rosa, Riikka Uhmavaara for being there helping out. Kudos for Yulia Pak, DJ Markku Laskujärvi and DJ Jungsoo Moon for the wonderful music and and Elizaveta Potapkina for the snowflakes and decoration!! Lastly, thanks to those who helped cleaned up after the party. You guys are the best! *you brought peace and love to the world!*"

Story and most pics: Cai Melakoski
The author is Principal Lecturer of the Degree Programme in Media
Read more stories by and about IMPs, the International Media Programme students
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P.S. Just in case I forgot to mention: there was a lot of dancing at this unforgettable party, thanks 12IMPs!

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