Post by Tiiu Balvin

I've been spending the last few days here taking part in the 10th ELIA Biennial Conference, Independent Forum for the Higher Arts Education Institutions. Represented here are all disciplines in the arts, including Fine Art, Architecture, Dance, Design, Media Arts, Music and Theatre.

Laurence Davey has been teaching screenwriting to the students of MA in Screenwriting at TAMK School of Art for two weeks. Teaching is not his regular work, but he has agreed to teach screenwriting 20 hours per year at Salford University.

Score game development club at TAMK School of Art and Media has launched their new website just now. The fresh site is based on WordPress, the open source blog publishing application. There are already some articles about the club's recent activities, and they plan on publishing much more in the future. According to rumors, the current, defaultish visual theme is but a mere placeholder for what is yet to come...

The World Summit Youth Award (WSYA) invites young designers and e-Content creators to participate in an international competition. Sought-after are e-Contents that address in an inspiring manner the UN Millennium Development Goals, and use internet and mobile contents to create awareness of the MDGs.

Marianne Connor has been teaching script writing for MA in Screenwriting students last week, and will do so over the next week. She will also advise students of the previous MA in Screenwriting course who are now writing their final script.

Story: Antti Haapio

Backlight 08 Photo Festival artists Giuseppe di Bella and Reiner Riedler keep their two days workshop in the School of Art and Media in September.

Where is Tampere? At the edge of the tundra? Why should one bother to move to Tampere to study or to do business?

Tampere is actually the central spot of Northern Europe. If you want to draw a circle with a radious of 1000 km, including the Baltic sea, Scandinavia, Finland, and northern Russia, your circle will hit the Russian capital Moscow, the Polish capital Warsaw, Rostock in Germany and Hammerfest in northern Norway. And there it is, the centre of this circle, Tampere in Finland.

Swan Lake: Moving Image & Music Award is about visualising music in two contest categories; Animation and Digital Film.

This year Vesa Jokinen and Hanne Zenjuga, students of visual design at TAMK University of Applied Sciences School of Art and Media, are nominated for SL:MIMA in the Animation Category. There are three nominees in both categories.

Two films by TAMK School of Art and Media were invited to the VII Open St.Petersburg Festival of film schools "Beginning" end of September.

TAMK student delegation members at the festival were the Flippers team: Director and script writer Jussi Autio, producers Emilia Kiviniemi and Anita Hyppönen, and the Escape team: Director and script writer Helena Yli-Kyyny, photographer Ossi Käki and editor Arttu Salmi.

The postcard from the festival sent by Jussi Autio:

Demola is an open innovation environment for university students and ICT and media companies operating in the Tampere Region. It is a service provided jointly by TAMK University of Applied Sciences, Tampere University of Technology, Tampere University and Technology Centre Hermia Ltd.

A New Bachelor's Degree Programme in Media, conducted in English, will start at TAMK University of Applied Sciences School of Art and Media August 2009. The focus of the programme is in interactive media content design and production. The students learn about current digital media issues and gain deep insight into one of the three specialisation options: visual design, interaction design or project management.

Social Media - one of the main themes at the MindTrek Conference earlier this week - was dominant also at the MindTrek Awards Price Ceremony.

The winner of MindTrek €20 008 Grand Prix is Wreck-A-Movie, the movie production community by Star Wreck Studios Oy.

The MindTrek Awards Ceremony yesterday wittnessed the success of Interactive Media Programme students in MyTampere Video Competition.

"Tampere – A Truly British Guide" by Dan Castro and Nick Rowley won the first prize. Dan and Nick are students of Edinburgh College of Art.

MindTrek Conference started today with the workshop day. As always, MindTrek brings also this time international visitors to TAMK School of Art and Media.

Science journalist Kalle Heiska has published a report about our theatrical functions modelling project at his web site "New High Technology!"

The five nominees for the €20 008 MindTrek Grand Prix have been announced. The nominations are made by the MindTrek Grand Prix jury. The winner will be selected by the Grand Juror Matti Apunen, Editor-in-Chief of Aamulehti, and awarded at the MindTrek Awards Ceremony October 8th at Hotel Rosendahl.

Story: Juho Hartikainen

Score Game Development Club's president Juho Hartikainen, club co-founder Teemu Haila and club member Heikki Leppänen recently made a three-day excursion to Norway. The trip was due to contacts made in the spring at Nordic Game 2008.

The nominees of the 2nd international NOKIA Ubimedia MindTrek Award are:

• Babbage Cabbage Empathetic Living Media: Adrian David Cheok, National University of Singapore, Singapore and Keio University, Japan;
• Point-to-Discover: Peter Frohlich, Rainer Simon, Erwin Wittowetz, Gerhard Obernberger, Matthias Baldauf, Telecommunication Research Centre, Austria;
• TreasureHunter: Remco Magielse, Iris Soute, Panos Markopoulos, Department of Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands;

Story: Jenni Järvinen, Student at Game Development, TAMK School of Art and Media

Local student clubs and recreation possibilities in Tampere were presented at the 'Welcome to Tampere' fair that was organized at Pakkahuone. As this in English-only event was mainly intended for the international students, it turned out to be interesting for the local students too.

If I Fall, a short film written and directed by last year's graduate from TAMK School of Art and Media Hannaleena Hauru, has been invited to Reykjavik International Film Festival.