The second day of our field trip to Graz started with a visit to our partner in Graz: Joanneum University of Applied Sciences, the programme Information Design.

Thomas Radeke was the excellent host, here demonstrating a robot project

We have been partners over 10 years and the cooperation has included student and teacher exchange in both directions and joint projects in Game Design.

The seats used by students at Joanneum were tested and found appropriate for creative work. "We need these too"

The first project SIG-GLUE run 2004-2006 (A Special Interest Group for the Game-based Learning in Universities and lifelong learning) We hosted in Tampere the Engage Learning Serious Games Summer School coordinated by Joanneum in 2010 and the Serious Games Development Summer School also organised by Joanneum in August this year. The next Summer School will be in Graz next year.

Our programmes are quite similar, but there are some differences other than the lack of sofas at TAMK. They publish books, and our students were happy getting some

In the afternoon a guided tour of the UNESCO city of Design was arranged by European Youth Award.

Johannes Kepler (1571 – 1630) was a key figure in the 17th century scientific revolution, best known for his eponymous laws of planetary motion, lived here some years

Landhaus Courtyard (1527–1531) is the first masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance in Graz

And finally the EYA festival was opened by Sigfried Nagl, Mayor of the City of Graz and Peter A. Bruck, Chairman of EYA.

A reception wrapped up the day, good chance for networking. The students of the 12 international teams met each other first time after working together on-line for several weeks. (Read more about the on-line project)


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Read more: http://eu-youthaward.org/
Event Facebook page
EYA Twitter feed
Follow on Twitter @eyagraz
EYA stories on our blog
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As future (or already active) creatives in various fields of design, we students are to create thoughtful products, no matter our media of action. We also should to be aware of the constant creative and technical innovations and keep up with them. This is how we can better ourselves and allow our work to be relevant in our time, and luckily enough, even in the future.

Currently, sustainable design is a hot topic of discussion. It has and will bring countless changes in the whole creative process, whether you work with digital or print media. Sustainability will be an integrated component of our work process and a criteria for producing good design, like the more traditional aesthetical and functional concerns. Certain areas of design are more advanced than others in the matter, like architecture. It is all a matter of education though. Architecture students learn extensively about such practices and have the means to execute them through projects. But it is still a rare thing for media students for instance.

In any case, if we do not develop our skills in sustainable design now, we will be forced to do it the hard way later on.

If sustainable design is just a vague idea in your mind, please get over the kind of bad reputation it might still hold. Sustainability is not just/anymore the redundant "green" slogans or the stereotyped leaf-earth-sunset-flower-kids rolling in the grass- visuals that some short-sighted someones have come up with. It is much more fascinating than that. It is a search for new materials and engeneering, reinventing the way we create and use products, and adding value and durability to our work,... all with the main idea to better our quality of life and minimize our impact on nature.
Why should we care? Because we are the ones more or less indirectly, creating all this crap. And we can use our (more or less limited) influence to (I won´t say it! the make a difference cliché! make the world a better place? worse!) make design thoughtful and valuable again!

Most importantly, sustainability is not a rigid set of annoying guidelines. It is rather a flexible concept that anyone can adapt to his/her lifestyle, ideals, interests and will to get involved. (You won´t have to make leaf logos!)

I am writing this post because I did not know much myself either on the subject. This was before I decided to write my final thesis on sustainability and the future of print design. I read a lot (!) and I got to really know what it meant. Now that I am brainwashed, I selected few major links for the ones who got it too but don´t know where to look:

AIGA, American Institute of Graphic Arts, If you call yourself a creative, a must check. Good resources about sustainable design too.
Green Graphic Design by Brian Dougherty and Celeri Design Collaborative. The book that got me started. Easy read, very complete and not cheesy.
Green Marketing Manifesto by  John Grant More complex and business oriented but good as well.

Thanks for reading!

-Camille

The European Youth Award Festival will kick off today in Graz, Austria.
EYA "demonstrates young European’s potential to create outstanding digital contents and serves as a platform for people from all European states to work together in the efforts to reach the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals) and contribute to the EU Digital Agenda and the future of ICTs in Europe."

Media students last night at Rathaus, the place of the festival opening tonight

The previous EYA-post on this blog was about the projects prepared on-line and presented on Saturday with students from  Kiel University of Applied Sciences (Germany), Vic University  (Spain) and Lillebaelt Academy (EAL, Denmark). But our 17 international interactive media students will present also three projects of their own, introduced shortly below:

MindTrek OFF
"7 TAMK Media student producers presenting a video about the production of MindTrek OFF program (part of MindTrek Festival 2013). An inspiring, interactive, fun and happening event prepared in 14 weeks."

Photobooth was one of the most spectacular MindTrek OFF projects

 http://www.mindtrek.org/2013/

Lumia 1020
Five students took on a photo adventure with the Nokia Lumia 1020. While having great time shooting, they provided feedback to Nokia and ran a photoblog live1020.tumblr.com

http://live1020.tumblr.com/

FOA
Finlayson Open Exhibition is an art exhibition showcasing the works of students from Tampere University of Applied Sciences’ Finlayson campus. It gathers together animation and more traditional painting from over ten artists. FOE will be seen in the Tampere main library Metso from the 14th January 2014 until the 24th January 2014.

Foe artists exploring the exhibition venue

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Read more: http://eu-youthaward.org/
Event Facebook page
EYA Twitter feed
Follow on Twitter @eyagraz
EYA stories on our blog
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TAMK Media studies second year includes the "Networked Media Culture" course which again features collaborative international on-line work and a field trip.

EYA will open at Rathaus, Hauptplaz on Thursday evening

On Wednesday 17 media students will travel to the UNESCO City of Design and Styrian capital Graz in Austria for the European Youth Award Festival November 28-30.

The European Youth Award (EYA) engages young people in what the EU Digital Agenda wants to achieve till 2020: making digital technologies relevant to all citizens.

There has been tens of Google Hangout sessions of the 12 teams and the professor team during the last weeks. On left Kirsten Kasch, EAL, opening the project in October

The students have some assignments - the most demanding of them is the preparation of the  Young Digital Academics event of the festival. The students work in 12 international teams to give feedback to the 12 winners of EYA. Each team presents a poster showing four assessments related to the projects.

The international team members come from Kiel University of Applied Sciences (Germany), Vic University  (Spain) and Lillebaelt Academy (EAL, Denmark).

The ArtMedia Blog will follow the EYA event closely.

Read more: http://eu-youthaward.org/
Event Facebook page
EYA Twitter feed
Follow on Twitter @eyagraz
EYA stories on our blog
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Our delegation of ten students and two lecturers has returned from the second two week Media Culture 2020 workshop held in Liepaja, Latvia. The first workshop was in Tampere in April.

Media Culture 2020 is an Erasmus Intensive Programme. The project demonstrates what 21th century converged and interactive European Media Culture could be. MC2020 breaks classroom and campus walls by creating open virtual learning environments where students from different countries and fields can explore and learn together.

You can find all projects done by the students, presentations by the lecturers and daily reports from both Tampere and Liepaja workshops on the project blog http://mediaculture2020.blogspot.fi/

The 50 participants in Liepaja and 40 in Tampere were art, film, media and business students from Liepaja University, Utrecht School of Arts, University of Vic, University of Lincoln and TAMK.

The project was started on-line by preparing the projects in teams and participa- ting in on-line lectures. On the big picture the Dutch team at the Ubiquitous Media lecture given by Björn Stockleben (third small pic fron left) in one of the five Google Hangout plenaries.

The main form of activity was team work, but ...

...there was also lectures and votes...

...and intensive debates.

Each team hosted their national cultural evening. Here team Latvia members introduce traditional Latvian masks

Every day the teams presented the assignments and progress of their projects to receive feedback

Freetime at last at the weekend. Exploring the old Russian fort in Karosta

On the second but last evening all seven teams presented their projects to the international audience of the iWeek Festival in Liepaja (Photo: Graham Cooper)

The last day was about finalising all the work and a long feedback plenary. René Lansink (Utrech School of  the Arts) assessing students projects with Graham Cooper (Lincoln University)

Incredible how fast two weeks can pass. TAMK students saying thanks and bye at Riga airport.

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 draw a circle with a radius 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.

This 1000 km circle includes more capitals like Copenhagen (distance from Tampere 913 km), Oslo (726 km), Stockholm (394 km), Helsinki (160 km), Tallin (235 km), Riga (505 km), Vilnius (762 km) and Minsk (873 km). St. Petersburg (396 km) is really close.

Tampere is indeed accessible: Direct international flights from and to Alicante, Barcelona, Bremen, Budapest, Frankfurth, Kaunas, London, Malaga, Milan, Palma and Stockholm, train from St. Petersburg and Helsinki, ferry + train from Tallin, Stockholm, Travemünde and Rostock.

Tampere is an attractive and international centre for students - there are 200 000 inhabitants and 40 000 students of higher education in three universities. The cultural life is rich, and the city is surrounded by beautiful lakes and forests.
More information:
VisitTampere.fi

Study Media at TAMK in Tampere!
Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK) has a international bachelor's programme for Media with students from 30+ countries. The application period for the new students to start in August 2014 will be January 7 - February 11. This application period is only for degree programmes run in English. For Finnish programmes the time is March-April.

You can find all necessary information to prepare an application on the pages for application on TAMK web site: www.tamk.fi/jointapplication

The application process for Degree Programme in Media (Media and Art as of 1.1.2014) is different from most programmes. The applicants of Media will prepare and return a pre-task to be eligible for selection. The pre-task will be available for applicants December 16th.

Black Line video screening in The Finnish Institute, Berlin 8.11.2013
By Hinni Huttunen

In the spring 2013 arranged video screening Strange Walls got a sequel titled Black Line. The screening consisted video works from current students, alumni and teachers.

Lecturer Minna Suoniemi and two final year students Hinni Huttunen and Elina Ylhäisi formed the working group of screening.

Minna Suoniemi (right), Elina Ylhäisi (middle) and Hinni Huttunen (left) considering how to solve the technical issues.

The theme of screening was heritage and it was observed from many different points of view. Some of the work focused on spiritual heritage and other works were based on the heritage we leave for upcoming generation: how we treat this planet and how DIY –culture helps to survive.

In the evening of screening things got heated when the working group encountered a senseless technical problem. All the technical equipment’s had worked well during a test play, two days before the screening. After four hours of testing and testing things seemed hopeless. The working group had tried to make the screening happen with at least 3 HDMI-wires, 2 beamers, 1 media player and 2 computers, and nothing helped.

The screening attracted full house of audience!

Finally the problem was solved in the way of a performance: moving image and sound were played from different computers. Minna Suoniemi beat time and Hinni Huttunen and Elina Ylhäisi tried to press play as simultaneously as possible to make sound and image sync. The lesson learned was that when technology plays tricks and doesn't work creative problem-solving method is the saviour.

In the end of video happenig there was an Q&A –section, where the audience was able to ask questions from the working group

Both of the screenings have been successful and there has been lot of audience present. This time the audience included also some of the members of the board of The Finnish Institute in Berlin.
Working with The Finnish Institute has been rewarding and educational on both times.

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Berlin is a very popular destination for art&media students - all kinds of activities have been there
Read more stories about our students in Berlin

You can find all necessary information to prepare an application on the pages for application on TAMK web site.

The application process for Degree Programme in Media (Media and Art as of 1.1.2014) is different from most programmes. The applicants of Media will prepare and return a pre-task to be eligible for selection. The pre-task will be available for applicants December 16th.

The Finnish book 'Karikko' (WSOY 2012) by Seita Vuorela and Jani Ikonen (ill.) is the first work to be awarded the newly established Nordic Council Children and Young People's Literature Prize. Jani Ikonen graduated from the Degree Programme of Fine Arts of TAMK and now works as a part-time teacher in the programme. Jani sends greetings toTampere during the great award ceremony in Oslo. You can see it here:

 

http://areena.yle.fi/tv/2040080

 

At 24 minute starts Children and Young People's Literature Prize part and at 31 minute Jani's greetings.

 

 

Antti Haapio

Senior lecturer of Photography

TAMK Fine Arts