by Yonathan Wolowelsky

This week we were honored to take part in the 24-hours.in project, an interactive web-installation powered by Richard Vickers and James Field from the University of Lincoln, UK.
After a short briefing from Richard and series of technical problems, we went out there with the new PureView cell phones, in the typical Finnish cold, to document our life in Tampere as it is.

Taking a bath in Näsijärvi

Boat in the Tammerkoski river

Rabbit's Bathroom

Head of the media program learning to use a new instrument

Rabbits in the shower, two Asian girls on a bike, old Finnish folks taking a bath in the lake, construction sites in action and many other new scenes, filmed by IMP students, can be seen now at the 24-hours.in website. The project basically gives the audience a chance to see the city from another angle, from a point of view that you won’t necessarily see in tourist brochures or postcards.

The brave 24-hours in Tampere team. From left to right - Bobo, Dita, Joanne and Yonathan

For us, IMP students, it was very nice kickoff for Mindtrek, and it was a pleasure to work with Richard. Most importantly, the project evoked some thoughts in our minds - what is an installation? Does it have to be physical, or maybe nowadays the web is a new virtual platform for people to reach and create new art? Decide for yourself.
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The author is student of TAMK UAS Degree Programme in Media
Read more stories by and about the IMPs, the International Media Programme students
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Read more about the 24 hours project on this blog
24 hours on Facebook

by Emilija Veselova

While the majority of TAMK Media students were attending the NUMA media award nominees, a couple of students, mostly the ones interested in project management and production entered the Werstan Bertel auditorium to hear about marketing approaches that differ form the usual and the common used ones.

Even though the workshop was not widely attended, it brought a good spirit and made experience more personal. We kicked of with a couple of minutes for participants to meet each other.

Donna Kivirauma: “create your own opportunities”

Then Donna Kivirauma from Varaani Works shared her experience in working in marketing and sales in USA and in Finland. Her approach to marketing is positive thinking. A positive thinker in a problematic situation sees and figures out the solution not the roadblock on his way.

Valtteri Lindholm from Varusteleka shared his approach to increasing revenues. His company, a web shop, uses humor to promote their products. Well, actually they do not even promote them, they have fun with the products. Valtteri’s experience shows that good descriptions of products are vital in 21st century. Plain pictures and prices are definitely not enough. Customers want to know what they are buying and they are ready to pay for this information.

TAMK students from Film&TV and Media programmes attended workshop along with professionals from Europe and Russia

Even though Donna and Valtteri are complete opposites, there is one thing that their approaches share. It is honestly  And that is what the Workshop was about. Being honest with your customers is the best way how to promote yourself. Company cannot buy trust, it has to be achieved.
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The author is a student of our Degree Programme in Media
Read more stories by and about the IMPs, International Media Programme students
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Read more about MindTrek on our blog
MindTrek home
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MindTrek 2012 was conferences, workshops, competitions, parties etc, but from our (Art&Media students and lecturers) point of view above all an outstanding opportunity to learn and network.
If you want to see the general picture go here and if you want to check all the details go to MindTrek.org.
This story introduces only some glimpses into three brilliant days of MindTrek.

The MindTrek Lounge! was a new MindTrek Component for MindTrekkers. You could just hang around, play games, network or participate in the workshops.
MindTrek Lounge! was arranged by our IMPs, the Degree Programme in Media students. Congratulations for an excellent job!

One of the most amazing workshops of the Lounge! was the 3D printing. The MindTrek Lounge teamed up with HackerSpace Tampere to present a demonstration in this cutting edge technology.

Our Art&Media Campus at Finlayson was venue of one of the two MindTrek conferences, the Academic MindTrek Conference. Pictured the opening session with keynote by Keith Partridge at Ada, our open learning space.

The Skoog Music workshop was arranged by the Degree Programme in Media, and very successful. The workshop was really interactive, so many of us participants had the chance to try the Skoog. On left Benjamin Schögler (Skoog Music) gives instructions and inspiration to the Tampere Art Factory (TAF) Skoog band.
Emilia Kwiatkowska wrote a report on the workshop

© MindTrek

The NUMA (Nokia Ubimedia MindTrek Awards) Winners workshop was also interactive. On left Wouter Walmink from the 3rd prise winner Joggobot with IMP students Yonathan Wolowelsky simulating the Jogger and Joel Forsman the Robot.
TAMK Media Programme is one of the NUMA organisers. Read more about NUMA

Many IMP students were doing projects at MindTrek. One project was about testing Nokia PureView camera technology, we got five Nokia 808 PureView devices from the Nokia Research Center in Tampere to work with. Josef Pacal doing "MindTrek Faces" installation with MindTrek producer Bertta Häkkinen (Art&Media graduate 2009).

MindTrek attracts a lot of international academics, digital media professionals and students. Also many Art&Media international partners meet at MindTrek. This year MindTrek was visited by our old friends Sheila Robinson who spoke at the Skoog Music Workshop (read more), Richard Vickers (University of Lincoln) who gave the fourth 24 hours in Tampere workshop to our students (read more) and presented a paper at the Academic MindTrek Conference, our exchange student 2008 Glenn Veugen who travelled with the NUMA Award 2nd price winner team "Oh Music, Where Art Thou?" and professor Adam Montandon (pictured above) from our partner university Erhvervsakademiet Lillebælt in Odense (DK) who was one of the speakers at the MindTrek conference.

Participation in MindTrek can be very awarding - Media Programme student Elizaveta Potapkina won a Nokia Lumia 800 Windows Phone and Film&Television Programme student Tero Liimatainen a Nokia 808 PureView!

Parties are an important part of MindTrek - useful for networking and fun. The IMPs opened the dance floor at the MindTrek Party on Thursday.
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Next MindTrek October 2.-4.2013!
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Our Blog posts about MindTrek 2002:

• At MindTrek: Skoog Music Workshop 
• Meet the best of Ubimedia at MindTrek 
• Welcome to MindTrek Lounge! 
• MindTrek - what when where!?! 
• Busy and happy: run Video Art workshop, prepare MindTrek 
• The Skoog music workshop 
• The MindTek 2012 diary 
• Mindtrek 2012: “Create”-tive marketing workshop 
• Another successful 24 hours in Tampere 
• Botanicus Interacticus won the Ubimedia Award 

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MindTrek
Academic MindTrek
Nokia Ubimedia MindTrek Award
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“Digital technology is great but there are people who cannot use it”

Sheila Robinson, Ben Schögler and Cai Melakoski

Those words opened Skoog Music Workshop which took place at TAMK/Finlayson on 03.10.2012 during the 16th annual MindTrek festival, Tampere. Presentation was carried out by Dr Benjamin Schögler and Sheila Robinson. Dr Benjamin Schögler is one of two co-inventor of new kind of music instrument.

What this new instrument called Skoog really is?

 “The Skoog is a soft, squeezable object that simply plugs straight into your computer or laptop's USB port.  By touching, pressing, squashing, twisting or tapping the Skoog you can play a wide range of instruments, intuitively.”

The Skoog

As you can see Skoog is a device which needs to be connected with computer to be fully usable.  It contains dynamic sensors which respond for every move, moves can be seen on the computer. Skoog is very good for therapy practices, designed for people with any degree or combination of disabilities.

Ben Schögler inspires Heli Härkönen to be a true musician in 30 seconds

About workshop itself, I have to say that I got very impressed.  The speaker was great; he kept the audience awake for whole two hours with Skoog and his funny humour.  Presentation was very interesting. I would like to quote 3 sentences which strongly etched in my memory (said by Dr Schögler) and I think have deep meaning:

• “Make things easy to use – this is a good design.”
• “Music is inside us, something we do; technology itself has no meaning”
• “Too often we accept difficulties, instead of create something easy to use.”

During the workshop we could see how to use software created for Skoog. It has various options such as different types of instruments, polyphonic or monophonic settings of instruments, voice recording (is possible to create your own instrument) or even instrumental ‘karaoke’.
Some of participants took part in testing and the results were great.

The TAF (Tampere Art Factory) band also played the Skoog nice and smooth

After this workshop we understand better how important is to think ‘outside the box’, that there are people which does not have such abilities as we have. Design is very important in their everyday life as well as in our.

Story and pics Emilia Kwiatkowska

Emilia studies in our international Degree Programme in Media
Read more stories about and/or by the IMPs, the Media students
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The Skoog Music workshop was part of MindTrek 2012