frans

Transit

Transit
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.

Location: Stockholm airport. I have written earlier about airports as particular kind of transitional spaces, comparing them to Limbo from Dante’s Inferno, among other things. This has been a busy day, starting with short talk about games and virtual worlds as “mafufactured realities” in a professional seminar in technical documentation (wonder how much the audience really got out of my talk, though?) Then I was commenting on Olli Sotamaa’s PhD thesis chapter in a graduate seminar in Media Culture. After that, busily to the airport, and happy to find that the SAS strike had not affected my connections, I am now on the road to Malmö in Sweden. We are having the kick-off meeting with some Nordic partners about a new games research project, titled Mobile Learning Environments (MLE). The use of games in learning is an interesting field, of course, even if I wonder how long it will take to really have the constructivistic spirit and emphasis on creative problem-solving that games excel in to take over a typical institution of formal learning — not to speak about things like using games to learn about games cultures, games literacy and games design, that they would be most immediatelly suitable for. My main concern currently is that structurally MLE is a typical contemporary response to the demands that this much-touted increased competition and international collaboration is bringing us: a large international and interdisciplinary consortium with a very moderate research grant and ambitious goals that quickly turn into the reality of tiny fragmented resources that are not enough to hire a full-time person (or not even a half-time one, in this case!) — and then there is the real threat that organising inter-partner communication and the administration will end up eating all resources the funding body (NICe) has granted us. Sad. Lets hope we can find ways to join this kind of interesting research extensions of our pervasive gaming work with some other initiatives to pool resources

FENIX seminar on Interactive Computing

FENIX seminar on Interactive Computing
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.

This is Wanha Satama, a seaside conference centre in Helsinki where the results seminar of FEXIX takes place today. FENIX was a four-year technology research programme that funded also some important research projects of ours that looked into games and gameplay experiences, among other things. Some of its results are available now; more about those later.

The Future of Finnish Universities

The Future of Finnish Universities
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.

Today the researchers and professors are gathering to annual seminar and meetings in m/s Viking Mariella (soon sailing to Stockholm — these boat seminars are a local tradition). Sakari Karjalainen (a high official from the Ministry of Education) is in this picture talking about the next 10 years developments in the Finnish universities. There are many challenges, related to globalization, international competition, national demographics (population getting old really quickly now, and immigration staying low) and internal challenges in universities (the part that resists all change, and the lack of shared vision about the direction of change). Also Esko Aho from Sitra spoke about the similar challenges but rather than calling for focus into one huge “national Top University” that would compete with the MIT and Harvard in their own game, he pointed out that even those “tops” are rather small in size. And that the attitude is the most important key factor — and Aho claimed that having more competition is the key towards that “right spirit” of enthusiasm and energy. But I’d rather point out that you need to have something to compete for, and that we need the essential basic resources so that we can actually remain enthusiastic and energetic about our research (working on five research plans and jumping in six project meetings a day, without any time to dedicate to your actual research can really wear you down). Competition can mean many things, and currently the basic financial and organisational structure of academic research and education is going the wrong way! Chancellor Kari Raivio from the University of Helsinki was touting the “top” quality of his own university, but also pointed out that competition needs to be based on quality (read: national comparative evaluations of universities with meters like citation index and number of publications) and that the universities need to specialize into different areas, having more professors in lesser number of fields. Something like this will probably happen in the future, but there needs also be some strategic vision guiding the focusing of resources, taking into consideration also future developments and emerging fields.

Gamers in Society seminar

Gamers in Society seminar
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.

Olli Sotamaa and T.L. Taylor here at the front row of Gamers in Society — Play in Culture seminar which takes place in Tampere today and tomorrow. Really interesting papers and discussions — one could almost hear the ideas clicking together as the dialog continued. — Edit: another photo, from T.Wright, taken in Café Europe in the post-seminar get-together:

Ambient Air working

Working on some book project deadlines this weekend, listening to ambient electronica — wonder if this Last.fm embed code for Air-type music would work here?

Media room project, part 3

Media room project, part 3
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.

Among all the other stuff, the media room project has progressed, too. During the Easter weekend, we finally got the cables into their canals and fixed to the corners of walls, and after carrying in the chairs the project reached some sort of temporary finale. There must be over 50 meters of medium-heavy loudspeaker wiring alone in the room. The most critical point currently is heat: few people, computers and a powerful video projector can easily transform a small home theatre into a sauna. Moving the server and printers into the storage room helped a lot, though. After a couple of movies (Happy Feet, Pirates of the Caribbian) I am actually rather impressed by the quality of audio and images. But there is always something to improve, of course. (Note the custom-made projector logo: “Mäyrän mediakellari”.)

Easter 07

Easter 07
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.

This is the first Easter in the new home. We have been working hard on everyday things like trying to find all the clothes and other necessities for daily life. Most of these few days and nights when there are no work related appointments have been used on organising and reorganising the house. But: a quiet, peaceful moment when there is no other need than just to be silent and enjoy life — this is what Easter is at its best. And to eat some Mämmi, of course!

Talks in Torni

Talks in Torni
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.

Torni (Tower) is a famous old high-rising hotel in Helsinki; today we had the advisory board meeting there for MindTrek Association, which runs probably the largest and oldest new media event in Scandinavia and one of the leading ones also in European scale. There is the constant challenge of what an event that is focused on the emerging, and the new, while also trying to capture attentions of professionals and general audience at the same time should focus this year. There is again some fresh energy in the air, so lets hope for an interesting, more tightly packaged MindTrek: most things will happen this time during only two days in Tampere, so book October 3rd and 4th in your calendars!

Moving stuff

Moving stuff
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.

We only have two days to move all Laura’s stuff in, after selling her apartment, and after one day we both feel pretty much like someone would have beaten us with sticks and stones. Many things go into contemporary living, many of them big and heavy. Oh, did I mention the aquarium?

Morning flight

Morning flight
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.

High above the sleeping land, you can still see snow on the ice-covered lake shores, as white crescents, circling the northern rims of thousands little ponds.