moblog – Page 8 – frans goes blog

Children and Media day

Children and Media day
Originally uploaded by FransBadger

Today I am participating in an expert forum organised by the Ministry of Education in Helsinki. Director Jukka Liedes (pictured) gave an overview on children and media initiatives in Finland. The entire field is currently very fragmented and lives from one temporary project to another. The positive thing is that there are many people working in the field who are eager to explore the positive, constructive potentials in media. Nevertheless, the violence and media effects issues still continue to dominate the floor space in events like this, I am sad to say.

Clown invasion

This is my last day in Canada, and it looks like I need to get out of this country. This morning, as I walked into the hotel lobby, everyone looked somehow strange. Everywhere I looked, yellow hair, red noses… This must be it: too much coffee, too much FuturePlay conference — I need to get out of here! (More of my pics in Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fransmayra/ ).

Joensuu, Tuusula massacre

Joensuu, Tuusula massacre
Originally uploaded by FransBadger

I am today and tomorrow visiting Joensuu university on the Chancing Views in Technology seminar; pictured is the early morning in Joensuu market square. – Yesterday the news of Tuusula school shootings caught me in the airport. The entire day was spent in deepening feelings of sadness and shock. Today there are already news being published how the Internet is responsible for the massacre, or the shooter games (the school shooter was a fan of shooter games as well as real guns, and übermench style of extreme philosophies). I cannot but just repeat what I have said many times: please care of people in the real life, and they are also better capable of making positive use of the virtual worlds. If the society and people near to a mentally sick person abandon him, there is not much a virtual reality can do to him.

Skellefteå teaching visit

Skellefteå teaching visit
Originally uploaded by FransBadger

Air travel in practice has relatively poor effectivity ratio: for one hour of flight you might spend one hour to get to the airport, one hour in queues, suffering security check humiliations, and then perhaps spend three more hours waiting in another airport for your connecting flight. And then back through all those steps again, in reverse.
Today I have been in Sweden, as a visiting lecturer in Skellefteå, at their Luleå Tekniska Universitet’s Game Design degree programme. An interesting blend of technical university and art school, they are now moving in to provide game design education, and many researchers from our team are providing their expertise on various subjects as visiting lecturers. My offering was focused on some conceptual and theoretical fundamentals of Game Studies, and largely based on my forthcoming textbook on this subject. Now — just to be home already. Weather forecast promises snowfall to Finland tomorrow. That would be a welcome change in this darkness.

Conference in National Museum

Conference in National Museum
Originally uploaded by FransBadger

Today will be spent in Helsinki, in the National Museum where I am presenting a short talk about games, virtual worlds and what these developments in digital culture could matter to museums and other institutions of cultural heritage. Rather than just focusing on ‘canonised culture’ (traditional national treasures and art of the analogue world), I am also calling for initiatives to maintain the digital memories, artifacts and some significant virtual environments for the future generations. (Pictured: some canonised art by Gallen-Kallela in the museum entrance lobby dome.) Link to conference pages: http://www.accessibility2007.info/

Amsterdam, again

Amsterdam, again
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.

The remaiming PTS2007 schedule was messed up by the chartered bus missing in the morning. I finally joined a group who made it from Haarlem to Amsterdam individually with busses and train. No longer having time to visit the Holland Casino that was in my program, I find myself making it by foot through the Amsterdam centre, towards the Rijksmuseum where our airport return trip should eventually kick off. normally I would love playing the tourist, taking a close look at the historical sights, like the Koninklijk Paleis (pictured). But I am simply tired of all this travelling, homesick to get back to Laura and our baby, and even if the remaining trip goes according to schedule (which I am starting to doubt), it will be something like 3 am in Sunday morning before I am home again. Oh dear. — Oh yes, there also seems to be something wrong with mail-to-Flickr and WordPress integration; my Tokyo and Holland posts have gone missing and I have had to repost them all from a PC. Yes, home would be a great thing.

Addiction seminar in Haarlem

Addiction seminar in Haarlem
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.

The panelists (pictured) discuss social responsibility issues related to alcohol problems in the PTS2007 seminar taking place today in Haarlem, The Netherlands. I find myself in this seminar to discuss the various addiction or control problem issues of digital games, virtual worlds and online gambling. A rather broad and troublesome field, but it is also interesting to test approaching game like it would be a drug, and see what we could then say about the future of ‘ludic society’ if we take games’ holding powers more seriously. And whether they should be taken seriously.

Talks in MindTrek, Lab's 15th Anniversary

Talks in MindTrek, Lab’s 15th Anniversary
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.

Zak Greant from FOO Associates is here presenting a talk in MindTrek conference, drawing broad lines into the history of communication. There is an entire track dedicated to the transformation of games from products into services. Our department, Hypermedia Laboratory is also celebrating today its 15th anniversary. A long career in new media studies. Cheers!

Back home

Back home
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.

Sunday morning, it is raining in Tokyo. It has been great week, but now: it is time to go home.

DiGRA 2007 over

Yesterday evening the third international Digital Games Research Conference closed in Tokyo. Professor Baba, the conference chair, presented some interesting figures; if I got them right from the translation, there had been 178 presentations in the conference, and 355 conference participants. Impressive figures for a conference of an emerging field, organised in (what to a Western-dominated researcher community is) a far-away Japan. There were much discussion about how to improve the conference and about various issues that could have gone a bit better, but the overall impression was that the conference was an obvious success. Continue reading “DiGRA 2007 over”