Today I had again a visit to Helsinki, through kind invitation by the executives of MLL (Mannerheimin Lastensuojeluliitto, the Mannerheim League for Child Welfare – the biggest organisation of its kind in Finland). I am bringing the perspectives of digital culture and game studies to the media education work that the association is carrying out, hopefully playing some small part in increasing “games literacy” in our country. Links: http://www.mll.fi/ & http://www.mll.fi/in_english/
Category: travels
out there, to work, sometimes to relax, to see the world
Art & Science Goes Kapakka
Just a quick note: I will be speaking in Helsinki, in 16th August (Saturday) in Art Goes Kapakka, science talks session, about our relationship to technology and discussing social media. For more, go to http://www.artgoeskapakka.fi/ and click “Tiede on Taidetta – Science Is Art”.
Suomi Areena panel
The panel talk in Pori was fine, I guess, even while other high-profile events taking place around same time in Pori took their toll in the audience figures. Anyways, thanks to RAY for organising the event. It was also very nice to meet and talk with Jaakko Suominen, Mika Pantzar, Sonja Kangas and others. With Laura and Luka we did little summer excursion afterwards and visited the white sands of Yyteri beaches.
Speaking in Pori & in Finncon
Just a note: even while still being in holidays, I will also be doing a couple of talks — the first will be tomorrow, in “Suomi Areena” which is part of the Pori Jazz festival. I will be participating in a panel on the future of gambling / money gaming. Next week I will be in the annual science fiction & fantasy researcher meeting, and giving a talk on the fantasy and research of future homes — both of these in the Finncon 2008 event in Tampere. More: http://www.suomiareena.fi/ & http://2008.finncon.org/
Levels seminar, Jyväskylä
Today I am speaking in the Levels game seminar in Jyväskylä. Featured here in the picture is Marko Siitonen, who talked about teamplay and leadership, in the context of learning taking place within MMOs. More: http://www.levels08.com/
Not travelling
I have made few somewhat painful personal decisions and radically cut down the amount of international travel I do. Travelling might be something we are told we have to do, that our careers require it, and that internationalisation or globalisation even dictates that we should be flying around the globe all the time, busily collaborating with everyone else. But why? Don’t we really have any communicational tools that we could use to cut down this insane waste of time, energy — both human energy and precious reserves of natural energy, turning it into carbon dioxide? I think we can do better. I was supposed to present game studies papers in two important conferences, CHI 2008 in Italy, and Crossroads conference of cultural studies in Jamaica. It was a real pity, but I decided not to go. Continue reading “Not travelling”
Stansted
Trying to catch some sleep in an airport hotel: engaged in a curious form of travel, that of airport meetings. I am pushing the use of Skype or videoconferencing instead, but I guess that kind of change of culture still requires some rise in the oil price before it becomes dominant. (Edit: for some reason this message had originally got truncated somewhere on the road between my phone, carrier networks, Flickr and my WordPress server…)
Oulu
During a short Spring break (traditionally there is something called “Skiing Holidays” in Finland) we visited Oulu — a nice town (I have actually born there), but the weather was a bit cold and windy during the weekend. In the picture we are walking around in Sunday morning and trying to find a place where we could get in, to get some warmth, but everything was actually closed until 12 noon. Rauno’s party was though great, and very warm.
Pohjanmaa
Pohjanmaa
Originally uploaded by FransBadger
On the road again, this time the snow covered landscape of Pohjanmaa behind the train window. I will be giving a plenary in the Finnish Communication Studies’ annual seminar (Viestintätutkimuksen päivät) in Vaasa about player-centred game studies. The northern parts of Pohjanmaa and Lapland are where I spent my childhood — memories coming back, data connection breaking down. Into the north.
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/ ).
frans goes blog 
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