Category: Misc

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Art-theft,
stake-outs and penetrating high security areas may seem like a list of
television themes but you may find yourself caught in the middle of one of them
without even knowing. Some may say that the era of pervasive gaming is upon us,
where digital mobile technologies mean that we can interact with unseen
opponents 24/7. However, the fact is that pervasive games, or games which
transgress the “magic circle” of traditional games, have existed as long as street
carnivals.

Pervasive
gaming aims to break the boundaries (the “magic circle”) of what are considered
traditional games. These boundaries include: place, the games can be played
anywhere; time, although the gamer may choose when they want to consciously
interact with the game, the gaming never stops; and people, individuals may not
even know that they are a part of a game.

Researcher Jussi Holopainen, a key
collaborator and planner of IPerG (Integrated Project on Pervasive Gaming)
recalls stories where people have played roles in pervasive games without even
knowing that they are doing so. Holopainen, who has researched the
relationships between technologies, gaming and play since 1998 at Nokia
Research Centre, recalls one scenario where the challenge of a game was to
penetrate a high security area of a hotel. Gamers were trying to persuade staff
to allow them into the area. Unknowingly, the hotel staff had become
characters/obstacles in the game. In another example, gamers were required to
obtain a specific artwork from an art gallery. In this scenario, the unaware
staff had considered the scenario so far-fetched that they began “playing” with
the gamers.

Anyone
anywhere may be consciously or not involved in a game, whether through pure
spatial circumstance or due to the technology that they utilise. Holopainen
describes how traditional games generally had a start and an end, whereas
pervasive games are continuous. In Citywide games, non-players may also become
spectators, particularly when gamers have drawn attention to themselves through
actions out of the ordinary. Through these scenarios professionals such as
performance artists have capitalised on the combination of a live audience and
real-space, and the capabilities of broadcasting online via wireless
technologies, to bring art out of the gallery. On rare occasions, unaffiliated
bystanders have been hijacked through gamers mistaking them for other gamers.

IPerG began
in 2004 and will continue until 2008. It is a collaboration between the University of Tampere,
Nokia Research, Interactive Institute, Swedish Institute of Computer Science
(SICS), the University of Nottingham, Fraunhofer Institute, Sony NetServices, Gotland University and Blast Theory. IPerG is
devoted to supporting research in pervasive gaming which spans topics such as
analysing how new technologies can be incorporated into pervasive gaming, what
the ethical implications are of pervasive gaming, how gaming may be developed
in terms of entertainment and feasibility, and what the social impacts of the
gaming are.

Holopainen’s own research looks at how PDAs (Personal Digital
Assistants) and regular mobile phones may be utilised for gaming purposes. A
characteristic which makes gaming via these mobile devices more significant
than via regular PCs is that they have been designed specifically for personal
usage. In other words, the mobile phone is an individual’s trusted belonging
containing highly personal information such as SMS:s and phone numbers.
Holopainen cites research of mobile phone games from the older Nokia 3310, 3330
and 5110s Snake Game (incidentally the most played mobile phone game in
history) to games which utilise all the functions of a phone such as the
calendar and alarm.

In regards
to the future of pervasive gaming and pervasive game research Holopainen
speculates that in the future, more so than now, games will be running all the
time. Where now the idea of observing grown men secretly handing large brown
envelopes and intercepting other’s telephone calls may seem peculiar or
criminal, in the future there is the possibility that continuous real-space
gaming may become as normal as SMS, or even the Snake Game itself. Interfaces
are constantly being re-developed which may make even virtual space more
tangible to the user. One field that Holopainen suggests should be expanded in
regards to research is the investigation of ethics. One workshop that covers
such a theme is Ethics of Pervasive
Gaming, to be delivered at the PerGames conference June 11-12th
in Salzburg, by
Markus Montola, Jaakko Stenros and Annika Waern.

In
November, IPerG will be releasing a new game called Mythical: The Mobile Awakening, you will find information
about this at www.mythicalmobile.com. 

To find out more about IPerG and their research see: www.pervasive-gaming.org

The Helsinki Festival is this year expanding its
programme. Arts from the Baltic Sea region will be very much to the fore. The
Festival presents three leading orchestras, several theatre groups and visual
arts from around the Baltic. There are also more free Festival events on the
programme than in former years. The revamped Night of the Arts caters for a
wider range of tastes than ever. The sculpture exhibition in Esplanadi Park and
the open-air movies in the Lasipalatsi square will all be free. The summer
season at the Huvila Festival Tent ends with a six-hour open-house day
masterminded by Pekka Kuusisto.

The Helsinki Festival begins with Kaija Saariaho’s dramatised Passion de
Simone directed by Peter Sellars (US) at Finlandia Hall. The orchestra will be
conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen. New works by Magnus Lindberg, another
contemporary Finnish composer of international repute, will receive their
Finnish premieres in a two-concert cavalcade of chamber and orchestral music
also starring Lindberg as a pianist and conductor.

The visiting orchestras include the Oslo Philharmonic and the Swedish Radio
Symphony; the St. Petersburg Philharmonic will be playing music by Sibelius,
something it rarely does in Helsinki. Appearing at the Festival will be
violinists Lisa Batiashvili, Viktoria Mullova and Christian Tetzlaff, and
pianist András Schiff – all great favourites with Finnish audiences.
Representing the Finnish vocal elite are Monica Groop, Camilla Nylund and Topi
Lehtipuu, all of whom enjoy a fine international reputation.

The hundred-strong Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra will be playing familiar
tunes from pirate films at the family concert that is always a Children’s
Festival hit. In addition to music, theatre and film the children’s programme
will include an exhibition on the theme of Giotto with numerous workshops and
tie-in events at the Annantalo Arts Centre.

New circus, Chekhov and contemporary European theatre

International circus, theatre and dance are more in evidence at this year’s
Festival than ever before. One of the Festival’s big attractions is Collectif
AOC, a French new circus group that will be erecting a 600-seat tent in
Meripuisto Park near Kaivopuisto. ‘New circus is conspicuous in this year’s
programme,’ says Festival Director Risto Nieminen. ‘Helsinki will also be
acting host to a number of current names in European theatre and dance, such as
dancer-choreographer Akram Khan, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, and the enfant terrible
of Spanish theatre Calixto Bieito.’ The Stage festival to be held for the first
time at the Korjaamo Culture Factory has invited along five European theatre
groups.

The four-year Chekhov series culminates this year in three topical interpretations
of works by the Russian master. For the production of The Three Sisters
directed by him Declan Donellan (UK) has formed a cast of leading names in
contemporary Russian theatre. The Von Krahl Theatre from Tallinn is bringing
along a re-reading by Kristian Smeds of The Seagull, while Dmitri Krymov, a hot
name in Russian theatre, will be staging a collage of four Chekhov plays.

New rhythms, nostalgia and mysticism at the Huvila Festival Tent

The packed programme for the Huvila Festival Tent ranges from pop and world
music to poetry and a children’s day. Among the most eagerly-awaited guests
this year are French chanson star Juliette Gréco and blues legend Taj Mahal.

Bringing along a breath of the rich musical tradition of the Middle East will
be the Syrian Ensemble Al-Kindi reinforced with a Sufi singer and a Dervish
dancer, and Turkish Mercan Dede, combining electronic rhythms and Sufi ambience
straight from Istanbul. Ville Leinonen will be inviting dancers to take the
floor at the Huvila Saturday hop. ‘It’s great we were able to get Ayo, an
artist very much on the rise, for the Huvila Festival Tent,’ says Production
Manager Kaarina Gould. ‘In addition to new rising stars and old world music
hands the Huvila profile will take in such hybrid evenings as Lännen Jukka – a
joint gig by J. Karjalainen and one of the leading names in American old time
music, Dirk Powell.

Flow moves to the Suvilahti power station area

The visual arts will be make their presence felt in the city right at the
beginning of May, when the sculpture exhibition Las Meninas by Manolo Valdés of
Spain takes over Esplanadi Park. The series of 21 sculptures can be viewed free
round the clock until the beginning of September. The exhibition of work by
Carnegie award-winning Karin Mamma Andersson from Sweden will be travelling to
the Kunsthalle straight from the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. Meanwhile the
Amos Anderson Museum will be putting on an exhibition of oil paintings by Anna
Retulainen.

On each of its three weekends the Helsinki Festival will be screening movies
free in the Lasipalatsi square. The Orion Cinema will be showing a unique
retrospective of work by Iranian Abbas Kiarostami. The life and works of Andrei
Tarkovsky will be portrayed through documentaries about him.

The revamped Night of the Arts, shifted this year from Thursday to Friday
(August 24), is an urban event providing a feast for arts lovers all through
the night. Culture vultures will thus be able to revel in events numbering well
over a hundred in new and sometimes unexpected settings scattered round the
city. The enlarged Runokuu will be taking lyrics and literature out into clubs,
churches, public transport and nature trails and strengthening the role of
verbal art in the Festival programme.

The popular Flow festival will be focusing on the hottest contemporary rhythm
music from indie rock and folk to various subgenres of electronic music and
swinging jazz. One new urban venue is the area round the former Suvilahti power
station. As the August evenings draw in jazz fans can look forward to Viapori
Jazz on the island of Suomenlinna and the UMO Jazz Fest.

Helsingin Juhlaviikot – Helsinki Festival 17.8-2.9
www.helsinginjuhlaviikot.fi

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It sounds
strange: a Scandinavian festival in Italy. Usually you
can find a lot of Latin festivals or even African one but never
Scandinavian.
From here the need, felt by a group of people, of trying to organize in
Milan,
with the help of some important partners and sponsors an event that
could promote the Scandinavian culture in Italy with the aim of
stimulating the exchange between different cultures.

The
Ragnarock Scandinavian Music and Art Festival opened his first edition on the
7th of July in Milan Magnolia, near the Idroscalo. From 5 pm until late night,
you could find a photographic exhibition of 
the Danish Søren Solkær Starbird, for the first time in Italy, a fashion
show, a Scandinavian buffet and five concerts. Near the stage and the bar you
had also the chance of reading an Iperborea book, the biggest Italian publisher
of Scandinavian literature who has organized a books banquet and a reading
area, or you could also win a flight ticket to Copenhagen or Stockholm.
Everything for only 6 euro.

Starbird
himself, a great example of music photography, explained the criterion by which
he has selected the pictures underlining the aim of the festival: promoting the
Scandinavian culture:“Related to the
philosophy of the Festival, to the promotion of musical Scandinavian talents, I
decided to choose a selection of photographies that mainly show Scandinavian artists,
especially Danish. The theme of the exhibition is, then, linked with the one of
the Festival, in a continuous dialogue between the artistic and the musical
dimension”.

The result
was a musical trip throughout eighteen shots realized while touring with the
most important bands of nowadays.

But not
only photography, as I said: fashion show of five Scandinavian stylists from
the European Institute of Design (IED) and five different bands who were performing
on the stage (Promise and the Monster, Niepoort, Jonna Lee, The Fashion and
Prins Thomas).

One thousand
and five hundred people welcomed this first edition of the Ragnarock
Scandinavian Festival, showing how much is widespread the interest towards the
Nordic culture and stimulating, I hope, the organization of other events like
this.