We are excited to announce that registration for Spring Seminar ‘Events and Communities’ is now open! You can register here (link opens to Microsoft Forms).
Registration is free of charge. Please register at the latest on Tuesday 28 April.
The seminar is organised at Tampere University’s Paidia space, located on the third floor of Nokia Arena (address: Kansikatu 3). We have three amazing expert commentators, exciting talks (you can find the seminar program here), and social activities for both evenings.
We welcome you to join us for pre-seminar dinner/drinks on Monday evening if you have already arrived in Tampere by then. You will be asked to register separately for the social program closer to the event.
The spring seminars always have a few invited commentators who kick off the discussion after each presentation. This year we are happy to announce that we will have three commentators!
Dr Matt Coward-Gibbs is a Senior Lecturer in Social Sciences at York St John University (UK), whose work centres on ethnographic approaches that combine game and ritual studies to examine how play structures social interaction, meaning-making, and collective experience. His research is particularly concerned with games and play as situated practice, considering how materiality, rules, and experiences shape relationships among individuals, groups, and the wider social world. Matt is the Technical Director of investigate.games and the co-director of the York Board Games Convention and Demons Wake (a social deduction games convention). Annually, Matt works with colleagues to produce events for both tabletop and digital play, including the annual Games Lab (as part of the Aesthetica Short Film Festival) and the Yorkshire Games Festival Showcase (organised by the National Science and Media Museum).
Taina Myöhänen has over fifteen years of experience in the Finnish game industry, working in management roles and contributing to community development. Myöhänen is a founding member and the first chair of We in Games Finland, the national organisation advocating for diversity and inclusion in the Finnish game sector, and part of the Task Force initiative established to prevent sexual harassment. In 2021, Myöhänen received the Power Player of the Year award for work on diversity, equity, and inclusion in the Finnish game industry. Over the past five years, Myöhänen has transitioned into research and is currently finalising her dissertation at Tampere University’s Game Research Lab on diversity and equity, with an emphasise on how communities and events shape everyday industry cultures. Myöhänen is an experienced speaker across both in public and academic settings.
Essi Taino is a doctoral researcher at Tampere University Game Research Lab studying neurodiversity in organized game activities and the social sustainability of game culture. She is currently working for Tampere University’s project ENDGAME and is the current chairperson of The Finnish Game Educators Network’s steering group. Her background is in youth work and social work, where she has pushed for the innovative use of games and game literacy among diverse people throughout her career. Essi has over a decade of professional experience founding and organizing game events, activities, and communities. From large and small LAN parties to board game and esports groups, she has extensive experience from varied roles both offline and online.
The program of the seminar is also now published. You can find the it here.
We have decided to extend the deadline for submitting abstracts to the spring seminar by a week. The new deadline is January 21st. For more info, see the CFP.
We are exited to announce that the special issue based on the 2024 spring seminar Meta is now out from Games: Research and Practice. The issue, edited by Rainforest Scully-Blaker, Johan Kalmanlehto, Henry Korkeila, and Maria Ruotsalainen includes six articles. This is also the third collection of papers from specific spring seminars to come out in the last four months!
The spring seminar Arts and Games is now fully set up. We have a programme and commentators. Also, the registration is open! Please sign up, as we have limited space. Hope to see you in Tampere!
We are proud to announce the expert commentators of this year’s spring seminar:
Cindy Poremba is a digital media researcher, gamemaker and curator. They are an Associate Professor (Digital Futures) at OCAD University (Tkaronto/Toronto, CA) and Co-Director of OCAD’s game:play Lab. Dr. Poremba has presented internationally at conferences, festivals, and invited lectures, on topics relating to game art and curation, capture in postmedia practices, and interactive documentary. Their research and critical writing has been published in international journals, edited collections, art catalogs, and magazines. Cindy has held positions on numerous award juries including the Independent Game Festival, served as Co-Chair for the IndieCade, and currently sit on the Board of the Game Arts International Network (GAIN). Cindy also organizes non-traditional exhibitions as an independent curator. Their award-winning game and “New Arcade” work, independently and as a member of the kokoromi experimental videogame collective, has been featured in both international game and digital art exhibitions.
Grayson Earle is a contemporary artist and activist from the United States. His work deals with the role that digital technologies and networks play in protest and political agency. He is known for his guerrilla video projections as a member of The Illuminator, a guerrilla video projection collective, and Bail Bloc, a computer program that posts bail for low-income people. His art and research has been presented at the Whitney Museum of American Art, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, and the Singapore Art Museum.
The programme of our next spring seminar is now published! You can check out the academic program here. Social program and keynotes will be added later.
An edited collection based on the 2021 spring seminar, Monstrosity in Games and Play, has just been published! The book was edited by Sarah Stang, Mikko Meriläinen, Joleen Blom, and Lobna Hassan and it is available from Amsterdam University Press. According to the back cover:
Monsters fascinate us. From ancient folklore to contemporary digital games, they are at the core of the stories we tell. They reflect our fears, deepest desires, and the monstrosity hidden within ourselves. Monsters hold a mirror to our contemporary society and reveal who we truly are.
This edited collection examines monsters and monstrosity in games and play. Monsters are a key feature of most games: we fight, kill, and eat them—and sometimes, we become them. However, monsters in games and play are not only entertaining but also a reflection of the monstrosity of our world. In this book, twenty-two scholars explore how themes such as mental health, colonialism, individualism, disability, gender, sexuality, racism, and exclusion are reflected in the monsters we interact with in games, play, and our daily lives both online and offline.
Events and Communities 