POST-UMEÅ


Lectureslides (approx 8MB because of the amount of screenshots. Sorry!)

I'm back after my visit to the Swedish "HumLab" in Umeå. It was an inspiring experience to see the working environment of the Humlab Studio; a big open space with many round tables with computers on them, comfy chairs, plants and glasscases with new books and journals on display - this space was also where I lectured. Their technical "gear" was awesome, giant screens, fast computers, webcast cam, microport which worked unproblematically etc. I wish we could be able to offer the ITU students the same kind of physical space and equipment, once we move to Ørestaden...

As for the lecture itself, you can take a look at the archived webcast to see how it went. I wasn't quite sure if the poor Swedish students actually understood my Danish in details - not to speak of some of the more theoretical content of the talk, which I had to gloss over rather quickly. But I had fun and got good questions afterwards!

Patrik Svensson, the leader of HumLab, is an open and enthusiastic personality and we had some interesting discussions on how to strengthen the network of researchers working within Digital Culture, Aesthetics and Art in Scandinavia. It should be possible to get some NORFA funding for this kind of thing!!!
- I also had a nice talk with (soon to be) ph.d.student Stefan Blomberg who is studying online games from an etnographic perspective. And I met Jonas Carlquist, whose article on "How to read a computer game" (Att läsa et dataspel), I have recently come across on the web (small world!).

Preparing the Umeå presentation and writing a paper for the DAC conference in Melbourne in May has really helped a lot of thoughts come together in their final form. I look forward to putting them to paper, actually!
# posted by Lisbeth at: 18:41