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More forest and less sugar – from data set to story

Near the Finnish city of Tampere lies ‘Varala’ – the ‘place of wealth’. And indeed, with its wealth of nature, forests and lakes, Varala is the ideal location for this year’s GEM camp ‘Seeing the Green’. The camp was organised by the Film University and its partners in the Erasmus+ project Green Education in Media (GEM). The project poses a variety of questions: how can we make the connection between sugar, health and environmental sustainability visible and tangible? How can we raise awareness of the fate of forests? What story is told by discarded receipts from the supermarket?

32 students from six countries spent a week practising green data storytelling with the goal of making pressing topics from the fields of nutrition and sustainability visually and audibly more tangible. Teachers from the participating universities contributed interdisciplinary expertise: Interactive data visualisation, immersive media, motion graphics and storytelling. The special nature of this action is that the students are encouraged to see nature as a place of learning and to use it in a variety of ways for their projects, whether collecting data on environmental influences and biodiversity, searching for inspiration or creating hybrid digital-natural presentation spaces. The camp resulted in real-spatial data visualisations, animations with natural materials and visions of a future for nature which incorporates augmented reality.

Prof Dr Björn Stockleben knows the challenges of breaking out of the comfort zone of the classroom: “When I suggest working outside in nature, arguments such as the lack of electricity or the threat of rain come up almost automatically. Strangely enough, no one ever asks why,  as a matter of course, we always work in functional, barren indoor spaces.”

The workshop is part of a series of international workshops on sustainability and media production as part of the Erasmus+-funded project GEM – Green Education in Media.

Participants were students from the Film University’s Master’s programmes in Film and Television Production and Creative Technologies. Till Morgenfrüh (MA Production) reports: “Intercultural exchange, nice people, wonderful nature all around us and, of course, I also learnt a lot in terms of content. Together, we developed a prototype for a VR experience and focussed on the topic of deforestation in Finnish forests. I particularly enjoyed working with the students, who all had different backgrounds. Everyone was able to make their contribution, whether conceptually, with 3D modelling or by creating background music.”

Katja Schreiber from the Creative Technologies degree programme was also impressed by the concept: “ ‘Seeing the Green’ was a great opportunity to work with students from different fields on web-based data visualisation. I met great people and improved my web development skills at the same time.”

At the end of the workshop, the teams were able to view, try out and discuss their presentations with each other at various locations on the extensive Varala site. Under the never-ending Finnish midnight sun, students and teachers were already making plans for future projects and workshops.

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Photo 1: View near the venue, ©Sophie Tummescheit / Filmuni
Photo 2: Round of introductions on the first day of the workshop, ©Błażej Hałat / Jagiellonian University in Kraków
Photo 3:  Presentation of the data found during the Data Walk ©Sophie Tummescheit / Filmuni
Photo 4: Data collection from nature, ©Sophie Tummescheit / Filmuni
Photo 5: Stop motion shots of the group Data in Move!, ©Tuomo Joronen / Tampere University of Applied Sciences
Photo 6: The exhibition of the Artistic Data Visualization group is admired by two students, ©Nicole Loeser, IFAI
Photo 7:  Filming the music video by the group Data Fiction, ©Miranda Klockars / Tampere University of Applied Sciences