Director, m-cult, researcher and USED project co-director.
Short bio
Minna Tarkka is a researcher, producer, critic and educator of media arts and design. Her areas of expetise are in cultural, social and participatory approaches to new media and technology.
From the late 1980´s on she has been lecturing and contributing to new media-related curriculum development in Finnish universities, including the Academy of Fine Arts (Time and Space) and the University of Art and Design (Media Lab). In 1996-2001 she was professor of interactive and multimedia communication at the UIAH Media Lab. As head of the lab´s MA in New Media programme, she initiated research-oriented study projects in digital museums, interactive television as well as critical art and design practice. In professional training, she has led international masterclasses on interactive art and design.
Her research activities relate to the field of new media arts and design, technology and policy. At UIAH she led the Cultural Usability research project on reflexive design practice (2000-01). During her senior researcher position in the National Consumer Research Centre´s Users as collaborators project (2002-03), she focused on practices in new media culture, digital television and location-based wireless development. As director of m-cult, she has been responsible for developing and coordinating several research projects, including the Urban Spaces and Experience Design project (Finnish Academy and the Arts Council of Finland 2005-07). Her doctoral dissertation Performing new media will be finalised in 2005 in a research position at the Department of Social Science and Philosophy, University of Jyväskylä.
Her activity in art criticism started in 1984 and since then she has published numerous articles on media, arts, design and culture. She has edited anthologies on new media and contemporary arts, including Taiteen laita (The Edge of Art, 1990); Video Taide Media (Video Art Media, 1993) and Johdatus uuteen mediaan (Introduction to New Media, 1996). As cultural producer, she has conceptualized and managed media art and design projects for museums, television, online and wireless environments as well as curated shows and screenings.
Minna Tarkka was founding member and first director of MUU artist´s association (1989-91) and programme director of the ISEA94 Helsinki symposium (1993-94). She has acted as expert on Finnish and international committees and juries relating to new media culture. In 2000 she co-founded m-cult, centre for new media culture in Helsinki, which she currently directs.
Links
m-cult: http://www.m-cult.org
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