Tapio Mäkelä is currently an AHRC Research Fellow at the Creative Technology department, University of Salford, Manchester, UK. His current research interests are social and cultural uses of location based media, critical interaction design, media and art policy, and history of cultural cybernetics and information theory. Mäkelä was the programme chair of ISEA2004, and co-founder of its main organiser m-cult, centre for new media culture. When working as the director of Artist Association Muu, he constructed the first Finnish artist run medialab MuuMediaBase (1994), and co-founded performance art festival Amorph, and media art workshop series titled Polar Circuit. Mäkelä is also founder of mbar, an active electronic music venue in Helsinki. Both in his artistic work and event production, Mäkelä has explored social interaction and uses of public and remote locations.

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