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I was honored by the invitation to be on the jury of this years ANILOGUE Animation Film Festival in Budapest, Hungary. With me on the jury was  Géza M. Tóth rector, University of Theatre and Film Arts (Hungary ) and Stephan Roelants producer, Mélusine Productions (Luxemburg).

Anilogue devoted an international roundtable talk to the latest developments in interactive animation. Film industry sees new possibilities and challenges in what new media filmmakers are exploring today. The talk was hosted by Tamás Liszka who runs the Media Arts Institute at BKF University of Applied Sciences in Budapest. With me there was Or Fleisher (Phenomena Labs) from Tel Aviv, Israel on the panel...

For the sixth time and unique in Europe, this artistic-scientific research conference offered the opportunity for an interdisciplinary exchange which will generate synergies and provide an array of intellectual impulses. Experts from the humanities, science and research, economics and politics discussed current questions concerning the artistic design, technological development and social perception of digital games. Scholars, social scientists, game developers, specialists in education and media, up-and-coming creative talents, students and all those interested in and excited by digital games participated...

With the "friendly take over" of COR we initiated a new chapter of the conference (set to work in 2006 by Prof. Winfred Kaminski and  EA´s Martin Lorber): Starting with this year, we changed the timing from spring to fall and we also decided to turn the conference into an annual event!

We are happy to welcome 6 new colleagues at CGL! From left - with Gundolf and me: Prof. Nanette Kaulig (3D Animation and CG Arts), Prof. Markus Hettlich (Game Informatics), Prof. Dr. Emmanuel Guardiola (Game Design), next to Gundolf - Prof, Bernd Diemer (Game Design), Prof. Odile Limpach (Game Economics and Entreprenuership). Not on this picture: Prof. Cecile Le Prado (Sound Design for Games). We are happy to present such a great line up - with a lot of industry experience and creative potential!

I had the pleasure to chat with Barb Samardzich, COO of FORD Europe about the Ford Mobile Game Challenge that CGL currently runs in cooperation with the big automotive manufacturer!

The discussion was hosted by Youtuber Sacha Pallenberg...

FORD and CGL have teamed up to explore digital solutions for the increasing challenges of urban travel. While large cities are steadily growing in population and eject more people into their streets, recent studies have shown that today’s urban citizens are ready to step out of the traffic chaos, use public transport systems and share their cars – if only it was easier to engage in these activities.

After announcing the competition during GAMESCOM 2015, we received a lot of press coverage - looks like the competition will be great success!  FORD SMART MOBILITY GAME CHALLENGE

On the far right Petra Müller (Head of the Film & Media Board North- Rhine Westfalia) and Odile Limpach (la grande dame de jeu video!) in-between! (photo by Film & Medienstiftung NRW)

This year we arranged the NOTGAMES FEST for the third time and the first time at our new campus in Koeln Muelheim! Running parallel to GDC & GAMESCOM we successfully presented an alternative lineup of artistic and experimental games. Katharina Tillmanns and several CGL and KISD students worked hard to set up the individual exhibition architecture, made fully out of cardboard. The exhibition was curated by with Michael Samyn & Auriea Harvey - Game Developers, Tale of Tales / Belgium, Katharina Tillmanns - Game Designer & Researcher , Cologne Game Lab / Germany, Simon Bachelier - Independent Curator / France, Merritt Kopas - Multimedia Artist, Game, Designer, and Writer / Canada, Olia Lialina - Web Artist / Russia, Lara Sánchez Coterón -

Play & Game Designer, Yoctobit, Spain.

I started being a professor at KISD in 2003. After 11 great years teaching, doing projects and helping a little bit to do institute development work, i switched with my position over to Cologne Game Lab. My dear colleague Prof. Wolfgang Laubersheimer (he is currently the director of KISD) held a touching speech and summed up all the things i´ve been involved in – THX for this! Working at KISD was a pleasure and honor for me – beside a great student body I had awesome people working with me. A big part of me will stay at KISD  and I hope that we will do a lot of great cooperation in the future.

It was an incredible honor being invited to the stage for the 20th anniverary oft the prestigious FMX Conference in Stuttgart! The lineup of verterans of the industry was amazing: Jacques Bled, CEO, Illumination Mac Guff, Paul Debevec, USC Institute for Creative Technologies, Marie Anne Fontenier, Ed Hooks, Actor, Acting Trainer, Andreas Hykade, Director of the Institute of Animation, Filmakademie, Mike McGee, Co-Founder, Framestore, Shelley Page, Head of International Outreach, DreamWorks Animation, Ken Perlin, Professor of Computer Science, NYU Media Research Lab, Xavier Nicolas, Entertainment Executive, Hannes Rall, Associate Professor/Area Coordinator Digital Animation, Nanyang Technological University, School of Art, Design and Media, Eric Roth, Executive Director, Visual Effects Society
Dominique Schuchmann, CEO, M.A.R.K.13, David Silverman, Director, Peter Spans, Managing Director, Spans und Partner GmbH, David Sproxton, CEO, Aardman, Ludwig von Reiche, Managing Director, NVIDIA ARC, Marc Weigert, President, Method Studios, Matthias Wittmann, Animation Developer, DAQRI, Thomas Zauner, Managing Director, Scanline

The 6th GGJ at the Game Lab and so far the last one at the FH Campus "Suedstadt". Without exaggeration i can state that we are Pro in hosting this event now. This year we had to limit the number of participants to 120 and we also stripped down the intermediate presentation to a simple "look over the shoulder", as it took much too long the year before. Again we had a great set of people jamming at the site, amongst of them many students of the new BA in Digital Games that we started with the winter term at CGL.

After more then a year of planning and negotiations we signed the contract for our new campus site just before Christmas! The institute will occupy about 1500 square meters at an old industrial building in Köln-Mülheim (Schanzenstrasse 28). Together with ifs international filmschule köln we will build a new campus, which will provide space for around 400 students until 2017. Both schools will share facilities and cooperate on an academic level in the future. We are all thrilled and excited about this big new step!