Hi,

I am Oğuz Turan Buruk. I am an Assistant Professor of Gameful Experience  and completed my PhD at Koç University - Arçelik Research Center for Creative Industries (KUAR) in Design, Technology and Society Program, Interaction Design Track. I currently work at Tampere University as the director of Gameful Futures Lab, affiliated with Research Centre of Gameful Realities of Juho Hamari .

 

My current main research interest is designing games & play for a posthuman era. Both transhuman/cyborg experiences (convergence of humans and machines) and more-than-human perspectives (sharing the center stage with other beings) are in my scope and I aim to understand how game will be shaped by posthuman technologies such as brain-machine interfaces, robotic companions, bodily implant or space habitation technologies. I also look ito how designing the games of future can inform us about future societies and societal structures.    

 

Another pillar of my work is the prioritization of gameful experience. Before anything else, games should be fun and entertaining. This is why I focus on new player experiences that can bring novel approaches to different game genres. Games can target other benefits only after they do their own job which is making people spend pleasurable time "willingly".

 

Other than games & play for posthumans, my research interests vary from wearables for gaming,  computational fashion, human-nature-machine interaction or extended reality. I also mainly employ research through design approaches, with a heavy focus on speculative and critical design, and design fiction.    

My work from all these projects were published in top tier conferences and journals such as CHI, DIS or International Journal of Design. Other than that, my studies attracted the attention of popular media such as Popular Science.

 

As an industrial design graduate who is into electronic development and coding, I attach great importance to interdisciplinary work. I enjoy working with people with diverse disciplines and backgrounds. I find joy in exchanging knowledge with people with diverse opinions and experiences that feed my curiosity and practice in design research, user/player experience studies, hardware development and coding

 

Other than my research activies, I also develop games with my fellow coder Erdin Kaçan (it has been a while though since we did not work on a game together). These activies let us to explore new game mechanics in mobile and PC platforms. Moreover, it also feeds my technical knowledge and capacity in times when writing articles takes me away from hands-on work.

 

When I am not developing, playing or researching on games, I try to fill my life with music and dance. I had performed (before I moved to Tampere) as a vocalist with my rock band HiJack in every two weeks in a local Irish Pub for two years. Other than that, I have been practicing Tango for two years and paricipated in dance festivals. You can go check to see my Fun Activities to learn more :)

 

If you want to reach out, you can find several ways of contacting me right above in the navigation bar.