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 designingplaygrounds of posthuman futures. This includes examining both transhuman/cyborg experiences (convergence of humans and machines) and more-than-human perspectives (sharing the stage with other beings by decentering humans). My lab aims to design playgrounds as both interactive and epistemological spaces—environments where we envision and investigate future societies through “play” as a way of knowing. At the same time, we engage with experiential futures to sense and explore how games will both shape and be shaped by emerging technologies such as brain–machine interfaces, robotic companions, artificial agencies, bodily implants, or space habitation.    

 

Another key pillar of my work is the deep exploration of gameful experience. Above all, games should be fun and engaging. I explore new forms of player experience that bring fresh approaches to different genres, with the belief that games can meaningfully aim for other benefits only after fulfilling their core promise: enabling people to spend pleasurable time willingly.

 

Around these values and ambitions, 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, CHI PLAY, DIS or International Journal of Design. Other than that, my studies attracted the attention of popular media such as Popular Science. I also co-authored the MIT Press book, Playful Wearables, which is a comprehensive guide to design bodily technologies for games and related experiences.

 

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.