Barely Staying Alive (In Reality and VR)
Monday, September 9th - Monday, September 16th, 2019
Copenhagen & Elsinore, Denmark, and Malmö & Älmhult, Sweden
Well. It finally happened. I knew it would. It was inevitable. I got sick. A nice, fat head cold. And it had to happen during my Core Course Week when my class was taking a trip to Sweden! Because sometimes the fates just like to have fun like that. It all started last Monday. Also, trigger warning, this is going to be a looooooooooong post because despite me being deathly ill half the week, I still did a lot of awesome crazy wild stuff. I've put in some subtitles so you can pick and choose what interests you, or read the whole thing chronologically. Read ahead. You've been warned.
Being eaten by a virtual snake at Khora VR
Monday morning, I met my New Media and Changing Communities class at Khora VR, to kick off our week together. When you study through DIS, you choose one core course, and then 3-4 electives. I chose New Media and Changing Communities. And with that course, you have a Core Course Week, which is different for each core course, but basically, it's an opportunity to take your course into the field, and you spend 2 days exploring course-related sites in Copenhagen, and then 3 days exploring course-related sites somewhere else in the surrounding region. For a lot of courses, this meant Aarhus. For me, this meant Malmö, Sweden. But our first two days were in Cope. So back to Khora VR.
Khora VR is the leading virtual and augmented reality production house in Scandinavia. So we went to their shop to try out some of their creations, and hear about what they do. They make VR projects for a lot of different clients, including marketing, artists, different safety tools, for hospitals, etc. The first one I tried was made with an artist, and TBH I have no idea what the point of it was, but you put on the goggles and the headphones and you find yourself in a box, and different shadows swoop by. And then it goes dark. And there are bugs crawling around. And then it goes dark, and there's suddenly water pouring in. And then it goes dark and now there's a snake circling you. And then it goes dark and suddenly you are surrounded by giant snakes. And then I actually screamed and took the goggles off. Haha. There was one girl who made it through the whole piece, and she said a snake eats you at the end. It was terrifying. Logically, I knew it wasn't real. But it's a 360 movie you are immersed in, and it FEELS real enough.
My classmate Audrey doing the snake VR experience
The second one I tried was waaaaaaaay better than being terrorized by a snake. Way better. I did a Google Earth one, and it was AWESOME! You could travel all over. Now, Google Earth isn't quite so advanced that it looked 100% real, and you couldn't like, interact with the environment. But it was a lot like being INSIDE a postcard. I went and visited my home in Minnesota virtually. It was pretty cool, honestly. And you know what else was cool? The Khora office had a dog. I loved her.
The Khora dog <3 font="">
Thinking about my future at the WWF
After Khora, we had a dude come talk to us about running digital campaigns for WWF Denmark. It was really interesting to me because a lot of it is similar to the work I was doing for my internship at Haworth Marketing + Media this summer, but on a much smaller scale. I think maybe down the road after I've learned all I can about marketing in the agency world, I'd love to work in house for a non-profit. We shall see!
Danish university students are apparently not concerned about their privacy on Facebook
I wrapped up Monday by working on a group research project. We went around and interviewed Danish university students about their social media use and thoughts about social media privacy. From the incredibly huge sample size of 8 people, I learned that Facebook is used a lot to create events or private message or post about more official things, like looking for a roommate. Instagram is used for fun everyday posts. Twitter for news. But most of the students said they didn't post much, and that privacy didn't really bother them because they didn't post much anyway. Alright.
Learning about how #BoysWillBeBoys and Fireworks at HOLM Communications
On Tuesday, Core Course Week continued! We started off the day with a trip to HOLM Communications, a PR agency in Cope. It was cool. They have about 30 people and that's a fairly mid-sized agency in Copenhagen. They told us about a campaign they ran for the Danish National Safety Squad (or whatever their actual name is -- it doesn't translate that well into English, but know it's not quite that haha) about setting off fireworks safely. They actually coupled with Khora VR to make a simulation of a firework hitting you. Their goal was to reach the young male audience, ages 18-35 because they are the most likely to launch fireworks while drunk and not reading the instructions. So what I learned from HOLM is that A. Young men are stupid all around the world #FrontalLobeDevelopment and B. That fireworks are totally legal in Denmark so catch me spending NYE2020 here.
HOLM Communications
Making flødeboller!
The setup
Starting out
My little dudes
Their chocolate machine (top item on my Christmas list this year)
Chocolate dipping
How they are supposed to look
How mine looks
Learning about the CRAZY Danish royals at Rosenborg
I had Wednesday off so I decided to be adventurous, and rode my bike over to Rosenborg Castle. And lemme tell you what. This is the castle to see. The Danish Royals are WILD. I don't know if it's because the country was small enough that just nobody cared what they did with their time and money... Except Denmark actually wasn't small in the early 1600s... They had most of Scandinavia? So maybe the Danes are just a rather puckish people, but wow. Just, a lot went down.
The Royal Umbilical Cords, preserved for good luck
First, let's talk about Christian IV. This went around building things all over Copenhagen because he could. Cool. Built Rosenborg maybe as a romantic gesture for his wife? But maybe not. He installed secret panels in the floor so that he could trick his guests into thinking that he was conjuring music from thin air, but he actually just had musicians playing down below. He also installed speaking tubes and just kept added to the castle because why not? So much so that there is a whole room called The Dark Room™because he blocked all the windows to build a turret or something.
Kirsten Munk and Christian IV
Here's how I imagine this went:
Christian IV: Let's make it MORE
The architects: *Not again!* ... ugh, majesty, you realize there won't be any light in thi-
Christian IV: I SAID MORE!
The architects: Well listen, maybe you could have thought of that five years ago when we started this whole process of building you HGTV Dream House, but now we're kinda far down the line
Christian IV: I AM THE KING!
The architects: Yes, but you know we did actually study architecture and maybe you should actually focus on the Thirty Years War you're about to enter and lose, crushing our economy and leaving you to die slightly disgraced, but sure by all means, tell us how to do OUR job, you'll still be remembered as one of the most popular Danish kings
Christian IV: Butler, please put them in the royal dungeon until they have changed their minds.
The architects: *sigh* That won't be necessary. Turret it is.
Not to mention, he also thought it would be really cool to save his bloody clothing from a battle with Sweden where he lost his eye. (More on Sweden later because that is also wild and petty af).
Okay, now let's shift gears and talk about his second royal wife, Kirsten Munk. Christian had his eye on Kirsten, but Kristen's mom Ellen was NOT having a mistress as a daughter. So she told Christan if he wanted Kirsten, he had to marry her. So he did and it probably went just fine for a while because she had not one, not two, but TWELVE of his children. But then she spotted this dashing young German officer and they, you know, adulterated. And the king found out. And exiled her. But not without first (and now these details are murky, I'm going off what I heard in the audio guide but I have not been able to confirm it elsewhere) getting a stone ring in the shape of a penis, and engraving it with the date of her betrayal, and in Latin writing something along the lines of, "As long as she wears this ring, this is all the penis she will get". Ya. Told you it was crazy.
Now the next king, Frederick III, had some lovely wax figures of himself, Queen Sophie Amelie, and their son, Prince George made, in the style of Madame Tussaud's. Ya. And they are still there, looking like creepy 25¢ fortune tellers, in, you guessed it, the room with the creepiest name, The Dark Room. And as a prank, he had a chair that grabbed the person sitting in it with little metal arms that popped out of the armrest and then soaked the seat with a gallon of water. Now if that wasn't enough humiliation for the unsuspecting noble, the chair would then play loud circus music as soon as its victim stood up. What fun is a prank if nobody sees it?
Frederick III
Sophie Amelie's wax figure
Prank chair
Christian V had a room made to supposedly resemble the hall of mirrors in Versailles... I'm sorry it looks like the inside of a tin lunch box. But that's still better than Frederick IV, who dedicated the room next to it to his personal erotica collection. I am not making this stuff up, people!
Christian V
In Christian VII's hall, there is a bust of the Crown Prince, and Carl. And you're probably thinking, who is Carl? And the answer is, we don't reaaaaally know. Because Carl is a random commoner that the Crown Prince had to play with as part of "the modern upbringing of the time". I seriously about died reading that. Hahahaahahaha. Oh, Carl.
The whole castle is absolutely gorgeous and has some of the most amazing Danish treasures inside, including the crown jewels, the famous silver lions, the porcelain cabinet collection, the glass cabinet collection (looks like something straight out of the genie's cave in Aladdin) and Frederick IV's erotica collection (kidding, that's not there, to my knowledge!) The whole trip absolutely blew away my expectations, and if you feel like visiting one of Copenhagen's 12 thousand royal castles, I recommend you visit Rosenborg.
A horrible picture of the porcelain cabinet
Media Evolution City
Thursday, Core Course Week was back on, and we were off to Malmö. We went to their really cool non-profit coworking space, called Media Evolution City. Without getting too in the weeds, they are a member organization with about 300 companies, 150 of which have offices on site. They are dedicated to the practice of knowledge sharing and embrace start-up and tech culture. They host a big TED-Talk style conference every year and have monthly learning themes, to support their ideal of knowledge sharing. It was really really cool, and I think they're definitely on to something. Plus, the cafe was yummy!!!
@ Media Evolution City
Bike Tour of Malmö
I'm gonna tell you right now, one thing you DON'T need to do is a bike tour of Malmö. Malmö is an industrial port town, that recently began drawing a lot of big tech companies and startups, leading to recent gentrification and revitalization. It's a really interesting little town, but there aren't really enough sites to see to justify a bike tour. And our bike tour was especially interesting... We had a foreign, not Swedish guide, who was actually a freelance biker. He didn't actually work for the tour company. He tried so hard. But he was mmmm, not fantastic. Really not. And then it started to rain. I got a flat tire, even though our guide insisted I didn't. I'm going to tell you right now, I know what a flat tire looks like. And I know when my bike isn't riding right. And I had a flat tire. He said "You don't have a flat tire. But maybe we'll find a pump along the way". What the...? Now, maybe there actually are pumps along the road in Sweden, I don't know. But I'm going to tell you right now, he never stopped to find one. Then it started pouring, and by the time we got back to the shop, it was CLOSED?! And because he's freelance, he didn't have a key. Jesus. It was a WHOLE debacle and frankly, not worth it. Because, like I said, while Malmö is interesting, there really aren't a lot of actual sites to bike to. But I survived! And got some exercise.
After our bike tour
Dinner at Eatery Social Taqueria, and the beginning of the end
We did not starve on this trip, I can tell you that. We were well fed. We had dinner that night at Eatery Social Taqueria, and I would recommend. What I would not recommend is sitting next to the two boys in the class, who thought it would be a genius idea to pregame dinner with a bunch of vodka shots. And I'm not unreasonable, okay. I kind of get it if they were going out to a club straight after. But remember how I said there's not a lot in Malmö? There aren't a whole lot of clubs (to my knowledge) and they had no idea if they were going to go out after dinner. (Sweden actually has really strict alcohol laws, and you can only buy it in designated state-owned liquor stores, before 3 o'clock or in bars. But it's not really a party culture. I say this based on a total of 5 days I've ever in Sweden.) The food was really good though. We had our choice of beer, red or white wine, little make your own, family-style taco plates, and churros with ice cream and mango sauce for dessert!
Churro
But before dessert, it hit. I could tell I was getting a cold. And it was coming on fast. I ended up leaving early with my two professors, Mie and Mette, and they walked me back to the hotel. Both professors were a little bit tipsy, and Mie suggested I take a shot of tequila and sit in the hotel sauna and I really think I am in love with Denmark.
Älmhult IKEA museum
So I went to sleep early and rallied enough to hop on a 2-hour bus ride to Älmhult. You might have assumed, like me, that the original IKEA is in Stockholm. Not so! It is in the founder, Ingvar Kamprad's, hometown of Älmhult, about 500km south-west of Stockholm.
A map, for your reference
The museum is a little out of the way, but it's worth it. It was actually originally made for IKEA employees to learn about the company values and culture but has since been opened to the public. The first IKEA store opened in 1958 and was born out of this idea to make the bourgeoise lifestyle and modern home smarter, more efficient, and available to the everyday consumer, post-WWII. The museum starts with a replica of a traditional Swedish home and talks about how the form and function worked for the family. And then you progress through new home styles, and you see how the modern family influenced IKEA, but also how IKEA began to influence the modern family and home. It's actually quite fascinating. It was an incredibly modern idea of a brand, for the 1950s. They say that "IKEA doesn't sell furniture, it sells a lifestyle". Which is a pretty modern idea. Really worth the visit. The only disappointment was that the actual IKEA store was 3km away. Not close enough for a walk over there. :( My sick body was freezing and uncomfortable, so I did buy a fleece IKEA blanket in their little gift shop. I snuggled up on the bus ride home.
Traditional Swedish home
Pastis and pétanque
That night, we ate at a french restaurant called Boulebar, where we had French onion soup, duck, and a fair amount of the licorice liquor, pastis. Since I did not tequila and sauna the other night, as an alternative, Mie thought the herbs in pastis might clear up my sinuses. And you know what? She was right. It did help for a little bit. We rounded out the evening by breaking up into teams to play pétanque, a French bocce ball-esque game, on their indoor courts. My team lost one game but won the other. And I was actually pretty good at it! (But maybe that's the pastis talking!)
Pétanque
Ferry to Elsinore and Hamlet's Kronborg
I was too sick to join the morning hike in the Swedish wilds, so I sat in the sun and read, wrapped up in my $6 IKEA blanket. When the troop was back, we loaded up and set out for the ferry to Elsinore, Denmark. It was a 20min ride, and what made me laugh, was that the Danes on board were really excited to shop in the Duty-Free Store, because there were no taxes and it was cheaper than shopping in Denmark. (Along that same vein, I also learned that it's much cheaper to shop in Sweden, too. Which is good to know because I lost my rain jacket on this trip, and I'm going to have to buy a new one. So catch me back in Malmö real soon!)
Approaching Elsinore from the water
We arrived in Elsinore in time for a yummy lunch of traditional Danish open-faced sandwiches, smorg børge. I didn't think I'd like them very much, because alone, I'm not a huge fan of a lot of the ingredients, but together on the sandwich, they actually tasted really good. And I needed the energy to make it through our guided tour of Kronborg, "In Hamlet's Footsteps".
Smorg Børge
While Shakespeare never actually visited Kronborg, his troop did perform there for a while, and he based his Hamlet story off this castle. I also learned that Shakespeare didn't really come up with the Hamlet story, it's actually based on a Danish folk story called Amleth, first written down in the 12th century by Saxo Grammaticus. Our tour was awesome because it was led by an actor in full-Shakespearian garb, who portrayed the character, Horatio. He led us around the castle all while telling the story of Hamlet. In August, they actually put on Hamlet and play different scenes in different rooms of the castle.
Horatio
This wasn't my favorite part of the castle though. My favorite was that you can actually see bats in the basement during the winter, and so they sell a bunch of plush bats and flashlights in the gift shop. And the courtyard fountain. So the Danes and the Swedes have fought over 200 wars against each other. Ya. That's a lot. And Kronborg is riiiight across the water from Sweden. So way back during the Little Ice Age, that channel froze over. And the Swedes seized this opportunity to run across the water to attack. They stole Kronborg and set up inside. They tore down the center-piece of the castle courtyard, the fountain, and melted it down into cannonballs, and then shot those cannonballs at the Danes. Kind of a major f-you. So in retaliation, the Danes made a law that if you see a Swede crossing the ice, you can "hit them with a stick"*. Yes. I really love the Danes.
A topographical bronze rendition of Kronborg
Inside Kronborg's courtyard
*Note: It is unclear whether or not this law is still in place. Mostly because I did not look. Because I want to believe that it is still in place and so don't want to dash my hopes by checking.
Home to bed
I made it home at about 4 o'clock on Saturday, only to realize I had forgotten my keys in my room. I couldn't get in the building. So sick old me sat in the court yeard until some of my housemates came home and let me in. Where I collapsed on my bed and have yet to leave, 2 days later. Please raise a glass of pastis to my good health!
And now, I'm going to take a nap so I can be healthy for my trip to Finland this weekend! Here we come, Helsinki!
xo,
Cristiana
Comments
Post a Comment