Studying futures that do not exist yet – Oğuz ‘Oz’ Buruk uses play to explore what technology could make us become

The bread-making workshop begins like many university events: people gather around a table and discuss ideas. Except this time, there are microphones hidden in the dough. That’s done to explore how bread hears the world. 

 For associate professor Oğuz ‘Oz’ Buruk, moments like these are a natural part of his work. As the head of Tampere University’s Gameful Futures Lab, he spends his days exploring how play can help people develop technologies and futures that do not exist yet. 

"In research, we usually try to make things unplayful in a way, right? Here we do the opposite. We want to make it more playful, more uncertain, more messy." 

Buruk’s interest in games started long before his academic career. 

He says he began modifying games when he was around seven years old. At the time, he played football games like FIFA and wanted to learn how to create custom jerseys and import them into the game. 

"It was fascinating for me, because until then I never thought it would be possible to put anything I designed myself with external tools into games", he explains. 

The experience sparked an interest not only in games but also in designing things. Growing up in Turkey in the beginning of the 2000s, game-related degree programmes were not common there, or anywhere else in the world. That’s why Buruk ended up studying industrial product design for his bachelor’s at Istanbul Technical University. 

After completing his studies, Buruk continued into interaction design at Koç University, Istanbul, where he worked on projects involving wearable devices for games and alternative ways of interacting with games.  

Not predicting the future, but playing with it 

Buruk’s road led to leading Gameful Futures Lab, which is a multidisciplinary group of around 15 researchers. The lab includes people from fields ranging from social sciences and engineering, architecture, fashion design, and interaction design. 

Buruk describes the lab as both design-oriented and future-oriented. Researchers create prototypes, concepts, and playful experiences to explore questions about future technologies and societies rather than simply developing new products. 

The idea behind the laboratory is not to predict the future but to create experiences that help researchers understand how people might react to future technologies and situations. The group studies topics from extended reality and wearable technologies to biomaterials and human alteration.  

Many of the projects involve speculative design and design fiction.  

"We use design not for inventing better states, but we use it to question futures, to kind of critically engage with what is awaiting us."  

One example is “chameleon skin” that speculates about a future where humans possess skins that could change colours and patterns. The researchers used the idea to explore questions about identity, communication, and social expectations rather than to predict an actual future technology. 

The group is particularly interested in examining possibilities as well as risks. Rather than jumping directly to solutions, researchers try to better understand the broader problem. 

"It is called anti-solutionism." 

Photo: Mira Kokko

A walk with a robot in a forest revealed emotions in humans 

 One project that the lab did was a study on how people experience a forest environment with a robot companion. 

Participants walked in a forest alongside a robot that they thought was walking by itself. In reality, researchers were partly controlling it remotely. 

The aim was not primarily to test the robot itself, but the researchers wanted to understand how the participants experienced the robot companion, the walk, and the surrounding environment. 

The results surprised them. 

The robot was a very high-end, type of cutting-edge and sophisticated technology, from Boston Dynamics, costing north of a hundred thousand euros. While it was well capable of handling regular movements on its own, many participants treated the robot as if it needed care. 

"People approached that robot as kind of a vulnerable being. A few of them were in this care mode, trying to be careful when the robot was crossing the street. It was their projection of how they would act around any other being that needed help", Buruk explains. 

The project offered a glimpse into how people might relate to robots in future everyday situations.  

A conference trip that changed Buruk’s future 

Buruk visited Tampere for the first time in 2016 when he came to present a paper at the Academic Mindtrek conference. At the time, he had no idea he would later move to the city. 

– I was at the conference all the time, but my spouse, Seda Suman Buruk, came here with me and had time to see around the city. I think this ended up being a pivotal moment. 

After completing his PhD, a job opportunity in the Gamification Group in Tampere appeared. He already knew the city had an appeal because of its strong reputation in games research. But he did not know how it would be for living. He asked his spouse for an opinion on whether Tampere would be a good city to live in. 

The answer was yes. 

Today, Buruk has lived in Finland for eight years. Outside work, he still enjoys playing games. He also likes travelling and spending time at Finnish summer cottages. 

"I’m really happy that my job didn’t kill my love for playing", Buruk emphasizes.  

Before moving to Finland, music was also a major part of his life: he played in a rock band in Turkey and hopes to take that hobby back one day. For now, a big part of his time goes into research, teaching, and leading the lab. 

And most importantly, into asking questions about futures that do not exist yet.