| b i o g r a p h y o f k i i a k a l l i o |
| I was born in 1973 in Vantaa, Finland.
From the early childhood I have had great interest in arts and I was a
pupil in various visual arts schools. I got my first computer, Commodore
Amiga 500, at the age of 15, and quickly started to use it for self-expression,
I was making graphics and animation as well as programming. In 1989, we
formed a demo group "Aggression" with a couple of my friends. Demos
are audio-visual productions combining code, graphics and music, and my
role in the group was to be a graphic artist and a programmer. Aggression
received several high prizes with its demos during years 1991-1993, as
well as my pictures brought me top three places in all the graphics competitions
I attended at demo parties.
In 1989 I also started my secondary schools studies at Helsinki High school of Arts (Helsingin kuvataidelukio). I graduated with grade Laudatur in 1992. In 1992 I also attended a national mathematics competition and won the second place, which gave me free entrance to the studies in computer science at Helsinki University of Technology. It soon turned out that computer science was not the right choice, and the next year I changed to study at the Department of Architecture at the same school. Still searching for the right subject to study, I spent year 1994-1995 at University of Art and Design Helsinki studying industrial design, but decided to return to study architecture. To finance my studies, I started doing miscellaneous graphic design tasks as a freelance artist in 1991. I had also held courses in computer graphics at the Visual Arts School of Kerava - the same school where I was a pupil as a kid starting from 1991, all the way to year 2000. 1994 I got a new part-time job as an illustrator in Internal Communications of Finnish Broadcasting Company. In 1995 a couple of my friends started a company called Remedy Entertainment, and I became involved in their computer game projects. As there was more and more interesting work to do, my studies were getting less attention. In Finnish Broadcasting Company I moved to a new position and became a web designer in the Intranet project of the company in 1996. The Intranet got off well and became a success within the company. It also gained prizes in web competitions of The Finnish Association of Communicators: in 1997 it earned the third prize, and in 1999 it got the first prize in the new Intranet category launched that year. At Remedy Entertainment I worked as a graphic designer and programmer in a game called "Guntech". The project was unfortunately discontinued in the beginning of 1997, as the publisher got into financial trouble before the game was finished. In 1997 I moved to another project at Remedy, a game called "Max Payne". This became so intense job that I had to leave my part-time job at Finnish Broadcasting Company in the end of 1998. In Max Payne my role was mainly to illustrate the graphic novel that was used for storytelling in the game. It took four long years to finish the game, but the results were astonishing: the game charted number one all around the world, and gained several prizes, including BAFTA Award of the best PC game in 2001. After Max Payne was finished, I moved away from Remedy Entertainment, and joined Fathammer, a company developing 3d game engines for mobile devices. As my studies in architecture had suffered
from my work, and graduation seemed to be far away, I decided to do something
else: as I had gained a lot of experience in the field of New Media, formal
education on the subject seemed a good idea. I applied to a Master's program
in New Media at the Media Lab of University
of Art and Design Helsinki in 2000, and started my studies there. Currently
I am making my final thesis for Fathammer, and I'm planning to graduate
during year 2002.
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