Bryn Oh

Immersiva

2012-01-29T14:09:00.000-05:00

First of all I would like to thank everyone for the incredible support shown for the crowd funder to keep Immersiva online. When I was in high school I was convinced to be in a fund raiser where I was auctioned off on a stage in front of the whole school. The idea was you would be someones slave for a week carrying their books and walking them home or whatever they wanted. Fortunately and unfortunately I worked out in advance with a friend to buy me if nobody else bid. I said I would pay half. It was a good idea I did that because it was uncomfortably silent when I came on the stage. Someone did bid for me and my damn friend kept outbidding them with my money!
When someone suggested I try a crowd funder I kept thinking about being on that silent stage in front of a few thousand students. What if nobody donated? It makes you a bit anxious. I set up the crowd funder to last 60 days which I figured should be enough time to get at least some of the money and so I was shocked and touched when the total was reached in one day. So I am happy to say that Immersiva will be back.. in fact it is already back but will be used for a date perk by one of the donators. The crowd funder has to run the full duration so I will not be sent the donations until it closes but it is safe to say that Immersiva will be around for a while yet. On the 1st it will open with Standby the third and final part of the Rabbicorn story. That will be up a month or two while I film.

I did an analogy in a post a few weeks ago where I suggested the roots of the Linden tree were made up of old time Lindens who knew the community, and as each was let go by the Lab those roots were severed thus weakening the tree. I have come to realize after this experience that those roots are actually made up of the residents of this virtual world and the majority of Lindens really only ever were the initial seed that took root.

I wouldn't say Linden Labs screwed up everything as the image above might suggest, in fact I think they have done many great things but the picture is funny and I wanted to use it. I do however think something very important needs to be publicly stated by them. They need to tell us that should Second Life ever come to an end they will allow the users to go to another grid with all their possessions. That they will allow us to download an OAR file to our computer with all our stuff on it or all that is legally ours to take. As a creator this experience has shown me that my work can easily cease to exist so what needs to be done is to have it exist simultaneously on a variety of grids so it wont be lost. On other grids users are able to have control of their own work and can move it from grid to grid or throughout the hypergrid. Linden Labs should consider making Second Life the entertainment and economy grid with other grids hosting the community where land is around $20 a month compared to $295 and people can spend freely. Linden Labs can create transfer fees or charge for OAR files to try to make up for what they would lose in land rental but I really don't see the current pricing system lasting. I am not going to pretend to know the finances of LL and this is all merely speculation but it seems to me that something needs to be done. A new creative approach that may hurt in the short term but will ensure long term success.
Anyway, thank you everyone for the support it really means more to me than I can properly express.

Immersiva crowd funder

2012-01-18T10:24:00.002-05:00

     I had said that there was some good news coming up and there is! Cannes winning director Peter Greenaway has very generously offered to pay six months of tier for Immersiva. I have tried to think of a way to express just how much this means to me but I lack the words. It was just very unexpected and rewarding to know that he appreciates my work and would take steps to help.
     Numerous people have asked how they could help bring Immersiva back and up until now I have really just hoped Linden Labs would come up with something. They didn't and I can't honestly blame them as it would have set a precident that could well have come back to haunt them. I don't deserve a free sim more than any other artist using this virtual world as a medium, but having said that I would have also loved to see them break their own rules and set that new pecident... then deal with it. Change the whole way they do business. It was worth a try even if the chances of success were low.
     I have spoken to a variety of people and after some thought have decided to try a crowd funder to see what happens. If you click the banner below it will take you there or you can click here.

It will run for 60 days and one unique part of this website is that it allows for people who donate to recieve "perks". You can see all the perks on the right side of the page if you go there. But for example with some donations I will do original pen and ink drawings or oil paintings as perks. But let me stress that you should only donate if you can afford to do so. I don't want anyone to put themselves in a bad position over this.

     The money raised will be used to bring back Immersiva for a year and a half which would let me fulfill obligations for my Government grant. I will also be able to work on a new project called "Virginia Alone" which you can read about in an interview I did for a newish SL magazine called Rez.   They have a website here but their main focus is in creating prim in world magazines. The interview questions were great and in the first question I explain Virginia Alone. I will send it out again in my in world group Immersiva or you can just ask Jami Mills for a copy. It is actually a two part interview that continues next month.

     The first thing that would happen would be rebuilding Standby which is the third and final part to the Rabbicorn story then I would film it. Essentially I will just keep doing what I have been for the last four years or so. I guess it is closer to five years now but yes I would continue creating Immersive environments and narratives and try to see if Bryn can continue to make her mark both inside our virtual world and outside amongst the flesh and blood ones.
     I would like to say that the crowd funder has only been up one day so far and it is just wonderful to see the support already. I really do appreciate all the kind words and encouragement.

Update to Immersiva

2012-01-09T23:12:00.000-05:00

Kiana Writer (Madpea) and I wrote a joint proposal (which you can read below) in an attempt to get Linden Labs to help us keep our projects within Second Life. We were hoping that Linden Labs would see us as worth supporting considering that it would only cost them the unmarked-up expenditure of a region which for them is next to nothing. And Second Life is littered with unused Linden Land. To actually pay us for what we do would be considerably more. We felt it was a long shot but figured that there was no harm in trying, and we might be pleasantly surprised. Unfortunately Linden Labs declined.

I have always tried to see things from both sides over the years and, if possible, balance the slagging of Linden Labs with some positive things. So in their defense I will say that they may have feared setting a precedence by giving land free to us.

It is hard to explain how I feel about their rejection. I think somewhere inside I had hoped they were aware of what the residents did, but watched from afar. I am a bit naive. There actually were Lindens who did know the community at one time like Pathfinder Linden, Blue Linden, Teagan Linden and so on but they are now long gone. With each turnover of a long term Linden a root of the Linden tree was severed. As more and more go there are less deep roots to keep the tree grounded. To me it feels like our Linden tree is now only held down by noob Lindens whose roots don't go deep enough, and one day a strong wind will come to topple that tree. I think what has changed for me recently is that I no longer am loyal to the one large tree but rather to the growing forest around it.

All is not bad though and I hope to relay some good news very soon.

January 1st, 2012

Recently the estates of DusanWriter were closed down. Two of theprojects that were supported by Dusan as a patron were a region calledImmersiva an ever changing narrative created by Bryn Oh and another region hosting Madpea asuccessful games oriented experience headed by Kiana Writer.

Unfortunately neither Bryn norKiana are financially able to afford to maintain a region in Second Life andhave relied on the generosity of Dusan as a patron.

Bryn Oh has been creating inSecond Life for four years bringing engaging content to the residents in thevirtual world as well as garnering positive media coverage of the platformoutside the "walled garden". Bryn is an active member of the art community working as a member of theLEA(Linden Endowment for the Arts) to encourage artists to make use of thismedium. Example 1 (the path) 2 (the avatar games)

Bryn Oh is the ghost artist of aToronto oil painter. Bryn's interest invirtual worlds began as an attempt to create an artist unaligned with a RLidentity. The idea was to see if a pixel character could become successful andaccepted as an artist in first life alongside flesh and blood ones. I see whatwe do in virtual worlds as the frontier to a new medium with the capability tocreate unique forms of art.

So far Bryn's work has been shown at Nuit Blanche, the World Expo in Shanghai (Madrid Pavilion), with IBM, in moviessuch as "My avatar and me"or in projects with people such as Cannes winning director Peter Greenaway(Big Bang) and artist Stelarc. A Web 3 D Conference presenter in Paris, France as well as profiled onRAI TV in Italy and Art 21. Bryn exhibits in various Universitiesworldwide and is also on the syllabus of many. Currently Bryn is the subject ofthree Thesis works and has just received a New Media grant from the Canadian Government. The government grant is to produce a 30minute machinima (Bryn Oh is even mentioned in thiswikipedia definition under sound) and an exhibit in a museum or gallery whichwould incorporate Second Life using virtual reality headsets and incorporatingscent and wind for an narrative created on Immersiva. In September Bryn was written about in Vogue magazine (Italy) and exhibited at a museum inRome(RL -Museo in Commune) of Second Life work. Over the years Bryn has created positivemedia coverage for Second Life as an artists medium and has created qualitycontent for the residents of this virtual world as seen by the numerousdestination guide entries you, Linden Labs, have posted. I haveincluded a reference from director Peter Greenaway.

Kiana Writer is a Finnish storywriter, who started MadPea in2008 completely from scratch. She could see the potential SL offered to makeher stories become a reality. Facing serious difficulties in her rl, sheescaped to SL to share her experiences and guidance to a small group of peopleat first. Introducing different topics of life in her games and making peopleunite and solve problems together got people interested straight away. MadPea’spotential was immediatelly noticed by Orange, who became sponsors, giving MadPea the space to create. After Orange’s departure, Dusan Writergenerously wanted to take over the sponsorship, so that MadPea would have ahome.

MadPea has been providing high-quality entertainment,immersive and interactive stories and adventures for tens of thousands ofresidents and have been collaborating with hundreds of SL landowners withgrid-wide hunts to help boost their traffic and raise awareness of theirbusinesses. The following MadPea games and attractions have been featured inthe Destination Guide: Firefly (made forOrange), The Kaaos Effect (made for Orange) , MadPeaHQ on Orange, Reaction (made for Sigma -Aldrich), Notes from the Voyage (made for MacMillan Publishers),MadPea Circus (in collaboration with Dusan Writer), Devil's Labyrinth, HoshiIsland, MadPea Base, Virtual Medical Doctor, Dead Man's Hand Hunt, Lost Souls Hunt, Peaster's Castle,Peatonville Asylum, MadPea Social Area and MadPea Winterland.

The MadPea creations have been blogged, photographed and filmed in numerous places. MadPea Crew consists of several talentedartists, scripters and community managers from all over the world. The plan forthe MadPea Island was to collaborate with artists such as Bryn Oh, MadcowCosmos, Eolene Uralia, Photon Pink and Scottius Polke to create a fresh newapproach into community living inside a world of quests.

MadPea is not only about games, our active community is oneof the biggest ones in Second Life. We have nearly 4000 members and the numberskeep rising. We have help available to players 24/7 and offer support to thosewho are new to SL. We arrange events daily allowing people to communicate witheach other and meet like-minded people.

What we are asking is for LindenLabs to provide both of us our regions at no cost for a year’s duration tocontinue our work here in Second Life which benefits both of us as creators andLinden Labs who will benefit from high caliber content created for itsusers. After a one year duration theopportunity to be considered for ongoing support upon review of our achievementsover the supported period. It is ourhope that Linden Labs will recognize our contribution to the health of SecondLife and will see this proposal as an investment in its own future.

Bryn Oh

Kiana Writer

Marketplace me

2011-12-23T13:40:00.003-05:00

Still no word on the fate of Immersiva. Some have been asking where to collect my artwork with my shop gone and so I have begun to put things on marketplace. I guess that I should have done it ages ago but just never really thought about it. You can find my shop here..
https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/102673

Above is one called Cerulean and if you click it
there is the machinima inside.
Cerulean machinima

Above here is 26 tines. It was originally created for the University of Texas. If you click the robot boy inside the jar it will take you to the machinima story of the two lonely robots who connect by a cable late at night when the scientists are gone home.
26 tines machinima

Above and to the right are two scenes from a recent build called "Family Unit" which I made for MiC or Museo in Comtempori in Rome.

To the left here is Gretchen and Teddy. Two more characters who were part of the narrative for Immersiva. By clicking her you will be taken to their machinima story.
Gretchen and Teddy machinima

To the right here is the Rabbicorn. Still have to put up the Daughter of Gears and others but it is a start. By clicking her nose you will get a poem and a music box chime to go with it. By typing "Rabbicorn" in local chat you will activate the base to open exposing a second poem.

Anna's fox is also there. Actually the one below is too. It is called Run Rabbit Run. They are both from a scene in a build called Anna's Many Murders which you can see here...
Anna's Many Murders machinima

I will continue putting things on marketplace as I get time. If there is something in particular you wanted to get then just message me and I will make it a priority. If it is something you need by Christmas then message me and I will find it for you. But I am leaving to visit my parents tomorrow so you kind of have to message me now if you want it for Christmas.

Immersiva closed

2011-12-12T20:20:00.002-05:00

Unfortunately some unforeseen circumstances arose whereby Immersiva has now been closed. In fact it has ceased to exist as it doesn't even show up on the map. Sorry if you came to the opening of Standby on Sunday but sadly that was the day it went offline. Many of you have been asking what is going on and to be honest I really don't know too much. When I do and know what my future holds and where, I will post it here.

I was reminiscing about Immersiva and I was not sure if I posted this before, but the photo above was a project I did for Nuit Blanche a few years ago. Immersiva was played on hundreds of video screens across the entire subway system in Toronto over one night for an art event. It was quite surreal to see it up there with all the people bustling around. Anyway, hopefully everything will work out but thought I should let people know who have been trying to get to Immersiva for Standby.

Standby opening on Immersiva

2011-12-06T13:06:00.001-05:00

I will be filming Standby, the third and final chapter to the Rabbicorn story on Immersiva over the next little while and it will be open to anyone who missed it while it was at IBM. I have also put out some of the sketches I did while I was brainstorming ideas, as well as a poem that didn't make it into the final narrative. If you don't know the Daughter of Gears and Rabbicorn story up to Standby then really you need to watch them or it wont make much sense. Unfortunately I had to remove both of those builds from in world as Standby is just under 15, 000 prims and needed the whole sim. You can still see the machinima though.

Here is a link to the first part The Daughter of Gears

And the second part The Rabbicorn Story

Here is the SLURL to Immersiva
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Immersiva/25/127/21

It will be open to the public at the latest this Sunday the 11th of December, but I may open it earlier if I get the bugs out before then. Figured out an interesting new use for sky presets in the build too. You will need to be using Firestorm viewer to experience them though.

Treet.tv interview with Path artists

2011-12-04T15:24:00.001-05:00

Tricia Aferdita from treet.tv interviewed Colin Fizgig, Marcus Inkpen, Douglas Story & Rose Borchovski from our recent build "The Path". Which is here.. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/LEA2/178/185/23 if you have not seen it.

Some fun insight into what each was thinking when they created their part of the build. And it also contains definitive proof that Douglas Story is an oddball. Just kidding .. much more testing is needed.

MiC and Vogue update

2011-11-23T12:12:00.001-05:00

This is a post just to update some things from a month or so ago. The machinima above was created by Mexi Lane for the Museum in Contempori (MiC) of my work called Family Unit. She did a wonderful job to record it which is great because I didn't get much footage of the build for myself. The build was quite successful with over 10, 000 visitors to MiC. I am sure they didn't all come to see my build but lets pretend they did. Thank you Mexi for inviting me to show and it was fun to know it was being shown in Rome at the same time.

The other update is for the Vogue magazine article. I still think it is pretty interesting that Bryn, a digital characters, was written about in a magazine for humans. There was no mention nor inquiry into who is behind Bryn Oh and that acceptance goes in the opposite direction to where other social media demand a connection to ones real life. Facebook for example no doubt demands our personal information because companies will not purchase info that will not lead them to a bank account. What they don't seem to understand yet, is that anonymous accounts still have bank accounts but they often are just used as barriers or filters to prevent intrusion into our real life.
I have an email I use just for filling out forms online that may end up filling my email with spam. So if I buy a new monitor from Samsung for example, they will require i fill out a registration to get help if I need it in the future. I will give them my info but for my name I will put Bryn Samsung or Bryn Monitor. Then if I get an email in a few months saying Dear Bryn Samsung we want to sell you so and so. I then know it was Samsung who sold my personal info to whoever just contacted me. My point though is that I create a barrier to filter everyone who is trying to get at my money from those who are important to me such as family and friends. I think companies will do whatever they can to prevent this from happening but really the people have the power and they will do as we say if we end up pushing the matter.

It was just my luck that the article was printed in a special month where the magazines price was inflated to $65. Sigh. It is embarrassing to spend that much when I know I will just put it in a box somewhere. I have attempted to place the magazine precariously on the edge of a bookshelf so that when friends come by they may accidentally knock it off thus starting a conversation about me being in the magazine. Maybe if I bend it enough it may even open up to the exact page of the article when it hits the floor. Sadly my friends are more coordinated than I am. Anyway here are two jpegs of the magazine. All joking aside I was flattered to be mentioned. The translation can be read here if you would like to see what they said about the artists. http://brynoh.blogspot.com/2011/09/i-have-few-things-to-mention-today.html

Game Mechanics

2011-11-16T10:07:00.001-05:00

The other day Viale Linden gave me a landmark to a portal sitting in the middle of an empty region. It would seem that Linden Labs are beta testing game tools for builders. I asked when these tools might become available but alas no response. This is kind of off topic, but one thing I have learned recently, is that business people never seem to respond, or sometimes answer different questions if they don't know the answer to something you have asked. It is like somewhere along the line it has become taboo to say "I don't know the answer to your question". I am not sure but I think people must go through dialogue training somewhere. As an artist I just make things and as such I am not accustomed to this if it actually does exist. I am not just talking about Linden Labs either just in general it seems to be everywhere. It is hard to explain but here is a typical example of what I might experience.

Bryn- "Are there any apples in your bag?"
L-"Fruit may be made available"
Bryn-"hmm yes but do you have an apple in that bag?"
L-"Apples are nutritious"
Bryn-"ok well if there is an apple in that bag could you pass me one because I am hungry"
L-"We would prefer if you took the apple yourself"
Bryn-"yes but you are right beside.. and why did you say we? It is just me and you here... ok nevermind I will come get one"
Bryn"This bag is full of Meeroos"
L"Yes"
Bryn-"Why didn't you just tell me there were no apples in it?"
L-"It's not my bag, I have not seen inside it"

Ok that last part might be inaccurate since they likely wouldn't tell you they didn't know what was inside it.

So back to the real blog post. I went through some of the game they were testing and it was pretty fun. I ran around with PatriaAnne Daviau and Ziki Questi for a while and it was kind of funny seeing people rush past with an angry rock creature chasing them. So essentially when you arrive a hud appears on your screen without you having to wear it. That would be handy for hosting events or even forcing windlights. I guess these are some restrained life viewer traits being used. How naughty. The idea was to collect different coloured crystals in order to make things out of them. I don't know if you could actually trade them in for things but it seemed that could be an eventual goal. I collected a stink load of crystals and then had to find a big cannon to shoot. After I shot the cannon I received 1L and a link to marketplace. I realize it was just a beta test but I sure felt ripped off for all that work. The only thing I can compare it to was cutting my grandmothers grass with this old rusty dull motorless lawn mower when I was 12. I loved my Gran and would have done it for free, in fact I think I thought I was doing it for free, but when she gave me a Loonie for all that struggle it somehow put an unfavorable price on my hard work. And a Loonie is what we call a dollar here in Canada. She gave me one dollar.
In the end though I think it is a great idea to put in game tools. Not because I am itching to make a game but rather because I can imagine the tools being incorporated into experiences far beyond what they were originally intended.

Here is one portal to the game. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Immersiva/128/128/23
It is only open to premium users right now so if you have a basic account you can't get there. It should be opened up to all users once the testing is done.

Gretchen and Teddy

2011-11-07T12:50:00.001-05:00

Gretchen and Teddy is a work commissioned by Thalia Heckroth for the Costa Rica Sims. Thalia was wonderful in that she merely asked how much it would cost for me to build something, I told her and then she paid me within moments. She just trusted that I would make something worth the money that she had paid me and hopefully I did.
I really do appreciate her faith in me and her support for the arts. Second Life ranges from the the professional experience to those who mistakenly think you are talking in Linden Dollars rather than real life rates. Thalia is definitely from the former category. Over the years she had commissioned people like Dizzy Banjo who composed a soundtrack for her islands. She has work from Patch Thibaud the architect and his mentor DB Bailey the legendary architect who built work for this medium rather than recreations that worry about silly things like ... well gravity. Have a look at DB's island called LOCUS. It is kind of funny now that I think of it. Second Life is the place where architects can create without the structural engineers harassing them about collapsing this or that death and destruction. She also supports music by hiring people like ColeMarie Soleil to play for her visitors.

Gretchen and Teddy is an adaptation of a poem I wrote a while ago to fit in with the overall narrative on Immersiva. Gretchen is away from home when a catastrophe happens. She hides in the basement of an old theatre and writes letters, that she can't mail, to her mother reassuring her and herself that everything is fine. She is scared and alone but wakes up one morning to find that her childhood toy teddy bear has walked across the city to find her. A robot toy that she grew out of but who never forgot her.

SLURL
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife//113/183/1002
it is also in destinations guide if you want to tp from there..
http://secondlife.com/destination/gretchen-and-teddy

Below is the start to an oil painting for Gretchen and Teddy. I will post the finished work when it is done but just thought i would include this now since it is all tied in. These colours are a bit off since my tungsten lightbulb died today. So it has been affected by my yellow lightbulbs. By the way if you are a painter and have the problem of yellow light bulbs affecting how you see the colours on your painting. Meaning you do a painting and bring it to the gallery only to find the colours are way different than you thought because everything was tinted a bit yellow by your lightbulbs. Well what you do is use one normal bulb and then buy a cool bulb with a blueish tint. The combination will create light which resembles normal daylight. Less surprises this way. Anyway, it will be fun to have a first life art exhibit that is influenced by my second life art. It used to be the other way around.

Gretchen and Teddy oil painting unfinished

I finally had the opportunity to play with mesh and this build uses a few tests. I have actually made Gretchen and Teddy out of a combination of mesh, sculpts and prims. The draw of using a sculpt which costs 1 prim for a simple shape seemed more economical then a mesh. But it is also quite possible I could reduce the cost of the mesh in prim equivalents so that it is on par with a sculpt. Have to experiment more. Anyway this is my first try.

Season Finale of the Avatar Games

2011-10-30T20:08:00.001-04:00

I am ending this season of the Avatar Games on Sunday November 6th at 2pm SLT. It has been great fun with wonderful attendance. The finals will be the group in blue below and that will be held on November 6th at 2pm SLT.

The slurl is http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/LEA3/238/125/30

I am not sure if there will be a second season as the LEA group has to decide if they want to use the sim for the games or to create something new. Also I would have to make a new course which is kind of time consuming. I would really like to thank Galea Yates and Taralyn Gravois for their help contacting the contestants and keeping them organized during the show. They were amazing. Sasun Steinbeck for her brilliant scripting which made the scoreboards and start gates. They were essential to the games actually functioning. Crap Mariner and Honour McMillan for very entertaining commentary which had the audience laughing much of the time. They were a funny combo.

Below are the fastest runners over the season. Some of them were just fast, while others were fortunate enough to be shot in the air then shot in the arse propelling them almost to the finish line.

1 -ZoZo Raven - One minute six seconds
2 -Kumiyo Nakamori - One minute eight seconds
3 -Fei Bourdeille - One minute nine seconds

4 -hugues Haiku - One minute eleven seconds
5 -Zev Titanium - One minute sixteen seconds
6 -Cion Aeghin - One minute twenty one seconds
7 -Myndi Meredith - One minute twenty two seconds
8 -theblackcloud Oh - One minute thirty three seconds
9 -AlmostThere Inventor - One minute thirty three seconds
10 -Spectr3 Belfire - One minute thirty five seconds
11- quentinrez Resident - One minute thirty six seconds
12 -Opensource Obscure - One minute forty seconds
13 -April Kohl - One minute forty seconds
14 -WhyAmIHere Zadark - One minute forty four seconds
15 -Kev Sweetwater - One minute forty five seconds
16 -Zeev Dinzeo - One minute forty seven seconds

Red is rarely a good colour and today it is not as well. Below are the worst runners from last season. I have a soft spot for them all as they just did it for fun and were wonderful sports. Robin Moore ran as a giant carrot and Filthy Fluno was just terrible in underpants. I thought Filthy might still be running it but it says he finished in just under five minutes. I don't actually remember Accord taking twelve minutes to run the course which leads me to believe I blocked it out or was in a trance of some sort. I am just being evil and teasing. They were often the most outlandishly dressed and fun ones.

Robin Moore - Three minutes sixteen seconds
annamarie Dagostino - Three minutes twenty eight seconds
Estaban Olivieri - Three minutes twenty nine seconds
Ux Hax - Three minutes forty four seconds
nutron Ornitz - Three minutes fifty two seconds
fabilene Cortes - Four minutes twenty seconds
Acrylickitty Resident - Four minutes fifty four seconds
Filthy Fluno - Four minutes fifty eight seconds
Dekka Raymaker - Five minutes thirty three seconds
Randy Firebrand - Five minutes forty seconds
gina Broono - Five minutes fifty seconds
Accord Carling - Twelve minutes fifty nine seconds

I have not decided on a prize yet so if anyone wants to donate something or make a suggestion then let me know and we can work it out. Can have a private party on Immersiva with live music maybe. I should really ask the contestants what they would want.

LEA Land rush info

2011-10-28T11:40:00.001-04:00

On October 30th, 10AM and 4PM Second Life time,
Two regions: LEA28 and LEA29 will open for the Land Rush. LEA28 will be for the 10AM land rush, and LEA29 will be the 4PM one.

Join the LEA Special Events group and you will be able to see the announcement of when the region(s) are open for the rush. When it begins find a way to click on one of the big red buttons. Once you've done that, and it tells you that you've won, you're set. If not, keep trying...

Step by step:

1) Join the LEA Special Events group. Because, as you know, this event is special.

2) Wait until October 30th, which is the day of the land rush.

3) On the day of the rush, there will be two announcements on the LEA Special Events group, one at 10 AM, and one at 4 PM. These announcements will let you know that the regions are open.

4) Wear the group tag. You must be wearing the LEA Special Events group tag to claim land.

5) When this announcement is made, teleport to the region and look for the big red buttons.

6) Press a button. When you press a button, and it tells you that you've won, you will have claimed the land.

7) Once the dust settles down, we'll be able to invite you to the land group, and then you can start building.

8) Enjoy yourself, because even if you don't end up claiming some land, we'll do this all over again in 2 months.

The Daughter of Gears and Rabbicorn on Immersiva

2011-10-25T00:01:00.004-04:00

Standby

I mentioned a while ago that I received a grant from the Canadian government to work on some second life projects. One part of the grant is to make a 30 minute machinima of the Daughter of Gears, Rabbicorn and its final part Standby. Right now Immersiva has both the Daughter of Gears and Rabbicorn on it and I have nearly finished filming. Once I am done I will be deleting both narratives in order to put down Standby for filming. Then I will be tearing that down to start building a new and really exciting (to me) build for the grant called Virginia Alone.

Rabbicorn

So I am just letting those of you who are interested know that once I take down those two builds it is unlikely they will go up again in Second Life. Go see them now if you wish to see them. The tower in the middle is the first part of the story. It is called the Daughter of Gears and tells a story in poems as you climb it. The second part is called the Rabbicorn story and starts here at this slurl...

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Immersiva/187/235/23

Daughter of Gears oil painting

If you prefer you can watch the Daughter of Gears machinima at the start of the Rabbicorn build rather than climb it (which is quite hard to do). You will find a ball to click by the start that contains the machinima. The Rabbicorn story has 13 scenes each with a poem to find and a teleport to the next scene in the narrative. If you plan on coming to Immersiva to see the final part "Standby" then please experience the first two parts or watch the movies. I always seem to take down a build only to have someone ask the next day where to find it. It is the fleeting nature of SL art and machinima doesn't properly express the unique nature of an open ended immersive environment so do come see it if that interests you.

I will also be moving back from Second Life over the next little while. I won't be leaving completely just perhaps stepping back a bit. I miss the simplicity of just creating. That is really what I am passionate about and lately it seems all around me is gossip, politics and distrust. And that is because I have placed myself within that environment. Working with the artists from the Path was such a pleasure as the atmosphere was so positive and encouraging. The result of what we achieved was inspiring to me. I want to refocus.

Neat video!

LEA Land rush

2011-10-18T14:13:00.000-04:00

Another announcement to make. The LEA will be holding a project called the Land Rush Residency on the 30th of October. It will be done twice during the day once at 10AM SLT and the other at 4PM SLT. It will be for 16 parcels on two sims. Essentially we announce a place to go for those in a group, they tp there and run to be the first to click a big red button. If you are first to click the button then you get the land for two months. We are an art group so you will be expected to make some type of art rather than erect a penis store. Hopefully to make things that are unique to this medium. Well I guess a penis store would be unique to this medium but you know what I mean.
If you are familiar with Burning Life and have participated in their land rushes then it is about the same as that. I encourage pinching, biting and kicking but please no gouging. We will be doing the land rush over the entire year so if you don't manage to get one then you can try again and again. The land rush sims will be within the 20 endowment regions so should be part of a fun community. More info on the group to join and so on will be available on the LEA blog.

The Path opens today

2011-10-14T14:46:00.001-04:00

The Path opens today Friday October 14th at 2pm SLT. Here is the SLURL

THE PATH

It is a build based off the Exquisite corpse concept often used by the Surrealists. Click on the Inventors head in each scene to tp from one spot to the next. Also put your volume up high as the ambient sound has turned out quite good. The build was created by eight extraordinary artists whose work I admire. Each worked exceptionally hard on this project and the final result was easily the best collaborative I have ever been involved with. I would like to thank the artists for agreeing to be a part of this project. The artists in order by scene are..

1-bryn oh
2-colin Fizgig
3-marcus inkpen
4-desdemona enfield / douglas story
5-Maya paris
6-claudia222 jewell
7-scottius polke
8-Rose borchovski

I am not going to post pictures of the other artists work just yet as it may spoil the surprise but I will add a little machinima side story I made for the scene that I created.

Rowan Derrith wrote a great post on it already for Prim Perfect.
http://primperfectblog.wordpress.com/2011/10/14/neo-surrealism-takes-a-virtual-turn-down-the-path/

Introducing the LEA Land Grant

2011-10-10T00:18:00.002-04:00

LEA Land Grant

The LEA committee is very excited to announce something that we have been working towards for quite a while now. Essentially we have convinced Linden Labs and their stockholders to give us 20 sims for a year in order to support the arts in Second Life. Below you will find the official announcement and application form to consider. Shortly we will create the online application form and you can start to fill it out if you are interested. The applications will be due by November 1st 2011. Check the Linden Endowment for the Arts blog for updates.

LEA Land Grant application link

LEA Land Grant application:

The Linden Endowment for the Arts (LEA) has negotiated with Linden Labs to make available twenty new regions for the arts in Second Life. Four regions will be reserved for exhibitions curated from LEA sandbox art, and two will be allocated through a land rush. Details will follow on those six regions. Fourteen will be allocated by application. These regions will be awarded to selected artists for a period of five months. After the completion of five months those regions will be transferred to a new set of awardees. Recipients can be considered for a second endowment of five months.

Choose a category you wish to apply for and write a 200 word description of what you plan to achieve over the endowment period. Include a curriculum vitae or resume, and/or ways to see previous work (links to images, YouTube, slurl, websites).

Art organizations, patrons, or curators applying for a region should be able to show an active record of supporting the arts within Second Life or experience in first life that can be translated to the virtual world.

Thank you for your interested in the LEA Land Grant Award, a five-month grant of land for art.

Please answer all questions.

1. Please enter your full Second Life name. (This should be your username, not your display name.)

2. Please enter your primary email address. (This is the email address by which we will contact you if your application is accepted.)

3. I am applying for a region as a:

1. individual

2. group of artists working together (including performance)

3. representative of artist organization

4. patron

5. curator

6. other

4. I am applying for a full ___ or half ____ region
5. Application Title:
6. Describe your proposed art project in 200 words or less:
7. Maturity rating of your project:

General

Moderate

8 Please include your cv or resume. Attach or link.
9. Please include links to previous work (images, video, etc.)
10. Do you understand Second Life’s Terms of Service and Community Standards and do you agree to abide by them while participating in this Linden Endowment for the Arts event?

Terms of Service: http://secondlife.com/corporate/tos.php
Community Standards: http://secondlife.com/corporate/cs.php

Yes, I understand Second Life’s Terms of Service and Community Standards and agree to abide by them.

8. Do you understand the Linden Endowment for the Arts’ Code of Conduct and do you agree to abide by the Code while participating in this Linden Endowment for the Arts event?

Code of Conduct

Yes, I understand the Linden Endowment for the Arts’ Code of Conduct and agree to abide by the Code.

Thank you for submitting your proposal to the Linden Endowment for the Arts!

The LEA committee:

Bryn Oh
Dancoyote Antonelli
Dekka Raymaker
JayJay Zifanwe
L1 Loire
Sasun Steinbeck
Solo Mornington
Werner Kurosawa

PatriciaAnne Daviau (advisor)

LEA info

2011-10-05T11:42:00.001-04:00

The Linden Endowment for the Arts is proud to announce four art shows opening in mid-October:

On LEA1: The 2011 Survey of Hyperformalists in Second Life, curated by DC Spensley AKA DanCoyote

Opening October 15

The Museum of Hyperformalism, founded in 2006, to promote the unique genre of metasculptural abstraction in simulated space.

featuring the metasculptural artwork of:

Josina Burgess

Oberon Onmura

Ray FX

Sabine Stonebender

Selavy Oh

Suzanne Graves

Velasquez Bonetto

On LEA2: The Path, curated by Bryn Oh

Opening October 14

Based off the Surrealists exquisite corpse concept, each artist was randomly given a scene to compose. A narrative is begun by artist one who then passes it on to artist number two. Artist two adds to the story and passes it on to three and so on until the narrative reaches its conclusion at artist number eight.

Artists in order by scene

1-Bryn Oh

2-Colin Fizgig

3-Marcus Inkpen

4-Desdemona Enfield / Douglas Story

5-Maya Paris

6-Claudia222 Jewell

7-Scottius Polke

8-Rose Borchovski

On LEA3: FAST ART: Competitive Build Improvisation In The Virtual World, hosted by Solo Mornington

A series of speed build competitions, until the sim is full.

Twice-weekly events, with a number of options for artists in all time zones.

On LEA4: Interact!, curated by L1Aura Loire/Lori Landay

Opening October 15

Virtual art can invite, or even insist, that you interact with it. The artists in this exhibition cleverly and creatively make art out of interactions between data, objects, actions, and people within and beyond the virtual world in a stunning array of installations and experiences that stretch the possibilities of virtual art. Expect the unexpected, and click whenever you can.

Installations by:

AM Radio

Glyph Graves

Lorin Tone

Maya Paris

Misprint Thursday

PinkPink Sorbet

Selavy Oh

Interactive environment for audience participation & interactive mixed reality cross-cultural performances by: Butler2 Evelyn/Senses Places

With: Mesh by Sage Duncan, Machinima Mutoscope Viewers by FreeWee Ling, Twitter Garden by Frans Charming, Inner Tube Ride of Your Life by UzzU Artful

All four art shows will run for three months.

Also, on LEA6, ongoing, monthly, the LEA Full Sim Art Series starting off with Rebeca Bashly's creation based off of Dante's Inferno. Curated by JayJay Zinfanwe and me.

SLURL to Inferno

and the first Wednesday of each month, 7 pm SLT, at the LEA Theater, the Month of Machinima Screening Event, with conversations about the films with L1Aura Loire & the filmmakers

Hmmm what else... each Monday at 4pm SLT is the Avatar Games run by myself Galea Yates, Sasun Steinbeck, Taralyn Gravois with voice commentary from Crap Mariner and Honour McMillan. Crap may be actually running the course this upcoming week so feel free to come shoot him good. I know Honour will be in the front row with her gun sights set firmly on his arse.

If you would like to sign up to be a contestant then do so here.... SIGN UP

LEA Art Sandbox Building Areas

The LEA Art Sandbox is located on the LEA5 region, which is split into the following parcels:

General Sandbox Area: This is what people think of when they think of a sandbox. A big area of virtual land with a relatively long autoreturn time.
Self-Curating Gallery Area: The purpose of this area is to provide Second Life artists a two-week place to rez their work, and to provide other Residents a place to browse the works of Second Life artists.
Building Resource Area: This area contains freebie build tools, LDPW and Torley texture collections, and so forth. It is the landing point, and visitors can get the sandbox rules and policies from the kiosk at the landing point location.

In all areas, scripting will be turned off for non-group Residents. Residents who join the land group can run scripts. The group is open to the public, so anyone can join. Just search on “LEA Art Sandbox” to find the group.

Or ask for help from the wonderful PatriciaAnne Daviau queen of the Sandbox.

And finally in the upcoming week we will be making a huge announcement. The LEA is made up of some very careful ultra conservatists mingled with some rational minds and then one raving lunatic which sadly is me. Once we can agree on a formal announcement then I will post it here, but it is great news!

The Path - Opening October 14th

2011-09-27T15:37:00.004-04:00

I am excited to announce the opening date for a new project called "The Path". It will be October 14th. The LEA will be opening a set of sims with each being curated by a member of the LEA. I was given the opportunity to do something with one sim and decided on creating a collaborative narrative based off of the principle of the exquisite corpse sometimes used by the Surrealists. If you can imagine this was the group who are believed to have worked together on one. Yves Tanguy, Marcel Duchamp, Jacques Prévert, Benjamin Péret, Pierre Reverdy, André Breton, Max Morise, Joan Miró, Man Ray, Simone Collinet, Tristan Tzara, Georges Hugnet, René Char, Paul and Nusch Éluard. Essentially each chosen artist adds to a composition in sequence. I invited eight artists whose work I admire, some have worked in SL for ages and are well known, while others less so but equally talented. Each artist was invited to stand on a coloured box and once all were ready I rezzed a chart which listed the sequence of scenes in a narrative by colour. Not sure if the Surrealists cared about the random start but it seemed like a good idea. So if red was first on the chart then the artist standing on the red cube would begin the narrative. The artist who goes first begins a story. Imagine something like this "There once was a darling little girl named Gretchen. One day while playing in her room she heard heavy steps coming up the stairs to just outside her door. She quietly got up and peeked through the keyhole and saw..." Then artist one passes that off to the next artist in the sequence who reads it and continues the story. Artist two then passes it off to artist number three and so on. We have all been working hard for a month now and most are still busily crafting their scene. We did a walk through last night and the variety was wonderful. I really think this may be something people talk about for a long time. I personally couldn't pick my favorite scene last night as each excelled in some area or another. And that to me is a very good sign.

These are the artists involved with the Path, as well as the order.

I have put a link to each name so you can read an interview or see something each has done at one point or another. It really is an all star cast and I want to thank all for working so hard on this project when I know they are quite busy with other things. After the build opens we will invite machinima artists to tell the story as they see fit and show those works here as well.

1-bryn oh
2-colin Fizgig
3-marcus inkpen
4-desdemona enfield / douglas story
5-Maya paris
6-claudia222 jewell
7-scottius polke
8-Rose borchovski

I will also be making some very important announcements in regards to the LEA. We have negotiated with Linden Labs and have achieved something that will give art organizations and artists new opportunities.

Vogue Article and Musei in Comune di Roma opening

2011-09-11T13:03:00.000-04:00

I have a few things to mention today. One is a print article where Bryn Oh, Rose Borchovski the UWA and others are talked about in Vogue Magazine, while the other is an opening of mine tomorrow at a real life / SL museum in Rome called MiC Musei in Comune di Roma.
Interview with MiC

If you wish to take out the grace and beauty of a language then Google translate it. Sadly the Vogue article below is a bit confusing after the translation but you will get the idea of its focus. It is commendable that Simona Lamonaca came into SL and did a responsible job of reporting unlike the many others who strive for sensationalism. Below is a much better translation kindly done by Opensource Obscure.

"In its earliest years, Second Life has been talked about and hyped as the bleeding edge of communication and business on the Net; many perceived (and marketed) it as a promised land, which would allow anybody to create fabulous parallel lifes just inside their computer.
Then, like a modern Ferdinandea island, the virtual archipelago seemed to have sunk right after its volcanic rise. Awareness about Second Life faded. Just yet another trend? Actually, those who think this world is dead are wrong. After the hype, Second Life simply became what it meant to be: an inter-disciplinary platform for experimentation. Here, art is one of the most vibrant experiences.
All over the world, institutions are leveraging on Second Life as a medium, buying virtual islands called 'sims' to promote and host art research: UWA (University of Western Australian), ArtSpace UTSA (University of Texas), and Spencer Museum of Art (University of Kansas).
This is happening in Italy too.
Mind (Milan network for design, 2010) is a successful Italian master course hosted by the Academy of Brera (Politecnico di Milano, Milan) to spread innovative skills in the planning of artistic events. The project includes Second Life, where it is based in Imparafacile Island (http://imparafacile.ning.com)

.
Mic is the one-year-old virtual space of the Capitoline Museums Network in Rome (http://museiincomuneroma.wordpress.com). Research in Mic is developed across a dual channel: virtualization of ongoing exhibitions in Roman museums (currently featured: Leonardo and Michelangelo), and promotion of purely virtual installations which include video projections at Macro Museum. An ongoing example is the highly anticipated exhibition by Canadian artist Bryn Oh. As a sim designer, Bryn Oh uses virtual spaces to develop 3D representations of her interactive stories ("Immersiva", "Anna's many murders"). Also an artist in real life, Bryn recently received a grant from the Canadian government to pursue her virtual activity.
And there are huge expectations for another event, which is planned for this Autumn: virtual art gallery Arte Libera (http://artelibera.biz) will host Dutch artist Rose Borchovski (aka Saskia Boddeke). She will introduce a new chapter of "The Susa Bubble Story", a noir tale that has long enchanted the Metaverse. An interesting theater author, in 2009 Boddeke presented in Italy (at Parco della Musica in Rome and at Teatro Arcimboldi in Milan) "The Blue Planet", a 'multimedia oratorio' written with Peter Greenaway. In that occasion, videos made in Second Life had been released; Boddeke says Susa will appear in theaters soon.
Of course, not all virtual art endeavors stand to such achievements. Many people experiment with virtual art; few of them leave their mark by being sensitive, original and qualified with the technicalities of the medium. And the available budget can play an important part too: playing Second Life is free, but land space ownership has to be paid for. A full virtual island currently runs for USD 295/month + a one-time fee of USD 1.000.

-Simona Lamonaca / Vogue Magazine (translation by Opensource Obscure)

Next thing I need to mention is a new build I have opening tomorrow for the MiC a real life museum that is also in second life. It is called "Family Unit" and it is a bit of a quirky take on, yes you guessed it, my family. It was an interesting challenge to create a build for Musei in Comune di Roma because it was to be based around a machinima of the build rather than the actual 3D inworld creation. Most of my works are made for the experience of navigating the 3D environment and then a machinima is created to catalogue or narrate the build. But for me the unique artistic element to this medium is the navigation of the 3D space as an avatar. So this build is a hybrid of something for the resident of the virtual world who will enjoy the open ended exploration with the other importance of it being composed for the real life machinima showcase in the Museum. The only suggestion I would make is for you to click the "Urn" if you wish to find my Grandparents in the build. They are not easy to find and you will have to quick and agile to get to them. Your chances will be much better if you attempt it with a group of friends.

The opening is September 12 at 1.00 pm sl. I will remind everyone in the Immersiva group.

SLURL to main meeting area at MiC
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/MiC/197/197/38

SLURL to start of my build
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/MiC/252/223/22

Farewell Kirstens viewer

2011-09-10T00:32:00.000-04:00

Some sad news today. Kirstens viewer will stop development. For those of you unfamiliar with viewers other than the default Linden Labs Viewer that comes with SL then you should know that there are quite a few great 3rd party viewers created for Second Life. Essentially Linden Labs has made everything open source minus anything which requires a license (such as Havok physics engine). A variety of people or groups take this code and create their own ways for us to interact with Second Life. Some focus on performance others on graphics etc. Kirstens was the top viewer for graphics. Quite easily. You definitely had to have a powerful computer to run it, but should you be so fortunate the experience was fantastic. Shadows and ambiance were unmatched. To put it in perspective I think the default setting for LOD in Kirstens was set at 12 where other viewers are at 1 or 2. As I said in a previous post, that means most sculpts wont take their shape until you are right beside them. Kirstens focus was on beautifying Second Life. For the machinimatographer this is very sad news. It was the viewer of choice for high quality film with effects. My Annas Many Murders machinima was done in it and had it not been then many of the scenes you see would not have shown up quite the same.

It's really unfortunate that this comes at the time when Linden Labs have just brought out mesh capability. Mesh allows for almost direct movement of high quality works created in computer animation programs like Maya, 3D Studio max, Softimage XSI and Zbrush to be brought into Second Life with minimal loss from the original creation. This means that a new level of quality can be shown in the 3D environment but also exhibited outside SL in the form of machinima. Machinima passes through the feared "walled garden" that prevents the outside world seeing what we can achieve here. Linden Labs marketing people are focusing on supporting machinima for that advertising dimension. So essentially they have given us the capability to make high end graphic work yet now the top machinima making viewer has shut down.
This brings me to the fairly new Linden Labs philosophy which I have come across since being part of the Linden Endowment for the Arts group. Linden Labs would like to step back and let the users take control of their own projects. We have seen this with events such as Burning Life which now exists only due to the generosity of users who supply sims for the event. I understand the reasoning for doing this as any large event requires the use of many Linden employees who they would prefer to be working on other things. The problem with this philosophy is that users such as KirstenLee Cinquetti , who created this very useful viewer, essentially make content for Linden Labs for free in their spare time. Creating this viewer is a huge undertaking, constantly upgrading it then fixing the little bugs etc all were done by the user with virtually no encouragement or support. Personal issues have forced Kirsten to focus on finding additional work in RL. To do this she pretty much has to sacrifice her time spent in Second Life. It would seem to me that it may be a good idea for the Lab to adjust this philosophy in order to employ Kirsten to continue making this viewer for their own marketing benefit. What is the value in showing the capabilities of Second Life outside the walled garden in the highest level of graphical representation? Is it worth 10k a year? 20 or 40k to a company which profits each year in the hundreds of millions of dollars? Perhaps they would fear setting a precedent whereby other content creators would demand payment to stay within second life. I don't know but it is really is disappointing to see this viewer disappear.

#1 The Petrovsky Flux

2011-09-01T12:37:00.000-04:00

I have been doing my top ten list of my personal favorite builds for what seems like an eternity this year. My computer passed away earlier this year and somehow I kept telling it not to make a back up for about six months. I had made all my top ten machinimas in that period so you get the idea. It's kind of alarming that it is now September as that means I have to start filming for the 2011 picks already.

The Petrovsky Flux was created by Blotto Epsilon and Cutea Benelli. It was named after Ivan Georgievich Petrovsky a Soviet mathematician. The wiki says that he greatly contributed to the solution for Hilbert's 19-th and 16th problems. I will just have to take their word for it. Unfortunately all my associations with Math involve the terrible feeling of being asked to go to the front of the class to work out a formula on the chalk board, meanwhile feeling all the eyes of my classmates on my back as I publicly struggled.

The Spencer Art Museum
Patron is Steveke Wulluf
University of Kansas

The Petrovsky Flux was my favorite build in 2010 for a variety of reasons. There is the initial striking composition of it sprawling across the sky as you arrive at the sim. Watching little flashes as new pods are born to the structure. The strange flying sheep or hopping chairs. The creation will grow and grow over time only to collapse and disappear in order to grow once again. The composition in the sky is random with new and interesting shapes constantly being created. The scripting element is just brilliant. The Flux starts out as a small structure and slowly adds elements one upon another. These elements generally are taken from a wide range of rooms or hallways. So the structure will determine that it wishes to add a new pod. A random pod is chosen and attached to one of perhaps 12 different faces to add it to. It will then continue to add pods at various appendages. When a pod is created there is a flash (as you can see in the machinima) so you can see how many pods are constantly being added to the Flux. My guess is that once one of the arms hits a predefined boundary it will set them all to physical and allow them to drop.

What also works for the Flux is that it excels on multiple levels both macro and micro. I have said how interesting it is to watch grow from afar but it's also equally interesting to fly up to and enter. You can actually climb inside and walk within its random corridors. In some cases falling with the structure as you explore. The pods in themself are beautifully crafted and quite entertaining when you are inside.

For me the success of a SL work of art is based on its use of a range of tools. Does it inspire wonder? Is it well crafted including ambient sound and narrative? immersive? interactive? Does it have the ability to hold my attention for longer than 10 min and would I like to come back to see it again? The Flux has all these and more. Soon we will have many nice looking mesh creations popping up all over the grid. Perhaps someone will produce a finely crafted tree, unicorn or abstract work. It will look nice but if it remains just a 3D build then it will not fully capture what this medium is capable of. The emotional content with the Monet work on the left is far more appealing to me than the hyper realism of Bernardi. Technically the one on the right is wonderful. However it shows that just making something look very real doesn't actually touch us inside, it only makes us appreciate the technical ability. The Petrovsky Flux is tied into a wide range of technical features from math to scripting in order to make it exist, yet it lives and breathes closer to the Monet if that makes any sense. That is the true skill of these talented artists. They have created an immersive environment using the unique tools that SL supplies, and have created something that fits for SL as a medium. On the other hand if a mesh build were done of the painting to the right, then it really would not take advantage of this particular medium. If it were a portion of a larger build incorporating other unique elements of a virtual world then that's fine, but on its own it doesn't say anything. We could struggle to give it meaning by saying the fact it is in a 3D virtual world gives it relevance, but really that only works a limited amount of times and its been done. So there you have it. My favorite builds from 2010. If you have any you think I should look at for 2011 let me know and I will pop over to them.

#1 favorite from 2009
Under the tree that died by AM Radio

#1 favorite from 2008
Tryptofaa Sands (tornado)

LEA Full sim art series

2011-08-21T12:00:00.001-04:00

Jayjay Zifanwe and I are heading up a new project called the LEA Full sim art series. The details are below but essentially you will receive a full sim for one month. It will be up to you when to open your exhibit, if for example you have built much of the work off site and need only set it up then you could have close to a month for the showing. If you are building fresh then it will come down to how fast you can get it done in time for an opening. So as it says below send us a 100 word explanation of what you wish to do by the 10th of September.

The LEA FULL SIM ART SERIES, will initially run for 6 months, starting 1st October 2011, and ending on the 31st of March 2012. All artists in SL will be able to apply to have a FULL SIM art show, and the closing date for applications is the 10th of September (we would be keen to highlight those whose works have not had the opportunity to have been shown on such a scale before)

What you get:
1) The FULL SIM to use inclusive of the media and UP TO 15,000 prims (you dont have to use all)
2) The SIM will be given to the artist on the 1st day of the month
3) When to launch the show will be up to the artist
4) Shows will end on the final day of the month, and the next artist will receive use of the SIM from the 1st day of the next month
5) An article on the LEA Blog, UWA Blog, Bryn Oh's blog, Second Life arts and entertainment, the Virtual Outworlding Blog and the ToxxNews Website will appear at the start of the show, or during the show (if other blogs confirm they will cover it, they will be officially added to this list)

How to Apply:
1) Send a NC to both Jayjay Zifanwe and Bryn Oh with a 100 word description of what your plan for the full sim artwork is.
2) Include in the NC, the names of anyone who might be working with you on the FULL SIM creation
3) Indicate on the NC which month you prefer, Oct 2011, Nov 2011, Dec 2011, Jan 2012, Feb 2012, Mar 2012 (1st, 2nd, 3rd preference)

2011-08-19T12:03:00.003-04:00

Recently Glyph Graves created a really neat build in Second Life using Kinect to chart his real life face into prims within SL. In the process of seeing his work I came across this video of someone using kinect in a similar manner for the game Minecraft. It should be noted that this person was not hampered by an internet connection or server so he is basically working off the processing power of his own computer, whereby doing the same in SL is quite another story. I played Minecraft for a day until I dug myself into a very deep hole and was daunted by the huge amount of effort it was going to take me to climb out again. But what's impressive about this it recognizes the colours of his shirt and look at the speed that is builds him juggling or his cat playing. I just had to post it.

some thoughts..

2011-08-16T14:04:00.003-04:00

In the recent updates to Firestorm and Viewer 2 there has been an adjustment to a default settings. Changing a default setting is likely or should be well considered before implementing as it defines how the new user will interact with Second Life for many months before they even contemplate customizing their own viewer.   They will just accept what they start with and assume that's the extent of the experience. So the change I am talking about is called LOD. LOD is level of detail and it applies to an objects mesh. The higher the LOD the more crisp the sculpt or prim from a distance. A low LOD setting will render things as blobs until you get very close. My LOD setting is set to 4 which means everything generally is crisp from even great distances. In the image you can see a sculpt fox which keeps its shape nicely from the distance I took this photo. Should the LOD have been set too low then the fox would have blobified itself. It's not a nice effect and many builders are concerned at the moment because the default setting for LOD has decreased to 1 or the lowest setting. This will help the low end machines perform better in second life so I am assuming that is the intention in decreasing it.
     I know there is alot of excitement about the coming implementation of mesh and I look forward to making more detailed works in SL too. However it is very important that we understand mesh will not nor should not push out the use of prims nor sculpts. The fox you see here is a total of 7 prims. If it were done in mesh it would likely rise to around 500 prims because currently the size of your work as a mesh varies the amount of prims they will cost. The benefit in making this fox worth only 7 prims while being on megaprims is a huge benefit over mesh at the moment. So lets keep that in our arsenal of tools when building. But a sculpts overall value will diminish greatly if they end up looking like blobs to the vast majority of users.   Because you buy a large nail doesn't mean you should throw away all your little nails and screws.
   Another thing to consider about sculpts is that a huge portion of the economy from fashion to furniture is now based off of sculpts. People will not like the idea of replacing items because things suddenly start looking less appealing. As well many of the artworks in Second Life will suffer the same problem.
     On phoenix viewer, in the bottom right, is a scalable tool to rise or lower LOD. It's not hard to find and easy to change. On viewer 2 and Firestorm I have yet to find where to adjust the LOD setting and I am an experienced user. A new user will never find the LOD setting before they determine whether they wish to stay or not. I spoke to Jessica Lyon (Phoenix/Firestorm viewers) the other day about this and they will be increasing LOD to 2 or 2.5 for the next update, but a similar attempt to speak to Torley Linden has not been successful. Thing is I have no idea who to contact about this at Linden Lab so that is why I am writing this post. Also while I am at it please add the multitude of windlights to Viewer 2 and revert the way we adjust windlights back to how they originally were. Right now I can't edit any default windlights even slightly which is a huge problem for machinimatographers. Sometimes you just need to lighten a windlight or make a minor change which takes seconds but unfortunately now you must create a whole new windlight.

Anna's Many Murders book

2011-08-08T11:40:00.020-04:00

Anna's Many Murders by Bryn Oh | Make Your Own Book

;
Oh and the preview shows only 15 pages. It is 42 pages.

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2360325

     I made a physical book for Anna's Many Murders so I can read it to my brothers little daughter at night.... oh wait that's a terrible idea she will have nightmares. Oh well too late I have already ordered them one. One huge benefit in being an artist is you can do inappropriate things and people just shrug it off saying "oh they are just an artist..."   However if you do the same thing as a Lawyer people will exclaim "what on earth were they thinking!??" One huge benefit in being a Lawyer though is that these unjust comments just make you cry into your pile of money.
     People have been asking for Anna's to be made into a book and so here it is. And for those of you who have been asking for the full Rabbicorn story be made into one book then you will be pleased to know that I have begun to work on that as well. So hopefully it will be finished within a few months. I know I said that a few months ago but this time it really has a chance of being a true statement.
     Really though I make these books for myself. Anna's was three months to create and was exhibited for two months then it fades off into my inventory. Machinima and books like these are a nice way for me to keep a record of things I have done. It is the transient nature of virtual worlds I suppose, things come and go. I was speaking to a person the other day who was telling me of the greatest sims to go see. They were very enthusiastic which is great, but were unaware of builds from the past such as Greenies or Black Swan. It's funny but I imagine that if the original Greenies (not the heavily marketed version at the end) were to suddenly be plopped back into Second Life it would be seen as a brand new build and again become a very popular destination for explorers. For those of you unfamiliar with it, it was a room on such as massive scale that avatars became mouse sized. The theme inside was that some little green aliens arrived and were exploring the kitchen and living room. You can see it on one my crappy early machinima from back in 2009 if you like Greenies

Annas Many Murders machinima

2011-08-01T21:19:00.003-04:00

Unfortunately the patron who had supplied me with a sim to build Annas Many Murders had come into hard times a few months ago when Annas opened and I took over paying for the sim. I can not afford to rent the sim any longer. So the build will come down in a week or so. I am happy to have gotten this machinima done though.
This is the SLURL is you wish to see it before it goes. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Bryn%20Oh/67/208/186

The machinima can be shown full screen as it is HD. Should be a button somewhere to do that.

#2 Madpea - Kaaos Effect

2011-07-25T13:51:00.002-04:00

The machinima gives a hint about how the build works but unfortunately it was done at a time when my computer and internet connection was struggling so it's a bit choppy.

Madpea is a Second Life company which produces arange of what you might call "games". Some are quiteobviously games while others are more narrative mysteries. Their focus isin creating a sense of deep interaction. This post comes at aninteresting time for me as, just recently, I have been disagreeing with a fewartists about what is art in Second Life. They both laughed at the notionof Sextan Shepherds work "Nemo" being considered art. Theydidn't say it was not their favorite type of art (which would have been finewith me) but instead claimed it was not art at all. And it was thatstatement that I found to be an embarrassing show of elitism andignorance of this medium. Madpea would fall into the same category for these artists so lets just have a quick look at the mentality involved.

Part of their argument was that Nemo is based offof Jules Verne's book "20,000 Leagues under the sea". That itis not his own idea, but that of another. This is strange because they would then likely say"The garden of earthly delights" by Hieronymus Bosch would be exemptdespite coming from he Bible. (Bosch's work was said not to be artoriginally. It was considered titillating trash for the masses). Or perhaps William Blake's work based off of Dantes Inferno, or the Lord of the Rings movies based off of Tolkien. Iam not going to get into the vast array of artists who were inspired bysomething when creating their artworks. Sextan was inspired by a novel andcreated everything in his build, Nemo, from within his own mind. He"created" the build using his imagination. Furthermore he didit with a great deal of technical skill, not just in building but in texturing,scripting, the use of sound and composition. One of the artists in thedispute claimed that technical skill was irrelevant. And that,sadly, is a very post Duchamp mentality.
Originally artists spent entire lives learningtechnique. I would argue that today we have few if any artists who canpaint like Leonardo Da Vinci or Caravaggio. One reason for this isbecause of Marcel Duchamp and his work "Fountain". Duchamp put fortha standard porcelain mens urinal in a Salon exhibit. His thoughts werethat he wanted people to attempt to look at the urinal without being influencedby its function, and to rather see it as a sculptural work. Was itsshape beautiful? was it aesthetic and if so does that not make it art? Did its function prevent it from being considered art? Duchamp was all aboutrethinking standards and causing a stir. And he did exactly that with his"fountain". However, a enduring result is that virtually everythingis now considered art and in many cases technique has fallen to the wayside. An elephant at my zoo is given a paint brush and is trained to smear paint on acanvas. Those paintings sell as "art", yet the advanced skillof Sextan Shepherd in creating textures by hand, in scripting, in creating animmersive environment, in pure building skill and efficiency not to mention thecomposition of the entire environment are not grounds to even be called art?

     I am frustrated by people (especiallyartists) not having the ability to recognize that the virtual world will createnew and initially non recognizable or quantifiable art forms. For gods sakedon't look at an artwork in Second Life then try to find a reference point inreal life to justify it. I am not declaring Nemo to be the greatest workin second life art, and in fact I would like to see it advance further, but Iam not so blind as to say it's not art.   I believe that the artwhich will be remembered from this medium, will be of an immersive variety thatallows the viewer to forget for a time their first life surroundings. Unlike a 2D painting which you stand and observe or a film which you passivelywatch while being told a story, the art we create here will be more akin to apainting that you enter and explore. Something you interact with andalmost believe yourself to be a part of. We are at the initial stages ofthis and works like Nemo recognize the technique in creating an immersiveenvironment. It is what makes this medium unique, the avatar in a virtualspace with others from around the world experiencing something which transportstheir awareness into a virtual space, and does so far more effectively than mediums of thepast have been able to. Anyway. That is myperspective.
     Madpea sits at two for me because they have takenthe notion of creating an immersive environment for the viewer, and have usedadvanced techniques to achieve that immersion. Is it art? who cares? theterm art is a shadow of of what it once meant. What Madpea does is to attempt to harness some of the unique elements that will, in my mind, define this medium in the future.

This is the SLURL to Madpea but its not the main hub. You will have toexplore from there to find the games and things.   http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/MadPea%20Base/144/201/27

Amy

2011-07-24T00:22:00.001-04:00

Avatar Games

2011-07-17T13:19:00.002-04:00

First I would like to say that Relay for Life just finished today and they have achieved what is likely a virtual world record for raising $370 000 us dollars for Cancer research this weekend. A very inspiring accomplishment so congratulations to the organizers who have set a gold standard for organization and implementation.

I filmed the Games the other day and put it to this rocking song by the Noisettes. The event is becoming quite popular so if you would like to sign up do so below...

Sign up here!
https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dEIwMjNzb2IxSHB1M2lKNG1RY3BmMGc6MQ&ndplr=1

And if you want to be part of the audience I would suggest coming 15 min early, as the sim fills up quite fast now.
The
SLURL
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/LEA3/236/126/30

Every so often I will post a machinima of the games because they are pretty fun to film. If you also film one then let me know and I will post it too.

If you are unfamiliar with the games this is how it works. Each Monday at 4pm sl time we have 4 or 5 contestants run the course. They have already signed up at the link above (and been contacted by Galea Steinbeck or Taralyn Gravois). They relax in an elevator listening to elevator Muzak (as you can see at the beginning of the machinima). One at a time they are brought down to the course and individually run it, trying to get as fast a time as they possibly can (at the end of the season the people with the top times will compete for some type of prize). The audience all have "The Grand Walloper" which is a gun that slows down the contestants as they run the course. The audience gleefully shoot at the runners while Crap Mariner and Honour McMillan do the colour commentary. If you listen closely you can hear the clink of ice as Crap drinks what I believe to be a bucket full of Vodka mixed with Canadian Club Whiskey. That might just be my imagination though.
After the contestants have run the course once, they get a second try then when that is all done they do a "group run" which you can see in the machinima as well. They all run and jostle each other while we shoot them. It's very therapeutic for the audience and as a bonus the top "shooters" are shown on a scoreboard for bragging rights. I am still trying to have a Linden day which I predict would be very popular for the audience.

And here are the current fastest avatars.

Seasons fastest avatars: Seconds: 71, hugues Haiku
Seasons fastest avatars: Seconds: 82, Myndi Meredith
Seasons fastest avatars: Seconds: 96, quentinrez Resident
Seasons fastest avatars: Seconds: 100, Opensource Obscure
Seasons fastest avatars: Seconds: 111, Urban Steampunk
Seasons fastest avatars: Seconds: 113, Jeni Beresford
Seasons fastest avatars: Seconds: 116, GAbriele Cyberstar
Seasons fastest avatars: Seconds: 116, Clovis Luik
Seasons fastest avatars: Seconds: 116, Aleeah Resident
Seasons fastest avatars: Seconds: 117, Zev Titanium

The runners do enjoy a massive level of SLebrity if they finish in the top ten. Ok well i have not actually heard anyone congratulate them yet, nor seen them on SLorts Illustrated but I am sure their IM's are full of fans asking for an autograph on a notecard. I am pretty sure I saw Honour throw some prim panties to Opensource Obscure, but again that might have also been my imagination.

A fun one by Paulina60 Loon

Relay For Life

2011-07-10T13:08:00.006-04:00

A few years ago I supplied some work to Tezcatlipoca Bisani for a RFL event. PatriciaAnne Daviau, Tez and Madcow Cosmos were to build a themed work based on "Heroes".   The hero picked was Roald Dahl, and builds included Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the giant peach. It was very wacky and fun. This year I was asked to be involved and had to create a season build for spring. I put down a variation of a build called Mayfly for the runners to go through.

If you are unfamiliar with RFL then this is essentially how it works. You walk around a large track, 45 sims or so, and if you choose to you can donate / buy a bag or many bags on the side of the road which then lists your name as a donator. You can buy my road bags here .. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/RFL%20Knowledge/64/128/23

Below is the schedule and below that is some information on the history of RFL within Second Life. They are a truly wonderful organization of volunteers who have raised over one million dollars for Cancer research.

July 15-16th.
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/RELAY%20FOR%20LIFE/95/129/22
10am - 11am - Opening Ceremonies

11am - 12:30pm - CELEBRATE - Survivor/Caregiver Honor Walk - Survivors Are the "Spirit Of Relay" They Are the Promise Of Hope! Please Line the Track and Celebrate Our Heroes, Our Friends who have heard the words "You Have Cancer"

The Caregivers are the Backbone of the Fight. They hold the hands, they care for and support their loved ones as they walk their cancer journey. Once again Line the Track and Support the Ones who give so much to help our Survivors Fight Cancer!

12:30pm - 2pm - Team Spirit Lap - Teams R Us! Team Shirts and banners. Walk the track with pride for all you have done to help find a cure for cancer.

2pm - 3pm - Purrfect Pets - Sponsored by KittyCats - Wear animal print, neko ears, tails or even be an animal or furry avatar! Dress as your favorite pet or animal!

3pm - 4pm - I Cannot Believe I'm Wearing This! - Wear something you normally wouldn't wear in SL. Would never admit to being a Furry? Don a furry avatar. Wouldn't wear latex *ever*? Bring it on! Wouldn't be caught out in curlers and slippers? Wear it! Not a girly girl? Wear frills! Not a surfer dude? Put on that long blonde hair and swim trunks!

4pm - 5pm - Ride Your Favorite Horse - Sponsored by Amaretto - Ride your favorite horse, wear your horse avatar or bring on the stick ponies. We're riding for Relay!

5pm - 6pm - Beach Party (Summer) - Bring out your beach clothes, go barefoot, don’t forget those water bottles and sunscreen.

6pm - 7pm - Fall Fashion (Fall) - Wear those autumn colors or that Halloween costume. You could even be a Thanksgiving Turkey!

7pm - 8pm - Winter Nights (Winter) - Dress for those cold winter nights, don’t forget the hot chocolate with marshmallows

8pm - 9pm - Spring Fling (Spring)- the season for flowers, new beginnings, and proms.

9pm - 10pm - REMEMBER - Luminaria Ceremony - ( quiet reflection with readings and inspirational music; sims are darkened for reflection and remembrance of those and their loved ones who have lost their battles to cancer or are still battling it; all are invited to participate) Walk the track in silence.

10pm - 11pm - The Power of Purple - wear as much purple as you can. ..skin, hair, eyes, clothing, .. just bring on the purple!

11pm - 12am - Favorite Sport - football, baseball, rugby, hockey, swimming, cheerleading.. just any sports attire. Don your favorite jersey or uniform and bring that Relay spirit.

12am- 1am - Midnight Masquerade - Wear a Masque and costume and join the carnival like festivity hour.

1am - 2am - Silly Hats -- The name says it all

2am - 3am - Appearance Slider Outfits - Wear only looks you make yourself in appearance.

3am - 4am - Favorite Decade - Did you love the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's or maybe way back to the 40's or the flappers or the roaring 20s?   Dress in your favorite decade outfit and show it on the track

4am - 5am - Health Matters - Maybe you are a banana, or an orange, or a carrot? Or simply dress in a healthy food color. Eating right, being active, and maintaining a healthy weight are important ways to reduce your risk of cancer.

5am - 6am - Up All Night - Curlers, Coffee, PJ's & Slippers - time to wake up and smell the coffee

6am - 7am - FIGHT BACK - Fight Back Ceremony - (Pick up your specially made RFL HOPE Cape and Fight Back Flags - available at the Relay Stations, and join us as we make our fight back pledges to save a life this year -your own, a friends, a family member, or someone you don't even know yet. Together we all can FIGHT BACK.

7am - 8am - Fantasy Themed - Fantasy Characters - Dragons, Pirates, Star Trek,          Fairies, Elves... Fantasy themed avatars, Medieval, Tinies, Mermaids & Mermen, Wings

8am - 9am - International Lap - Wear your countries flag.. (provided by the International Committee or outfits that represent your country.

9am - 10am - Formal Hour - Wear your best as you walk the final lap before Closing Ceremonies. Formal attire. Try to keep prims to a minimum, please.

10am-11am - Closing Ceremony

2004 the first volunteer driven fundraiser for the American Cancer Society ever in Second Life
- Avatars: 99
- Total raised: US$2,000
2005 The first Relay For Life of Second Life took place on Saturday, August 27 and Sunday, August 28, 2005. It started at 5pm SL time. It was the brainchild of Jade Lily (who in real life was an airman called Keith Morris) and was reported in the The New York Times in an article called 'Letting your fingers do the running'.
- Total raised: US$5,000
- Avatars: 315
- Laps: 817
- Sims: 6
- Course Length: 2,500 meters
- Distance Walked: 2,042,500 meters
2006 The second Relay For Life of Second Life took place on Saturday, July 22 through Sunday, July 23. It started on Saturday at 5pm SL time. It was again organized by Jade Lily, and the track was laid out over 12 sims representing the different countries of the world.
- Total raised: US$41,000
- Avatars: 1570
- Sims: 12
- Laps Walked: 2,047
- Course Length: 4,065 meters
- Distance Walked: 8,321,055 meters
2007 The third Relay For Life of Second Life took place on Saturday, July 21 through Sunday, July 22, 2007. The Event Chair was Fayandria Foley.
- Theme: Quest for a Cure
- Total raised: US$118,500
- Avatars: 1831
- Sims: 32
- Laps Walked: 1,519
- Course Length: 12,140 meters
- Distance Walked: 18,432,891 meters
2008 The fourth Relay For Life of Second Life took place on Saturday, July 19 through Sunday, July 20, 2008. It took place over 33 sims laid out in the shape of an 'H'. The Event Chair was Fayandria Foley and the Event Co-Chair was David Jacobs.
- Theme: Heroes
- Total raised: US$215,000
- Avatars: 2230
- Sims: 35
- Laps Walked: 3,441
- Course Length: 8,379 meters
- Distance Walked: 28,826,107 meters
2009 The fifth Relay For Life of Second Life took place on Saturday, July 18 through Sunday, July 19, 2009. The Event Chair was Fayandria Foley, and there were four co-Chairs: Tayzia Abattoir, Nuala Maracas, Stella Costello, who was succeeded halfway by Charlene Trudeau, and Belle Loll.
- Theme: One World, One Hope
- Total raised: US$274,000 (corrected figure)
- Avatars: 1913
- Sims: 36
- Laps Walked: 2,155
- Course Length: 11,907 meters
- Distance Walked: 25,650,536 meters
2010 The sixth Relay For Life of Second Life took place on Saturday, July 17 through Sunday, July 19, 2010. The Event Chair was Tayzia Abattoir and the Event Co-Chairs were Nuala Maracas and MamaP Beerbaum.
- Theme: Wishing on a Cure
- Total raised: US$222,804
- Avatars: 1579
- Sims: 36
- Laps Walked: 2,676
- Teams: 139

BOX machinima

2011-07-02T13:26:00.006-04:00

This is a machinima I created for my build BOX at MetaLES. Slurl http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/MetaLES/131/88/22 . The build is based around creating a non representational environment for the avatar to interact with as they explore an artwork. One of the unique traits of using a virtual world as a medium is that the viewer can be part of the artwork rather than a passive observer as is the case in a traditional gallery setting. It becomes an artwork when people are interacting with it. That is, in a way, the artwork itself. It's composition is the silence of an empty sim combined with periods where avatars explore it. The random nature of the interaction of the avatars within the build is mirrored by the music. The music used for BOX is made up of four short samples done by Tama Ahn. One is a drum loop, one Xylophone, the other a harp and finally a harmonica. I put each short loop into a random timed player which allowed for self composition of the music. The song constantly changes and its really quite fascinating to listen to, the samples seem to always blend together seamlessly. The first half of the machinima is taken directly from the build itself and shows how it randomly seems to work together. The final half I composed myself because... well no particular reason I just wanted to try composing it. The machinima can be shown in HD if you like. If you wish to explore the build as seen in the machinima below then use my sky preset called Bryn Oh's Bluniverse. If you use Phoenix or Firestorm its in their drop down windlight list. The build itself has a different sky than this one I used, you can find it in the bee at the start where you arrive.

I am sorry but I forget the names of the people shown in the video other than Merlino Mayo and Xaan Allen who were the little robot girl and the lady with 3D glasses on. The build is up until July 7th then will make space for a new artist to show there. The builds last a month but due to absentmindedness I forgot to let anyone know this was up. Might put it up somewhere else another time though.

Box and Geometry of Sound

2011-06-29T20:20:00.004-04:00

Performance MetaLES - Bryn Oh from Ux Hax on Vimeo.

Ux Hax is a very talented individual who I spoke to about a month ago in order to set up an inaugural exhibit for her new performance space called MetaLES. The location is for promoting culture and art in the Metaverse. Performances are always accompanied by special music for the event. Each month there will be a new person exhibiting and it will likely be quite varied from builds to music to performance.

This below is the slurl to what I created which pretty much was just me playing with ideas. The avatar interacting with the build. It involves some navigating and chaos to begin then ends with a calm environment to spend a bit of time in. It is almost an assemblage of parts to create a non traditional environment for the avatar. Inside the bee is sky setting to go with it which you can see in Ux's machinima (love the music in it btw). Ux if you read this post then look up the Space navigator 3D mouse you will love it.
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/MetaLES/131/83/22

On the same sim (actually right behind where you arrive) is a tp to an amazing music build done by maria Grot and Ux Hax called Geometry of Sound. It is a build where you can pretty much compose music while standing there. Clicking on things will begin loops which you can compose to. Definitely go have a look at this creation. Keep an eye on MetaLES I think it may turn out to be a great new performance space. I also have a soft spot for Ux because she ran the Avatar Games the other night and was awesome. I will post the video of the last running of the games in a few days when I get it sorted out.

In addition to these two builds was a live DJ performance by Estel Auer. She composed a set to work with the build and did an admirable job. You can hear how she interpreted it here... http://soundcloud.com/dj_estel

Filming for Avatar Games

2011-06-25T21:47:00.007-04:00

I will be filming contestants for the LEA Avatar Games as well as the audience this Monday at 4pm second life time. There have been some really hilarious events so far with both Crap Mariner and Honour McMillan doing wonderful commentary by voice. Some of the costumes have been ridiculous so I really do have to start filming them. This is the landmark to the event.
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/LEA3/237/125/30

If you would like to run the obstacle course then sign up here... SIGN UP or contact Galea Yates or Taralyn Gravois in world.

These are some of the current fastest runners for the season so far. Also if you get some good photos let me know and I will post them as I will update the standings every three weeks or so.

Below and to the side are some great pics by Anita Witt.

1:22, Myndi Meredith
1:36, quentinrez Resident
1:54, Jeni Beresford
1:57, Zev Titanium
2:02, Nita Charron
2:05, Eupalinos Ugajin
2:09, Lanie Windlow
2:13, hugues Haiku
2:18, Ada Artis
2:40, Tim Deschanel
2:42, Kara Trapdoor
2:46, Taralyn Gravois
2:56, RAG Randt
3:04, Uan Ceriaptrix
3:05, Samadhi Quandry
3:14, andra Lyvette
3:28, annamarie Dagostino
3:59, Melvin Starbrook
5:12, fabilene Cortes
5:33, Dekka Raymaker
5:40, Randy Firebrand

The 2011 Web3D ACM Conference

2011-06-18T21:10:00.000-04:00

If you happen to be passing through Paris, France on Monday, Tuesday or even Wednesday the 22nd of June (which you likely are) then please stop by the 2011 Web3D ACM Conference. It's a fascinating event with speakers, workshops and tutorials ranging from augmented/mixed reality, Collada and WebGL to Second Life artists. Cocktails are even supplied by SIGGRAPH. The first day starts off with a talk by multimedia artist Yann Minh. He has won several awards for his artistic creations in the fields of contemporary art and cyberculture12, Yann is a multimedia artist and writer of science fiction cyberpunk, founder of Noonautes, New cyberpunk movement, as director in video art and documentary covering TV, 3D artist, Director 3D, illustrator, filmmaker, writer and photographer, lecturer and teacher specializing in cyberculture and persistent worlds. It is often described as a cyberpunk NooConteur. He will be presenting his work a 3D reconstruction table Velasquez, Las Meninas.

I will go on next and present my work Anna's Many Murders to those attending. I will likely talk about virtual worlds as a new medium for artists. About virtual identity and my personal movement Immersiva (based on creating immersive narratives in 3d environments). I haven't actually written out my talk yet but shhhh don't tell.
SLURL http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Bryn%20Oh/70/208/186

The following day will have Tutsy Navarathna who will present his machinima "A Journey into the Metaverse," co-winner of the international competition MachinimUWA 3. Later in the day on Tuesday Anne Astier will speak on his project Flower of Life. Following Anne it will be Patrick Moya to introduce the islands and the Cannes Carnival Moya Project.

Info below.

http://www.bibliotheque-francophone.org/2011/06/la-biblio-sera-presente-la-16eme.html

The 2011 Web3D ACM Conference

The annual Web3D ACM Conference is a major event which unites researchers, developers, entrepreneurs, experimenters, artists and content creators in a dynamic learning environment Attendees share and explore methods of using, enhancing and creating new 3D Web and Multimedia technologies such as WebGL, X3D, VRML, Collada, MPEG family. U3D, Java3D and other technologies. The conference also focuses on recent trends in interactive 3D graphics, information integration and usability in the wide range ofWeb3D applications from mobile devices to high-end immersive environments.
Sixteenth in the series, the 2011 International Web3D ACM Conference will address a wide range of topics about 3D on the World Wide Web and on Multimedia Devices. Topics include: tools, object retrieval, rendering, modeling, distributed virtual environments, exposing large-scale databases, Web-wide human-computer interaction, and innovative applications (as Serious Games, E-Learning ...).

The 2011 Web3D ACM Conference will present the Web3D ART Exhibition. The Web3D ART spins the boundary between art and science. The Web3D ART group will present the Web3D ART retrospective as well as the exhibition of new Virtual Storied Worlds and Poetic Spaces creations. Students, recent graduates, orthose preparing to enter college are encouraged to submit work themed on poetry using interactive 3D technology.
The Web3D Consortium is a member-funded industry consortium committed to the creation and deployment of open, royalty-free standards that enable the communication of real-time 3D across applications, networks, and XML web services. The Consortium works closely with the ISO, MPEG and W3C standardization bodies to maximize market opportunities for its membership.

#3 AM Radio

2011-06-14T12:41:00.001-04:00

It was with sadness that I heard the majority of AM Radio's sims would be taken down in 5 months from now. They have, up until now, been supported by IDIA Lab at Ball State University. They deserve a great deal of credit for recognizing the arts in Second Life and supporting AM monetarily for so long. When we look back at societies over the centuries many are defined by their art. Ancient Greece, the Empire of Rome to the more modern Italian Renaissance masters. France with their Salons and America in the 50's onward. It is not always the case yet in many ways a society in their peak produces great art. Yet what happens when a society is in decline? are the arts the first to go?
     I don't think the United States of America is in decline. They are definitely struggling yet so is much of the world. However, not long ago I read that Gov. Sam Brownback had completely eliminated funding for the Arts in the state of Kansas. The rationale was that in times of struggle they must essentially tighten their belts and remove the things which were not considered essential. If the health of the arts do define a society then the first sign of decay in the USA would be Kansas. It may be a blip or perhaps signs of things to come.
     Second Life is also a society, yet more difficult to encapsulate. Its citizens are made up of people from around the world. Its users are from both strong nations and weaker. But it is a community and I believe it may eventually be defined by its arts. It could be argued that Second Life is a type of country. It has a population, an economy and virtual land. It also has to deal with the worlds recession. AM's work is some of the most beautiful and important in Second Life, it's loss will not just diminish Second Life aesthetically, it will also mark the departure of one of its great innovators. If you look around at many of the sims in Second Life today, if you look with a builders eye, you will see that many of them are directly influenced by AM's work.
    This post is part of my top ten favorite builds from last year, and normally I would speak on the reasons for this, the techniques used etc, instead I would like to focus on one solution to my fears of decay. About a year ago I was approached by Pathfinder Linden to see if I would be interested in placing some of my work on Linden land. I agreed and went to see the parcel. It is called Pomponio Volcano and it's in Davenport. I imagine it was terraformed in 2003 when they wished to create mountains and forests etc to provide an environment for their new virtual world. It was a sensible idea yet as time passes we can see that a sim of a simple volcano does not really amount to much. I understand the reasoning and I would have initially believed the same thing I expect, yet in hindsight simple terraformed land would be better used as art destinations. Using barren linden land for art would keep works like AM's in world and preserved and would create destinations for new users while populating deserted regions. Anyway, it seems like a good idea to me. I know its likely much more complicated, for example just finding all the empty plots of linden land would be a time consuming chore in itself. Determining who gets to be preserved on these lands and who doesn't would be a nightmare for someone as they would become a target for the angry rejected artists. It wouldn't be easy but its something to think about.

Machinima UWA 3

2011-06-07T18:25:00.001-04:00

I am a bit late posting this but the final winners of the University of Western Australias massive machinima competition ended a few weeks ago. It was a great event which had famous director Peter Greenaway give a really interesting talk on the state of cinema. If you would like to read what he said you can find it here.
The Grand Prize was given out through a system whereby points were collected based on rankings given by a large group of peers. It turned out to be a tie and the winners were...
JOURNEY INTO THE METAVERSE by Tutsy Navarathna of France (who lives in India) and JURONEY by Eric Boccara of the Netherlands.

I was very happy and excited for Mr Greenaway to give me his prize and some kind words.

The third prize went to UNPLUGGED by Al Peretz of Miami Florida.

Special prizes to
THE EGG by Animatechnica Umbarundu
BAKERMAN’S JOURNEY by Arrow Inglewood
BEGINNING OF KNOWLEDGE AND OF SORROW by Laslopantomik Yao
KAPHD by Hypatia Pickens
ESCAPE by Veruca Vandyke
WARRIORS OF ALIVENESS by Cecil Hirvi

Honourable Mention Prize
REQUIEM by Kobuk Farshore
THE JOURNEY by Soda Lemondrop

Viewer Participation Prize
PIA KLAAR
CISKO VANDEVERRE
ZENI RAIN
LALIE SORBET
BAY SWEETWATER
ARROW INGLEWOOD

Open This End Awards of Excellence in Film
BRYN OH (Toronto, Canada) - Rusted Gears
HYPATIA PICKENS (Rochester, New York, USA) - KAPHD
CECIL HIRVI (Citizen of the Universe) - Warriors of Aliveness
ARROW INGLEWOOD (Toronto, Canada) - Bakerman's Journey
ED VESPUCCIANO (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) - The Marine Corps Does Not Want Robots

Open This End Awards of Excellence in Directing
AL PERETZ [ALFONSO KOHN] (Miami, Florida) - Unplugged
ANIMATECHNICA UMBARUNDU (Northern California, USA) - The Egg
ERIC BOCCARA (Velp, Netherlands) - Juroney
PIA KLAAR (Brewster, Massachusetts, USA) - The Red Shoes
TUTSY NAVARATHNA (Frenchman in Pondicherry, India) - Journey into the Metaverse

Open This End Emerging Artist Awards of Excellence
ANDY GRAYCLOUD (Moscow, Russia) - I Want to Go Fast
ANRI EMERALD (Riga, Latvia) - The journey of life and death
FUSCHIA NIGHTFIRE (Dorset, UK) - Take the Road Less Travelled
KOBUK FARSHORE (Alaska, USA) - Requiem & Home
LASLOPANTOMIK YAO (Barcelona, Spain) - Beginning of Knowledge and of Sorrow
MIMESIS MONDAY (Oslo, Norway) - Yourney
NICOLEX MOONWALL (New Orleans, USA) - Journey Into
OONA EIREN (London, UK) - Onward & Upward
SILENE CHRISTEN (The Balears Islands, Spain) - Lost Souls' Island
TAUBCHEN SONNENKERN & MERIT COBA (both of Alkmaar, Netherlands) - Object

Special thanks to JayJay Zinfanwe for his and the UWA's outstanding support of Second Life arts.

LEA Avatar Games

2011-05-30T13:55:00.002-04:00

There have always been two fun things I have wanted to build in Second Life. One is a maze that rezzes differently each time you play. You run this maze looking for the exit while a massive monster of some sort randomly goes rather quickly through the maze. Every so often is a little avatar sized hole that you can slip through to another corridor if the monster is behind you. It is faster than you so if you don't get to the avatar hole in time then it eats you. I think that would be fun. The other thing I wanted to make was the Avatar Games.

SLURL http://slurl.com/secondlife/LEA3/237/125/30

The Avatar Games will have its first competition on Monday June 6th at 4pm SL time. This is the way it works. There will be 10 contestants who run each Monday. They start at the bottom of a hill and essentially have to run to the top with the fastest time they can get. At the end of the season (which may be around 6 months depending on whether people like this or not) there will be the finals with the top ten runners competing against each other. Oh and there is an audience who shoot at you as you run the course. Crap Mariner and Honour McMillan will be the colour commentary for the show similar to the two grumpy old men in the Muppet Show.

There is a second life wiki made for the games which you can see here... http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:LEA_Avatar_Art_Games

And if you wish to run the course while being shot at by an audience of computer eccentrics then sign up here... https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dEIwMjNzb2IxSHB1M2lKNG1RY3BmMGc6MQ&ndplr=1

What I would love to see though is for competitors to create some kind of interesting persona for their character, as we might also try to film the episodes and interview the winners in a silly manner. I really don't know how this will turn out and its quite possible that it will just be me shooting Crap Mariner as he runs the course while Honour commentates (possibly while shooting Crap as well). There are not many rules to the game. Don't cheat. Everyone should just press Ctrl and R to run and that's it. Off you go. No shields or flying or teleporting or enhanced running if that exists. We will know if you cheat and Crap will mock you mercilessly for doing so. Also I have supplied a gun for the games. It shoots a physical bullet that kind of knocks the runner off course a bit (it has a trampoline script in the bullet). You have to use this gun to make it fair. Don't use some gun that shoots nuclear missiles. Mostly I just don't want people coming to me saying "nobody else was shot by nuclear missile gun, so I demand to run again etc". Its just a fun community event type thing which should not be taken very seriously at all. In fact I will tell you now that the winner will likely receive something completely useless at the end of the season. Unless of course we get sponsors or something then it could be quite good stuff. But if we don't and its just up to me at the end then you can be assured it will be a terrible prize. So what else. ColeMarie Soleil will be arranging with competitors when they are to run and letting them know all the details. Taralyn Gravois might be introducing the competitors each time with a short bio a la Jeopardy.

Right now the games run well. We have two sims. One is just for the person running the course and for the Platform Bastard who shoots at them. It will also fill up with the physical bullets. So far the lag is minimal so that's good. The other sim is just for the audience and I will cap that at 30-40 avatars. It's going to be somewhat laggy on that side but should still be ok. Its possible I will have to go down to 20 avatars per event. These are all things I will discover over time. A great deal of credit goes to Sasun Steinbeck who has created some very useful scripts for this event. There is a leaderboard which keeps track of the running times rather than use Crap and his wrist watch. She helped me create my first SL gun which I have named "The Grand Walloper" and she worked out the timing feature too. So go sign up and let us shoot you.

Search fixed?

2011-05-26T13:31:00.006-04:00

I was at a LEA (Linden Endowment for the Arts) meeting last week and we got some good news from Courtney Linden about the use of Mega prims on the new LEA art sandbox we just opened (headed up by Sasun Steinbeck, Solo Mornington, PatriciaAnne Daviau and Dekka Raymaker). The news was that builders at the sandbox were allowed to use mega prims on the land. This might not seem like very big news as megas are used all over second life, but why it is somewhat important is that its a policy by Linden Labs that megas can not be used anywhere on Linden owned land. The reasons for this are fuzzy but from what I understand they are rumoured to cause lag. I am not sure I believe that, in fact I think it has more to do with megas originally being a user created hack that slipped in at one point before Linden Labs could close the door on it. They then became Second Lifes version of rabbits in Australia. Seems more like stubbornness to me on their part. I would love to be able to separate the rumours from reality but I just can't seem to get a consistent answer.
I do know that megas used to create jerky camera movements for the viewer. I experienced that myself so I know it was true. I have not noticed that recently though. The LEA group bitched and complained about the megaprim ban for ages now, and to give credit where its due, Dancoyote Antonelli was perhaps the most vocal in trying to get them accepted. Now Dan and I don't really get along very well, but I do respect him. Well sometimes. Courtney Linden is our liaison and she deserves a great deal of credit for changing the mind of someone somewhere to allow this. Hopefully this policy will move on to other Linden events such as the second life birthday parties and other events they hold. Would have been good for Burning Life too.
So as I was saying, at the meeting Sasun Steinbeck was saying that she found it hard to believe that Linden Labs could not fix the mega prim problem. I replied that I found it hard to believe that the lab could not fix search. I am not a programmer by any stretch of the imagination, so I am sure it's more complicated than I give the problem credit for, but really the search function is quite important and it has been broken for far too long. So I was encouraged to find this post that search has now not only been fixed but also greatly improved.

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Featured-News/Test-Out-New-Search-Delivering-More-Relevant-Faster-Results/ba-p/891823

I am not a huge fan of the Linden Labs sucks at everything bloggers out there, so these are just a few positive things I wanted to share.

This video below has nothing whatsoever to do with this post. I just find it funny.

Catching up on a few things..

2011-05-23T11:10:00.001-04:00

The BOSL Awards 2011 from Metaverse TV on Vimeo.

I did a post about the Best of Second Life awards a few weeks back and never actually said who won the awards so here they are. The BOSL awards are unique in that they bring together a bunch of subgroups who never really interact with each other. There are many different worlds within second life that often thrive without even the knowledge of other groups. For example I know the artists and somewhat the architects of second life yet I know virtually nothing about models or home furnishings. The event was a lighthearted affair hosted by Editorial Clarity and Persia Bravin who both did a wonderful job.
The event is quite long 1:30 min, so I have put the times down for each category. Now if you are searching for say some nice animations, then just pop over to 29:10 and you will see the nominees and winner there. I am so very helpful.
Best shoe design 13:05
best SL architect 14:50
best jewellery design 19:10
best skin designer 21:45
best home furnishings 23:40
best poses 26:13
best animations 29:10
best hair designer 31:42
best photographer 33:50
best original artist 36:12
best original project 40:05
best live entertainer 44:48
best new model 48:45
best male top model 50:53
best female top model 54:35
best overall sim 56:28
best fashion accessories 1:06:28
best new fashion designer 1:09:02
best male fashion designer 1:10:44
best female fashion designer 1:12:40
lifetime achievement award 1:15:35
avatar of the year award 1:24:30

And the next thing to catch up on is the opening of the LEA Art Sandbox. Chantal Harvey did a great machinima of the opening fun. The LEA sandbox is being run by Sasun Steinbeck, Solo Mornington and the wonderful PatriciaAnne Daviau. Both Solo and Patti have extensive sandbox experience with Solo being moderator of Artnation sandbox and Patti running IBM Sandbox for years.

Here is the SLURL http://slurl.com/secondlife/LEA5/122/129/24

My avatar and Me

2011-05-16T13:24:00.009-04:00

About two years ago I was contacted by Rob Danton in Second Life to see if I would like to be commissioned to build work for a Dutch movie called My avatar and Me. The film will be available for VOD at www.constellation.tv in June. It has been nominated for best documentary at film festivals in Lübeck, Germany, and Krakow, Poland, and selected to festivals in Amsterdam, Cleveland, Ireland, Spain and Denmark. Also, it has been televised at ZDF and ARTE a.o. Here is the website to see more. http://myavatarandme.com/

By going to the website you will no doubt instantly recognize Second Life as being a big part of the movie.

The Danish documentary-fantasy “My Avatar and Me” is going to be shown at a special live-event, hosted from Copenhagen, Denmark.

From Grand Theatre both the film and a Q&A afterwards with female lead Helena Kirkorianwill be cinecasted to 12 cinemas in Denmark and to Second Life. I look forward to watching it. I think I make a cameo in the movie too, but I can't remember.

So what did I do for this? Well I will post the synopsis of the movie at the bottom but the main character essentially quests for love and the Long Now Orrey. I built the orrey for the movie. You may have seen it in the past if you have come to Immersiva on occasion. I actually have a machinima which focuses on it so I will put that here as well as a picture. Also its for sale at my shop if you are interested. (It's 1100 prims though!)
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Immersiva/202/148/1152
I really should promote my gallery more where I sell things. Did I ever tell you about my first store in Second Life? It was hidden off on a sim called Danvers State Hospital. To find it people had to solve a series of riddles and find clues on other sims. Then to finish it off, if they did eventually find Danvers I had put a large prim over the front door with a picture of an empty room on it. So if they just looked from outside it seemed like just and empty room, but if they walked in anyway the store would appear. Seriously, you are supposed to make it as easy as possible for people to find your store I would imagine, yet here I was hiding it in a sim with low traffic and forcing people to spend days figuring out how to get there. Terrible business plan. However Hamlet Au from NWN called it brilliant in 2008, which suggests that we should never team up and go into business together. http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2008/11/brilliant-metav.html

Anyway I really just want to congratulate everyone involved with the production. Its a huge achievement to do something of this scale. Not just for the first life divisions but also for the Second Life people involved such as Kean Kelly, Aki Shichiroji, Rob Danton, Dizzy Banjo and Angrybeth Shortbread. Have a look at the full credit list to see the SL avatars who helped. Its in the cast section on the website here.. http://www.myavatarandme.com/fullcredits.pdf

Mikkel Stolt - is a troubled and unsuccessful documentary filmmaker, who decides to create a new identity, and join the pioneers and settlers in the virtual world “Second Life” on the other side of his computer screen. He chooses the name Mike Proud for his “avatar” and starts off with a typical off-the-shelf standard body.
Shortly after his arrival, a mysterious and influential woman named Helena picks him up and takes him under her wing. Helena gives Mike a complete makeover, and turns him into a sophisticated avatar, equipped with all the animations he needs to interact with the most advanced users of Second Life.
.
Mikkel is very attracted to Helena, and extremely curious to find out more about her, but she refuses to meet him in real life and her true identity remains a mystery.
Helena introduces Mike to Rob, a professional filmmaker who works for BBC in his real life. They become friends and decide to go into business together. The business thrives as Helena uses her in-world influence to pave the way for Mike’s career.
.
Mike truly enjoys his new status as a popular member of the Second Life jet set, but Mikkel’s real life is gradually falling apart. He is spending more and more time in front of the computer screen, bleary-eyed, sleep-deprived and out of touch with reality. When his long time girlfriend decides to break up their relationship, it doesn’t really affect him. All he can think about is his virtual career, and Helena, who has become more important to him than his real-life family and friends.
When Helena suddenly departs from Second Life, Mike’s virtual world starts to fall apart. The moment she terminates her Second Life account, Mikkel knows that he has thirty days to watch everything he has accomplished in the virtual world literally vanish forever.
The painful experience of losing his business empire and the love of his “second life” sets Mikkel on a different path, and gradually the gates to a much larger reality start to open.
.
His search for Helena brings him to a mysterious Island named Akasha, where he finds the gateway to a parallel world inhabited by mysterious light-beings. The light-beings promise him that he will be re-united with his lost love, but first he needs to carry out a mission, which includes a journey to the Mountain of the Long Now in Nevada, USA, where the legendary computer scientist Danny Hillis is building a monumental mechanical clock - designed to keep time for the next 10.000 years.

Anna's Many Murders

2011-05-05T09:10:00.010-04:00

Anna's Many Murders will open at 9am SL time Saturday May 7th.
http://www.slurl.com/secondlife/Bryn%20Oh/217/161/200

A few months ago a land baron by the name of Syn Short did something quite remarkable. She named a sim Bryn Oh and gave it to me. Syn in an interesting character who has shown me that it's quite difficult to believe anything you read. I keep hearing about land woes yet here she is buying up dozens of sims at a time and profiting. Anyway, she doesn't want recognition so I won't go on about her here. Syn gave me a sim two or three months ago and I have just finished a build for it called Anna's Many Murders. For the last few years I had put a great deal of time into the Rabbicorn Story trilogy which had an overall melancholy storyline which was quite close to me. From an art perspective, I find the nature of Second Life or virtual worlds to have the ability to create great depths of emotion. That to me is one of it's greatest strengths as an art medium, so to ignore that ability is folly. When I stepped back from creating Standby at IBM, I really wanted to take a break from, what is to me, a emotional way to create. So that is what Anna's Many Murders is. It's a bit strange, a bit disturbing and with a bit of blue humour. It's essentially about a girl who watches everyone around her slowly add apps and gadgets to themselves until they cease to become human.

Anna tired of body apps
that people used
to fill their gaps.
So with a touch
of profound sadness,
Anna embraced
what we'd call madness.

What I also wanted to do with this build is experiment. I have created a windlight for Anna's which is very dark and placed the build at the cloud layer in the sky. With the sky setting the clouds turn into mist. Under normal sky settings the clouds are just annoying. So if you find you wish to use a different sky setting then you might like to turn off the clouds. To do so go to advanced-rendering-types-clouds. This will uncheck them. Or just press Ctrl-Alt-Shift and - at once. But yes the build is dark and I am trying out illuminating areas with ambient light features.
There is a nice new feature in this build though for Phoenix and Imprudence viewer users. At the start where you arrive you can click a sign to get a variety of things including a windlight file called Anna's Many Murders.wl. It will go to your notecard area in your inventory. If you double click this it will automatically change the sky for you. One of the greatest obstacles to using windlight in the past was trying to convince people to plug it all in and save it. But to not use windlight for me the artist, is tantamount to ignoring a huge part of my artists studio. It all depends on the artists focus though. For me it is essential yet for another artist is may not even be considered nor desired. One day regions will (hopefully) automatically set the windlight for you, but until then this is a very quick and painless way for Phoenix users to try out an artwork that also incorporates windlight.
So turn up your ambient sound (even make sure it is on as it was off by default on a recent Phoenix viewer install) Make the room dark that houses your computer. If it is a big bright room then you will have a hard time seeing anything due to the contrast. The idea is to create an environment where you feel a little bit lost, a little like you can't quite see properly. It's what I think is a way to further devellop Immersiva. To create Immersiva you have to capture the full attention of the viewer. By challenging your vision of the environment I believe your mind will focus more on the monitor and narrative. That is another reason to darken the room you are in. No distractions. It's a test though so please feel free to give me your opinion. The whole idea in the end is for me to learn what works and what doesn't.
Another thing I have incorporated into this build is the use of Kirstens Viewer. Kirstens is the best graphical viewer for Second Life. It has wonderful shadows and things like depth of field. If you have a good computer I would suggest you try installing it just to play with. Below I have written out particular settings for using Kirstens with Anna's Many Murders. I have tried to keep them fairly low so as not to tax your computer too much. My computer is not top of the line but it runs these settings ok.
If you really don't want to do any of this it looks fine on the regions default which is night.

slurl.com/secondlife/Bryn%20Oh/67/208/186

First you will need to go to http://www.kirstensviewer.com/
and download the viewer under downloads at the top.

You will need a pretty good computer for this...

At top right under S21 go to preferences and then graphics.

Set quality and speed to max.
All shaders should have a checkmark.
If you have a great computer then put on shadows.
Water reflections can be minimal but all static objects is better.

under Avatar rendering click avatar impostors and hardware skinning.
Draw distance 80 - 150 is fine.
max avatar 12
max particle 5120
post process quality 9
terrain texture 9
shadow quality 2.2

Mesh detail
objects 12.125
flexi prims 0.8
trees 1
avatars 8
terrain 13
sky 152

under advanced
click local lights and use default stuff above.

under textures
click animate textures, anisotropic filtering, water mip maps
deferred alpha mask.
Terrain detail - high
texture memory 512

shadows is up to you if you use them.
perf-hardware
click use far clip, disable vsync, use full control gama,
disable VBO, enable OpenGL. Antialising 2x or higher.

Global illumination
click box and use default.

Misc
This is fun if you want to try it. But can be confusing.
click toggle DOF effect
camera FOV 95
cameraFNumber 83
Camera focal length 596
camera aspect ratio 2.91
DOF focus transition time 4.67

This is depth of field. It will blur everything except what you are looking at. Point using your mouse at the thing you wish to focus on and it will come into focus.

Under sound and media make sure ambient sound is not muted.

This is one way but fool around to find out what works best for you.

Windlight
"Anna's Many Murders" - Bryn Oh

Under Atmosphere

Atmosphere

Blue Horizon
R=0.15
G=0.09
B=0.10
I=0.15
Haze Horizon = 0.17

Blue Density
R=0.09
G=0.10
B=0.07
I=0.10
Haze Density = 4
Density Multiplier = 0.21
Distance Multiplier = 23
Max Altitude = 322

Under Lighting

Lighting Sun/Moon colour
R=0.22
G=0.18
B=0.20
I=0.22

Ambient
R=0.07
G=0.03
B=0.00
I=0.07

Sun Glow
focus = 0.00
size = 1.0
scene gamma 0.74
star brightness = 0
Sun/Moon position = 1
East angle = 32

Under Clouds tab

Clouds

Cloud colour
R=0.61
G=0.54
B=0.56
I=0.61

Cloud density
X=0.45
Y=0.55
D=0.06

Cloud coverage = 0.64
Cloud scale = 0.18

Cloud detail
X=0.54
Y= 0.48
D= 0.04

Cloud scroll x = 2.99
Cloud scroll y = 0.51

Now click new and save it as "Anna's Many Murders"

#4 Nemo

2011-04-29T11:25:00.001-04:00

Nemo is perhaps the most well crafted of all the sims on my list. Everything from the fine textures to the tiny detailing. Sextan Shepherd built this Jules Verne inspired world and guess what he does for a living? Painter? Sculptor? Designer? Illustrator? no no no silly, he is a financial reporter for a magazine. Sextan really does embody the premise behind having a second life. Financial reporter by day and creator of fine steampunk by night.
You can see sextan's passion for steampunk in virtually everything on the sim. He didn't rush though a single portion of the work and the whole build is planned out quite well. It has some areas of emptiness and some full of activity, a really nice balance to keep the viewer interested. Often in a work of art the artist will have an area in the work which is quite detailed with information or varied colour or line. An area which is dynamic and busy. If an entire work is created this same way then the viewer will lose some interest because the creation will become somewhat monotonous. This applies to everything from subject matter to brush stroke etc. What the artist does in this case is to create areas of tranquility for the viewer to "relax" in.
So if it were a painting we were talking about then the artist might have an area in the painting of say people fighting in the civil war. Some people shooting each other and perhaps an explosion or two. The brush strokes might be wild and thick, very dramatic to show chaos. If the whole painting were done this way then it would actually lose some of its dramatic nature. The artist might create a space beside all the fighting which was a green field with very few brush strokes etc. A place of tranquility for the eye to rest in. Then when the eye moves on from this spot to another area of chaos it becomes dramatic again due to the contrast.
Sextan's Nemo is composed very much like this. Large areas of calm water juxtaposed against whirling gears and towers. A really wonderful sim. And I believe there is a new Nemo coming out soon too.

#4 from 2009 - Selavy Oh "State of Formation"

#4 from 2008 - AM Radio "The Far Away"

Best of Second Life Awards

2011-04-22T10:30:00.003-04:00

A few months ago I was informed that I had been nominated for an award from BOSL (Best of Second Life). The category is for Best original artist and tomorrow is the event. I am in a category with a bunch of great artists who you can see below.
=============================
10. BEST ORIGINAL ARTIST
=============================

Bryn Oh
Cherry Manga
Eliza Wierwight
Eshi Otawara
Glyph Graves
Nish Mip
Sharni Azalee

The Best of Second Life is pretty interesting actually (I did some research after I was nominated). Frolic Mills came into Second Life and built up an empire over the course of a few years. Included in this empire you can find THE BEST OF SL MAGAZINE,BOULEVARD MODEL AGENCY, MISS/MR VIRTUAL WORLD ORGANIZATION, THEBOSL.COM, THE FROLIC MILLS SHOW (in partnership with Metaverse TV), BOSLRADIO.COM and the BOSL AWARDS. That's a ton of work running all that and he no doubt has a small army of helpers as well. He could be in some of those categories himself really.
Persia Bravin was kind enough to send me the info below.

"These awards have been created to celebrate the work of content creators from all genres and all nominees were decided by press members, experienced gamers in each field and content creators themselves. No public voting was accepted.

‘The Best Of Second Life’ is owned by Frolic Mills and has grown to become one of the largest and most respected businesses within Second Life.

It was initially born from a simple magazine back in October 2007, when Frolic Mills decided to catalogue his SL life, the work of inspiring creators, interesting sims and the work of fashion designers in SL. Over the years, the magazine has now grown and has over 7,000 kiosks in world, over 5,000 people in group and approximately 11,000 monthly subscribers (plus an external website)

BOSL and Frolic are also the creators of the Miss Virtual World contest which attracts participants from across the grid. In 2010, over 2,000 entries were received and in December 2010, the current reigning MVW - Serene Faith- was crowned. Broadcast via Metaverse TV, the final attracted over 2,500 viewers and the BOSL Awards is anticipated to gain even higher viewing statistics.

In April 2010, BOSL radio was launched to help promote grid wide events, creative talent and to showcase the talent of SL residents. In its first year, BOSL Radio had over 500 guests, broadcast from some groundbreaking events (including RL movie Director Peter Greenway’s speech at a machinima convention) and has assisted dozens of charities to help promote their fundraising objectives."

Further Information:

http://www.thebosl.com/

So now I am going to pick my winners just for fun. Some of the categories I know nothing at all about.

=============================

LIST OF CATEGORIES AND NOMINEES

I have decided to remove a bunch of categories because it was taking me forever to scroll down my blog post. They will no doubt get lots of recognition on fashion sites so I am only doing a mild disservice to them.

=============================
2. BEST SL ARCHITECT
=============================

Cierra Anatine
DB Bailey
Keystone Bouchard
Sergio Botha
Setsuna Infinity
Sweetlemon Jewell

Oh this is a tight one. I would choose between either DB Bailey or Keystone bouchard. In the end though I would pick DB Bailey as his creations really embrace the concept that architecture in a virtual world need not conform to real life rules such as gravity or the need to include stairs when we can fly etc.

=============================
7. BEST ANIMATIONS
=============================

artoo Magneto - AKEYO, daisy Saeed & daiz Papp - Oracul Animations,Modesta Heying - Maldita Animation ,Ramona Criss - MyANIMATION, Vista Barnes - Vista Animations

=============================
9. BEST PHOTOGRAPHER
=============================

Barney Roundel, Cherie Parker ,Di Hoorenbeek, Julie Hastings, Lulu Jameson, Skip Staheli, Strawberry Singh

=============================
10. BEST ORIGINAL ARTIST
=============================

Bryn Oh
Cherry Manga
Eliza Wierwight
Eshi Otawara
Glyph Graves
Nish Mip
Sharni Azalee

I shouldn't really vote on this one so I will make an alternate list and vote on that instead.

AM Radio
Selavy Oh
Four Yip
Cutea Benelli/Blotto Epsilon
Oberon Onmurra
Rose Borchovski
Kolor Fall

Oh that's a tough list why did I do that to myself? Maybe I should make a third list. Actually no I will just move on to the next category.

=============================
11. BEST ORIGINAL PROJECT
=============================

Amaretto Breedable Horses
Baldtraveller Shan - Altya's Dream Creations
The Dramatiques Performance Troupe
Keira Seerose - Platinum Hunt; Call for Couture
METAVERSE TV
OMGWTF Barbecue - 111 Event
UWA Art Challenge

I think I would pick the UWA Art Challenge or METAVERSE TV.

=============================
12. BEST LIVE ENTERTAINER
=============================

Christopher135 Quan, CraigLyons Writer, Edward Kyomoon, Maximillion Kleene, Skye Galaxy, Tamra Sands, The Follow

I would go with Skye Galaxy here.

=============================
16. BEST OVERALL SIM
=============================

[pteron]
Cap Estel
Garden of Dreams
Insilico
Majesterium
Seawolf Monsters
Stepford

Hmmm here I would pick Insilico.

=============================
21. AVATAR OF THE YEAR
=============================

Jayjay Zifanwe - President UWA SL
Jessica Lyon - Phoenix viewer
Josaphine Cooperstone - Amaretto Breedables
MamaP Beerbaum - COB Relay For Life 2011
Mimmi Boa - Fashionista extraordinaire
Robustus Hax - Founder Metaverse TV

This is an intriguing one. My sentimental favorite would be JayJay Zifanwe, but I think really it will be Jessica Lyon for the fantastic Phoenix Viwer.

=====================
22. BOSL Award for outstanding contributions to SL
=====================

June Dion
Maddox DuPont
Mankind Tracer
Nicky Ree
Patch Thibaud
Raven Pennyfeather

So as you can see I should never be given the power to vote on anything outside of SL art. I have been having a bit of fun with this, but really I think these kinds of things are important to do to create community and a sense of fun in SL. There are quite a few negative bloggers out there who grumble about everything in SL, so Frolic is probably quite aware that there will be moaning about this as well. In the end though its just kind of nice for each of the avatars on this list to know that people have taken notice of what you do and are appreciative. Anyway, the event is as I said on Saturday April 23rd and runs from 10am SL time to around 1pm or so.

Rusted Gears

2011-04-15T11:03:00.005-04:00

Bryn's YouTube


     This is a machinima I have made for the University of Western Australia. They are running a machinima event which had the loose theme of "Journeys". This is my journey. It's kind of a personal take on the theme. There are already quite a few great machinima submitted and with two weeks left until the deadline, there are another dozen or so expected. Click the link above to go have a peek at some of the ones already submitted.

     I don't really have much to say in this post other than perhaps what I was thinking when I composed the machinima. So I have harped in the past on my interest in creating Immersion for the viewer in my 3D builds. Working on elements ranging from ambient sound and composition and subtle movement to allow the viewer to forget their first life surroundings for a short time as they explore my work. Along a similar line of thought when making this machinima, I was curious as to whether I could create a rhythm with the fading in and out of the poem coupled with the music. If this rhythm might allow the viewer to subconsciously change their rate of breathing to follow the rhythm of the machinima.
     I started thinking about this because at one point while I was assembling it, I noticed that I was moving my hand subconsciously in a pattern like waves on a shore to follow the rhythm.   My own breathing began to mimic the small portion I had created already. I thought to myself "wow thats kind of interesting". Now I am thinking on how I could work with that for my open ended builds in world.   Creating true sustainable Immersiva is already very tricky without headsets and such to block out RL. Just too many distractions around your typical computer to let people become fully immersed within the on screen work. But having said that it would be interesting to see if sound and perhaps text combined within an open ended build could bring the viewer to a certain state when viewing a narrative.
     This is done regularly in cinema, especially in horror movies, but the viewer can not deviate from the sequence of the movie. The film is always the same, with the same viewpoint and same sequence of events and sound. In a virtual world build the viewer is not controlled as they are an active participant rather than an observer. I could set up this experiment in sound only to have the viewer follow completely unexpected routes through my narrative. They decide where they want to look or go, unlike a movie. What I could do is have sound triggered once the viewer enters a certain radius within an area. Hmmm just thought of something else to consider. Maybe the viewer can change their breathing to follow a machinima because they are not required to do anything at that particular point which may hamper their connection. The body can relax and follow the lead of the machinima, but if one were required to use the w,s,a,d keys on the keyboard to navigate and do other similar things at that time, then perhaps that uses too much mental and physical activity to allow the body to relax naturally enough to sync breathing. Anyway, I am starting to ramble a bit, I hope you enjoy the machinima.

kinect2

2011-04-12T12:18:00.000-04:00

Make the Line Dance from 1024 on Vimeo.

Taken from 1024 blog the kinect tracks the dancers skeleton which allows the projector to keep it synced to his body and movements. (I think)

University of Western Australia monthly art competition

2011-04-07T12:01:00.002-04:00

If you are a small prim builder and wish to showcase your work, then you might like to exhibit with the UWA. Your work must be no larger than 100 prims which can be tricky, but it's a great place to show smaller builds and a fantastic place to find emerging artists. When I was there last I found the work of Rebeca Bashly shown in the picture to the right. Its the kind of work where you can really imagine what a full sim build might look like if she were given space. And that is the strength of the UWA. Rebeca isn't actually an emerging artist as she has been in SL for four years or so, but I mean that the UWA brings together artists who may reside outside of the creators you are familiar with.
Jayjay Zinfanwe has been running this event for a few years now originally with Quadrapop Lane, who did a great job, and then more recently with Freewee Ling who is also an integral part of the events success. What is also nice about the UWA is they give away over $1, 000, 000 linden in prizes to prim artists and $500, 000 to machinima artists over the course of a year. Below is a list of groups who bestow awards, and as you can see you would likely find an audience there who might like your particular work of art. What is kind of nice is that in many cases there is no consensus winner. In the last month almost every group that gave out an award picked a different winner. That suggests that with each month it is very competitive in the skill level of the exhibiting artists.

My favorite build from this month was (Three little turns and it goes away) by Josiane Sorciere. I was smiling as the ballerina turned inside her jar, but I was sold when she tipped it over and jumped to her death. The short video above shows how it worked from a few different angles. It is a painstaking process to animate in this way and she did an admirable job doing so in a convincing manner. Something animated poorly really jumps out to the viewer, so the fact that you accept the animation as it is plays illustrates that it was done with enough skill to not break our immersion within the little narrative. SL is not very good for animating in this manner. It can be jerky etc. So knowing its limitations is important when choosing a subject. When we see the ballerina dance we know it is mechanical so we allow it to have a certain degree of unrealistic movements. If on the other hand the graceful smooth running of a horse were to be attempted, then the end result would likely fail as it would not have the measure of grace that we would be accustomed to seeing. So Josiane created a narrative, animated it skillfully and chose a subject to animate that worked well within the limitations of zfire or puppeteer. Or whichever animation tool was used. Also in its own way it is a creation which capitalizes on the unique abilities of SL over RL. I don't know if I would say it is not possible to make in real life, but it would certainly be very difficult to do and exceedingly expensive. I always enjoy a build that allows the viewer to see something that they wouldn't come across in RL.

The University of Texas San Antonio (UTSA) led by Dr Carmen Fies, SL Art led by Gleman Jun & Sunset Quinnel, CARP led by Josina Burgess & Velazquez Bonetto, Pirats Art Network led by Merlina Rokocoko & Newbab Zsigmond, Odyssey led by Fau Ferdinand & Lizsolo Mathilde, BOSL led by Frolic Mills and Editorial Clarity, Nordan Art led by Flora Nordanskiold and Apmel Goosson, S&S Gallery of Fine Art led by TheDove Rhode, The Workhouse Gallery led by Astarte Haalan, Art Place d-oo-b led by Eifachfilm Vacirca, The Tornado Gallery led by Taralyn Gravois, project Z led by Zachh Cale and UWA with Professor Ted Snell, Chair of the Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council for the Arts as Chair of the UWA judging panel.

It is also a very international group who exhibit, artists come from Taiwan, Hungary, Latvia, Russia, Venezuela, Belgium, Mexico, Wales, Canada, the USA, the UK, Uruguay, Scotland,England, Spain, Switzerland, Italy, France, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Denmark, Holland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Portugal, Austria, Cuba, Serbia, Tunisia, Germany, Japan, New Zealand and Australia.

here is the SLURL www.slurl.com/secondlife/UWA/61/134/248

Kinect

2011-04-05T09:52:00.001-04:00

Kinected Conference from Lining (Lizzie) Yao on Vimeo.

I joined a rl group about a month ago that is essentially for people trying to figure out what to do with Kinect. Kinect is an Xbox cam addition which captures your body movements and, with some tweaking, can be made to work with other devices. I joined this group because I had an idea about using Kinect with my arts grant. To create a first life space in a gallery where I supply a virtual reality headset for visitors to wear and then try to use kinect to allow for the gallery visitor to move within an environment that I create. I was thinking that to have a gallery visitor put on a headset then, then be required to use a keyboard to navigate (while not being able to see it) would be a bit of an obstacle.
So yes I am in this group and we are made up of a few artists, a handful of programmers and some self professed nerds. Each of them are quite accomplished in their own area of expertise. One of them in fact is a five time Maui Tai world champion. Last meeting some of the programmers were talking and I honestly had no idea what they were talking about whatsoever. In fact, and this is no lie, one of them brought up a screen of gobblygook much like that green code from the Matrix movie and they were looking at it and exclaiming over parts of it. I nodded and pretended to know what was going on, but yeah that's a different world. Kinect is fascinating and pretty much Microsoft have pretended that it was hacked with code being leaked but thats kind of strange because they export them with USB connections which seems to be a bit contrary. Everyone has a USB connection. So yes the world is their research and development division. I am going to post kinect things here and there as it may well be the future of how we interact with everything from software to hardware. I don't really know what I am talking about yet, but I will post things that I learn or come across. For example, when you use kinect to capture your movements from the front it sometimes has problems with certain angles. Solution is to place a second kinect behind the subject and then your full range of motion is picked up much easier.

(I really wish they didn't show second life at its most ugly state of graphics, such as in this video below, but you get the idea)

#5 MrPim Hax

2011-03-29T14:36:00.001-04:00

I have a few things I would like to mention for this post so it may be a bit disjointed. Hopefully the connections will be clear at the end. There are many different types of intentions when an artwork is created. Some work towards one result, while others have no interest in that element and strive for yet another. One of my fascinations in art is how a work can be embodied with emotion in an almost magical manner when manipulated correctly. In the last post the artist had members of her audience weeping as they connected to her artwork. She did this by merely moving sand around. When I oil paint I often make my own colours. I don't mean mixing the colours on a palette but rather making the paint itself. I do this for a few reasons, some being that store bought paint can contain fillers that are actually stained particles rather than proper pigments. They are created for shelf life and uniform consistency etc. When you make your own paint you not only have much more control over the quality but you also connect to your work in a deeper way. It's like buying a tomato as opposed to growing them yourself. The process become less abstract. So for example Carmine Red is a pigment made up of crushed red bug shells. Proper Naples yellow is made from volcanic rock gathered from around Pompeii in Italy. From Mount Vesuvius I believe. Burnt/Raw Sienna/Umber is clay taken from a region in Italy. Actually something important to know when buying a Sienna is to check the pigment content on the back. Ok this is getting off topic but whatever. The clay is becoming scarce and thus is driving up the cost per pound of pigment to manufacturers. As a result many manufacturers are substituting the clay pigment known as PB7 or PBr7 (pigment brown 7) for a synthetic red iron oxide (PR101). The new Sienna formulation is seriously inferior to the traditional one so make sure on the back of your paint tube it shows the appropriate pigment. It is hard to find good sienna now but hopefully you can still find the good stuff. When you buy Dammar varnish from an art store it comes in a bottle. Its easy to imagine that the Dammar is created in some white sterile lab from synthetic components. When I make it, I have the resin shipped in. It comes in a burlap bag with each chunk of resin being chipped off a tree in another country, I seem to recall mine comes from Singapore. The sap from these trees are like pieces of crystal amber and in many cases they contain trapped bugs inside them. After a few days of breaking them down into a thick liquid while submerged in mineral spirits, then filtering them over and over again to get out the bugs and bark, you have the clear liquid that you can buy in the store. However there is now a new feeling when you look at your own Dammar solution. Its no longer an abstract synthetic creation. So then when I paint I am arranging pigments over a 2D surface and somehow at the end it may or may not draw forth an emotion from the viewer. I just really find it compelling that you can imbue an emotion into an inanimate object (painting) by a specific arrangement of pastes, and an empathic viewer can pick up your emotion and absorb them unto themself. And its all done with raw basic tools.
     When we look at Second Life as an art medium there are some factors which make it quite unique and powerful. Things that separate it from other mediums. One such thing is the way emotions are somehow highly amplified in the virtual world. People fall in love with minds here in Second Life, whereas in RL it's often people falling in love with bodies first and then eventually with anothers mind. I don't want to generalize but that seems to be a unique difference. Connections are far more cerebral than physical.
     When I came across this build by MrPim it was clear to me that it contained emotion. Much like the artist who arranges the paint that is made up of crushed bugs or volcanic rock we have the SL artist arranging prims that are composed of programming code. Arranging them the right way draws forth an emotion, the wrong way produces nothing. If I understand correctly, MrPims work was created as an emotional reaction to a SL relationship he had with another. Not a physical relationship but rather a cerebral one. My interpretation is that he is a reclusive person in SL, as he has said so himself. He resides in his symbolic cage as we see at the beginning of the machinima, and he is released by a girl he meets in SL. He bonds to her as lonely people often do, but over time she meets new people as is the way in SL. She drifts away from him and he watches her go rather than fight to keep her. She flies out to meet the new people and leaves with them unshackled. It is a story told from his perspective and it is real emotion connected to how he saw the situation. And because it was based off of a real experience the emotions were able to be transferred into the artwork, and that is what made it successful.
     So for example, if I were to decide as a snow bound Canadian to make an artwork based on the Lost Boys of Sudan trekking to Kenya while being bombed or attacked by Lions. It would likely be a complete and utter failure. I can't associate with that experience so how could I possibly portray what it would be like for them? A work created on a subject you know and understand, that you are emotionally attached to has the best chance of striking a chord in the viewer. It eventually comes down to whether the artist possesses the skill to translate their emotions into another format for others to absorb. In this case MrPims work did so for me.

#5 from 2009 mushROOM by Scottius Polke

#5 from 2008 Light Waves Night Dreaming

Kseniya Simonova - sand art

2011-03-23T14:44:00.001-04:00

I have never really gotten along well with my computer. It tolerates me and I grudgingly accept its power over my daily life. That was until about five days ago when my computer got a virus. Intentionally I believe. I was working on something and noticed my computer was all sluggish and petulant. I then noticed that my Nortons was completely off. So it either didn't load when I turned on my computer (which is extremely rare) or the virus turned it off somehow. So long story short everything on my computer was infected due to my computers bad attitude and so in retaliation I erased its brain. I realized later that by formatting my hard drive I had lost a lot of things. Thousands of songs, word documents, all my pictures and many of my SL videos. The thought of starting over was exhausting to contemplate, so I instead lay around grumbling.
The one positive element was that I was victorious over my computer. I erased its brain so that must be considered winning I suppose. I don't think it thought I would ever go to that extreme measure, but I did and it learned a valuable lesson which it has now forgotten because its brain is broken. But it learned a valuable lesson for a very short time. I am not sure what that lesson was but its something like don't be a jerk and get viruses. I now have a fresh install and I am going to really make an effort to be friends with this new computer. I have named it Gargamel. One thing I did do a few years ago was to buy a external hard drive which I backed up most of my stuff on. Unfortunately I kept telling it not to back stuff up. Its name is Azriel. So yes there is a Smurfs theme going on for my computer (I have a second hard drive named Papa Smurf). Anyway, my whole point to this post was to say that everything will be delayed a bit. I lost my top ten movies so need to redo them. So what I will do is put up interesting things I like until I am ready to continue with my top ten favorite builds again. This video below is the first. It is what I believe to be a European talent show. The vibrant girl in the video is working with sand, which is probably obvious. It was so beautiful when I first saw her perform that I had tears in my eyes and I think I fell in love with her for a bit too. Her name is Kseniya Simonova and is incredibly talented. Her ability to conjure scenes and emotions with just a few quick loose movements of her hands is fascinating to watch. She is so decisive and confident in her movements. Not even a touch of nervousness.

#6 Oberon Onmurras "Coriolis"

2011-03-16T12:11:00.013-04:00

Some of my favorite non representational artworks in Second Life are created by Oberon Onmurra. I see his work under the light of a few different movements in art. Not fully under one, but with elements of different schools of thought. I filmed the video above as though it were a work of Seprematism. The idea behind Seprematism was that everything we see in the physical world is meaningless, with significance only coming with feeling. The Suprematists often worked only with very basic geometric shapes like cubes and cylinders, because they felt that by picking the form of the square, they had chosen a shape not found in nature nor the traditional painting of that time. The square symbolized something greater than our world of appearances. They would, in some cases, work white over white as seen in these paintings done by Kazimir Malevich in 1927 or so. The idea being that they were purified form and colour. You can also see echoes of De Stijl and Elementarism in Oberons creations as well. If you look at Oberons work in the video, you will see that it is almost exclusively made up of cubes. The most basic of shapes in Second Life. Each of these cubes is given life by the use of scripting. The scripting is their animator, their soul, it is what allows for them to gain the feeling or emotion which is sought by Suprematism. I have actually made the video with more and different emotion than Seprematism would have liked, but I wanted to show that the space was malleable to interpretation. It is how I see the space.

Even the chairs are collections of basic cubes combined to create the object. The particles streaming from the cubes that rise to the sky or from the flying creatures also are of a fairly minimal nature in the world of particles. His work Coriolis, can be seen either from the emotional manner by which I filmed the video, to that of a rigid impersonal landscape, with the coldness of a computer land. The viewer imparts their emotions onto the minimal landscape. The fact that it is minimal, I believe, allows one to project onto it with greater ease. Its not exactly a blank canvas to work on, but it has areas of space for us to fill in.
I really enjoy Oberons approach to art creation in Second Life. His juxtaposition of the chaotic movement and engulfment of his cubes on the viewer, to his quiet empty areas of reflection. These elements are what drew me to this work in particular. Its simplicity of form and the way it allows for the viewer to project their feelings onto its surroundings are one of the features which stood out for me over a year of viewing various art exhibits.

#6 from 2009 - ColeMarie Soleil - Particles

#6 from 2008 - Nonnatus Korhonnen - Needlebirds

Grant from the Canadian Government

2011-03-08T10:52:00.002-05:00

I have some really wonderful news to share. I just received this in the mail....

"On behalf of the Ontario Arts Council (OAC), I am pleased to inform you that you have been awarded a
Media Artists Emerging Program grant towards Standby in the amount of $10,000."

People tend to resist virtual art the same way they resisted calling photography and film art forms upon their arrival. The Daguerreotype was seen as a toy, yet now we have famed photographers ranging from Ansel Adams to Annie Leibovitz. When I talk about virtual art and identity to gallery curators I often come away with the same feeling. That they are now in their 50's, they have spent their life studying art forms to be an expert in a variety of areas. And that they don't want to start over with a new medium. It's quite understandable and I am not suggesting they all think that way, just the ones I have spoken to. I don't bring up Bryn Oh to them in an attempt to sway their views, I merely ask in order to find out their initial base reaction, so I can build up an understanding of the perspectives I am dealing with.
So a jury of peers reviewed my application which was based on my ghost artist Bryn Oh, and my story of the Rabbicorn. I spent a great deal of time expressing my opinion that some of the virtual art we are creating now will inevitably go down in history books. In fact Bryn Oh is on the syllabus to three Universities that I am aware of. I competed against "traditional" art applications and won. This idea is quite exciting to me as it turns into a form of legitimization of the medium. Not that the artists working here need people to tell them what we are doing is art and important. We already know that. But now the next time I apply for a big event the organizers will see that a large art organization has faith in me and my medium. You see at the top there is a logo they have supplied . Its a magic logo. When I now talk about virtual art to a curator, rather than them say "hmm isn't virtual worlds where dragons have virtual sex with vampires?", I will now attach that logo and they will instead say "hmm please tell me more about your ideas".

My grant is made up of two areas to accomplish. The first is to create a 30 minute movie for the Daughter of Gears, the Rabbicorn story and Standby into one piece. This final piece will be used to send around to movie companies to see if they are interested. The second part is to create a show in a RL gallery as Bryn Oh whereby I create a virtual environment for the guest to enter and explore. It would also be based around the story of Standby. I am hoping to use kinect and virtual reality headsets (which are quite tiny now) as part of this exhibit. So if there are any kinect programmers in the Toronto area please contact me as I will need to find a way to have them compatible. I have seen them work together in videos but programming is not my thing. Anyway, I am excited and just wanted to share the news on my blog.

Sabrinaa Nightfire

2011-03-07T11:33:00.002-05:00

It is with sadness that I am letting some of the art community know that Sabrinaa Nightfire passed away last night after a long battle with cancer. She was a stalwart member of the art community both as an artist and an organizer of events on her sim Erato of Caerleon. There will be a memorial on her island of Erato with details to be announced later. Her family was at her side and our hearts go out to them at this time of sorrow. It is part of her families request that her service be conducted in both RL and SL simultaneously and hopefully that can be achieved. If that is possible it would be a wonderful show of support to her family to see how many people were touched by Sabrinaa. I will post more info here on the memorial and service as they are worked out.

#7 Marcus Inkpen

2011-03-02T12:37:00.004-05:00

   Last year Aino Baar secured a place at the World Expo in China to showcase machinima. In the end it was determined that over 2 million people passed through the Madrid pavilion where five four foot HD screens were showing film from some of the best SL machinimatographers, as well as people from other virtual worlds or formats.
     I was given five regions to create content or sets from which machinimatographers (if that is even a word) could film narratives. This island in the machinima was built by Marcus Inkpen over a few months on one of those regions. His work ethic was phenomenal. No complaining or flakiness, just a solid reliable builder determined to showcase his talents. What he built was a perfect "set" for people to create a story on, but also an environment that engaged SL residents. You couldn't help but arrive at the sim and imagine some kind of scenario that was happening. The machinima above was how I interpreted it, but there really were so many options for people. By coincidence, the main character I used for this machinima was one of the avatars built by Colin Fizgig who I had at #10. Sweet serendipity.
     This machinima is dark on my computer so some of the texture details are lost, but what I truly loved about the creation was Marcus's attention to texturing. He painstakingly created numerous textures for this build with each one being quite beautiful. The way he designed the sim was in such a way that regardless where you found yourself, whether it be in the house, the shanty town towers, bridge, water, tree or so on, you were given an environment to appreciate and one which you wish to spend time in. One of the challenges for an artist in Second Life is to keep the viewer in your creation for as long as possible. When looking at this medium, understanding that engagement is a huge part of the art experience, it is essential to allow the viewer to have layers that keep them coming back. You need to create a reason for the viewer to become immersed within your work.
    We create within a 3D virtual space and designing it or composing it properly for the viewer to have interest beyond 20 minuites is a very important factor here. What Marcus Inkpen did was design a beautiful well crafted space that suited its intended purpose in creating an environment for people to dream up a narrative for the World Expo. But he also created a sim that constantly had people visiting it. People came and spent hours there. That is really difficult to do and is a constant struggle for artists here. Because of Marcus's understanding of this principle and his truly beautiful and imaginative build his became one of my favorite builds from last year.

#7 from 2010 "Fuzion" by four Yip and Mescaline Tammas

#7 from 2009 - Madpea's swamp hotel

Sketches

2011-02-23T12:36:00.005-05:00

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Enchantment%20Island/233/222/22

Taralyn Gravois contacted me a few months ago asking if I wanted to exhibit my preliminary sketches for the builds I make in Second Life. I was intrigued and began searching my sketchbooks for all my little brainstorming doodles. I have boatloads of sketches ranging from 20 second drawings to finished paintings or encaustic sculpture.

Early Daughter of Gears

You can see a few versions of the Daughter of Gears here, and I think there are four of five more at the exhibit.


The Daughter of Gears

Mayfly

Here above is a wax and wire music box Mayfly which inspired me to make the Mayfly in Second Life. You can see them in the video below. The mayfly really does have a poetic life. They live as larvae in the mud then for one day sprout wings. At the end of that day they die. Often they are reborn without mouths as they just are not needed when you have just hours to live. Its almost tragic to give them the ability to fly for such a short time.

Below is Zinger the Rocket Dog. This advert was for Condos in Heaven but was also meant to be an introduction to a character for a later story which I have not made yet. It is the story of Mr Lightbulb which you will only know if you came to Immersiva a year ago or so. My very first machinima (which is terrible) was of Mr Lightbulb. If you really want to see my first machinima it is here its brutal though, I didn't even take off the screen border for it. Or my huds and things.

Condos In Heaven

For Condos in Heaven I created a large back story for the build in conceptual adverts that described the state of the society in that alternate world. Essentially the build is about the human race accidentally finding Heaven after sending out a satellite probe. It touched on ideas about our values and questioned what that line was which we wouldn't cross in our search for resources. In my story we make war on Heaven and win. During the war we use propaganda to convince the population that really its not wrong what we are doing. We cut off angel wings for the wealthy to wear as accessories. The height of fashion is to wear a Halo. And of course the greatest achievement in life is to have a Condo in Heaven. Also in the story Satan is caught harbouring God. It's an unlikely alliance but necessary.

You can click on any of the images if you want to read the text. Also I apologize for the shoddy look of the post but blogger sometimes changes things. I can set things up just so, and then when I publish old drunken Blogger plops things down wherever it wishes.

Sketch for Vessel's Dream

BambiTwice Nitely was kind enough to give Taralyn land to create her first gallery. An interesting part to the show was that Tornado gallery actually has a Tornado which comes during the show to tear everything to bits. It was fun and unique to have a Tornado suddenly arrive during the opening to suck up all the avatars.

#8 Soleil

2011-02-16T12:26:00.002-05:00

ColeMarie Soleil has been performing in Second Life for a long time now. Since I have known her she has moved several times and pretty much has a suitcase of possessions. Things don't mean alot to her, it's all about people. In contrast there are others such as me who have boxes of valentines cards which they haven't looked at since grade 2, but feel the need to carry them about from apartment to apartment for some reason. She has a freedom uncommon in our materialistic world. And through her I have been inspired by some of the truly generous people that make up Second Life.
Cole was trained in violin, but tends to use whatever instrument is available to her at the time. Her hands are too small for a guitar but most of us know and love her intimate acoustic guitar shows. One day I was building and she was practicing. I recorded her singing without her knowing and this is what I got. Cole practicing
This is also without proper filters and microphones etc. It's just her singing in front of a computer. Most performers have fancy little dodads to purify their work and there is nothing wrong with that, but I always like to hear directly from the source sometimes and this is one of those.
Cole met Tasuku Ghost and that meeting is an example of what makes SL unique. Tasuku is from Japan and at the time had very limited english. I think it is safe to say they never would have met had it not been for SL, other side of the world, language barrier and so on. But they did meet and overcame the obstacles to create the band Soleil. I was blown away when Cole sent me some of Tasuku's music compositions. I used one of his pieces in a machinima called Format which you can listen to here if you want to listen to the pre-cole sound he created.
For the last six months they have been working together creating their first album. In support of this album and their live performances Ayaka Ochello created a wonderful set with Cole doing a particle performance composed for each song. Each performance is almost a narrative with acts or stages. So not only is their album brilliant but they also have used the unique traits of SL to create a compelling experience for those who come to the shows. Some would say that its just the music which is important, yet there have always been those who try to go further (Pink Floyd for example). What is nice to see about Soleil is that its not just a SL phenomenon. They have become wildly popular in a short time despite not playing for the last few months as they work on new material, but they also have had acclaim from media outlets which have no idea what SL even is. If you are one of the few who have not yet heard Soleil then you have a range of places to go to have a listen. From the itunes store to bandcamp. I know you can preview the songs at Bandcamp but you probably can at itunes as well.

#8 from 2008 Jojo Runoruno's Pervy Room

#8 from 2009 The Cornfield by Linden Labs

#9 Dekka Raymakers "We are not in the world"

2011-02-09T17:42:00.005-05:00

When I come across Dekkas work I often feel that there is a blend of influences combined with his own distinct direction of self introspection. I often see what I think is inspiration from the Kinetic art movement of the 1950's and Dada. I sometimes am reminded of the work of Jean Tinguely, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Alexander Calder (bottom video) and their mobiles. While Calder made automatic abstract art creation machines and self-destructing machines, Dekkas fine constructions remind me more of the form rather than the function. They seem to be elaborate time machines or other unknown constructs with mysterious purposes.
On the other side is what I believe to be Dekkas fascination and obsession with his own past. The elements in his life that shaped him, both good and bad. Many of us naturally look outwards at others and form opinions, but I think Dekka often creates introspective environments based off his own psyche. I believe he looks at himself with interest the same way we observe others.
what I like about this type of build is that it really doesn't matter if what I say above is correct or not. What it allows for is to have the viewer poke and prod about, actively interpreting what they believe to be the meaning of the work. It doesn't matter if our insights are correct, what matters is that they were able to interact creatively. A movie tells us a story. To make sure we don't get it wrong it also gives us images to support the words. A book tells the story, but we use much of our own creativity to put faces to characters or voices to them. We imagine the environments that are described. We have lots of creative freedom in a book. In SL we can give words and let people explore in whatever direction they wish to go. With Dekka he gives us images rather than words and we create the story. We shuffle through the drawers and look under the bed and use our own creativity to devise a narrative.

#9 from 2008 Spiral Walcher's "Tunnel of Light"

#9 from 2009 Grace McDunnough's "Mummersion"

The build has been graciously hosted by Rose Borchovski below....
Slurl .... http://slurl.com/secondlife//100/113/21

#10 Colin Fizgigs Avatars

2011-02-01T12:09:00.004-05:00

Second Life is the land of free plastic surgery. Well free if you perform it on yourself that is, you can also buy body shapes from body vendors or skins from your local epidermis emporium. My avatar seems quite tiny but is actually my rl height (which is short) but SL is also the land of free growth hormones so standing beside someone who is 7 foot tall is not uncommon. I would guess that approximately 75% of the residents of SL are human. It might even be higher. I began SL as a big white moth I got from avatar maker Flea Bussys shop Grendels Children. Nobody really warmed up to me though, likely because I didn't wear a low cut thorax. Maybe it was my compound eyes, I don't know. Nobody at the club wanted to dance with big white moth.

I love the creativity of non human avatars, Flea Bussy as I said makes them, Madcow Cosmos makes some really nutty ones. UB Yifus avatar is of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, a Picasso sketch. Yoa Ogee and Yeti Bing make some great ones too. Colin Fizgig is not strictly an avatar maker. The previous work I had seen from him was one of M.C. Eschers lithographs made into a 3D build. He seems to work on a variety of things and being somewhat of a hermit himself it's really hard to keep up with what he is doing. The footage I took for the machinima was from almost a year ago at my build Vessels Dream
What I really like about Colins avatars is that each projects a personality. It's almost like you already know them and are aware of their little psychological quirks and habits. It's not easy to do with prims, to imbue an object with emotion. Painters and sculptors can do it in RL as they create directly. So for example a sculptor has no barrier between his hands and the clay. A painter has a brush between them self and the canvas, but the painters emotion can travel through the brush into the painting because of a few factors. For one a canvas has some give, meaning its not solid like a board, and this allows for its surface to better catalogue the emotions of the painter. Also the brush itself is very important. Depending on your medium the hair of the brush itself, its length and suppleness, are very important when transferring emotion through the brush onto the surface of the canvas. It sounds strange I know. But its true. Imagine being furious when painting, the anger travels down your arm through the brush and onto the canvas if you learn how to allow it. You can often look at a painting in a gallery and know the emotion of the painter as they painted it. Not in a jpeg but in person where you can see how each stroke was placed. Not all styles of painting though, hyper realism doesn't allow for this but check out Munch and Van Gogh. Gestural painters. Anyway, my point was that building in Second Life has a rather large barrier between the artist and the final creation. We click the keyboard to get what we want and it doesn't matter if i click the keys hard or soft the end product is always the same. In Zbrush I use a bamboo pen tablet thingy which reacts to pressure but other than that you have to use other means to give life to an object in sl. It's tricky and a super fun challenge. Colin did it wonderfully with these avatars.

#10 from last year was Mosman Hax

#10 from 2008 Ub Yifu's avatar

Elevensies 2010

2011-01-24T15:01:00.006-05:00

I will be posting my top ten favorite builds from 2010 over the next little bit, and each year I put up my Elevensies which are builds that were pushed out of the top ten over the course of the year. Last year I had two Elevensies movies 1 and 2 and the year before that one. I would like to mention that I am not proclaiming my top ten to be the best works in SL over the past year, they are merely artworks I liked. They are not ranked by difficulty in creation and in many cases large full sim builds made by teams of people have less effect on me than a small build by a single person who made something I found compelling. I appreciate great scripting but it must be accompanied by a firm understanding of aesthetics. While on the other side a nice sculpty statue of say Michelangelo's David does not impress me unless it does something unique to this medium. I personally like things which are not reproductions of previous rl works but rather compositions appearing out of the unique mind of SL residents. But then that is not a rule either. In the end they are just works that stood out for me. I often go to well publicised openings or competitions only to find that they did not affect nor inspire me, that winning pieces were pretty good but some losing ones were brilliant. And I should also mention that I don't see everything built in Second Life. I am sure that plenty of builds come and go without me ever being aware of them. The NPIRL blog was a great resource when it was around but sadly I have not found a really good replacement, so as a result of this void it has become quite a bit harder to find things. I also try to pick things that were created within the last year.

Soror Nishi is not someone I know particularly well on a personal level, but I have seen her botanical work around Second Life for ages. I think the first time was for an event called the Garden of NPIRL delights a few years ago. It is a bit of a surprise to me to find Sorors work in my Elevensies because our aesthetics are almost completely opposite to one another. What I find pleasing to the eye are muted dark builds who create harmony within the piece by using few colours based off of a small area of the colour palette. I also seem to be drawn to darker subjects. Soror uses high contrast colour placement using much of the colour wheel and her subjects are often based around forests and flowers. What I mean by this can be seen in the colour wheel here. One way to create harmony is to combine colours from the wheel by using shapes. There are Dyads, Triads, Tetrads, Hexads and so on. The triangle shown on this wheel is a Triad. If you work using a variation of those three colours at the points then you will get a harmonious work. You can rotate the triangle around to combine any set of colours. If you draw a straight line across from one colour to a colour on the opposite side of the colour wheel you then are picking the complementary contrast to that colour. If you mix the pigments of those two colours you will get an almost grey black. They are opposites and push each other to the maximum vividness.
If you look at the image beside us the red and green whatever it is stands out starkly against the harmonious background. Red and green contrast so when beside each other like this they really draw the eye to them. There are many ways to create contrast in a work and this is just one. For example, there is contrast of extension which is about the actual areas of colour and how they affect the viewer. Contrast of shape would be something like having soft curving lines with one area of sharp line. So fill a paper with 0s and 8s and then place a few pointy ^ there and they create contrast. Tons of ways to create contrast and all dynamic works tend to use them somewhere, often in places of import because you want to draw the eye of the viewer there. High contrast works are very tricky in that when they fail they look absolutely terrible, but when they succeed they are incredibly dynamic. This work from Soror walked a successful balance. What enhanced it more was the scale of the work. I really liked the combination.

Glyph Graves is what I call an art scripter, though I suspect he would disagree with this description. Much of what I personally like about Glyphs work is the ways he uses scripts to achieve things. For example, you can make an alpha texture using a few colours and place it on a tortured prim. Then you stick in a rotation script and perhaps a touch of glow and you have a pretty sculpture. Glyph doesn't stop there though, he will often then compose a script which brings that work to life, a script to let if fly or move on the ground. It may also have some interesting characteristics such as changing colour depending on the direction of the SL wind or be connected to data from an outside source such as movement of amoeba in a petri dish. That info on the amoeba will then be transferred to SL and force the movement of his creations. In the machinima is shown a build he did for the World Expo set up by Aino Baar. On mountain tops were some humanoid sculptures Glyph made. They were nice and around the sim were evenly placed secondary works for the viewer to enjoy. What made this build special was when the viewer interacted with a tree (made by Kazuhiro Aridian) in the centre of the sim. When touched the static figures on the mountain tops transformed into glowing orbs which then converged in the middle of the sim. There they then did a sort of performance or dance intermingling their colours and after a while flew back to their mountain tops and transformed back into the humanoid sculptures. This added feature then introduced a sense of wonder and magic to the build. It was an intelligent use of scripting that pushed the build forward into something unique to SL. Scripting can be very ungainly but in the hands of Glyph it brings forth a beautiful sense of life.

FIC

2011-01-18T12:41:00.011-05:00

I was directed to a list the other day called the FIC. I had a look at the names and thought I don't really know many of them but what a great bunch the ones I do know. And I am on that list! someone must think highly of me for some reason. So what does the FIC mean you ask?. I had been hoping it meant Friendly Inner Child or something. Actually it stands for Fetid Inner Core. I thought to myself that Fetid is not a word you strive to be associated with. [fet-id, fee-tid] Show IPA

–adjective

having an offensive odor; stinking.

Ouch. I am part of a stinky inner core of something. Oh well not everyone is going to like you. The thing is that I am not really offended as I respect many of the people on this list. Granted I don't know most of them. Also it's kind of refreshing for someone to not tip toe around being nice. The person who made the list is named Prokovsky Neva and I would love to see a feud start up between him/her and Saveme Oh. A kind of pay-per-view thing. " SAVEME OH vs PROK! - the reconing" Something like that. Not sure who I would place my money on there. For fun I have decided to put a little point form summary of what I do know of some people on this list. If you would like to go read the original article it is here. If i put "don't know" beside someones name it doesn't mean they don't do great or terrible stuff it just shows how much of a hermit I am. If you have more info on what these people do then feel free to post in the comments.

FIC 2.13 -- mal-FIC

Nany Kayo - don't know
Darrius Gothly - don't know
Dartagan Shepherd - don't know
Pamela Galli - don't know
Torley Linden - how can anyone not like Torley? I saw a video of him making music once and he just seemed so happy and enthusiastic about it.

Hamlet Au- Hamlet was originally an employee of Linden Labs and now has the popular site New World Notes. He seems like a nice guy to me, definately a very hard worker. Posts everyday for years now, and has done some big interviews with people such as Cory Doctorow and others. Also wrote a book on SL which have seen in a Chapters/Indigo bookstore by me. (Indigo=giant big box bookstore)
Latif Khalifa don't know UPDATE - "Very useful megaprim search engine" - Valentine Easterwood
Phil Deakins don't know
Imnotgoing Sideways don't know
Deltango Vale don't know
Dirk Talamasca - I know Dirk!. He is a nice person but I have no idea what he does. Now I am curious. Oh I think he works with Relay for Life.
Crap Mariner - Crap is a really nice guy too. He has a blog and does tons for the music scene in Second Life. Really funny too.
Jumpman Lane - I met Jumpman once and in the process of checking his profile I discovered he was some kind of SL porn king.
Soft Linden- don't know
Alexa Linden- Alexa does the Mesh group I believe. Works to implement mesh imports so we can get new designers who would be able to use high end computer graphics programs such as Maya and 3D Studiomax, Zbrush and good old open source Blender.
Chance Unknown don't know
Maggie Darwin - don't know
Baeric Constantine- don't know
Wayfinder Wishbringer- don't know
Strife Onizuka- don't know
Dale Innis - I think I know Dale. UPDATE - scripter extraordinaire
Pixeleen Mistral - don't know UPDATE - "Controversial Alphaville Herald writer" Aree Lulibub
Jessica Holyoke- don't know
Tenshi Vielle- don't know
RightasRain Rimbaud - RAR is the head of Rezzable creations who I have done a few projects for. One one side it was great to have a company that actually paid artists to create. They paid good rates too. On the other side they had a bad reputation for not paying artists and my old friend Spiral Walcher was very bitter towards them I recall. They did pay me for my projects but one time it took ages to get paid. I also have a 10 thousand prim build where I placed each part individually on their private sim. It's called Crosshatch. Part of the contract was I would get this builder buddy they developed so that I could copy entire sims I have created. So for example I could copy my entire Standby sim at IBM with the click of a button. They gave me a broken version and this Foolish Frost person made no attempt to help me with it. Also I tried to get there to make a copy of the build using Imprudence viewer and lost my ability to log on to the sim. I asked for help and again nothing. So essentially I have no copy of my build. That's my story about RAR.

Eshi Otawara - I don't really know eshi - UPDATE fashion designer - thanks Loraan
Fiz Baskerville - don't know

FIC 2.7 -- Bestest FIC and Beta Mesh FIC
Candy Cerveau - don't know - UPDATE "one of the developers of Ozimals breedable bunnies." Aree Lulibub
Aeron Constantine- don't know
Gavin Hird- don't know
Chestnut Rau- Chestnut writes a column for New World Notes. Really nice girl.
Runitai Linden- don't know
Aki Shichiroji- don't know
Amiryu Hosoi- don't know
Draxtor Despres- Draxtor wrote some really nasty things about Dusan Writer who is my patron. Really over the top rotten things. Lost a lot of respect for him.
Filthy Fluno - Filthy is an artist who had an article written about him in the New York Times.
AM Radio - One of the best artists SL has ever had.
Desmond Shang- don't know - UPDATE "is the "guvnor" of Caledon, probably the biggest steampunk community." - thanks Loraan
DanielRavenNest Noe- don't know
Ciaran Lavan- don't know
Jarnz Dench- don't know
Dusan Writer - Dusan has a very well thought out site call Dusan Writers Metaverse He does Metanomics, he is an ardent supporter of SL and also gave me Immersiva paying for everything without ever asking for a single thing. So I have had Immersiva for years now and he has literally paid for everything just to let me create. And over that time we have probably spoken 10 times. He has no agenda, just wanted to support me. I can't say enough about Dusan, one of the greatest people in SL.
Qie Niangao-don't know
Holocluck Henly- builder?
Daniel Voyager-don't know UPDATE - really active person on the teen grid
Vryl Valkyrie-don't know
Suspiria Finucane -don't know
Nika Talaj-don't know
Tateru Nino - i know the name, I believe Tateru is on the media side of things.
Scylla Rhiadra -don't know
Inara Pey-don't know
Rene Erlanger-don't know
Valiant Westland-don't know
Trinity Nabob-don't know
Callie Cline - Callie Cline is arguably the first and most famous second life fashion model. Also a designer.
Ingrid Ingersoll-don't know
Melody Regent-don't know
Jacek Antonelli-don't know
McCabe Maxsted-don't know
Hiroaki Rhino -don't know
Jahar Aabye-don't know
Lyndon Heart-don't know UPDATE - "Popular SL musician/singer" Aree Lulibub
Bryn Oh - don't know
Phaylen Fairchild - Phaylen has been in sl ages and creates some of the best machinima out there. She has a series of hilarious SL meets WOW shows. They are called DIVAS.

JenzZa Misfit- I know JenzZa but not too well.
Gentle Heron -don't know UPDATE Heron Sanctuary, a support community for people with disabilities Aree Lulibub
Grace McDunnough - Grace is a top musical artist in sl. Had a great performance show called Mummersion which was on my top ten list last year. Here was my post if you want to know what it was.. Mummersion
Olando7 Decosta-don't know
MarkTwain White-don't know
Raven Pennyfeather-don't know
Samuel Frost-don't know
Wraith Unsung-don't know
Harper Beresford - I have met harper before, she is on the business side of things if I recall correctly.
Kittrannia Cassini-don't know
Pookie Amsterdam - talk show host
Paisley Beebe - talk show host
Moundsa Mayo-don't know
Botqirl Questi - has a popular blog.

Noosphere

Peter Imari (and other SLCC 2010 board & volunteers)
Wiz Norberg-don't know
Misty Rhodes-don't know
Cybin Monde-don't know
Ham Rambler-don't know
Traven Sachs-don't know
Isablan Neva-don't know
Orhalla Zander - orhalla created a great machinima of his travels a few years ago which was acclaimed. Also a second life hobo.
Esbee Linden - don't know UPDATE - designed viewer 2.0 thx Valenine Easterwood
Ordinal Malaprop - probably the best scripter in sl.
Carl Metropolitan- don't know
Lilith Heart - don't know UPDATE - "Sis to Dolly Heart of Heart Gardens" Aree Lulibub (still not sure what that means)
Julia Hathor - the singer for ChouChou? or am i mistaken? UPDATE julia hathor is a long time prefab builder and does a lot of charity work... thank you cole
Larry Pixel- Larry is in charge of a vast horde of sims for universities ranging from Princeton to Harvard. Tayzia Abbatoir who was not mentioned here, is a huge help to Larry especially in promoting SL arts.
Fleep Tuque-don't know
Racer Gullwing - Racer was the creator of the Giant Snail Races which have been quite popular.
Steller Sunshine-don't know
Pituca Fairchang-don't know
Eric Linden-don't know
Ryan Linden-don't know
Suezanne Baskerville-don't know
Slim Warrior-don't know UPDATE - "Active in SL music entertainment community. 1st UK musician to perform in SL. Founder SL Music Community Forum." Aree Luliub
Philip Linden - need i say anything
Circe Broom - Circe is a huge force behind the promotion of SL music.
Jack Linden-don't know
Salazar Jack-don't know UPDATE - the head (or atleast one of the heads of)the Phyneas Jack Memorial Trust, an organization dedicated to preserving a swath of virtual forest (Kahruvel)thx Valentine Eaterwood
Malburns Writer - prolific media person
Tara Yeats-don't know
Barney Boomslang - hosted and supported the popular "show and tell" event where builders would come and show new work and win prizes. A great light hearted community event for years.
Naughty Mole-don't know
Glamor Mole-don't know
Misty Mole-don't know
Michael Linden-don't know
Guy Linden-don't know
Alliez Mysterio-don't know
Anshe Chung-don't know -UPDATE -"is one of the largest land barons... the Dreamland sims are hers, if I recall correctly." thank you Loraan
Guni Greenstein-don't know
Ziggy Figaro-don't know
Cylindrian Rutabega-don't know
Angela Talamasca-don't know
Boliver Oddfellow-don't know
Quirky McArdle-don't know
Scope Cleaver - reclusive architect who has created some of the best architectural builds in sl.
Frogg Marlowe-don't know UPDATE - "Frogg Marlowe and Jaycatt Nico - very popular music duo "Frogg and Jaycatt."" Aree Lulibub
Jaycatt Nico-don't know
Beth Odets-don't know
Zha Ewry-don't know UPDATE - "IBM employee and active in SL's Architecture Working Group" Aree Lulibub
Osprey Therein-I might have mixed up Osprey with Orhalla Zander.
Jer Straaf-don't know
Ann Otoole -

So these are just some quick points I jotted down off the top of my head. They might not be terribly accurate and also might not be the main thing they do in sl, just the thing i know them for. Feel free to post in comments any additional info you have on anyone.

Standby closing

2011-01-12T11:15:00.004-05:00

The third and final chapter to my Rabbicorn story is coming to a close at IBM. I forget exactly when Standby closes but will be in a few weeks, so if you wish to see it then do so now because it likely wont come out again.

It's made up of 14 973 prims so in order for it to come out again it would have to be on an empty sim that someone offered which is just not very likely to happen. The show itself was quite successful with thousands of visitors and some good news is that IBM have decided to renew the two exhibition spaces for another year which they had considered letting go.

I have been working on the machinima for this build and as soon as I get it finished I will pop it up on here. Also I have plans on making it into a book as well so will post that when it's ready.

I apologize to those of you trying to contact me over the last three weeks or so as I have not been online as much. Sadly the person whose wireless I was swiping had the temerity to put a password on their account. So I have been forced to steal wireless from places with poor signals.. sigh. Stealing is such a harsh word... lets call it "sharing". We shared the wireless that they paid for. Actually my friend Nova says that rather than being a parasite as I described it, I am more a butterfly who samples different wireless connections. I much prefer her description.
If you need to catch up on the story so far here are my previous two posts along with the machinima.

SLURL to Standby http://slurl.com/secondlife/Immersiva/128/128/2

Part one The Daughter of Gears http://brynoh.blogspot.com/2010/09/rabbicorn-story-part-one-daughter-of.html

Part two the Rabbicorn http://brynoh.blogspot.com/2010/09/part-two-rabbicorn.html

Artpulse Magazine article.

2011-01-06T12:27:00.006-05:00

Last week Cristina García-Lasuén also known as Aino Baar in Second Life wrote an article for the prestigious American art magazine Artpulse. In it she describes the new forms of video art culminating with machinima. Aino is a Spanish curator who was responsible for having machinima included at the Spain Pavilion at the World Expo. She is a very determined person and once she sets her mind on something its really quite hard to refuse her. I think if she had got her way she would have had the event called the "Machinima pavilion with special guest Spain".

     The article is important the same way as the Art21 article written by Nettrice Gaskins was last year. They are both written in an art forum where very few are aware of the art we are creating here in Second Life or rather in virtual worlds. It steps over the "walled garden" we worry about so frequently.

With the Art21 article I had asked if people would mind leaving a comment to show them that there is indeed interest for virtual artists. Nettrice told me that we brought down their website for a day. But again I would ask you to go read the article and leave a comment if you have a moment. Spread it too if you can. Here is the article below.
http://artpulsemagazine.com/video-art-now-real-virtual-and-machinima/

Its interesting though. There is a distinct shift at the moment from traditional news sources to that of the everyday person. I kept track of the "art" articles from one of the newspapers here in Toronto for a few years. What I found was that they didn't write about "normal" art. If an article popped up it was somehow sensational. For example, one article was of an Elephant at our zoo who smeared paint on a canvas and they were selling them. Another was of an artist who chewed up gum and put it on a canvas making celebrity portraits. Another was someone who lost their arms and painted with their feet... and I remember an article about Andy Warhols brother who painted with a chicken foot rather than a paint brush. I am not saying that these don't deserve to be written about (except the elephant) but what it meant to me was that newspaper reporters generally have no idea about art. They can't distinguish good from bad so they write about the process rather than the final quality of the work. People love to talk about Van Gogh cutting off his ear and sending it to I think it was Gauguin, its sensational. But Van Gogh succeeded despite his mental illness not because of it. All the artists I went to art school with who ran around in capes with berets on pretending they were crazy are not artists anymore. They have day jobs. Those who quietly worked hard at understanding their medium are still working as artists today. I think all artists are a bit bent in some way, but then there are those who watch the media and Hollywood figuring they need to be crazy to be noticed.
    Up until recently we have been slaves to these traditional media sources and have been forced to place importance on the opinion of a single human being whose writing somehow gets elevated above everything else due to it being published in a newspaper. We also have had to rely on these traditional media sources to validate our own work, yet we have to compete against elephants from the zoo. News media had a monopoly and they squandered it, now the people are the power.
     Google have been partly responsible for the slow death of traditional media sources. With Google we can find exactly what we want immediately and can be kept up to date with world events as they happen. A newspaper prints and then has to live with their article until they print the next day. Classified ads were a money maker for newspapers but have pretty much disappeared to the internet. Google have gleefully been enjoying their success yet recently have come to a realization. If media sources do die out then who are they going to link to? The traditional media for all their flaws have one thing going for them... they are generally reliable (minus political slants). The average blog or user created website can't really be said to be reliable. And there lies the difference. User created news to me is more relevant as it's generally created by an "expert" on a subject they are passionate about. A marine biologist might have a website about the effects of pollution on harp seals or the dangerous practice of keeping agressive genetically altered Salmon in holding pens along the ocean where if they escape they will cause incredible damage to their ecosystem. Would you want joe everything reporter to write about that? They know they have to sell papers so they may skew it into some kind of world ending scenario, rather than an important subject to discuss. But then again nobody polices the Marine biologist either.
    Anyway, I kind of got off topic. Here is a great video.

some thoughts and ramblings

2010-12-31T12:53:00.001-05:00

Philip Rosedale, the creator of Second Life, had come back on a temporary basis after Mark Kingdom had stepped down as CEO of the company. He was essentially looking for a new leader while steering the damaged ship. Linden Labs in june had laid off 30% of their workforce, viewer 2 came out and bombed somewhat and land discounts to universities and non profits were eliminated. On the positive side mesh imports are coming along, the company stood up and punished Emerald viewer (which I loved) for essentially using our computers as a tool to punish someone they didn't like. They used our computers, without us knowing, to attack a website. Emerald learned that despite their massive popularity they were not untouchable and everyone can be replaced. Hello Phoenix. And the Second Life economy is somehow still strong despite spending years in this recession as a non essential form of entertainment. Things are tight everywhere yet the virtual economy is still strong which is interesting.
     So just last week Rod Humble, a former Electronic Arts executive, arrived. And for me it shed some light on a few things here and there. Mr Humble is a really accomplished person responsible for hundreds of popular games including the biggest of all time... the Sims. I used to play the first sims a bit and for those of you unfamiliar with it, you pretty much build a life and try to keep yourself happy. It was addictive. You would get a home, then furniture, eat, sleep, date, and find ways to become popular or not. I used to put out an aquarium on the sidewalk outside my house to catch the people walking by. I think I had a pinball machine outs there too. I am not going to get too much into what that game was about but it is not too far removed from Second Life. In SL people buy houses, then furnish, they go shopping for clothes, they date, explore, and sometimes work in SL. A little while ago LL gave each premium membership account a free house. I think LL have been watching and analyzing successful models like the sims and the thought was that by giving the user a house it begins the process of furnishing it, creating a community etc much like the Sims game. However, SL is not a game. But is it time to bring in game elements to SL for its survival?
     It seems everything out there right now revolves around a "rewards" model. There are air miles for credit cards, Pepsi points and so on. In games there are experience points for fantasy characters (Prior to working at Electronic Arts, Humble served as VP of Product Development for the MMO EverQuest), most facebook games work off the reward addiction too. Even on many discussion forums everyone is given a title of newbie and the more you post the higher your title climbs to things like adept, master etc. We pretty much just have the title of Noob in SL. A very old resident from say 2002 is indistinguishable from everyone else unless you perv their profile. Would these things help? I have no idea.
   I did a post a while back when there were the rumours of Microsoft buying Second Life. I got all excitable about making part of SL a place for online gamers to hang out before they start playing their games. Have SL pre installed on an Xbox. Then when someone wants to play against other people online from their living room, rather than finding a place to play by reading text about a game on the tv, you would instead log into the virtual world, hang out with friends in a home or something and then from there you would go join a game for say Halo 2. You could play the game and then when you are done playing you might decide to go to a club in sl with those same friends or whatever. Right now you turn on your Xbox, you go online and shoot people then when you are satiated you turn off your Xbox. It could be better to turn on your Xbox, then enter a virtual world with an open ended, endless social platform which would be a middle area or staging point before you then proceed to play a game with friends. From this point the possibilities would then become endless provided prim allotment for sims was increased to 45 000 and each sim could hold double the amount of avatars that we currently can. Why do we need more prims? well if we want people buying things for their homes they should have an endless amount of space to furnish. I don't think about the amount of prims I use when i work. That is not how you create. You build until you are done your creation then you check to see how many prims you needed to get there. My work ranges from 100 prims to 1500 prims usually, with environmental builds like Standby being 14, 988 prims. Right now a person rents an apartment in SL and gets say a 60 prim allotment. Its pointless for them to buy my work and that is essentially why only art collectors and sim owners own my pieces.
   I want SL to succeed naturally, and while I wouldn't want SL to be a game, I have no problem with it evolving into a product with game elements. Bloodlines is a vampire game in SL and its pretty big, but if you are not a player then generally are you even aware it exists? As long as the professional side of SL remains and can be kept separate then by all means double the population of SL by combining it with Xbox users or whatever. The purists will disagree with this no doubt, but the way I see it is that on the day Second Life shuts down operation, that is the day we cease to exist. Some might say we could migrate to Open Sim and things like that, but the reality is they suck. They really do. I have taken projects on other grids before and its a nightmare because they are like SL only a buggier version of 3 years ago. If they were identical to SL then that would be another story but they are not. If you just work in non scripted prims then they are ok. They have 45 000 prims and have cheap land which is awsome but I am here for creating and that has to be top notch in all areas. If I were painting and someone took away my paint brush and said "I am afraid you will now have to paint with this here basketball" then that would be difficult to accept. "Go on dear, dip the basketball in the paint, and rub it on the canvas its almost the same as a paint brush!" In my mind that was said with a British accent which is much funnier.

I am going to start my top ten favorite builds from last year soon. Here is a reminder of the elevensies from last year.

Black Box Gallery

2010-12-21T12:38:00.006-05:00

SLURL
slurl.com/secondlife/Experience%20Italy%20E/90/100/1149

So this slurl won't seem to work for whatever reason.

To find the gallery do a search for the avatar named Therese Carfago in Second Life. In her picks at the top is BlackBox Gallery. Just click that and you are there.

I have always been a bit resistant to 2D galleries in Second Life. The main reason is because I see virtual worlds as an art medium or tool which need not follow the "rules" of real life. For example, in Second Life we can fly. Why on earth do we create houses with stairs then? Stairs are something needed in RL due to gravity. We have no real gravity in sl. The reason why many of us follow the rules of real life in a virtual world is because it is how we attach meaning to the experience. For new people it might even be essential to create a sense of psychological comfort in the virtual environment in order to make the innitial experience less daunting.

It allows us to go within a comfort zone we can understand and recognize. If, for example, you meet a new avatar who has piercings, tatoos and a mohawk you take this visual stimulus and create a personality profile for them. They are the clues which help us understand who we are interacting with. It is what we do as humans in RL, and we take the same methods of interpretation into this virtual realm.
considering that about 50% of the people I know in SL are actually the opposite gender in SL to their RL, it seems this RL approach might be faulty. I know quite a few prominent "male" artists in SL who are actually female in RL. What you see in SL is often miles away from the person in RL. And that is exactly how it should be. When I first came to SL I created an avatar that looked like me in RL. It was the novelty of seeing myself as a cartoon character. It didn't take long for me to think what a complete and utter waste it was to be myself in a virtual world that allows for so much more. So I then became a great big white moth and eventually how I am seen now.

Back to the gallery. So I have always resisted traditional gallery compositions in SL because traditional galleries in RL suck donkey balls and its really not necessary to mimic that conservative way in which things are displayed. I have a much stronger dislike for showing paintings in SL because they lose so very much when exhibited in a virtual world. The rich colours, the texture and brush stroke... all gone. It would be like a musician composing a work, then channeling it though the speaker of one of those novelty musical gift cards that play when you open them. I don't mind paintings as additions to things, I mean I put my own paintings in many of my builds, but they are just background with the prim build being the main focus.
The Black box gallery is the creation of Therese Carfago and really is just her collection of art she likes in SL. Its been around a while and she has never told anyone it existed. Traffic is 0. It is one of the rare examples of a 2d based gallery in a traditional format which I like. Why? because the artwork she has chosen suits the virtual world. They are pieces created in Second Life and worked on in photoshop and gimp. They don't lose anything by being imported as a jpeg. She has also placed prim art here as well, which creates for a nice balance. We are seeing them as they are meant to be seen not as a watered down product that is far inferior to what we can find in RL. There are a few RL artworks as well but they also seem to work nicely due to the manner in which they were created in RL. For example, four Yip has one of her classic paintings there and due to her smooth brush strokes and blending it seems to translate better here. There are a few rare rl works by AM Radio as well. Anyway have a look if you wish to see a nice subtle gallery whose dark design really allows the artwork to stand out.

This below is how Therese describes her gallery.

"This is my new gallery dedicated to the artists I love the most. There is a permanent collection with works by AM Radio, Berta Liliehook, Bryn Oh, CapCat Ragu, Cestra Segall, ColeMarie Soleil, Del May, Four Yip, Glyph Graves, Haust, Kean Kelly, Keiko Morigi, Marie Lauridsen, Nevery Lorakeet, Sledge Roffo, Suzanne Graves, Thea Denja and Veronika Obviate. The main part of the gallery has rotating exhibitions, and right now you can see "Piano & Pearls" by Eva Grimes."

Bob Barker and abandoned houses.

2010-12-15T14:01:00.001-05:00

I think i mentioned a few months ago that I was going on vacation to work on Standby.
My brother gave me his time share which he wasn't going to use and so I decided to go to a ski resort called Blue Mountain ... without the snow. A ski resort with no snow is a very quiet place. They would have buffet breakfasts in the morning essentially for me, because I would be the only person there. It felt very decadent.
I think I may have also mentioned that I used to be involved with this Urban explorers group some years ago which involved getting into places you are not supposed to go to. Mostly abandoned spots that are interesting such as the Whitby psychiatric hospital (which is now demolished sadly) or closed subway stations you have to run down tracks to get to. All kinds of stuff. As a result I can't seem to drive past an abandoned building without trying to get inside to explore. What is even more fun is to drag my friends to these places and watch them get freaked out.
So I happened to have my video camera on me and filmed this abandoned house I found. I explored a second one too while i was there but forgot my camera that time.

One thing I would like from Linden Labs for Christmas...

Linden Labs are testing out a way for people outside SL (without Second Life being installed on their computer)to come in world to experience it. Currently they can do so with great results graphically, but can only stay for one hour and can only visit a few select sims. What I need is to be able to send out invitations via email to various people with a link they can click to come to my specific location in second life where I may have an exhibit. It would be an extremely easy way to bring people outside sl to see my work without requiring them to download and install the client, come inworld learn how to bugger about then eventually make their way to see my work. For example, suppose I were to apply for a grant for my SL artwork. Explaining SL and the virtual space is a real pain and time consuming, but if I were to be able to just supply a link or something similar, then they could easily just arrive and experience immediately. Direct to sl. It would also be nice if i could customize their viewer with sky settings and perhaps customize their avatar ahead of time as well... but perhaps I am asking too much for that.

Bunch of topics

2010-12-10T20:37:00.004-05:00

.

Chantal Harvey is well known for her machinima skill as well as her ability to organize large events such as the MMIF which last year was shown in a variety of locations to great success in both SL and in Amsterdam on a movie theater screen. Grace is a beloved songstress who was also a mastermind behind Mummersion which was a unique musical performance whereby the audience was transported through different scenes during her performance. Link here to see that. Salome Strangelove wrote the lyrics to the song.

Chantal filmed the machinima in Standby and I think she did a wonderful job.

I was speaking to someone the other day and we were lamenting the problem with SL being a "closed garden". I have heard this term in the past and adopted it along with everyone else. A closed garden, for those of you outside SL and unfamiliar with the term, suggests that due to the problem with people having to download the software to enter second life, combined with work created in SL being difficult to showcase to the "outside" world, then we tend to not get attention for all the great stuff we are achieving.
This really is a new frontier in art and damn if only we could show people what we are doing. But then I started thinking back to 2010 as we approach 2011. I think the garden walls are coming down slowly.

For example Chantal, as I mentioned above, had a movie theater outside sl showing work we created here. Tons of people and lots of attention. Last year Caerleon art collective had a show in Boston at a gallery where myself and others were able to showcase our work. There was the World Expo in Shanghai organized by the Spanish curator Cristina García-Lasuén. That event at the Spanish pavilion highlighted our work to literally millions of guests. I had machinima in Nuit Blanche as well as renowned director Peter Greenaway showcased our work in Warsaw, Poland earlier this month and it appears Big Bang may become a traveling art show. My work was shown in a variety of RL publications and we were covered by ART 21. Oh and there was a machinima exhibit for Queensland University of Technology (images above) where Evo Szuyuan showed her machinima of 4Jetpacks4 a build I created a few years ago with Glyph Graves and Nonnatus Korhonnen. And yes that is me on the cover of the catalogue and postcards. What else? Earlier this week was the Italian conference on Digital Innovation. These are just things off the top of my head but across SL there are many stories like this I am sure.

Now combine this with the ability for guests to come into SL without having to download the client and the walled garden may be a thing of the past in a few years. If I now have a RL show with Bryn Oh then I will need a way for people to come see it without having to download SL. Not for the people who come to the RL gallery because really opening night numbers are fairly insignificant. A good opening for an artist is generally 40-80 people coming and god forbid you have a tornado on the night of your opening as I did last year, and the year before that? a snow storm. A gallery doesn't care if your big opening night was ruined by these types of things, they wont actually even remember. It comes down to sales, you have an opening night where you hope people buy, then after opening you have a trickle of people over the course of the month you show, with hopefully a few more sales. Then once your show is down it's another year of trickle sales until your next show. In one day on this blog alone I get more people than a typical gallery opening (depending on the gallery). They are not restricted to being locals, and generally are genuinely interested in ones work unlike the Thursday night gallery hop to get drunk of free red wine (which is fun btw). Things are changing with traditional news media slowly dying and being replaced by legions of information wizards using blogs, facebook, twitters and so on. They are average people who generally focus on things they understand and are interested in.

Before the car peoples lives were spent in a tiny radius. Driving an hour on the highway to visit family was probably out of the question for a horse and carriage. 120 kilometeres is about an hour which is not going to happen for walking or riding a horse. Bicycle, car, plane, jet and now internet. It's not so much physical travel anymore but mind travel. And I think this type of mind travel will supplant most things.

Next time someone starts bemoaning the walled garden I think I might be done agreeing.

There is also some other news I just worked out today. I met the director of the gallery which represents me, and after a long talk we might be removing me the RL painter from the gallery and adding Bryn Oh to take my place. I have long said that eventually my goal was to have Bryn Oh be represented by a RL gallery as herself.. a digital character. As far as I know the only virtual world artist represented by a RL gallery. The gallery will have its traditional stock of flesh and blood artists and one cartoon with no connection to a rl person. I just find that fascinating I don't know why. It naturally sucks to have me in RL removed from the gallery as I need that financially, but hopefully I will find another gallery to show my work. The thing is that Bryn Oh must remain anonymous and so that's how it has to be.

So hopefully sometime next year Bryn will have a show at the gallery and it will be a combination of my machinima, maybe projectors allowing the viewers to go through my SL builds and I will also put in my encaustic music box insects which you can see here...

So I can't really commit to Bryn Oh more than that :) It's either a catastrophic mistake to remove me in RL and switch to Bryn or it might get Bryn closer still to being in art history books because she will now be officially represented in RL (provided I can work out a good way to exhibit with her). And wouldn't that be cool. I already know students study bryn in art schools somewhere because the students often come up to me in SL and say they just did a class on Bryn. Another good thing is that I can now sell my paintings privately without giving half to the gallery. So if you are looking for a painting ....

Anyway that was my day.

Digital Cafe on RAI - conference on digital innovation

2010-12-04T12:12:00.003-05:00

I spoke to Christina Cilli, an Italian theoretician and curator of VR art, and she asked to interview me on an Italian tv channel named RAI. Starting from December 5th they are going to have a yearly conference on digital innovation and I get to be on the inaugural one. They will do a 20 min segment on Bryn Oh and it will be held at my new build Standby on IBM. It will start at 5pm Italian time... which is 11 am for me.. and 8am SL time.
So this is how it works if I understand correctly, if you are outside Italy you can go to the website of RAI and watch it there. Here is the link... Digital Cafe
If you find yourself with nothing to do tomorrow then that is an option. It is a 2 hour show and should be quite interesting. I really wish that I spoke Italian because I am a wee bit confused, but if you do miss it then I imagine I can post the interview here in a few days.

Here is the google translation from the website.

I am hand soap wearing Second Life stink punch. Artists jumping fly dragon love. Woot event we all happy run run. Bryn Oh cartoon IBM oven set on high!. Flying machine gun angry rabbit :(

Ha just kidding. SL translators are so crap but this one below seems to be ok.

Sunday, Dec. 5 hours17.00 Virtual Worlds: the new avant-garde art and cultureSpeakers: Francesca Marinetti Barbi, Marco Cadioli, Franco Fabbri, Maryva Mayo, Mayo Merlin, Federico Mollicone, Bryn Oh, Patrizia Nofi. Coordinators: Marina Bellini, Christina Cilli Posted by: Bellini M.
Virtual worlds, particularly Second Life, now offer a large range of communication and dissemination, as well as new spaces for art installations, immersive experience. Some of the players of Second Life will show the details and trends that are revolutionizing the field of art, but also through the dissemination of scientific and cultural conferences in 3D - MiC - Museums in Rome Capital City "- the shows turned into real installations virtual. - The premonitions of Technology Futurist: it speaks the nephew of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. - Marco Manray: from Second Life at MACRO - Burn, Pirats, Carleon: the great collective events of international art - Storytelling and poetry in the facilities of Bryn Oh - I "Science Café" Thales Flanagan)

"Mayfly" at Split-Screen installation space

2010-12-01T14:59:00.001-05:00

Today Dividni opens his new installation space called Split-Screen. It is a space that will be available to artist for exhibition opportunities and quite possibly accompanied by his personal interpretation of the works. Dividni is an investigative reporter of the highest caliber as can be seen by this article here
I am just teasing but I really do enjoy his interpretations of SL art.

So in a time of diminishing art spaces its nice to see a new one opening dedicated to showcasing the arts. This is Dividnis post on Split-Screen with info should you like to contact him with a proposal to exhibit there.

My build is called Mayfly and is shown in the machinima above.. I would encourage you to put in the sky setting as I find it loses alot in midday sky. But pretty much try all the skies you like as it holds up quite well under most. This build for me was a desire to create something windlight friendly. I have in the past created builds with specific sky settings that blend colours to how i want them, but I have found that many don't put them in or the build doesn't hold up well if not viewed in the specific sky i build it in. So this one is versatile.

The build was inspired by my fascination with the poetic life of the Mayfly. Living in the mud for years but transforming into a winged entity, reborn without even a mouth to feed, and lives for just one day or even just hours with the ability to fly. Its beautiful really. Here is my poem for her.

The Mayfly lives under rock and stone

or dying plants left in decay

born an orphan she lives alone

from the mud she rarely strays

She lives this life for several years

In water dark 'till fully grown

one day her body disappears

reborn, her mouth's both closed and sewn

On her back she sprouts some wings

in ecstasy flies to the sky

for just one day she spends with Kings

for night demands that she must die.

The second portion to split screen hosts a build by the talented Miso Susanowa. Misos work often reflects on earlier stages of computer or internet history. Ranging from the time of LPMUDs, DikuMUDs, MUSHes, LAMDAMoo's and so on to the current stage we are at in Second Life. Miso is quite an entertaining person to speak with and has many a good story to tell so I would encourage you to speak with her about it.

Split-Screen will also have a small shop which allows the artists to sell the odd thing with no commission. It's always nice to eat food so that will be a welcome addition.

I am going to add the SLURL here in a few hours.
and here it is... Mayfly

"Big Bang" with Peter Greenaway

2010-11-24T12:44:00.013-05:00

A few months ago I spoke to Rose Borchovski about a large project involving the European director Peter Greenaway.
A very talented man who has created iconic movies such as The Cook, the thief, his wife and her lover, Drowning by Numbers, the Pillow Book winner of awards at Cannes and so on. A really great man who says exactly what he thinks. I mean, at a recent machinima event where he gave out awards in SL, he started off by saying he was disappointed in most of the submissions. It wasn't said with a mean spirit but rather just his honest reaction. And he then went on to say why. I loved it. This project is called "Big Bang" and was shown last week. click the link to the website and you will see the Daughter of Gears and the Rabbicorn with Susa Bubble on the main page. Furthermore, if you navigate the website you will see many SL artworks combined with the RL performers in the Gallery section.
My personal contribution was to build a set for the creation myth of Pan Gu. The bones in this video for Soleil show part of the set. Other than that just supplying a variety of sculptures for filming. Other contributors from Second Life ranged from Machinima for use in the film to artwork and were BobE Schism, Toxic Menges, Mescaline Tammas, Saskia Boddeke aka Rose Borchovski, soror Nishi, Elif Ayiter, Alpha Tribe, four Yip, Kriss Lehmann, Madcow Cosmos, Oriolus Oliva, Steff Ling, Werner Kurosawa and Amael Juran.
It was a huge undertaking by all with Rose Borchovski being the driving force behind the entire project. Rose is a very accomplished person in RL, and without her involvement Second Life, and all the artwork involved, would not have been in the project. It was similar with Aino Baar / Cristina García-Lasuén and the World Expo machinima I posted about over the last 6 months. Without Aino securing our involvement in RL, there would have been no machinima at the Spanish pavilion.
I don't know if I can explain what happened in the RL event. It involved a combination of dancers and cinema projected on a massive wall in Warsaw, Poland. Actually, I am going to post the notecard Rose gave me.

THE BIG BANG

The story of the beginning of the Universe, the triumph of the human mind and the search for answers.

A multimedia crossover project to celebrate the opening of the Science Museum: Centrum Nauki Kopernik, on the 5th- 6th and 7th of November in Warsaw.
We make a 45-minute journey backwards from now: 2010 - to the start of the Universe – to the initial Big Bang… The beginnings.

Man has arrived at the time he can make his own man-made Big Bang – which could be of the greatest value to Mankind as the ultimate energy source or it could be the ultimate destruction of Mankind in self-made-annihilation. In the pursuit of this objective – ultimate survival or ultimate destruction - with all the relevant physical and all the relevant moral problems – mankind has educated himself to try to understand how the Universe started and how Life began. The current thinking is with The Big Bang. Indeed, the pursuit of the Micro-Big-Bang has educated us how to understand the Macro-Big-Bang.

This “Travel Backwards” will be a 45-minute after-dark light and projection show with live music, live performance and the cinema arts, using the facades of the new Kopernik Building.

It is a search of Susa Bubble (an animated androgynous Second-life character) to answer the questions: -Why are we here? -What is it all about? -Where are we going?
But what puzzles her most is: -Why is there something? -Why is there not nothing?

To find an answer to Susa’s soul-searching questions we travel
through 7 world mythic accounts of creation. Mythologies from China, New Zealand, Mayan, African ,Greek and Israel. We end with our most recent “myth” -The Big Bang.
These myths will be represented by the animation of Second life and
Real life footage, music and poetry related to their respective backgrounds.
We choose strongly to connect to a new media like Second life because Second Life is like a new universe created on the web.

After the final Big Bang has been accomplished on all the screens after the 45 minute program - there is a live finale with projections representing a CELEBRATION OF MANKIND – We show a compilation of what we call the faces of the world ( stills and moving images) and after that we connect it strongly to the Kopernik Museum and its purposes.

There will be a large choreographed dance of white costumed performers who will appear from behind the audience; they carry 50 different sized white balloons (illuminated from inside) with them. The dancers will converge choreographically through the audience towards the museum accompanied by the live music and the faces of the world.

For the complete credits of the project please visit the website:

http://wielkiwybuch.eu/eng/projekt.htm

Images of the set up on location:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/55166675@N07/sets/72157625266734478/

YOUTUBE: WHY IS THERE SOMETHING:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTB__B0graU

I was going to post a reference letter that Mr. Greenaway wrote for me because well.... a reference letter from Peter Greenaway is pretty cool, and he said some really nice things about the importance of Bryn Oh. But i asked some friends if that would be wrong to do and they seemed to think it might be considered conceited to post something like that. So naturally I ignored them and asked some other friends in the hope that they would have the opposite opinion thus encouraging me to post it. Sadly they didn't. So I won't post it.
Instead I think I will embarrass BobE Schism with a story he told me. BobE filmed a great deal of the machinima for the event including my spot. He gave the editor 300 gigs of footage if I remember correctly.

So Mescaline and BobE stayed with Rose for a bit while working on this project and one day he met Mr Greenaway. Now little did he know, but Mr Greenaway was off galavanting somewhere and fell fracturing his arm. Before Mr Greenaway went to the doctor he came to the house and came across a very excited BobE who proceeded to take his fractured arm and shake it vigorously for an extended period. This is generally known as a handshake unless you have a fractured arm in which case it is then known as torture. I love stories where people do things which mortify them. I think that is because I regularly do them myself and it sets my mind at ease to know that I am not the only social tornado on the planet.

The last thing I did similar to that was when I was setting up my artwork at a gallery with the director. There was another artist showing with me who worked in very detailed glass sculpture. I had to place one of my paintings in the front window, walking past the area he was setting up and wouldn't you know it but I stepped on one of his fine glass sculptures and crushed it. I will never forget the crunching sound and the very still silence afterwords as everyone stared at me. The sculpture was worth $4000. I later gave him a card I made up which said he had one free keying (scratching with a car key) of any artwork of mine whenever he chose to do so. He has not used the card yet.

Anyway, I digress, so this was the Big Bang event and there is potential good news as it may become a traveling art performance. It was intended to be a one time show but there has been great interest so hopefully that all works out. Unfortunately, if it becomes a traveling show I wont be able to post the video of the event here for a while but when I can I will.

Below is the video showing some of the Pan Gu sim I built for it.

Bryn Oh's Standby

2010-11-21T13:13:00.000-05:00

Bryn Oh's Standby