Brian Eno drops by The Collective...

Outside lecturing, part of my specialist practice is exploring art and design possibilities within Second Life as well as freelance design work, through my avatar - AngryBeth Shortbread.



Commissioned by The Long Now Foundation, thru Blueair.tv, I was asked to translate Brian Eno's 77 Million Paintings into Second Life, to concurrently run with its North American Premiere at Yerba Buena Center For the Arts in San Francisco. This was an interesting project to undertake, as it gave an opportunity to explore curation in a telepresent location. The original work is a very mutable presentation, taking on many forms - from plasma screens to video projection, as well as a DVD version that can be viewed at home on a computer or television.

This idea was carried over into Second Life - with several placements taking different forms of presentation of the work. These installations were spread out amongst the Second Life grid, creating a journey for the second life audience.

Response from other bloggers here -
http://blogs.electricsheepcompany.com/giff/
and
http://www.rikomatic.com/blog/2007/07/


picture by Ze Moo / Text by Cryus Huffhines

I love the image above as it shows the telepresent audience. SL sims may be limiting in the number of concurrent viewers, to a number similar to a real life small art gallery opening.
Though the ability to share at distance an international audience and have the work open 24/7
gives a little back.

Other images from the show can be seen at here - Link

Penguin brief.

Through a 'live brief' commissioned by Penguin Books - Digital Publishing Dept, the last two months have given the Digital Media students the opportunity to experience the vocational side of Second Life. As tutor, I took on the role of a Production Manager / Technical Supervisor, with a small team of students brainstorming how the Penguin Brand could be realised as a Metaverse Experience. Using a medium like Second Life, the students are understanding how their skills in 3D CGI, Interactive Presentation and Graphic Design Communication can be brought together in a virtual space, as well an opportunity to consider how an 'audience' would experience and 'read' the content for this form of presentation.

I'm particularly excited, as this is getting student's to engage with possibilities of careers as content creators / designers for MUVE's (Multi-User Virtual Environments), not just for Second Life, but possibly for HOME on the PS3 and other MUVE's like Kaneva and There. Hopefully an industry that will become more the 'norm' when they graduate.


The project also gave us an opportunity to try to develop an idea of a Virtual Sketchbook. A small sandbox was created specifically for the project, divided into four sections: The Brief/client info, Research, Idea Development and Building area. This created a mix of images on Prims and 3D objects. Along with Virtual Portfolios, the idea of using a sandbox to explore the Design Process, is particularly of interest to myself, and something I want to further in the next academic year.


Text based Staircase (Idea in Progress). One of Penguin's requests was to approach the Second Life build more abstractly - rather than recreating something obvious like a 'bookshop' to represent the Brand. The Text staircase was produced by Chris Meredith, giving him an opportunity to explore 3D typography.


Recreation of Roald Dahl's Writing Shed.

The project is ongoing for a few more weeks, during which time representives from Penguin will give us feedback to the overall design approach, and allow for students to reflect on Industry reality. So far this has been a good project for students to practically engage with the issues and possibilites of using this emerging technologiy.

Virtual Art School

If we are thinking about and simulating an ideal real life art school, then should we not also be creating the ultimate SL art school? Do we need a school for educating future virtual designers and artists? There are a lot of arguments floating around about this, but I don't think it wouldn't do any harm to have a go at building one. Perhaps the blank canvas approach that our friend at Leeds College of Art & Design, AnnaBeth Robinson (AngryBeth Shortbread), is taking with her students on the Digital Media course is the most appropriate way to tackle this. Art schools have traditionally provided studio space for the creation of artefacts, with staff available to mentor, facilitate and hopefully inspire students. Perhaps the ultimate art-school in Second Life is not a building at all, but an empty island owned by the student group.

comment by Ian Truelove on the Emerge - JISC website

Much consideration was placed into the idea of giving ownership of the island to the student group, when setting up our SIM. The blank canvas approach was an attempt NOT to constrain what ideas and work could be created within an online 3D environment. My personal take on this, is if you replicate too much of the 'Real' or at the other extreme create an Abstract space, the students may consider this is the only way to construct stuff on the island, or try to fit within that framework. Of course stronger students will question, explore and push this paradigm.

Interestingly for the first few weeks, as students created their initial presence on the island, they naturally replicated the real. Aspirational houses / studios decked out with furniture, setting their own boundaries and personal plot of land by creating a 'Home'. Into this space, many began to exhibit their personal and portfolio work.

I found this, not to dissimilar an experience to when I was a student at Art College. As a group we were given a very large studio space, lots of 8x5' panels, and told to construct our own spaces. What resulted was a mix of private booths, the construction of a small village of cubicles, and a section of studio fenced off, for large construction and video work (hmmm like a Real life sandbox ).

As a building exercise, I preferred to sit back and let them explore the building tools through creating recognisable structures. Creating something that's recognisable helps the student to gauge how well they can use the building tools, something akin to drawing exercises.

But within a few days, a few had begun to explore building in the sky, and immediately the parameters of what defines a space and how avatars move around a 3D environment was being experimented with. One particular went the other way, terraforming the land to create a deep 'hobbit hole' home inside a mountain.

Another thing that emerged quite quickly was the creation of 3D Characters, influenced by Designer Toys and Video Game culture. This really demonstrated how some where gaining a confidence in pushing their skills within SL.

Now the students have had their honeymoon period with Second Life, as a vocationally biased Digtial Media course, I've began to push them to consider how Second life, supports their specialist pathways and ultimately how they can utilise their skills for industry. But thats another post for later...... :)