End of Year sandbox

As part of end of year let hair down, a few of the more SL engaged students continued to develop some extra curricula personal work in the Collective Sandbox. Here's some pics....



Rob's fantasy build...


Phil's mad scientist lab...


Steve's maze temple...

Play - a collection of sound sketches

Play - brings together all the sound sketches (toys) that I've created in Second Life™ World over the last few years. Each an exploration of the Scripting Language and other properties of the Second Life world.

This collection was presented at the People : Place : Prescence conference and exhibition on 2nd April at Foundation for Art and Creative Technology in Liverpool.

The collection can be found here >> SLURL - and will stay up till the End of April '08.

Though most of these works - could be recreated in other software, it is the social aspect of the virtual world, that makes me stick to working in Second Life or similar. Seeing groups of online people experiment and collaborate on producing music with my pieces, is more rewarding than a more solo experience on a flash based website or similar. And I still get goosebumps when I watch a group of international avatars all playing together telepresently, yet seemingly all together in one place and presence.

Play - a way of learning, Play - to be actively engaged, and Play - to perform .

Twinity Beta - Art Installation - 'Mirror World'

After a few hours of playing with Twinity, I got round to making a simple Art installation using the given shop items. Useful items were the radio which I set to stream in the ambient music from Somafm's 'DroneZone'
The mirror's are fun, but freak out when you have toooo many of them.
Twinity seems potentially ok for machinima - though I'd have to use another avatar as a camera, as the view-controls are limited to orbiting the user.

I kinda like the way light works in Twinity - Night and Day is set to the timezone your apartment is in.. Years ago in Second Life you couldn't control the sun position, so it reminded my of those nostalgic days.. but in the context here, as a Mirrorworld it is behaving correctly.

Anywho - if you can log into Twinity - check out the apartment by searching for - Annabeth's Art Gallery.

Upping the Ante

Its been a while since I've blogged about the Digital Media courses activities within Second Life.


2nd year project, starting of with an SL based sketchbook.

Now a new academic year, and the course moving to new facilities on the Blenhiem Walk Campus, we've decided to jump in deeper with Second Life as part of the course.

Previously, we had rolled out SL as a more tentative venture, using it via Personal Development and Critical Studies - so we could explore Digital Cultures and Emerging Technology. We were very fortunate to also have a project with Penguin, that allow both staff and students to see the Vocational worth of Second Life.

Now the course is into its 2nd Year, we have Specialist Pathway modules in both Moving Image and Interactive Presentation.

For both of these modules, we decided to have a Second Life based brief, they could choose to undertake. The modules started on the 9th Nov.

Interactive Presentation

The Team brief is to create an Art Gallery within Second Life, which can be used by the other students and potential Artist in Residence projects.
The students have to consider curation within a virtual 3D space, the different forms of media that can be shown, how avatars can navigate, explore and engage the work that will be shown, as well as creating signage for the space. Upon this they will create an intergrated CSS template for a Ning based community and Blog.

It is hoped out of this brief, that students can explore and reflect on the differences of Flash or Web based Gallery and information presentation, with this 3D variant. As well as engaging with Social connectivity aspects of both Second Life and web communities like Ning.

Moving Image

The brief is to create a 2 minute Machinima presentation, to promote the Design for Digital Media course's presence and activity on the Collective's Second Life Island.

Hopefully, through this brief both the creative use of machinima can be explored, but tempered with a corporate sensibility. My gut feeling with more corporate presence within Second Life or similar (PS3 Home or There), there will be a new skill set needed for this convergence industry, and I hope this brief starts to address the portfolio needs of graduating students into this industry.
Also the cross-transferable skills back to video production, still means regardless of it being either traditional video or machinima - the students still has to go through the experience of production management, communicating with cast and crew & editing of footage.

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With the 1st Years, we've had the opportunity of creating a new 10 credit module called 'Digital Cultures and Technologies', a half practical and theoretical module.

This has given us an opportunity to have a more course wide engagement within Second Life. The project set is called 2020, where we ask the students to design a poster to communicate what they speculate could be future digital ( or other ) experiences, commodities or technologies.

These poster will then also uploaded into Second Life, as part of a display - in the new art gallery the 2nd year's are building.

As part of the module, we've had a seminar on Avatars, which allowed practical play via Second Life.

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All of these projects will run up till Christmas, which we'll hopefully make open to the public. ( though actually the islands always open to the public, so you can pop by and see work in progress - so excuse the clutter - we're a sandbox, not a polished marketing tool.)


Some of the activity that's been blogged by the students...

http://parkinsonliam.blogspot.com/2007/11/second-life-galleries.html
http://fionnualamurphy.blogspot.com/2007/11/new-shiny-work-area.html

As a team, Liam and Fio, have initially created a 3D sketchbook to house both there research and idea development, and a place to try out building prototypes.

( which actually reminds me, I get a few IM's saying that there's seems to be little happening on our island... actually a lot happens its just tends to be up at 500 ms )

here's some posts from the 1st years, after playing with avatar creation for an afternoon.

http://markscrit.blogspot.com/2007/10/second-life.html
http://myworldmylifemytime.blogspot.com/2007/10/second-life.html
http://rockbigdave.blogspot.com/2007/09/second-life-at-uni-we-work-d.html
http://digitalbreak.blogspot.com/2007/10/second-life.html

It's also sparked some critical response,

http://critwall.blogspot.com/2007/09/scary-life.html

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.