Island solitude...but not for long

This was the island as we got it - with a little addition or two from Scottish Hawker and a more feeble attempt from myself. Scottish hawker had flagged up that he thought the shape of the island was changing and wondered if our partners rm* were being creative - but we then thought maybe we were all just imagining things. All was fine as I mosied around one weekend; playing around with the time of day, practising hovering, sitting on objects, making my own bits and pieces - here's a few shots of this:




These were my first attempts at building - easy/ready made things; you just go into the tools, select an object shape then use your Second Life 'magic powers' to point and place it where ever you want! Then you can stretch it and move it around as you please. As you'll see, Scottish Hawker's powers are more sophisticated than mine! He also rendered some trees - as he has now got owner level rights (or has gone on AKA the owner!), he can actually create trees and grass and natural looking things that me and the others can't. Unfortunately, there's no images of the trees and grass as it happened a little after this and just before the sabotage happened that I'll blog about soon!




You can see Scottish hawker's great aeroplane like structure that he built on top of my easy to do box, and my less imaginative red object - it's strangely nice being there on your own and flying around.

Coming back to Second Life

It really has been a long time since I've posted anything. Other work just takes over. The project has started in earnest now - a lot of hoops to go through to actually get the island; noone tells you about the practicalities! So here are a few:

1. Buying the island. We had the money but needed to then get the institution to buy the island as it required educational confirmation for the discount - we might have been able to sort this ourselves, paid on a visa card, then claimed back...not sure, but the former option seemed best.
2. Decision made on route to go down, then find a helpful gatekeeper - in our case Head of Finance
3. Explain to HoF that they need to get an avatar and a professional account for this strange new second life world in order to buy the land
4. Help them set up an avatar and go through orientation island, and convince them they are not on candid camera as they do it
5. Pick the shape and location of an island
6. As the HoF is the owner you'll find out that you have no access rights until they set them for you! Which means you going into Second life at the same time to talk them through how to do it, as you figure things out yourself
7. Try to make the island safe from unwanted squatters - we thought we'd done that....but we soon learned that we hadn't!
8. When you're stuck - try to get help via Second Life help section - impossible, unless you're the owner and do it by telephoning the USA, which we had to do twice with the HoF
9. Accept that you'll really have to do this yourself - work your way through it and learn what needs to be done and a way of doing it as unless you have an experienced Second Lifer to hand, it's a case of trial and lots of error
10. This is all from my perspective - you might find it a whole lot easier!

Obama Music Fest in Second Life

There's going be a two-day an Obama Music Festival in Second Life. The "Obama for President" group in SL are inviting Obama supporters to congregate on September 27-28th.


Saturday Sept 27th : Live performances


Sunday Sept 28th : Live DJs

Brian Eno's 77 Million Paintings

The Long Now Foundation presented the North American Premiere of Brian Eno's 77 Million Paintings in June 2007 at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. A parallel event was also run in Second Life organized by Blueair.tv and built by Annabeth Robinson at which Brian Eno attended.

Cheen Pitney - Second Life Artist

An interview with a artist who is commissioned to make public sculpture in Second life. It's interesting that the sculpture are so reminiscent of the statuary found in public square in or cities and town. Apart from the fact that they are not reliant on gravity and float, little difference seems to be gained from the potential of a new media in a new context.

Synthetic Performances

A series of reenactments of historical performances inside synthetic worlds such as Second Life. All the actions are performed by Eva and Franco Mattes through their avatars, which were constructed from their bodies and faces. People can attend and interact with the live performances connecting to the video-game from all over the world. The series started in January 2007.


«It was such a good idea, I'm sort of jealous that it never crossed my mind» Marina Abramovic, ARTnews, February 2008

Strange cross world moments in second life

It's been a while since I've had time to do anything on second life or the blog - I've realised that this really needs time and practice (and purpose, so that you can go on with a task and hopefully have someone who can advise).

Had a great meeting - unplanned - with Lulu Minnelli a couple of weeks ago. I had checked on quickly to have a look and remind myself of what we'd been doing, when Lulu came on line - just as well as I'd managed to fall from the Planet CLTAD platform, down on to the SLCF area and couldn't figure out how to get back to where I was supposed to be! I tried flying, jumping, hovering but couldn't get there and hadn't set it as a 'home' location - Lulu to the rescue! She created a wee teleporter box that would get me back - easy? Well in theory, but you have to select the thing and I couldn't remember how you did that, so I watched Lulu say cheerio and thought 'oh oh', I am still stuck here. Lulu to the rescue again! She came back and got me out, talking me through it - remember, you're typing on second life if you don't have a microphone, so it's a bit odd and slow trying to communicate. So Lulu suggested that I call her, and in second life, gave me her mobile number. As I sat in my office, looking at my virtual avatar Lyberty republic and that of Lulu Minnelli on my 24" monitor, I picked up my 'real' phone and dialed Lulu's non-virtual self in her office and she talked me through some of the basics - it was very very strange; in a nice way. The other - 'real' person behind Lulu is in my head as I'm talking to them, with the knowledge I have of what job they do, what they look like- yet I'm looking at our alter virtual personas and trying to problem solve for my other self - the one that feels completely like a 2 year old taking it's first steps! As we chatted in the virtual world, I told Lulu about the blog, and, in second life, within seconds Lulu was commenting on it - not, 'I'll check this later', but while we were still chatting in second life Lulu, through the power of a big screen, was able to multi-task - and due to my limited abilities on Second life, I was majorly impressed!

That's one of the strange but interesting things about second life - the avatar whose back of head you always see, as, just like in real life, you can't see your own face - however, unlike real life, you are outside of yourself as you look from the perspective of your avatar but with a slightly more encompassing view of the world in that you're in your own field of vision. It's full of odd dynamics like this - your clumsiness with the tools and controls feels exaggerated as you watch 'yourself' and perhaps that's what's so peculiar, you can watch yourself learn in second life - seeing and smiling at yourself as you make mistakes...