Thursday, October 23, 2008

New, trippiest and most IMMERSIVE way to see videos, EVAH!

Thank you, NPIRLer Crap Mariner, a funtastic videographer and podcaster himself, for turning us onto Thoth Jantzen's hyper-grooovy and totally novel way to watch videos in any life. This is, unquestionably, the most immersive video viewing that I have ever experienced, beating IMAX, HDTV, and every other screen technology by a long shot.

Granted, it is not for the weak-at-heart. You wouldn't want to watch a feature film, television, or anything that requires clear visuals this way. A bit like a roller coaster ride, a bit like an acid trip... it is outrageously cool.

I can imagine all kinds of music and videos being loaded for different purposes, even therapeutic ones. Watching it, I felt younger... or older, I'm not sure which. With some videos, the sides almost look 3-dimensional.

Given that Crap Mariner pointed us to this spectacular find, I looked for him immediately when it came to videotaping this to share it with you. He was not in-world. I teleported virtual florist, artist and videographer Vlad Bjornson in and he made quick work of it, preparing a version to show you right away. Thank you, Vlad!



Standing on one end of the chaotic, trippy video wrapped tube, and surrounded by excited people, I peppered poor Thoth - who's second rez day was in effect (10/22/2006) with questions...


He has chosen the persona of Thoth-Anubis, "expressed in SL as a wandering magician, student of everything, and a "serial connector"

Does this thing have a name yet, Thoth?

Thoth Jantzen: I haven't named it yet, but I am thinking to call it the Kaleidoscopium or some such... it's like being inside a kaleidoscope.

Is this like version 382 of your tweaking?

Thoth Jantzen: Oh, at least, Bettina... probably into the 500's.


Below Kaleidoscopium, Thoth's earlier work and experiments can be viewed in a space he calls Cosmique. The same video plays throughout

Will you be selling versions of this?

Thoth Jantzen: I just like to make things that I hope people enjoy, but I'm not sure. More likely 'no'... unless there's that much interest.

If you aren't present, is there a way that the visitor can load different videos?

Thoth Jantzen: Yes. There is a ZONE box near the end here on the floor. It lets people load YouTube urls in chat.

Thoth considers his video work a sideline in Second Life®.

Thoth Jantzen: I founded a group called Thothica SL a couple of years ago, but I don't run it any more. I handed the control over to some friends. I try to hook up people with other people who may be helpful or of interest to them. I think Second Life's biggest potential is in education and related things, getting people connected.

In Real Life, Thoth works in advanced parsing and linguistics.

Have your own kaleidoscopic and very psychedelic experience by teleporting directly from here.

10 comments:

R. said...

I was slightly occupied with inhaling large amounts of carbon monoxide and soot in my sleep.

Is it the weekend yet?

-ls/cm

Ganymedes Costagravas said...

This reminds me a lot of the G-Force visual effects for WMA!
Awesome!

Ganymedes Costagravas said...

eeeps ment WMP lol

Unknown said...

I serially connected with Thoth early on in my SL days. Being a serial connector myself, we only hang out once in a while. But I do fondly remember my first dancing in SL with some of his...highly unusual friends. hehe

Congrats on being in Bettina's blog Thoth!! You are way cool...

Chimera Cosmos

Nebulosus said...

At Arthole, we have a similar effect, but on a much smaller scale, at our installation on Level 2. It seems that most bloggers won't touch it with a 10-foot pole, though (hint: the title of the piece is XXX PRIVATE SHOW) and it seems not a lot of people have seen it yet; we've gotten barely any feedback about it. For the curious, though, take this SLurl to Arthole and use the teleport to get to Level 2. I dare you. :P

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Kress/168/88/391

Anonymous said...

Lots of these around.

Bettina Tizzy said...

@crap: you were missed!
@ganymedes: have you seen it yet? It's beauuutiful.
@ldinstl: yay for serial connectors!
@neb: I'll be sure to check it out.
@dirk: Now see here, young man, you aren't going to get away with throwing water on the fire and trotting off. We want names. We want slurls.

Nebulosus said...

Bwahaha. Bettina IMed me in-world and told me XXX PRIVATE SHOW wasn't like Thoth's, so I went to check it out and sure enough, it IS a lot different - XXX PRIVATE SHOW has a repeat-video thing going on, but not quite like this. Fun build!

qpop said...

Bettina, we have a similar thing on Quadrapop Tree Isle (thanks to Ember Farina, one of our residents) that is user interactive - you can set what you see by using the search button. Very soon we will have playlists from which people will be able to choose... drop into our landing point and take the TP to the Media Sphere: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Quadrapop%20Tree%20Isle/128/128/30

We will be holding three 2 hour long parties in our sphere on Halloween 4am, 12noon and 8pm slt to launch it's use.

Bettina Tizzy said...

K - I'm here at Quadrapop Tree Isle and no, your installation is not at all like Thoth's video viewing experience.