Seifert Surface breathes (real) life into virtual content

Seifert Surface (aka Henry Segerman), a mathematician and also a bodacious creator of both virtual and real math-inspired art, is doing so many new and fun things that I had to get out of my blogging funk long enough to post this.

Three years ago, and over on his New World Notes blog, Hamlet Au did a great write-up on Seifert's recreation of Robert A. Heinlein's fictional "Crooked House" in Second Life, a house shaped like the unfolded net of a tesseract. "--And He Built a Crooked House" is a scifi short story about a mathematically inclined architect who "has what he thinks is a brilliant idea to save on real estate costs."

Now Seifert has shot two videos in-world so that even non-Second Life'rs can have a look and understand what it's like to walk inside it. It's 'the awesome,' don't you think?





And just in time for Christmas shopping, eight of Seifert's math-inspired investigations and sculptures have come to life, thanks to Shapeways' 3D printing. I'm buying as soon as I finish this blogpost.


Sphere Autoglyph


Torus Autoglyph

Prices range from $12.95 to $57.29.

Merging the virtual and the real: A new virtual reality system

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

Apologies to all my readers, as I have not been blogging at all as of late. If you follow me on Twitter, then you already know most of my sagas, but the stars and planets were aligned against me (and my real and extended family), and I've been putting out fires for days on end. Things seem to be normalizing now, hopefully, so let's get on with the show!

Via post-doc mathematician and virtual artist Seifert Surface (aka Henry Segerman), we learned of Technology Review's writeup on new technologies featured at the ACM's Special Interest Group on Graphics and Interactive Techniques at SIGGRAPH 2009 in New Orleans this week.

Of particular interest is a new virtual reality system called Virtualization presented by INRIA (The French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control) and Grenoble Universities that allows users to interact with virtual objects in a very "real" way, by tracking their movements using several cameras simultaneously.

Virtualization Gate: Siggraph 2009 Emerging Technologies
Uploaded by InriaGrImage. - Technology reviews and science news videos.

Technology Review explains: "The user wears a head-mounted display (HMD) and moves through a virtual space while several cameras track his movement. The video here shows a guy kicking over virtual vases and pushing around a virtual representation of himself. A cluster of PCs is needed to perform the necessary image capture and 3D modeling."

The most complex sculpture in any world, real or virtual?

Mystery, beauty, superlatives and controversy have punctuated the short life of Black Swan, a region in Second Life® that, at its birth, was famously the stage for Starax's return to the metaverse as Light Waves after a much lamented 15 month disappearance. The discovery of Black Swan in mid-September, 2007 revealed graceful prim-light sculpty sculptures placed spectacularly along the periphery of a watery aquamarine basin, and Light Waves did it all using less than 4,000 prims.

Now, and since July 16th of this year, this inherently dramatic simulator has become the site of what must surely be the most complex sculpture in the history of virtual worlds...



I am not talking about the fact that it is airborne, or the size of it, but because Noobility is nothing short of a play that is taking place before your eyes in real-time... a 3D, immersive and silent play. It tells a powerful and highly theatrical story that transpires over the course of an hour, and then recycles again, and again, in automated fashion. The only thing that's missing is the popcorn.

I did some research to learn if any other art installation, real or virtual, had ever accomplished this, but the only thing I could come up with, that even came close (and while delightful, it is certainly not "art"), was the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction at Disneyland, and even that doesn't run one hour long, destroy itself completely and recreate itself anew, while its spectators are able to move around it and in it freely at any time.

We had already seen a variation of the sculpture - The Sky is Falling - also by Seifert Surface (aka Henry Segerman), at the Garden of NPIRL Delights. 1,500 prims "in a pattern based, in part, on a process that turns up in nature a lot: 'growing' new objects around an axis at an angle of 2pi/Phi from the previous one, where Phi is the golden ratio," he explained.

Seifert, a postdoctoral mathematician and lecturer living in Austin, has been featured on these pages many times in the past with his math-inspired art - and the adulation he inspires in many of the grid's leading content creators is well deserved - but this new installation, realized together with his Real Life brother, Art Laxness (aka Will Segerman) - a Brighton, UK-based prop master for film and theatre in Real Life - is way, way over the top.


Credits:
* Concept and storyline: Seifert Surface and Art Laxness
* Sculpties: Art Laxness
* Scripting: Seifert Surface
* Video: Bettina Tizzy
* Music - Awaiting the Attack: composed by David Flavin, ASCAP and Roland Rudzitis, ASCAP

The technical aspects of Noobility, as the kinetic sculpture is now known, are without precedent. To give you some idea, there are 2,552 active scripts... fewer than ten are listeners, and almost everything is collision-activated. Three sensor prims inject scripts that make the falling phantom prims drop.

I met with Seifert and Art at Noobility to learn more from the two masterminds.


A 17-sculpty-prim noob meets his creator. Art Laxness' avatar is a basic prim

What were some of the pranks you pulled when you were kids?
Art Laxness: Henry (Seifert) would never go for pranks. He's been a grown up since the age of 10. :P
Seifert Surface: We did build those tripwire traps. Well, trip string, but nobody ever went through them unaware.
Art Laxness: Elaborate Rube Goldberg things to shoot stuff at people...

How old were you at the time?
Seifert Surface: Err. 10?
Art Laxness: ... dunno first used a band saw when I was 8... liberal parents. There were bits and bobs, like that board game... ninjas! And we made that wrestling ring. And the bows and arrows? Then there was the scooter race course we built in the workshop, and the play dough head where you cheesegrated the end of my finger...
Seifert Surface: Oh, yes. :)

Where did you grow up?
Seifert Surface: Manchester, UK. We lived in a place that was half our Dad's business (workshop) and half house.
Art Laxness: His company makes strings for Renaissance instruments and repairs them, too.
Seifert Surface: Used to be lots of people around, making instruments...
Art Laxness:... and having early music jams.

How'd it happen that you decided to collaborate on Noobility?
Art Laxness: Henry happened to be (coming) 'round in Brighton. I had the making-fake-AVs idea rattling around for a while.

Did you develop the storyline first?
Seifert Surface: No, it all came together at once. I decided really very late that we were going to rerez the whole structure anew each time, and then the question of what prims it would rerez came up.
Art Laxness: Kinda how I find making art works... the making instigates the concepts and vice versa.
Seifert Surface: ... and we already had these noobs, so the concept of the noob god, Giganoob, came up naturally.


The noob, or the avatar most male users are wearing when they make their first appearance in Second Life®, has the perpetual countenance of a young and innocent simpleton. His facial features aren't fully realized and his clothing could be described as "generic basic." Interestingly, it seems that the noob avatar we all know and recognize today will soon be history. Second Life is introducing much more elaborate "starter kits"


The noobs' nincompoopish look is magnified when he is "afk," (away from keyboard), which newbies often do since they generally don't know anyone upon arrival in-world. This hilarious capture taken at a USC MacArthur Foundation event by Wellington Bahram

When did you come up with the noobs, Art?
Art Laxness: Pretty much as soon as sculpties came out... avatars were, until that point, unique. You couldn't reproduce them.

Did you hear that they've gotten rid of Ruth?
Art Laxness: Yes, we now have the cloud.

I think the guy noob looks so much better than Ruth.
Seifert Surface: We'd always wanted to go for the male avatar rather than Ruth anyway.
Art Laxness: Wonder how that would fit into our mythology ;)
Seifert Surface: He's quite a bit creepier looking.
Art Laxness: Yeah, the noob we used here was my first experience of Second Life. When I signed up, all of my informative experience was wearing that skin. I wore it around the Ivory Tower of Primitives.



Interesting way to put it.
Seifert Surface: Will has a degree in fine art. He can reel all that stuff off for hours.

Art also works with The Magicians, a metaverse development company led by Kim Anubis (aka Kimberly Rufer-Bach), and while their current project is quite Possible in Real Life (PIRL), it's a stunner.

A different way to spend a holiday... You were working off Art's router?
Seifert Surface: We decided quite a bit of what we were going to do before I was in England. Then, pretty much the whole time I was there (2 and a half weeks), we were working on it. (Worked off of ) Art's wifi. Yeah, my Mac on the kitchen table, Art's computer on the other table. Back door out onto a view of the sea.
Art Laxness: Was fairly intense. I have a lovely large kitchen here with my computer in it.
Seifert Surface: Art's latest Real Life project...
Art Laxness: I sculpt fine art and also make props for film and theatre in Real Life. (Art showed me a photograph of Cate Blanchett in the film Elizabeth: The Golden Age, for which he had sculpted some of her armor). (It) was a lovely project. Prop making is fun but the pay isn't great and the hours suck.

Are you unionized? I have an old school friend who is in a prop masters union here (US), and boy, do they have it locked in! The last time I looked, they only had nine members.
Art Laxness: Nope, all freelance, and there's way more people (who) want to do it than there are jobs.

While we'd been chatting, Noobility was pressing on in its automated fashion.

Uh oh, here comes NOOB GOD.
Art Laxness: Apocalypse time
Seifert Surface: Giganoob giveth and Giganoob taketh away.

I love the flexis.
Seifert Surface: Nice bit of incongruity. I might have spent the longest on that kind.
Art Laxness: I was unsure of them at first but yes, glad they're in.


Here and there, when things really get going, a flexi pyramid begins to spin on its own axis

It's a masterful touch. How many flexis are there?
Seifert Surface: The number changes. There are a couple of factors: which pyramids are special, and how many of each is determined each time it rezzes.
Art Laxness: Giganoob decides.
Seifert Surface: There are prime numbers and integers modulo those primes involved.
Lol
Seifert Surface: He does actually... there's one part which is random. Giganoob decides on a random seed for the whole pattern, which is a number between, er, 1 and 90000, I think. That one number determines the colours, the positions and numbers of special pyramids... everything. One of the tricky things is that, when you rez something, you can pass the rezzed thing a single number for initial data, so what people often do is use that number to set up a listener and then use the listener to transfer extra data, but there are 1500 pyramids (here).



... would lag us to death.
Seifert Surface: Right. It probably wouldn't be that bad, actually, but yes, it's bad form. So, the Giganoob rezzes a pyramid, and it knows which of the 1500 (prims) it is, and it knows the seed number (between 1 and 90000). From those two bits of information, it can work out everything else, and it is because it is all mathematical and procedurally generated that we can get away with that. The blue glowing things are just going out there to deliver the actual prim. When they get out there, they rez the appropriate type of pyramid.

The veins in the pyramids are new in this installation.
Seifert Surface: Art's department.
Art Laxness: Inspired by Aztec-ness and my housemate playing the WII Zelda game.
Seifert Surface: Oh man, did you know the texturing is entirely different when a prim is flexi? I had to convert Art's texture using a python script to get it to look right. You can see a tiny flicker on the texture when it comes back from flipping twice... Little bits of imperfection... le sigh.

What else about the scripts here is different from what you've seen in Second Life before?
Seifert Surface: Hmmm. There are a couple of things that are a bit different. All the vanilla pyramids (the stable ones)... none of them have any scripts in them, again, for lag purposes, and nothing has a listener in it.

Vanilla... like the one I'm flying over?
Seifert Surface: Yep, vanilla as opposed to more interesting flavours. Not a reference to the colour. Just that it doesn't try to kill you.
Art Laxness: Check the (prim) description to see what flavour each is.
Seifert Surface: In order to make the things fall, it needs a script in there, so it's all done with the use of a function called llLoadScriptPin which loads scripts into existing prims. It's not used much, although I got the idea from Jeffrey Gomez, who used a similar thing for his Primmies game.
Art Laxness: Seif assures me its all very clever.
Seifert Surface: Quite a bit of hackery to get it to work :) I guess having the rezzing be part of the artwork is kind of new in Second Life. Seeing things built by script is one of the most awesome sights in Second Life, I always think, but it's usually only the builders who see it.
Art Laxness: I get to see that aspect of Seif's stuff and (it) is as good as the final thing.
Seifert Surface: Well, you rez your thing using Cadroe Murphy's Tools. Then you've got your nice big circular platform, and you're done. Visitors later on might figure out that it had to be built by script, but they won't see it building.


Among other things, Seifert Surface created the winning logo for the Not Possible IRL group

Did you fill out that NPIRL survey on IP protection, Seifert?
Seifert Surface: Errr, I think so, but it is not something that I'm terribly concerned with. Scripts are in far less danger of getting nicked.

Unfortunately, what did get nicked was Art's prim-based noob. It was copybotted and free full-mod noobs became available - even via SL Exchange - all over the grid a few weeks ago. While Art filed a DMCA, he has not had a response from Linden Lab.

Well, I mention it because the biggest concern of the participants was the protection of their scripts, by far. Meaning... that they serve one purpose and you don't repurpose them?
Seifert Surface: Yes, and even then, I don't sell much in-world for L$. Most of my things are one-offs. Nobody is going to steal Noobility and set it up somewhere, even if they could. Well, I guess they might, but specific commissions for a client would be a little obvious.

Have you tossed any scripts into the open source bin?
Seifert Surface: I have a couple on the Wiki. There's a fractal tree generator, and another one for making arbitrary parametric surfaces from triangles.
Art Laxness: You should get the door script you made for me out there... doesn't sound like much, but if you regularly make doors, it is serious stuff.

Are you mathematically inclined, Art?
Art Laxness: I enjoy maths but not to the level Seif does. (He) is a mathematician who does art; I'm an artist who does math. I see math as more of a means to an end... which results in Seif explaining stuff to me so I get what is going on while I need to. Then I promptly forget it all.
Seifert Surface: That works :)
Art Laxness: ... and hey, if I ever need to know again, I've always got Seif right (here).

Art, what program are you using to make your sculpties?
Art Laxness: I think I used most in this project: Maya, Wings, Blender. It involved lots of trying-things-out.
Seifert Surface: ... and we used Glintercept to get models of the noobs to build the sculpties around.

But working with all this software seems so foreign to your Real Life work, and crafting with objects.
Art Laxness: Not at all. I'm into making 3D objects in every medium I can get my hands on. Any sculptor who isn't into 3D software is really limiting themselves, and as 3D printing becomes more accessible, the fields are going to merge. I mean, consider prop making in 10 years time when I could just print out Cate Blanchett's armour.


Teleport directly to Black Swan from here. To access the sim, you must pay $199L and wear the attachment you are provided with.

See also:

More on Seifert Surface:
- Summer Noob Games ;-)
- Mathematical Sunday with Seifert Surface
- It's blooming sculpties at Seifert Surface's "XYZ" sim
- Turning the page on 2007 in virtual worlds - What happened and what's next
- This just in! The future of huge prims is looking good
- Not Possible IRL field trips with Seifert Surface

More on Black Swan and Starax/Light Waves:
- Baby found at Black Swan
- For the dude who worked so hard on it in the first place
- Rezzable Productions: The slippery slope of turning art into a revenue stream
- It's easy. No, it's magical.
- Light Waves' 'Night Dreaming' statue comes alive

It's hip (this week) to be square-ish

In Real Life, a monolithic cube might make you think of the Kaaba in Mecca.


This photograph by Muhammad Mahdi Karim

In Second Life®, especially if it has some special physics feature, it makes me think of conceptual artist and scripter Selavy Oh. As art professor Amy Freelunch pointed out, Selavy has carved a niche for herself with pieces that almost always feature a cube or cubes falling, pushing or floating, such as some of her Tectonics series, and her Architectural Intervention piece.

Much of art in Second Life® requires some degree of technical/scripting skill to produce. This week, the theme seems to be physics... and cubes.

Those of us who spend even a wee bit of time at performance space and presentation/sandbox Brooklyn is Watching (BiW), have been aware for some time now that Selavy has been planning the opening of her "Nested Cubes" installation to the public today, at 4:30pm SLT (teleport directly from here)...



Selavy's Nested Cubes isn't really orange... I've been playing some more with Torley's Windlight presets

...so it came as quite a surprise yesterday when I discovered this piece by Hyperformalist DanCoyote Antonelli (aka DC Spensley) at about 1,200m above the Brooklyn is Watching space (teleport directly from here and take one of the chair tours he offers there).



Subtractive Reactive Social Sculpture by DanCoyote Antonelli

Notably, I inspected it and it was created July 22, 2008. Yesterday.

I immediately sent DanCoyote an IM that read simply, "rascal." He was busy working but his brief reply read... "I am a coyote." I have not yet been able to confirm that he understood why I was calling him names, and if his response addressed my implied charge or, shall we say... question. I hope to learn more.


Higher resolution version here
Music: "Neurofunk," composed by Michael Genato, ASCAP; published by Mike Genato Music, ASCAP and Freeplaynjj, ASCAP
Video: Bettina Tizzy

At any rate, I visited Nested Cubes recently with postdoctoral mathematician Seifert Surface (aka Henry Segerman), who's astonishing Noobility installation, created in collaboration with his brother, Art Laxness (aka Will Segerman), is now wowing the crowds over at Rezzable Productions' Black Swan (teleport directly from here). Seifert was my companion of choice for this expedition because of his knowledge of physics, especially as they are related to virtual art. As I expected, upon rezzing he was examining the piece with care. I hope he won't mind my sharing his comments as we reviewed it.

Seifert Surface: I checked to see if the things that fall are the same objects as the things you fly into. Not always the case... there might have been a switcheroo.

To mix it up?
Seifert Surface: For some reason or other. Eg, it could have been done so that the things you fly through go invisible and at the same time rez a physical cube in the same place... so it looks like you fly through the thing and it falls, when in fact the original cube is still there, just invisible. Then you bring back the original cube at a later date. That isn't what's going on here, though. The original cube is falling... invisiprims, and some sort of pusher. These are all good things to be experimenting with.

I later contacted Selavy to ask if she had used Keystone Bouchard's (aka Jon Brouchard) marvelous Reflexive Architecture scripts, but she clarified that all the scripts are her own. I also learned that Nested Cubes re-rezzes itself after a ten minute absence of avatars. "The viewer is an important part of this work, as in any work," she said.

~*~

Aha! Just as I was preparing to publish this piece, an email came in from DanCoyote Antonelli:

"Sel is a friend and I think a very big talent in Second Life... a rising star and diehard Hyperformalist.

My installation of the RSSS (Reactive Subtractive Social Sculpture) at BiW was in response to her cubic arrays in BiW and at Design Island. This is an example of similar morphology (cubic array) and completely different conceptual behavior. The demonstration of this fact accounts for my timing.

The piece I have at BiW was pioneered in late 2006 and is a well documented and coherent approach implicating the viewer into a sculptural relationship with the work. In fact, I contend that it implicates two viewers since the active viewer who is in the piece cannot see the length and breadth of the metamorphosis of the piece, so it takes at least two.

You know what they say... "The simpler the art, the more complex the explanation..."

Summer Noob Games ;-)

Starring role and scripting: Seifert Surface
Noobs: Created by Art Laxness
Location: Suffugium, by Lex Neva/The Squidsoft Collective
Music: "Shopping Spree," composed by Peter Calandra, BMI and Scott P Schreer, BMI
Video: Bettina Tizzy

New sculpture at Black Swan packs a wallop - You aren't going to want to miss this one

There is something new and so important at Rezzable Productions' Black Swan sim that most everyone in Second Life® will want to see it, and yes, I am aware that Rezzable is charging a $199L admission fee. All the same, I suspect that you will forget your objections and pony up.

The last time Seifert Surface (aka Henry Segerman ) and his younger brother Art Laxness (aka Will Segerman) collaborated together on a project in Second Life, they created an animated series of bots that spell out YMCA with their "arms." That was back in November, 2005.

Seifert - an Austin-based postdoctoral mathematician and lecturer - just got back from Brighton, UK where he was visiting his brother Art, a fine art sculptor and prop designer for theatre and film. Together, they collaborated to create a kinetic, story telling sculpture in Second Life that cycles every hour. I'll get back to you with more on the technical aspects of this sculpture soon, but for now, here is a taste.



Credits:
* Concept and storyline: Seifert Surface and Art Laxness
* Sculpties: Art Laxness
* Scripting: Seifert Surface
* Video: Bettina Tizzy
* Music - Awaiting the Attack: composed by David Flavin, ASCAP and Roland Rudzitis, ASCAP

Teleport directly to Black Swan from here.

The Museum of the Globe - 2D gets 3D

Last year, Hidenori Watanave, a Japanese architect in Real Life with an active Second Life®, sat on a jury for something called the Digital Design Competition 2007, and the Grand Prix winner - with a 2D submission - was Museum of the Globe, by Atelier Ten Architects, a Japanese metaverse developer and web services company, not to be confused with the prestigious global environmental design firm Atelier Ten .



In June, TeaCup, the Japanese free blogging service division of the publicly traded Internet services and web hosting company GMO, provided technical assistance in collaboration with Atelier Ten to take the 2D design and realize it in 3D. The actual construction was realized by Ichiro Furse of Atelier Ten Architects.





Hideroni will be presenting this at the International Electronic Langauge Festival FILE 2008 in Sao Paulo, and at SIGGRAPH2008 in Los Angeles, in August.

I asked Hyperformalist DanCoyote Antonelli (aka DC Spensley) for his opinion of the sim-wide installation.

DanCoyote Antonelli: This is pure Hyperformalism. It is messy in a unique way, but it keeps its overall shape well. It is in between my cubic and cylindrical arrays and Seifert Surface's spore. It is not dirty enough data for me in total, but I think it is a wonderous thing, in some ways related to the shatter sphere.


Seifert Surface's "Spore" - photo by Bjorlyn Loon

How do you mean "dirty enough?"
Dancoyote Antonelli: I mean the data is perturbed in a way attributable to the artist's hand. There is such a thing to me as "too far removed from the work..." - too distant, and the piece slips out of my range of interest and becomes a photograph of some data and not art. Some imperfection must make it a human work I think. I love the little trees below, too. They reflect well in the water.

Teleport directly from here

Seifert Surface's "The Sky is Falling"

Crap Mariner had this to say about it: "Oh my God, it's full of arrows... more arrows than an Indian convention!"

Fact is, "The Sky is Falling," by postdoctoral mathematician and lecturer Seifert Surface (aka Henry Segerman), has 1000 of those arrows and looms in the sky over the Garden of NPIRL Delights.



These photographs by NPIRL Flickrite Andromega, who's stream I regularly haunt

"The pattern is based in part on a process that turns up in nature a lot: 'growing' new objects around an axis at an angle of 2pi/Phi from the previous one, where Phi is the golden ratio," explains Seifert.

The one, the only, Sabine Stonebender

October 6, 2008 update: On July 16th, Sabine Stonebender's Zero Point and shop were inadvertently destroyed. Sabine has been hard at work rebuilding Zero Point and her permanent store is now open for business (teleport directly from here).


The extraordinary Sabine Stonebender. Photograph post-processing by KadeKlate Karson

In the constellation of artists within Second Life, she is royalty, and I have no doubt that art historians in the future will document her work in textbooks - or whatever the format might be - because Sabine has pioneered an entirely new approach - a movement in and of itself - and has thoughtfully laid down the foundation for many artists in virtual worlds to come.

So much has been written about her already, but we will never finish examining this woman's work. There is the SLART piece, Amalthea Blanc's review and video, the SL Cool story, and of course, the SL News coverage. Jurin Juran frequently features her work both at her Blackwater Gallery and on her blog.

April 14 update: In the interest of longevity and for the record, and because some new material came in - namely a couple of great pics of Sabine's Real Life art works, and quotes from both Torley Linden and DanCoyote Antonelli - I decided to republish with these additions.



To see the greatest concentration of her work, as well as her store, visit Zero Point (teleport directly from here).

I always feel like I am stealing a little beauty from the metaverse whenever I take Sabine Stonebender's (rez: 2/2/2005) time for one thing or another. I imagine that she might be mixing a new palette of those jewel colors and shiny things, and whipping all into a froth of exhuberant particles that dance around her whenever she appears.

So, I stole a little beauty from the metaverse... a few hours of this gifted content creator's time, and here is what I discovered.



What is your Real Life background and where are you located?

Sabine Stonebender: I am a studio artist by training with a BA of Fine Arts - Studio Arts - Jewelry and Metalsmithing. I got into the arts to be a professional at it. I'm in Texas, and graduated from the University of Houston in 1997.


Sabine's "Griffon" in Real Life

Jewelry and metalsmithing... doesn't sound very 3D - as in digital - to me. How on earth did you end up in Second Life?

Sabine Stonebender: More than you might think. Jewelry is very sculptural in nature. Digital graphics fascinated me ever since seeing the first pixel blocks of Pong. I learned to use Poser on my own, as a hobby, which led me to Second Life. When I ran a web hunt looking for ways to extend Poser, Second Life popped up due to its animation file connection.

What did you think when you got here and what was your reaction?

Sabine Stonebender: A bit puzzled, but I liked the fact that I could make things and keep them or even sell them. The first weeks were rather boring, though, as my comp barely could run Second Life. The public sandboxes were where it really got going.

Did you work alongside anyone interesting there?

Sabine Stonebender: I would meet all sorts of builders making wonderful stuff. Folks like Torley and Jesrad Seraph. One who really inspired me alot was Jessica Qin. She's an all-original and has a brilliant mind.


A very early photograph of Jessica Qin, who had this to say about Sabine: "The wonderful thing about Sabine is that she's always inventing and experimenting and innovating and attempting to do truly original things that no one else has done before. She's a true Original."

Unlike most creators of interactive art, you are also involved in creating a "journey" of sorts for the person experiencing it, via your tunnels, the roller coaster, and your transport systems.

Sabine Stonebender: I like to think of life as a journey with all that implies, so it seemed logical to bring that mentality here. We change as our travels broaden our experiences. It is my hope that, in some small way, I can change folks a little as they interact with my work.


Message upon arrival to the Station Control: WARNING!! DANGEROUS MAGNETIC FIELDS BEYOND THIS POINT!! PROCEED WITH CAUTION!! USE RESCUE TELEPORT IF YOU ARE FLUNG BEYOND THE STATION

Your work involves a great deal of scripting, which is so distant from Metalsmithing!

Sabine Stonebender: I use a lot of very simple scripts for much of what you see. Only the recent work has become script intensive.




What is Vomit Comet and how did that come to be? It is a Second Life classic and novel even to this day.

Sabine Stonebender: That was a toy I built back in 2005... one of my early big works, which was a real learning experience. It is now a means to really throw a viewer into the heart of the storm. That level at Zero Point is sensory overload, plain and simple.




Incidentally and per Wikipedia, Vomit Comet is a nickname for any airplane that briefly provides a nearly weightless environment in which to train astronauts, conduct research, and film motion pictures. In Sabine's case and in her words, Vomit Comet is "a rocket sled-type propulsion ride, and the chair fires up a sticky camera for a bit better view of what's going on." You can take that ride on the top level of Zero Point, ground zero for Sabine's showcase of her work.

Your colors! No other artist in Second Life even comes close to touching your intense and intensely beautiful palette. Tell me about your sense of color and how it evolved?

Sabine Stonebender: Part of it stems from my love of color in my Real Life work, as I am a stonecutter. I cut raw minerals into gems and bring out the color. A stone has a range of colors unlike many things in painting and graphics. Among the stones that I work with: Tigers Eye, labrodorite, opal, sodalite, obsidian. Stones have special fx built in. Tigers Eye is what they call "chatoyant," - the so called cat's eye effect.


Tigers Eye photograph by Photolitherland


Kinetic art at Zero Point


Obsidian, as photographed by Mila


I'd venture to say that sometimes Sabine improves on nature


This photograph of an opal taken by Chris Ralph .


Sabine's opalesque effects... "Opal is special as it is a spectrum and has amazing depths"

Sabine Stonebender: Labrodorite has its own unique effect to reflect light back as color. No two alike. The fractal effect is partly the surface and partly from the internal refraction. My first texture was labrodorite. This is a prime example of some of my fave colors.


Sabine painted a prim to demonstrate her labrodorite texture

Sabine Stonebender: Some of the colors I work with also came from ceramics. I nearly have a minor in that. I loved glazing.

I have heard jewelers wax eloquently about the forests that appear inside emeralds. Are all your colors inspired by nature?

Sabine Stonebender: Not all are natural. I also played with graphics programs and was drawn to the bold and brightest of the colors... things that nearly glowed. What really set me alight was back in old Second Life, we had light as a material. To hold a block of light was fascinating. In the edit menu, there are object material properties: wood, stone, metal, rubber, etc. Light used to be on that list.

Do you miss it? Now we have glow... is that a good replacement?

Sabine Stonebender: They replaced it with glow recently, so I don't miss it so much, but before glow, yes, I missed it. My horn was from that era. Much of that old content was broken.


An earlier version of Sabine's avatar

It was not lit for a while? How long ago did it disappear, more or less?

Sabine Stonebender: Yah, I had to settle for Fullbright. Must have been around the summer of 2006 when they broke the old lighting engine. We had a period of almost a year with no local lighting.

Have you made jewelry here?

Sabine Stonebender: I don't make jewelry in Second Life. I acquired a taste for large-scale sculpture. I have a 500lbs steel dragon in my Real Life backyard.


Hex, Sabine's dragon in Real Life, weighs 500lbs!



How soon after you rezzed did you begin to build large? Was it an epiphany of sorts?

Sabine Stonebender: Probably 6 months, as that's how long it took me to really get a clue. Second Life was small then, too. It was more of a slow progression. I'd learn a skill, build on it, and so forth.



Two builds, "Big Foot" and the "150 Ton Hammer," by Sabine dating back to the fall of 2005

What are the most important considerations, in your opinion, in creating an installation, and... is there a prim you like to reach for most when you start?

Sabine Stonebender: The primary consideration is "What does it make me feel?" And Function is what I use most. As a jeweler, form and function go hand-in-hand. Useable and beautiful... but in Second Life, I could also go for pure form.

Do you test how avatars interact with your art, and do you still work with Poser?

Sabine Stonebender: (smiles) I put my own work through the wringer with my avie. Poser, not as much. The current version is rather annoying to work in and I've little time for it.


Sabine Stonebender on her throne at Zero Point, as captured by NPIRL Flickrite, Luna Zolnir


Detail of one of the dragon heads from that throne

What tools do you use, software, etc.?

Sabine Stonebender: I'm an open source junkie. GIMP 2.4, Irfanview, Sculpty Paint, PloppSL, and any free graphics or modeling tool I can lay my paws on.

Any advice for people who are just getting started in this area?

Sabine Stonebender: Find forums, and do a lot of experimenting with the editing menus. I would poke at every filter, plugin, etc., just to know what it was. Nothing beats hands-on empirical know-how. Gimp was a trial by fire.

You are renown for your textures, and I am thrilled to own several of them... how much work is involved and did it hurt to put some of them up for sale?



Sabine Stonebender: It really varies. I use a lot of photo elements as well as pure digital rendering. Both can be slow or fast depending on the detail. As for sale, some I do hate to let go, but many I am eager to share, as I know they can be useful. I used to teach classes here.

Your particles are unlike any others in Second Life, and I especially enjoyed how you used them in the Godzilla build for Burning Life 2007, and in your teleporter. When you teleport from one place to another, you "arrive" in a storm of particles.


Godzirra! at Burning Life 2007

Sabine Stonebender: Oh, my flight tail. The default of me has the real tail. My particles use a lot of textures I make myself. One of the reasons they have a certain look is that I am a transparent texture junkie. Overlays are a wonderful use of Second Life. Layers are fascinating, especially in motion.

"Sabine Stonebender has attained mastery over animated textures. Seems simple enough: you drop a script in, and tweak a few parameters. But beyond this, when you assemble prims in various geometric alignments, you can create powerful, fluid sculptures which are a feast for your eyes, and bordering on optical illusions. Through Zero Point, a skyward installation not unlike The Crystal Maze, colors and motion run rampant, culminating in visual delights to be enjoyed by all visitors." - Torley Linden


"Eye Window" - An earlier work by Sabine

What considerations came into play in the creation of Zero Point?

Sabine Stonebender: One thing about Second Life that I've learned is that rails aren't really needed. We all fly. Many things we use in Real Life are bad user interface here. Thus the open format of the Sky Gallery.

What do you call that gorgeous red tower?


This photograph was taken in early February. The build has changed since then

Sabine Stonebender: Oooh lol, that's part of an experiment that's not open to the public yet. That zone is new and will be replaced soon with the final one. This is a proof of concept.



How soon do you expect to finish it? I wonder if I might publish the photos I've taken prior to your opening it up.

Sabine Stonebender: Sighs... when I can make the time, honestly. I don't mind. I get ripped off on concepts a lot, so there is little I can do other than present my current vision while it is current.



Want to talk about that?

Sabine Stonebender: Only insofar as we live in a cut-and-paste society now. Far easier to copy, than create new. Sometimes, some concepts will diverge, and some I've tossed to the wind, hoping they would be used.

DanCoyote Antonelli calls you a true original and considers you to be completely unique.

Sabine Stonebender: I do make a point of not being too derivative whenever possible. I am a student of art and art history, so I know when I am being a slave to it.

Do you collaborate at all?

Sabine Stonebender: Yes, DC (DanCoyote Antonelli) was one of my early collabs. I got him turned onto the notion of the cascade attachments, as the first ones were my work for the first ZeroG SkyDancer shows. I did the costumes. I liked his concept and tried to push it further in my own way. It was a lot of fun.

"I discovered Sabine's work in a sandbox. It was her immersive worm experience that you walked into the mouth and then went through the belly through to the other end. It was then I knew I had to befriend this person. I sent an IM and did just that. Sabine is a profound inspiration to me and a loyal and dedicated friend. Sabine is undoubtedly the genuine article, the real thing and a humble, helpful good natured, serious artist. She is my favorite artist in Second Life and personifies all the best aspects of the Second Life community. This is an amazing talent and we are lucky to have this person working in Second Life." - DanCoyote Antonelli



The textured megaprims worn by the dancers in this video by Gary Hazlitt are what Sabine calls "cascade" attachments

Anyone you'd like to collaborate with whom you haven't?

Sabine Stonebender: Mmms, that's a tough one. I've looked up to many folks but often due to how different their work was from my own. Seifert (Surface) was an early inspiration, but our methods are way too different. Seifert used scripts early on for prim manipulation, while I was never that good at them, so went for brute hand-built, sometimes with similar results, but not unlike many of Seifert's early creations.

Author's note: Since conducting this interview, Sabine collaborated in a build exercise with elros Tuominen.


Entrance to Zero Point

If you could bring one person in world who is not here today, to your knowledge, who would that be and why?

Sabine Stonebender: I admit, I'd like to meet folks like Boris Vallejo or Olivia de Berardinis, but I doubt they would find it here as fun as I do. They have fantasy worlds of their own.

This gold texture at Zero Point's Sky Gallery is extraordinary.



Sabine Stonebender: It is something of an anomaly. They never culled its size: 2048 x 1024... a rare high res texture.

How'd that happen? Just a bug?

Sabine Stonebender: Really don't know. Ask Linden Lab :3... but I'd rather it stayed high res.

Oh yes! We won't share with them (note to Linden Lab: Don't you touch it!). What about your avatar, and its evolution?

Sabine Stonebender: My face was made on my third day in Second Life. My Poser experience made that easy. I already knew UV mapping, but didn't finish the body till a year later, though. I hate seam fixing. Pure laziness, too.


The earliest version of Sabine's avatar

A question, mostly for my own edification? You don't use animations to walk and stand. I notice that a lot of oldbies don't. Why?

Sabine Stonebender: AO's, as a rule, are bandwidth hogs and the early ones were cumbersome and hugely laggy. I found them annoying. I do wear them on rare occasions, but never for long.

There is one default standing animation that drives me nuts. I imagine I'm a lag disaster and should trim that, since I wear so many huds.

Sabine Stonebender: (smiles) Oh, so am I, but that's my tail. It's also a multitool.


Sabine Stonebender: Blazer Neko tail -star call: Scanning for AGENTS within 96 meters. [13:45] Blazer Neko tail -star call: Scan: [1] Detected Bettina Tizzy (cb84betxa-60aa-4ba7-85c7-a9999c12345) at coordinates (107,67) at a distance of 2.38 meters and an altitude of 502.28 meters.

Very detailed...

Sabine Stonebender: It's far more than just a bell or a particle effect. A super scripter wrote the set that powers it: Karsten Rutelage, maker of the game Greedy Greedy and numerous other things. Only I have it.

Everything about you is one-of-a-kind.

Sabine Stonebender: Yes, I'm a unikitty. Sabine is an old idea, was more equine back then. I am very catlike in my personal habits, but I have a need to help folks and heal to some degree. Technically, Sabine is also both male and female, as I have a very dual nature.


Photograph post-processing by NPIRL Flickrite Suzanne Graves

Looking ahead, what would you like to see happen with art in virtual worlds?

Sabine Stonebender: I'd like to see digital work gain recognition as fine art, in its own right. One reason I try to be original is, if it can stand on its own, then the naysayers can't condemn it as software fabrications. Many consider it nothing more than filters and logarithmic effects.



Do you see a change in that direction lately?

Sabine Stonebender: Yes, many others here have taken up the same banner. DanCoyote Antonelli was one I preached of this to, and he has really pushed it far, and I do get preachy about it. I feel very strongly about that idea... that and the fact that art can and should involve the audience. Immersive art, in essence, becomes performance art, with the viewer performing a part.

The interaction requires a mind. Without the mind, it is static. While static art has its place, it rarely involves the viewer except as a distant observer. Second Life offers a dynamic that can't be replicated in Real Life. I want folks to ride art, climb into it, merge with it even. In many ways, builders here are what the magicians of old were proposed to be. We can bend the world to our will on so many levels. In Real Life, not even close.