Climbing walls, sky dancing (in HD!), and weightless sex/showers - Part IV in our Gravity in Virtual Worlds series

By Bettina Tizzy

In previous blogposts for this series, I promised to share new and interesting products and concepts with you in the ZeroG space, so to the point...


There ain't no place I can't go...

In Real Life, Niklas Galler has developed the biometric based C-Bot (still not commercially available), that can make its way up vertical walls or spherical surfaces and is operated via GPS or a 3D-map.

Now your avatar can do the same in Second Life®. I was contacted last week by scripter and builder Nexii Malthus, who not so long ago was a Resident of SL's Teen grid, about a product he's developing at Rostok, a private region designed for inter-alliance combat. "Something really impossible in Real Life... walking on walls, but having gravity shaped dynamically as you move: any angle, any surface. I always wanted to do that in Real Life."

Nexii, who hails from the UK, sees this as a useful tool for battlemechs and combat "stuff." "It is, in the simplest sense, a vehicle. You rez (it), sit on it, go into mouselook and move around. It's not for sale and commercial applications still seem far off, unless enough people bug me."



"It's still a behind-the-scenes thing as its in development and highly experimental, but I would love it if I could get a publically accessible place and put a version of the system down for the public to try it."

Meanwhile and over at the gorgeously remodeled Grendel's Children (teleport directly from here) , Flea Bussy's technicolor Avaios Shadowcrawler comes in a power package costing a pidly $250L that includes 9 colors, two genders and an impressive AO that offers dozens of animations and sounds, but the breakthrough here is that it crawls up and down and sideways on walls... effortlessly.


The tricky part for me is getting on the walls. You must leap onto them while holding down your shift key, but once there, the rest is easy-peasy


You're such a light-weight

Then... here is something I haven't seen in any film yet (remember the fab hair-drying sequence in Blade Runner?) but I think its time has come. In Real Life, astronauts take sponge baths, but Oni Horan over at his highly imaginative RPG sim Space Colony Necronom has figured out how to keep the water contained and recycled for a practical and sensual bathing experience.


I know, I know, my avatar has all her clothes (by Eshi Otawara, btw) on! Take your own shower in whatever state of dress you prefer by teleporting to Necronom here

Oni has also created a weightless sex module, for couples who prefer to keep it lite (also available at Space Colony Necronom).




Dance me to the moon

Finally, no story about gravity in Virtual Worlds would be complete without including choreographed sky dancing. The visionary and sovereign in this category is, of course, DanCoyote Antonelli (aka DC Spensley), together with his ZeroG SkyDancers.

For the uninitiated, ZeroG SkyDancers is a form of ensemble performance that uses the airspace of Second Life to effect something between a water ballet and aerial acrobatics. Wearing colossal flowing costumes called 'cascades' - that are many times larger than their avatars - the SkyDancers move through space, and become part of the stage themselves. Altering and evolving, their flight triggers audio samples, which provide a unique layer to the original musical score.

The fourth production, Let Love Live, conceived and directed as always by DC Antonelli and hosted by Larry Pixel (aka Larry Johnson) and the New Media Consortium (NMC), has introduced an unprecedented 3000 meter (3km) reactive-interactive stage set that is repeatedly and dramatically transformed over the hour long performance as seating flies through gravity-defying monoliths of breathtaking beauty, created in collaboration with DC Antonelli by artists Glyph Graves, Strawberry Holiday, Selavy Oh and Sabine Stonebender.

This full redesign of the SkyDancer show since the troupe's founding in May of 2006, also features an all-new musical score by ZeroOne Paz, all-new choreography performed by the SkyDancers: Anhinga Chaika, Tatiana Kurri, Angelique Menoptra, Lina Lageos, Buffy Beale, Pielady Smalls, Talula Bancroft and Wytchwhisper Sadofsky, as well as all-new cascade costumes by DC Spensley and Josina Burgess.

The ZeroG SkyDancers are real people who log into Second Life from all over the world to perform for audiences in real time. Hot Tip: In deference to the economic strain some Second Lifers may be feeling, ZeroG SkyDancers has reduced the price of the tickets to their stupendous fourth season to a mere $1,000L. And yet another Hot Tip: Following the performance of Let Love Live, audience members are provided with their own spectacular cascade costumes and invited to play tag with the dancers. Seating is limited, but the show runs twice a week during the first 90 days of 2009. For ticket information, contact Lina Lageos in Second Life or DC Spensley at dc@spensley.com.

The best video to date of any ZeroG SkyDancer performance, in my view, was filmed and edited by Gary Hazlitt. A couple of days ago, I wondered out loud if he might remaster that footage into a HD version, and I am very pleased to share the results with you at this time. Herewith, the ZeroG SkyDancers Spring 2007 Production at Ars Simulacra, NMC Art Showcase in honor of the Second Life Fourth Birthday Celebration and the ZeroG SkyDancers 1st year anniversary... in High Definition.


See Gary Hazlitt's remastered HD - Widescreen version for YouTube here.

For this performance, the SkyDancers were:
Assistant Director Anhinga Chaika
Assistant Producer Callypian Christianson Deborah Stranglove
Prima - Tatiana Kurri, Angelique Menoptra, Lina Lageos, Kensai Uriza
House Manager Onyx Bijoux
Technical Director ZenMondo Wormser
Costume Designer Sabine Stonebender


See also:
+ Overcoming gravity (and reality) - Part I in our Gravity series
+ I can fly, but meh - Part II in our Graivty in Virtual Worlds series
+ Oh, those intrepid gravity challengers - Part III in our Gravity in Virtual Worlds series
+ Flea Bussy's Empire: Grendel's Children... one wacky avatar at a time

Gary Hazlitt turns the page on 2008 - What happened and what's coming in virtual worlds

Sydney-based Brit and marketing wiz, musician, composer and rich content creator in virtual worlds Gary Hazlitt (aka Gary Hayes), is already done celebrating the incoming year, while we wait for a few more hours in the Western Hemisphere for 2009 to arrive.

Gary, who studied physics, is the director of the Australian Laboratory for Advanced Media Production (LAMP), and also heads up Virtual Worlds for the UK-based The Project Factory, for which he produced the highly successful and eminently revistable (as the traffic numbers indicate) Australian Telstra and ABC Second Life presences.

I welcome Gary's guest blogpost and knowledgeable take on the recent past and the coming adventures of virtual worlds. Happy New Year, everyone! - Bettina Tizzy

by Gary Hazlitt



In the social Virtual Worlds context, 2006 was about hype... another new frontier 'kid-on-the-block,' but became about fast bucks and cheap and cheerful PR. We saw that bubble gently burst in 2007 as the realisation that one world in particular, Second Life® (which is still the leading example of culturally created virtual content), was really about creative communication and artistic expression versus the local shopping mall or a crude business tool.

Last year, 2008, we witnessed a distillation in what Second Life (and by implication other customisable worlds) is really about, leading to a proliferation of new, niche virtual worlds meeting the cultural and entertainment needs of much broader demographics. We effectively saw the 'fat' surgically removed from Second Life and an acceptance that this new medium and form is still in its very early days, but in 2008 there are clearer reasons for being a part of the social web mix:

1. An immersive expression of community - Facebook and MySpace-meets-World of Warcraft. This community can create their own environments or swarm around trusted film, TV or lifestyle brands, too.
2. For business, it is more about a place to meet, present and recruit and far less about brand awareness, product sales or vacuous hype. The business model in 2008 clearly came into focus: the community selling to itself - brands needed to court existing inhabitants very carefully.
3. For education, Second Life is one of the most efficient tools in the learning process. Education becomes democratised, everyone can contribute and learn equally, remote learning is far more compelling, fun and immersive.
4 A creative tool. Second Life, in particular, showed significant maturity as we saw a higher number of serious live performance (CARP, NMC, DanCoyote Antonelli, for example), a record number of in-world 'machinima & TV-like programs' and by far the largest array of creative statements from virtual environment artists, many members of the NPIRL group. The quality of 'experience' creation from talented musicians, designers, photographers, artists, etc., reached new heights.


GROWTH OF WORLDS

Investment across the board - more than $900 million US invested since Oct 2007 - has moved away from generalist worlds like Second Life to more focused niche or user base environments with many starting to exhibit core game elements. These include those with renewed investment after new'ish launches: vSide, Football Superstars, Stardoll, Home, IMVU, Metaplace, Multiverse Places, and Music Mogul.



Towards the end of the year, console social worlds came onto the scene. XBox360 and Wii are very similar in 'cartoon' aesthetic, whereas Sony is far more game focused. All have very similar business models - create a space to hang out and be 'tempted' by games/film/merchandise. Although these are not yet places for community creation, they will soon learn that to keep inhabitants they will need to be or, like Google Lively, have to pull the plug. Embeddable or layered worlds began in 2008 and are likely to be significant in getting people used to real time communication through 'representational' avatars - vs text based 'social network' profiles. Also, Facebook worlds like YoVille or Vivaty, or layered worlds like Rocketon or Weblin that are embedded on the existing 2D web. The dominance of the likes of Club Penguin and Webkinz at the tweens end of the spectrum will be duplicated through teens and gen y's as a series of new, highly focused and targeted social worlds launch next year. This has already begun with Football Superstars and Music Mogul but expect to see many more - including several with user created content as a feature alongside the virtual economy.


HIGHLIGHTS OF 2008

- Graphics in Second Life become teenagers. Still some way from the likes of Crysis, Second Life Windlight turned the world into something far more fantastical for many. It added layers of light, glow and control to a previously very 'flatly lit' world. We still wait for dynamic shadows, better environmental sound and an even more useful scripting language (post Mono), but this was a paradigm shift for environmental artists.
- Some companies got it! There was not a plethora of companies or brands entering Second Life but those that did had continued success as they concentrated on the social (people) rather than 'product' aspects of their business. Although the Pond leads in dwell terms, new entrants like Warner's Gossip Girl have done exceedingly well. Car companies still do well even though Pontiac walked away from Second Life, and Toyota, Fiat and Nissan are always in the top 10 brands.


Click image to see larger

- The quality of machinima across all social and game worlds increased exponentially this year and a growth in communities watching 'documents' of the worlds they spend most of their time in. In addition to some machinima appearing in heritage media ("Molotov Alva and his Search for the Creator" and HBO/Cinemax, for example) there has been a growth in long form game-engine films and notably many more serious issues tackled.
- The New Worlds. A fracturing, as it became obvious that Second Life cannot be all things to all avatars - so nearly 70 other worlds all showed up on the radar. Many are focusing on niche interest or are highly branded. Several of the new 'jack-of-all-trades' entrants will learn that enabling community creativity and an economy is absolutely necessary. There were several walled garden/locked content mirror worlds and builds in 2008, which will learn to be not about 'broadcast' spaces, and realise that their worlds are far more significant than modelling what is around us - "In augmented and online virtual worlds, humanity will exponentially evolve, free from the limiting ghosts of that other virtual world we called reality".

Gary Hazlitt asks, are games overtaking films?

I'd like to call your attention to Gary Hazlitt's brilliant post and video analysis/compilation featuring films and games that asks if story-rich games are becoming more culturally relevant than films. Gary is becoming my go-to-guy when it comes to virtual world overviews.

On this occasion, it seems he was preparing some curriculum for Cinematic Games and Virtual Worlds courses at AFTRS, Australia's premier film school and, as he put it, "I was staggered to see the number of major feature films in production based on new and existing game universes - suggesting to me a tipping point."

Gary (aka Gary Hayes) is a Sydney-based Brit, the director of the Australian Laboratory for Advanced Media Production (LAMP), the head of Virtual Worlds for the UK-based The Project Factory, as well as a musician, composer, videographer, builder, and blogger.

Gary Hazlitt reminds us that "this is not a game"

Via FutureLab, I've just discovered this video by one of our own: NPIRLer, metaverse developer, marketer, musician, and film maker (among other things), Aussie Gary Hazlitt (aka Gary Hayes).

In it, Gary tours over 50 social virtual worlds in the "current metaverse." As he points out, there are "300 million frequenting or registering for the non-game based worlds and millions of new investments in 2nd and 3rd generation services."



Of the virtual worlds featured here, I have only been to Second Life®, There, HiPiHi, Spore, and Lively.

Kaneva
YoVille
RocketOn
Prototerra
Gaia Online
HiPiHi
Google's Lively
Habbo Hotel
Laguna Beach (vMTV)
Whyville
Twinity
Cyworld
Football Superstars
Weblin
IMVU
Second Life®
Club Penguin
Active Worlds
vSide
A Tale in the Desert
Barbie Online
Amazing Worlds
Webkinz
Worlds.com
Spore
Exit Reality
SpineWorld
Stardoll
The Manor
There.com
Vastpark
Qwaq
PS3Home (Sony Playstation)
GoSupermodel
Grockit (Live interactive learning)
Croquet, peer-based messaging protocol, now building Cobalt (open source and multi-platform metaverse browser)
Metaplace
Coke Studios - There.com
Dreamville (Now appears to be defunct)
Dubit
Mokitown (MobileKids)
Moove
Muse - No longer exists?
The Palace
Playdo
Sora City - Defunct
Voodoo Chat - Animated graphics-based chat
TowerChat
DigitalSpace Traveler
Virtual Ibiza

If you see great virtual content being developed by residents of any of these worlds, would you please let us know? Especially if it is Not Possible IRL (NPIRL).

Interestingly, while Vivaty is not featured in Gary's video, nor on this list, I was running a search for virtual worlds on Google, and Vivaty trumped Lively in the ad section on the right hand column. Heh.

See also:
* Gary Hazlitt's "Hide and Seek"
* Gary's machinima "Second Spring," featuring DanCoyote Antonelli's ZeroG SkyDancers
* Karma in Second Life (Thursday's Fictions)
* Fireside chat with Gary Hazlitt (my interview with him before he joined NPIRL)
* Dancing with Angels machinima by Gary Hazlitt
* Whitenoise travels from Second Life to Google's Lively
* Your name in virtual worlds is your brand
* Feel like straying into a new metaverse? (HiPiHi)
* Someday, a galaxy of metaverses
* AngryBeth Shortbreak talks about Twinity

Gary Hazlitt's latest Machinima/music vid: "Hide and Seek"

I spoke briefly yesterday with that Sydney-based Brit and marketing wiz, musician, composer and rich content creator in virtual worlds Gary Hazlitt (aka Gary Hayes), when he happened to mention - among other things - that he had a few days off and that he "might make a little Machinima."

Gary, who studied physics - I border on worshipfulness when it comes to physicists - is the director of the Australian Laboratory for Advanced Media Production (LAMP), and also heads up Virtual Worlds for the UK-based The Project Factory, for which he produced the highly successful and eminently revistable (as the traffic numbers indicate) Australian Telstra and ABC Second Life presences.

I've just now learned that Gary had a productive Easter weekend Saturday and paid this NPIRL compliment to three of our fave builds in the metaverse, from start to finish, including the avitanimation and editing, in just five hours:



Credits:

This JustVirtual production features the song "Hide and Seek" by Imogen Heap from the album Speak for Yourself.

Gary shot the video at Lumiere Noir's fantastic tribute to Flash Gordon: Planet Mongo, at our beloved Svarga by Svarog Laukosargas, as well as a new sim that Gary has just finished creating but is still not open to the public: Deakin.

Lip sync animation created using Crazy Talk 5, green screened in Final Cut. The spaceship shots were filmed live in Second Life.

Fibreculture Journal critiques DanCoyote Antonelli's 'Art and (Second) Life'

Jo-Anne Green, co-director of New Radio and Performing Arts - Turbulence, has alerted me to a just-issued and noteworthy paper on art in Second Life.

Malia Ventura (aka Caroline McCaw) is a senior lecturer and academic leader in communication design at Otago Polytechnic, in Dunedin, New Zealand. She has just published the paper Art and (Second) Life in Fibreculture Journal, an Australia-based peer-reviewed international journal that "encourages critical and speculative interventions in the debate and discussions concerning information and communication technologies and their policy frameworks, network cultures and their informational logic, new media forms and their deployment, and the possibilities of socio-technical invention and sustainability."

Mostly, she explores two running themes: the Hyperformalist art of NPIRLer DanCoyote Antonelli (aka DC Spensley), his philosophy and accomplishments, and the context in which his art is produced and read, while addressing the environmental metaphors of Second Life. In the second thread, she also draws parallels between his art and the settler culture of New Zealand, "to consider the role of art in new environments."



Notably, Ms. McCaw's paper is derived from interviews conducted with DC during August of 2006, which preceded his Full Immersion Hyperformalism installation, and the second ZeroG SkyDancers Dancing with Angels , as well as the latest and current ZeroG SkyDancers event.

Gary Hazlitt's trailer is the next-best way for those not using Second Life to get a sense of what transpires during Second Spring: ZeroG SkyDancers, which is in the final stretch of its three month run and expected to close at the end of March.


You can see a higher resolution version of this here.

I contacted DC to get his impressions on Fibreculture Journal's piece:

DanCoyote Antonelli: I am very proud to be written about by such a scholarly person as Caroline McCaw. Her critical credentials are impeccable, and in the short time we had to speak with each other, she has gleaned more about my project in Second Life than most. It is often said that art in Second Life is without critical intervention. For the most part this is true. However, this work of Ms. McCaw's is as good as it gets and I am delighted beyond words that my work in virtual worlds is the subject of her paper.

This has been a good month for DC, insofar as Real Media exposure is concerned. He is also featured in the print edition of the March/April 2008 issue of Step Inside Design - along with artist Sabine Stonebender.

DanCoyote Antonelli's music-driven virtual flight choreography

DanCoyote Antonelli's ZeroG Skydancers "Second Spring," - presented by the NMC - shatters so much new ground, it's a wonder I was able to walk out of the place in a straight line. And the music by ZeroOne Paz! I want that track on my iPod now.

This was the first weekend of the third season, and only my first time there. I admit now that I was worried that all the buzz I'd heard about past events was nothing more than feverish hype... but that theory has been squashed to bits.

ZeroG SkyDancers is virtual flight choreography, to an original sound score. As young as the metaverse is, it is easy to see that DanCoyote Antonelli is having an enduring influence, tearing through the mediums of dance and music and art and recasting everything in his path.

SkyDancers will run through the end of March, and tickets are $3,000L, but you'd better lock yours in soon or you'll be locked out. To keep lag outside, too, DC is hyper-limiting the seating. Contact DC@spensley.com for tickets.

Gary Hazlitt just filmed and edited this sparkling trailer.


You can see a higher resolution version of this here.

8 random things about me

I've just been tagged by that gifted sculptor and builder Stella Costello and am now tasked with sharing 8 random things about myself and then tagging 8 others, and I already cheated because I saw Gary Hazlitt in-world and tagged him even before I posted my own list. Here goes:

1) I revealed my Real Name to two people in world today. It was a non-event.
2) I have been a pretty dedicated cook - though lately my kitchen rarely sees me - and an even more dedicated cookbook collector. I own approximately 2,500 cookbooks. Most are hardcovers and first editions and many have been autographed by their authors. Need a recipe from just about any part of the world? I am nearly certain I have it. Tip: Did you know that almost 70% of the value of a book depends on the integrity of the dust jacket? If you think a book will be valuable someday, don't clip the price on the dust jacket, even if it is a gift! Book collectors will thank you.
3) I have often been called a gym rat.
4) I want to learn how to build in-world but can't find the time to do it.
5) I nearly always got As in math, which I did not deserve. I'm still not sure how that happened.
6) Physicists fascinate me. They are the most interesting people on earth.
7) I am nearly always barefoot.
8) Today I danced in the rain. In RL. We need more rain in Los Angeles.

Look out people, I'm on my way to tag you!

Not Possible IRL has a logo - and the winner is Seifert Surface

Seifert Surface, a postdoctoral mathematician and a member of NPIRL, created the winning logo for our competition in just a couple of hours the day after the competition was announced. Thank you and congratulations, Seifert!

A thousand thanks to our patient and accomplished Judges who were tasked with selecting the five finalists: Sugar Seville, Random Calliope, Douglas Story and Gary Hazlitt, and thanks, too, to Jopsy Pendragon for creating the fab polling system needed for the final phase of the competition where all NPIRLers voted for the winner. We appreciate and thank every one of the participants in our competition for their time and creativity!

I'm going to fiddle a bit with the background color and the blog layout before I put the logo on our masthead, but wanted to show it to you right away... the Impossible Triangle, and now the symbol of our group, which today is four months old.

Karma in Second Life is certain: Whatever you don't do, won't come back to you - Thursday's Fictions

NPIRL'er Gary Hazlitt's new sim, Thursday's Fictions, raises the bar for everyone on how to plan before you rez a prim. This is also a highly recommended visit for a very new kind of experience in SL.

[18:21]  Gary Hazlitt: The build (so far) was done very quickly in about 5 days, but so much thought was put into it. As director of the Australian Laboratory for Advanced Media Production, I get to work with the best writers and thinkers in this area. The original idea for the piece in SL came from Richard James Allen who wrote a book, which then was a stage play and then a dance film.
[18:23]  Gary Hazlitt: The (piece is about) this person who only lives for a day, and keeps getting reincarnated.
[18:24]  Gary Hazlitt: So it was a wonderful opportunity to experiment a little - not just with the idea - but with entrenched ideas already in SL. Second Life, by implication, is about reincarnation, or at least a parallel existence that you can go in without context ;-)

[18:26]  Gary Hazlitt: The work is planned but not yet finished. There will be 7 more lives created and the team has already planned the themes. The fun part comes in implementing them with an SL context, but also keeping true to the original story.

[18:28]  Gary Hazlitt: But the karmic themes are most suited to something that feels in turmoil. Purgatory is a waiting room so the main hallways are places where you consider your life.
[18:29]  Gary Hazlitt: so it works way beyond just the stories of the characters - you are the one who has to asks questions of yourself and the surreality of the environment is meant to make you feel a little uneasy and want to stop and think, question mortality, transhumanism, your own psychology, spirituality and so on.

[18:31]  Gary Hazlitt: The other lives will be very exciting, partly going into someone else's mind, and some will be quite 'challenging' in setting difficult challenges so you can be reborn again. I think films like Wings of Desire, Waking Life, Waking Life, Defending Your Life, What Dreams May Come, and others like that will be reflected, too.

The four laws of Karma are:
1- Karma is certain. 
2- Karma expands. 
3- If you 'do it', it will come back to you. What you sow, so shall ye reap.  You can't plant a tomato seed and expect to get olives.  
4- If you don't 'do it', it won't come back to you.  Everything that is happening to you is a result of your past actions."   
 
Creators: Richard James (Jiva Allen in SL) and Screendance Allen (SL)
SL designer/builder: Gary Hazlitt (SL) 
Story consultant: Rock Sonic (SL) 
www.thursdaysfictions.com

SLURL: Thursday's Fictions

Fire-side chat with Gary Hazlitt, or interactive marketing 101

Within something like two minutes of meeting NPIRL'er Gary Hazlitt, I realized that I am going to want to warm my toes by the heat of his knowledge and - importantly - his marketing prowess... often and a lot.

It is so very rare to find someone who is, at once, technically expert and savvy/hyper-innovative in the area of user-friendly branding. It isn't for nothing that Australia's 11-island The Pond (or BigPond) - which he masterminded and lead-created for Australia's communications group Telstra - is experiencing 12K+ visits a week (see Tateru Nino's analysis), and is the highest rated brand in Second Life.

Even more endearing is the fact that Gary is a ginormous supporter and believer in the power of the Not Possible in Real Life (NPIRL) concept, and integrates it into his builds in fun, approachable and unexpected ways.

The spice on Gary (aka Gary Hayes IRL):
* Sydney-based, born a Brit, lived in the U.S.
* Director of the Australian Laboratory for Advanced Media Production (LAMP)
* Heads up Virtual Worlds for the UK-based The Project Factory
* ...is a busy blogger on SL and its culture, as well as role-playing which he says is a "big fascination of mine atm"
* Is an advocate and has a passion for creating rich organic
story environments
* Makes cool vids
* Is a musician and composer, having created music for film, radio, tv and self-expressed albums

Here are some highlights of what Gary had to say when, for a change, I actually kept my fingers quiet and listened and, dear readers, for you folks who want to learn something about marketing in the metaverse, this is the smartest - albeit basic - 101 you are going to find on how to get it right from the get-go:

"I have been talking about over-representation for a long time ;-) - hence my interest in NPIRL. In other words too many malls, real world architecture, etc, etc.

I have just posted a simple thesis on wikipedia about how the environment can help nurture inhabitants in SL to really dream and create their own fantasies, but most importantly share stories and experiences through places with total immersion.

There are 5 levels and most of the great places in SL, especially the
NPIRL ones, exhibit levels 3 and 4 where the environment itself has character and leads you into your story mode.

Greenies is a great example, albeit a frozen moment. I am always trying to create fantastical and dynamic (things) so (they are) slowly morphing and exhibiting a different character and sensation at any given moment. Every time you go back you have a slightly different experience (and are) always able to uncover something new.

(I) suppose that is the organic side to it... layers of depth to get under the surface; very few places like that but it should be, as creators, our goal to create things that feel like they have been here for years and centuries, even if they feel contemporary.

I am a good friend of DanCoyote's (Antonelli) and his works have that sense of organic... of being created from the virtual earth... and are timeless vs - spits on the floor - copies of RL!"

* PAUSE while this blog poster and yours truly thinks to herself: OMG, this guy sooo gets it!

"(RL) has its place as I have to do lots of corporate builds, too, and although I would love them all to be floating, moving, spacious, ethereal - you have to create the equivalent of the vanity boardroom and such... that being a metaphor for things noobs from companies can recognise at the start."

* PAUSE while this blog poster lowers head, genuflects and utters "amen"

"(We are) happy for people to drop in and - here is a main point with NPIRL type builds - is that they should be responsive to comment. (Important) that the builder and creators agree with the inhabitants who visit that any piece can be changed (to some extent) so it becomes a work of the SL community, too.

We are very keen for folk to suggest changes, because we love to hear from those who have experienced it and say 'oh that would be great' or 'do this.' To me that is what the social network that is SL is all about... co-creation... so we really listen to comments and suggestions and mix that in with our intentions."

***
Over the next two weeks NPIRL members will have the pleasure of previewing two of Gary Hazlitt's new build environments and learning his thoughts on them.

P.S. After posting this, a couple of friends mentioned that my commentary sounded a bit suggestive. OH MY! Is it my fault that smart marketing makes me sizzle? Not hitting on Gary, no no no. :P