The Impossible Made Possible - A Panel on the Future of Architecture

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

Most Real Life architects who join Second Life® do so because they are seeking a new tool. In the beginning, there is much confusion as they acquaint themselves with the interface and become a part of one or more communities.

And then they begin to build recreations of Real Life buildings.

And then...

This Friday and on the occasion of Second Life's sixth birthday, hear the stories of seasoned Real Life architects who arrived in the metaverse to explore the possibilities and discovered that their path was not at all what they expected to be. Walk through a visual history of their trajectory, as they explain how one thing lead to another, culminating with them learning that the impossible is possible in virtual worlds. Cut short your own learning curve and advance your understanding of how virtual architecture can - and already is - richly benefiting Real Life architecture.


Event chair DB Bailey landed an important commercial contract thanks to his work in virtual worlds. Seen here in front of a building he created in Second Life for Stanford University

WHEN: Friday, June 26, 2009, 10am SLT - 90 minutes
WHERE: Cetus Gallery District, teleport directly from here

PANELISTS:

* DB Bailey (aka David Denton), Architect, urban planner and artist, event chair
* Keystone Bouchard (aka Jon Brouchoud), Architect, urban planner and artist
* Lou Tones, multi-media producer and founder of Green Islands
* Bettina Tizzy - Introduction from the founder of the Not Possible IRL group

DB Bailey is designing a Real Life project (for Cairo, Egypt) in Second Life. He will be giving a tour of the commercial building and discussing the meaningfulness of this venue for architectural design in the future.

DB Bailey and Keystone Bouchard have both gone full circle in Second Life, starting off in Second Life by recreating Real Life architecture as do most when first starting to build virtually. Then they both discovered the truest potential of this technology: to produce environments they would never have conceived in Real Life.


Multi-award winner and the creator of Reflexive Architecture, Keystone Bouchard has benefited Real Life with his virtual work in ways he never could have imagined

DB, Keystone and Lou Tones are all seeing the wall between the two worlds disappear as Second Life becomes more of a tool - but not how they originally expected it to be - in their Real Life work.

Lou has been observing for many years the evolution of the virtual world. He will discuss the ecological advantages of Second Life and the importance of Real Life buildings designed in Second Life.

Feel free to contact Bettina Tizzy should you have any questions. Please be punctual as the presentation will get underway at precisely 10am SLT/PDT.

The pleasure of your company, your deep pockets, and your sense of community are requested!

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

Gary Kohime is a kind soul with a BIG heart and an artist, too. Someone he loves very much is ill with cancer, and he has coordinated an auction/fundraiser and party today to benefit cancer research via the American Cancer Society. An ACS donation box will be placed at the auction site by Catt Gable of the American Cancer Society to receive auction monies and any other donations.

In the spirit of the season, and the community we all enjoy, please help Gary to get the word out far and wide... and come to the party with deep pockets :)

The event will take place today, December 20, 2008, between 4 - 6pm SLT at the SS Galaxy - Zodiac Ballroom; teleport directly from here.
Music will be streamed by DJ Gary Kohime; Attire: Formal.

So many people have given so, so generously! You can see many of the items on display at the IBM sandbox by teleporting directly from here and then flying to these coordinates: 223/97/23.

Among the many items:

* Eshi Otawara has donated her entire new Eshi Otawara Winter/Spring Collection, except the one Limited Edition gown which has sold out. You can see the collection in this great video by Osiris Pfalz.


Eshi Otawara Winter / Spring Collection from Osiris Pfalz on Vimeo.

Eshi's clothes are no-trans, so the winning bidder (yes, the entire collection will go to one bidder) will receive the items directly from her. They can be seen on the first floor of her shop, too, by teleporting here.

* Tuna Oddfellow has donated a special two hour Tunaverse show, public or private, but it must take place on his land.


Photo by Trinity Outlander

* Elros Tuominen's gorgeous Mirrors sculpture...



* Aloah Oh's beautiful The BIO ORB, a small Star vase, Undulating Sea vases and a WaterBall sculpture

* Cuwignaka Castaignede's Kajira - Tower with Amphora Donation (tip jar) and the marvelous animated castle guards

* Indra Jun's pretty Universe in Balance sculpture

* Glyph Graves's just-released Jellyfish Bluebell, as well as his Aura of Distraction sculpture.

* Douglas Story's new and never-before-seen-in-SL image of his: Street Lizard.

* Sasun Steinbeck's extraordinary Morph Sculpture v13 & Stand

* Andromede Kamach's lovely Silver Angel and Flight of a Fairy sculptures.

* KK Jewell is donating ten outfits by Acedia.

* CD Benelli has donated three outfits, including the Peta Fur!

* RightasRain Rimbaud and the Rezzable staff have donated one of Unreal McCoy's fabulous and rare When Pigs Fly sculptures

* AM Radio's Winter Scene Car with the tree has made the winter images rotation for Second Life®'s start page. The car that he has donated does not have snow.



Damanios Thetan's brand new sculpture, Dance of the Souls.



Then there is Light Waves' statue of a naughty gnome. To my knowledge, it is the only one of its kind. It has its own history, too, which you can read about here.

Think this way! You'll be glad you did

Via AM Radio... joy.

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Uploaded by makecurves

I wish I knew more about the people behind this.

Photo restoration via Second Life

AM Radio is an avatar who is restoring photography by moving across platforms, from Real Life, to Second Life.

For those of you who are new to this concept, allow me to explain. AM Radio is actually a man with a degree in Fine Arts who sits at his computer and "operates" an avatar - a representation of himself that he has created - in an immersive 3-dimensional world. He is also a content creator, because in Second Life he uses the tools that are available to him there to build things.

That said, he has done something rather novel that could prove significant in years to come, insofar as photo restoration is concerned.

"This is a photo of my great, great grandfather delivering bread in North Reading Massachusetts. It was in sore need of a restoration. A new scanner allowed for a nice hi-res source in Photoshop. The original photo is huge. It is 24 inches across. If anyone knows how such a photo was created at the turn of the century, let me know. The paper is applied to a cheese cloth type material and the emulsion on the paper is very thick and fragile," said AM.

He continued,"The wheel was easier to recreate in Second Life than to draw the missing parts of the wheel from scratch. I did post production of the color and texture in Photoshop."


Photography provided by AM Radio

There is a lot more that impresses us about AM Radio, which you can begin to learn about here and here.

Earth Primbee's Machinima - Using virtual environments to benefit Real Life

One of NPIRL's charter members, builder of the much admired Inspire Drive-In and Inspire Space Park, dreamer and machinima maker Earth Primbee, alerted us to two new vids he's created. Here are instances where Second Life's virtual environments accomplish things that would not be possible in real life, but also turn right around to benefit the real world.

NASA CoLab

"It is especially important when considering science and technology to seek the potential as much as the present value in new ideas," said Earth. "So many great things in our lives are a result of ideas born at the edge of "that's impossible" or "that's ridiculous." It is my hope that this video will not only encourage NASA's efforts to harness the power of virtual worlds, but help the world see how it will and does benefit everyone."

"The Narrows" song by Broet

Earth told us that he's been experimenting with using prims as an alternative to traditional lighting instruments in Second Life for some time. He added, "the band Broet knew I loved to create music video style clips. They asked me to throw something together for a show they had coming up in Austin, TX. I decided to push my lighting prims to the limit and really see what I could do. This video is a combination of some of the clips I produced in Second Life that I projected behind the band during the live performance in real life. I thought their song was perfect for the mood of the NASA CoLab video and ties the two examples of the uses of Second Life together."