Beautiful Mondays in the eyes of the Virtual Build Archive

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

If you read this blog with any regularity, I trust that you are already quite familiar with Bryn Oh's stunning sculptural and narrative work and especially her sim, Immersiva (teleport directly from here), as well as her Condos in Heaven installation, which I blogged about last year. Nevertheless, prepare to shine a new light on the subject.

This is the second video in what is to become a weekly documentary-style series produced by the Virtual Build Archive, a joint project of Gala Charron (Tamara Russell) and Lainy Voom (Trace Sanderson).

Condos in Heaven from The VBA on Vimeo.

Lainy shared with me yesterday that this is Gala Charron's first machinima in Second Life® (can you believe it?)! She explained, "The VBA started because we both love exploring Second Life and wanted to keep a visual record within some kind of framework. It will hopefully become a mix of regular builds and some art installations. It makes me sad when builds are no longer there. We want to create something permanent from something transient and (are) also trying to communicate something that is beautiful and inspiring, especially sometimes to non-Second Lifers who complain that there is nothing going on in Second Life and say that it is an ugly place!"

The pair's stated aim is to publish a new machinima every Monday "to document, through film and narrative, some of the most beautiful builds within the virtual world of Second Life. We hope, over time, to build the site from a small acorn into quite an extensive catalogue of in-world created content. Both Gala and Lainy will take it in turns to create a video of an inspiring build and present it on the archive site."

Mondays just got a little brighter...

HBO acquires machinima "My Second Life" - Molotov Alva's video diaries

HBO announced today that it has aquired a documentary that was filmed entirely in-world.

Our very own Orhalla Zander, founder and King of the SecondLife Hobos group (more of a tribe if you ask me, and I'm happy to say I'm one of them!), has been working for some time now as art director and assistant director on the 7-episode Machinima "My Second Life."

Here is a somewhat blurry version with Portuguese subtitles, so please do realize that it is best to view it directly from their website.


The virtual biopic narrates the story of Molotov Alva - played by Douglas Gayeton, director of the pixelated documentary - after he disappears from his home in Petaluma, California. You will all recognize many SL locations that have been used for the shoot.

Hamlet Au of New World Notes was the first to break the news, and subsequently Reuters has carried the story worldwide.

HBO is owned by Time Warner, Inc. and the piece is slated to air sometime in 2008.

We asked Orhalla today how he thinks the mainstream world will react to My Second Life, and he replied: "I'm certain the documentary is going to be very educational to people who know NOTHING about Second Life. It's not tutorial at all. It reminds me of a documentary about the culture of SL. And for the people who are already residents of SL, they will certainly love the film."

He added, "I think it is becoming fairly natural to have crossovers from the virtual to the mainstream media realm; they have already happened. You have Frogg Marlow and Jaycatt bringing their music inside SL. Then you have Anshee Chung who founded virtual real estate. They were the first of the firsts... and I think that while our crossover may not be the first, all sorts of people will find something tantalizing about the documentary. It just captures so much of Second Life's culture."

We're immensely proud of you, Oz.