The Caerleon Museum of Identity Opens on October 2nd in Second Life

On Saturday, the 2^nd of October 2010, the Caerleon Museum of Identity opens. The museum is a collaborative project of one of Second Life's premier artists groups, the Caerleon Artists Coalition. Festivities began at noon PDT/SLT and at 1 pm the incomparable Mommaluv Skytower will perform. The following information was taken from the press release announcing the opening.

The Caerleon Museum of Identity is the latest in the series of sim-wide collaborative installations by the Caerleon Artists Coalition, a project of the Virtual Art Initiative.

The 18 artists participating in this collaboration include:


* Artistide Despres
* Botgirl Questi
* Cat Bocaccio
* Chrome Underwood
* FreeWee Ling (coordinator)
* Fuscia Nightfire
* Gracie Kendal
* Ian Pahute
* L1aura Loire
* Lollito Larkham
* Maya Paris
* Nebulosus Severine
* Pete Jiminy
* Pixels Sideways
* RAG Randt
* Sabrinaa Nightfire
* Taralyn Gravois
* Wotthe Dickins

The Caerleon group was established by Georg Janick (Dr. Gary Zabel of the University of Massachusetts, Boston) and consists of artists, writers, musicians, and scholars who are using the immersive and interactive digital media to develop new forms of artistic content. Members of the coalition are among the most respected and imaginative artists working in SL.

Georg Janick's six Theses on the Art of Virtual Worlds are the framework for the series of collaborations on the Caerleon sims. In addition to major builds on each of the six theses, there have been numerous theme collaborations on various topics, including consumerism, imprisonment, surrealism, and masks, as well as limited resource challenges like the one-prim and limited texture shows.

The Caerleon Museum of Identity is an interpretation by the collaborative team of Georg's fourth thesis: the Ambiguity of Identity. It states in part, "…digital bodies, and the names that uniquely identify them, can be altered, multiplied, discarded, or exchanged at the will of the user. Since bodily presence is open to such radical discontinuity, the identity of the virtual person is protean and ambiguous, including indicators of age, gender, race, and even biological species."

The project has been in development for over a year. Weekly discussions about the project inevitably centered around the subject of identity and how people in virtual worlds both express themselves and interact with others. This is a subject of tremendous interest to many in SL, and some of the team members have formed the open Creative Identity group to continue talking about issues, especially as they relate to creative work.

The early development of the museum metaphor and leadership for the project was the work of Sabrinaa Nightfire, who has run a number of the Caerleon theme collaborations. When Sabrinaa had to withdraw for personal reasons, it fell to FreeWee Ling to take over the coordination of the team and she has brought it finally to the opening with the tremendous support of all the artists. This is the first project of this magnitude FreeWee has done in SL. "It's a very rare opportunity to work with so many creative people. This is why I'm in SL–to be creatively engaged and to be constantly inspired by talented colleagues. I am so grateful to Sabrinaa for recommending my membership in the Caerleon group, for her inspiration on this project, and for her friendship. The Identity team dedicates this build to her with our love and best wishes."

RESOURCES:

Machinimas:
BotGirl Questi: http://vimeo.com/15307758
Ian Pahute: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=symG_03vh1Y

The Thesis by Georg Janick (Gary Zabel)

Ambiguity of identity results from the fact that our bodily presence in the virtual world is mediated by a digital representation. All dwelling within a world involves being present in a body which both constitutes our perspective on things and makes us present to other embodied experiencers. Though personal identity can be a very complex construction, its ultimate foundation is continuity of bodily presence. However digital bodies, and the names that uniquely identify them, can be altered, multiplied, discarded, or exchanged at the will of the user. Since bodily presence is open to such radical discontinuity, the identity of the virtual person is protean and ambiguous, including indicators of age, gender, race, and even biological species.

Second Annual Breast Cancer Awareness Art Auction

An invitation arrived from noted photographer, Sennaspirit Coronet about the ongoing event. His note follows:

"The Second Annual Breast Cancer Awareness Art Auction is underway and we would love for you to come and to spread the word about this charity event. We have collected some amazing pieces of art to auction off this year, including quite a few rare pieces (not sold in SL) and limited editions."

I exchanged off line messages with him and he told me that, "The show opened last Saturday and will run until Sunday Oct 3. There are approximately 50 pieces of art."

Professional Virtual Designer Society Weekly Speaker Series Guest - Simon Newstead

On Friday, September 24th, Simon Newstead, the CEO of Frenzoo will be a guest at the Professional Virtual Designer Society Weekly Speaker Series. The event begins at 3 pm PDT/SLT.

"Please join us as we welcome Simon Newstead, CEO of Frenzoo.com. discussing "New 3d web worlds - the creator opportunity".

Simon Newstead's background is consumer Internet and infrastructure technology. He is currently running his first startup Frenzoo out of Hong Kong, backed by the Skype co-founders, which is an innovative website for 3D fashion and lifestyle.

Before starting Frenzoo, Simon held a variety of positions at Juniper Networks heading their Advanced Technology Business Unit and in product marketing/management. He started off at Siemens in Australia and Europe.

Em Larrson - "A Closer Look" Exhibition at Angel Gallery

One of Second Life's most talented photographers, Em Larrson exhibition "A Closer Look" opened yesterday evening at Angel Gallery. The texture she'd sent me as invitation, has a sub title A Closer Look "at in world flowers". I am admittedly an admirer of her photographs and was tempted to stay logged in a little while longer to see her latest work. I spoke to her briefly before I logged for the evening and she told me, "This is the first time I have done a show of SL Photography. Still floral macros, but SL this time."

If you enjoy gardens and flowers, you'll not be disappointed that you stopped in to see this talented photographers work.

Linden's Log Out of Avatars United

An e-mail annuncement arrived on my BlackBerry while I was at work earlier this afternoon.

"Saying Farewell to Avatars United"

I scanned the text, stifled a yawn while I did and then deleted it.

A Tour of the Garden for Change

Garden for Change in Second Life



On Saturday, the 18th of September Medora Chevalier of Second Life will conduct a tour of "Garden for Change". I'd met Ms Chevalier nearly two years ago, she was one of the foundational members of the Rings Discussion group that had formed shortly after the notable production, of the "Rings" made its debut in Second Life. The Rings, "a metaverse protest rock opera" created by the Cybernetic Art Research Project (C.A.R.P). The Rings Discussion group was notable for its planning and coordinating a grid wide event to commemorate the 60th anniversary signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The grid wide event was hugely successful and the group and its members spawned many projects and events in Second Life over the succeeding years. One such project and place is the Garden for Change. Beside her virtual activism, she is also active for social causes in her real life and is an activist and proponent for the homeless in the United Kingdom.


The group she founded in Second Life has this as their charter:


"The Garden for Change is a place that celebrates real life work to change lives and to end homelessness. It illustrates the Places for Change Garden presented at the Chelsea Flower Show in London & created by some 200 people with experience of homelessnesss.


This beautiful garden was created to show biodiversity and sustainability. At the end of the show the plants and artifacts return to hostels and day centres.


The project is kindly supported by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation."


Her announcement is reprinted below:

Hello there!

Have you had the chance to visit the Garden for Change yet? Its a beautiful garden inspired by the RL garden made by 500 homeless people for the Chelsea Flower Show.

I'm working with the Garden to introduce a programme of events - exhibitions, talks, concerts etc

This is an invitation to the creative, artistic and inspirational people I know in SL to join us for an inspiration tour. I'd really like to tell you the stories behind and garden. I hope this will inspire you to create artwork, poetry, music, performance - all responding to the idea that we can see our world free from homelessness.

Then we can have exhibitions and shows that profile these creations!

I'll be taking the tour on Saturday 18th September at 1pm-3pm SLT. Hope you can join us.

In any case, if you would like to perform there, organize a poetry slam or exhibit artwork in sympathy with the aims of the SIM - please let me know!


Please join the subscriber group and sign our guest book - or make a wish at the wishing tree :)


Medora Chevalier or contact Jenny Valerian - SIM owner

Weekly Speaker Series Guest - Harper Beresford @ Professional Virtual Designer Society

An announcement from good friend Georgianna Blackburn

Sept 17th - 3-4 PM SLT
Professional Virtua Designer Society


Please join us as we welcome the infamous Ms. Harper Beresford. Come listen to Harper talk about what it takes to go from creating your product/service to marketing it.


Chief Marketing Office and Business Manager for RFyre, blogger for www.houseofrfyre.com and slfashionpassion.wordpress.com, marketing manager for NeoStreams, customer service and marketing for Lumipro, Customer service for Avimote/PoseMaker and Co-owner of the fashion bloggers group.


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Professional Virtua Designers' Society


Our Mission

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The purpose of the Professional Virtua Designers' Society is to promote and protect the social, economic and professional interests of its members.


The Society is committed to improving conditions for all digital artists designing and developing virtual goods and products intended to be used in virtual worlds. It is also committed to raising standards for the entire emerging industry. The Society embraces digital artists at all skill levels and provides professional development to lift these special content creators to new levels of professionalism and skill.