"The Augmented Plateau: Art and Virtual Worlds in HUMlab 2007-2013"

10 April - 30 April 2014 @ HUMlab-X, the Arts Campus at Umeå University, Sweden

Opening Hours: Monday - Friday, Noon - 4pm, closed on weekends (17, 18 and 21 April Closed)

Opening: 10 April, between 4pm - 6pm

PARTICIPANTS (in alphabetical order):
Alpha Auer, Avatar Orchestra Metaverse, Fau Ferdinand, Garrett Lynch, Katerina Karoussos, Pyewacket Kazyanenko, SaveMe Oh, Selavy Oh, Oberon Onmura, Maya Paris, Kristine Schomaker, Goodwind Seiling, Alan Sondheim, Eupalinos Ugajin, and Juria Yoshikawa

With Loving Support of:
Marx Catteneo, Jo Ellsmere, Mab MacMoragh, Steve Millar, and Evo Szuyuan.

HUMlab is a humanities-led, interdisciplinary digital lab at Umeå University in Sweden. For the last seven years, HUMlab has given support to Second Life (SL) artists by hosting their works on SL HUMlab Island for constructions as well as organising exhibitions at HUMlab's Real-Life multimedia venue.

In 2007-08 Humlab hosted on its Second Life sim Goodwind Seiling's "N00sphere Playground" for the Virtual Moves exhibition at the National Gallery in Copenhagen. Later, it further supported Avatar Orchestra Metaverse for their constructions and premier performances of "XAANADRuul" and "The Heart of Tones" before providing a home for the Yoshikaze "Up-In-The-Air" virtual artist residency programme in 2010. Since then, HUMlab has been a host for nine Second Life artists in Yoshikaze artist residency as well as one artist talk by Kristine Schomaker on her project "My Life as an Avatar." The work conducted in HUMlab and Yoshikaze by virtual world artists and creators has led to a number of academic publications and conference presentations and also resulted in two self-published artist books. Another outcome of HUMlab's engagement for the advancement of virtual worlds and art was their assistance in bringing an ambitious mixed-reality project by Goodwind Seiling to fruition. The project "Experimentation #1" was based on the use of Kinect to control avatar movements and would have been unable to be realised without HUMlab's support.

This year between 10 April and 30 April, HUMlab and Yoshikaze proudly present a group exhibition with all the artists who have been involved in shaping HUMlab's engagement in supporting SL artists and their art. This include, besides those mentioned above, Alan Sondheim, Juria Yoshikawa, Garrett Lynch, Selavy Oh, Katerina Karoussos, Fau Ferdinand, Pyewacket Kazyanenko, Oberon Onmura, Alpha Auer, Maya Paris, Eupalinos Ugajin and SaveMe Oh. We would also like to acknowledge the following SL artists for this show: Machinimatographers Marx Catteneo, Mab MacMoragh, Steve Millar, and Evo Szuyuan, as well as Puppeteer Jo Ellsmere. The exhibition takes place at the newly acquired HUMlab-X at the Art Campus of Umeå University.

TOPOPHONIA: Four Realizations in Sound

 

Yoshikaze "Up-In-The-Air" Second Life Residency presents TOPOPHONIA

Date: 2013-02-18—2013-02-22
Time: 13.00  CET
Place: Samhällsvetarhuset, HUMlab is located below the University library, in the Social Sciences building

Nine Rooms by Oberon Onmura
Listen ... by Alpha Auer
Bank Job by Maya Paris
Jazz on Bones by Eupalinos Ugajin
18 - 22 February 2012 @ HUMlab, Umeå University, Sweden
Opening Hours: 8am - 4pm
Opening: 18 February between 1pm- 4pm

"You will find four completely different pieces, four totally different visions of what that initial concept suggested. To me, the fact that our four versions are so different is tremendously exciting. It is further proof that the artist's mind is unlimited in its ability to make sense of the world, and to convey that sense to others."- Review of "Topophonia" by Quan Lavende

 
YO=shi-kA+Ze is a Second Life (SL) artist studio run by Goodwind Seiling (aka Sachiko Hayashi) together with Didge Burroughs (aka James Barrett) with support from Umeå University in Sweden. Its main activity is to provide SL artist-in-residency "Up-in-the-Air" residency. Between 15 October 2012 - 31 January 2013, Oberon Onmura held the residency at Yoshikaze as our artist-in-residence on HUMlab Island in Second Life, during which time he has completed a unique project entitled "Topophonia," involving three other SL artists in addition to completing his own artworks.

"The principal concept of "Topophonia" is the notion of bringing together a group of artists' to create artworks around a common concept. ….I was less interested in any sort of collaboration than in seeing how (or whether) other artists could understand and work from an artistic framework that I personally found interesting in creating a new piece….whether their resulting artworks in any way mirrored or complemented my own. So not a collaboration; rather, an experiment to test whether an artistic idea is share-able, and to see the result of each artist independently operating on that idea in his or her unique fashion."

By basing its starting point on sound to guide the visitors, his chosen artists, Alpha Auer, Maya Paris and Eupalinos Ugajin, have each created an independent installation. Together with Oberon's own work they comprise "Topophonia: Four Realization in Sound."
Yoshikaze is very pleased to present "Topophonia" at RL HUMlab, Umeå University, between 18-22 February 2012. Four machinimas filmed beautifully by Marx Catteneo will be shown on our screens alongside with four computer stations with avatars who will take the visitors to their inworld installations.

In conjunction to this RL show, Yoshikaze Studio will be open to the public. We welcome you at http://www.slurl.com/secondlife/HUMlab/99/194/25 to experience "Topophonia" from your own location.

Oberon's artist statement of the project can be read on our blog at http://yoshikaze.blogspot.com/2013/02/oberon-16-artist-statement.html; about Oberon's artists at http://yoshikaze.blogspot.com/2013/01/oberon-9.html ; reviews at http://yoshikaze.blogspot.com/2013/01/here-are-some-blog-posts-about.html

Curated by Goodwind Seiling/Sachiko Hayashi in collaboration with HUMlab. The poster design by Carl-Erik Engqvist from HUMlab.

Yoshikaze "Up-in-the-Air" Residency (www.slurl.com/secondlife/HUMlab/95/215/351) is a Second Life residency programme run by Sachiko Hayashi together with RL HUMlab art director Carl-Erik Engqvist, Umeå University, Sweden.

For inquiries, please contact: goodwind.seiling@gmail.com.

Yoshikaze is funded and hosted by HUMlab, Umeå University, Sweden.
Yoshikaze blog: http://yoshikaze.blogspot.com
Yoshikaze vimeo: http://vimeo.com/yoshikaze

'A Place of Play' - Performance Video

A video of the recent mixed reality performance, 'A Place of Play' I gave between the digital humanities research space HUMlab X at the just opened arts campus at Umeå University and in Second Life. Thanks to Beatrice for shooting the video and HUMlab for everything.

New Yoshikaze Artist in Residence on HUMlab SL Island

We welcome Pyewacket Kazyanenko as the new artist in residence within the Yoshikaze artists' studio in Second Life, run by Goodwind Seiling aka Sachiko Hayashi and provided by HUMlab. Pyewacket Kazyanenko states in an Outline and Intent for Yoshikaze Residency:

I've spent the last few years working with Stelarc in simple virtual displays and performance. In my virtual work, amongst achievements and satisfying victories , things inevitability go wrong, strange things happen, sculpts appear wrong, scripts and codes don’t work correctly, robots break. Not being much of a coder or a mathematician, my approach to working with code and 3D environments has always had a naive and random quality. In my exploration with the Yoshikaze residency I hope to further my relationship with the 'glitch' in virtual worlds. The genera of digital glitch art has become quite popular but little has been explored in virtual worlds. I will enter the space with an empty pallet, clear mind and simply explore, try and make happen the wrong, the glitch and the obscure, mixed with ongoing adventures and inspirations that happen daily inworld. My research into avatar psychology and the notion of 'artistic role play' will also have some effect on what I will be doing. This brings the digital unconscious into the work with dreams, desires, needs, failures, a sense of humour and a longing for creativity.

We look forward to the coming months. If you would like to keep up to date with what Pye is doing, the Yoshikaze blog is being updated regularly and you can visit Pye in world from 15 February until the 15 May from the slurl to Yoshikaze: http://slurl.com/secondlife/HUMlab/95/215/351

Kristine Schomaker's "My Life as an Avatar: The Gracie Kendal Project" & "1000+Avatars"

Yoshikaze presents Kristine Schomaker's

"My Life as an Avatar: The Gracie Kendal Project" (http://graciekendal.wordpress.com)

& 

"1000+Avatars" (http://1000avatars.wordpress.com)

via Skype Video

4pm on 30 January 2012, RL HUMlab, Umeå University, Sweden

In "The Gracie Kendal Project" Kristine Schomaker investigates our obsession with the notion of the physical ideal, through her own relation to her alternative ego Gracie Kendal, the Second Life avatar.  The interaction between Gracie Kendal and Kristine Schomaker has resulted in virtual dialogues between the two, revealing the conflicts and even dependency of her dual selves, as well as the influences and impacts one has upon the other.

"1000+Avatars" is an off-shoot project from "The Gracie Kendal Project", however, in its own right.  By documenting individual portraits of more than 1000 avatars in Second Life, the project bears a testimony to the avatar constructions of our time and witnesses the unique composition of our desires in the pursuit of that construct.

Gracie Kendal/Kristine Schomaker is a new breed of Second Life artist.  Rather than pursuing the futuristic vision of the technological possibilities of the virtual, her projects firmly place themselves within the social, historical and psychological context in which ""[t]he avatar becomes a vehicle for personal and public reflection."

Yoshikaze is proud to organise a presentation by Kristine Schomaker on 30 January, 2012.  The presentation will be held from 4pm at HUMlab, Umeå University,  via Skype video connection with Kristine Schomaker in her location in Los Angeles.

Yoshikaze curator: Goodwind Seiling/Sachiko Hayashi.  Yoshikaze is part of SL HUMlab activity. 

---------------------------------------

[Description of the Projects by Kristine Schomaker]

In 2006 I began using new media to bring more attention to the obsession our society has with physical appearance. The media is often the hub of this obsession, typified by stars and models with eating disorders, reality TV shows about plastic surgery and advertisements defining the paragon of beauty. This results in an internal conflict between our reality and the idealized.

The Gracie Kendal Project is a close-up daily view of a personal, social and psychological co-existence with my virtual persona. My work deals with the process of becoming self-aware while living in a society obsessed with physical appearance. It is symbolic of the personal anxiety and loss of identity occurring in a world where visually aggressive advertisements dictate who you are supposed to be. In this environment I find it difficult to be comfortable in my own skin.

Every day I would take pictures of both myself and Gracie and place them next to each other comparing the physical with the virtual, the real with the ideal. After observing how we were interacting with each other through photos, I realized there was a dialogue forming. The natural extension in this story was for this dialogue to be realized through actual conversations between Gracie and I.

Through written chat and eventually comic-like banter, we express our inner dialogue in a public way. We have developed a co-dependent relationship in which each of us wishes she were the other. I yearn to have the life she does, the beauty, the success, and independence. She yearns to be free from the constraints of pixels.Using Gracie as a form of self-presentation, I started to explore my relationship with my body as well as question my own identity. I realized that everything going on in my life was manifesting in my body and in the figure of Gracie. Both were becoming a site for anxiety, fear, stress, grief, loneliness and depression. My body and that of my avatar became a source of autobiographical material in which a story was being written.

Comparing the ‘perfect’ Gracie with my real self, I will bring more attention to the obsession our society has with physical appearance. I am hoping to engage with every person who believes they are unattractive, overweight and afraid. I hope young girls will see my project and feel empowered to be brave. I plan to videotape my performances with my avatar and post them on YouTube. I hope to give talks about my project to appropriate organizations and schools, boys and girls clubs and eating disorder groups.

While working on My Life as an Avatar on a personal level, I was compelled to expand my project universally to explore notions of online identity in the construction of other people’s avatars. My 1000+ Avatar project consists of individual portraits of over 1000 avatars within the virtual world of Second Life. This project also questions and explores commonly held assumptions about stereotypes, judgment, self-awareness and those marginalized by race, gender, sexual preference and physical appearance.

The 1000 Avatar portraits zoom in on the complex social and cultural conventions that determine our identity. The avatar becomes a vehicle for personal and public reflection. This series of portraits is a contemporary anthropology of a cross section of avatars from the virtual world of Second Life in the early 21st century. In these portraits, I explore the representation of the avatar as a construct, distinct from any traditional notion of the ‘self’. I examine the sitter’s identity and probe below the avatar surface to reveal and comment upon their character, personality and their diversity.

The subjects are neither simulacra nor characters in a game: they are people, complete, complex identities with defined social roles. The avatar becomes the projection of our identity. Each portrait represents a different personality, a singular life. These people entered the brave new world of virtual environments as explorers, searching for anything and everything, finding a new empowerment- and a new freedom to be themselves. Experimentation is welcome. As an avatar, they are provided with a safe environment which allows everyone to divulge and consider boundaries and barriers that aren’t readily accepted in the physical world.

Virtual Reflections: avatar self-idenity

A documentary I helped make about identity and avatars in the online virtual world of Second Life.

Philosophy, the Body and Virual Worlds

Katerina Karoussos has created a video "NOETIC GRACE - FROM IMAGE TO IMAGO" during her Yoshikaze residency on the HUMlab Island in Second Life:



Until later this week it is possible to view the video and documentation from the residency in Second Life, please go to http://slurl.com/secondlife/HUMlab/98/233/351/,

The following is the slide show from her presentation at RL HUMlab, Umeå University.

Conference show

View more presentations from Jim Barrett

As the manager of the HUMlab project in Second Life, I would like to thank Katerina and Sachiko Hayashi, the curator of the Yoshikazi Up-in-the-air residency. This residency has expanded the perimeters of the project. From next week we will be welcoming another artist into the project and I will announce that on this blog shortly.

Call for Partners for a Teaching Project in Second Life.

As our initial partner has had to pull out due to institutional reasons, we make a new late call for collaborative partners for a project in sociolinguistics and teacher training in Second Life.

As part of the Euroversity network (http://euroversity.ning.com/), the Department of Language studies at Umeå University are looking for a minimum of 12 committed collaborative partners (preferably people with previous experience of Second Life and language teaching) from various universities or other educational institutions around the world in order to participate in a collaborative online project conducted primarily in the virtual world of Second Life. The activities are part of the ASSIS project: https://assis.pbworks.com

The subject of the activities relates to the topic of gender and language in education and is included as an activity under our English teacher-training programme. Our ambition is to expose our students to external contacts with professional experience in order to explore aspects of gender and language in a classroom context (physical and virtual). Providing a culturally mixed forum for such discussions will, in our opinion, bring new insights into these issues and hopefully widen our students’ horizons. In this context it is worth mentioning that many of our students will be working in schools of heterogenic cultural demography in their future professional lives.

Specific activities will be carried out during the autumn 2011. We have planned three such specific activities under the project:

• A group discussion (in groups of four) of a ‘case’, which illustrates different aspects related to language and gender in a classroom situation.
  

• A group workshop (in the same groups of 4) involving the creation a case based on real life examples and anecdotes, which illustrate/s various issues related to language and gender in an educational context. In the creation of this case we will ask participants to draw on the collective experiences of the all the four group members present.

• An observational study of teacher behaviour related to gender and language, which will go on parallel to the two events above. For this part of the study the participants will be asked to observe the behaviour of our own lecturers/teachers who are assisting them in the collaborations. We have two teachers working in this capacity, one male and one female. The participants will be asked to fill in two online evaluations (one for each teacher) in order to produce a short observational report evaluating potential gendered behaviour of our teachers and in a debriefing meeting at the end of the project we will relate the findings to the theoretical frameworks studied in the course literature.

The collaboration will be conducted online, primarily in the virtual world of Second Life. We will also provide tools for asynchronous written collaborations in the form of a wiki, where each group will have access to their own space.

As experienced SL-users/teachers you will obviously hold a special role in the group discussions but the idea is that the collaboration should be one where all contribute. You do thus not have to feel that you have any special responsibility apart from being a collaborative discussion partner.

Suggested dates for meetings etc are as follows:

6^th -16^th of September:

Technical and social initiation (https://assis.pbworks.com/w/page/44744583/technical%20and%20social%20initiation): During this period we will provide all participants with the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the tools (Second Life and the wiki). We will have group meetings for this purpose on the 6^th of September (13.00-15.00 CET) and on Friday the 16^th of September (13.00-15.00 CET) in Second life and we will also contact all who feel they need private one-to-one guidance on an individual basis in the ‘window’ 7-15^th of September. We will also provide the participants with contact details of their partner groups and encourage them to meet up and get to know each other in Second Life or using any other tool they see fit (Skype, MSN, e-mail etc). Our ambition is thus that ALL participants should have entered the environment and tested the functionalities prior to the actual workshops. In addition, we hope that the participants also will have had a chance to at least get to know each other superficially prior to the planned events.

20 and 21^st of September

Discussions of case: The discussion of a case provided prior to the event via the wiki will probably take about 1-2hrs and will be conducted in groups of 4. Since we are anticipating a total of 12 groups we have booked two days for this event but note that participants will only be committed for one 1-2hour-session. Because of potential time differences etc we cannot at this time specify exact times for the event yet but afternoons CET is a safe bet.

4 and 5^th of October

Workshop – creation of case example: The creation of the case example will probably take about 1-2hrs and will be conducted in groups of 4. Since we are anticipating a total of 12 groups we have booked two days for this event but again note that participants will only be committed for one 1-2hour-session. Because of potential time differences etc we cannot at this time specify exact times for the event yet but afternoons CET is a safe bet.

Note that we will also ask our students to summarise their findings from each meeting in a wiki tool. As outside participants not being examined your participation in this activity is of course optional. The observational study on teacher behaviour will be reported using an online questionnaire tool and here we appreciate if all contribute to maximise the reliability of the data.

20th of October

Debriefing: During this meeting we will evaluate the activities together and also reveal the results of the evaluation of our own teachers and discuss these results. The meeting will take place in a face-to-face setting in a lecture hall at Umeå University with online access through U-stream or Adobe Connect.

Please let us know as soon as possible if you are interested in participating.

Thank you!

Mats Deutschmann mats.deutschmann [at] engelska.umu.se

(project leader)

Hanna Outakoski

(Euroversity coordinator, Umeå University)

Art Created with Second Life Exhibition

Poster by Carl-Erik Engqvist

Second Life Projects

I have been working in Second Life since 2006. I joined the Educators in Second Life email list this morning, but when I sent in my introduction it bounced. Not a good sign. As I spent some time on it and it summarizes some of the main projects I have been involved in from about 2009-Present (and I am amazed so much has actually been done) I thought to post it here.

My name is James 'Jim' Barrett. I work at HUMlab at Umeå University in the north east of Sweden. HUMlab is a digital humanities lab and studio where all manner of wonderful things happen (http://blog.humlab.umu.se/ is the blog in English).

I work in Second Life with teaching, research and art.

Teaching has been done with museum studies, culture studies, social linguistics, language learning (Sámi and English as a Second Language), mixed reality content delivery and consulting on a pharmacy program. Some of the results of teaching in SL by HUMlab staff can be seen here:
http://www.umu.se/english/about-umu/press/press-releases/newsdetail?contentId=18034
http://blog.humlab.umu.se/?tag=second_life
http://blog.humlab.umu.se/?p=1387
http://blog.humlab.umu.se/?p=880
http://blog.humlab.umu.se/?p=1371

A mixed reality seminar was created by a team at HUMlab in 2010 and can be seen here: http://stream.humlab.umu.se/index.php?streamName=avatarsandposthumanism

The consulting for pharmacist simulation is explained here http://www.upc.umu.se/om-upc/projekt/kommunikationstraning-i-virtuella-apotek/ (In Swedish)

The course blog for the museum studies course is here; http://blog.humlab.umu.se/museologi/

We are very proud to be working with Hanna Outakoski in her teaching of North Sámi language over distance using the resources of HUMlab. We are also an associate partner of the Avalon Network (Hello guys!), which has been wonderful to be part of. More information about Hanna's Sámi course can be found here; http://avalon.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/NorthSami1FINALScenario.pdf

We are also devoted machinima fans in HUMlab and have been using it in teaching cultural studies and art.

I have published a bit on what I have been involved in. Including a chapter in 'Learning and Teaching in the Virtual World of Second Life' edited by Judith Molka-Danielsen, Mats Deutschmann (Mats also works in HUMlab) on the HUMlab SL project. We (Stefan Gelfgren http://bit.ly/gJdcF6 and myself) have a follow up to that chapter coming out shortly in 'Multi-User Virtual Environments for the Classroom: Practical Approaches to Teaching in Virtual Worlds' edited by Giovanni Vincenti and James Braman, which reports back on three years of teaching museum studies in SL.

We have also been running HUMlab's Second Life Yoshikaze "Up-In-The-Air" Residency (along with Sachiko Hayashi, who recommended this list serve to me). Yoshikaze is an artists' studio in Second Life, run by Goodwind Seiling with support from HUMlab. Its main activity is to provide SL-Artist-In-Residence (Up-in-the-air Residency). The residency is project based and can be applied to throughout the year. The artist is expected to give at least one presentation of the project at the end of the residency. The residency length is normally 1-3 months. We have a blog and a Facebook group:

http://yoshikaze.blogspot.com/

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Yoshikaze/124286834263363

A video of myself presenting the work of artist Garrett Lynch from the Second Yoshikaze Residency in HUMlab is here: http://youtu.be/0HFbRg4boho

We will be holding a vernissage for the current Artist in Residence, Selavy Oh, on May 11 at 14:00 CET on the HUMlab/Yoshikaze space in world; http://slurl.com/secondlife/HUMlab/95/215/351/ (it is currently a work-in-progress site)

More of HUMlab in SL here http://blog.humlab.umu.se/?cat=96

Yoshikaze Up-in-the-Air Residency Exhibition in HUMlab

This is a short video of myself presenting artist Garrett Lynch's work from a two month Yoshikaze residency on the HUMlab Second Life Island last Wednesday. Garrett made a performance that was mix of video streaming, coded prims and sound in Second Life, and that is what you can see on the big screen. The smaller screens show various video installation pieces Garrett made during the residency.

Thanks to Garrett, Sachiko Hayashi, Calle, Johan, Toby, Stephanie (who made the video), Jon, Emma and the whole HUMlab crew.

Virtual Identities

Part of a series of interviews we made for a film that was presented at Educa 2010 today.

A HUMlab seminar in Second Life - "'The Human Inside Of You': Avatars and Posthumanism"

HUMlab - in what would be a first - will be streaming one of their seminars simultaneously in Second Life. See below for details.

You are invited to a seminar in the HUMlab region of Second Life!

WHAT: "'The Human Inside Of You': Avatars and Posthumanism", by Jenna P-S. Ng, postdoctoral fellow at HUMlab, Umeå University

WHEN: Tuesday April 20th 2010 at 13:15 Central European Summer time (04:15 SL time; for times in other countries, see http://timeanddate.com/s/1peg)

WHERE: Lindehallen
Lindell 1, HUMlab (71, 76, 34)
slurl: http://bit.ly/bkNYbz
HUMlab,
Umeå University, Sweden

DETAILS:
In this seminar, Jenna Ng (Nicky Varnish in SL) argues how the online avatar presents a digital embodiment: a derivative of the body not extended from but enmeshed with data and code, contained in the digital while still remaining profoundly sensual. Placed in the context of posthumanism, the seminar discusses the avatar as a figure reaching beyond the dichotomies of technology and nature; its peculiar embodiment in the digital appeals instead to "the human inside of you"—the sum of our fears, the conviction of our doubts, the values which keep us quirky, imperfect and alive.

Conducted in real-time alongside the RL presentation, this seminar in SL will also be a self-reflexive exercise in studying presence and the body in simultaneous spaces. Jenna will be present as an avatar in SL and will also answer questions after the talk in real-time. The seminar will last about an hour. All are welcome!

MORE INFORMATION:
http://hulken.humlab.umu.se/humlab/node/1258
jenna.ng(at)humlab.umu.se

Feel free to pass this on to anyone who might be interested. Hope to see you in-world!!

Education 2.0 - not afraid of Second Life!

"Teachers cannot keep ignoring the digital revolution"

Dissatisfied with a recent PBS Frontline piece on the "Digital Nation", Mr. Despres went to Second Life & was impressed how teachers in the trenches use technology to transform American education. Draxtor thought we were doomed, but now - optimism has returned!

Second Life Physics Experiment

The Na'vi Have Arrived

There is a Pandora in Second Life. The blue is engaging. The furries will be out numbered by Easter.

Religion In 'New' Places

Religion In New Places

View more OpenOffice presentations from Jim Barrett.

(There is a link from the image in slide 10 to a short video)

This presentation discusses a selection of examples of what I term ‘rhetorical holiness’ created using Second Life (SL), a multi-user virtual environment (MUVE) on the internet. Second Life is a three dimensional persistent space made up of thousands of islands (called sims). In SL a person is represented by an avatar, a body which they manipulate in the environment. The avatar can travel around the huge space of SL in real time visiting themed sites, buying and selling virtual commodities and participating in social and cultural events with others. The shared online three dimensional spaces of SL include religiously themed sites where the holy is one of the main defining criteria of interaction. The sites in SL that I have examined are the Buddhist island of “Bodhi Sim: Land of Buddhadharma - a Second Life fansite” and two mosques built in SL; the Sultan Ahmed Mosque and the Cordoba Mosque. Finally the Koinonia Congregational Church of Second Life is a Christian church which operates entirely in SL. For the purposes of this presentation, these sites are examined for the use of symbols from three established religious contexts that have been re-deployed in the virtual environment. The purpose of such an exercise is to identify a system of rhetoric within a larger literacy for such three dimensional virtual environments.

Visiting Guantánamo in Second Life

Many so-called enemy combatants are still held at the US military run detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, most of them never charged of any crime. January 11, 2009 marked the seven-year anniversary of the arrival of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay.

Having just blogged an obituary for Augusto Boal, I think he would have approved of such a project as Virtual Guantánamo, a simulation of the United States military detention center in Cuba within the virtual online world of Second Life. By exposing such institutions within the structures of the state apparatus, the possibilities for democracy are strengthened.

Second Life is Back in My Life

While I continue with thesis research, having just completed two papers for pedagogy courses I needed to finish and working on a paper for an upcoming conference, I am also back in Second Life in a big way. I am working on a major project for HUMlab, which shall be revealed shortly. I also am hosting a seminar this Friday streamed from Second Life on the Virtual Macbeth project by Angela A. Thomas.

The first half of this year has been fairly quiet for me in regards to Second Life. While I have continued following it, I have not spent so much time logged in. This past week I have been inworld a lot more and I have noticed a change in the way it is presented by Linden Lab and the sort of avatars one meets inworld. The hype seems to be over, which is great. Those users I have encountered that remain are more experienced and usually doing something with the program other than just wondering around.

This video summarizes some of the present factors at play in Second Life:

The Drax Files for May 2009: Dareth Denimore is a sociology student at Cambridge University in the UK. He just finished his "cybersex" survey and in the process talked to over 200 avatars about their habits when it comes to relationships and intimacy. Draxtor Despres, fresh back from the first ever virtual journalism summit at WSU in Pullman, WA, profiled this energetic young man.

I hope we are going to see more serious exploration of Second Life as well as more virtual world platforms that feature performability with community and creative functions.

Virtual Macbeth Seminar

On Friday 8th May at 11:00am (CET) HUMlab will be hosting its first official seminar from the virtual world of Second Life. Angela A. Thomas, senior lecturer in English and Arts Education at the University of Sydney, Australia and author of the book Youth Online: Identity and Literacy in the Digital Age (Peter Lang, 2007), will be speaking, showing and performing on the theme of:

Inside the mind of Macbeth: Understanding and interpreting literary worlds in a virtual environment.
Virtual Macbeth was designed to demonstrate how we might best use the affordances of virtual environments for Education. Shakespeare’s Macbeth reimagined in Second Life provides an adaptive bridge between classic texts and new media technology. In the virtual, the abstract can be made concrete, and complex poesis and abstractions of Shakespeare’s verse can become embodied, elusive, visceral, and affective. The poetic use of metaphor, image and symbol that permeate Shakespeare’s language is brought to 3D life using the online world as a discursive design space where visitors experience the motivations and emotional journey of character, and explore and make personal sense of the universal themes of Shakespeare.

In this presentation I will demonstrate Virtual Macbeth and discuss the way the design of the island allows students to explore aspects of narrative theory, literary criticism, drama theory, gaming theory and digital culture. In particular, I will highlight the deep potential of virtual worlds for immersive, experiential and student-centred learning. The presentation will include opportunities for questions and discussion.

I think this seminar will be an exciting opportunity for anyone who is interested in experiencing a high quality example of digital technology that has been used to engage students in one of the canonical areas of English language learning.

If you are interested in taking part in the seminar there are a number of ways to do so. You can come to HUMlab, under the UB library and Lindell Hall in the social sciences building at Umeå University. If you have access to broadband internet you can watch a live streamed version of the seminar (it will be broadcast from Second Life so you will be watching avatars in a virtual world - much like the video below). The video stream opens a little before 11:00 on Friday the 8th May from here. If you are a Second Life resident you can log into Second Life and participate in the tour and discussion on the Virtual Macbeth sim. The URL to teleport into the sim is http://slurl.com/secondlife/Macbeth/44/54/54 (click or copy and paste).

Of course you need to have a Second Life account and the Second Life program installed on your computer to be part of the tour in world. I would say that if you are unfamiliar with Second Life, come to HUMlab for the seminar and we can introduce you to it or you can watch the video stream if unable to visit us.

To provide some background to the Virtual Macbeth project here is a video about the island that captures well the atmosphere created by the site:



Filmed and edited by Gary Hayes of MUVEDesign. Note: This film does not demonstrate the many interactive elements, social intentions or literary integration.

From more information about Virtual Macbeth there is a wiki from the project and a long article with many links from the MUVEDesign online journal on virtual world design, Atmospheric Australian Virtual Macbeth.