Now what?

It was bad enough that parcels were limited to 1024 sqm and only 234 prims and the place on the application to describe your idea was limited to 200 words, but the disorganization around allocating parcels was a disaster…at least for us it was.

Micheil and I submitted a proposal for an exhibit called Me & My AV on May 17th. The deadline for submissions was May 20 and builders were to be notified by June 3rd if they had been accepted.

We finally received word that we had a parcel…last night at midnight in my time zone…a scant one week before building closes. (Or so the says the same schedule that assured us we’d know about our application on June 3rd.)

But, it took the both of us raising  hell on the Second Life Birthday group to get anything to happen.

[2010/06/10 17:33]  Micheil Merlin: Courtney, when will everyone be notified?

[2010/06/10 17:43]  Micheil Merlin: A suggestion:  It would be nice for someone to post a group notice regarding the status of the exhibit acceptance process.

[2010/06/10 17:44]  Micheil Merlin: Any communiction would be welcome

[2010/06/10 17:45]  Person A: Doc sent a notice this afternoon

[2010/06/10 17:45]  Nickola Martynov: that was for entertainers

[2010/06/10 17:45]  Person B: the information everyone received went over the process, I believe, Micheil

[2010/06/10 17:45]  Nickola Martynov: that was for entertainers

[2010/06/10 17:45]  Micheil Merlin: I don’t believe there has been any notice regarding exhibits since 6/5

[2010/06/10 17:46]  Person B: Doc sent a notice this afternoon

[2010/06/10 17:46]  Micheil Merlin: About entertainment. Not exhibits

[2010/06/10 17:46]  Nickola Martynov: Person B, Doc’s notice was for entertainers not builders

[2010/06/10 17:47]  Person B: granted, Nickola

[2010/06/10 17:47]  Person C: I know people want to know things and that understandable but please bear with us – 2 of the lindens working on these things were laid off so everyones under a bit of pressure

(Not true. Two Lindens were assigned to SL7B. Mia Linden was laid off, Courtney was not.)
[Update: I was incorrect here. There were three Lindens involved: Mia, Courtney and Sejong. I checked the list but failed to register Sejong's name lower down the page. Thank you Toxic Menges for bringing this to my attention.]

[2010/06/10 17:47]  Nickola Martynov:  there has been no notice to say all parcel have been allocated and that if you haven’t heard you are sol

[2010/06/10 17:48]  Nickola Martynov: Thank you Person C but there is now less than one week of building time. There are still two sims with no prims on them. Some of us would like to know if we should allocate our time to other projects

[2010/06/10 17:49]  Nickola Martynov: May I remind you the allocations were to have been completed by the 5th.

[2010/06/10 17:51]  Person B again: I’d like to remind everyone that the people who are working are volunteers…and are trying their best to do the best job they can

[2010/06/10 17:53]  Nickola Martynov: And I love Jesus, but that doesn’t help me get a decent exhibit built in less than a week.

I went and had a look at our parcel this morning. It wasn’t on one of the two entirely empty sims. And still I was astounded at how many empty parcels I could see. Clearly, there was a lack of applications and the  allocation process was badly hampered by something.

It seems to me that there is a culture of failure around these major exhibitions. Some people involved work day and night to make things right, while others do little more than poke sticks into the wheels.

But it’s all moot now for anyway. I have real life commitments this week and next that mean we won’t have time to complete the on-site work that needs doing. Micheil is going to pull something out of his inventory to put on the parcel.

I’m upset because we had already put several months work into developing Me & My AV.  The prims were ready, but we still needed a good 10 days on site to make it work properly.

So, if you ever wonder why there is so much trash at the big exhibitions, now you know.

Reaction to the announcement is mixed. Long-time SL’ers, already concerned about the shift of attention toward corporate interests and away from residents, worry that they will lose the tools that allow for collaborative building. Others hope that their socializing opportunities will be enhanced. The free market types, of course, are all in favour. One naive soul even suggesting that the people let go probably “sucked” at their jobs anyway.

In many ways, I left SL months ago. While I certainly enjoy the social aspects of SL – I treasure the friends I have made there – for me, it’s all about the building.

I have been happily creating new work on Reaction Grid since November. It’s cheaper, less politically fraught and far more demanding of my creative abilities (such that they are).

"What is flexi?" Three weeks old and learning to build

I joined SL for the art. In 2007, I had read about a Vancouver curator opening a gallery in Second Life and I joined to see what that was about. I spent about an hour on Orientation Island acclimatizing to the environment. I had to pass four simple tests showing I understood the key tools and then I was off.

I had no trouble understanding the viewer. I found it intuitive and easy to use, the Search took me exactly where I wanted to go. And when I saw what people were doing with 3D building tools, I was hooked.

In 2006, Philip Rosedale, aka Philip Linden, gave an interview on what Second Life was all about. Halfway in, at the 3:40 mark, he tells the interviewer, “the thing about this metaverse is that you can make things there with other people.”

Make things. Not do things.

Yes, you can do things in Second Life – you can shop, you can dance, you can hangout and socialize. But as SubQuark Hax points out in a post on the iliveisl blog, the high end graphics and capabilities have little to do with the success of virtual social spaces.

Who has time to spend hours and hours online just chatting? Not adults, that’s for sure. And young people have never really been on Second Life’s radar, because Second Life is made for adults who want to create.

Second Life’s real strength lies in the stability of its platform. For stability, it ranks head and shoulders over any of the Opensim environments and that is where, I think, they should expend their energies. The art created in Second Life is a kind that has never been seen before. Artists like AM Radio, Adam Ramona, Glyph Graves, Kolor Fall and Miso Susanowa having been exploring immersive spaces and pushing the boundaries of virtual reality to create an entirely different art form, perhaps not seen since the invention of photography.

Losing that focus will turn a truly valuable asset into just another computer game subject to the fickle whims and passing fancies of  children.

Collaborative multimedia event by Kolor Fall, Cypress Rosewood and Skye Galaxy

Lunamaruna is a hand-painted fairy tale land where orange manatees fly in a purple sky and sharks are equipped with miners’ headlamps for a better hunting experience.

Lunamaruna seems to be a happy little place to settle down and raise a family, until you look beneath the storybook illustrations. Peeking inside the doors of the homes and offices tell an entirely different story.

On now at project Z.

More pictures on Flickr

Art Deco work area

Ener Hax, DreamWalker McCallister, Micheil Merlin and I have been building and scripting like mad for the last few weeks to get as much done as possible on 16 sims in preparation for the move. The work was evenly divided with Ener building out 14 sims and and me working on two. (woot!)

Inventory suitcases

I saw Kyle Gomboy 
as Reaction Grid in, er, Reaction Grid this morning. He assures me that they’ve done these transfers many times, that they usually go smoothly, and that builds usually translate very well. Mind you, perhaps Kyle hasn’t seen what Ener can do with a megaprim.

So long green hair!

Oddly, nothing in that previous paragraph confuses me.

But not too busy to dance with the flamingos

Twisty prim man, Scarp Godenot, has applied his clever architectural talents to an installation of alien plant life at the futuristic sim, Extropia. The work was well received by Scarp’s many friends and fellow artists at last night’s opening.

From the artist’s statement:

Alien plant life has virally invaded Extropia from a source deep in space and it is growing out of control. Fortunately the anti contamination squad has managed to keep the infestation contained to the spaceport. See these odd and strange new life forms. They have been determined to be harmless to avatar life so far…..

Scarp is a RL photographer and hobby gardener. Some pieces have witty botanical nomeclature derived from the names of his friends. Merlin and I were honored with the Nikkimartynalia merlinoskopteryx, a white, bushy plant with tall, thin, twisty flower stalks rising from the centre.

Slideshow of my photos

And then I made this one…

That is easily the ugliest particle effect I have ever seen.

I had this idea of an exhibit of the ugliest particles in Second Life…but nevermind. It’s too icky.

A few of the prettier ones are posted on my Flickr page.

With windlight Gelatto settings, avatars dancing on media enhanced cubes

Last night, we were invited to revisit Red Lashes of Mars, an installation of music by Cypress Rosewood, machinima by Stretch Mayo and the sculptures and sculptured terrain of Kolor’s eponymous sim. Avatars, dancing on great cubes textured with live machinima, were swirled and turned and floated 300 meters and more, while original trance compositions played on the stream.

I took more than 100 pictures using all the Windlight settings available. About 30 of them are included in this slideshow, which gives the best effect of the evening’s performance.

Melted Snowpeople

In RL, I love early spring when the snow turns slushy and grey and slowly pulls back to reveal muddy ground from which the earliest spring flowers are already pushing their way through.

Spring flowers through the snow

Snowdrops and early purple crocuses are up and blooming in the sunny spots between the trees.

Barky's descent into slush

I think I’ll have to rescue Barky today and pull him to the deck to dry out before getting stored away for the summer.

Spring arrives on Saturday. I’ve put in a pool and a stable this year. It should be fun.

Snow family meltdown

I’m having fun melting the snow family. They melt so much more attractively than real snow people. The piled drifts around the house have disappeared and I’ve made prims that continually drip water from the eaves that use a sound file I made with a file downloaded from freesound.org. If you want one [copy/mod/no trans] for your builds, im me in Second Life.