Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.64.0904190037330.22033@panix3.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.aol.com>, Wryting-L <WRYTING-L@listserv.wvu.edu>
Subject: Liner notes for upcoming video/laptop show at Millennium
Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2009 00:38:08 -0400 (EDT)
Liner notes for upcoming video/laptop show at Millennium (date to be announced) http://www.alansondheim.org/skysign.mov http://www.alansondheim.org/skysign1.png http://www.alansondheim.org/skysign2.png http://www.alansondheim.org/skysign3.png http://www.alansondheim.org/skysign4.png http://www.alansondheim.org/skysign5.png Adventures in the Sim Trade: Accidental Art and Performance in Second Life June 2008 through March 2009, I worked in an installation/performance space called Odyssey in the virtual world Second Life. I changed the environment daily, reflecting dynamic (moving, shuddering) complex spaces that were narratives in their own right, difficult to navigate, built on phenomenologies of being virtually real, really virtual. I will walk/work my way through these transformations, presenting videos and images of installations (with Azure Carter), dance (with Foofwa d'Imobilite and Sandy Baldwin), and performance (with Sandy Baldwin). This work is unique within and without Second Life. From the original information sheet (all this and more will be explained!) How to view The Accidental Artist exhibition in Second Life The exhibition is quite complex; here's some suggestions when visiting: 1. Try turning the glow off. Go to preferences, graphics, and uncheck basic shading, if it's on. Basic shading seems to use up more resources than anything else with the rendering engine. You can also set things like rendering distance; the lower the distance, the faster the loading. 2. Turn the video media button off. This on the lower right-hand corner of the screen. If you turn it on, the texture-mapping consumes a huge amount of resources. On the other hand, the audio for the parcel (the audio button) runs fairly lean. 3. If you find the space too cluttered to enter, try flying in. 4. If you find flying in too cluttered, fly higher, and drop in. There is a dome in the center of the space which you can enter. 5. Most objects on the ground level (and some beneath the ground, on the seafloor) will flee from you - what looks crowded from a distance might well clear out. 6. If it clears out, look up - you'll see all sorts of things above you. 7. Fly vertically to see the rest of the exhibition. If you can't fly as high as you want, click control-alt-d, which opens up an advanced menu. Open the menu and get rid of camera constraints. You can then move the camera at a great distance from your avatar body - your viewpoint moves independently, and you can move at least to the top of the exhibition, which is maybe a mile or so up, SL measurement. 8. If you get stuck anywhere, teleport back in. 9. Try moving inside the objects; the interior textures are often different from the exterior ones (this is almost always the case with the spheres). 10. You can push objects vertically into the sky by moving beneath them and flying; they flee upwards. 11. You can see the exhibition 'differently' by using the advanced menu, going to render, and then looking for info - clicking on any one of the info options will give you different viewpoints. 12. You can often sit on moving objects, which will whirl you around; if you sit on an object that moves vertically as a result of your proximity, you can ride it up. When you stand up again, you can fall down back into the space. The riding height seems to be around 4117 SL units, but unless you have a flight bracelet or feather, you probably won't go that high. 13. Moving about on the ground level, keep the sound turned on (lower right), and you'll hear a variety of songs about SL and language. These mix with a number of looping sound modules embedded in the space. 14. If you've been moving around SL a lot, go to preferences, and empty your cache; this might speed things up. You'll have to restart SL again. 15. If you see a sign for teleporting, try it. Sometimes it will lead back to the ground level, sometimes to the seabed, sometimes to a skysphere. All of these locations have clickable objects which will take you else- where (or back to the same space but at a slightly different location). You might have to right-click on the object, then click on teleport - or you might just left click - it depends on the object. 16, Try different 'lenses' - click on control-8 to make the image wide- angle, control-9 to return to normal, control-0 for telephoto. Repeated clicks work as well - with control-8 you can create extreme distortions. 17. Try moving into 'small' spaces and look about. You can save snapshots of anything you see, on your hard drive. 18. That's about it. The general idea is to run lean, fly about, teleport back if you're stuck, play with the controls. The architecture is constan- tly changing and deconstructing itself - play with that....
