Drop Everything (Except Your Pants) And Watch The Chronicle of @Prof_Elemental

Posted on by January 10, 2013
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Oh. My.

Professor Elemental has a new series of adventures (likely spelt and pronounced “adVENTCHAAAHS” ) that has, in the space of a few minutes, become my New Favorite Thing On The Interwebs. Now that The Guild has wrapped (perhaps forever) this will do nicely.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leANn4T5bK8

Behold, the glorious first Chronicle of Professor Elemental – “Discovery.” It’s a thrilling tale of intrigue, mind-reading pith helmets, oozy schmoozing and aetheric communications with gorilla valets named Jeffrey via endless vats of tea.

Also, the mystery of the pronunciation of Jeffrey’s name is solved. So that’s sorted.

While the above is not my actual review of ‘Professor Elementals new album ‘Father of Invention’. It is how my review would look, if one were able, like on Facebook to change the language of this piece to the continuing adventures of a music loving, perhaps laudanum brandy crazed adventurer as he stumbles through Chap-Hop and the growing universe of Professor Elemental. A bit like how you can change your Facebook to be read in Pirate speak or in fact, donkey brays.

Since we last looked in, the man – the elevenses legend and after tea tall story; Professor Elemental, has been striding steam punk and Blackpool like some sort of mechanical colossus. From the coming crowdfunded web series ‘The Chronicles of Professor Elemental’ to his own comic. He has been making the world, a far better, nicer place actually. I, for one need this sort of stuff, or else days would disappear into a monotony of gin and passionless violence.

Badger Faces.

There is no real reason for me to put that there or anywhere in any review – but as it occurs in the Professors album – there comes an infection to drop it into everyday conversation.

Chocolate mole.

There, he did it again.

via Big Rock Candy Mountain – Professor Elemental – Father of Invention Album Review

The video is really – dare I say it? a masterpiece, or at least it looks like it belongs on PBS’ “Masterpiece Theater,” as it’s shot in and around a National Trust stately home. This makes the interiors of the professor’s home (and the “museum?”) look gorgeous and posh. Also, there are musical interludes and some really beautiful, yet funny animations.

I’ve only watched it once. I’ll have to watch it again and again to catch all the funny little tics, gags, and bits. I’ve never seen a sedan chair used to such comedic effect before. Classic.

Professor Elemental remains a favorite in the Second Life Steamlands – a lot of social events are centered on music, either live, internet radio streams, or streams played by DJs, and music with a Steampunk element (heh) is popular. I wonder if he’s aware of the possibilities of Second Life machinima for future videos or chronicles? I’m sure there are builders and machinima artists who’d love the chance to work with him.

Resolved: Use My Shared Profile Feed More In #SecondLife

Posted on by December 31, 2012
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I’ve been taking a long break from Second Life again – just when I was getting momentum on the Kipling Rock project, distractions from First Life cropped up. Nothing major; mostly it was lots of new episodes of favorite television shows, family stuff on the weekends, midweek choir practice, and afternoon naps!

But I’ve kept up with blogs and SLUniverse, and ran across this reminder of an underused feature:

Linden Lab is now marketing itself as "Makers of Shared Creative Spaces". And they even might have created a "shared creative" space by accident. It could become the intersection between the in-world SL experience and the web. It could also become a multiplayer interactive online narrative. I am talking about the SL profile feed with its snapshot function. Most people havent realized its potential and they are not even using it. But lets start from the beginning.

Can I seriously be talking about the SL profile feed – this feature that never got adopted by the SL users? The SL feed is what you get to see first when you click on someones profile in the viewer. Its basically an overview of past status updates made by a resident. When Linden Lab acquired  Avatars United in 2010, they integrated pieces of that social network for avatars into the Second Life platform. As a result the profiles of the residents switched to a web-based layout and SL profile feeds were added. However up to now the majority of SL residents doesnt write any status updates and their feed remains empty. Most of the time youll find automatically generated entries like "Xyx resident changed their display name to Xyx+".

I agree with Estelle Pienaar here – the profile feed (with snapshots from within SL) doesn’t get much play, but when I’ve used it or interacted with other residents, it’s been a lot of fun.

via Second Life Play Instinct: The SL Profile Feed – Linden Labs unexplored "Shared Creative Space"

As part of my New Year’s resolution to get back up to speed, I’m going to be using my profile feed more, and playing around with narrative, too.

Second Life Christmas Expo – Music Today (all proceeds benefit Relay for Life)

Posted on by December 11, 2012
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I got a group message from one of my Steelhead compatriots, Fuzzball Ortega, that he had a DJ gig going on T1 Radio at the Second Life Christmas Expo until 11am SLT.

I had some time in the middle of the day, so off I went to check it out before having to get back to work:

TUESDAY – 12/11 – All Today’s Music Sponsored by T1 Radio!
9 – 11am: DJ Fuzzball Ortega of T1 Radio
11- 1 pm: DJ Mark Attenborough – the Voice of Second Life
1 – 4pm: DJ Vic Mornington of T1 Radio
5 – 7pm: T1Radio.. Rockin the 80s w/ Dee Wolfe

Via the Entertainment | SL’s Christmas Expo

It looks like another Steelheader, Victor1st Mornington, has a set later today, so I’ll listen via the T1 stream. There’s donation kiosks by the dance area, and also a vendor for the 40-track RFLSL Christmas CD.

I couldn’t do more than dance a little and drop some Lindens in the donation kiosk; I was in a tiny AV with a slightly balky Tiny AO that tends to stop and start every time I move the camera. I wonder… maybe it could go in the onboard AO set in Firestorm, but I don’t know if it’s possible. Besides which, my tiny dances are no-copy, so I don’t want to mess with them now that I’ve got the HUD set up. It’s just my old Wynx Siamese Kitty prim AV, which I have a lot of affection for (although I don’t wear it often enough).

As so often happens, a new person dropped in (the event may be listed in the Destination Guide, it’s hard to say) and of course it was the classic “just born today” interaction. He had no idea how to move, how to turn on the music stream so he could hear what we were listening to, no idea how to use the standard dance animations in his library inventory, and said “What is the point of this game?” and quit. He mentioned that he’d seen something on YouTube that made him want to try SL out.

We tried to interact with him – greeted him, asked him if he could hear the music, talk about the Relay for Life charity, but he couldn’t figure out how to do that, either. It’s all on account of the very poor job SL is doing of “orientation.” Also – it’s kind of hard to tell a new person how to find stuff in the official SL viewer when so many of us “oldbie” Residents use a third party viewer. So maybe that’s on us, too.

I’ll keep my stream on T1 for now while I work. It makes the time pass pleasantly.

Are Digital Games Art? Are Immersive Virtual Worlds Art? The Guardian’s Jonathan Jones Thinks Not #ArtOrNotArt #SecondLife

Posted on by December 1, 2012
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I just ran across this, will have to drop it off at SLUniverse and see what develops.

I first encountered this trope of the inappropriate elder’s interest in the newest games a few years ago at a philosophy conference in Oxford University (I was an interloper in those hallowed groves). An aesthetician – a philosopher who specialises in aesthetics – gave a talk on his research into games. He defended them as serious works of art. The art of games, he argued, if I understood him right, lies in their interactive dimension and liberation of shared authorship. But he never answered the question: what was a professor doing playing all these games?

Now the Museum of Modern Art in New York is up to the same manouevre. MoMA has announced that it is to collect and exhibit games from Pong to Minecraft. So, the same museum that owns such great works of art as Ma Jolie by Picasso, Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh and Vir Heroicus Sublimis by Barnett Newman is also to own SimCity, Portal and Dwarf Fortress.

MoMA claims these games belong in its collection because they are art. Really? Is that so?

via Sorry MoMA, video games are not art | Art and design | guardian.co.uk

Really? Is that so? I’m no artist, but I think there’ s some pretty artistic stuff going on in Second Life, though Jonathan Jones will pooh-pooh the idea. The Guardian article posted a companion gallery of images from or for the exhibition, but didn’t bother to include any images from Second Life as examples of digital-game or immersive-world art. They did include shots from Sim City, EVE-Online, Myst, The Sims, and Portal along with other game screenshots.

I don’t know, but I’ve experienced some pretty breathtaking sights and images in Second Life. Is it art, when it’s a collaboration of the original creator, and a photographer tweaking light and atmosphere settings?

Future Communities Yoke Nuitze

Future Communities, by Yoke Nuitze, on Flickr

You tell me.

I’ve uploaded a set of “arty” photos from Second Life to a set called “Art or Not Art?” on Flickr, and I’d appreciate any comments. They’re just a small selection – but of course a bunch are from my home community, Steelhead. And many are my attempts to document immersive art installations from various Second Life Birthday celebrations.

Through the Filter of a Victorian Aesthetic: Swing Dance at The Seraph Club

Posted on by December 1, 2012
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Radio Riel Swing Dance at The Seraph Club

Two hours of Swing Revival, Jazz and a little Electro-swing, as only Edward Pearse can do. Friday night 30th November 7:00 – 9:00pm SLT http://slurl.com/secondlife/Seraph%20City/64/80/106/

Link: Through the Filter of a Victorian Aesthetic: Swing Dance at The Seraph Club

UPDATE: This was a really enjoyable event; I went dressed in a kind of gun-moll outfit and wore my Thadovian Man-Melter pistol (non-lethal) on my thigh. I also was at Cafe Wellstone listening to a comedy podcast, at Toot Toot’s Carolina Pub listening to a great set of tunes all about whistling, and ended up at Steelhead’s Friday night dance, which was a simple theme of “Black Friday” (a week late). So since my “swing dance/gun moll” dress had a lot of dramatic black and coral in it, I added some shopping bags and a hatbox and went as a belated shopper. Another great set of music curated by Fuzzball Ortega, we about maxed out the sim. Sorry, there are no photos – everyone was in black so it would have been hard to photograph.