Maya's installation at her Bluestocking Gallery: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Tigerclaw/236/175/5

I’m a Maya Paris fan.  What can I say — I’m a sucker for art that is quirky, provocative and humorous.   Maya’s work is certainly that.

She’s got an extraordinarily good eye, and she understands what 3-D immersive art is all about. The most immersive art implicates the viewer; it moves, changes colour, makes noise, or plays music.  It may also talk to you when clicked, or even animate your avatar.  Maya’s latest show has art that does just that; click it, and your avatar enters the “painting” to do somersaults.  I loved being part of the artwork.

I discovered Maya’s work on International Women’s Day.  Here’s a picture of me and a friend exploring her installation on the Veparellas, hosted in Second Life by Santa Barbara City College (that’s me on the left).

 

Now, for those of you who don’t know, the Veparellas are superbeings unleashed in a freak sewing accident.  They have special powers: they can run with scissors.  You, too, can be a Veparella if you visit Maya’s site.   Stop at the entry point and get your instructions on how to view the installation, along with your own nifty costume. You must wear your Veparella kit to really appreciate this site; I still wear the socks, they go great with  roller skates.

Music is always important in Maya’s work, but the music at the Veparella exhibit is particularly well chosen.   If you don’t hear music when you get there, be sure to turn on your media stream  (for viewer 2, at the very top right-hand corner)  Composed by March Macbain, the music is a perfect accompaniment to the installation; it really makes you want to misbehave.  I’d love to hear more from this composer.

If you haven’t explored 3-D art, now is your chance.  If you’re a newcomer to virtual worlds you should practice walking around a bit before you visit, but the worst that can happen to you is that you trip over those rather extraordinary shoes.  Or you can just ride around on a flaming broomstick, thoughtfully provided by Maya.

Well, off you go — here’s the link: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SBCC/107/80/1801 (as of June 2011).  I’m not going to tell you too much about what you’ll find there, it would spoil the surprise.  Beware of the dancing apple, watch out for falling bones, and don’t drink too much vin Pique de Dard!

AAUW Women's Community Project

The AAUW Women’s Community Project held an event in Second Life this month, a talk by Millay Freschi on RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan.   RAWA is now over 30 years old, and was founded as an independent social and political organization fighting for human rights and social justice.  They are committed to a free, independent, democratic and secular Afghanistan, and do a great deal of difficult work in women’s education and healthcare.

After the talk Trill Zapatero led a tour to the  Afghanistan Museum.  Trill built the museum in support of RAWA and all donations go to support their work.  We  spent quite some time learning about the geography, history and culture of Afghanistan, beginning with the RAWA exhibit, which really has to be seen to be appreciated.

We often hear that learning in a virtual space is contextualized and experiential.  The Afghanistan museum is a fine example of this kind of learning.  Standing outside the RAWA exhibit, my avatar had to keep her eye out for the snakes (Ellie HATES snakes).  What was most upsetting, though, was the drone surveillance plane circling above.  It was uncomfortable to be out in the open, not knowing what kind of virtual miscreant you might be mistaken for.  Ellie really wanted to get inside.

But getting inside isn’t easy, and that’s the whole point of the RAWA exhibit.  You must experience the need for shelter.  While you are looking for a way in, you learn what it is like for many Afghan women, who have no shelter.  It was a powerful experience.

Ellie and Trill make their way to the museum

I would recommend seeing the Afghanistan Museum before the RAWA exhibit, as it provides context, but because of the number of people taking the tour, we began with the RAWA exhibit, then moved to the Afghanistan museum.  The tour of the museum begins by knocking on the door (double click),  then clicking a magic carpet that will take you up to a house in the mountains.  There is also a mosque, but Ellie did not enter it;  it’s a mark of the immersive nature of this installation that she didn’t feel she was dressed properly, and as she didn’t have time to change, she decided to come another time.

The Afghanistan museum itself is not large, but there’s an amazing amount of content to see; expect to take your time as you go through.  The first room deals with the geography of the region; there’s nothing like standing next to a 3D map to put things in perspective.  Other exhibits are just as informative.  I was particularly interested to learn about the many different ethnic groups of Afghanistan.  There are also displays on everyday life in Afghanistan, music, and national dress.

It was a great tour, I know Ellie learned a great deal, and she even took the link to the Boho Hobo, Trill’s clothing store.  There are some wonderful Afghan-inspired clothes there, and all proceeds go to support girls’ education in Afghanistan.

“She Maketh Herself Coverings of Tapestry”:  Feminist Activism and Collaboration in Second Life

Feminism is an entire world view or gestalt,
not just a laundry list of women’s issues
– Charlotte Bunch

Second Life Left Unity Feminists antiviolence exhibit

The Second Life 7th Birthday celebrations were held this week, and there were many displays that caught my eye, but none that touched me as deeply as this exhibit.  Hosted by The SL Left Unity Feminist Network, who organized the Sixteen Days of Activism presentations in November of 2009.  The exhibit was supported by a network of SL antiviolence organizations, Four Bridges, Stop Violence Against Women, Amnesty International, Peace Train, Virtual Native Lands, Social Justice, Coalition of Women for Peace.  The group has been active in opposing images of violence against women in Second Life, and this presentation underscores their success in forging an association groups and concerned individuals who want to establish community standards in Second Life.

The tapestry at the centre of the display details the many successful events, exhibits and presentations that were held in November and December of last year, reminding those of us who needed to be reminded that virtual worlds are no refuge from the violence women often face in our society.

As I stopped to look at the tapestry, I thought about the value of Second Life activism, or  “slactivism,” as it’s sometimes called.  Those who hold events, protests and demonstrations in Second Life are sometimes criticized for their actions, and told to “get a life.”   I think this is a very short-sighted attitude; as our community grows, we are more than ever aware that virtual worlds are connected to the actual world.  What goes on here reflects what goes on in our everyday lives, and sometimes it can have a profound influence on us.

Second Life is a ludic society.  It gives us a space that approximates the actual world, and it allows us to explore, test, and play with it.   It shouldn’t be surprising that there are people experimenting with activism here.    A virtual space is a safe place for people to voice their opinion and try out new ideas.  Participants can work out in a virtual space things that might not be possible in a physical one; they can even do things that are  inadvisable in a physical space.  They can make mistakes, and learn from those mistakes.  Most of all, their activism requires those who witness it to reflect on its message in a visceral way, a way that is intimately connected to their actual, corporeal reality.

Memorial for the Montreal Massacre

I did spend a quiet moment at the SLLU Feminist memorial for the Montreal Massacre,  commemorating December 6, 1989, when a gunman systematically killed fourteen women at the Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal because he believed they were feminists.

The memorial is very simple, and because it is set off from the rest of the sim by a brick wall, it was a very peaceful place for me to stop and reflect on an event that marked my own life very deeply.  I thought about the families of the young women who died, and about the virtual people who had visited this memorial before me.  I watched the candles flicker, and didn’t feel that I was “playing” at showing respect for those young women.

A virtual space privileges the symbolic, and can provide a focus for looking a what is really important.  Because the space is immersive, it can keep the bustle of everyday life at bay, allowing us the time to stop, breathe, and perhaps understand things a little better.

“She Maketh Herself Coverings of Tapestry” will be open until July 6.  To visit the exhibit, you can download the Second Life client here, then click this link to visit: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SL7B%20Phenomenal/138/97/22

I’m wondering why I haven’t heard more about innovative cost-sharing in Second Life.  When I ask people about it, they usually tell me that cost sharing is accomplished through subletting land at a reasonable price.  This is often seen as a solution for  institutions who are new to Second Life,  it allows them to explore their options with little long-term commitment.  The New Media Consortium does this; their rates aren’t the lowest, but they do provide a lot of extras (auditoriums, sandboxes, orientation spaces). Gavin Dudeney has sublet land for years now at the Edunation Archipelago.   He rents to institutions and individuals, providing the newcomers with a home base, as well as a community of supportive neighbours .  There are quite a number of other people who do this, too.

Subletting is a good idea if you are new and like the community support, but it’s not the only model for cost sharing.  Ellie Brewster, my avatar, was wandering around Second Life the other day, and she stumbled upon Island 18 & The Strand, which is a good example of what I’m talking about.  Ellie, as you may know, is a somewhat reckless and foolhardy avatar. She probably should have asked for an invitation, as this project is under construction,  but she poked around these sims anyway.  It looks like a great project, a collaboration between the University of Adelaide, Murdoch University and Illinois State University.  There’s a lot of good building, particularly the 18th century town that’s at the centre of Island 18.

What is so completely brilliant about this project is the idea of sharing with someone from a radically different time zone.  Your students are using it while theirs are sleeping, and it’s really easy for students to work on collaborative projects during the “twilight times.”  Unlike most educational sims, which must concern themselves with publicizing the university that paid for the sim (we’ve all got to please the Administration), this sim is themed to the discipline, which makes it eminently shareable. If you know anyone else who is doing this kind of cost-sharing, let me know.

A third strategy for cost sharing is to utilize the open nature of virtual worlds.  When we first arrive in Second Life, teachers often dream of doing something really ambitious, but we soon learn that a faithful reproduction of the Great Wall of China or a full-cast roleplay of the Wars of the Roses is going to cost us a lot of time, to say nothing of the institutional cash we’ll have to win with grant proposals. That’s why it’s wonderful that there are so many generous teachers in SL who allow their work to be used by others.  Ellie has found a lot in Second Life that connects with her Women’s Studies teaching.  She’s taken her students dancing at the Cotton Club in Virtual Harlem, where they explored issues in women’s history, her classes have toured virtual art galleries and museums to critique the way gender is presented, they’ve seen presentations on gender and identity by students at other universities, and they’ve visited the Virtual Hallucinations Lab and partied at Wheelies to learn about inclusiveness.  All of this was possible because builders generously leave their sims open to visitors.

Leaving our work open to students from other universities costs us nothing, and if our work is useful to others it can give our reputation a boost.  It also promotes social learning among students and allows them to communicate across disciplines and political boundaries.  Seems to be a win-win situation.

There is another strategy that Ellie’s beginning to see in Second Life, and she’s undecided about whether it’s a positive one.   An example is the Theatron project, an archipelago of theatrical sims associated with The Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King’s College, London.

Ellie had mixed views about Theatron.  Some of it is incredibly primmy, with too much focus on detail and little attention to how avatars will really use the space.  But there are also some really well-made replicas and historical stage sets, with lots of room for avatar actors.  The sets are reserved ahead of time, and  called up by a holo-rezzer.  A teacher could just bring her class, rez the stage, and jump right into her lesson.  There would be no time spent on design, and reserving time on the sim would mean no waste in a teacher’s budget.

The advantages of a system like this are obvious, but there may be a downside.  If this model of sim usage becomes widespread, do we risk teaching in a standardized Second Life, producing a standardized educational product?   Will there be fewer quirky, individualist approaches to educational building?

Ellie likes quirky.  Individualist is OK with her.  So she’s not so sure she’s happy about this new approach to content.  On the one hand, many teachers either can’t build, they don’t want to, or they just don’t have the time.  On the other hand, the ability to create content in Second Life not only enriches what we teach, but can also provoke new insights for both teacher and student.  There is probably a middle ground to be found here, but isn’t there a danger that the increasing interest in virtual worlds will encourage for-profit content creators, and establish a less varied educational landscape?

self portrait in anticipation of the singularity

The Australian National Portrait Gallery in Canberra is presenting an exhibition on portraiture in a virtual setting.   I spent over an hour on  Portrait Island viewing the “doppelganger” exhibition;  that’s all the time I had, but it wasn’t enough.  There are just five exhibits, but each one takes a lot of time to explore.  I really recommend it, especially if you are working on identity and self-representation in Second Life.

I started with Patrick Lichty’s Code Portraits, which reference Andy Warhol’s “screentests” in the 1960′s.  Lichty made short machinima of friends and acquaintances who visited his Factory in Second Life, and catalogued them as a record of his Second Life, demonstrating how the lives of others intersect to form our own reality.   I was quite absorbed by this exhibit, although I would have preferred to see the videos within SL.  However, there were quite a number of them, and perhaps that wasn’t possible in the space available.

Cao Fei (SL China Tracy) presented her machinima exploration of Second Life, “iMirror,” both within SL and on a linked website.  I really liked the video, and would use it in my class, either as a field trip assignment or as a linked video for viewing outside of SL.  The video is a calm, reflective and somewhat moody montage of SL scenes that combine to form a portrait of Second Life society.

The iGods exhibit by Gazira Babeli was fun.  I don’t want to spoil it for you by telling you why, but if you are interested in the Seven Deadly Sins, DNA as code, or if you just have an inflated view of your own importance, you should see it.

The Autoscope exhibit is a collaborative project by Adam Nash, Christopher Dodds and Justin Clemens.  You are asked to type in a name on channel 1 and the programme then does some technological hocus-pocus, tracking that name in a number of databases, and presenting a completed link portrait of that person.  I would have liked to see that portrait within SL, but it is actually presented on the Autoscope page. (See Adam Nash’s thoughtful response to this passage, below.)

I did a search for Ellie Brewster, my avatar name, and sure enough, she gets a lot of hits.  But what was more interesting to me was to look at the archive of searches.  It seemed to me that people who used the Autoscope programme through the web searched for famous people: James Cameron, Barak Obama, etc.  However, people who searched from within Second Life seemed to be using avatar names — perhaps their own name, like I did?  If my observation is true, could SL people be more self-centered?  Are we more limited to our virtual space?  What does this say about Second Life and identity?

The last exhibit I saw was by Andrew Burrell (SL Nonnatus Korhonen), “temporary self portrait in preparation for the singularity.”   It was by far the most immersive of the exhibits, and I had the strongest reaction to it.  I definitely had the feeling of being “inside someone’s head.”  This can be an uncomfortable feeling.  It would be interesting to ask students to compare this exhibit with “iGods,” which has exactly the opposite effect on an avatar; “self-portrait” invites us to look within the other, and “iGods” playfully asks us to see ourselves from another’s point of view.

This exhibition runs until March 23, and they are proposing to use a section of the island as an open platform for work  identity and portraiture,  so this island promises to be an excellent space for research and study;  however, if you are thinking of bringing students to this exhibit, I’d be very careful with newbies, as there are a number of architectural jokes that will be frustrating for beginners, and there is very little signage to direct them in their explorations.

It was excellent.  Truly excellent.  The speakers’ notes are linked below.  The art exhibit will be on Minerva Beach until December 15, and the orientation area is usually open to the public.  Just follow the blue arrows.  To get to the conference site, open the SL client and click this link: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Minerva/67/229/28

Sheila Yoshikawa speaks on Information Literacy week in SL

Uthango Social Investments, Capetown South Africa
Dorette Steenkamp (Alanagh Recreant), Uthango Social Investments
http://bit.ly/Uthango

Four Bridges Project
Amy Cross, University of Maine Peace Studies (millay Freschi)
Founder Four Bridges Project, Virtual World Coordinator – Amnesty International
http://bit.ly/Four_Bridges

16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence
Ledoof Constantineau
http://bit.ly/16_days

Women with Disabilities
Jennifer Cole (JennyLin Arashi), GimpGirl
Katherine Mancuso (Muse Carmona),  GimpGirl
http://bit.ly/women_disabilities

Transitions — A Place for Dreams (Panel Discussion)
Panelists Buffy Bye (Buffy Beale), Joyce Bettencourt (Rhiannon Chatnoir),
Evonne Heyning (In Kenzo), Jessica Dally (Kali Idziak) and Sandra Andrews (Ozma Malibu)
http://bit.ly/VP2_transitions

The Power of Place: virtual habitat builds that engage people to appreciate,
understand and conserve natural habitats
Linda Kelley (Delia Lake)
http://bit.ly/VP2_place

Organizing Information Literacy Week in Second Life
Sheila Webber  (Sheila Yoshikawa)
Sheffield University, U.K.
http://bit.ly/information_literacy

Second Life and Cyborg Feminism
Mark McDayter (Ephraim Dalglish) and  Elan Paulson (Annelu Alsop)
The University of Western Ontario
http://bit.ly/cyborg_feminism

We’re getting ready for the second Virtual Praxis conference on November 21.  It’s unbelievable that a whole year has gone by since the first one, and we’re all a bit frantic about the approaching date. Ellie is going into visitor mode;  I keep telling her that dust doesn’t collect on prims, but she keeps on cleaning and rearranging things.

This time the papers will be spread out over two days, and on Saturday morning we will have an orientation reception for new residents.  We’re even planning a treasure hunt.

If you’d like to pitch in, we need volunteers to help with orientation, and a few people who could go along on the guided field trips.  Contact Ellie Brewster in-world if you have some extra time to help out.

The conference program is here: bit.ly/VirtualPraxis2

Last weekend was the Second Life College Fair, held on International Schools Island in Second Life.    Thanks to Rhonda Trueman/SL: Abbey Zenith, Tony Curtis/SL: Stone Semyorka, Chris Smith/SL:Shamblesguru Voom and Beth Kraemer/SL:Alice Burgess, who did a wonderful job of organizing it. This is the second year for the College Fair, and although people under 18 aren’t allowed to access SL, there are still a lot of people interested in taking courses.

We set up our exhibit on the main island.  Laura Seeger/SL:Tasie Allen from Continuing Education did most of the work on the display, and I think it turned out pretty well.  There’s a lot of information there, and it’s colourful and easily accessible.  I’ve put up an online beacon there, so if you have questions, I can meet with you if I’m online.

In this picture you can see Ellie, chained to a fence and demanding the vote (she’s such a showboat).  Tasie is in the background, and they’re both talking to a very nice young pilgrim from another university.  He said liked our freebies, although he didn’t actually wear the free suffragist hat. He tried on the OSU t-shirt, though.  Pilgims are very polite.

The exhibits will be up for another two weeks.  If you want to know more about Continuing Education at Ohio State, if you’d like to take a Women’s Studies class, or if you’re just interested in chaining yourself to a fence, please drop by.

SLurl to Ohio State’s booth at the College Fair.

This short video  seems to be proof that humans can be as silly as avatars:

Ed Webb sees this video as an illustration of “the pedagogy of fun.” Second Life teachers talk about this aspect of learning all the time; but as the comments on Ed’s blog show, there’s a lot to be examined here. This is, after all, an advertisement, and the case is overstated and under documented; we are not even told how long the experiment continued, or how successful it was over time (AnnMarie Cunningham).

Here’s what Ed said:

I think one could make a case that in the experiment shown in the ad people were manipulated rather than educated. If the numbers remained high after the novelty wore off, then we could speak about them being trained or conditioned. If, as a result of their exposure to this experiment, people self-consciously made changes in how they approached choices about whether to burn carbohydrates or hydrocarbons, then we are entering the domain of education.

I think Ed’s overlooking the real lesson here. The problem with the video is its expression of intent, seen in the opening frame: “Can we get more people to choose the stairs by making it more fun to do so?” I’d argue that the “pedagogy of fun” just doesn’t work with a behaviorist aim of making people do anything. If we changed the opening line to ask a different question, then this video becomes an example of a highly successful lesson: “Can we help people to see that life is full of possibilities, and that even the most mundane activity can be transformed by a different attitude? If you watch the faces of the people in the video as they reach the top of the stairs, I think you can see that the lesson has been learned.

Imagine what would happen if, when you started off every morning for your boring job at the Volkswagen car factory, this kind of experience awaited you every day. If play became a part of your city’s culture, would people be more open to alternate possibilities, would they be more liable to reflect on different ways of doing things, would they be more accepting of people from other cultures?

I suppose that kind of fun is too much to ask for in carbon-based cities, but it’s easily achieved in a virtual world. What is the carryover for students who spend three or four hours a week in Second Life? Will the pedagogy of virtual fun have beneficial side-effects in the actual world?

Thanks to Steven Downes for this link.

One of the most challenging things about Second Life teaching is that you are never completely in control. Students can use instant message as a background to a lecture, they can text chat during a lecture, or they can even “tune out” altogether by watching a You Tube video, or going for a sandwich. Ellie, my avatar, sometimes gets depressed about this, but I remind her that even in a real-life lecture, students can do all of these things; they’ll use their phones to text, they’ll talk in class, and they certainly “zone out” a lot.

The real difference between Second Life and actual life teaching is that the Second Life teacher is much more aware of how little attention students really pay us. The SL teacher spends more time thinking of ways to get around this by involving students in the work at hand; smaller autonomous groups work well, and any kind of tool that requires input or manipulation is usually very successful.

collaborative concept mapping

On Tuesday Ellie went to Jenette Forager’s weekly forum on SL tools (search for IMMERSION: tools.jam), where she found out about Salahzar Stenvaag’s new mapping tool. She tried it out in her class this week, and she’s pretty pleased with the results.

When rezzed, the tool offers a simple menu for building a concept map. What is truly brilliant about this tool is that any member of the group can add elements, move them, change their shape & colour, and even drop inventory into map components. Ellie’s just starting out with this group of newbie students, so participation was pretty rudimentary, but we finished with a complete map of feminist philosophies, accompanied by a short discussion of their characteristics. As the class learns more, this model can be modified and enlarged, and now that the students know how the tool works, they’ll be able to build maps independently

The theory of concept mapping has been a central topic in the in the Connectivity and Connective Knowledge course I’m following at the University of Manitoba. I’m coordinating the SL discussion group, and I’m looking forward to the next meeting, when we’ll be trying out Salazar’s new tool with more experienced avatars.