I have read online comics before, but this is ridiculously sensational.
‘Nawlz is an experiment in interactive story telling.’ But it is also beautiful, innovative, moving, and the artwork is phenomenal, somewhere between hewlett and Mr Jago with just a dash of DC. I’m hooked, so stunning it is. And while reading it, it is difficult not to comprehend that this is what story telling will become in the future, an astonishing composition of sounds, words, pictures, movement, one that grows and breathes with you.
Props are due to creator/illustrator/writer and programmer Sutu, Wayne Harris of Phosphor Studios and all the sound magicians who devise the phenomenal soundtrack. Tap it. You won’t be disappointed.
mmm-mmm. My favourite things. And brought to you by the letter M.
We have completed!! I would say we have conquered, but I am not quite convinced we have come that far. Still, we have miraculously managed (all about the mmmm I tell you) to edit, finish and compress our tiny film. You can watch it above (be forgiving on quality, as this has been compressed for the mobile phone size), or locate it in Second Life here (coordinates: 238, 87, 25), or on the pool here.
If you prefer, you can also download the video here, with slightly better sound and picture, and you can also download the .3gp version here.
While it is not the most sophisticated work, it is our exploratory journey of a completely new genre and media, constrained by extensive time and skill limitations. And yet we produced something, which is always some kind of wonderful.
Please enjoy (even if you don’t, please try) and I look forward to repo-ing my blog very soon. It’s been real, university. Adios.
oh, the perils, the pain, the pure pleasures of group work. Now that we are closing on the semester, I shall reflect upon my final group assignment for this subject, for my entire degree in fact, and hopefully can provide some insight into the experience and what I have taken away from it.
Group work is such a delicate flower. Nurture it, and it will grow. Ignore it, and it will quickly fade. Burn the ground where it is planted, and it is unlikely to ever grow again. I have had a difficult last couple of weeks, as, unluckily for me, three of four of my subjects have had extensive group projects as final assignments. Trying to negotiate the numerous meetings, productions, reworkings and finalisations of assignments has been exhausting to say the least, and some have left a bitter taste in my mouth, inevitably having an influence on others. It is not that I dislike group work - I have had some amazing collaborative experiences - but it takes only one where you are left to do the work of an entire group to leave you less inclined to give yourself over to the next.
Group work in Integrated Media has been tricky. The project has been challenging, and has had different levels of engagement from all parties. Two members of the group, including myself, are here by choice - this is not a compulsory subject, while it is for media students. The same two of us are also graduating, and for me that has meant trying to do my absolute best to get the best marks I can on my way out of university. But other members of the group have other priorities, and Integrated Media and machinima isn’t necessarily one of them. Attempting to hold together other groups in subjects where their enthusiasm is more focussed can distract and deter, not to mention the numerous external influences that we all have to manage while trying to coordinate around each other as we try to master new skills and produce a polished finished piece that we are all happy with.
We are often told that group work is thrust upon us as students as rehearsal for ‘what goes on in the real world’. Of course, in the real world you are not trying to negotiate your time between three other subjects simultaneously, and in the real world most people you work with will be there because they want to be, not because they have to. At the same time, in the real world it is inevitable that you will also work with colleagues who will prioritise differently to you, who will care more or less, who will have different work ethics. You will, at some stage, work with people who are (as one tutor so eloquently put it) ‘downright lazy bastards’, and so the trick is not to focus on the negative, but how you can learn to navigate even the most challenging of these situations.
Group work in Integrated Media has taught me many things this semester. It is an excellent exercise in diplomacy, in sharing of ideas and concerns - learning to speak up - and it can be a hell of a lot of fun. The rewarding sensation of having the synergy to create something better than you yourself could do on your own is fabulous. At the same time, it has taught me to let go of my somewhat rigid ideals, to learn to compromise, and to just relax. It is not the end of the world if it doesn’t go my way, although I like to stamp my foot and frown as if it is.
It is such a delicate balance between compromise and tenacity, between compliancy and being adamant, persistent in your ideas. Give and take. Involving yourself in such collaboration can teach you eons about what is important to you - and more vitally, what really matters. I want so bad to control my space, to control the outcome of everything, to CONTROL THE WORLD, yet I learn also that I am sometimes too diplomatic, too quiet, too afraid of confrontation and compromise.
I am learning, through group work, that alternatives are possible, and that everything doesn’t need to be perfect. That nothing can ever be perfect, no matter how much of a perfectionist you are. I am learning to let go. If I love my values, my ideas, I must set them free.
Yes, I am a slow learner, but an attentive one. I look forward to my next collaboration. This time in the real world.
As I discussed in this earlier post, companies had been embracing second life as an environment where they could further market and promote their products to virtual consumers. While it wasn’t necessarily a way to generate revenue, it did offer a huge opportunity to create brand awareness and brand recognition, and to engage the realm of Second Lifers who were engaging with the virtual world. In a world no longer limited by time, boundaries, language or cost, it provided the perfect opportunity to reach a whole new demographic of consumers. But it seems Australians are not interested.
Unbeknownst to me, Tourism Victoria had built their own environment, a replica of the popular lanes district in Melbourne, as an attempt to attract visitors to explore the city of Melbourne. After witnessing a decline in popularity in the use of Second Life in the last 9 months, however, they have decided to pull the plug. While the investment wasn’t costly, it was no longer worth the investment of time and effort, considering there were only ‘a few hundred’ Australians using Second Life at any one time. It looked fantastic, check it out.
Perhaps not necessarily the fact that Australian’s are ‘over’ second life, but maybe more that the uptake of applications like Facebook have distracted the target audience from engaging with it?? I know that the general consensus from participants in this subject seemed to be that Second Life seemed a little ‘passe’, a little dating and even a bit cringe-worthy. There was talk of ‘nothing happening’ in Second Life. In experiencing it, it quickly becomes clear that it is not actually a game, but a virtual world, one in which you have to drive the narrative yourself, by exploring, building, engaging and actually working at it. This is something that not only alienates traditional gamers, but also might have grown tiresome for the digital natives of Gen Y, who are fickle and of short attention span.
There is talk of life being injected into the game again if it affiliated with another online marketing tool, say ebay, but for the moment it will be interesting to see whether Second Life retains its momentum and its appeal to younger up-and coming generations. Perhaps it is just Australia that is experiencing this apathy towards it…
It still provides an excellent platform to explore Machinima, however, and a cost-effective way to produce beautiful media, should you be so inclined. While I don’t doubt machinima will continue to grow in popularity as an efficient and effective cinematic production tool, perhaps more sophisticated engines than Second Life will take precedence. Watch this space.
Last night, at 2am as I lay awake in bed, I rewrote my script for the machinima. It was beautiful, (as things tend to be at 2am in the morning). Of course, upon awakening I couldn’t remember it, but this is my reworking from what I recall. I am trying to create a more poetic feel, a bit more evocative and moving, as I have such a short space of time to say it in.
“the city was noisy for such a lonely place.
thousands of people clustered together, strangers living just metres from each other. Once, someone abandoned their bike in my street where it sat for months, rusting sadly, until it was collected by the garbage men.”
When we talk about new media, we talk a lot about collaboration, about sharing and building together. It’s a new creative space, one that lends itself to remix culture. It is democratisation of the media, creating a whole new world offering the opportunity to improve upon, change, integrate, or otherwise remix the work of others. With new media, the increasing ubiquity of the network, the chance to share, to rework and to collaborate ideas and visions is no longer limited by cost, space and time.
Online creations can be shared immediately, instantaneously, and their digital format allows such data to be presented, copied, modified and transmitted with just the click of a mouse button. The network capabilities of the internet allow for vast accessibility, leading to vast involvement and, if we were to be idealistic, vast synergy - an environment where the whole truly is greater than the sum of its parts. With such a resource at our fingertips, such a complex relationship developing between previously unknown parties, it seems inevitable that at best synergy will occur, and at the least we will see an emergence of the finest media. It is like the whole world is having a conversation, and not only are you having a say in it, but you can choose which bits you think are most deserving of your attention.
The very nature of the internet, its conversational qualities and huge web of networks, lends itself beautifully to an environment of collaboration - of sharing, copying, remixxing, reworking. While this creates a nightmare for copyrighters, it also signifies a new era for media production. We are no longer just consumers of media, we are prosumers - consumers who also produce media - and we are demanding to be heard. And we are not the rich, the elite, the trained and the qualified. We are the public, the average, the unskilled but the passionate, and we are creating the media of tomorrow.
Second Life is one example of our attempts at collaboration - the idea of a world created and modified by all those who exist within it. ‘Existing’ in Second Life has offered us the opportunity to explore some of the benefits, and the disadvantages, that online collaboration offers. Together we have built far more than any of us could have on our own, and in addition we have learnt from each others work and have been inspired by others’ creations. The space (as I have mentioned before) is a safe one, one in which we can explore the possibilities of collaborating in an online environment, with the freedom to do it in our own time, in our own space, from anywhere. But it can also be threatening….surrendering your Second Life-long work to the mercy of others can leave you feeling slightly vulnerable.
Using the web to collaborate can work in a variety of different ways, but its power is undeniable. You might want to arrange a public event or spectacle, and can use the power of the internet to organise, orchestrate and then record and distribute, such as these outstanding flash mobs. More technically, you can use the combined power of your resources. Projects that utilise distributed computing, such as Folding@home, use the network to access the collective computing power of thousands of computers all over the world, which they can then use to calculate anything from a cure to Alzheimer’s disease to the whereabouts of extra terrestrial beings. Then there is online media collaboration, which can range from collaborative blogs and wikis, such as lolcats or wikipedia, through to the more serious and sophisticated productions, such as open source programing and new and revolutionary collaborative media productions, such as swarm of angels, an outstanding exercise in remixing cinema.
Now this is where it starts getting interesting… where we start to see media created, used and shared in ways we have never seen before. The amount of information out there is vast and ever-increasing, and as a result, from online collaboration so too has spawned an environment of emergence. With so many parties involved in creating, selecting, sharing and choosing the media available, we begin to see an emergent media culture arise - one in which the best quality productions, those with the most currency, the most influence, will emerge on top. The organic spread of viral videos and the continuing ability of wikipedia to remain astoundingly accurate are both examples of emergent media - the ability for the highest quality media to rise to the top of the heap.
There are many tributes to this, to the amazing changes the net has brought about in collaborating. This video puts it quite nicely…
Now, in this new creative space, it’s time to start seriously considering copyleft, a new concept in sharing, developing and producing our ideas.
People [and their productions] can have many different goals and values; fame, profit, love, survival, fun, and freedom, are just some of the goals that a good person might have. When the goal is to help others as well as oneself, we call that idealism.
Think about it. It’s an exciting time to start sharing. And this is what’s so exciting about new media, and the collaboration it brings.
There have been numerous philosophical issues that have arisen during the building of our Second Life set, it’s just that I have been so busy building that I seem to have forgotten what they are… I’ve touched on a few of them when discussing the differences between my own street and my second life street - a pertinent comparison, as in building I endeavoured to model my Second Life street closely on my real street. In doing so I carefully considered aspects of my controlled, social space in comparison to the limitless spatial possibilities available when shaping a virtual street.
In a way, the Second Life environment began as quite threatening and alienating. I didn’t really like that I could terraform the land with the touch of the mouse, that I could ‘build’ a tree, that people could move and manipulate my objects, and mostly I didn’t like the concept of blocks floating in the air. That didn’t fly with me at all. If this was my Second Life, why was everything so uncontrollable? It lacked the order, the stability, the normality, the banality of the real world. A creature of habit and routine am I.
But over the course of building, my attitude changed, and the philosophical challenges became benefits, attributes to the experience. Terraforming the land and the ability to build, copy and modify (described to me by a seasoned SL inhabitant as the key functions of Second Life) meant responsibility, but also freedom, sharing objects meant letting go of my controlling side and learning that collaboration can mean incredible synergy, and floating blocks in the sky…. well, i still grapple slightly with this, but have also learnt to tolerate it.
Ethically, Second Life is an excellent sounding ground. It is about people, places and experiences, and although we have practiced our time there in a relatively controlled environment, it is easy to be aware of the limitations, the challenges and the possibilities. More experienced SL’rs would have a different relationship to the space than I do - more time inhabiting the virtual space would allow for a more engaged response and a different perspective… To me my set was just a street I built in a computer game, but to another inhabitant it is an new environment, unexplored territory, a potential demonstration of values and ideals.
Building the set in Second Life forced me to consider some of my own spatial relationships, my perception of space and narrative. What did a space mean to me? What did it have to look like to convey the sensations I wanted it to? Why did I choose a conventional environment, rather than a castle in the sky? While some of the perimeters set responded to the brief, others were personal - my own preference of order and stability. But this is all about learning to relate to space and narrative, representation and communication, in a completely new and different environment. This video introduces it nicely:
It’s only as i dig deeper and deeper into machinima, and start understanding what can make it amazing, that I am learning to treat the space in Second Life in a different way, view it differently, see it from another angle. It is the capability of machinima to use these environments in imaginative and innovative ways that is exciting - the reworking of existing characters and spaces to create new and unprecedented narrative devices.
We talk about remediation; understanding the relationship between old and new media. I think this is similar in a sense to learning to understand the relationship between old (actual, traditional, conventional) and new (virtual) space. Only after understanding and practicing this virtual space can we break away from conventions, utilise it innovatively and effectively, and produce fantastic and amazing media. Recognising the limitations of real space allows us to recognise the limitless possibilities of the virtual world.
I’ve already posted about Ignis Solus, a machinima that inherently changed the way I considered the genre. Yesterday guest lecturer Leo Berkeley came and discussed machinima with us further. As he spoke about why he liked it, why it intrigued him, I felt more and more excited by the possibilities it presented…
It’s fascinating how machinima evolved - from gamers wanting to be able to record their gaming accomplishments to people using the engines in amazingly innovative ways to produce sophisticated cinematic experiences.
Anyone can do it. Use the capabilities (or powers, as I like to call them) of these games to fulfill your wildest fantasies… Your characters can be anywhere, do anything. Shape environments and situations to cater to your every whim. For you are the most powerful person in the world. And that, my friend, is exciting.
You will have to excuse my rather study-centric posts at the moment. I tend to put on my academic speak when I respond to course readings and assessments, and so feel like I lose my voice somewhat. It all gets very serious and formal :yawn:. This will hopefully be the last of these type of posts, as I reflect on a final prescribed reading, Walking in the City by Michel de Certeau.
Certeau’s piece, written in 1980, is a study of everyday life in the context of the city, and, more poignantly, the streets which we inhabit and traverse in our day to day existence. In examining the city from different viewpoints, angles and representations, Certeau demonstrates how its attributes - repetition, control, boundaries - become semiotics of this ‘everyday life’, a bureaucratic society of controlled consumption, one that is both extraordinary and extraordinary simultaneously. The modern street, as a representation of public space, develops social codes to manage social encounters and make the city function and create a ‘civil behaviour’.
In thinking about the city and its streets, we may recognise them as a ‘text’ that can be both read and practiced, but one that is only activated when this occurs - when it is inhabited, used, travelled. Space becomes a practiced place, one that is socially constructed by both physical and social boundaries, in which walking becomes a metaphor, a ’spatial creation’ referring to an external environment. The very angle from which we view these streets defines our relationship with them. A view from above allows you to see all, a view of the whole that gives a sense of mastery, control over the space; it is a feeling of power. On the other hand, viewed from street level the representation of the city alters drastically, overflowing with the multiplicity of different individuals, a close up view of the millions of fragments that comprise the city. The very view itself allows for different types of production of social space, and this in turn activates the the urban space in different ways. How, we might ask when considering different representations of a city, is a space occupied, practiced, lived?
These themes are very interesting when contextualised in a spatial environment such as Second Life, one in which we have the power not only to view from a vast array of angles (literally a birdseye view or from street level) but also the power to produce, control and inhabit a social space. While Second Life is devoid of some of the limitations of normal space, so too does is it constrained by some of the same limitations. The most obvious of these is the need to be inhabited, practiced, in order to mean anything, to actually exist. Without participants, Second Life itself is quite literally non-existent, meaningless without social interaction to give it currency.
At the same time, other limitations still apply, although can be circumvented in the context of a virtual environment. Virtual reality = virtual rules, one might say, and so we have demonstrations of rebellion, anarchy even, that, while impossible in the real world, become quite feasible in a virtual world. The ability to steal, hack, modify and ‘grief‘ without retribution can only be accomplished in a constructed, carefully contained space such as virtual reality. In this way, Second Life itself becomes no more than a representation of social space - a birdseye view over which each user ultimately has control and power. It is a safe and wonderful place to be, and preferable to the comparitive wild uncontrollability of the real life city street.
Our very view of a space can define the way we feel about it. From afar, from above, we fulfill the role of voyeur allowing us to create a whole other definition of spatiality. In describing the viewer’s sensations, Certeau puts it beautifully:
It places him at a distance. It changes an enchanting world into text. It allows him to read it; to become a solar Eye, a god’s regard. The exaltation of a scopic or gnostic drive. Just to be this seeing point creates the fiction of knowledge.
The ability to utilise this voyeuristic power in Second Life - a secluded, separate, detached, alleviated view of the city - allows the empowerment of an objective perspective uninfluenced by the practices and processes of the ‘everyday’ of our real life streets. In Second Life we are able to create an ‘original spatial structure’, one influenced only by our own narrative and imagination.
Not only can we create our dream street, our ideal social space, but we can inhabit it too. The only limitations are ourselves. Oh, and in my case, the power of my CPU.
City from above (aka could I be god??)
Courtesy of Dom Dada
The qualities of space found in a virtual world such as Second Life are increasingly echoed in our everyday real life. If you consider the capabilities you have in Second Life - being able to fly and teleport, increase land space and terraform, and transcend cultural and political boundaries - we are seeing exactly these qualities mirrored in our own lives, through the process of rapid globalisation and technological advancement. Second Life essentially presents its world as one global village, and as Dalby discusses, parallels exist in the real world, in both a geographical, economical and social context:
“Given the accelerating links between the major urban centres of the world economy, the so-called global cities, it may now be more helpful to consider matters in the terms of one global city. …the degree of interconnection of global markets, the ubiquity of the cleverly named VISA cards, and the worldwide interconnection of airline schedules suggests at least an embryonic single system. …Understood as the global city, the whole planet becomes an interconnected hinterland.”
With its network capabilities and its very representation of space, this is exactly the situation that Second Life is emulating. And in turn, rapid globalisation means that real life is becoming more and more like Second Life, as barriers that previously divided and segregated social and physical spaces - barriers such as geography, communication and accessibility - are increasingly overcome. Second Life in a way presents a representation of a kind of utopian and ideological society, but one that is actually being realised. Dalby points out the potential use of science fiction as a tool for
“critical reflection on the cultural assumptions about nature that modern geography has taken for granted for so long…. Science fiction offers ways of reflecting on such possibilities precisely because it so effectively facilitates a critique of the ontological categories of modern culture and in the process raises questions of how to think rethink environmental geopolitics.”
Second Life, as a virtual world with its capabilities of networked technology, can be used in a similar fashion to science fiction to allow us this rethinking of space. Just in the way we are able to redesign our environment, our cultural and social limitations in Second Life, we are witnessing exactly this in the modern world. A space like Second Life, the concepts it provides, can therefore be a powerful reflective tool when considering social, cultural and geographical issues. Then translating it to a very product of the networked world - mobile phones - adds a whole new element of transcending spatial limitations. Mobility, immediacy and reach must all be considered, and again echo conceptual elements seen in Second Life. But more on the translation to mobile content another time.
Second Life:
…and Real Life:
Note the uncanny resemblance?? Except that the possibility of me buying a Mercedes Benz is much much higher in one of these locations. I’ll let you guess which one.
