I'm simply blown away by "A Journey Into the Metaverse," a "mixed reality" video created by French filmmaker Tutsy Navarantha . He combines lush machinima footage shot in the virtual world of Second Life with equally surreal real life footage of India to create something completely new, unique and personal. I have been thinking about…
Category: Virtual Worlds
Virtual Worlds, Transgender Photos, and My Life as a Dancing Cyborg
Last Saturday I was involved in a really interesting conversation on the subject of "The Customizable Body: The Present / Future of Identity" at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. The featured speakers were Second Life founder Philip Rosedale and photographer Amos Mac, documents trans male lifestyles in his zine Original Plumbing. I love…
Kurzweil talks about the Singularity, Backing Up Your Brain and Second Life on Colbert
In case you missed it, renowned futurist Ray Kurzweil was recently on the Colbert Report, blowing our collective minds talking about mind-computer integration, virtual worlds that are indistinguishable from the real one, and computers in our bloodstream. All that in five minutes! And it's really funny too. The new documentary about Kurzweil, The Transcendant Man,…
Director of “When Strangers Click” and “Food, Inc” on Second Life Talk Show February 6
Robert Kenner, director of the documentary "Food, Inc" and the forthcoming "When Strangers Click" is being interviewed on the Second Life talk show "Tonight with Paisley Beebe" on Sunday February 6 at 6pm PST. The short film explores how people are connecting with each other on the Internet, whether it be on a dating…
“Real Virtuality”: the Museum of the Moving Image Pixellates Reality with Mixed Results
The Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, is one of those New York cultural treasures that I've been hearing about for years and years and just never got around to visiting. First off, it's in Queens, which is still somewhat opaque and mysterious to me. Secondly, uh, it's been a busy 15 years. And…
“When Strangers Click” Doc on Love in the Digital Age Premieres Valentines Day on HBO
I am happy to announce that the documentary "When Strangers Click" is going to be premiering on Valentines Day, February 14, 2011, on HBO. Directed by Robert Kenner, director of "Food Inc," the film explores how people are connecting with each other on the Internet, whether it be on a dating site, a message board…
“The Lifecycle of Software Objects”: Intriguing Free Novella about Digital Lifeforms and Virtual Worlds
"The Lifecycle of Software Objects" is a fun and thought-provoking novella that should captivate anyone who is interested in artificial intelligence, virtual worlds, or robots. A near fiction story by Ted Chiang about a young zookeeper who is hired to help develop a line of new digital pets in a virtual world. Things are going…
“Life 2.0” : A Flawed Documentary about the Seemier Side of the Metaverse
The documentary “Life 2.0” tells the stories of five people who find themselves drawn to the virtual world of Second Life for various reasons. All of their stories are compelling in their own ways, but as a whole piece I found “Life 2.0” to be somewhat formless and at worse lurid in its depictions of…
Teaching Kids about Mass Extinction and Capoeira
Today I had a group of Brooklyn high schoolers do research on the Permian-Triassic mass extinction 250 million years ago and then do a demo of capoeira for a group of Chicago teens over Skype. I have the best job in the world. More about my day here.
“Entanglement Theory”: a Mixed Reality Dance Film from Australia
Tateru Nino blogs about this fascinating mixed reality dance performance / film called "Entanglement Theory." Richard James Allen, Karen Pearlman and Gary Hayes collaborated on this dance multimedia piece that explores the lines between virtuality and reality. It's a very heady, spiritual work, as you can see from the synopsis: Drawing on a Yogic/Buddhist worldview, Entanglement…