Month: August 2006

I have to confess I’m moonlighting in another world. I’ve started working in the virtual world Second Life as an “embedded journalist”. SLATE Magazine (Second Life Arts & Total Entertainment Magazine) is a new Second Life magazine that covers the arts in SL. There are 14 authors in the collective so far and we’re a mixed bunch of artists, academics, writers, business people and designers. At present there isn’t much analysis of SL out there as most blogs provide essential but simple reportage on events with little reflection. We’re taking a different tack and hoping to provide not only interesting information about things to do for SL residents, but analysis on what we think is going on. And, in true SL style we have a virtual office building with desks (I don’t get that, but it is funny). Here is a pic of our boardroom created by the talented Dell and Anya:

 

 

We are also paid in Linden dollars (the inworld currency), we’ll be having frequent events and there was a big launch. I unfortunately was unable to attend the launch because my interstate flight was delayed. But here is a pic taken by the wonderful editor of SLATE Anya Ixchel:

There are more details and pics at Anya’s page and at her flickr. Anya/Angela Thomas is a respected academic who has been looking at literacy in SL, even running postgraduate classes in it. The event had live streaming music and was attended by the 40 who could get in. Many couldn’t get in and this will be changed for future events when the SIM allowance will be tweaked accordingly.

The Magazine is now online at http://www.slatenight.com/. It will be available inworld and in pdf format very soon. Advertising space is available too. My first article is: ‘A Commanding Conversation’ and is a continuation of the ideas discussed at WRT previously in this post on the poetics of keywords. In future articles I will be looking at how the gallery space and curatorial dynamics change in a virtual world and the writing and games specific to inside virtual spaces.

And IM me if you’re ever in SL, especially if you have some artwork, performance, book or game in SL. My SL name is Lythe Witte.

Reblogged at WRT

 

 

This is a reminder that the Perth DAC (7th International Digital Arts and Culture Conference) abstracts are due 28th August (I thought they were originally earlier?):

Papers are sought for PerthDAC 2007 that will illuminate both the near and long term Future of Digital Media Culture. Papers which present research outcomes, track trends or developments, describe case studies or works in progress, are speculative projection, challenge existing paradigms or record a history, are all welcome. Submissions are encouraged from any professional, craft or scholarly field that relates to communications art/design, cultural expression, practice and aesthetics, and the technical means by which they are enabled.

perthDAC 2007 accepts submissions from fields such as the humanities, social sciences, human-computer interaction and computer science studies, as well as those working both practically and theoretically in specific areas such as: digital/interactive art, digital/electronic literature, game studies, online communities, new media studies, affective computing, experience design, virtual environment design, etc.

Topics of interests may include, but are not limited to, computer games, hypertext theory and literature, new media narrative, streaming media, interactive and networked performance, digital aesthetics, interactive cinema, theory, art, bio-art, nano-art, augmented reality, cyberculture, electronic fiction, electronic music, electronic art, games culture, games system design, games theory, interactive architecture, cinema and video, MOOs, MUDs, RPG, virtual reality, virtual worlds.
Artists, early career scholars and PhD students are particularly encouraged to submit.

All abstracts and then full papers will be double blind peer reviewed by an international panel, and will be published in the proceedings. Some papers will be published as a special themed journal edition.

Dates for the submission of 500 word maximum abstracts and then full papers are:

Abstracts: 28th August 2006
Full papers: 11th December 2006

http://www.beap.org/dac/call.htm

Jeremy Douglass, my wonderful co-blogger at WRT, interviewed new media arts legend Nick Montfort for the current issue of the Iowa Review Web. Jane McGonigal, ARG researcher and designer, was also interviewed (by Scott Rettberg — another new media arts legend and guest editor for the issue).

Jane claims that players create Gesamtkunstwerk. I have cited Wagner’s ‘total work of art’ as a prefiguring notion of cross-media entertainment for a couple of years now. It is something academics and artists understand immediately when I use it to explain the use of multiple media platforms as an artwork. Indeed, I use in my latest paper. Jane, however, is claiming that digital games players create Gesamtkunstwerk (in terms of performance). Performance is Jane’s lens, just as mine is cross-media and cross-arts, and so I see how this relates. I disagree, however, that digital games are the form of Gesamtkunstwerk that Wagner was moving towards. ARGs on the other hand are very close, but there is another cross-media form that is much closer…

• Read Jeremy’s interview with Nick
• Read Scott’s interview with Jane