Archive for the 'Experimental' category
The Vastness of Vastpark - Halloween 2008 Video Fun
October 29, 2008 5:39 pmAnother Hazlitt machinima! Lucky to be invited into yet another new world Vastpark (who hail from Melbourne, Australia)…just down the road, although Melbournians hate Sydneysiders, alledgedly! Even through it is a closed beta demo (called Immersion2) with very limited ‘interactivity’ it gives a real sense of the potential of this new platform at least the look/feel and physics. I do like the general aesthetics of the place and of course the icing on the cake, those lovely dynamic shadows. It would have been good to be logged in as an avatar and actually check out the aspect that separates it from being ‘just a virtual space’ - but perhaps next time. For now I was inspired to do this quirky little machinima for Halloween as the demo is particularly scary…
A machinima by Gary Hazlitt in the new virtual world Vastpark
The music is by Gary Hayes performing live on his Salvi Julia (concert string spacing) Harp at the Contemporary Composers Festival run with the Royal Academy of Music in London a few years ago. There is added ambient mood and specialised sound effects using LogicStudio.
Filmed and Edited by Gary Hazlitt ©JustVirtual 2008
Medium rez (47MB MP4) download available here
For Vastpark enquiries contact Bruce Joy on bruce@vastpark.com
Film of the Virtual Pink Floyd ‘The Wall’ Show
August 25, 2008 4:38 pmI was asked by Debbie Trilling, the creative director of this show, to be the machinimatographer on the last two performances of Pink Floyd’s The Wall in Second Life recently. It was great listening to music I remember growing up with being performed by a passionate group of people from all over the world who recreated elements of the film, animated sequences and live show in one of Second Life’s most spectacular displays of creative coordination. It was created by The Cybernetic Art Research Project CARP.
There were audiences of 60+ crammed into the NMC sim which slowed things down a touch, but not noticeably (I was still getting 15 fps or so ). I have a lot of footage to edit into a short 10 minute and the longer full 90 minute film but for now I selectively scanned the footage for interesting frames and created 107 medium resolution photographs which capture a little of the atmosphere and thought put into this.
The performances have received rave reviews over the past few weeks and over 2000 avatars have now seen the show…
- “Amazing. Not so much viewed as it is experienced” ~ Metaverse Messenger
- “All I can say is WOW. GREAT show” ~ Second Arts
- “Nothing short of spectacular. A complete immersion” ~ Looking Glass
- “Impressive, touching and thoughtful. Second Life at its best” ~ MixedRealities
- “Never seen anything like it.20A perfect amalgamation of creativity” ~ sl-newspaper
- “Cutting edge art and performance” ~ NMC Observer
Stills (on this page and on flickr link here) - Taken from Gary Hazlitt’s Machinima of CARP’s “The Wall in Second Life” - video available soon. Stills medium ‘video’ resolution.
Production Credits
The CARP Wall Team:
- Creative Director: Debbie Trilling (UK)
- Producer: Velazquez Bonetto (Germany)
- Wall Design: Elfod Nemeth (UK)
- Animated Puppets: Duggy Bing (US)
- Animations: Caravaggio Bonetto (Austria)
- Original Music: Junivers Stockholm (Sweden) & Josina Burgess (Holland)
- Stills Photography: Adec Alexandria (UK)
- Dancing & Joyfulness: Klute Copploa (France), Southern Riptide (US)
with valuable contributions from:
- Scio Kamanchi (US)
- Gypsy Paz (US)
- Lyddyn Tzara (US)
- Celeste Moonlight (US)
- DJ Jenns (UK)
- George W B ush (US)
Hiding and Seeking in Second Life, Cyborg Style
March 23, 2008 12:45 pm
What to do on Easter Saturday afternoon? Why not create a quick “Cyborg questioning existance, looking for something and some meaning in her life” machinima. This idea came about from playing with one of the default characters in CT5 (Crazy Talk 5) and using various imported songs. I quickly made a spaceship so the ‘cyborg’ can be seen in full body, and in which I (the Golem Robot character on the right seat) can sit and drive around various sims. The lip sync character is a CT5 ‘auto lip-sync’ take against one of my long time ago ex students (now a fully fledged pop diva) Imogen Heap’s wonderful track “Hide and Seek” (I wanted something vocoderised, slightly robotic) although this goes a lot deeper thanks to Immi’s great words. Also the subtle head movements and eye positions were recorded in separate live takes withing CT5.
I needed three appropriate sims for the three phases of the song. Ones that had a sense of dawning, evolving and evolved - also that were off the ground, so the spaceship could move around, inside, under, over etc: Three sprang immediately to mind. Planet Mongo a space city (evolved - spelt wrong on video, not Mondo! sorry rush job ;-(), Svarga (dawning) and Deakin (that I built - evolving). The main process was a quick 5 hours but editing took about an hour longer than normal because of rendering, all those green screen shots (the head shots against the reversed Space Navigator backgrounds).
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A medium rez, stereo MP4 52MB version can be downloaded here
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Anyways hope you like this quick ’sketch’ - the following info is mostly duped from the YouTube description.
A machinima by Gary Hazlitt completed on easter Saturday afternoon 2008. The song ‘Hide and Seek’ is by Imogen Heap from the album ‘Speak for Yourself’.
Special thanks to the creators of Second Life sims Planet Mongo built by Lumiere Noir (spelt wrong on video sorry, rushed, not Mondo!) and Svarga built by Svarog Laukosargas. Deakin sim and spaceship for this video built/designed by Gary Hayes.
Lip sync animation created using Crazy Talk 5, green screened in Final Cut. The spaceship shots were filmed live in Second Life.
Avatanimation, machinimatography and editing (in the usual 5 hours total!) by Gary Hazlitt
A JustVirtual Production
© Gary Hazlitt 2008
DC Spensley’s SkyDancer’s “Second Spring” into Life
January 8, 2008 11:28 amAs official documenter/machinimatographer for the SkyDancers I was lucky to have been at the dress rehearsal and premier of this groundbreaking new show by DanCoyote’s troupe and created this trailer to help get those virtual bums on seats.
You can download a 15MB medium rez MP4 here. It was fantastic to experience this next generation performance and witness a new layer, a narrative across the three musical movements in addition to what has been visually more abstract in the past. Other exciting elements included the movement by the dancers around the volumous space triggering elements of the soundscape and the long prim cascades they are wearing integrating seamlessly with the more static set elements. A show well worth going to (if you can get tickets) and yes, I know, my little trailer and previous well received captures of the shows only gets half way there in terms of capturing the essence (see bottom of post)…but you who are not in this world are watching/reading this 
75 still photos on flickr here. Here is the official blurb
New Media Consortium (NMC) proudly presents:
DanCoyote’s ZeroG SkyDancers Third Production:
“Second Spring”.Second Spring is a completely LIVE story performance. SkyDancers perform in-flight choreography without the benefit of animations or gestures of any kind following cues given in REAL TIME on a private IM channel. DanCoyote “calls” the show to keep time with the score written and performed by ZeroOne Paz.
DanCoyote and Technical Director ZenMondo Wormser have pulled out all the stops this time and created the most dynamic stage set ever. Set pieces will evolve, vanish and change position as the story plays out.
Production Designer Queue Marlowe has created an incredible array of SkyDancer costumes called “cascades” that are change many times over the hour long show.
Set pieces have been created by venerable Second Life artists Jopsy Pendragon and Nand Nerd. Expect the unexpected!
To be our guest at this performance please send a message to DanCoyote Antonelli. DanCoyote will invite you to join the tickets group. Seating is very limited so only members of the tickets group will be admitted to the performance space.
Please contribute generously to the donation kiosk. A production of this quality and depth takes many hundreds of hours to prepare as well as tens of thousands of Linden dollars to produce. Suggested donation is $3000 Lindens with a sliding scale from $1000 up.
Cheers!
DanCoyote Antonelli, Producer Director, ZeroG SkyDancers
=========Press Release=========
For Immediate ReleaseNew Media Consortium Presents
ZeroG SkyDancers III - Virtual Flight ChoreographyPioneering Performing Arts Soar in the Metaverse - Again - Under the Direction of DanCoyote Antonelli
January 1, 2008, (Second Life) - Avatar DanCoyote Antonelli is accustomed to breaking new ground. Even in virtual worlds he is considered avant guarde. The real man controlling that avatar, DC Spensley, has been wowing virtual audiences since 2006 with art installations that would not be possible in real life, but perhaps the most coveted ticket in all of Second Life is one to a performance by his ZeroG SkyDancers. On January 6, 2008, the premiere of the highly anticipated, third, completely redesigned production of ZeroG SkyDancers will debut.
Second Life’s history making, critically acclaimed world performance group, the ZeroG SkyDancers is a new form of ensemble performance that uses the airspace of this virtual world, resulting in a cross between water ballet and aerial acrobatics, in ways that would not be possible in the physical world. Wearing spectacular, flowing costumes called cascades - that are many times larger than their avatars - the SkyDancers move through space, and become part of the stage themselves. Altering and evolving, their flight triggers audio samples, which provide a unique layer to the original musical score commissioned for the production.††
The production, sponsored by the New Media Consortium (NMC), will introduce an all-new reactive-interactive stage set that is repeatedly and dramatically transformed over the hour long performance. The ZeroG SkyDancers III will formally debut at 9PM Pacific Standard Time, Sunday, January 6, 2008 in the virtual world of Second Life. Seating is limited, but the show will run every week during the first 90 days of 2008, to accommodate the most guests possible. Tickets will cost $10 US ($3000 Lindens) a piece. For ticket information, please contact Spensley directly at dc@spensley.com.
Those with tickets will need to complete a 5 minute registration process with Second Life, http://www.secondlife.com , in order to access the ZeroG SkyDancers III performance.† A basic account is absolutely free, includes unlimited access to Second Life’s tools, events and communities.†Spensley recommends that audience members spend a minimum of 15 minutes learning the basic skills of the Second Life world prior to attending the performance. “Familiarizing yourself with basic navigation of Second Life will add even more enjoyment to the show,” said Spensley.
Gary Hazlitt’s video’s of two previous ZeroG SkyDancers II performances are available at YouTube and have received nearly 15 thousand views. “It’s difficult to convey the dramatic and immersive effects of the Second Life virtual world in a 2-D web environment, however the videos do convey the overall concept of the performance,” said Spensley.
Haunted Goth Dreams, a Halloween 2007 Second Life Machinima
October 16, 2007 9:51 pmIt’s that time of the year where avatars wear pale skin, dark make-up and generally scare each other to relog. So armed with a secret camera in trembling hands, Kylie and I ventured into the darker recesses of Midian City, Liquid Heat and City of Lost Angels to make a rather special film. I personally love the avies that frequent these wonderfully crafted places, avatars full of character, individuality, unique clothes, deep role playing (whatever that is) and strange protruding teeth. Sprinkle on one of my favourite songs, Haunted by Poe, a little sneeky editing and voila…enjoy, but make sure your not alone!
“A machinima by Gary Hazlitt based on and using as background, the great song “Haunted” by Poe. Special thanks to the creators and inhabitants of City of Lost Angels, Liquid Heat and Midian City sims, you are wonderful people. Avatanimation, filming and editing by Gary Hazlitt. A JustVirtual Production © Gary Hazlitt 2007″
Posted by Gary Hazlitt from inside Second Life © 2007
Experience the Drama of the ‘Human Mind’ in Second Life
September 2, 2007 12:41 pmor a quick case study of my role as SL designer, producer and builder in moving a film/book/stage ‘idea’, Thursday’s Fictions into the metaverse of Second Life. First, to give you a taste, a short video of my friend Kylie (who has gone a bit goth) walking through the environment. (note: An important thing missing on the video is Richard James Allen’s meditative texts that appear all around as you explore and of course visitations are usually at a much more relaxed pace.)
I have noticed that this blog is turning into mostly things I have created in Second Life or close friends, not a bad thing I suppose as long as those creations are worth singing about. I believe this one certainly is. I was lucky to work with Richard James Allen and Karen Pearlman (of Physical TV) who are the drivers behind an ‘idea’ called Thursday’s Fictions. This idea has been manifest in film, book, theatre and my task was to be the designer, producer, builder etc: in Second Life. It was only a small project compared with many of the multi sim creations I have done and are currently working on, but it excelled in being a worthy, experimental, artistic and aesthetic statement. It fell strongly into something I call Story Environments - spaces that have narrative embedded in them at varying degrees, more on that later.
The basic premise of the story is a woman who lives for one day only is trying to take her most valued creative possession (her dancers in a trunk she carries with her) between various reincarnations. There is more to it than that of course and the themes of death, love, life, mind, body, spirit all intermingle to create a fascinating pot pourii of philosophy, psychology and self awareness.
My challenge was to find appropriateness in Second Life which is itself an allegory of the themes of the piece from the outset. In other words, as I mentioned in this panel interview on SLCN.tv, (yes I talk!), SL is a space that is already routed in parallel existance, new incarnation and so on. It was about trying to find something that was different enough from quite a few existing ’spiritual’ areas in SL but also providing links back to ‘real world’ perceptions of spiritual architecture.
I haven’t time in this blog post to go into vast detail but to say the build was done very rapidly and I worked iteratively with the writers (that included script consultant Rock Sonic - SL name) who are all relatively new to the true creative potential of this world. Some of the techniques used to deliver the narrative elements included invisible sensors that talked to you randomly, spirit ’spheres’ that whisper as they pass through you, moving and still texts of various forms on the walls, objects and nature that chats residual and direct thoughts, sound and embedded gate-keeper questions.
There are effectively two longer form experiences at the moment. Purgatory, a series of halls and alcoves exploring a range of ideas mostly routed in one word ‘choice’. What life to go to next, what to take, decide what happened in the previous one, choose a state of mind and so on. The second experience is one life you inhabit, the ‘fractured’ mind of one of the characters. For the latter I created something that was slightly unnerving and disorientating yet also welcoming and familiar. It was loosely based on the sets of the film but I injected some play and elements of confusion. Go see and you will understand. The first main area purgatory is populated by Richard’s a range of texts, my favourite being the ’self-destructive’ lines (in the floating spirits in the main hall) from his book Kamikaze Mind. I also wanted Purgatory to show how music, sound and visual effects, text, signs, places to explore and architecture create a new kind of experience in SL that becomes very cinematic. There were many compromises that had to be taken but happily they are all easily overcome in future experiences I will create in this and many other properties. I/we also wanted this experience to be as social as possible. In a full 3D social space anything that doesn’t allow a shared user journey through it is doomed so it has been great watching couples and small groups exploring.
There are many more elements planned for this ‘idea’ of Richards and these will include another 6 or 7 more life journeys that will attempt to cover a broader spectrum of the ‘human drama’. To go to this experience now here is a link to the starting grove - SLURL.
Posted by © Gary Hazlitt from inside Second Life
Intelligence Jim But Not As We Know It
July 1, 2007 1:58 pm
Second Life ABC Bot 02, originally uploaded by Gary Hayes.
Not sure who Jim is but the steel man sitting down is one of many early prototypes of an Artificial Intelligence Chat Bot I am experimenting with. The back-end engine for this one is freely hosted at Pandorabots.com and I am using a mixture of existing libraries across a range of subjects but also creating specific ones to various commercial and non-for profit sim developments.
I have started to use several off the shelf sculpties (single, colour map formed smooth prim) of the human form. On this one you can see I also mapped a 360 scan of one of those bio forms which makes it look a little stupid - especially with the hat. I am also doing a script at the moment that will make his head turn and arms move in synch with his chat, but the easiest way to do this is to log in as an avatar and attach the chat bot ‘object’ to the body of the avie that is kept awake artificially.
The quality of the automatic responses is improving each day and I think we are only a couple of years away from having a chat bot that is unrecognisable (in chat at least) from many, if not most, of the current SL inhabitants.
Posted by Gary Hazlitt from inside Second Life
Windmills of Your Mind
January 4, 2007 8:53 pmIt was a quiet New Years Day evening here on Marni and the frame rate of the world was very high, so I set myself the goal to create another film in less than five hours. To go alongside one of my favourite bio songs, Windmills of Your Mind, which has wonderfully evocative narrative and imagery. The song was sung in one take and I did the arrangement a couple of days earlier. The film was also a chance to try out some very experimental camera work, before unseen, which was great fun.
Kylie Wollongong, a close friend, was around in the early hours to play a key walk-on ‘break’ up role and I got permission from some fabulous SL artists, Clames Clanger and my two neighbours from the previous post, to use some of their creations to ‘revolve’ with. I also ventured around SL to find some Windmills but other than that it was all filmed around Marni as well as high up in the stars.
There are two embedded versions on the site here (Google first and YouTube below - you choose) but I would recommend you download a higer quality version (and stereo sound!) I have set up - 45MB WMV but worth it, click here to download it. The video makes a nice partner to the one from XMas day, although that one suffered from serious but unavoidable frame rate issues. That one is also available as better quality download, a 54MB Mp4 here.
Credits:
- Filmed and produced in Second Life by Gary Hazlitt
- Song “Windmills of Your Mind” Lyric: Marilyn & Alan Bergman, Music: Michel Legrand, Arr: Gary Hazlitt
- Special thanks to Second Life Artists: Space Spinners: Clames Clanger. Sound Sculptures: Adam Ramona and Mashup Islander.
- Edited by Gary Hazlitt
Posted by Gary Hazlitt © 2007 from inside Second Life
The Greatest Sound Sculptures in the Metaverse
January 2, 2007 10:00 pmor sounding-out the Metamatic Neighbours
It’s been over a month now since myself, Jjason Jedburgh, Adam Ramona and Mashup Islander bought a sim together. It is called Marni and is attached to the south of Esperance and is now growing to be a great hive of artistic, business and social activity. I terraformed the island to give the four of us a great environment and some privacy for our various expoilts.
I have talked before about Jjason and his splendid architectural visions so now I wanted to interview Adam and Mashup (whose quarter sim plots are visible above) about their work and passion, real-time spatialised sound sculptures. I have been watching with glee as both of them get used to the possibilities in this world being relatively new to Second Life and create what I regard already as major, innovative pieces. Firstly a little about the Metamatic Collective piece.
Cantata Park 1 by Metamatic is an interactive, spatialised sound sculpture built in Second Life. The sculpture is made from 256 individual nodes in a 16 x 16 grid. Each node is embedded with a single word, triggered by a participant’s movement through the work. Each participant creates a random narrative, assembled on-the-fly, and in real-time. The work explores the possibilities of metaverse art, limitations of Second Life’s construction tools and scripting language, and the ability to appreciate conceptual art by proxy of an avatar. Cantata Park was produced in December 2006 Copyright 2006, Metamatic Collective
Adam and Mashup collaborated on this piece which is the first part of the interview below and then I met with Adam seperately to discuss five of his other works. We were also joined by Lisa Dapto, who is a close colleague of both of them. We met firstly at the site and then inside Adam’s self made garden retreat.
You: Who is the collective and what brought them together
Mashup Islander: The collective is Adam and myself for the moment. Adam was doing some funky 3D art on his land and I was inspired by this. I guess we found (Adam and I) a similar liking for abstract real-time art and decided to work on a project together
You: You mentioned that there are limitations to achieve what you want to in this world could you explain what these are in more detail for the readers
Adam Ramona: The technical limitations of Second Life are significant but this makes it a challenge, and often the best work is done in restrictive environments
Mashup Islander: It helps define boundaries for the work too
Adam Ramona: Relatively speaking the scripting language is an impressive achievement
You: And what are the benefits of this world for contemporary expressive 3D art?
Adam Ramona: Given the environment, collaboration is also a major plus of this space
Mashup Islander: Also the audience is large and open to new forms of expression
You: Yes I was going to ask about the methodology of collaboration how did it work for you both on the Cantata Park piece for example
Mashup Islander: It was really easy actually. Adam and I seem to think the same thing at the same time.
Adam Ramona: There are the usual teething problems getting used to the process but its a joy to be able to work collaboratively *within* the environment that the work will be consumed in.
Adam (left) and Mashup pose inside Cantata Park 1.
The work is now permanently installed on Mashup’s land and there are already many word-of-mouth visitors coming along to try the piece. I list some direct SLURLs at the end of both interviews for you to pop along yourself. I asked more about the background to the work.
You: What actually inspired the creation?
Mashup Islander: I was fooling around with basic prim sculptures and getting off on the whole ordered nature of basic 3D design. After a visit to an early version of Adam’s Bell Park, I saw a possibility to incorporate spoken words into the architecture. The randomness of each participant’s experience excited me and we explored some possible narrative structures before settling on a Burroughs piece, which was appropriate given the subject matter.
You: The 256 spoken fragments triggered by motion through them? What is the intention behind that and what experience is it meant to invoke?
Mashup Islander: Its a fractured narrative inspired by the Beat poets of old the actual passage is a Burroughs piece appropriate given the context
You: Each person has a different route through the piece of course - do you think there will be any shared experience?
Mashup Islander: Yes, the participant makes their own narrative and it was interesting just then with four users simultaneously that a layered narrative with many intersections can result. In specific answer to your question, I can’t put feelings into other people’s experience. Its up to each person to explore and take away their own assumptions
Above Lisa Dapto flys above Cantata Park 1 while Adam and Mashup introduce Pix (a visitor) to the piece. We talk more about the narrative, semantic elements of the work.
Adam Ramona: people make their own narrative always, and probably people who have similar outlooks will create similar experiences?
You: But presumably given that it is Burroughs excerpts there must be a common narrative that everyone can take away? Not completely random fragments
Mashup Islander: Burroughs believed all narrative had hidden meaning, each iteration of disassembly can provoke further insight and messages
Lisa Dapto: He and tristan Tzara before him were the lightning rods for the cut-up technique
Adam Ramona: Tzara was definitely about disassembling the dominant narrative
Mashup Islander: From paper, to tape recorder and now real-time 3D
You: I wonder if you see a kind of art renaissance developing in this world?
Adam Ramona: The art itself is thoroughly contemporary for me, it is a matter of using the medium for its strengths, and not trying to have it imitate some other medium. A new technology is always used first to do something that can already be done. Going with the native strengths of the medium as the basis for the formal decisions which makes it very simple to process. It’s the same thing with Hyperformalism if i understand DanCoyote Antonelli’s work correctly, it is using the ‘native’ qualities of the medium to make the formal decisions
Lisa Dapto: the involvement of the “audience” as co-authors of the work makes Adam’s and Mashup’s work fascinating and challenging, it reflects the ultimate potential for users in this world to generate their own scenarios
Adam Ramona: One of these “native qualities” of which i spoke is indeed the interactive nature of the audience/residents and this art is ‘for’ those people
You: Are you going to allow people to come and explore the work/s at this stage? If so can we publish the SLURLs?
Mashup Islander: Absolutely. The work is open for public viewing, with more on the way. Metamatic as an experimental playground for our artworks and we’ll be cycling new installations across both Adam’s and my land as they unfold.
So just for readers of JustVirtual a world exclusive a direct link to Cantata Park 1. Marni 205,53,25
Adam’s Place
I went back the next day to Adam’s quarter sim (which is actual adjoining mine), to talk to him in more depth about some of his latest pieces. I am particularly fascinated by the strong primary colours developing ‘over the hedge’ and the strange, exotic sounds floating on the wind across to my place. Adam has a rather unique appearance that I will save until another post, but below you can see him posed by his latest and greatest creation Anahat, The Mute Swan. You actually enter all these pieces by either teleporting in or just walking through and The Mute Swan is interesting in that it morphs from being attactive sculpture into a full surround sound and phantom prim experience. But I will let Adam explain.
Adam Ramona: The four pieces completed here are: The Bell Garden, Pure Absence, Anahata the Mute Swan, and the Blue one. (there is also a white one recently finished)
You: What would you say are the common elements between them all?
Adam Ramona: As we talked about yesterday, I would say their commonality is that they use the ‘native’ qualities of the medium to suggest the formal considerations of each piece.
You: As these are more sound and music orientated than Cantata Park 1, are there any common elements in the way you use sound in the pieces
Adam Ramona: Generally, I try to approach the work as an ‘audiovisual’ piece, and wherever possible apply the same formal rules to the sounds as to the visuals. It is not always possible, so sometimes the sonic formalities are decided through real life (ed: bio world for regular readers) considerations of a ‘music’ or ’sound’ basis. For example, the Bell Garden is in the key of E flat Major, just because I think that is an excellent key for a bell sound 
Once I’d decided that, then the manipulation of the sounds was the same as the visuals - no textures, just the geometry so to speak, which in sonic terms means a very dry synthesised, unadorned sound. I think it works well in the Bell Garden (ed: night pic below)
You: One of the remarkable things about all the pieces is the synergy between the visual and the sound - in that they are inextricably linked and reinforce each other. Could you talk a little about that process?
Adam Ramona: Yes, well I have always (since 1996 when I was first introduced to real-time 3D art) thought of this medium as a “composition” medium - in that previously when I was “writing” “music” I would have a very similar sort of thing happening inside my mind as a real-time 3D scene. I would have particular shapes with particular colours making particular sounds which were animating around in the space and when I saw VRML, i thought “yay, this is the medium for me!”
You: I notice that the five pieces here are all based around subtle variations of the same colour or tone - based on primaries like blue, red, white. Because you have graduations of that one tone is this because you don’t want the visual to overpower the sound?
Adam Ramona: Yes, this is the way I work. I think of each piece as a “song” if you like and just as you don’t put every note or chord into a song, similarly, the sounds suggest the colours (and vice versa) and they always end up being like this - graduations.
You: You have your pieces on show in a wonderful zen like garden and the works are indeed very powerful but meditative and tranquil to a great extent. Would you say you are about the balance between visual and sound so they are both, equally important.
Adam Ramona: Yes indeed, I would go further and say that I don’t really recognise any distinction between sound and vision
You: Ah very interesting and that would include I suppose the amount of authorship you give the participant in your pieces so they travel the sound and visual journey on their own path?
Adam Ramona: Yes, that is definitely part of the rationale of the work - these things exist almost independently of their consumption, a little like theoretical physics or something, and therefore, any mode of consumption, temporal visual sonic is valid.
You: We talked earlier also about many of these pieces being 4 or 5 art forms in one piece - sculpture, surround installation, performance piece, interactive and even architectural. Is this intended or a by-product or the medium?
Adam Ramona: That is this medium (RT3D) - these distinctions are valid in the real physical (bio) world, but not so in RT3D, so in that sense, I guess it is a by-product, but it is also an anticipated, welcomed, part of this medium in fact. That is one of the very main reasons why I like to work in this medium.
You: To discuss a level of detail. What is the difference in your mind between a piece that is triggered by the audience or one that they just move through picking up variations in sound level and direction, without triggering the various components within?
Adam Ramona: Not really any difference, other than a pedantic one in fact, you could say that a piece that is constantly sounding is actually only sounding when an avatar moves near it and in that way it’s always triggered by an avatar, but that is true of this entire medium.
You: If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around, does it make a sound?
Adam Ramona: You are right when you call it LOD, it’s the ultimate practical existentialism, because it literally doesn’t exist (for you) when you are not looking at it, unless the LOD has been coded badly
You: Very true! I always ask this next question and it is difficult to answer but are there any specific emotional responses that a viewer may get from some of these works. I noticed for example in the Mute Swan I felt much more relaxed and quite passive after a while whereas Pure Absence with it’s strong reds and high pitched sounds quite confrontational.
Adam Ramona: Good, interesting, difficult question. I definitely aim for an emotional response because I am emotionally engaged with all of my works and that is what leads me to create them. But as for audience response, I think it is tricky to second guess, but there are probably certain things you can aim for. For example, I am glad that you felt that about Anahata, the Mute Swan, because that is what I was aiming for, emotionally, an attempt to invite the audience to reflect on the nature of silence. In fact that piece specifically asks the question “If there is a sound playing when you are born and after you die, would you hear it?”
You: I was particularly struck by the combination of words and sound in that piece and it had more impact perhaps than the Cantata in the Park work because the words were more subtle, enigmatic and mysterious?
Adam Ramona: I’m very happy to hear that. I always try to keep them impressionistic, or as you say “equal to sound”, so that they represent more the signifier of meaning rather than meaning itself, and then the listener will more than likely provide their own meaning
You: One thing that you haven’t yet incorporated into your pieces and in this world it is a significant layer of course is our beloved ‘chat/IM text’ - is there a reason for that?
Adam Ramona: Yes, I did that in a bio piece, Scorched Happiness (2004), which was a multi-user VRML piece, where the chat text was typed live by the performers based on excerpts from the work by Julia Kristeva that formed the basis of the work. So, I am definitely interested in it, since it is a part of the medium but I would rather work out a way to make it similar to the way I use words that we discussed before, IE, without actual meaning, which is harder to do in text of course. But, now you’ve mentioned it I’ll get onto it straight away
You: Finally Do you think it easy to explain or recreate these works outside our environment or is that the basic point of formalism, that they are rooted here and here only.
Adam Ramona: Absolutely the latter in, of and for this medium. However, it doesn’t mean SL specifically, it means multi-user real-time 3D, of which SL is a very, very good example and one that is very popular and therefore provides and audience.
You: Finally, finally. If you had 3 ’sound feature’ wishes from Linden Lab (our creator!) what would they be?
Adam Ramona: Ah, yes, the first one is easy and obvious: generative sound synthesis in the SL engine should be simple to do, since they’ve already using Havok for physics. Second would be 5.1 out (as we mentioned before). Third would be increase the sample time limit to *at least* 60 seconds.
You: Totally agree with all of those and maybe much more control over sound spread. Adam, for now thank you, and as we are neighbours I don’t really need to say goodbye, rather look forward to hearing from you again very soon.
Adam is also happy for visitors to come and explore and discuss his works. This SLURL drops you in the middle of the Zen sculpture interactive garden and next to some teleport points to take you to the skybox creations. Adam’s place can be found at Marni 220,199,23
Posted by Gary Hazlitt from inside Second Life
Reaching out to the Bio World
October 24, 2006 2:46 am
Some strange things been happening recently. With the voice thing in the Robbie class in the last post and now being seen and chatted to from the bio world. Not sure exactly what is going on but a young lady ‘noob’ type avie called Destroy Television, is apparently broadcasting (in short bursts) our world out to the bio world and they are talking back through her. Yes you heard it. I met Destroy on Sheep Island and multiple people were chatting through her from the bio world! Crazy.
The bios see what Destroy sees (the small lady on the right with “Broadcasting SL Live” over her head.)
I was then joined by the co-creator of this SNOOPYbrown Zamboni who told me what was going on. Destroy’s view is being sent to a website called destroytv.com and to flickr. It should be streaming video (next version) but at the moment is just still images. SNOOPY called it betaverse. Viewers on the bio website get updated snapshots but can also send chat through the website, and through Destroy’s avie to our world. Very cool. Now I can find out all about those bios out there. See what makes them tick. I said it would be good to have a camera so we can ‘perform’ to it and the bio audience, so I gave SNOOPY a camera I had built based on bio world designs. You can see it in all the shots here. Perhaps they may use it? The other creator Rik Reil appeared briefly and was talking to a bio called Jerry on the other side. Still trying to work out the consequences of this.
I was given this shot of what the bios see on their websites.
You can see our meeting in a series of images at this flickr stream website thing. My meeting is around the 20061023 08:57:30 series of images. This is one of those images.
Posted by Gary Hazlitt from inside Second Life
