Chris Joseph

Let me say that I’ve only dipped into Second Life, and found it much as I had expected - full of potential, so far largely unfulfilled, and generally of much more interest to those with masses of time to spend learning and building in the environment. But it’s hard not to laugh at this TIME article.

Firstly - as second-lifers will be quick to point out - Second Life is not a website, but an application that runs over the net. I’m not sure why this slipped under their editing radar, particularly as one of their gripes is ‘it runs on free software you have to download’ (not software you have to download! Surely everything should come preloaded on your system and require no further effort on our part? And at least, please, can we pay for our downloads?!)

My favourite of their stated gripes is that “there are crazy people around every corner — disruptive types that spread graffiti and get in your way and throw you off your groove”. Hmm, not like the internet (or life) in general then? Roll on Second Life: Police State.

The criticism that really bugged me here is this:

Fans praise Second Life as a virtual hangout where you can meet and chat and buy sneakers and real estate (that’s fake stuff for real money) and dance and go bowling and have sex — suggesting that “virtual humans” doing “human things” online in Second Life is somehow less pathetic than, say, cooking Kaldorei spider kabobs or making magic pantaloons in World of Warcraft.

Let’s forget for a moment all the items that would presumably be included under this definition of ‘fake stuff’ - webspace… virtual (TIME) magazines… music?… but the most irritating part of this criticism is the classically retrograde suggestion that online pursuits - of any nature - are ‘pathetic’. Thanks for the flashback to the early ’90s, TIME.

As a side note, it’s interesting to note that another of their worst websites of 2007 is MySpace: which happened to be one of their ‘coolest’ websites of 2006. Their reasoning is that

It seems the community has become infested with marketers and other opportunists who create false profiles and essentially spam other users, all under the guise of “making friends.”

Yes, yes. Terrible behaviour. That never happened in the early days of MySpace, and this sort of thing never happens on other social networking sites. Good to know TIME isn’t just jumping on any (anti-)bandwagons that come along, particularly since a publishing competitor (Rupert Murdoch) took over the site (and in case you are under the impression that I’m a big MySpace fan - please read my February post about MySpace’s ‘mymoviemashup’).

Eyebeam Fellowships
http://www.eyebeam.org/production/artists_fel.php

Overview of Eyebeam Fellowships

The application process for Eyebeam’s 2007/08 Fellowship program is currently open. The deadline for applications is August 6, 2007. All applicants will be informed of their application status by October 1, 2007. The program duration is for 11 months, running from November to September.

Fellowships will be offered in the R&D OpenLab, the Production Lab and the Education Lab. The focus of the Fellowships varies depending on the tools and skills available and the creative objectives and philosophy of each Lab. Up to five Fellowships will be granted for 2007/08.

For all of the Fellowships we are seeking applications from artists, hackers, designers, engineers and creative technologists to come to Eyebeam for a year to undertake new research and develop new work. The ideal Fellow has experience working with and making innovative technological art and/or creative technology projects and has a passion for collaborative development. Fellows will bring this experience and working approach to their own independent projects, projects initiated by other Residents or Fellows and projects conceived collaboratively during the Fellowship period.

Fellows are selected from an open call. International applicants are welcome to apply although we do not have the resources to provide travel or accommodation. We are happy to work with selected applicants, where required, to help them to secure funds to cover these expenses. International Fellows are responsible for securing their own visas for the Fellowship period.

Fellows receive a $30,000 stipend and health benefits during their stay. They are able to take on additional external teaching or consulting work, but there is an expectation that Fellows will be working at Eyebeam a minimum of four days a week.

Collaborative partnerships at Eyebeam will be fostered though group critiques, discussions and projects, within and between the lab environments and residency programs. Fellows also benefit from critiques, lectures and workshops by external practitioners chosen for their relationship to subjects and projects being worked on in the Labs. All Fellows are encouraged to share their skills and knowledge with the larger Eyebeam community by conducting formal and/or informal workshops with others in the Labs as well as possible workshops open to the public. There are also opportunities to develop work for performance, events, seminars, exhibition or other public programming in the Eyebeam galleries (and beyond) during the term of the fellowship.

Core to our principle at Eyebeam is the brokering of relationships between artists, hackers, coders, engineers and other creative technologists and the contexts we provide. The intention is to foster and facilitate relationships whereby technologists and artists can come together to germinate and hothouse their ideas, develop new processes and create new works through a period of immersion in a social context which is rich in technology, expertise and ideas.

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391.org dadacast #11

14m17s. By 391.org, Anarchy Ass, Escha, babel, Ronnie The Bull, zedex and Justynn Tyme.

391.org - 391 countdown (Smelly Feet mix) (0:00 - 0:05)
Anarchy Ass - Pope On A Rope (0:05 - 1:33)
Escha/babel - Music For Schools Programming Clocks (aka Snowboard Beatbox) (1:33 - 4:16)
Ronnie The Bull - Old Man Burns (4:16 - 8:34)
zedex - The Dead Manta Ray (8:34 - 10:21)
Justynn Tyme - Freeze Basics (10:21 - 12:19)
Escha - Noiret (Pfeifer mix) (12:19 - 14:17)

http://tinyurl.com/25jd2r

Work by:
Carlo Zanni - Ebay landscape
Jimpunk - gLynch_N4
MTAA - onKawaraUpdate (v2)
Andy Deck - Wildlife Offline
0100101110101101.org - patch-2.4.19