Last night I went to a fashion show in Second Life. The ‘What not to Rez’ night was the in-world social event on the Emerge Island, and an extension of some of the work going on related to digital identities by the JISC-Emerge community.

It was an opportunity for everyone to show off their lovely avatars - a fun event to explore and showcase virtual creation. StevenW Bohm (aka Steve Warburton of King’s College London) invited me, and I have to say, left me feeling distinctly under-dressed! (see picture below left)

After a delayed start, the fashion show got underway with some very extravagant outfits, as one by one, the models took to the stage showing off their customized avatars. There was one awkward moment that went like this:

Josie Oh: Jiz! You are looking good - going on the catwalk tonight?
You: haha no not me
Josie Oh: aw, ok

The drink of the evening was MaiTai Tropical Drink, a rather fruity cocktail served with an umbrella! After working the room, so to speak, I recognised a few avatars I’ve met before – some doing some interesting work in SL, in particular, Kisa Naumova (Leeds Metropolitan University) and Wess Wexler (Loughborough University).

Overall a fantastic evening and a chance to let your digital hair down and network with others involved in immersive environments and Second Life. If you would like to see a few more images of the even, please visit my Gallery Page.

On the 18th December 2007 Twofour Learning and the Beyond Distance Research Alliance at the University of Leicester launched the Second Life Media Zoo project.

The event was synchronized between a virtual and real life launch at the University of Leicester and at the Media Zoo Island, within Second Life
In total 42 avatars attended the launch at the Media Zoo Island, an extremely positive number, and around 70 people attending the real life launch at the University of Leicester. I will be adding more images of the event to the gallery section of the site very shortly!

We received a great deal of positive feedback from the event;

“Gilly Salmon’s presentation was very interesting … we were well looked after around the island - people offering help or to answer questions, extremely well attended!”

The Extension Project website is up and running; detailing the project and what software is needed to book the Lecture theatre or the Seminar Room. The website also describes a little bit about second life and Jiz Source my Avatar, as well as providing an on-line booking system.

View site.

The grander plan of my final year project is to transport elements of the Idat community into this virtual world and allowing students to have the opportunity to create projects within SL for free, forming a virtual Idat community within SL. After our recent meeting with B Aga, Jeff and the out reach department, we hope to be working with c6.org a collaboration of artists who have been commissioned to take the Plymouth University Portland square building into Second Life.

Within SL there is a modelling system that allows users to manipulate simple objects into a more creative form. Connecting these objects and cutting away from them similar to 3d max it allows you to create sophisticated objects, coupled with the coding aspect your capable of producing working models, for example guns, cars, robots, armour etc.

Expanding on my project ideas I plan to create a building that has 2 rooms book able via the university room booking system, each room will have the facility to display video/PowerPoint presentations and a ventrilo server for peer to peer communication. These rooms will be a meeting room and lecture theatre, book able to both students and staff to hold virtual meetings/lectures. Within my design there will also be a third room explaining how to install and use the required software. To accompany this there will be a running blog and RSS feed, containing coordinates for the location of the Idat building within SL, and a link which will teleport your avatar to the location.

Finally as proposed the Idat building initial design has been completed, see below for images:

After my primary research of SL I created “Jiz Source” my online presence within SL, the tools within the virtual world of SL are extremely powerful allowing residents to customize every aspect of there Avatars look and characteristics, from the size of the nose to length of eye lashes.

After many weeks of feeling my final year project wasn’t really gaining any more information of the idea of online identity being an extension of our Cartesian reality, I planned to explore other routes. In essence I want my project to push the boundaries of current research, that’s what prompted me to get involved with Second Life.

I propose to take part or all of Idat into Second Life; Second Life is a privately owned, partly subscription-based 3-D virtual world, made publicly available in 2003 by San Francisco-based Linden Lab. Users can visit this virtual world almost as if it were a real place. They explore, meet new people, participate in individual and group activities, and, if they decide to visit often, they learn new skills and mature socially (in the sense of learning the culture of the virtual world). A Second Life client program provides its users (often referred to as Residents) with tools to view and modify the SL world and participate in its virtual economy. The economy operates as a real market. Residents buy and sell to one another, and the virtual currency is exchangeable for US$. As of December, 2006, between about ten and twenty thousand users are in SL at any one time.

Jiz; my world of warcraft Avatar wants to be involved in my final year project, hmm but how? And what is an Avatar? It’s an Internet user’s representation of himself or herself, whether in the form of a three-dimensional model used in computer games, a two-dimensional icon used on Internet forums and other communities, or a text construct found on early systems such as MUDs. The term “avatar” can also refer to the personality connected with the screen name, or handle, of an Internet user.

Final year project proposal
 

My dissertation is based on online identity and personality in MMPOG’s (Massively Multi-player Online Games) so due to amount of research and study it makes sense to expand this area of study for my final year project.
Similar to Feng Mengbo’s  Q4U (Quake for you; 2002) in which he inserted a ‘skin’ – a visual representation of himself equipped with a weapon and a video camcorder, into the game and made him the main character.  This project questions concepts of identity in the context of role-playing by directly implementing the artist in the commercial environment and violence of the game.
I want to take this idea forward, using the game “the Sims”/”second Life” (the game may change) in the structure of a presentation/exhibition. I want to create within minutes a personalised skin of the person experiencing the game and virtual world. Using either a manual process of creating the skin, or ideally making this automatic using a web cam. So Instead of controlling a completely irrelevant unrecognizable character to the player, the player will actually upload themselves to the game, but will their real life identity follow? I believe that by undertaking this project I will discover whether MMORPGs (Massively multi player online role playing games) are an extension of “reality” as we know it, following the players online experiences though the virtual environment. This project raises many questions on identity and I’m interested to investigate these finding for my thesis. 

http://q4u1.uchicago.edu/