Umeå Museologi + Kulturanalys Hösten 2009

The blog for the Second House of Sweden has published a list of “cool must-see places to visit, as part of the training. Here they are“. Maybe good places for inspiration and fun.

As well Maria Bäcke, who will be giving a short course in HUMlab on 6 november 2008 kl. 13:00: Att bygga och designa i Second Life (Please Register), has a video online on SL på svenska. (Real, Windows – Fast and Slow):

Att bygga och designa i Second Life
Anmälan (senast 5 november kl. 09:00)
I byggkursen kommer vi att titta på existerande byggnationer i Second Life, prova på att bygga och förändra saker samt utforska byggverktyg och föremål såsom textures, flexi och light. Vi går även igenom principerna för de nya byggelementen, så kallade sculpties, vilket innebär att man importerar 3D objekt till SL från applikationer utanför.

The thesis Avatars and the Invisible Omniscience: The panoptical model within virtual worlds is about surveillance and virtual worlds. It may be interesting for you as background study:

This research project extends the notion of panoptical surveillance into virtual worlds, and discusses the security and privacy repercussions virtual surveillance imposes on these communal spaces. An action research methodology has been used, involving the creation of artworks to engage experientially with the idea of virtual surveillance, and through an online questionnaire targeting the players of MUVEs. The artworks investigate a series of surveillance perspectives, including parental gaze, machine surveillance and self-surveillance.

These sites host hundreds of videos to help with using Second Life:

http://www.youtube.com/user/Torley

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Video_Tutorials

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Second_Life_Videos

Please watch some of these videos or use them if you have problems.

Det är inte precis första gången någon har arbetat på detta sätt in en virtuell värld (ursäkta det dåligt svenska).
Kanske om du titta här:
http://www.eng.umu.se/vw/
Det finns några likhet mellan vad sina projekt och vad vi (jag också…killen med didjeridu i bilden från länk) har gjord förut.
Vi kan prata mer om det här imorgon när vi mötas.

“In 1934, during Hitler’s ascendance to power, Walter Benjamin gave a lecture called “The Author as Producer,” at the Institute for the Study of Fascism in Paris. With urgency, Benjamin questioned the role of the author and the artist. He felt that it was their job to not just respond to what was going on from a removed observational vantage point but, as a “producer,” to engage and actively change the course of social politics. Part of being a producer is letting go of individual conceit. Revolutionary power is the autonomy of the collective idea—not the autonomy of an individual.

Curator and critic Okwui Enwezor extended this idea—the notion of the producer—to contemporary art, using it as a starting point in his 2004 lecture, “The Artist as Producer in Times of Crisis.” Artists, Enwezor says, are adapting their means of production. Not unlike avant-garde production in the early twentieth century, they are forgoing the cult of the individual artist/genius and turning towards collectivity as a strategy of resistance. On one hand, it is hard to believe that our own political climate compares to the severity of the moment of Benjamin’s lecture—when proletariat revolutions and fascism were rocking Western Europe. On the other hand, this historical link to artistic response at points of deep-felt uncertainty is compelling, especially when it is extended to the role of the curator.”

Read More of this Text Here: Curator as Producer – Michelle White & Nato Thompson -

Even though there has been two sessions in the course spent on Second Life, there is so much to know about the program/world that I thought I should post some information here. I spend quite a bit of time myself looking for news and updates about Second Life. At the moment I am looking into how land functions in SL. A good place to start is the Wikipedia:

Real Estate in Second Life
There are sometimes issues in SL which would be resolved in the real world through the application of local zoning laws and regulations, such as limiting how close a building can be to the edge of a property.
With minor exceptions, Linden Lab does not place any zoning or content restrictions on what land owners can place on their property. This has resulted in a wide variety of architectural variations and buildings of different purposes being fitted into nearby spaces, sometimes resulting in conflict between neighbors. Also, some residents attempt to use all their available space, leading to buildings being placed right up against each other with no intervening access or spacing.
Read More

Any disputes over land and boundaries on the HUMlab Island must be brought to the management (Jim, Stefan, Cilla) and will be discussed in a group situation.
Land can be changed in Second Life, called terraforming, and if you want to change the land (raise it, flatten it and so on) it is possible. See this video. More videos on land in Second Life can be found HERE.

You may want to decorate your land with plants, stones, rocks and landmarks. It is important that when you are working on landscape to have Show Property Lines switched on. You do this by opening the Edit tab at the top of the SL window and selecting Show Property Lines.

När jag satt nere i labbet idag för att arbeta med helt andra grejjer än Second life dök ungefär halva klassen in för att utforska SL. Jag försökte att inte störa eller själv bli störd, men jag kunde ju inte undgå att se och höra vad som pågick. Kul och inspirerande helt enkelt.