Episode 20 of The Drax Files : World Makers (now sponsored by Linden Lab) features an interview with a Sicilian designer and illustrator by the name of Flokers. In traditional style I’ll embed the video at the end of this post.
Now first things first, rumours that Draxtor chose to interview Flokers because she has Draxtor style long hair and wears glasses have been strenuously denied. That being said, this episode is different in many ways, there are no opening titles or traditional theme music for a start. This has happened before but it’s rare. Flokers tells her story from the start and you get the impression that she is driven by her love of Second Life and her love or illustrating and it has to be said, the illustrations are very impressive.
Flokers explains that when she draws she does so in a manner that means if people see her drawings on the internet, they will realise they were inspired by Second Life. Obviously this is going to depend upon whether the person viewing her drawing is aware of Second Life, but you get a good feeling for her inspiration here.
Flokers is a fan of text chat, because that way she can filter people’s words better. I have heard people say this before and as someone who believes voice communications will become more prevalent as virtual reality becomes more immersive, we should not forget the excellent advantages that text chat allows in communications. I myself have used a translator to communicate with people from Spain in Second Life, with neither of us really having a grasp of the other’s mother tongue. That sort of communication will be lost if we move entirely away from text chat and that would be a great loss to the virtual world experience.
Flokers has synesthesia, which is a condition I am not familiar with but it seems to give Flokers a colourful outlook regarding people and numbers, you really need to watch the video to hear Flokers explanation.
Flokers also goes around Second Life as a child avatar and explains perfectly why the child avatar experience can be a fulfilling and perfectly innocent one, fun is the name of the game here. Drax’s video exemplifies this with some excellent footage from Fantasy Faire with Flokers and fellow children playing games and bringing life to the faire. As Flokers points out, children are around us in our every day lives, they live in cities, so it should not be odd to see them in Second Life.
Outside of Second Life Flokers works for Derby City council in the East Midlands of the UK, which isn’t as impressive as the West Midlands of course but has Mercian roots and the way things are going in the UK I think I may have to start campaigning for a return of an independent Mercia! Back to Flokers, she confesses that she met her current employer in Second Life, which also shows how the medium is good for networking. Flokers, unsurprisingly produces art work for commercial purposes for the council, she really is a talented artist.
Whereas this episode features no Draxtor Despres in the video, his hand is all over the production with that wonderful mix of real person, Second Life experience coming through. Flokers has found Second Life to be a wonderful gateway to engage with her talents and this really does come through well during the video.
The video is only 5 minutes long but that’s the beauty of this series, so much is told in 5 minutes via words and images. Another excellent episode.
More info on flokers’ RL work : http://www.sparkderby.com/
SLURL to Flokers studio : http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Huron/51/234/25