The Drax Files – Page 2

March 10, 2016

Drax Files Episode 36 – Sominel Edelman And His Creative Landscapes

Episode 36 of the Linden Lab sponsored Drax Files World Makers series takes us to the creative landscapes of Sominel Edelman and his creations under his brand of Landscapes Unlimited. This episode is slightly shorter than most episodes, coming it at just under three and a half minutes, but it still manages to pack a lot in. I will embed the episode at the end of this post.

Sominel Edelman creates landscapes for Second Life, bringing life to regions and areas of Second Life but there does seem to be a basis from his professional work with regards to Sominel’s creative art, he’s a physical geographer. This gets raised as Draxtor Despres points out that he has created Yosemite National Park landscapes and yet never visited the place in the physical world.

What is interesting about this episode is that although there is talk about virtual world representations of physical world landscapes, we also get informed about how the immersion within virtual world landscapes brings people together, with or without a head mounted display. Sominel points out that “You don’t need a fancy gadget to connect to each other“.

This is something oft missed by those who don’t inhabit virtual worlds, the power of community and connection.

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December 11, 2015

The Drax Files: World Makers Episode 34 – Cheeky Pea And A Virtual World Love Story

Episode 34 of the Linden Lab sponsored Drax Files: World Makers, features the Cheeky Pea brand and the people behind it, Isla Gealach and Ewan Mureaux. This is the age old tale of virtual world scripter meets virtual world home and garden decor creator, they fall in love and live happily ever after. This of course isn’t the story the media often highlight regarding virtual world romance turned real, but it’s a story beautifully told in this edition of The Drax Files : World Makers.

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Don’t panic, it’s not a mushy love story, it’s a tale of the benefits of virtual world collaboration and physical world realism making up the whole. The episode opens with Isla talking about the beauty of immersion in a virtual world, how the space can be manipulated to create something you can feel.

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Where this episode really hits the button is in terms of the footage outside the virtual world. Isla using Maya to create items, her daughter taking an interest and even wanting to create her own items firmly makes the point that behind the 3D avatars are real people, doing real things.

There’s also an excellent section where we see how the physical world that we all live in, is an inspiration for the items created for a virtual world.

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October 30, 2015

The Drax Files: World Makers Ep 33 – Luxembourg 1867

Episode 33 of The Linden Lab sponsored Drax Files : World Makers takes us to Luxembourg, but in a sci fi style twist it takes us to Luxembourg in 2015 and Luxembourg in 1867 at the same time.

The main protagonist in this episode is Second Life resident Cyperpiper Roelefs (AKA Pit Vinandy outside Second Life). What makes this episode particularly interesting is that the physical world footage takes place not only in the streets of the City of Luxembourg, but also in the Fort Thüngen Museum and the City Museum of Luxembourg

Inside the museum lies an exhibit; Pfaffenthal 1867 – A virtual walk through the historic Pfaffenthal. This is an exhibit that visitors access through computers as they enter the virtual world of Second Life to find some pretty damn impressive recreations of the historical location.

This is an exhibit that also takes advantage of more modern developments because as well as ten computers, there are also two Oculus Rift headsets available for people to immerse themselves deeper in the virtual experience.

At its heart this is a history exhibit, which utilises the virtual world environment to tell the story of how in 1867 there was a bit of a crisis in Europe (this is not unusual by the way!) when France wanted to buy Luxembourg. However those pesky British were having none of it and during negotiations it was decided to allow Luxembourg to become an independent nation. The aim was partially to prevent war between Germany and France. There’s a lot more to it than this!

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September 23, 2015

The Drax Files: World Makers Episode 32 – Jayjay Zifanwe From The University of Western Australia

With Machinima, you are getting a glimpse into the soul of the artist, they are not making this film so they can sell tickets at the movies. They are making this to show you who they are.

That’s the introduction from Jayjay Zifanwe of The University of Western Australia for the latest edition of the Drax Files World Makers series, which is sponsored by Linden Lab. Whereas Jayay is in the main subject of this episode we also see other machinima makers, who have been inspired by the projects the University of Western Australia run and who have gone on to other things in some cases due to that inspiration. At this point I should point out that Second Life, Linden Lab and The University of Western Australia have a lot to answer for, but I’ll come to that later.

Jayjay makes a good point about machinima, it’s a diverse industry because people are diverse and people make machinima. In some ways it could be argued that machinima is diverse because it’s more of an indie scene than mainstream cinema, therefore people will make machinima about subjects that backers would shy away from. There’s a power from an editiorial perspective that machinima can be relatively cheap to make. However, as machinima makers get more talented, get more ambitious and invest in more expensive machinima making techniques, their artistic freedom is likely to be challenged. However machinima is undoubtedly a diverse sphere at this moment in time.

Jayjay informs us that he has a budget with prize pool of over five hundred thousand Linden dollars, that’s around US$2,000. We can see an example of how this prize fund is used in the shape and form of UWA’s Pursue Impossible, which has prizes for artists and machinima makers :

The theme is “PURSUE IMPOSSIBLE.” Artists & filmmakers can interpret the theme as they see fit. What is your impossible? What is the impossible goal you have conquered, or that you have seen your loved ones or your heroes conquer? What are the things you once thought were impossible, but now are able to overcome? How do virtual worlds help you to visualize, create, and push the boundaries of possibility? What are the things which seem impossible now, which you think you will attempt to hunt down? What are the impossibilities of the mind? of the heart? of the soul? Is it the pursuit of the impossible that takes precedence? Or defeating it? You the artist… You the machinimatographer…You decide.

Pursue Impossible is still open, entries close at midnight SLT on October 31st, so if you’re interested you still have time to put something together.

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August 12, 2015August 12, 2015

The Drax Files World Makers Episode 31 With Tom Boellstorff Ponders “What Is Real?”

The Drax Files: World Makers Episode 31 (sponsored by Linden Lab) features an interview with Professor Tom Boellstorff (pronounced “bell-storf”; the first “o” is silent). Tom is an anthropologist based at the University of California, Irvine. The episode is introduced by Tom saying :

If you’re trying to learn about a culture, the challenge is time and that’s something that applied to the work I’ve done with gay and lesbian Indonesians and it applies just as much when you’re studying something like virtual worlds, you have to live inside the community that you’re studying.

Already I’m interested in what is going to transpire in this interview, time is something I’m always battling with myself and the fact that Tom appreciates that you have to be among a community to study one suggests he’s not forming an opinion based on a few screenshots and a far away view. We also learn that Tom is not new to Second Life, when he first entered Second Life there were only around 2,500 users, this guy is an oldbie.

As an example of how much Second Life has grown since the early days, Tom explains how he decided to fly over all of Second Life in the early days, it took him about a week, at two hours a day. How long would it take these days? I have no idea but the grid is much larger than it would have been when Tom initially joined.

Tom says that in Second Life he is a digital ethnographer. Tom explains that an ethnographer studies how people live and think and that this involves hanging out with people. To this end he used to host weekly chats with anyone who wanted to teleport in. This sounds like the old Linden Office Hours but was quite probably more civil. I wonder if Tom did go to any Linden Office Hours, I’m sure that would tell a digital ethnographer a thing or two about digital communities too, even when they got heated.

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