The Drax Files – Page 7

January 6, 2014January 6, 2014

The Drax Files Episode 15 – Scottius Polke

I’m still catching up with the end of 2013, such is life. Episode 15 of The Drax Files aired on December 27th, complete with the traditional theme tune and opening credits. I’ll embed the video at the end of the post, as usual.

This episode features an artist and a tiny otter, whom happen to be one and the same being in the shape and form of Second Life’s Scottius Polke, AKA Scott Rolfe. Art in Second Life is quite popular, the platform lends itself to the artistic and in this episode we can see why. Scottius discovered Second Life in 2008, he was at this stage already an artist. Therefore he saw the opportunity to create virtual world art based on his real world art, by using the building tools available within Second Life. Scottius also spotted the potential to use scripts to add something to his virtual world art.

What this episode manages to capture so very well is how art within the virtual world becomes part of the scenery, as opposed to when you walk into an art gallery say, where art is on the walls but might not grasp the visitor’s attention. The way Second Life is constructed lends itself to artists being able to make their art very immersive, making the world that the avatar is within a strong focus.

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December 30, 2013December 31, 2013

2013 Reviewed

The challenge with a review of the year is to try and make it worth reading. There’s a balance between including information and including too much information. This year’s review is largely based on Second Life and my own posts, so there’s plenty of information that I will be missing. For those who want a more in depth review, Inara Pey has been reviewing 2013 too.

For me personally it was a difficult year, Reed, Dee, Izzy and TJ Linden all gave me wonderful support, even when I myself was more than a tad grouchy with them but I do appreciate the efforts they made to accommodate me.

This post is not as long as it looks, if you skip the pictures, links and embedded videos it won’t take as long to read as you may think at first glance. I did consider breaking this down in to different posts, as I did last year. However at the end of the day it is what it is, so it looks like it’s epic in length but it’s really not. However to aid people I’ve decided to go back to HTML school and create a table of contents! Hurrah.

Contents

January – March
April – June
July – August
September – December
Summary

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December 28, 2013

2013 – The Meme Version

When I was a lad and I used to play on Livejournal we’d do an end of year post where you’d take the first few lines or paragraph of the first post of each month and that would be your review of the year. I’ll do proper reviews of the year over the next few days or so but for now I’ll turn back to that old Livejournal meme. This won’t make that much sense but it is a bit of fun.

January

I’m about to embark on a series of posts about accounts, Linden Lab and their forthcoming interactive story of Versu. Inara Pey, with her eye firmly on the ball has noticed that websites have appeared for Dio and Versu. I’m not so much interested in Dio, although I might be once it gets going. However Versu is something I like the look of and I’ve been digging around the website for Versu. At first glance it seems bereft of information, but a closer look reveals that Versu has a cut down version of the Second Life terms and conditions, a DMCA link and a very handy FAQ.

February

Ok so I’m enjoying playing around with dio and The Search For Hod Rumble (see previous post for details) is well under way, whether it ever goes from private to public is another matter. My intention with this project is largely to play around with the features and get a good understanding of the platform whilst having fun at the expense of Rod Humble. However, even though I’m only at the start of my project, I have picked up some tips.

*NOTE* – The search for Hod Rumble remains unpublished.

March

Draxtor Despres, of Metareality Podcast, Superflufee machinima and other stuff I don’t know about but probably should fame, has today launched a new monthly show titled: “The Drax Files“.

April

Back on March 12th Linden Lab blogged about advertising on Second Life properties. There has been no further update but the people behind Fennux breedables have managed to take advantage of Google advertising by getting an advert for their product and website onto the Second Life website, well the forums in my case, that’s where I saw the advert.

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November 29, 2013

The Drax Files Episode 14 – Rose Borchovski

I suppose it was inevitable really that The Drax Files would change its signature theme tune one day, that’s the inevitability of fate. Which brings us nicely on to this latest episode of The Drax Files. Episode 14 features Rose Borchovski. All the images I post in this post … really don’t like the way that sounds (no time to change it EDITOR), anyway all of the images in this post are from Rose Borchovski’s art installation entitled “The Inevitability of Fate”.

The installation can be found at Two Fish, Cariacou in Second Life

SLURL: maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Cariacou/127/27/1026

Now back to the post! This week’s Drax Files is a visually stunning affair where Drax strolls through Rose’s world of art as if he’s some sort of trouble maker, you keep waiting for something to break, but it never does. This is quite an immersive episode, I could watch this with the sound turned down. However as sound is an important part of Rose’s work, I wouldn’t encourage you to do that if you visit her inworld installations. Also if you turn the sound down on the video, you won’t hear it … hmm I haven’t thought this through very well!

However the real story in this week’s episode is Rose and her work. Additionally how Second Life is used to bring her work to life inside and outside of Second Life. Rose is also quite the storyteller, and as I’ve said previously, I’m a big fan of storytelling, in all its forms.

This episode kicks off with Rose talking about her creation of Susa Bubble, the girl who went to bed single and woke up double. Susa Bubble sprang to life because Rose wanted to write a story for her daughter, who at the time was very sick. The story itself is not all pink fluff, it’s rather dark in parts and demonstrates good and bad, it’s closer to a Grimm’s fairytale in many ways than a happy children’s tale.

However one big theme from this week’s episode is the power of a virtual world such as Second Life to add an extra dimension to the artistic experience. The sounds, noise, 3D models and immersion within the Second Life art installation add extra richness to the exhibit, it’s powerful stuff.

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