New Berlin

After more then three weeks at De Dam square at the Amsterdam 2 sim, the virtual part of  conceptual information-art installation ‘DO NOT FEED (Meta.Live.Nu presents DFM RTV INT)‘, is now on show at the at the New Berlin sim, in Second Life.

You are invited to our ‘Third Opening Party‘ at Alexanderplatz, under the tv tower. saturday 23:00-02:00 CET (= SL 2-5 pm PST) january 25th 2008.

Crucial turning point in history of mankind

An article by Khannea Suntzu, copied with her permission from a reply at marketingfacts.nl/berichten/20070828_na_second_life_is_het_pas_echt_interessant

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I have been busy in Second Life since end 2005, after having waited for something like this to emerge. I can safely say I have been visualizing things like these since as far back as 1979. I have 25+ years very close on gaming, simulation and what happens in human minds in imaginary environments.

Right now Second Life is very, very clumsy. This is akin to the backyard industry that create airplanes a century ago, in 1908. Very few people had a clue where that particular enterprise was headed. Few people in 1908 dared speculate on metal-clad freight planes yet within a generation world wars were lost based on precisely that.

If anyone has a shiver of doubt, I say Second Life is the semi-competent first serious attempt to create an industry with possible more far reaching implications than airplanes in 1908. Second Life will be taught in history schools in half a century as being a crucial turning point. This newly emerging medium will (all but) destroy television, cinema, stores and various other things we take for granted. It will give rise to a new industry bigger than television and cinema combined. In ten years a billion people will at least weekly log on to some sort of VR akin to Second Life.

Cornerstones of this new industry are already quite near - real life facial expression capture, high resolution models, real-physics, engines such as Crysis, full body motion capture & streaming, stereoscopic HUD displays, contact lens monitors, augmented reality and many others. A huge number of new open source VR media (Qwaq, Open Croquet). Entropia will switch to the CryEngine in a few years. If you need your imagination tickled read “rainbows end” (vrinimi.org/rainbowsend.html) and be humbled. That is set in 2025 and probably the most realistic near future SF around.

For business the future is changing fast. Strike that, for everyone the future is so changing fast as to become haze beyond a few decades. We don’t need speculative technology like warp gate technology to realize the future in 3 decades becomes more alien than any alien dreamed up by hollywood. If I were a big company I’d find some likeminded other big companies and create a think tank / research institute real fast - and LISTEN. One look at the recent publications on the flabberghasting ignorance the old record company moguls exhibited and you know how in a decade the crowd will laugh your pleistocene business models all the way into bankrupcy. You won’t even be poor when failing, your stupidity as a fossil will put on display in the Youtubes of that day and age.

I say create specialists fast. People you then go and actually listen to if they come with bad news or painful and urgent suggestions. Right now a market can *suddenly and spectacularly* change in as short as (gasp!) 2 years. By 2015 that will be less than a year. By 2020 it will be in mere weeks a whole industry can be forced to change completely or go tar pit.

Let me give you some food for thought. SL experienced a brief peak because of a hype. It experienced a shallow bubble in the last year. Right now the wolves are pouncing on this phenomenon they perceive as a threat. The TV media ridicule SL and its inhabitats with am eager frenzy that is to me almost suspicious. It is almost as if the traditional media (which are geriatric at half a century…) feel threatened by this pretentious little upstart. Just watch what they do and say and ask yourself “motive” ?

Second Life is almost certainly a dud. Linden Labs is woefully incompetent and what they are trying to do in 2008 technology is very, very hard. But lessons are being learned that will be worth billions in a few years. As such SL will muddle on, slowly expand and in a few years be suddenly displaced by a far leaner and sexier predator. And after that these new media will become more mainstream and easier and self-intuitive (which it is NOT) than internet itself.

Khannea Suntzu

KhanneaSunztu.wordpress.com (blog since 2008-01-24)

Popular 1st Dutch Virtual Worlds Meetup

This first informal physical ‘Meet the avatars’  in Amsterdam yesterday was a great succes! Without much serious  publicity, The ‘Salon’ auditorium of De Balie was filled with people from al kinds of fields connected to metaverses and other media.

There was a live webcam from De Balie on the screens at the Teatro Masimo at the Nuova Sicilia sim in Second Life, where several avatars where virtually present. CallieDel Braie was one of them and took some snapshots.

Here a blog report in english:

blog.mindblizzard.com/2008/01/1st-metaverse-meetup-amsterdam.html 

Here are some blog reports in dutch:

metaplaces.nl/63/dutch-virtual-worlds-meetup

upthevortex.nl/2008/01/24/eerste-nederlandse-metaverse-meetup

photo by Damien Simons

Participants of VideoVortex conference in the N.I.M.K.

Participants of the Video Vortex international Conference in Amsterdam visited the ‘DO NOT FEED’ installation, wich is part of the VideoVortex.2 exhibition in the Netherlands Media Art Insitute.In this photo (by video vortex) the cameraview of Eveline Schoonhoven is zoomed out over the virtual Damrak.  At that moment there was an paintings and photography exhibion happening  about Amsterdam in the seventies. This was organized by The CybertronicArts Group The Cybertronic Arts group

International Conference: Video Vortex - Amsterdam 18/19 jan. 2008

 18-01-2008 &19-01-2008

Venue: PostCS 11, PostCS building - Oosterdokskade 3-5- 1011 AD Amsterdam, NL.
networkcultures.org/videovortex/about

In response to the increasing potential for video to become a significant form of personal media on the Internet, this conference examines the key issues that are emerging around the independent production and distribution of online video content. What are artists and activists responses to the popularity of ‘user-generated content’ websites? Is corporate backlash imminent?

After years of talk about digital conversions and crossmedia platforms we are now witnessing the merger of the Internet and television at a pace that no one predicted. For the baby boom generation, that currently forms the film and television establishment, the media organisations and conglomerates, this unfolds as a complete nightmare. Not only because of copyright issues but increasingly due to the shift of audience to vlogging and video-sharing websites as part of the development of a broader participatory culture.

The Video Vortex conference aims to contextualize these latest developments through presenting continuities and discontinuities in the artistic, activist and mainstream perspective of the last few decades. Unlike the way online video presents itself as the latest and greatest, there are long threads to be woven into the history of visual art, cinema and documentary production. The rise of the database as the dominant form of storing and accessing cultural artifacts has a rich tradition that still needs to be explored. The conference aims to raise the following questions:

How are people utilising the potential to independently produce and distribute independent video content on the Internet?
What are the alternatives to the proprietary standards currently being developed?
What are the commercial objectives that mass media is imposing on user-generated content and video-sharing databases?
What is the underlying economics of online video in the age of unlimited uploads?
How autonomous are vloggers within the broader domain of mass media?
How are cinema, television and video art being affected by the development of a ubiquitous online video practice?
What type of aesthetic and narrative issues does the database pose for online video practice?

The closing session on Saturday evening will explore the way VJs and media artists are accessing and using online archives. Under the banner of Video Slamming, this evening is all about the new ways of watching, using, and playing with moving images, such as scratching, sampling, mixing, (meta)tagging and recommending.

networkcultures.org/videovortex 

Coco Xi

The ´DO NOT FEED (Meta.Live.Nu presents DFM RTV INT)’ installation at De Dam square at the Amsterdam sim is continiously attracting attention from various people.

For some reason, quite some people want to get inside the iron cage as well for a moment. Like for example dutch singer/songwriter Coco Xi. Who was very critical about this exhibition by the way, but she was friendly enough to send us this picture, wich she took while she was inside the cage with Ad Breda and Eveline Schoonhoven.

‘The Globalized Crystal Ball’

A live broadcast with a debate at De Balie in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, about the near future of world politics.

This was also relayed directly on the videoscreen above the iron cage at De Dam square at the Amsterdam sim.

Second Opening Party

We are happy to announce the ‘Second Opening Party‘ of the information-art installation ‘DO NOT FEED (Meta.Live.Nu presents DFM RTV INT)’

With VVJ Ze Moo and DJ Jce Emoto.

Friday january 11th from 23:00 to around 02:00 CET (= SL 1 pm till around 5 pm PST) at De Dam square at Amsterdam sim. Be there at the square or be square!

slurl.com/secondlife/Amsterdam%202/205/205/25
Broadcasted live on audio & video streams on the web and inworld SL.

BREAKING NEWS: Black-out [update 2]

A POWER OUTAGE in the area of the Keizersgracht canal in Amsterdam Center since about 12:35 CET.

This electricity problem happened during works of the NUON power company in the area. It is estimated the area will be without electricity till at least 16:00 CET.

The ‘DO NOT FEED’ iron cage on De Dam square in Second Life is empty. Ad Breda And Eveline Schoonhoven are non-existent at this moment.

The whole Netherlands Media Arts Institute is out of electricity, wich offcourse is a disaster for time-based electronic arts! The VideoVortex.2 exhibition was just about to be open for the public again at 13:00 CET.

Keizersgracht 264, 1016 EV Amsterdam, The Netherlands - Photo by Frank Hendriks

More news coming up as it unfolds…

From the DFM IRC log:

[12:36] * Eveline_S (~EefSchoon@194.109****) Quit (Read error: Connection reset by peer)

[12:37] * Ad_Breda (~adbreda@194.109.****) Quit (Read error: Connection reset by peer)

UPDATE 20:30 CET: All problems seem solved, Ad Breda And Eveline Schoonhoven are back in te cage on De Dam  at the Amsterdam sim.

! WIN L$ 10000 ! In Meta.Live.Nu Logo Design Contest

Design a logo for Meta.Live.Nu !

FIRST PRIZE: TEN THOUSAND Linden Dollars! L$ 10000!

SECOND PRIZE: TWO THOUSAND Linden Dollars! L$ 2000!

THIRD PRIZE: THREE HUNDRED Linden Dollars! L$ 300!

(Linden dollars can be changed back into other money currencies like US Dollars or Euros)

ENTRIES DEADLINE: 1 februari 2008

LIVE PRIZE CEREMONY: 2 februari 2008

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We think a good logo is like an abstract symbol that can be acompanied by the text ‘Meta.Live.Nu’ or even stand alone. A good logo should be independent on colours, in fact it we would like it be black and white only. (no greys) The logo will be used on all Meta.Live.Nu outreach like this website, virtual clothing, on banners, as icons, and so.

Please end us your logo design entry by e-mail (_zemoo_@_live_.nu_), or send it to Ze Moo as a texture inworld SL, or upload it to the web and send us the URL of the image.

All logo design entries will be published in this web group: flickr.com/groups/metalive

The best logo will be chosen by the Meta.Live.Nu jury, chaired by Ze Moo.

The prize ceremony will be public in The Second Living Room theatre at the Second Enschede sim in Second Life on saturday the second of february twothousandandeight at twentytwohundred hours Central European Time. (2-2-2008 at 22:00 CE, = SL 1pm PST) .

This will be broadcasted live in audio and video inworld SL and on the web. So everybody can see who the winners are. A screenshot of the prize payment will be published to verify the authenticity of this contest.

If you have any questions regarding this contest, please leave a reply to this post or contact Ze Moo

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- The virtual live media art lab Meta.Live.Nu is a grassroots non-commercial project founded in december 2007 -