Saturday, 21st April, 2007

Glen or Glenda?

link film edwood transvestite

"Videos with Bibi has dug up Ed Wood's 1953 movie Glen or Glenda: Confessions of Ed Wood, The Transvestite, Glen or Glenda? or He or She." — [we-make-money-not-art.com]

On Realism and Reconstruction

secondlife building work hbuilding leeds education realism

I am, I think, on record in a fair few places as being someone who finds the practice of replicating Real Life environments in Second Life to be a bit tedious.

A bit unimaginative.

A bit clichéd.

"Whoo! I've got no restrictions at all here — not even gravity. I know — I'll build a brick house on the ground"

If you walk around the grid, you see the sort of thing I'm talking about all over the place — small, prefab houses with picket fences, adorned with non-functional decorative objects, and the odd tree sticking awkwardly out of the ground.

It depresses me, somewhat, that the imaginative builds of (say) The Future, or The Port, aren't taken on board by the vast majority of Resis, and that rather than being a forward-thinking environment, most of the mainland is a sprawl of badly fitting 10-prim shacks — mostly derelict as their owners lost interest after puting them together.

It reminds me, somewhat, of a thought I had about fifteen years ago ... I was living in a loft room in a house in Lancaster, and I'd spent ages trying to make it the perfect environment for people to come round and chill out. I put beanbags all over the place, made sure it was tidy, had the speakers position just right — but wondered and lamented that no-one ever came round to enjoy it.

(Although, perhaps that says more about my social skills, than it does about my interior design ones )

And I wonder if that's part of the reason so much of the grid is empty? Is the act of building a 'home' more enjoyable than spending time in it? Having chosen the perfect sofa for the forty friends you hope will come around, and festooned the rooms with little flowers and coffee cups that talk to you, apart from sitting around and talking, there's not really much else to do.

But hey, I digress.

Sentimentalities

Like I said, I'm very much against the idea of replication in virtual spaces. So my recent exploits in trying to build a perfect reconstruction of the place that I work in Leeds might seem like a bit of a contradiction.

To quote Eloise Pasteur...

I'm normally against the trend of educators in SL to recreate their RL buildings directly. Too many of them are uninspiring places at the best of times, and SL offers so much more, and has less need of classrooms in the formal sense too.

...and I agree. But I wanted to write just a little bit about why I did am doing it, and also argue against one of the little bits of negative feedback I've had related to it.

H Building is one of those typical 1960's concrete tower blocks that sprang up all over the country some fifty years ago. It's a place that seems to inspire a love-hate relationship — one minute you're cursing it for its awful ventilation (I can feel every pore in my face dry up the second I walk in every day, and the heating tends to be on at the most inappropriate times), the other you're expressing some sort of affection for it.

You can't help but get a sense of all the interesting things that have happened in there over the years. Each bunch of graduating students have, in some way, left their mark on the place — whether it's a sticker placed just out of reach of the cleaners and has therefore lasted five years, or the 'ownership' of a particular part of the building, so that the memory of them lingers on long after they've left.

I, myself, didn't actually study there¹ (we were based in Harrogate at the time I was a student), but I've worked in it and been linked to it for ten years now, and — prone as I am to anthropomorphising inanimate objects — I tend to think of it as a 'person' that has given birth to some outstanding things.

*coughnamedroppingcough*

Anyway, basically, I have a strong affection for the place. In some ways, it's come to represent the School in my head — I equate the two things together. And when I first started thinking about educational applications in the metaverse, it seemed the most natural thing to bring that embodiement of the School in-world.

If we, as a School, are going to have some kind of 'presence' in Second Life, then the most obvious thing is to bring the most recognisable representation of it onto the grid.

There is, of course, another sentimental reason for doing this. We're led to believe that at some point in the next few years, we're going to be relocated over the road, and H Building is going to come crashing down in a blaze of explosions.

And while the prospect of a new space is exciting (and part of what we intend to do on the Island is use it to thrash out some ideas for the new building), I think we'll all have a little tear in our eye when H Building comes tumbling down.

I often stand in my office on the 6th, trying to imagine (a) all the things that have happened in there, and (b) the idea of everything around me shattering, as a wave of dynamite explodes on whatever day in the future it is.

So, the recreation of our 'home' is partly a nostaglic 'archive' — a potentially lasting² structure, for long after the real building has been demolished.

Practicalities

But enough sentimentality There are other, more practical, reasons for building a replica.

Firstly, our entire campus is a bit of a rabbit warren. It's like a maze that's easy to get lost in.

For a start, if you wawnt to get out of the building, you don't go to the Ground Floor — you go to the Second. And any directions that you give people usually involve sending them outside, rather than through the maze of corridors that leads you from one place to another.

So part of the intention behind building as realistic a recreation as possible, is to let people wander around and familiarise themselves with the space before they come to Uni. It's like a map, I guess — a 3D space you can get to know before trying to tackle the RL version.

Secondly, because we're an Art School and tend to change the internal structure around several times a year for exhibitions and the like, it gives us a chance to try things out, virtually, before we commit to partition walls and paint.

For example: at the end of May we'll be holding our annual 'Art Fair', and opening up the whole School to the public. Last year, when we were setting it up, decisions were being made on-the-fly, and we didn't always use the space in the best possible way.

But having a virtual 'copy' in which to plan stuff out is going to be a massive help — we can see what works where, and how we might best use some of the more inaccessible spaces.

And, with a SL version of a RL event, we can open it up to a much wider audience. I might still be curmugeoningly against the idea of "photos on prims on walls", but I can't deny that the sense of immersion and the link between the real world and the virtual inspires some element of 'being there' — one that you can't necessarily get just by flicking through web pages full of images.

Conceptualities

A few more reasons, that have more academic 'weight' to them...

As a space in which to teach, I think the SL build completely fails. I can't, for the life of me, see me sitting down in one of the rooms and holding a seminar. Nor can I picture myself standing my avie in front of rows of seated students and talking to them.

But I've never thought that that's what education in SL should be about — it's a space to do things in, rather than lecture in.

There is then, an intent for us to use the build as a way of combining different departments within the Uni — getting disparate groups of people working together on something, and perhaps branching people's usual practices out of their normal confines.

For example, I spent most of yesterday doing my usual 'hand-drawn texture-baking' routine — with mixed results. The corridors are a bit good, but there's something terribly wrong with the shadows in the main 6th Floor studio.

They seem a little 'plonked on', and as AngryBeth noted to me, they're a little too "harsh for such a softly lit space".

"If only", I lamented to myself, "I knew someone with access to 3D software, who could take my original plans, extrude them, then give me perfectly rendered textures that I could bring inworld" ...

... "Hold on. I work in a University. There must be someone here that can do that for me"

Also, I'm forever seeing people out surveying bits of the campus, learning (I presume) how to use those funny yellow tripod things. And it occurs to me that I could bring them into the project as well — surveying the land around us so that we can use the data to terraform the island, rather than relying on my rather limited (and inaccurate) guesswork.

...

Besides that though, having a virtual copy of a very familiar space does make you look at the real world differently. One of the difficulties I have in talking about Second Life to colleagues and students, is that it's hard to engage in a completely abstract space.

I find that people are dismissive, partly because there's nothing to 'click' their heads into the virtual — no link between the two worlds.

What I've found though, with the older (smaller) version, is that when you put someone into a space that they're familiar with, there's more of a chance that they 'get' it — or at least, 'get' it more quickly.

I do (perhaps justifiably) get a fair amount of ridicule for my SL activities (not least when people realise I'm a girl inworld ), but when someone's looking over my shoulder as I take them around H Building, there's always a little spark of interest — and perhaps excitement — when they see me walk into the virtual version of their office.

Granted, there's nothing too imaginatively rigorous about the idea of walking around an existing space, but it often gets people thinking about what would happen if you flew out of (say) the windows on the 7th Floor, into an environment that wasn't dreary Leeds, but a completely abstract void?

So yeah, it's a 'portal' — a link between the real and the abstract, an 'introductory' environment, a chance to orientate before exploring some of the more 'challenging' areas of the grid.

...

It's also a bit of a technical exercise. Already, during its construction, I've come up with a few bits of technology to help automate the process — technologies that could be put to use elsewhere. I mean (as you know), I've been blathering on about my Illustrator/SVG script for a little while, and as well as a fun little piece of film that has come out of it, there's the potential for someone (perhaps even me) to take those scripts and produce quite a slick little building-tool.

But also the stuff that I was doing yesterday with automating the texture chopping — it should be possible (once I've coded it) to upload both a JPEG (or a PNG) along with an SVG file, and get a zipped archive of perfectly trimmed textures, ready to be slapped onto their corresponding prims.

And it's a bit of a challenge I guess. It's all very well me scoffing at other RL rebuilds, but I kinda feel the need to try myself. In a way, part of the justification for it in my head is "because I can" — you know, let's see just how realistic I can make something, when I put my mind to it.

...

Something else though — it also acts as a 'framework' to pin other activities onto.

I dunno about yous guys, but despite me blowing my Creative Trumpet™ all the time, I find it very difficult to work with a completely blank canvas. Whether it's my photography, or my film-making, my coding, or my web stuff, the infinite possibilities of being able to do "anything" are prone to my non-productive mindset.

For example, I find that a completely empty timeline in Final Cut Pro will stare at me for days, until I have an audio track to structure my video on.

And for web-work, I need a metaphor before I can start picturing how things will float on the screen. So, faced with a completely virgin island space in Second Life, my instinct is to use something already existing to form the overall intentions of the space.

Various parts of our building are used for different things — there is (obviously) a gallery at the bottom that we use to show stuff. But each floor has a different 'fucntion' — so to speak.

Ours (the 6th) is very much tied to our website — one being a virtual reflection of the other. And that serves as a great opportunity for me to base my SMIL browsing stuff in an appropriate 'home'.

The steps outside the 2nd Floor tend to be where everyone hangs out (smoking), and it's already starting to become the perfect chatty and discussion area in the virtual build.

The 9th Floor is a presentational space — and perhaps the locational opportunity for more 'lecturely' stuff.

Basically, every floor has some kind of 'natural' activity that translates in some way to stuff in Second Life, and it's perfect for figuring out what to actually do on the Island

Finalities

Last one: as well as all the stuff above, it also gives me the chance to show off.

I know it's not finished yet — and the textures I did yesterday haven't worked as well as I wanted them — but already it's something I'm rather proud of.

It's A Bit Good™

And therefore, it's acting as a bit of a 'flagship' for us — an example of what you can do with a couple of years experience and a bit of coding know-how, rather than splurging a few thousand L$ on a prefab and calling it a "University".

I'm sure that there are more 'inspred' builds in SL — more places that really explore the possibilities of an abstract, almost limitless space. But ours — just as a static showpiece — is a bit bloody beautiful.

(Or at least, it will be when we finish it)

Negativities

I mentioned the other day that I'd read some negative feedback about that film that I'd made. I perhaps should have been more specific — I think I gave the impression that I'd read negative stuff about what I'd done, when in fact it was more down about SL as a platform than my little scipty-code.

It's the first comment in this that narked me...

That's a fun video, and Kisa flexed some tech muscle but it seems like a serious waste of effort to jump through those hoops to make a simple model like that. And look at how many prims it takes to make a simple floor which should be four vertices and six faces! That's just sick.

My first reaction to that was that the commentor obviously didn't look closely enough at the floor (it has holes in it, so it's a little more complicated than just a big rectangle), and also that he wasn't very familiar with SL's 10x10x10 limit on prims.

But after a while, the thing that really niggled me was this idea of a "waste of effort to jump through those hoops".

Having to "jump through hoops" is part of what I love about the limited technology of Second Life. I'm forever sick of reading the moans of people who think it takes great effort to do simple things.

Limited tech means that you have to think a little creatively about things. Sure, you can't do some stuff immediately, but you can link loads of stuff together in very simple ways to achieve what it is you're after doing.

When things can be done with one click, you're detached form the creation process — it becomes like just slapping on filters in Photoshop. And when you're detached from that process, you don't learn anything along the way, and nor do you get any sense of achievement out of it.

Sure, it would have been dead easy if I could have uploaded an AutoCAD file into SL, and watched it build straight from that — but where's the fun, or the ownership?

In doing it the way I did (the way I had to, I guess), I've learned about SVG, I've honed my XML-parsing skillz, I've tried new things out with ImageMagick, and I've learned new LSL stuff as well.

And Learning New Things Is Good™ — it means that the next time I start making something, there'll be new possibilities in my head.

This is a very fun time for me in Second Life — a bit like the Web back in 1997. There is nothing quite like the sense of achievement that comes from making something do something new — something it wasn't supposed to do, something that no-one thought it could do.

And all the hoops you jump through along the way are things to be chuffed with, not grumpy about

...

Anyways.

Permit me a little flight into fantasy world — a world in which I get to stand outside on the steps, having a fag, in a great big bloody dress.

¹ Oh wait a minute — yes I did. I did my MA there.

² Depending on the lastingness of SL, of course.

Heheh, so do I And God do I wish I had it in Real Life as well...

Heh heh

Actually, it's the one with window-high letters saying something like "1.0" or something. I have no idea why

Prim Hogging

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For no reason whatsoever — just because I could — I made a 120 metre diameter sphere.

Hahahaha!

Or another 120m sphere, but white, and a kilometre-long cue to pot it with

Spaghetti Hoops

food wtf treehugging

Did you see that thing on BBC3 the other night? Freaky Eaters?

Ever since he was a toddler, 25-year-old Adrian England has never eaten anything except spaghetti hoops, toast, crisps, chips and sweets. With both his health and his relationship with girlfriend Liz starting to suffer, Adrian must make some radical changes in his life and discover the underlying reasons why his diet is so poor.

I didn't watch it all — I got bored with it — I just watched up to the bit where they started going on at him about all the "serious health problems" he was going to face.

And that narked me a little, that they never really went into what those health problems might be. They just kept repeating those words — "serious health problems" — and tossing in the word "stroke" every once in a while.

There was something nannyish about it all. I don't (natch) think for one second that the guy was doing himself any good by only eating spaghetti hoops, and I'm sure he was putting his health at risk.

It was just the tone of the presenter and doctor that got me worked up...

"Blah blah blah healthy blah blah blah organic blah blah blah smoothies blah blah blah"

I find all this talk of "five a day", "good bacteria", and the like hideously annoying. It's as if Public Information Services have been replace by marketing-speak bots, with TV titles designed to tittilate and sensationalise, rather than inform.

"Next on Channel Five, 'The man who ate too many nuts'"

I mean, of course one needs a balanced diet — that's a no-brainer. It's just that these soundbite-driven adverts and programmes seem more to do with dieticians drumming up work for themselves, giving names to things that don't need names, and describing problems that don't really exist.

(As an aside, you know that advert form Danone Yoghurts, that asks if you want "to stop having that bloated feeling?" ... DON'T EAT SO FUCKING MUCH. *sheesh* )

Anyway, all that aside, I did feel sorry for the poor guy. How anyone can go through their whole life eating only one thing is beyond me — surely he's bored of spaghetti hoops by now?

...

Hmm. Cheese on toast for tea tonight I think...

It has occured to me, to make it into the Death Star BTW

Just A Quick Art-Quickie

My esteemed colleague, Mr Cubist Scarborough, is having a launch do at the NMC this evening — he's been making rather superb holograms of some of my RL colleagues, and exhibiting them at the NMC starting tonight. I badgered him to do me, but I was tied up with something, and missed the opportunity

Here's a SLurl : http://slurl.com/secondlife/NMC%20Campus/46/75/38 ... it kicks off at midnight UK time.

Oh Shit

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