The Fashion Research Institute today posted this ad:
NEW YORK — May 4, 2009 — Today Fashion Research Institute announced its short course for avatar apparel design for virtual worlds. This fast-paced course takes a student from novice user to functional avatar apparel designer by building essential skills in just 20 hours of instruction. Students completing the course can go on to supplement or replace their real life salaries by developing their own virtual goods design business.
As a designer of virtual products of all kinds, a word of caution is in order. Virtual hype can be as deceptive as any false advertising in any world or culture.
Bettina Tizzy calls Jewish Home "one of the sweetest places I have seen geared to faith in Second Life," and to be sure there are several superficially soothing features at this installation. But it is also deeply disturbing. The little synagogue at the top of the hill is dark and delapitated. The pews are in disrepair, and you can't sit on them in any event. Outside, there are some dance balls and the soothing sound of birds chirping with flowing water. But there is also a flaming cross labeled, "burned at the stake." There is a bridge leading to a red door. Open the door and enter ...... Is this sweetness, or is it terror?
New research shows that television is the greatest consumer of human life, literally an angel of death. You think our education system is failing? It's not the system that is failing, it's the individual decisions of citizens to tether their minds to a totally passive medium for more than five hours every day. This is a voluntary form of slavery that is a scandal and an outrage in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Read more.
This wonderful exhibit explores the relationship between art, architecture and spirituality in world religions. Informative, entertaining, enlightening. The exhibition was curated by students and staff of the Department of Art History at Rutgers University and the “Art History” group in Second Life. It was sponsored by the Play-as-Being Group, an initiative of Kira Institute. To see the exhibit in world.
Bettina Tizzy is better than almost anyone at turning up the most creative uses of the virtual world, Second Life. Though her focus is specifically upon the arts, we think that many of her comments touch upon two other topics that we are exploring, namely, science and spirituality. Check out the latest from Bettina Tizzy.
Second Life artist Bryn Oh's works are artifacts from an alternate future, an apocalyptic universe where desperate mothers upload their dying children into cyborg bodies only to be beset by righteous mobs, children's rhymes warn against impending robot attack and tiny gear-driven insects engage in the ancient and universal struggle to survive. But Bryn and her work are never what they seem. The surface is worth seeing, but a closer look rewards the curious and the patient.
While there has been much ink spilled and many pages printed about how teenagers communicate in the digital age, one thing is clear: an entire generation will soon be graduating from high school and college with a habit of building friendships, seeking entertainment, buying products and services in ways that circumvent the communications technologies of the past. It is also likely that this wave of young adults will seek out opportunities for education and enlightenment within their virtual worlds. The implications of these trends for the institutions that adults inhabit are profound.
There has been much discussion of late about whether earlier, rapid growth of the virtual world, Second Life, will continue. Many residents have the impression that growth has slowed, and there are some statistics to support that. Still, Pathfinder Linden has drawn up a chart showing a steady upward increase in what the company refers to as "daily maximum concurrency," that is, the maximum number of avatars on line simultaneously on the same day. Last week, the network topped 80,000 avatars onlne for the first time ever. Also of interst is the relatively steady increase in this metric since March 2007.
Second Life avatar, PatriciaAnne Daviau is goddess of the small, building tiny houses, and even whole cities on a micro scale in the virtual world. Her builds are delightful and thought provoking. Read more.
Anna Lo Bello is a painter living in Turin,Italy, at the foot of the Alps. She populates her imaginary worlds with fruit and flowers, with human figures, characters and costumes, exhibiting her work, among other places, in the virtual world, Second Life. Read more about Anna, here.
