Creative Machinery

Volavola screening in Casino Luxembourg

2011-02-26T20:35:00.003+01:00

From 29 January to 1st May 2011 Casino Luxembourg is hosting an exhibition of Human Atopic Space presented in the “Aquarium” and the basement. The members of Human Atopic Space are highlighting artists at the centre of an exhibition where virtual realities are either at the heart of the creative process or are vectors of a reflection which engages them.

The exhibition AFK (Away From Keyboard)is curated by Margherita Balzerani. As a part of the exhibition Vola Vola will be screened thursday 21 April 2011 at 7 p.m.

Tilted Website

2010-11-19T16:59:00.003+01:00

From Creative Machinery

On Saturday November 20th, there will be a national protest against dramatic cuts on cultural budgets in the Netherlands. We join the campaign by cutting on our our website.

Have a look at http://www.v2.nl/lab/blog/online-schreeuwen-om-cultuur

4Jetpacks4 video at World Expo Shanghai

2010-09-29T10:46:00.001+01:00

From Creative Machinery

I'm very honored that during the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai 4Jetpacks4 can be seen at the Madrid Pavillion as part of the Air Tree Exhibition.

The Air Tree, designed by Urban Ecosystems
is a self sufficient pavillion, where visitors can relax and enjoy performances or shows projected on the walls, in a nice cool breeze.

The show projected in Shanghai is curated by Cristina Garcia-Lasuen (aka Aino Baar), who initiated OPEN THIS END, a nonprofit cultural organization that classifies, develops and exhibits contents generated with new technologies.

The program consists in three exhibitions that present the theoretical classification of the three types and stages of the present video art:
Real (think projection in Real Space, for example the work of Rafael Lozano hemmer)
Virtual (cgi, for example Joaquin Baldwin
Machinima (movies recorded with game engines, like Evo Szuyuan :-) )

Up until now more then 2 million people have visited the Madrid pavillion, making it the most visited pavillion of the World Expo.

Many thanks and congratulations to Cristina / Aino !

Festivals in the Ile-de-France

2010-09-20T18:09:00.003+01:00

Dominique Moulon revisits the years festivals in the Ile-de-France in this article on newmediaart.eu.

One of the festivals that is highlighted in his article is Atopic, that featured the avant premiere of Volavola.

Machinima Exhibition at QUT

2010-07-09T14:34:00.009+01:00

From Creative Machinery

9 of my videos will be part of a machinima exhibition at the Queensland University of Technology.

"QUT presents a unique exhibition devoted entirely to machinima.
The exhibition features an historical timeline of machinima works with over 60 examples on display; from the first clunky DIY video game films created using games like Quake and Doom in the mid-90s, to contemporary film and artworks by internationally acclaimed artists like Friedrich Kirschner."

The exhibition will take place from 20 July to 7 August 2010 at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia.

Fly Me- Vola Vola wins Simona Gesmundo Award!

2010-05-31T15:11:00.006+01:00

On May 18 2010, Berardo Carboni was given the "Creativity Award" for Volavola / Fly me, the first feature shot entirely in Second Life, for "it's novelty and the important results achieved by the film".
The award was given during the 4th edition of the International Prize Simona Gesmundo animated shorts at the Teatro Totò, which was held in Naples.
The "Creativity Award" is annually awarded to an author for the use of new technology, which foreshadows the future in the field of cinema and animation.

Simona Gesmundo, was a talented young Italian woman interested in artificial intelligence applied to cinema and an author of animation short films. Therefore, the International Award of Animation Short Films was created, which puts the attention on new technology and innovation.

Volavola at FilmForum and other places

2010-04-17T11:20:00.003+01:00

Vola Vola got quite some media attention in Italy these last few weeks.
March 19 the movie was shown for the 1st time in Italy at the FilmForum festival in Gorizia.
There was a nice interview with Alessandro Haber and Berardo Carboni at affaritaliani.it.
This month the movie is also screened at 2 universities in Rome.
Check the movies facebook group for more media coverage links and scraps.
I wasn't there, but I'm told the movie is received very well by the audience!
Hopefully it will be shown in the Netherlands and other countries soon.

Orchestral Investigation #9 @ Stuttgarter Filmwinter

2010-01-09T13:35:00.002+01:00

From Creative Machinery

Orchestral Investigation #9 will be showed in the exhibition of the Stuttgarter Filmwinter.

This 23rd edition of the Filmwinter will take place from Januari 21th, 2010 to Januari 24th, 2010 in Stuttgart.
The Media Exhibition is at H7 Raumaufzeit.

Orchestral Investigation #9, and seeing spOts, being dOts @ GAMERZ 05

2009-10-23T14:38:00.003+01:00

From Creative Machinery

Orchestral Investigation #9 and seeing spOts, being dOts will be shown at festival GAMERZ 05, in the ARCADE program curated by Isabelle Arvers.

This 5th edition of GAMERZ international multimedia festival will take place from November 26th, 2009 to December 4th, 2009 in Aix-en-Provence.

Atopic Festival

2009-10-11T20:07:00.000+01:00

From Creative Machinery

The Atopic festival will be held from 27 october to 4 november at La Cite des Sciences in Paris. It is an art festival dedicated to virtual reality art, and the first machinima festival in France.

I'm very happy that seeing spOts, being dOts will be screened in the "Creative" section.

Also november the 2nd Volavola will have it's premiere at the festival on the IMAX screen of La Geode.

Volavola article @ digicult

2009-10-11T19:36:00.003+01:00

After seeing the preview clip of Volavola Marco Riciputi interviewed me about it, and wrote an article for the october issue of Digimag, the magazine of digicult.it, the Italiab e-magazine about digital culture and electronic art.
Here you can read the article in Italian. (Soon an english translation will be online).

Volavola Preview and Making-of Special @ art.clouds 2009

2009-09-29T20:18:00.004+01:00

From Creative Machinery

I will be doing a presentation about the "The Making of Volavola" at the media festival art.clouds 2009 [ghosts in the machine] in Regensburg Germany.

The festival will run from 8 to 17 october, at several locations in Regensburg, and features movies, lectures, performances, workshops and more.

15 October at 20:00 I will talk about how Volavola was made, and show a preview of the movie at the Akademiesalon, Andreasstr. 28.

Please visit the art.clouds 2009 [ghosts in the machine] blog for more information about the festival, and the Volavola / Fly me post for details about my presentation.

Volavola on wired.com

2009-09-19T15:14:00.003+01:00

Bruce Sterling picked up on Hamlet's Au post and blogged it on wired.com.
No in depth article or anything, but hey! we managed to disorient him ;-)

Also Domenico Quaranta mentioned our little sneak peak, which was picked up by gamescenes, a very nice blog.

Orchestral Investigation #9, and seeing spOts, being dOts in Brazil

2009-09-18T13:54:00.006+01:00

2 of my machinima are (or were) shown at Itau Cultural in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
(My portugese is kinda rusty, and I see different dates on different sites)

From Creative Machinery

For the exhibition "GamePlay", Isabelle Arvers curated the machinima program "Mostra Machinimas". For this program she selected seeing spOts, being dOts (Vendo Marcas, Sendo Pontos), a collaboration with Juria Yoshikawa and Nnoiz Papp, and Orchestral Investigation #9 (Investigações Orquestrais #9), a collaboration with Avatar Orchestra Metaverse.

The entire machinima programme is listed here: http://www.itaucultural.org.br/index.cfm?cd_pagina=2716&cd_noticia=6635

Volavola Scene 61 on NPIRL and NWN, and some more about the toon effect

2009-09-18T13:04:00.004+01:00

So far the reactions to the scene of Volavola we posted are pretty good!

Bettina Tizzy posted it on Not Possible IRL, one of my favorite blogs.
Hamlet Au posted it on New World Notes, elaborating a little on how we distinguish between what happens in Second Life, and what happens in Real Life, as all the footage was shot in Second Life.
Our solution, to apply a toon effect on the second Second Life footage seems to be received well by the Second Life community.
I agree with Gwyneth Llewelyn, who said "..it doesn't look like SL, but just as an incredibly detailed cartoon! If this catches on, the Japanese studios that spew out a cartoon per week for their so many huge series will start doing it all inside SL... :)".
Rendering this effect is far from RealTime though (about 3 seconds per frame), so maybe not so appropriate for that weekly tv show.

I'm also experimenting with this kind of effect for Woody, to emphasize the "comic" style of Ookoi.
It also has the advantage of not really needing all that detailed shapes and textures in Second Life during shooting.
I guess a "pure machinimatographer" would want to stay away from too much post processing work, but in my opinion it's best to just use the tools appropriate for the result you want to achieve.

Finishing Volavola !

2009-09-10T15:52:00.014+01:00

Almost done postprocessing Volavola!

Here is a preview.

In this scene Sofia (puppeteered by Honey Fairweather, voice by Sofia Vigliar) and Matteo (puppeteered by Blued Food, voice by Flavio Aquilone) meet eachother in Second Life and visit the virtual gallery of Gazira Babeli.

The music is original for the movie and done by Andrea Gabriele. It's an adaption of a folk song from Abruzzo called Vola Vola.

Because this machinima version of VolaVola is entirely filmed in Second Life we needed to make clear what happens in Second Life and what happens in Real Life. For this pupose we applied a toon effect on the Second Life scenes.
In the Real Life version of the movie the original footage will be used.

Storyboarding HoT

2009-07-12T20:44:00.002+01:00

From HoT

I'm currently working on the storyboard of another video I'm doing with Avatar Orchestra Metaverse. The composition is by Pauline Oliveros and called Heart of Tones.
It will be a music video of around 20 minutes, and I'm very excited about it :-)

Shooting Woody

2009-07-04T13:19:00.003+01:00

From ookoi

Last thursday we've been filming for "Woody", a videoclip for the next hit by the sound duo Ookoi. The setting for the clip is the beautiful atmospheric virtual version of the dutch island Ameland in Second Life, hosted by Archipel MediaLab.

4Jetpacks4 at NPIRL

2009-05-25T10:36:00.002+01:00

Alpha Auer wrote a very good article about 4Jetpacks4 and the importance of storytelling to 'get immersed' or 'attain presence'.

Attaining presence: 4Jetpacks4 and Bryn Oh

Machinima Vérité

2009-05-14T10:03:00.003+01:00

Wagner James Au aka Hamlet Au interviewed me about the making of the 4Jetpacks4 video and posted it on New World Notes.
Since he was on the original tour, and starring in the video, I'm very happy he likes the result! "As an involuntary actor in the machinima, I'm slightly biased, but I think her final product is spectacular and unique, BioShock meets Fritz Lang." he says.. wow!!!
(For the record, I usually don't sneak up on people, and was actually asked to film)

4Jetpacks4

2009-05-08T15:23:00.003+01:00

Just finished the video documentation of 4Jetpacks4, an interactive story telling performance lead by Bryn Oh.

In this performance a group of avatars was brought on a tour of a research facility. An unfortunate event results in the arrival of a tornado. The group must flee back to retrieve a jetpack in order to escape.

The video shows beautiful art by Bryn Oh, Glyph Graves and Nonnatus Korhonen, who also play the scientists. It also features a most amazing tornado by Tryptofaa Sands. The visitors are SLebrities Alpha Auer, Bettina Tizzy, Chimera Cosmos, Hamlet Au, Larry Pixel, Max Newbold and Tayzia Abattoir.

The piece was performed at the Caerleon Sim in Second Life, and curated by Georg Janick, for the Virtual Art Initiative, and the video will be exhibited in the will in the Harbor Gallery at the University of Massachusetts at Boston in April 2010.

More info at the Creative Machinery website.

Avatar Orchestra Metaverse at NRK television

2009-04-02T18:47:00.006+01:00

Here is the archived stream of spekter interviewing Leif Inge aka Gumnosophistai Nurmi featuring Avatar Orchestra Metaverse containing some seconds of Orchestral Investigation #9 :-)

http://www1.nrk.no/nett-tv/klipp/480658

AOM starting at around 39:00

From Creative Machinery

Avatar Orchestra Metaverse on Norwegian television

2009-04-01T12:11:00.003+01:00

Norwegian broadcaster NRK has interviewed Avatar Orchestra Metaverse member Gumnosophistai Nurmi about Second Life for it's "spekter" program. Spekter is a background information program, and its todays is about internet and how the new networking uses like Facebook Twitter and Second Life affect our lives.
If all goes well, we will see Gumno and hopefully a fragment of the machinima Orchestral Investigation #9 as the last item of the show.

The spekter show will be broadcast tonight at 20:10 CET at NRK 2.
http://www.nrk.no/programmer/sider/spekter/

Residency at Caerleon

2009-03-08T17:53:00.004+01:00

From Creative Machinery

I am very glad to have a residency at the Virtual Art Initiative. I have a huge space at the Caerleon sims to work on a video installation or whatever I want.

Also I'm involved in the creation of machinima documenting an 8 month project of collaborative exploration of the fundamental dimensions that make the art of virtual worlds a unique aesthetic medium. Each of these dimensions - immersion, interaction, ambiguity of identity, environmental fluidity, artificial agency, and globally networked collaboration - is being explored in a collaboration of artists under the direction of a project leader lasting approximately six weeks.
The collaborations are being thoroughly documented in images, text, and machinima film, and will generate work that will be exhibited in the "real world" Harbor Gallery at the University of Massachusetts at Boston in April 2010.

The first dimension - immersion - is currently being explored by Bryn Oh, Glyph Graves and Nonnatus Korhonen, in the project Immersiva, an immersive interactive story telling performance.

From Creative Machinery

Evo Szuyuan machinima at ARENA

2009-02-14T19:02:00.005+01:00

From Creative Machinery

From february 13, 2009 at 12am PST to February 15, 2009 at 12am PST I have a video exhibition at ARENA, organized by uqbar. media art culture and Rinascimento Virtuale.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Uqbar/47/222/722

On 4 screens in the shape of a 50 x 50 x 30 meter box I will show 4 videos I worked on in 2008: seeing spOts, being dOts, Orchestral Investigation #9, 17 Unsong Songs, and the draft trailer for Fly me / Volavola.

From Creative Machinery

Article on Volavola at digicult and more

2009-02-05T11:38:00.006+01:00

Marco Riciputi wrote another nice article about Volavola / Fly me - the movie after interviewing me for the 41st issue of digimag, the italian e-magazine on digital culture.

Overall the draft trailers for the movie have been received very well, and people around the world are genuine curious to see the final result! The project was posted on the Korean Virtual World news blog TOV virtual, the Russian blog experiment.ru, The Second Life Thailand fan site, Warhol Stars, New World Notes, and more.
There is also an interview with Berardo Carboni on Show Farm, and the trailers are now in the official Second Life machinima showcase.

Volavola at Second Times

2009-01-19T17:08:00.003+01:00

An article about Volavola appeared at Japans Major Second Life blog, The Second Times.
http://www.secondtimes.net/news/world/20090115_volavola.html

Volavola at Cafe Babel

2009-01-12T17:10:00.003+01:00

Marco Riciputi joined us at the set of Volavola and wrote the article Second Life and cinema: awaiting Hollywood for cafebabel.com

Volavola draft trailers

2009-01-12T16:53:00.004+01:00

Berardo Carboni and Simone Bellonio just finished two fast draft trailers for the movie Fly me / Volavola.

The fast energetic Hudson Mohawke version and the slower, more dramatic, Donizetti version.

17 Unsong Songs Machinima

2008-12-04T16:05:00.004+01:00

And here is the machinima documentary of the major solo installation 17 Unsong Songs by Adam Ramona at East of Odyssey, Second Life.

The video played as a loop of 17 minutes and 17 seconds at the the Premier of Queensland's National New Media Award Exhibition at the Premier of Queensland's National New Media Award Exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art(GoMA).

More info at the Creative Machinery website.

Woody at Art Month Ameland

2008-12-01T17:37:00.003+01:00

From Creative Machinery

During novembers Art month Ameland Haglet Alter is hosting Ameland in 3D. During this period I'll be working on "Woody", a videoclip / short movie I'm making with Ookoi.

17 Unsong Songs Machinima at the Queensland National New Media Award Exhibition

2008-12-01T17:17:00.005+01:00

From Creative Machinery

The 17 Unsong Songs video is being displayed at the Premier of Queensland's National New Media Award Exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art(GoMA) from 1 November 2008 – 8 February 2009.

The video is there related to the work of Adam Nash who has been nominated for the award!

Volavola / Fly Me at Rinascimento Virtuale

2008-12-01T15:46:00.005+01:00

From Creative Machinery

Volavola / Fly Me is being presented at the Exhibition Rinascimento Virtuale, curated by Mario Gerosa from October 21, 2008 till january 7, 2009 at The Museum of Natural History at the University of Florence.

more info at http://www.yourwaytoflorence.com/virtual-renaissance-art-in-second-life-exhibition-florence.htm

Fly me / Volavola progresses

2008-09-29T15:06:00.006+01:00

We're halfway in making the feature length machinima "Fly me / Volavola", and here's a video showing a selection of shots. The material is not yet edited, or dubbed, and doesn't reflect the story, but will hopefully give an impression of the atmosphere and unveil a little bit of where it is going.

"Fly me / Volavola" is a movie about love, and how it becomes more difficult to know what is real and what is not. The story is filmed once as a regular Real Life movie and once in Second Life, but the 2 movies are interlinked.

The movie is directed by Berardo Carboni, who previously directed Shooting Silvio. The script is written by Berardo Carboni and Mario Gerosa.

More information can be found at the Creative Machinery Website, and at the Volavola Myspace page.

Orchestral Investigation #9 at the netfilmmakers stand

2008-09-13T12:56:00.006+01:00

From Creative Machinery

netfilmmakers will attend alt_cph - Platform for Nordic non-profit art spaces.
At the stand Netfilmmakers will present:
'remote impressionist art' by carlos katastrofsky as teaser for the upcoming Netfilmmakers exhibition in december (to be announced).
'glemsel.net' by Mogens Jacobsen,
'Reverse Game' and 'Levels of Learning' by Brennan Young,
'Search' and 'Find' by Hrafnkell Sigurdsson
And two machinimas:
'N00sphere Playground' by Sachiko Hayashi and 'Orchestral Investigation #9' by Brigit Lichtenegger / Evo Szuyuan and Leif Inge / Gumnosophistai Nurmi

art.xxXtenxion report

2008-07-30T15:23:00.004+01:00

Now back from a wonderful week at art.xxXtenxion in beautiful Regensburg.
During this time I did 2 machinima workshops, 2 cinema programmes, attended a lecture from Stephan Doessinger about bastard spaces, and did the live camera for the Second Life projection screen during the MixxXxed Reality - Extended Night.

During the first day of the workshop I did a general introduction to the topic of machinima, and explained different approaches ('getting in there' versus 'pre-produced'), how it relates to regular RL filming and animation, techniques (camera, animation, lipsync etc.), the pros and cons, and my view on the future of machinima. All this was illustrated by demonstrating software and showing some of the footage we shot for Volavola in the week before I went to Regensburg.
During the second day we got dirty, by actually making a machinima!

A very interested group of people showed up for the cinema programmes.
The first programme showed machinima documentation of different art forms that exist in Second Life. This programme was a bit harder to understand for people unaquainted with virtual worlds. Different people like different things, but I dare to say that most visitors were blown away by Osprey Therians video of a performance by Second Front at Dorkbot SL / Dorkbot Paris called Haledol Dreams of the Minotaure.

Some more people showed up for the second program, that showed off a variety of machinima made in Second Life. With this selection I aimed to show that the creators imagination is the only limit, that any movie genre can be succesfully made, that machinima have surpassed the underground gamer community, that being 'turned off by Second Life esthetics' is history, and most of all to inspire and entertain!
It was a great success and people clapped after every movie, and I got many enthousiastic reactions and thank yous for showing this selection!

The art.xxXtension event had a great finale with the mixed reality night!
Wonderful performances by Biagio Francia, Gecko, Avatar Orchestra Metaverse, Komuso Tokugawa and Dirschl & Starzinger.

To finalize all this, here is my favorite photographic residue, made by Bingo Onomatopoeia of the RL members of the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse that were in Regensburg, and their SL avatars. (many more members played from all over the world).

A big thank you to everybody who was there and especially the people from Pomodoro Bolzano who organized the entire event!

Machinima Love

2008-07-23T09:33:00.007+01:00

I'm very happy and honored to be artist in residence at arts2media in Regensburg! Right now we're in the middle of art.xxXtenxion 2008, Mixed Reality + Bastard Spaces.

I'll be doing a machinima workshop July 23 + 24 from 14:30 to 17:00 at Medienwerkstatt arts2media, Andreasstr. 28, Regensburg.

Next to the workshop I'm proud to be showing 2 machinima programmes at Kino Wintergarten.
In the first programme Machinima Art Movies a selection of art documentaries will be shown that highlight some of the most interesting works of art as well a shine a light on the richness and versatily of the Art World as it exists in Second Life.
The second programme The Art of Machinima will show an inspiring selection of short movies of some of the best young filmmakers, including comedy, videoclips, art house, and mystery. It will be clear why machinima is breaking out of the underground community of gamers, and has become more widely recognized by mainstream audiences, as well as the established film production companies.

Please visit the art.xxxtenxion blog for the full programme.

Many thanks to Gazira Babeli, Lainy Voom, Chouchou, Robbie Dingo, Kirsty Hawkshaw, Mejo Kuu, Berardo Carboni, Moebius Overdrive & Allen Kerensky, Jason Smith, Arahan Claveau, Osprey Therian, and Patrick Lichty/Man Michinaga.

Above all thanks to the wonderful people of Pomodoro Bolzano!

Video exhibition at Lars New Art Space

2008-07-10T14:45:00.009+01:00

Opening reception 10 july, 12 AM PDT / 21:00 CET at Lars New Art Space
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Otherwhen/7/194/21

On display is a selection of 5 different machinima by Evo Szuyuan that were made over the last year.
To give a better sense of how they were made, and what they are about, a set from each movie is recreated for each movie when it starts playing (by clicking the screen).
Take a seat and watch the movies, or walk around and explore some of the art works, props and informational items in the space.

Google Lively

2008-07-09T13:40:00.002+01:00

Had to give Googles newly launched virtual world Lively a try ofcourse, and created a room.
Not much there except for a lava lamp, and it's not very likely much more will happen in the recent future, but still.. The feature to add it to your website is nice!
So do visit, and maybe I'll be there to chat ;-)

Avatar Puppeteers

2008-07-08T16:55:00.004+01:00

Pictures by Fau Ferdinand and Bea Fontani

After a chaotic, but very interesting and inspirational dorkbot session, a new Second life group is born, called Avatar Puppeteers. This group is devoted to further development and usage of Avatar Puppeteering and bringing more expression to avatars, and also to new input devices connecting to this technology in line of HandsFree3D.
Here is a full report of the session. The chat-log is edited, for readability, and keeping the attention on the topic, but the most asked questions were "when can we play with it", "is this only a proposal", and "how can we help". So soon I will make a download of a puppeteering viewer available on the Creative Machinery website and add some instructions on usage, and summery of what works now, and what doesn't. With a fine group of performance artists, machinimatographers, software and hardware developers, scripters and documentation fetishists, I'm convinced great things are going to happen :-)
Many thanks to JJ Ventrella and Philippe Bossut for their wonderful work, and willingness to share it!

Dorkbot Session Announcement

2008-07-04T11:24:00.003+01:00

The upcoming Dorkbot session will take place 6 July 1:00 pm PDT / 22:00 CET at the Odyssey Simulator!
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Odyssey/85/153/45/

This dorkbot session will be of interest to developers, performers, machinimators, animators, photographers, and just about anybody with an interest to bring more expression to avatars and more direct ways to interface with our embodied selves.

JJ Ventrella (a.k.a. Ventrella Linden) will present the avatar puppeteering project. A project motivated to bring more expression to the avatar, by enabling a more fluid and direct way to manipulate the ‘physical avatar’. This is a Linden Lab project that unfortunetely was ‘put to sleep’ as Linden Lab decided to focus on the stability of Second Life and internal opinions differed over how compelling the feature really is.
Last month however, Linden Lab released the client source code of this project, to allow other people to build on it (and convince them otherwise).

Philippe Bossut, will present Handsfree3D, a project that enables to interface with virtual worlds via 3D camera motion tracking. Philippe Bossut has developed several demos to demonstrate how one can navigate and execute all sorts of tasks without the need for a mouse and keyboard, and over the last month he has been working on connecting his code with the puppeteering feature.

Please visit the Dorkbot SL blog for full information on the event, the projects and the presenters

5 days off

2008-07-04T11:10:00.002+01:00

These are busy times, with many things going on at the same time, so I'm a little late posting the Mixed Reality performance of Avatar Orchestra Metaverse at the opening of the festival at Montevideo (for which Creative Machinery Evo Szuyuan / Brigit Lichtenegger did live Second Life camera work), but the festival is still going on and I encourage everybody to go!!

Crosswire – in search of the synesthetic effect
Optofonica presents:
From 03-07-2008 until 26-07-2008
Aernoudt Jacobs (BE), Sagi Groner (IL/NL), Kaffe Matthews (UK), Telcosystems (NL) and TeZ + Janis Ponisch (IT/DE).
http://www.montevideo.nl/en/agenda/detail_agenda.php?id=264&archief

Lipsync code is now included in latest Realease Candidate

2008-05-29T12:20:00.007+01:00

Huray!

"The code for basic lip sync has been included in the latest Release Candidate viewer, however it is disabled by default. To enable it, you first have to enable the “Advanced” menu by pressing Ctrl-Alt-D (all three keys together, but not to be confused with Ctrl-Alt-Delete). Then in the Advanced menu select Character, then Enable Lip Sync (Beta). Whenever someone uses voice chat and you see the green waves above the avatar’s head, you should also see the avatars lips move. When an avatar has an attachment covering its head, though, the attachment is not animated. Sorry, furries"

Mm Alder

As a result Geuis Dassin has put his LSL lipsync hack Motor Mouth into the trash heap of history, and wrote down his thoughts on the importance of this new lipsync feature for Second Life.

To once more demonstrate how this works well for all languages, have a look at this Japanese machinima using the lipsync client

Check on Arrival at Göttingen International Ethnographic Film Festival

2008-05-02T11:52:00.002+01:00

The online demo of Check on Arrival is displayed at the Göttingen International Ethnographic Film Festival 2008 from 30 april to 4 may 2008.

Interview with Evo Szuyuan on the Orange Island blog

2008-04-29T10:12:00.005+01:00

Orange Island has posted an interview with yours truely on their blog :-)
read it here

Some news on the Second Life Lipsync Viewer

2008-04-29T09:52:00.002+01:00

Mm Alder reported that the integration of the lipsync code with the standard Second Life viewer is progressing, though it may still take a while before we will see it there, considering the problems with the current Release Candidate Series.

There has also been encouraging news from Vivox (who provide SL voice chat) about future developments that will allow for great improvements on the lipsync quality. One of these developments is the ability to export audio tracks of individual speakers for easier editing.

Besides news on the development front, some nice news on usage of it.

The Lip Sync Viewer was used to animate Philip Linden's speech in the
machinima he presented to Congress on April 1.
See it at http://www.silverandgoldie.com/linden_congress.htm

Also SLCN.tv has started using the lip sync viewer. See http://www.slcn.tv/media/mv_metanomics_21apr08.mp4

Orange Machinima Week

2008-04-14T11:26:00.004+01:00

Orange island is presenting the machinima week, "a hefty series of classes, discussions and screenings featuring some of Second Life’s most talented filmmakers and machinima specialists."

Wednesday 16 april Creative Machinery Evo Szuyuan will be discussing "Machinima as an Artform" with Lainy Voom and Berardo Carboni.

Orange Island
12.00 pm – 1.30 pm SLT : Machinima as an Artform / speakers: Lainy Voom, Evo Szuyuan (Odyssey, NL), Berardo Carboni (Volavola, Italy)

Do check out the Orange Island Blog for the detailed Program!

No more Release Candidate versions of the Second Life Lipsync Viewer

2008-04-09T14:37:00.002+01:00

Now that WindLight is in the standard release of the Second Life viewer, we won't be building any more Release Candidate versions (unless there's something interesting in them). We will build new standard releases as they come until the lip sync code gets incorporated by Linden.

New downloads for the Standard Second Life Lipsync Viewer

2008-04-06T18:21:00.002+01:00

The website is updated with the latest versions of the Lipsync Viewer for Windows and Mac OSX, Second Life 1.19.1 (4).

Orchestral Investigation #9

2008-04-02T12:28:00.006+01:00

Just finished the first in a series of videos with Avatar Orchestra Metaverse. A series of Orchestral Investigations into site specific concert films / machinima.

In this first video Avatar Orchestra Metaverse drinks coffee and plays Fragula at a rooftop cafe located at the Kyoot Army HQ simulator in Second Life. The orchestra, music and site merge into a surreal video.

More information can be found at the Creative Machinery Website.

New downloads for the Second Life Lipsync Viewer

2008-03-23T13:59:00.004+01:00

The website is updated with the latest versions of the Lipsync Viewer for Windows and Mac OSX, Second Life Release Candidate 1.19.1.2 (82781).

Dorkbot Session Announcement

2008-03-17T14:17:00.004+01:00

The upcoming Dorkbot session is a collaboration between Dorkbot SL and Dorkbot Paris, and will take shape as a Mixed Reality Event, in Paris and Second Life.
The Dorkbot Session will take place 21 March 12:30 pm PDT / 20:30 CET and start in Second Life at the Odyssey Simulator!
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Odyssey/85/153/45/
In Paris it will be at La Cantine Numerique.
151 rue Montmartre, dans le Passage des Panoramas, 75002 Paris
Métro Grands Boulevards

From Paris Maxime Marion will be presenting the records project, and Nicolas Barrial from extralab will present La Cantine Virtuelle (La Cantine in Second Life). From Second Life Berardo Carboni will present the Volavola project, and Second Front will perform Minotaure Haledol Dreams.

Live Video streaming service donated by http://d-oo-b.cc (Secondlife avatar Eifachfilm Vacirca)

For more detailed information visit the Dorkbot SL Blog.

New Versions of the Second Life LipSync Viewer

2008-03-11T19:45:00.005+01:00

The website is updated with the latest versions of the Lipsync Viewer for Windows and Mac OSX.
The lipsync code itself remains unchanged, it is just recompiled for the latest versions of the standard Second Life Viewer 1.19.0(5) and for the Release Candidate 1.19.1.0 (81609), as Windlight has now made it to RC.

Other good news! No need to vote anymore. The Lipsync functionality will be incorporated in the standard Second Life Viewer!!

Promo Fly me / Volavola

2008-03-07T12:47:00.008+01:00

We declared the promo of Volavola finished!
"Fly me / Volavola" is a movie about love, and how it becomes more difficult to know what is real and what is not. The story is filmed once as a regular Real Life movie and once in Second Life, but the 2 movies are interlinked. The promo doesn't really reflect the story, but was meant as a proof of concept.

The movie is directed by Berardo Carboni, who previously directed Shooting Silvio. The script is written by Berardo Carboni and Mario Gerosa.

More information can be found at the Creative Machinery Website, and at the Volavola Myspace page.

Machinima Collection of Art Installations and Performances

2008-03-04T16:18:00.003+01:00

A collection of videos of Art Installations and Performances made in Second Life is now available at http://www.creativemachinery.org/machinima.html
Needless to say these video are of much better quality then the ones on youtube.. especially now that Flash (9,0,115,0) supports mpeg-4.
Do hit the fullscreen button and pump up the volume!

Second Life Lipsync Viewer for Mac

2008-02-28T20:06:00.003+01:00

Creative Machinery is now also hosting binaries of the lipsync viewer for Mac. As soon as there is a patch for the latest windlight viewer, there will be a windlight version available, but for now there is a viewer that will work with the latest standard Second Life viewer (1.18.5.3).

seeing spOts, being dOts

2008-02-20T22:20:00.010+01:00

Just finished a new machinima.
It's a free video impression/interpretation of a show by Juria Yoshikawa and Nnoiz Papp, that took place the 15th of februari 2008 at Diabolus Art Space in Second Life, and the Directors Lounge Festival in Berlin, curated by Olga Wunderlich.

"Let us suppose that we're all just a temporary mishmash of dots on a screen. All of our energy, personality and uniqueness is just a collection of bouncing color dots creating seemingly meaningful patterns we call a virtual world. Zoom in and you are a sea of dots with no form. Zoom back and you're just a spot on the map."

Sources of the Second Life Lipsync Viewer released

2008-02-11T22:19:00.000+01:00

Finally Mm Alder has got the permission to release his code for the Second Life Lipsync Viewer! Creative Machinery is hosting binaries of the viewer for windows.

To get Linden Lab to incorporate this code into the official viewer go to
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-4794 and vote for it. You have to be logged in with your SL name and password to vote.

Caterwaul at Huret & Spector Gallery (Boston), Turbulence.org, and Ars Virtua (Second Life).

2008-02-05T16:11:00.000+01:00

Caterwaul is displayed at Mixed Realities - An International Networked Art Exhibition and Symposium from February 7 - April 15, 2008.
As this is a Mixed Reality event, things will be happening at Huret & Spector Gallery, 10 Boylston Place, 6th Floor, Emerson College, Boston, Massachusetts, turbulence.org, and in Second Life at Ars Virtua.

Reception in Ars Virtua on Thursday Feb 7 from 2pm-4pm SLT.

Emotion Vending Machine at the European School of Visual Arts

2008-01-30T13:45:00.000+01:00

The Emotion Vending Machine is displayed at The European School of Visual Arts from 10 january - 8 february 2008, 9 - 12, 14 - 19 at l’École européenne supérieure de l’image, site de POITIERS, 26 rue Jean Alexandre.

Check on Arrival at Solothurner Filmtage

2008-01-30T13:26:00.000+01:00

The installation of Check on Arrival is displayed at the Solothurner Filmtage from 22.-26. Januar 08, 16 - 20 in the Freitagsgalerie, Kreuzgasse 5 in Solothurn.

Creative Machinery

2007-01-12T01:12:00.000+01:00

The Way that can be experienced is not true;
The world that can be constructed is not real.
The Way manifests all that happens and may happen;
The world represents all that exists and may exist.
(Lao Tze)

What this blog is about will become clear when it grows content. For now it's about quoting Tao Te Ching and being mysterious. But that will change.