FIT Senior Student Photo Opening

Alison (left), Brian (center) and Hildy (right) at the opening

Thanks to Brian Emery and Alison Wermager, FIT had it’s first ever art opening in a virtual world on monday May 12. It was a historic occasion and one day, FIT will look back at that day as a major milestone. Brian and Alison’s students (BFA seniors) were introduced to Second Life and the art that’s being created there on occasion throughout the semester. Then, for their final show, they took their work and uploaded it into Second Life, and attached the images to “prims” and sized them appropriately.

The work was all installed in a pre-fab gallery that Brian and I purchased a few weeks ago for L$1999 (about $8). We had fruit punch and champagne and fruit (all virtual of course) and lots of faculty and students came to see the students’ really amazing work. There were artist’s statements and videos too. Thanks especially to Hildy Gardner, Josie Vargas, Ron Amato, Deborah Klesenski. Bill Mooney, Reginetta Haboucha, Steven Zucker, and others who came to see. And thanks especially to all the students for all their hard work and creativity… (and Brian and Alison, my heroes).

Ron Amato (aka Professor Amiot) who did his own amazing installation for his Masters thesis on the Quad and on the FIT land.

And the always-wonderful Babbs Ballyhoo (Meredith Sharp) — before the opening.

Oh, and me in the fabulous Edwardian Wreath Dress…

More of a Second Life for FIT…

This past week, Janine Hawkins (aka Iris Ophelia), our Keynote along with W. James Au for Technology Day (I’ve just started reading James’ book — it’s a MUST read), posted a written version of her talk at FIT – a kind of beginner’s guide to fashion in Second Life.

Janine writes about

• The relationship of real world and virtual fashion – how in many ways they mirror each other, but how virtual fashion allows for things that are not-possible-in-real-life (examples: some expressions of steampunk and cyberpunk).
• Some success stories.
• The ways that fashion designers and businesses can use the virtual world as a prototyping platform (to see what works and what doesn’t work), to raise brand-awareness, and as a franchise location. But she offers two solid rules for success: 1) Translate the Values and 2) Never Under-Estimate the Platform.

Speaking of Not-Possible-In-Real-Life, it had been bothering me that we all walk around in SL for the most part replicating our real-world, when so much more is possible in the virtual world. That’s when I found Bettina Tizzy’s blog and was lucky enough to have W. James Au introduce us. Bettina is currently very busy (with Rezzable Productions) working on the brilliant Garden of Not-Possible-in-Real-Life Delights (inspired by Bosch). This is a build festival –

This is not about recreating Bosch’s Garden. It’s about imagining and crafting your own. If you were to journey into heaven or hell, what would this look like, and how might you make this as immersive as possible? Think Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” but with your own twist. And what are the earthlings doing that might force them into the depths of the underworld or paradise?

Read more about this exciting project — which opens after May 14th. I can’t wait. As a souvenir, I took an interactive version of Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights, which you can now see on the FIT site. Try touching it and see what happens!

Here’s a pic of me in wings standing in front:

Bettina took a few minutes break to share with me some Not-Possible-In-Real-Life fashion by designers Eshi Otawara and 3Star Tyne. Wow! They were breathtakingly beautiful. I should have taken some pics.

Perhaps a fashion show at FIT in the fall of these and other Not-Possible-In-Real-Life fashions?

OPENING!
Speaking of shows at FIT, tomorrow FIT’s BFA Photography students will open their senior show in Second Life on the FIT campus from 1-3 EST, at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Teaching%202/170/201/26

See our listing here and here.

Here’s a photo of Brian’s class in Second Life:

Hildy Gardner and Josie Vargas have both indicated interest in integrating Second Life into their Fashion Design curriculum for the fall, and so has Robin Sackin, chair of the Fashion Merchandising Management Department. And Brian Emery of the photo department (who together with Alison Wermager organized the above show) has a great idea for co-teaching a course with a fascinating assignment in Second Life.

Here’s a shot of Hildy (aka Sig Klaar) who has been building up a storm:

And Ron Amato (aka Professor Amiot) has been installing his Masters thesis project — with some great videos on the history of photography. See them at the FIT site

Off-topic, I’ve also seen some beautiful art in Second Life in the last couple of weeks. Here’s me (Max Newbold) in an installation of works by Alizarin Goldflake.

In a few weeks, FIT will move to a larger lot on Learning 2. In the few months we’ve been in SL, we’ve used up our space.

Thanks to Janet Brav, Jeff Buchman, Hildy Gardner, Steven Zucker, Michele Nagel, Ron Amato, Brian Emery, Alison Wermager, Josie Vargas, Naomi Gross, Robin Sackin, Renee Cooper, Kurt Wendt, and others for their enthusiasm about Second Life this semester…

Where is the Value for Businesses in the Virtual World?

Shenlei Winkler has a fascinating post today on where the value lies for companies in virtual worlds right now. Faculty often ask me what companies are in Second Life — and the implication is that if there are major apparel companies successfully doing business and making money in Second Life, then virtual worlds are worth looking at. When asked that question, I always feel a bit pained. I can’t answer that major apparel companies are making real money in Second Life. But I know, in my heart, that this is the direction things are moving in. But how to explain that to faculty? Shenlei has real mass-market experience — so she knows. She writes: Given the statistics out there, I think anyone can see that real mass market numbers just don’t equate with the consumer actually being in any one given virtual world at any given time, to receive a marketing message to ‘buy my stuff’.

In her post. Shenlei states what seems obvious, but isn’t for some reason — that we’re just not there quite yet. The mass market consumers are just not in virtual worlds yet in the numbers and concentration that would make it truly profitable. What we need now, according to Shenlei, are processes that make it easier for businesses to do business more efficiently in the virtual world. Shenlei’s Black Dress Technology seems poised to do just that.

The mass consumer just isn’t there yet. She will not be there until enterprise steps up and figures out how to use virtual worlds specifically to enable themselves to do business more efficiently and effectively, and then pays to harden the virtual world in a way that makes them ready for business, which will have the collateral effect of making the user experience consistently easy. Then and only then will we see mass market adoption of virtual worlds. Until then, enterprise enablement is the real value proposition for virtual worlds. Virtual worlds enabling enterprise to conduct business more efficiently.

This makes a lot of sense to me. Read about the Black Dress Technology Subsidiary (partner — IBM) here.

I want to thank Shenlei again for taking the time to come to TechDay and talk to us about the Gateway in Second Life for Fashion Industry folks. Read more about Shenlei’s presentation and how to to gain access to this invitation only orientation gateway for virtual worlds for fashion educators and professionals at Elaine Polvinen’s blog — FashionTech.wordpress.com.

Part 2: Technology Day at FIT — Presentations & Roundtables

Part 2 (scroll down for the first post about TechDay)

I am gathering the powerpoints and other materials from the presentations and roundtables. Elaine Polvinen has posted a summary of her presentation here — with a powerful call to educators:

If fashion education does not initiate the type of quick response solution (that students are taught with regards to the real world) to the unprecedented transformational technology shift that is taking place over to 3D, they run the serious risk of becoming redundant and obsolete and could actually be the driving force for industry to develop private training institutes.

Here’s Mary Ellen Gordon’s powerpoint. Many thanks to Mary Ellen for generously sharing with us the brand new research done by Market Truths.

dressing-for-two-_-what-avatars-and-their-humans-are-buying-and-wearing

Here is Janine’s powerpoint:

janine hawkins\’ powerpoint

And here is a site with the links Raymond Yee used in his talk.

Will the other presenters/roundtable leaders please use the “comments” feature to post a quick summary of the discussions at your tables or a summary of your presentation — with relevant links? Powerpoints can be sent to me.

Part 1: Technology Day at FIT — a Note of Thanks

In the stress of yesterday afternoon, I neglected to publicly thank all the people who made the day possible –

HUGE thanks to TDT members Meredith Sharp, James Pearce, and Patty McGillan especially — for far too much to list here. They were simply amazing.

Thanks also to Bernie Kahn, Jeffrey Riman and Naomi Gross. The panel Naomi organized on advertising and marketing in the era of Web 2.0 was fabulous. And of course, thanks to Vinnie Sassone for his support.

And thanks also to the TechDay committee Nancy Diehl, Mark Higden, Eileen Karp, Carmita Sanchez-Fong, Praveen Chaudhry, and Karen Pearson for all their help before and during the event.

And the support of FIT colleagues like Renee Cooper, Sass Brown, Calvin Williamson, Brian Emery, Rena Sussman, Hildy Gardner, Josie Vargas, Carol Poll, Andrew Weinstein, Jeff Buchman, Janet Brav, Leslie Blum, NJ Wolfe, Anna Blume, David Drogin and Steven Zucker meant a lot too.

Thy Nguyen did an AMAZING job on our graphics and Mohammed, our IT intern made beautiful event maps. Mary Oleniczak in the facilities office worked hard on the event and was very patient.

And my SUNY colleagues too — Alex Pickett and Larry Dugan (who ran a Round Table on teaching in Second Life that was packed). Wow!!!

Then there’s Sumit Bagchi and Vince Salamone (and Mike and Indra) who made it all happen on the technical end.

I’d also like to extend a special thanks to our exceptional speakers Elaine Polvinen, W. James Au, Janine Hawkins, Susan Reda, David Polinchock, Kathy Savitt, and Raymond Yee, and Mary Ellen Gordon.

And last but not least our vendors, Xythos (a sponsor), Optitex (a sponsor), Apple, Tukatech, Microsoft, Dimension Data and Cisco, Browzwear (a sponsor), Vectorworks, Adobe, Yunique, CaddEdge, Gerber (a sponsor), Cozimo and Dell (great raffle items!).

Part 2 will focus on the Roundtable Discussions!

Sadly, Louise Guay of My Virtual Model was not able to join us, but sent a link to this video — witha special message to the students at FIT!

Elaine Polvinen — Open CourseWare and a Tour of Buffalo State’s Island in SL

This video will provide you with a tour of the fashion project areas on the Buffalo State island in second Life. It starts out in front of the Research building and shows you how to buy flexi skirts for $0L and use the video tutorials. Then you fly to the students work pier and can buy for $0L the franimation overrider. There is an example of the student fashion vendor exhibit there as well as a new vendor for you to buy for $0L. A student example of a Brand Logo board is also there. Then we fly to Poseball area and pose our avatar to position it for a Snapshot to disk. Next, we fly up to the Fashion Runway and wear the frannamation overider and practice walk up and down the runway. Now it\’s time to teleport over to the student fashion collection vendor exhibits from last springs Intro to Sl project. Then we walk over the to Sears Industry exhibit and dress our avatar in one of the garments. Now we visit three of the student fashion boutiques and wear some of the SL items and check out the same items in RL on the students ZAZZLE pages. We end our tour by showing you how to operate the fashion project slide show in the big black box over the exhibit.

Then check out
Fashion CAD OpenCourseWare Basic Function Series: Intro to Second Life for Fashion Students
from www.teachertube.com posted with vodpod

Interdisciplinary Video Tutorials — Cool!

Check out these GREAT video tutorials by Gordon Frey, Nancy Diehl, and Leslie Blum –on Art Nouveau, Victorian Taste, and the Arts and Crafts Movement.

http://www3.fitnyc.edu/leslie_blum/conv_industry.mov
http://www3.fitnyc.edu/leslie_blum/conv_a&c.mov
http://www3.fitnyc.edu/leslie_blum/conv_artnouveau.mov

Why Second Life is So Compelling

I have been giving my Second Life talk to small, informal groups of faculty at FIT now for a few months. More and more I am grateful for the opportunity I had to devote some of my professional time to Second Life, building a community there for FIT, and helping introduce faculty to it.

When I first gave the “talk” I referred to a moment in-world where I saw someone I cared about who I hadn’t seen in a long time, and how surprised I was at how moved I was by their virtual presence there with me. I saw this old colleague, and felt a big smile come across my face, in a way no email or chat could ever do. I felt a presence that really moved me.

Since then, I have met so many FIT faculty, and faculty from other institutions, in Second Life. These days, Hildy Gardner (aka Sig Klar) can be found building like a bee, anxious to build a runway, and adding a veranda of sorts to a Rem Koolhaas building we purchased a while ago. Hildy wants to show student videos in Second Life. Brian Emery (sometimes with Alison Wermager) pops in with his senior photography students as they plan their senior show in both real life and Second Life. Kurt Wendt invites me to cool concerts. Janet Brav (aka Lilac Laville) send me notecards abouta educational spaces in Second Life and places to shop, Steven Zucker sends me invitations to art openings, and new friends, like Michael Wright (aka Mrags Writer) IM me to say hello. Michael and his students created an amazing project for Otis College of Art and Design, and one afternoon Mrags generously took the time to show me around. Just the other day, I popped on late one night and ran into Ron Amato (aka Professor Amiot) I took him over to the NMC Aho Museum — Ron has some cool ideas about building a museum in SL. Today Josie Vargas stopped by the FIT site, though I missed her. Yesterday Steven Zucker and I spent some time setting up a smARThistory space on the FIT parcel. And this afternoon, I introduced Naomi Gross (aka Basha Selentiak) — of the FMM department — to Hildy Gardner (of the Fashion Design department). Would they have met anywhere else? Maybe. But there is something special about meeting in Second Life. People are excited, they’re trying new things, they’re particularly open to new ideas and collaborations.

So, we have a lovely little — but growing — community. And it’s wonderful.

Lately when I give my “talk” — I describe an upsetting Second Life experience where I confronted a griefer who had been building on FIT land. I found myself really frightened as I approached the house he had built. I could see him sitting on a couch inside the house, not answering my “hello” or my offer of friendship. I could feel myself growing more and more afraid of a potentially hostile, male presence, the way I would feel in the real world, and I actually called my husband for help. As a male avatar of course, he was no more “powerful” than me. But I felt really afraid anyway. My husband appeared in SL to help, and together we confronted the griefer. I deleted a doorway and marched in. When he continued to ignore me,  I deleted the couch he was sitting on. Soon after, he got up and left, and we spent the next ten minutes getting rid of everything he had built. But the point of the story is how intense my emotional reaction was. Nothing was truly in danger — and yet I felt truly endangered. It was a surprisingly powerful experience.

All of this must have something to do with the fact that we are represented in SL by avatars who are connected to our identity (I highly recommend I, Avatar). And Second Life forces us to think about our identity, almost like we are adolescents once again. Who am I? How do I want to present myself to the world? Which part of my personality can I expose here? What do I hide? What can I expose here that I can’t in real life?

For example, I’ve begun collecting mourning dresses, and wearing the most amazing black lace dresses (thanks to Nonna Hedges) — one is a Victorian era dress, and the other is 18th century in style. I could never wear these in real life, but boy do I love wearing them in Second Life. My morbid side emerged…

How could this NOT be a compelling learning environment?

How could this NOT be a place you would want to explore?

I just came across this by Kevin Kelly:

A major theme of this present century will be the pursuit of our collective identity. We are on a search for who we are. What does it mean to be a human? Can there be more than one kind of human? In fact, what exactly is a human?

On average science unveils a new invention every day, and almost without fail these days, that daily invention disrupts the notion of ourselves. Every day we are getting news that challenges our identity. Stem cell therapy, genetic sequencing, artificial intelligence, operational robots, new animal clones, trans-species hybrids, brain implants, memory enhancing drugs, limb prosthetics, social networks — each of these tools blurs the boundaries between us as individuals and among us as a species. Who are we and who do we want to be?

We get to play with answers to these questions online. In Second Life, or in chat rooms, we can chose who we want to be, our gender, our genetics, even our species. Technologies gives us the means to switch genders, inhabit new forms, modify our own bodies.

At the same moment, we have the rise of hyper-realities. These are simulations so complex, convincing, and coherent that they have their own reality force. A fake so good, it is sold and bought as a fabulous fake. A Disneyland so enticing, that it spawns its own “fakes.” There must be something there to fake. Or Photoshopped images so obviously unreal that they have their own reality. Synthetic materials more desirable than natural ones. Originals inferior to their reproductions. Who cares what is real and what is memorex?

These hyper-realities launch questions such as whether a assault in virtual space counts as an actual violent assault or mere virtual assault. How much of our real lives is mental? How much of reality is a consensual hallucination? Where do our minds end and outside begin? What if it — everything outside of us — is all mind?

I came across a work of art (by AM Radio) in Second Life showing a — now watch how weird this is — a virtual representation of the bathroom — the bathtub and accessories — in David’s great painting The Death of Marat. This work of art looks like a black box in a way (but one you can’t enter), showing an illusion of a 3d space (the bathroom where Marat, a leader of the French Revolution’s most violent period was murdered). Now remember that the 3d space of the painting is already an illusion of a 3d space on the flat surface of the canvas. So, like a painting, it is like a window — it is an illusion of 3d, but we can’t enter it (at least I couldn’t, but apparently it is, or was enter-able), but there it lies, behind some kind of barrier, so compelling and real. Marat the person, the hero, is there, but only in a reproduction of the painting that hangs on the back wall.

So, a 2d painted illusion of a 3d world is represented as a 3d space on my flat computer screen and a 3d version of me moving in a 3d space on my flat computer screen looks at it … ugh!… you get the idea!

VAM Students podcast at FIT!

My VAM students created podcasts of the just-opened Courbet exhibition at the Met. They had a lot of fun, and the podcasts came out great. Many thanks to James,  Meredith and Jeffrey for all their support. I couldn’t have done it without the TechDevelopment Team.
The podcasts can be heard here.

Really Fun Photoshop Tutorials

Thanks to Chad Laird for showing me these really funny Photoshop Tutorials. No need to do those boring videos — these are so much more fun to watch! Maybe we need to take the hint. There’s a whole series of these — check them out here.