ACRA 11.0 + VCRA 1.0 = Awesome Beta

You are questioning the rationale behind virtual cocktails made by virtual robots? Well once upon a time people thought making real robots mix drinks was crazy. Hello?!

In any case we are showing our appreciation for cocktail robots in their virtual incarnation by awarding the first Virtual Cocktail Robot Award this year in an inworld ceremony in Second Life (TM), that will be part of the ACRA event at Roboexotica which will be video-streamed into SL.
Join us either in real life in Vienna, or if you prefer at the virtual venue which is hosted by our friends of CYlandSL.

CYland SL Opening: Snails Lab!

Our russian friends of Cyland Media Art Lab have been developing a gallery inside Second Life (R) which is due to be opened this sunday.

Cyland Media Art Lab, an artistic laboratory based in St. Petersburg and New York, arrived in SL! As it opened its doors quietly in summer we now want to point out that there will be an opening-event on Oct. 18th, 10 am SLT!
["Every snail is an artist." - video streaming from RL]

CYland SL coordinator Pinkpink Sorbet will be streaming painting snails live from her RL home and Magggnnus Woodget, my inworld avatar has been preparing a couple snail themed surpises!
Join us for the event Sun Oct 18th, 10am SLT - There will be robots. And there will be cocktails! Follow this SLUrl for a teleport. (If you don't have an account yet, the link will take you to a place where you can create one for free)

(via Mechatiki Research)

Josh Ellingson exhibit in Second Life

When I read the announcement a few days ago on Suicide Bots that Josh Ellingson, the artist that had designed the Robogames 2008 poster, would have his first exhibit in SL at the Museum of Robots, I got all excited because the art on the poster was impressive. And indeed Josh - or Grover Zelin in SL - did deliver.
Highly recommended!

Photos on my Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/shifzr/tags/joshellingson/

Cory's Printcrime Available in SL

Cory Doctorow's Printcrime is SL-ized:

"Michael Buckbee, proprietor of a "Fabjectory" (Bruce Sterling's neologism "fabject" + "factory" = Fabjectory) has created a Second Life version of the print-and-fold minicomic of Printcrime, created by talented comics artist Martin Cendreda."

I grabbed a copy at Fabjectory and you can come and make a copy at the not yet officially opened MechaTiki Skyloft.

(via)

Second Offices - II

After a few weeks in Second Life, last weekend I (or should I say my avatar) found and bought a piece of aquatic land - a quiet parcel off shore in Marsco.
And named it MechaTiki Space [Marsco(34/30/21)] ... where now ROBOEXOTICA [Marsco(38/18/51)] and SHIFZ [Marsco(41/4/101)] have their Second Offices, free floating in 50m and 100m altitude.
There's video, free cocktails for visitors and a playground for further lessons in building and scripting for me ... one important thing I learned over the weekend was how to offer video - I'm quite glad streaming works with my revver-videos (clicking the ads doesn't work though) - and equally important how to circumvent the limitation of one videostream per parcel: subdivide smaller parcels. So momentarily I have one video playing on several screens around the parcel and two screens on different altitudes on a 32m2 parcel, which I call the SHIFZ-o-Vision Lounge [Marsco(57/4/49)], playing a second video.

Link to my SL-Flickr-set.

"Second Office"

In the last two weeks, (during which by some strange coincidence I didn't post anything here) I tried to get some orientation in Second Life and get to understand the way objects and avatars can interact.

A week ago I rented a cheap, small space and fitted it out as a kind of temporary SHIFZ office, offering free smokes and drinks and a few pieces of art for sale - some objects I constructed and two Cocktail paintings I couldn't resist buying in a gallery.

If you have a Second Life follow this slurl and have a look: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Boulevard%20City%20/5/69/24/?x=300&y=300&title=SHIFZ%20temporary%20office