Being in Second Life

Join us at -empyre- http://www.subtle.net/empyre in August 2007 for:

*The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Being in Second Life *

when hostess Melinda Rackham is joined by special guests:
Annabeth Robinson, Patrick Lichty, Stephan Doesinger, Dr Ricardo Peach
Christy Dena, Kathy Cleland, Adam Nash and Dr Fabio Zambetta

Neal Stephenson's Metaverse reigns supreme. One of it's current
incarnations- the multi-user virtual universe Second Life claims a
population of 8 million avatars. SL is embraced by many as an innovative and
safe fantasy scape - enabling play, creativity, education, companionship,
love and lust. It is reviled by some as a cesspit of antisocial isolationist
addictive behavior; and SL is dismissed by others as simply an over-inflated
hype driven commercial venture expounding the values of property acquisition
and commodity exchange. Whatever your perspective, SL is serious business
with an exchange rate which fluctuates against the $US and an estimated
Second Life avatar electricity consumption equivalent to the average citizen
of Brazil. In this seemingly infinitely expandable universe aesthetic
endeavors, creative constructions and artistic performances are enacted
daily.

---> Annabeth Robinson (UK) is a Second Life Artist focusing on interactive
and sound driven projects, Metaverse consultant and Sim builder, Lecturer -
Design for Digital Media at Leeds College of Art and Design. aka AngryBeth
Shortbread http://www.annamorphic.co.uk/

---> Patrick Lichty (US) is a technologically-based conceptual artist,
writer,independent curator, co-founder of the Second Life based performance
art group, Second Front, animator for the The Yes Men, and Executive Editor
of Intelligent Agent Magazine. http://www.voyd.com/voyd/

---> Stephan Doesinger (Austria) is a conceptual artist and architect. His
second book "Learning from Sim City," will be published in September. He
initiated Bastard Spaces the 1st Annual Architecture and Design Competition
in SL to be announced at Ars Elctronica. aka Doesi Beck
http://www.doesinger.com/ http://www.sl-award.com

---> Dr Ricardo Peach (AU) is the Program Manager for the Inter-Arts Office
at the Australia Council for the Arts, which is funding a SL residency. Born
in Volksrust, Mpumalanga in 1968, he and his family migrated to Perth,
Australia in 1980. aka Ricardo Paravane
http://www.ozco.gov.au/grants/grants_new_media_arts/second_life_artist_resid
ency/

---> Christy Dena (AU) is researching changes to art and entertainment in
the age of cross-media production for her PhD at the University of Sydney.
Dena works as an industry strategist, mentor, educator and journalist. aka
Lythe Witte http://www.christydena.com/ http://www.lythewitte.net/

---> Dr Fabio Zambetta (AU) lectures at School of Computer Science and
Information Technology at RMIT University Melbourne and researcher in the
area of 3D embodied conversational agents, 3D virtual environments, and
interactive storytelling. aka Fabio Forcella
http://goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au/~fabio/projects/

---> Kathy Cleland (AU) is a writer, curator and lecturer in the Digital
Cultures Program at The University of Sydney and is currently completing her
PhD investigating avatars, digital portraiture and representations of the
self in virtual environments. aka Bella Bouchard
http://www.arts.usyd.edu.au/departs/digitalcultures/?page=staff&id=katclela

---> Adam Nash (AU) is a media artist, composer, programmer, performer and
writer who works in networked real-time 3D spaces, exploring them as live
audiovisual performance spaces. His work has been presented at SIGGRAPH,
ISEA, and the Venice Biennale. aka Adam Ramona http://yamanakanash.net/

---> Dr Melinda Rackham (AU) is the Executive Director of ANAT -
Australia's peak body for artists working with emerging technologies. Her
Ph.D. explored the nature and construction of avatars and multi-user Virtual
Reality Spaces. aka Marina Regina http://www.subtle.net

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Join us at -empyre-
http://www.subtle.net/empyre
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