SecondFest - First Impressions

I was at DJ Jenns (and top one by the way fella) set with Kiralette as the sun went down on Intel1. I made a point of heading over to SecondFest early, before I got too blown away by the obligatory AM IM storm, pressured into RL stuff, and the good lady got out of bed.


There's a lot of cool interactive stuff to do as well as the music and movies, and I'll be back over the weekend (off to RL Ikea now to look for more media storage solutions). A lot needs groups of folks to activate, which works nicely for the social side of things, and there seems loads to poke around at and investigate further. The freebies are a bit half arsed, but it's not targeted at folks who can build lets be honest.


It was a bit quiet, it was early and there's just not that many of us UK residents I guess. Oddly, it had that early morning fest feeling to it when I was there (except for the obligatory pill come-down, the quests for doughnuts and the baggy eyed hong-over). Odd icons like locked up camera trucks and a single half naked bloke still dancing in the dance tent. I'll try and get back later for 'Coldcut' at least.

Go, it's got potential for shits-and-gigggles and it's crawling in Brits with being marketed at the Guardian GMT crowd. There's a full what's on listing HERE.

77 Million Paintings

Tomorrow, at 8pm SLT, The Long Now Foundation will kick off the SL premiere of Brian Eno's 77 Million Paintings. This is in sync with the RL American premiere in San Francisco.

Why do I give a shit? Glad you asked. To quote Metaversed:

"The event will open 8 PM on Kula 1 [SLUrl] at The Commons amphitheater which is a four SIM capacity installation, with an interview of Second Life artist Angrybeth Shortbread at the opening. Angrybeth developed the 77 Million Paintings remix in Second Life."

My good friend AB, and old RL business partner, is heading up the SL side of things. This means it'll be ground breaking, breathtaking and all-round good :-)

Here's the openings across Second Life in time order, with each location having its own unique installation:

1. 8 pm Kula 1 through Kula 4
2. 8:30pm PDT/SLT at Art Center in Avignon
3. 9 PM at Leeds College of Art and Design at The Collective
4. 9:30pm PDT/SLT at Ars Virtua in Seventh Eye
5. 10:00pm PDT/SLT with Jeremy Neumann, Hooper Sim

The best of luck old girl. I'll pop in to The Collective one for sure ;-)

Caledon: The Movie

I'm not usually one for acknowledging the other Caledon blogs here, that's his knib's job, but the post on Bardhaven entitled Caledon The Motion Picture had me chortling into my Nescafe this lunchtime in a 'you have to know em' kinda way.

I've been meaning to do another movie trailer in SL, and will as time permits. I rather fancy a "Carry on Caledon" parody ("Bloomin' eck Jess Patterson, that's a monstrous great erection you got there for the Guvnah" etc., sorry Jess). Trying to prioritise my SL time and spend a bit more time with the Mrs, so not holding my breath on the Machinima front 'till the pop corn hits the screen on O'Tools epic.

Anyway, Oolon's Hugh Laurie apparently, and I can see that. Terry is Sandra Bullock (but I'd go with Tamsin Grieg, for the low budget vote). I must add some more :-)

SaveNetRadio Silence

Internet radio broadcasters have called for a Day of Silence today to make a point and raise awareness against the royalty rate increase that could put most of them out of business. The planned silence is to show what the stations will really sound like if the rate increase goes through.

ShoutCast, today, is pretty much shut.

I listen to Internet Radio a lot in SL, I have my favourite stations and my friends stations playing in all my parcels (both personal and professional) and American Congress is going to ruin this for this for the home and international audience. Do they credit the awareness these sites have brought about in the international listener? I listen to radio, it makes my buy things, that's the pay-off, I'm fine with that, I give them dollars.

Anyway, this was done once before (this Day of Silence) back in May '02 when stations were facing a royalty rate increase, and the that Day of Silence was pretty successful. This year’s Day of Silence will be supported by the big Internet broadcasters too (the last one was geared toward the smaller stations). This is cool of the big guys as they won’t be anywhere nearly as badly affected by the changes as a smaller Internet broadcaster will.

I'd miss my "1920's Radio Network" in the ETC, my "Radio Riel" at Mayfair, my "Whaling Songs & Sea Shanties" at The Salty Mermaid in Kittiwickshire, the raging hardcore Amsterdam techno on the skyplat at New Beach and the "Sky Classics" in the office etc. but I'm UK/GMT and I can't barrage Congress and ask them to support the Internet Radio Equality Act. I hope someone reading this can on my behalf, or SL is gonna be a pretty quiet place.

Machinima Fest

The first European Machinima Festival will be held with De Montfort University's Institute of Creative Technologies from October 12 to October 14. It'll have workshops, an awards ceremony, etc.

Prof Andrew Hugill, director of the Leicester university's creative technologies institute, said:

"Machinima is a phenomenon which is capturing the imagination of individuals and communities including games players and filmmakers.

"We aim to bring these communities together and open up the exciting possibilities of Machinima to a wider audience."

Cool.

More SecondFest News

I'm liking this more and more.

Guardian and Intels massive Virtual Festival 'SecondFest" on Friday 29 June at 6pm GMT (10am SLT) and till midnight (GMT) Sunday night, is now advertising head liners Underworld, The Pet Shop Boys, Hot Chip, Groove Armada, WireDaisies, Clayton, Strangefates, VLB and grid Djs Doubledown Tandino, and DJs DJ Jens, Rob da Bank, Gilles Peterson, a'la Sunday Best, Bugged Out, Ninja Tunes and shit loads more.

Two cinemas with offline blockbusters, BBC short films and Second Life machinima. Wandering thesps and musos, Rocky Horror, ballet, theatre, secret stages, human mazes, mud pit on Sunday! Map as promised.

There, me, in wellies.

SecondFest

Come one, come all, to SecondFest.

Now this could be interesting. I bet Brad will be there selling pills, so he can probably get me in.

A little bird tells me that if you go to the map and look for "Intel 1" then that's the chillout island. Pet Shop Boys, Groove Armada, New Young Pony Club etc., plus Bugged Out (the primo UK nightclub) are putting in a big appearance as well as Radio 1 DJs.

This is probably one of the biggest things as recognition for SL, like, ever, and the fact its done by the Guardian will mean its going to at least get a pull-out section. Brace for noobs ;-)

I'm going. Weekend after next. Who's coming? I wonder it there will be mud?

More, and map, to follow.

SL Still Bringin' Em In

I see the Japanese politician, Kan Suzuki, is officially the first politician to jump with both feet onto the rolling SL bandwagon. He's gone and opened a 'cyber office' on our crazy little flat Earth. I ask ya, is nothing sacred?

A "valid experiment to determine how virtual society and politics can interact" or another load of hyped-up media by some back-bencher to get his name in the popular rags? I know where money is, but alas when I searched for him on Google tall I could find were the reports on this story and a stub on Wikipedia.

See this story on the Beeb website.

You & Yesterday on the 18th

Had the opening do for You & Yesterday on the 18th of last, and here's some footage I finally wrangled together for Sian.



Hope that's okay, ducks. 😉