Project Partner Blogs

Henry Lowood’s Blog

Bernhard Drax in our collections - Thu, 15 Oct 2009

Bernhard Drax is best-known for his impressive work as a documentary machinima-maker and investigative reporter in Second Life (where he is known primarily as Draxtor Despres).  In fact, he has multiple lives in the entertainment industry, making music and working in a variety of media.
 
Now he has achieved a first, with the featured presentations in both the Machinima Archive and the Archiving Virtual Worlds Collection.   His machinima piece is "I'm Too Busy to Date Your Avatar!," made in collaboration with Second Life "talkshow Goddess" Pooky Amsterdam and the German house/electronica producer Samuel's Dream.  It is a machinima response to the trailer for the third season of The Guild," "Do you wanna date my avatar." 
 
In the Archiving Virtual Worlds Collection, "Gone Gitmo" chronicles the development of Gone Gitmo, a virtual installation of Guantanamo Bay in Second Life.  This project is a collaboration of Peggy Weil and Nonny de la Pena.  Gone Gitmo was a European "Every Human Has Rights" finalist for the Media Award given in 2008.  Bernhard's efforts as an investigative journalist in Second Life are yielding unique video documentation of the uses and issues in this virtual world and thus we are very pleased to have his work in the Archives.

6 Days: A collaboration of J. Joshua Diltz and Joseph DeLappe - Wed, 05 Aug 2009

“6 Days” is a new piece stemming from a collaboration of master machinima maker Joshua Diltz and artist-provocateur Joseph DeLappe, two people whose work I have long admired. It has just been added to the Machinima Archive. Here is the introduction provided by Joshua:
 
“’6 Days’ is an experimental documentary that examines the consequences of a military conflict that rages over a period of six consecutive days in a virtual game world. Through the lens of both a static and a roaming ground camera, the movie captures both visceral action and a sobering body count.
 
Based on the game “Call of Duty 4,” the film pays homage to the lives, both military and civilian, lost during the Second War of Fallujah.”
 
I will say only two things about this piece:
 
1. Do not use the flash viewer. Yes, this is a 751MB download, but you will need to suck it up this time and download the file. 
 
2. I believe this collaboration stems from the Play Machinima Law conference we held at Stanford in the spring. As far as I know, Joseph and Joshua did not know each other beforehand.  [On this point, Joshua just wrote the following in e-mail: "Yes, the project did originate from the conference.  Both meeting Joseph and listening to the concept of preserving data that could be played back in real time.  The captured footage came from captured data in multiplayer sessions.  It's actually quite an interesting means of creating movies and recording how people interacted in the virtual space.  All the data fits into about a 5mb file than came be played back and explored post capture.  The demo capture allows you to view players actions and the conversation they had while playing.  All in that tiny file."]
 
Ok, three things: This is a pathbreaking example of what I think will become an important creative form: non-fiction machinima. In this sense, as a documentary, it ties in beautifully with our own Preserving Virtual World efforts and the impulses behind it.

Please, if you have reactions to the piece, feel free to submit a review via the Machinima Archive (on the movie page) or comment here.
 
Henry

Play Machinima Law -- April 24, 25 at Stanford - Mon, 13 Apr 2009

Our machinima spot on the conference, by J. Joshua Diltz.

Stanford Magazine covers Preserving Virtual Worlds - Thu, 20 Nov 2008

Stanford Magazine, the publication of the Stanford Alumni Association, provides a nice piece in its November/December 2008 issue on the Preserving Virtual Worlds project.  Under the title "Saving Worlds: Preserving the Digital and Virtual," neatly summarizes the project and its work, with quotations from Henry Lowood (me) and Beth Dulabahn of the Library of Congress, as well as a couple of nice photos.  By the way, the workshop described in the article was "Preserving Knowledge in Virtual Worlds," put on as part of Media-X' Summer Institute at Wallenberg hall.

Doug Wilson's HTGG projects now in Second Life - Thu, 06 Nov 2008

Back in 2003, Doug Wilson prepared two video loops for the "Fictional Worlds, Virtual Experiences" show I curated with Casey Alt for the Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford.  This was the first of the exhibitions the project has prepared over the years.  More recently, the project has been active in Second Life, particularly through the Life-Squared project with Lynn Hershmann and the "Preserving Virtual Worlds" project.

And now the twain have met, as Doug's work has been made available in Second Life as part of the American Library Association's first annual National Gaming Day on 15 Nov. 2008.   As the announcement tells us:

"ALA Island in Second Life is showing the two-videos-in-one video, "Crafting the Virtual World and The Art of Interactive Storytelling" which was recorded, edited, and written by Douglas Wilson. Watch the video at the Galen Noltenius Sky Platform on ALA Island (206, 100, 46)."

Doug's two projects include footage he captured (nicely, too, which was saying something in 2003) from games ranging from MUD to "The Legend of Zelda" to "Neverwinter Nights." 

"Crafting the Virtual World" and "The Art of Interactive Storytelling"will also forever be available for viewing in the "Archiving Virtual Worlds" collection.  As always, use the downloadable files for best video quality, not the stream.

Congratulations, Doug!

Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins' singing debut! Symphony of Science - 'Our Place in the Cosmos' (ft. Sagan, Dawkins, Kaku, Jastrow) - Mon, 23 Nov 2009
"Our Place in the Cosmos", the third video from the Symphony of Science

Influence on equal terms - Mon, 23 Nov 2009

Children who front Richard Dawkins' atheist ads are evangelicals - Mon, 23 Nov 2009
The two children chosen to front Richard Dawkins’s latest assault on God could not look more free of the misery he associates with religious baggage.

Beyond belief - Mon, 23 Nov 2009
Since the publication of The God Delusion a common response has been that Richard Dawkins’s depiction of religious believers is crude and one-dimensional, and that he misunderstands the subtleties of theology.

The Great Tennessee Monkey Trial - Mon, 23 Nov 2009
Adapted from the original trial transcript by Peter Goodchild.