Second Life

We collected mobility traces of 84,208 avatars spanning 22 regions over two months in Second Life, a popular networked virtual en- vironment. We analyzed the traces to characterize the dynamics of the avatars mobility and behavior, both temporally and spatially. We discuss the implications of the our findings to the design o f peer-to-peer networked virtual environments, interest management, mobility

This paper examines the use of online, three-dimensional, immersive virtual worlds, such as Second Life®, as an interesting platform and tool for cultural management, artistic development, knowledge exchange and cultural business. These contemporary computer technologies provide a new showcase for cultural promotion
and creative production, as they connect artists and producers with an audience around the world, who, in turn, can access in real time a great variety of cultural content through just a few clicks. The various features of this emerging phenomenon all help to democratize culture, the arts and education, as they bring creations closer to consumers, thus reducing the need for intermediaries and breaking down social, economic and political barriers; this offers benefits to cultural industries, non-profit organizations, governments, collective and individual creators and artists. However, the numerous possibilities ushered in over the last few years not only bring benefits but also pose new challenges in terms of regulation. Indeed, this new stage for cultural and artistic expression and management may require new paradigms of control with a different focus, ones which can provide an alternative understanding of online cultural exchange in real time. Virtual worlds make culture more democratic, as it can be reached for free by a wider range of people in real time; furthermore, artists and creators are provided with an accessible showcase in which they can become better known and where they can interact more directly, immediately and closely with their audience. The possibility and ease with which anyone can create original content in the metaverse is an incentive for creativity, because it allows people to express themselves in original ways that enhance the contents of virtual life. Art thus finds new and different formats, and cultural management
discovers new spaces to break into. At the same time, anonymity, privacy and intellectual property are all issues that need to be addressed. The regulation of virtual worlds may require different ways of thinking and the adoption of new paradigms which consider exchange, democratization, cooperation and sharing as essential
ingredients of these new sets; as such, any rules must control but not restrict, thus avoiding anarchy at the same time as keeping interaction levels high. In the European Year of Creativity and Innovation it is important to consider the opportunities being opened up by these new technologies in the world of culture and education, as well as the possibilities that are emerging and which remain to be researched.

Keywords: Virtual worlds, cultural management, virtual art, creativity, regulation, fair use

In five steps this text tries to convey a semiotic analysis of the phenomenon of  ‘live VR music concerts’.Through this paper it becomes clear that the meaning of live music and virtual live music is not always clear. Virtual does not want to be like the real. It does not intend to create the same music experience. It is a globalising trend that seeks to go beyond. In contrast, maybe the real becomes more like the virtual. Experimenting with virtual experiences results eventually in the dissolving of the boundaries between the real and the virtual. The meaning of live music is changing and is strongly interpreted in the context of culture. Pandemic culture insinuated the interpretation that VR is just arriving, but actually it was already here for a while. With the semiotic square we analysed the virtual and real through the ‘here and now’. It is the ‘here and now’ (authenticity?) that gets questioned in live virtual concerts. It is legit to present a live concert in other ways, because that is one of the aims of VR. The virtual concert does not necessarily want to substitute real-life concerts. Peircian interpretations led into new kinds of music experience and new music industries/business models. A virtual concert experience constructs experience of identities of experience of collectivity that are real. Even in a manipulated or determined world the emotions that music creates are real. ‘Liveness’ shows the (intersubjective) power of music.

Visual culture in virtual worlds is not purely authentic or purely imaginative. When culture emerges in a visualized virtual world, where everything that can be seen is created by its users, visual culture can be diverse and complex. Users from different cultural backgrounds perceive and construct meanings that may be different from those intended by the virtual world creators and other users. The author used observation, survey, and interview as her research methodologies to analyze visual culture in a visualized virtual world where the content is created by its users.

Today’s society is growing, moving, pushing and pulling in so many different directions. Society has moved from the invention of electricity in the 1800’s to the invention of the iPhone, which has changed the way we use, and perceive technology today. The survival of an architectural student depends on being able to communicate multiple drawings, graphics, images, diagrams and more in the most productive method. Each phase in design requires a clear and concise conversation between the designer and the observer. Schematic Designs generate some of the most creative ideas during a projects progression. With this understood, this section of this paper will analyze the introduction of Second life to students, professionals, and clients of architecture in a virtual simulated environment. The ability to demonstrate a design solution to a professor or another student across the world will truly increase the effectiveness of collaboration, critic, and cooperation. This applied research paper will analyze the application of Second Life in architectural education, communication, and creative design solutions.

For the past two decades, historians and archaeologists have reconstructed heritage sites using computer-generated graphics in three dimensions, a technique known as “virtual archaeology.” Early research focused merely on displaying models of the architecture or of archaeological artifacts, but with the emergence of virtual worlds, researchers and the public can “immerse” themselves in the reconstructed environment and experience the equivalent of a guided tour. User-generated content has allowed historians to now go a step further and modify the models, by formulating hypotheses and testing them interactively, creating a “virtual laboratory of archaeology.” In this chapter, a solution is offered whereby historians are able to manipulate the parameters of a crowd simulation without the need of learning conventional computer programming. This conceptual framework is loosely based on strategy computer games, which also allow players to simulate relatively complex crowds by visually placing markers on the ground. It extends the concept of the virtual laboratory of archaeology beyond the architectural representation of heritage sites by placing the tools of crowd simulation in the hands of historians.

This book contributes to the debate over how mod communities shape labour and the economy by yielding insight into the way a developer firm invites its user base to partner with it in product development, indicating how aspects of user participation associated with non-market dynamics are embedded in commercial activity and professionalism. The concept of modding helps to draw meaningful connections between the technical, economic, aesthetic, and social aspects of game design, and contemporary society and economy more widely, demonstrating the centrality of communal processes in the market. The principal aim of the book is to understand the relations between market forces and the community, between professionalism and amateurism, between top-down and bottom-up, established and emerging structures, as a symbiotic relationship and not as alternative or mutually exclusive possibilities, challenging existing ideas about production and consumption associated with market and community in this context.

Durant les années 2006-2007 et 2007, Eva et Franco Mattes explorent les lieux populaires du monde virtuel multiparticipatif Second Life à la recherche des avatars les plus glamours. Ils conçoivent ainsi la série de portraits 13 Most Beautiful Avatars présentée à Ars Virtua en 2007, clin d'œil aux projets de Warhol intitulés 13 Most Beautiful Boys (1964) et 13 Most Beautiful Women (1964), qui ont vu le jour à la fameuse Factory quelque quarante années plus tôt. L'exposition des Mattes se manifeste une seconde fois deux semaines plus tard dans la salle bien réelle de la Italian Academy of Columbia University à New-York. Contrairement à ce que pourrait laisser croire l'ordre chronologique des deux événements, la salle virtuelle d'Ars Virtua a été conçue d'après celle de la Columbia University. Nous avons toutefois l'impression que l'exposition est passée de la virtualité à la tangibilité.
http://ciac.ca/documents/magazine/no_31/oeuvre4.htm

Las tecnologías digitales desarrolladas en la década pasada, han consentido el nacimiento de una cultura virtual, misma que ha transformado la manera en que nos comunicamos y percibimos el mundo real. Un ejemplo de ello son las redes so- ciales y los mundos virtuales, entre estos últimos destacó entre los años 2003 a 2007 una plataforma conocida como Second Life, que pretendía la creación de un mundo virtual en que se podía literalmente vivir otra vida. Sin embargo, esto no sucedió como sus creadores lo habían planeado, a partir del 2008 decayó y las críticas (y sus creadores) aludieron su caída a cuestiones puramente tecnológicas. El presente ensayo sugiere la probabilidad de que fuera la reproducción de las estructuras socia- les en Second Life lo que influyó en buena parte en su decadencia, aún más incluso, que las cuestiones tecnológicas.

Video games allow people to assume identities through avatars, reducing the cognitive and environmental difficulties present in identity development. They also shape our perceptions of self and our sense of identity. The concept of self-identity is important in the education as it affects how students view frustration and difficulty in pursuit of complex tasks. Video games could serve as tools to enhance or repair an adolescent's self-identity through safe exploration, improving academic and/or emotional growth. Through interactions with an avatar, an adolescent can explore and develop their understanding of ideal behaviours. The avatar itself presents a unique topic in the development of serious games and identity. Current theories in pedagogy and identity, as well as research into the human-avatar relationship can better guide the development of avatars in serious games. The avatar can thus become an idealized self that an adolescent can project idealized characteristics onto in the process of creating a conversation between one's real life self and one's ideal self. Traditionally, self-identity is built through educational interventions and planned programs, but it could be possible for technology to offer new benefits in making these programs more efficient and effective in teaching a new generation of digital natives.

RESUMEN:  Con unos medios cada vez más saturados de publicidad y con una oferta de contenidos que crece constantemente, los mundos virtuales se están integrando en los planes de comunicación de los anunciantes como una interesante alternativa para acceder a determinados públicos. En este contexto, las ONG exploran todas las posibilidades que ofrecen las actuales tecnologías de la comunicación recurriendo a nuevas fórmulas más económicas y eficaces. En este artículo se incluyen los resultados de un estudio llevado a cabo para analizar las comunicaciones que las ONG desarrollan en los metaversos, centrándonos en uno de los mundos virtuales que más posibilidades ofrece a este tipo de organizaciones: Second Life.
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ABSTRACT:  With a media more and more saturated of advertising and with a contents offering that grows constantly, the virtual worlds are being integrated into the communication strategies as an alternative to access certain audience. In this context, NGOs explore the possibilities of the new information technologies by using new formulas that are more economical and efficient. This article shows the results of a study carried out in order to analyse the that NGO’s communication strategies through metaverse platforms, focusing on one of the virtual worlds that offer more possibilities to this type of organisations: Second Life.

This paper will discuss two student projects, which were developed during a hybrid course between art/design and computer sciences at Sabanci University; both of which involve the creation of three dimensionally embodied avatars whose visual attributes are determined by data feeds from “Real Life” sources.

In 1999 Frank Biocca's asked several questions on how the representation of the body in virtual environments might affect the mind states of avatar handlers: The effects of embodiment on the sensation of physical presence, social presence, and self-presence in virtual environments; and the effects of avatar representation on body image and body schema distortions. Today, with the wide spread usage of three dimensional online virtual worlds and the extended abilities to manipulate the visual representations of the inner persona, Biocca’s questions would appear to have acquired even greater urgency. While such efforts usually seem to be expected to work towards the concealment of identity and/or inner states of being; can a second approach, one involving revelations of the inner ‘self’ that may in fact go beyond what is available to our physical bodies also be contemplated? Can such ‘revelations’ bring about change, both in terms of human interaction but also in terms of self-perception?

Following up from Biocca's seminal text, The Cyborg’s Dilemma (Biocca, 1999), this paper will describe the creative and technological processes which went into the materialization of these two avatars.

In recent years, 3D virtual worlds have been explored for design teaching, yet it is unclear whether a specific pedagogy is used or adapted for such activities. Here we describe the pedagogical model of Cybergogy of Learning Archetypes and Learning Domains, developed specifically for teaching in 3D immersive virtual worlds, and its application to introductory building classes in the virtual world Second Life for architectural design students and teachers as part of the ARCHI21 project.

Around 2006, virtual worlds entered the peak of their hype cycle. One of the pupils of the mass media was Second Life, a synthetic environment that gave its users an high level of freedom, both in terms of design and of in-world activity.
Unsurprisingly, many of these users were artists and creatives, entering virtual worlds as a new field of experimentation and as a new distribution platform. A small but extremely dynamic art world developed in Second Life, including artists, art critics, galleries and no-profit organizations. That same year, I designed my own avatar (which, for a funny chance, had my very same name) and some months later, I launched “Spawn of the Surreal” (http://spawnofthesurreal.blogspot.com/), a blog that featured the results of my explorations of what I called “the dumpster of the imaginary”. My first post on “Spawn of the Surreal” dates back to July 4, 2007; the last one was written on September 9, 2009, even if it stopped being a regularly updated blog some months before. That is when, more or less, Second Life stopped being, at least to me, an interesting playground for radical artistic experimentation.
This doesn't mean, of course, that nothing interesting is happening out there anymore. What was gone in 2008, and is gone today, was the “community”: the feeling of being a bunch of happy few, conquering a temporarily autonomous zones where there were no rules, no institutions, no definitions, no boundaries. Written in 2007, this text chronicles that lost moment, and the ongoing debate on the performative nature of art in virtual worlds.

Knowledge management is currently changing significantly. KM effectively uses the right information and communication technology (ICT) and social interaction. New ways that exist in the virtual world make it possible to support knowledge and the process of acquiring it because to create knowledge and the process of sharing knowledge in a virtual world environment takes into account the social aspects needed. With the use of web 2.0 technologies, the main communication media in Second Life in the form of text, voice, instant messaging (IM), email and blogs can be maximized. By conducting exploratory analysis on "second life" research that contributes to a general understanding of how technology can be used to support or activate KM in education. College Student and lecturer can participate in teaching and learning processes, while academic staff supports the University business processes. A result provides factors that effects increase and impairment on student score, framework of 4 Pillar Solution Model for Second Life Education is formed and evaluation knowledge sharing maturity using COBIT 4.1 Framework and Maturity Level Classification using CMMI Model.

Virtual worlds are providing opportunities for the development of innovative curricula to enhance distance education. In these environments, students can participate in authentic learning activities that resembles real life tasks and scenarios. In addition, virtual worlds provide the platform for students to perform tasks that are too expensive or dangerous to undertake in real life. Well-designed simulations deployed in these virtual environments can provide risk-free and cost-effective simulations of those authentic contexts that facilitate optimal learning, especially when coupled with the capability for tactile precision and haptic feedback. This paper will explore what a virtual world is before investigating the uses of these environments for learning. The challenges and opportunities for educators and learners using virtual worlds for distance education will be examined. The paper concludes with a brief look at the potential for future development of how users interact with virtual worlds in distance learning.

Originally published in 2008, this book documents the life and work of Gazira Babeli, the avatar artist active in Second Life between 2006 and 2010. In about 4 years, Gazira Babeli has created a vast body of works which address the world she lives in, and which have lent her such a solid, recognizable image that she has become a household name in Second Life. She acts like a virus, unleashing earthquakes, tornados and storms of images, deforming the bodies of other residents and constructing metaphorical machines; a capricious deity, she herself is a work of art, a “constructed identity" which ably generates its own legends.

This monographic publication tells her story, and presents and analyzes the most significant areas of her work, with contributions from writers such as Mario Gerosa and Domenico Quaranta, and Americans Patrick Lichty and Alan Sondheim.

Some pretty important people believe we will soon upload our minds into robots or virtual reality and then live forever. This is a book about that idea and, more importantly, about how it operates in our scientific, religious, and media cultures. There are chapters about the influence of Apocalyptic AI in academic robotics, the virtual world of Second Life, and political/moral life (including theology, law, robot rights, & empathy).

ground<c> is a metaverse environment for art education, inspired by 'The Groundcourse'; Roy Ascott's educational methodology developed during the 1960's; the aim of which was to shake up preconceptions and behavioral patterns through exercises, games, role-play and the implementation of educational 'irritants', in accordance with constructivist theories and Cybernetics. However, ground<c> will also incorporate novel educational theory as well as the findings of cyber psychology into its methodology. The design of an experimental architecture of both changeable/unpredictable components; as well as static spaces designated for gathering and learning, is a crucial component of the author's research. A description of the design process, a visual documentation of all design phases, currently under way in 'Second Life', alongside a description of educational precedents and methodology will constitute the content of this paper.

This study examined the influence of gender, the Big 5 personality factors, and self-esteem on virtual self-representation in the form of avatar-self discrepancy. To examine this, participants designed characters to play in a video game, spent 20 min playing the video game, and then had their actual pictures taken. Our results indicated that, consistent with predictions, men and women generally selected self-representations consistent with ideal male and female bodies. This finding was pronounced for men and women high in agreeableness. Conversely, some results contradicted the normative prescriptions often associated with self-presentation. For instance, men did not build taller avatars than did women. Men who were high in openness to new experiences were more likely to select avatars with skin tone variations. Introverts – both male and female – and women high in neuroticism were more likely to build attractive avatars. Moreover, those with low self-esteem were more likely to select lighter skin tones than those with high self-esteem. Thus, the effects of gender and personality have considerable implications for online self-presentation and self-representation.► We examined the influence of gender, personality, and self-esteem on avatar creation. ► Men and women created avatars consistent with ideal male and female bodies. ► However, men did not create avatars that were taller compared to women. ► Introverts, male and female, and neurotic women selected more attractive avatars. ► Participants with low self-esteem picked avatars with lighter skin tones.

In this paper we propose that Second Life (SL) might be an ideal plateau for novice
fashion designers to experiment in their milieu and gains skills in design and a variety of
other fashion related activities such as marketing and customer identification. First, we
address issues of demographics, social interaction and emotional involvement in SL.
Second, we compare and contrast the fashion industry with the SL fashion industry in an
effort to inform future research about the particularities of the SL market. Our analysis
suggests that SL demographics and identity of residents may not be indicative of SL
consumption and that SL fashion departs significantly from real life fashion in terms of
fashion cycles, products and the characteristics of a fashion designer’s occupation.

How, where, when, and what we teach has been significantly influenced by technological innovation. Radio, television, and computers have all altered how information is presented and how students interact with that information. This paper describes how virtual worlds provide a mechanism to incorporate constructivist, experiential, and student-centered learning practices into the classroom. The authors also discuss the challenges and the benefits of using virtual worlds in education as well as some implications for the future of education.

This article examines the decolonizing imperatives of the nine- episode machinima film series TimeTraveller™ (2008–2013) by the Mohawk artist, writer and curator Skawennati. TimeTraveller™ assesses the (re)presentation of Indigenous pasts and futures. Using avatar characters, Skawennati delinks (Mignolo, 2011) from colonial, Western and imperialistic narratives and the hegemonic structures of a Eurocentric worldview. Avatar bodies act as a catalyst in order to break down the contemporary, political episteme of classification and create spaces for fluid identities- in- politics (Mignolo, 2011)—virtual bodies that reflect the layering of subjective personal experiences which may be multiple and changing. In asserting her Indigenous presence in cyberspace, Skawennati’s work lies in between new media art production and decolonial gesture, provoking a rereading of bodies and identities in order to reimagine and reassert denied and silenced Indigenous voices in virtual reality.