Mashup Islander, or Christopher Dodds in real life, unveils connections between literature and real-time 3D art through his virtual moiré sculptures. His exhibit opened recently among a sea of enthusiastic visitors who immediately began exploring the interactive pieces. You may experience the work yourself on Info Island until November 15th, 2007.

Many thanks to Daruma Picnic, Elizabeth Rookwood, and Rookie Voyager for showing me around!

Jean Fouquet's self-portrait (c. 1450), a small picture created in gold on black enamel, is seen as "the earliest clearly identified self-portrait that is a separate painting, not an incidental part of a larger work." It's what is known as the "separate or natural" self-portrait, as opposed to insertions of the self in groups, or using a personal likeness to represent another person, often historical in nature.


The science of the self-portrait has changed dramatically since then; from paintings to photo-portraiture. In Second Life, another extension has been added; the tools used to create photographs in our Second Lives are a part of the set we use for every day Second Living. Changing camera angles, altering the lighting and quickly snapping shots with the press of a button are familiar activities to many of us; many of us spend time looking at ourselves, examining and changing outfits and body parts to create a look that more precisely reflects how we feel. Despite this, few of us would grant that our efforts are especially aesthetically pleasing, technically impressive, or precise and accurate in reflecting our inner lives.

We are right smack-dab in the middle of National Games Week, which celebrates tabletop gaming. You can go to nationalgamesweek.net for more information, but there are a bunch of special talks going on throughout this week at Info Island. Upcoming talks include: SL Game Design, Relation Between Online Environments and Tabletop Games, and Role Playing in SL.

I'm happy to see so much being done in both RL and SL concurrently, as each such event brings the eventual convergence closer to reality. Go check these events out!

(Thanks, Eiseldora!)

Librarians are sexy. Anyone who doesn't think so is just remembering their childhood, well before puberty hit, when they were forced to restrain their youthful energies by seemingly over-strict librarians. I'll admit, that is a difficult image to shake. But c'mon, all that intelligence? All that passion for great literature? They're only quiet during business hours, my friends. I'll leave it to you, Constant Readers, to supply the rest of that thought.

All this is my roundabout, infuriating way of saying that I'm excited to hear that the Second Life Library is officially opening on Thursday, October 12th, with a series of events to continue through the 14th. This series of events is co-hosted by the Alliance Library System and Info Island, who've been working on this project for over 6 months. Guest speakers will include Pathfinder Linden, Professor Beliveau, and Katt Kongo. Further events include tours, scavenger hunts, and a costume ball!

The sim looks great, and this should be a fun, informative event; congratulations to everyone who've worked so hard on this project! I'll sign off now; I think I just heard the mailman drop off the latest issue of In the Stacks, which I swear I read for the articles.