New World Notes

Excellent SL Movie Poster Inspired by Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet Also Promotes SL Production of Play

Here's another seriously clever contribution to Strawberry Singh's "put your avatar in a movie poster" challenge by Canary Beck, this one spinning off an actual production of Shakespeare's play in Second Life, which Ms. Beck helps produce. Which is still running thanks to popular demand: "Because we’ve been getting nearly 30 people out for every performance since we opened in April," she explains, "we’ve decided to continue running Romeo + Juliet throughout the Summer." Click here for play dates, and a bigger version of the brilliant poster above.

Ms. Baroque's SL Movie Poster Deserves a Royale w/ Cheese

I had a feeling Strawberry Singh's "Put Your SL Avatar Into a Movie Poster" would inspire some crazy creativity, and my guess is bearing out. Here's just one of my favorites, a tribute to Pulp Fiction by Ms. Dolly Baroque, who has the embiggable version on her blog right here.

To create the Uma-esque pose, Ms. Barogue used the Animare Pose and Animation System, then worked up the image in GIMP. Read more about her process (and credits) here.

And as I said, this is just one of my submissions to Ms. Singh's challenge that I think are really great, see all the submissions so far here.

SLer Voices Wanted for Dizzy Banjo's SL10B Installation

Five years ago, an SL audio artist named Dizzy Banjo created a beautiful "message in a bottle" installation celebrating Second Life's fifth anniversary with the literal voices of its users -- watch and listen:

Now he's creating another installation for Second Life's 10th year anniversary, and if you're reading this, he'd like to include your voice -- go here for all the submission guidelines.

Back in the day, Dizzy created many other amazing SL installations, like this one. Since then, he's moved away from Second Life and mainly gone on to work for high profile iOS apps, like this one for the movie Inception that he made with Chris Nolan and Hans Zimmer. So why is taking time to celebrate Second Life's anniversary? Here's what he told me:

Whiskey Monday Depicts RL Milestones With Her SL Art

In some of her latest blog posts, the SL artist known as Whiskey Monday (who I profiled here), illustrates important real life events through her medium of finely crafted and choreographed Second Life screenshots elevated to pop art. I won't spoil her story by saying what those milestones are, but you can read the first here, and the second here.

"Second Life", LA Art Gallery Show Inspired by Second Life

"Second Life" is the name of a new show at the CB1 gallery in Los Angeles by Lisa Adams, a painter of some renown, and yes, it's inspired by Second Life itself -- or more specifically, as the gallery write-up explains, "the performance art of Jon Rafman, whose avatar Kool-Aid Man bedevils the simulated online game, Second Life." You can also see the paintings from the series online here; they're pretty striking. Rachel Kennedy, editor-in-chief of digital arts site Moholy Ground and the art scholar in our household, puts it more eloquently than I ever could:

Check Out The Latest Episode of Draxtor Despres' Mixed Reality Documentaries, The Drax Files: World Builders

Iris Ophelia's ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

There's an all-new episode of Draxtor Despres' documentary machinima series, The Drax Files: World Builders, out today -- and you can watch it right here!

Get the Inside Story On Some of Second Life's Most Beautiful Spaces With Draxtor Despres' Latest Mixed Reality Videos

Iris Ophelia's ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

One of Second Life's most acclaimed journalists and machinima artists has a new project, and it'll give you some amazing insight into the kinds of people that not only use Second Life, but shape the virtual world around them. The Drax Files: World Builders by Draxtor Despres recently came out with its second episode, featuring the face of SL's 1920's Berlin (and NWN reader) Jo Yardley. Take a look for yourself after the jump.

Whiskey Monday Sells Her Great Second Life Art as RL Prints

Click here to buy this Second Life-based work of art as a real life print, created (and now sold) by the acclaimed artist known in SL as Ms. Whiskey Monday. On her blog, she discusses the process of readying this image (a variation on another artwork) for print, and last year she explained the reasoning for putting her SL art up for sale, and the pricing:

Check Out Splintered Rock, a Webcomic Fueled by Reader Interaction (and Second Life)

Iris Ophelia's ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

At first blush Vivacity Interactive's Splintered Rock might not seem much different from a lot of webcomics still in their infancy, beyond its use of SL for its artwork. Venture a little deeper and you'll see a surprising framework for a one-of-a-kind interactive storytelling experience with a serious RPG twist, which might even be helping to support a venerated sci-fi sim in SL. Here's what I mean:

See Ms. Monday's SL Art About Inner Turmoil & Outer Calm

While I profiled Ms. Whiskey Monday back in November last year, Ms. Monday continues to lead the vanguard of turning Second Life screenshots into works of art. This one above, juxtaposing states of inner turmoil with outer tranquility, is just among many she's created since then -- do click to embiggify at the source, by which I mean her blog, which you must peruse the hell out of here.