ColeMarie Soleil explores Second Life's arts scene for New World Notes
A strange and beautiful flower intrigues Second Life. After an absence of nearly 8 months, the popular and beloved DynaFleur immersive art installation has returned to Second Life [SLurl here]. It spans the entire sim of StellaNova. Watch:
One early visitor said in response to the sprawling piece, “I don’t know whether I’m in awe or creeped out.” The makers of DynaFleur, Douglas Story and Desdemona Enfield, were oddly pleased by this statement.
Interestingly, DynaFleur owes its new life to academics with some of the world's greatest science universities:
Through the MICA group (Meta-Institute for Computational Astrophysics, which includes scientists from Princeton, Caltech, the Institute for Advanced Study, JPL, Quest University in Canada, UC Irvine, and Univ. of Naples, Italy, among other notable academic institutions) Douglas Story's artistic partner, scripter Desdemona Enfield, ended up doing some 3D data visualization work for an astrophysicist at Cal Tech, which depicted his real life research on quasars. This association led to the kind invitation from MICA to host the DynaFleur on their sim.
As you walk (and fall) through it, you are immersed in the densely layered sound design of Dizzy Banjo, which is tailored to accompany the movements of the elements of the piece that surround you, all of them moving and changing in response to your presence. Dizzy is not a stranger to interactive musical installations; he's also the creator of I/O. The installation uses avatar proximity to control a number of factors including the playback of a series of ambient soundscapes. It also triggers a composition on the SL media stream to co-incide directly with the animated movement of space capsules which you ride into a huge ethereal nebula. So Dynafleur is yet another example of how sound design can greatly influence the immersion of such builds.
The venerable and beloved DynaFleur has been reborn high over the StellaNova sim in Second Life which is operated by the Meta-Institute for Computational Astrophysics (MICA), which includes scientists from Caltech, the Institute for Advanced Study, JPL, Quest University in Canada, UC Irvine, and Univ. of Naples, Italy, among other notable academic institutions. DynaFleur has been updated with a stunning video depicting colliding galaxies rolling over the landscape which were created by John Dubinski. Some repositioning of the elements was required during reconstruction efforts, but the automated reshuffling of the elements of the sim-wide build was made simple by a clever script by Desdemona Enfield.
Visit Dynafleur here: Direct SLurl teleport at this link
ColeMarie Soleil covers the Second Life arts scene for New World Notes when inspiration strikes.
Soleil, her first album, is now available on iTunes here and also available on Soleil's Band Camp page, created in collaboration with fellow Second Life musician Tasuku Ghost. Before joining SL, she was a studio musician, a wandering gypsy, a graphic designer, and a solo artist who's performed at Whiskey a Go Go in Los Angeles and the Apollo in Manhattan. See more of her machinima here.
Tks for this post.
Will look foward to visit this sim asap.
Posted by: Foneco Zuzu | Tuesday, March 15, 2011 at 06:27 AM
I love this girl, her voice is increadible. I met her 1st time in Burning Life and I did this movie while she was singing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQFIgSsQAeU
Hugs Tatiii Radek
Posted by: Tonoplay Friends | Wednesday, March 16, 2011 at 07:03 PM
Thanks for the kind words, ColeMarie. Not to mention the video!
Speaking of which, I made a short video of the sim-wide position swap mentioned in the article; it was fascinating to watch. This can be seen here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSNGToRdRPo
Posted by: Douglas Story | Thursday, March 17, 2011 at 02:24 PM
I can't help wondering if filmmaker David Lynch visited DynaFleur. You've got to see the bar he designed in Paris. http://t.co/sWtrGT3
Posted by: Bettina Tizzy | Friday, September 09, 2011 at 11:22 AM