New World Notes

Metaverse Safety Week Announced to Help Prevent "Cambridge Analytica 2.0" & Other Security / Privacy Crises

Registration is now open for Metaverse Safety Week, an online conference from XR Safety Initiative (XRSI), the brainchild of Linden Lab veteran Kavya Pearlman.

"It is essential to getting things right at every level. especially when it comes to safety, privacy and cybersecurity," as she tells me. "Currently besides the XRSI privacy and safety framework there are literally no frameworks that factor these aspects into the risks assessment, along with factoring in several converging technologies."

This is probably why we regularly see huge privacy crises like this one happening in metaverse platforms even when they're backed by companies spending billions to produce them.

And the problems seems to be getting worse, not better:

Open Now: LynchLand, A Whole Second Life Sim Devoted to the Art & Characters of David Lynch. Premiere Party This Weekend!

In heaven, everything is fine. You got yours and I got mine... Click here to visit.

That's right: The David Lynch fan group in Second Life that I wrote about last month has gone ahead and opened up a whole dedicated sim devoted to Lynch's imagination and tributes to scenes and characters from his most memorable works (with a decided Twin Peaks skew). It's open now, and this weekend starting tomorrow at 4pm PT, there's an official opening party. Dress code is "sensual black attire", and an owl mask will be given out upon arrival.

Here's some more glimpses of LynchLand courtesy of group leader Myrdin Sommer, who is financing the sim with a couple other founders: "Cate infinity, SurfSide66 and me, we pay the rent and we hope we get some Lindens in the Land-tip jars at events... the sim is there to have creative events and if people like to hang around in LynchLand that is perfectly fine, all terrain is accessible, so they can stay at the cabins etc. all they want, or just come and take pictures."

So if you're a Lynch fan too -- or David Lynch himself, as he's known to make the occasional metaverse visit -- consider tipping! More images and event details below:

Tomorrow at 11am PT: Avant Garde Pianist from Japan Improvises Live in Second Life Next to Two Massive Cubes Rising Up in the Desert of the Real

Tomorrow at 11am PT, watch live above or click here to witness in Second Life a pretty intriguing event: Tia Rungray, a Second Life avatar and a "Noise Classical" project by musician Takayuki Noami, is going to improvise live in the Metaverse, in front of two massive cubes in the desert.

"[Sculpture] Blue Tsuki's new installation art is titled Vinculum. This is a Latin word that seems to mean 'bond' or 'cord' in English," Rungray tells  me. "The piece consists of two giant cubes that rise up in the desert, reminiscent of electrical circuits and an organic structure within them. Appreciating his art reaffirms that we are not unrelated to the scientific human history that has spread across the earth beyond the desert.

"I usually play my original music, but when I face his work, I use an improvisational performance style. This is because this style allows me to intuitively express what I feel from his work as music, creating a chemical reaction, as it were, like a catalyst. And although my sound is abstract, it has the advantage of not fixing the interpretation for the viewer of his art."

Sounds like this could be spectacular, and the very kind of art only possible in a metaverse platform.

Influenced by Erik Satie and John Cage, Takayuki Noam has been performing in Tokyo since 2013 (when his first of three albums was released), and in Second Life since then:

Shop for Great Virtual Paintings by Teleporting to Second Life Galleries -- A Metaverse Art Walk Curated by Acclaimed Photographer Whiskey Monday

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

There is a new event in town: Acclaimed metaverse photographer Whiskey Monday has created a new shop-and-hop event focused on art. It’s called Curated and goes for ten days a month. It’s covered here at Seraphim, the event guide blog with all the details on just about everything. Click here for pictures of all the items and links to to hop around to buy a copy of your favorite works for your virtual home.

I love several of the artworks featured this month, so picking two to feature is going to be so hard. But here goes:

For my picks, click here:

Tomorrow: Visit a Second Life Sim Devoted to David Lynch, Attend an Immersive Extravaganza as a Character from His Works!

Click here to teleport to a place where the birds sing a pretty song, and there's always music in the air. That's right: There's a whole Second Life sim devoted to dream world genius David Lynch, and there's a grand 7 hour event happening there tomorrow starting at 2pm PT. (All the details here.)

"Lynchland is not about roleplay," group leader Myrdin Sommer tells me, "but we do like to dress up as characters from a Lynch movie; LynchLand is a cool place to indulge David Lynch's eccentric persona so to say! And as a dress code we ask this from our visitors at events, but it is certainly not mandatory." But if you had the chance to turn your avatar into a character from a Lynch movie or TV show, why would you not?

"And that goes for everything in LynchLand," says Sommer, "The Bang Bang bar, The little church, the Blue Velvet Diner, The Mulholland Drive-in Cinema or the Lost Highway Motel, where we even have a room specially for David, so he can stay over when he is in ' town." 

And you never know when Lynch will be in the neighborhood: He just made a visit the Metaverse just a couple years ago.

More on LynchLand next week, meantime, here's some images from the LynchLand group on Flickr. (Warning, not all of them are worksafe viewing, not even when it's the Log Lady.)

Get Early Access to Second Life's Hair Fair to Benefit Wigs for Kids!

Second Life's famed annual Hair Fair to benefit RL charity Wigs for Kids is unfurling this weekend, and empresario Sasy Scarborough is offering 5 (five) New World Notes readers special early access to the event. Here's how:

Events: SeraPride Opens Tomorrow, SL19B Music Fest Continues With Legendary Performers Like Skye Galaxy & Frogg Marlowe

Second Life events abound today and this weekend. Starting tomorrow at 11:30am PT, New World Notes' media partner Seraphim opens their fun and fabulous SeraPride extravaganza gala to support a seriously important real world cause:

SeraPride is their annual one day fundraising event. Last year the event raised well over $3000 USD. Hoping to raise even more this year, the festivities will start on June 18th at 11:30am PT and throughout the day there will be DJs, a Drag Race, SeraPride Idol, Raffles, Giveaways, and more! All proceeds will benefit Rainbow Railroad, a small Canadian based organization that helps LGBTQI+ people threatened for their lives to relocate to a safe place. 

[Click here to teleport into Serapride]

And as Casja just blogged, SL's official 19th anniversary party started yesterday. That means it's pretty much my 18th year of grousing that the birthday is pinned to the world's commercial opening, when I think it should be tied to the moment when the first closed beta user created the first content in Second Life.

Anyway! SL19B includes a massive music fest, featuring many legendary live music performers who've been singing in SL for years. That includes breakout star Skye Galaxy and -- holy crap -- blues singer Frogg Marlowe, who I first wrote about in 2005, jamming with fellow stalwart Jaycatt Nico.

Check out the whole music fest calendar here.

Launching This Saturday in Second Life: A Massive Education Campus Bringing Together Many Projects Into a Shared Serendipitous Space -- UPDATE: Added Teleport Links for This Weekend's Opening

UPDATE, May 20: Bumped up post for the weekend launch. Teleport to the welcome sim here. SLurls to the Eduverse sims up now are:

• Science Circle: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/The%20Science%20Circle/72/129/30
• Virtech: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Virtech/127/126/31
• Community Virtual Library: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Cookie/201/212/21 
• Mayo Clinic:  http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Mayo%20Clinic/121/170/34
• Whole Brain Health:  http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Inspiration%20Island/82/100/23
• University of New Mexico (at Rockcliffe): http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Rockcliffe%20Village/48/42/23

In the first flush of general interest in the Metaverse, literally hundreds of colleges and universities opened up a virtual campus in Second Life -- up to and including Harvard -- but most of that enthusiasm has drifted away in recent years.

Starting this Saturday at 11am PT, however, a group of dedicated educators are soft launching a new Second Life-based project with the help of Linden Lab: The Virtual Worlds Education Consortium: Click here to teleport. 

Unlike that previous era, where universities each had their own isolated (and usually empty) SL campus, these educators are creating an expansive, shared campus:

"[S]o that there is always something going around, green dots on the map, people come to check something out, see something else nearby, etc.," as VWEC member George Djorgovski (a professor at Caltech), explains it to me. "This alone can help the groups already in SL, increase the collaboration and resource sharing, etc. "

 

And they have strong buy-in from Linden Lab:

Now Open: New Bryn Oh Metaverse Art Experience, Inspired by Life Under Quarantine, Subsidized by Canadian Government

Oh, Canada: Home to great government-sponsored healthcare, and now, noteworthy metaverse art. 

Click here to teleport to Immersivist, the Second Life sim of longtime metaverse artist Bryn Oh, whose new experience, "Lobby Cam", is brought to us by the Canada Council for the Arts. (Watch the mixed reality trailer above.)

"When applying for a Canada Council for the Arts grant you are competing with a wide range of artists across the country trying to convince jurors that your proposal is important to support," Bryn tells me, explaining how she got the grant. "In this case I wrote why virtual art is unique and important right now and would send them the script, art samples from the current work but also from previous grant works from the Ontario Arts Council. They look at your budget, support material and so forth. Then it takes four months to find out if you get it as they go through all the applications."

So take that all as a tip for other artists who want to work on metaverse platforms.

As for the inspiration for "Lobby Cam":

I'm Giving a Webinar on the Metaverse Next Week Friday -- Register to Attend Live for Free!

Click here to register for free to attend a Zoom webinar on That M Thing in a conference hosted by Canadian non-profit org CPAC (Chinese Professionals Association of Canada), which kicks off April 29 at 6:30pm PT. I'm preparing a slide deck now covering a range of topics, including how to define the Metaverse, Second Life's role in shaping it, mass market and niche use cases, and common misconceptions around the technology.

Is there any particular topic around virtual worlds and the Metaverse that I should also cover? If so, please suggest in Comments below!*