All your base

Adam has created a great script to aid in the creation of a Babelswarm base, aptly named "auto_spawn_rotate_with_delete". You can see the beginnings of the island-wide platform above.

The problems with physical space

We've had two meet and greets with prospective Babelswarm hosts so far. While ACMI were initially enthusiastic, the timing didn't fit with their schedule. Same for (an unnamed contemporary art institution), although it seemed their understanding of art created in virtual environments was somewhat uninformed, patronising and dismissive. They were interested in running a mediated forum on the legal and cultural debates surrounding virtual art, although I believe these debates have already been successfully addressed in academia and the (virtual) public realm. The "unnamed" did have valid observations regarding OzCo's framework, including the need for a physical space to exhibit Babelswarm. This is something we're still debating the merits of - why does virtual art need a real world interface?

Babelswarm makes the cover

The latest issue of Desktop Magazine features the Babelswarm project!

New milestone

A new milestone has been reached with Adam implementing the final letter forms. Audio is being embedded and tested this week.

Proof of concept

Adam has been busy scripting, with some great outcomes seen below in this pre-beta build. The php was relatively simple (for Adam), but as always SL is proving more problematic. Still - the outcomes are impressive and we're moving on to final letter-forms soon. The swarm behaviour, voice recognition interface, audio effects and housing are being discussed and we'll begin integration once the scripting issues are sorted.


Adam rides a swarm wave


Adam and Christo catching some "Zs"

The BabelSwarm Team

Left to Right: Adam Ramona, Adam Nash, Christo Kayo, Christopher Dodds, Justin Clemens, S1 Gausmann.

Recipients of the Inaugural Australia Council Second Life Artists Residency

We are proud to announce that we have been awarded the inaugural Australia Council Second Life Artists Residency. A project-based grant, at AUD $20,000, it is the biggest grant to be awarded for Second Life work.

We'd like to thank the Australia Council for recognising 3D Multi-user Virtual Environments (MUVEs) as a medium for serious art. For a public funding body to give such significant support shows vision and commitment to innovative post-convergent practice.

We will collaborate to develop an inter-disciplinary artwork in Second Life, which converges possibilities of literary, music/sound art and real-time 3D arts practices within the virtual world. There will be a simultaneous installation in Second Life and in a real world gallery, where gallery visitors can be directly involved in its creation via a voice-driven interface.

The installation, a metaphor for the Tower of Babel, will use voice recognition software that converts the spoken word of real and virtual world participants into 3D letterform images in an evolving tower of words. The behaviour of the individual letterforms and the meta-tower will be informed by swarm theory.

Our team consists of Christopher Dodds (aka Mashup Islander), Adam Nash (aka Adam Ramona) and Justin Clemens (aka S1 Gausman). Details in the People section at right.