Forget text, forget voice. EMOTE!

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

Polish Olza Koenkamp (aka Piotr Kopik) is a full time artist with two full lives: one as a human and another as an avatar in Second Life®. His virtual self operates a store where he sells freakish avatars of his own creation. In Real Life, he paints and is a co-founder of szu szu, a group that creates art for public spaces.

Now Olza has made this charming seemingly animated machinima in which his avatars speak not with text, or voice, but with emoticons.



Olza is fascinated with the inside of his body. He doesn't care what it looks like, but concentrates instead on his feelings, how his body works and its relationship with his mind and psyche. His interest in Eastern philisophies and practices such as yoga, led to his "realization" that he needed to REBUILD himself.

From that point forward, he gave his Real Life works the moniker PSYCHOSOMATIC REBUILDING. In Second Life, he refers to his activities as PSYCHOSOMATIC REBUILDERS.

You can teleport to Olza's PSYCHOSOMATIC REBUILDERS shop from here. Hat tip: Cutea Benelli.

See also:

• Head, move back up to the neck, please!
• Olza Koenkamp looks inside out

Wherein I attempt to describe what I am looking for: NPIRL content guidelines

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

By the time each Thursday rolls around, I'm frantically trying to catch up with all the first-rate landmarks and notecards and emails I've received, rich with hot tips on new and undiscovered content and ideas that just might be worth sharing with the 2,600 members of my Second Life® groups Not Possible IRL and Impossible IRL.

I send at least one in-world notice a week - usually late on Fridays - featuring some 3 to 20 items that I've culled from hundreds of these suggestions, and I'm often asked what my selection criteria is. In addition to intriguing building tips, info on other virtual worlds, and advocacy for the rights of content creators in Second Life, my main focus is on creations that are Not Possible in Real Life.

Are my selections opinionated, discriminating and highly subjective? Yes, they are. There are many other ways to discover information and calendar listings on the topics relevant to your particular interests in Second Life, so this is my personal attempt to provide you with a distillation of what I think is cool, trendsetting and even groundbreaking, always within the context of Not Possible IRL.

Am I an academic, schooled in the arts? I am not. Jay Newt of Brooklyn is Watching once called me a theme park mistress and I can subscribe to that. Not Possible IRL and Impossible IRL are not art groups, and for that matter, this blog is not an art blog. They do feature and include art, but that is not all we are about.

That said, what follows is an attempt to describe virtual content that is Not Possible in Real Life or NPIRL. These guidelines were drafted with only prim and/or script-based content in mind, as I don’t believe – but I’d like for you to prove me wrong - that there is such a thing as NPIRL music. How that music is generated, however, can definitely be NPIRL (Komuso Tokugawa and Dizzy Banjo, I’m looking at you!).

Theatre and live performances often enable suspension of disbelief via real-time special effects and situations (think DanCoyote Antonelli’s ZeroG SkyDancers, CARP's Metropolis, Gazira’s Hammering the Void, and Grace McDunnough’s Musimmersion, for example).

Not Possible in Real Life (NPIRL) CONTENT (architecture, art, landscaping) is a generous combination of the following:

* Surreal, fantastical

* Indulges our sense of make-believe (can do strange, wonderful and surprising things; makes us laugh)

* Can fundamentally affect our behavior, perception and even our self-perception

* Physically impossible in Real Life, or could only be created at enormous/unrealistic expense (defies the laws of gravity and physics in general)

* Immersive

* It almost goes without saying that NPIRL creations in virtual worlds are three-dimensional. While photography and other 2D images may portray NPIRL content, they are difficult to render in-world and for this reason, I enjoy them best on the web. I am an avid user of both Flickr and Koinup, where so many of you post images taken in virtual worlds. I wish more machinimators would join the Not Possible IRL YouTube group, though their group management tools there are very poor.

NPIRL FASHION is garment-based and not a biological part of the avatar. In addition to clothing the avatar, it might do strange and wonderful things, or make us do strange and wonderful things. It can defy the laws of physics or expose the avatar’s body to extreme heat or cold or exploding particles or sharp things. It might include elements (such as clouds, or sunshine, or snakes, for instance) that could never be used in Real Life.

NPIRL AVATARS are fantastical, surreal, or funny, or surprising, but they all have one thing in common: They are definitely Not Possible in Real Life. They aren't human, or dogs, cats, horses, etc., unless they are exceptionally unusual (a unicorn, for example). While nekos, faeries and elves are NPIRL, their appendages must look integrated, credible and not like props.

I want to especially thank the members of my working group Not Possible IRL for their guidance and inspiration, and the extreme explorers and content creators of the vibrant Impossible IRL community who have sent in priceless tips and ideas. All this is possible because we've pooled our efforts and share an intense appreciation for the 3D platform. I adore you!

Multiplicity at The Good Life - A story in pictures

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

Via Toady Nakamura, we discover...














Click to see large


Click to see large

Kazuhiro Aridian's dreamed creatures - Tomorrow's featured NPIRL-Koinup Safari

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

Tomorrow, April 18th at 10:30am SLT, and awaiting on the other side of your teleport (directly from here) will be Kazuhiro Aridian in a newly created environment that simply begs to be photographed.


The delicate, leafy and aquatic Seadryke avatar, worn by its creator, Kazuhiro Aridian

I've seen Kazuhiro turn a sandbox into a stadium with hordes of people simply standing there, jaws dropping to the floor, watching Kaz make some of the most complex, ferocious or vulnerable (and animated and flawlessly realized) avatars on the grid, including the much celebrated and feared Dravyn and the gentle Seadryke.



Now, get a behind-the-scenes look at what's involved, as well as the evolution of Kazuhiro's non-human avatars. Meet the artist and get a peek at new creations, as well as a fantastical new virtual space. Lots to photograph. We'll begin by teleporting here.



Once a month, NPIRL and Pierluigi Casolari's (aka Koinup Burt in SL) Koinup - an inclusive social networking site for all Virtual Worlds that permits storage and sharing of imagery: photography, Machinima, and "storyboards" - are offering the NPIRL Safaris - with many of Second Life's best content creators, exposing the participants to new sims, new content, and new ideas that are leaving the old world behind and breaching the future.



Among the Virtual Worlds you'll find images of on Koinup: Second Life®, World of Warcraft, Lively, The Sims, IMVU, vSide, Kaneva, There, and more.

The Not Possible IRL (NPIRL) and Impossible IRL (ImpIRL) groups are dedicated to identifying and sharing well conceived and realized content creation in Virtual Worlds which would not be possible in Real Life: architecture, landscaping, art, animations, fashion, particle effects, building tools and scripts... show me, I'll show you.

Just press play: The rocking-est avatars at NPIRL's Halloween parties, as seen by Tezcatlipoca Bisiani

Artist, writer and sometimes guest blogger here, Tezcatlipoca Bisiani, sent in these pics of some of the avatars at the NPIRL Halloween parties that caught his eye.


Tezca didn't suit up for the parties... nope. Instead, he got real casssh as can be seen on the right. But who is the avatar in the Marie Antoinette "do"?


I can never keep a straight face when extreme explorer Naxos Loon is around, and this night was no exception.


Glyph Graves took a break after creating many of the special effects for the incredible roller coaster rides at Plasma Co. Mining Colony


I know that this ringing avatar's first name is Narita, but what is the surname?


Cube Republic has been awfully busy lately. Not only was he on the crew of builders for Plasma Co. Mining Colony - and I am fond of some of his sculptures there ;-) - he also DJed at NPIRL's Halloween party and has been leading the 5,000+ member-strong SOS (Save Our Openspaces) group. Who is the gentleman on the right?


To the left and barely visible, thomtrance O'toole knocked out tune after Goa trance tune at both of the parties. thom is my guru when it comes to exploring Opensims. On the right, award-winning Viennese artist and lecturer, MosMax Hax


That kitteh! Artist Sabine Stonebender just finished the first phase of rebuilding her Zero Point and I love it! That's me drifting in the air to the right, being witchy in Eln Alter's freebie witch avatar

See also:
* The setting for NPIRL's Halloween parties: Plasma Co. Mining Colony
* The exotic and fun avatars at NPIRL's Halloween parties
* The incredible avatars at the NPIRL Halloween parties: "Take Two" by Skycat Ranger
* Scene stealin' avatars at NPIRL's Halloween parties, as captured by Cyberloom
* Trinity Outlander's double-takes at the NPIRL Halloween parties

The incredible avatars at the NPIRL Halloween Parties: "Take Two" provided by Skycat Ranger

Skycat Ranger is one of my fave photographers in Second Life®. Her work with brushes and filters simply rocks. Just look at some of Skycat's captures taken at the NPIRL Halloween parties!


Skycat showed up at the party with a huge mallet and looking like a jester. She got straight to work taking pic after great pic. This one captures a moment at Tuna Oddfellow's hallucinogenic Tunaverse show


Here's another of Skycat's views of Tuna Oddfellow's special NPIRL edition of his Tunaverse show at both of our parties


Madcow Cosmos morphed into many avatars all night and photographs of him poured in. He was one of the ten creators of Plasma Co. Mining Colony, too! I think you'll agree that this shot by Skycat gets 5 stars


Jurin Juran surprised me the day before Halloween by gifting me with this incredible avatar by Rush Gastel which I modified a tad


As with so many of the pics taken at the parties, I had a hard time figuring out who was who. In this shot by Skycat and from left to right, I recognize Scarp Godenot, Jurin Juran and Sidewinder Linden. But who was Alice and who was the faerie?


No one, and I do mean no one, can rock da house better than Komuso Tokugawa and his live boogie blues. From left to right, Skycat's shot includes: Komuso, Sasun Steinbeck, Bryn Oh and Eshi Otawara

See also:
* Trinity Outlander's double-takes at the NPIRL Halloween parties
* Scene stealin' avatars at NPIRL's Halloween parties, as captured by Cyberloom
* Just press play: The rocking-est avatars at NPIRL's Halloween parties, as seen by Tezcatlipca Bisiani
* The exotic and fun avatars at NPIRL's Halloween parties
* The setting for NPIRL's Halloween parties: Plasma Co. Mining Colony

Bryn Oh ruminates: Who are our favorite Second Life "characters?"

She's no stranger to these pages, and she hasn't touched the tarmac even once since she set flight as a content creator, leaving us enchanted time and again with her steampunk imaginings and sculptural story-telling. Now Bryn Oh has begun her own blog, and in one of her inaugural posts she lists some of her favorite characters in Second Life®.

Oh boy... *rubs palms together and grins.* Bryn, to your great list I would add these names, which I jotted down in under two minutes. In no particular order...

Gazira Babeli
Tooter Claxton
Truthseeker Young
Orhalla Zander
Arcadia Asylum
Molotov Alva
Blaccard Burks
Hamlet Au
Andrek Lowell
Ordinal Malaprop
Komuso Tokugawa
Tuna Oddfellow
Flea Bussy
Chance Abattoir
Naxos Loon
Spiral Walcher
Adam Ramona
Sabine Stonebender
thomtrance Otoole
(of course, this list is quite, quite incomplete)

What do all these people have in common? One look at them makes me smile. Their avatar is instantly recognizable. They rarely change much (though Flea is certainly an exception to this rule and Tooter's not far behind). Tooter, we miss you! Hurry home! And yes, they are all certifiable characters in Second Life.

And Bryn, welcome to the madcap world of blogging! Here are some interesting stats about blogging in the U.S...

According to Blog World Expo:

- Over 12 million American adults currently maintain a blog.
- More than 147 million Americans use the Internet.
- Over 57 million Americans read blogs.
- 1.7 million American adults list "making money" as one of the reasons they blog.
- 89% of companies surveyed say they think blogs will be more important in the next five years.
- 9% of Internet users say they have created blogs.
- 6% of the entire US adult population has created a blog.
- Technorati is currently tracking over 70 million blogs.
- Over 120 thousand blogs are created every day.
- There are over 1.4 million new blog posts every day.
- 22 of the 100 most popular websites in the world are blogs.
- 37% of blog readers began reading blogs in 2005 or 2006.
- 51% of blog readers shop online.
- Blog readers average 23 hours online each week.

Now, get thee over to Bryn's blog and let her know who you think the greatest characters are in your Second Life!

Virtual Renaissance - Second Life goes to Florence

In less than two weeks, the 2008 Festival of Creativity (Festival della Creativita) will get underway in Florence, Italy. One component of that festival of particular interest to virtual world users will be Rinascimento Virtuale (Virtual Renaissance), the brainchild of Italian journalist and NPIRLer Mario Gerosa. The exhibit about Second Life and its avatars, art and architecture will occupy the Museum of Natural History at the University of Florence.

The show, which Mario has curated and organized together with the Fondazione Sistema Toscana, will seek to bring virtual/digital experiences into the Real World, and hundreds of Second Life avatars will have their images displayed there.

Mario (aka Frank Koolhaas in Second Life) has a degree in architecture and is a senior editor for Architectural Digest Italy. He teaches Multimedia and Digital Landscapes at the Faculty of Architecture of the Politecnico of Milan, and has authored two books about virtual worlds.



While Rinascimiento Virtuale is promoted as being an art happening, it will focus especially on the varied lifestyles and avatar forms that people have taken on and adopted in Second Life. Mario calls them "Digital Impressionsim, Postkitsch, New Pop, Avatar Art, Iperformalismo, and Ultranaif."



Many collateral events - both real and virtual - have been organized, including a conference on “Art for avatars only?,” and an opportunity for Florentines to participate directly in Second Life via a mixed-reality event. The organizers have also scheduled a treasure hunt and a “Second Life Invasion” in Florence, during which time avatars will “invade” the city, offering themselves up as guides to Second Life.

Madcap Madcow Cosmos *finally* opens a store + freebies, too

See also:
* Divine Madcow Cosmos' divinations
* Madcow's Cosmos' "Heterotroph" at the Garden
* It's a Madcow (Cosmos) Madhouse!
* Catastrophe! Spacejunk falls from the sky!
* Dear Colgate-Palmolive
* Madcow Cosmos gets orbital
* No red noses here
* Madcow Cosmos silly-wonderful Prey Unit - a photographic challenge

Prolific. Genius. Prim hog. Brilliant. Funny. I have described Madcow Cosmos in these ways and more, but never, ever have I been able to call him a merchant. I can do this today, as Madcow has finally established an outlet where we can pick up copies of his insanely cool avatars and stuff: The Primordial Soup and Sandwich, teleport directly from here.

I spent some time last night in a sandbox with Madcow, previewing his newest line of avatars and Oh.My.Goodness. While all are - as I have come to expect - hilarious, some of them are truly the stuff of my childhood nightmares, and would make worthy under-the-bed monsters. It all got me to thinking about Halloween... NPIRL's #1 holiday and the one day when we observe that rite: PARTY time (note to self: better start thinking about venues 'n stuff).


Madcow greeted me personally at his new store. It was a bit... intimidating :)

Freebies: There are two ways to secure freebie avatars: touch the "specials of the day" on the counter, or take a look in the dumpster.

Get in touch with your quirkiness with the help of Vooner Voom

News travels fast on the grid. Today and within minutes, both surrealist four Yip (her avatars! Her installations and wings and furniture!) and uber extreme adventurer Naxos Loon , alerted me to Vooner Voom's quirky store (teleport directly from here). This is a place to stop by for madcap and eccentric avatars (want to be a school of fish, all by your lonesome? This is the place!) and toys (rubber ducky, I love you!), but when you are there, be sure to touch the door on the back wall to be transported into an odd little room.



Vooner is Japanese and while he just celebrated his first rez day, his sculpty work is fantastic.



He certainly has a different perspective on things...

Aiyas Aya's mountain

Canadian artist Aiyas Aya's (aka Christopher Postill) installation, "Upward Race to the Bottom," at the Garden of NPIRL Delights has always had something missing... until today that is. Aiyas, this one's for you! On the spur of the moment a slew of volunteers TP'ed in and we made it happen!


Not one pose-ball in sight! Click to see large

Aiyas describes his installation as follows: "The aim of this piece is to incorporate audience avatars as an integral part of a sculptural form. I am creating sculpture using the avatars of participants; the piece requires interaction in order to be completed. This user interaction slowly brings together a rough narrative experience as more and more viewers participate.

When properly filled, the piece becomes a wreathing mass of avatar bodies all reaching upward, stuck in a perpetual state of competition. A literal mountain of bodies all supporting eachother but fighting for the summit at the same time. Without participants, the piece is a simple terraformed mountain, but as more audience members sit on the 'pose-balls', the piece transforms into a tableau of never-ending struggle toward the top."


This photo by Gary Kohime caught us in the initial attempt

Participants include (sorry if I didn't catch your name!):
Amyrlin Sewell - Aurakyo Insoo - Avi Arrow - Bettina Tizzy - Bryn Oh - Cocoanut Koala - Dannie Fargis - Decoy Nagy - Economic Mip - Elina Radek - Ella Quinsette - Emuishere Boa - Gary Kohime - Glyph Graves - Gypsy Paz - Izikael Novi - Julia Hathor - Keenan Yengawa - Krystalheart Oh - LittleToe Bartlett - Lumiere Noir - Maraschino Susa - Mordechai Laasonen - Rena Mascot - Rikard Bashly - TheDove Rhode - Tryptofaa Sands


We had to struggle to get in! This photo by fellow Garden artist Gary Kohime

Thank you, everyone! More photos can be seen here and here.


Some days ago, Quadrapop Tree captured another bodacious attempt to fill the mountain!

Go to your happy place, courtesy of Yoa Ogee

Yoa Ogee always takes me to my happy place. And that is precisely the reaction he is after. You see, Yoa founded and heads up the organization World's Greatest Smile.

Yoa Ogee: Peace is what I have been most interested in all my life. The World's Greatest Smile is an international peace project dedicated to friendly communication, and is supported by 14 Nobel Laureates, as well as many other people from 131 countries. The goal is to motivate people to communicate in a more friendly and effective way and to give them the resources to do so. We develop games for children, too, to teach them teamwork in a playful way.

So committed is he to this goal, that 100% of the proceeds from the sales of all his fantastic avatars goes directly into the coffers of this organization.

For the Garden of NPIRL Delights, Yoa created an installation he calls Happy Humans!


Yoa's birds have strong feet

Yoa Ogee: It is a big birdhouse... and all the birds in and around the house have only one thing in mind: “Oh, the human rights are so great, it must be wonderful to be a human... it is our mission to tell everybody more about that! Sooooo happy humans...!“


These birds perch in most unusual places


Aviation school

Yoa Ogee: The birds must be prepared for this mission, so they have a newbie/newbird area in the house. There the young birds can learn more about the human rights. And, of course, an aviation school, a few nests with baby birds and more...


Be happy!

Don't forget to pick up the three freebie avatars at this installation, too (teleport directly from here).

That's just weird

In the WTH department, there is this silly video about JoHan Glenville's use of bots to explore their non-commercial purposes in his "Arts and Projects."



I'm still not clear if Johan meant "crowded silence," or "crowed silence," but it is apparent that he views his Second Life experience as one big performance piece. He often congratulates people on the 200th-day and 300th-day anniversary of their birth in Second Life.

I still prefer GM Kurosawa's prim-based approach.

CodeBastard Redgrave splashes the grid - and NPIRLers - with RED

We are avatars in our virtual world, yes... little dollies we dress up, when you get right down to it. But personalities are often more distinct and discernable - larger than life, really - in this format.

Such is the case of a passionate, charming, and funny woman who rezzed the same month I did, some 14 months ago. Add to this that she is 7'6" tall, wears bright red from her locks to her toes, and is sporting the name CodeBastard Redgrave... Well, you just know there isn't going to be a bland pixel about her.



Turns out that her powers of persuasion are over the top, too. She's talked the knickers off of some of the most interesting ladies in Second Life... including a few of our own! In the tradition of the fabled Vargas pin-up girls, she stripped them down, splashed them with red, and then captured the moment for all eternity.


Jurin Juran

Amalthea Blanc

Lainy Voom

Today at 11am SLT, she is unveiling Boudoir Rouge - a collection of those photographs - at her gallery: Code Red. Dress code? C'mon... Hazard a guess! Teleport directly from here.

Yoa Ogee's "high tech life forms" for peace... and smiles

Within three days of rezzing (1/26/2007), a Canada-based German named Yoa Ogee made his first avatar. Today, his avatars are already wildly popular with the NPIRL crowd; I myself purchased at least 15 of them within minutes of being alerted to their existence by artist and scripter Miki Gymnast.

Bettina Tizzy: So, it was avatars from the start, was it?

Yoa Ogee: I started to build avatars because I wanted to be an alien and have tentacles.


Yoa Ogee - Three days old and already "in the pink"

Bettina Tizzy: Pink tentacles, even! Your inspiration?

Yoa Ogee: ... my favourite colour, yes, my inspiration, like all of my avatars.

Bettina Tizzy: And then... this went so well, that ... you just kept making avatars? Never wanted to make houses or other things?

Yoa Ogee: I have so much to do with avatar ideas... I (also) have a list with ideas for houses and stuff like that ^^

Bettina Tizzy: Many of your avatars are sculptural. You are the first that I know of to do this. What were you thinking that led you to make avatars that didn't look like living things?

Yoa Ogee: They are alive. What humans declare as abstract, I declare as high tech life forms.


This was Yoa's first "art" avatar. The colors on the bands cycle continuously

Bettina Tizzy: The scripting for the "Tricky" avatar is very complex. I have shown it to scripters and they were impressed.

Yoa Ogee: I don't script. I use freebies or purchased scripts and combine them with animations and lots of ideas to create new effects. Animations are made by me.


"Tricky" displays a continuous series of geometric gymnastics on its shiny pedestal

Bettina Tizzy: What is the name of the tiny avatar that is 7mm tall?

Yoa Ogee: Shichi - the name of the number 7 in Japanese.


Shichi is 7mm tall and is shown here next to a standard box prim

Bettina Tizzy: Where does the rest of the body go... and why is it necessary to use invisiprims or whatever it is that you do?

Yoa Ogee: Often, I use invisible prims, but sometimes a good animation can cause the same effect. It was challenging to learn all about animations and now I love it! Some of my avatars are not that good for dancing, but some of them are better for dancing than human bodies :) Invisible prims are useful because it is not possible to shrink the standard avatar that much.

Bettina Tizzy: Someone mentioned that smaller avatars are accomplished by folding the avatar body underground. Is this true?

Yoa Ogee: Yes, I do that, too, with animations, and this way I can shrink it down to 40-50cm.

Bettina Tizzy: Thank you for that explanation. I was just very curious.

Yoa Ogee: Curiosity is one of my favourite feelings.



The lower photograph is a close up of a few details on the head of the tree avatar.



Bettina Tizzy: I see that 100% of the proceeds from your sales goes to the World's Greatest Smile.

Yoa Ogee: They do, because peace is what I have been most interested in all my life. It is an international peace project dedicated to friendly communication, and is supported by 14 Nobel Laureates, as well as many other people from 131 countries. The goal is to motivate people to communicate in a more friendly and effective way and to give them the resources to do so. We develop games for children, too, to teach them teamwork in a playful way.



Bettina Tizzy: Now you make avatars that look like art. Do you find any inspiration in the work of artists in Second Life?

Yoa Ogee: Not really. I'm mainly interested in astrobiology, and that's the basis of my creations. It is about life on other planets and wherever life can be in the universe.



Bettina Tizzy: Do you take a scientific approach, or a science fiction approach to this, or both? Extraterrestrials that look like art... this does not sound so unfriendly.

Yoa Ogee: The scientific approach. I have always been interested in astrobiology, because I tried to find a way to think about humankind in other ways.


Yoa's "Gold Leaf" avatar undulates gently as you move

Bettina Tizzy: You also make avatars that have all kinds of details.

Yoa Ogee: I love details! I love especially the hidden details, those which you have to discover. This avatar is full of them, too, including a hidden treasure chest.



Yoa Ogee: I need bubbles^^ (At this point, gentle bubbles began to rise around the fish)

Bettina Tizzy: I see your fish has a mic, too. It sings?

Yoa Ogee: I have to talk to humans, and sometimes I am a karaoke fish (under the shower).

Bettina Tizzy: ...that plays chess.

Yoa Ogee: Yes, the starfishes on the ground play much better than me.



Bettina Tizzy: Your prices are very low. Are you more interested in distribution than in making money?

Yoa Ogee: Our avatars should enhance tolerance and should be available for everybody. I know as an alien: humans are a very cute and friendly species... sometimes they just forgot it.



Yoa and his Real Life fiance, Yeti Bing, have a busy store, which you can teleport to directly from here.