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Merged realities: events and issues for virtual worlds

March 4, 2009 by Leave a Comment

paisley_beebe_vic_bushfires 1. Australian Second Life content developers, Top Dingo, have created a tribute sculpture for Victorian bushfire victims. You can see it here.

2. Do Avatars Dream of Human Sleep? is a mixed reality collaboration between the artists of The Physical TV Company (Richard James Allen and Karen Pearlman) and MUVEDesign (Gary Hayes) on a research project supported by Critical Path, Ausdance NSW and The Australia Council for the Arts.

It’s running at Sydney’s Seymour Centre, corner Cleveland St and City Road, Chippendale, between March 10th and the 14th, at 8pm (tickets here) and you can find more information on the project here

3. Last weekend, SLCN TV broadcast an episode of Paisley Beebe’s Tonight Live which was devoted to the Victorian bushfires. It includes interviews with some of the people who’ve raised serious money in Second Life for the cause and an airing of a song written about the events of the past few weeks.

You can watch the full episode here. I was really pleased to hear how well one fundraiser went – nearly $5000 Australian dollars raised.

4. VastPark are running an event called Virtual Worlds Down Under:

What: Virtual Worlds Down Under (Free 1 hour inworld conference)
When: Fri Mar 6 11am – Fri Mar 6 12pm
Where: Inworld using VastPark Imp player
Created By: VastPark Events
Description: Event time is Australian Eastern Time. See your timezone

To access…

1. Install VastPark Imp: http://www.vastpark.com/downloads/#player

2. Run VastPark Imp and use it to go to the Masterclass: vp://vastverse.com/masterclass

Duration: 1 hour. This event will run on time (or very close!) as we’ve got a real world event group viewing out of inworld. SLCN will be filming parts of the event.

Schedule:

* VastPark’s CEO welcome and announcements on OpenSim and more
* Badumna project team explain and demo their P2P technology
* Postmoderna team are seeking collaborators
* RMIT – How architecture students are using VastPark and Second Life
* VastPark Masterclass2
* General Q&A for all teams

As always, if you have an event or creation you’d like people to know about, let us know.

Filed Under: Australian News, Events, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: ,

IMVU and the Victorian Bushfires

February 25, 2009 by Leave a Comment

I received an email from IMVU’s PR people, part of which I think is worth re-publishing:

IMVU user PraiseRose is turning virtual donations into real world relief for individuals and communities affected by the devastating bushfires in Victoria, Australia.

A Canada native, PraiseRose has never even visited Australia, but she was so moved by the coverage of the tragedy on the news that she decided to do something about it. She created a virtual sticker in IMVU, an online destination where adults and teens meet new people in 3D, and began to sell it to other IMVU users to help raise awareness about the bushfires. So far, the response from within the IMVU community has been overwhelming. Each sticker sells for 750 IMVU credits (about US$1), and so far PraiseRose has raised nearly 800,000 IMVU credits (almost US$500.00).

“This fundraiser has brought this community together in amazing ways,” Says PraiseRose. “I’ve made many so new friends, from all over the world. The response, and the trust have so totally overwhelmed me.” The fundraiser is set to end on March 1st at which time PraiseRose will donate the money she’s raised to the Red Cross Victorian Bushfire Appeal.

It’d be fascinating to get a tally of the dollars raised in virtual worlds to date – a conservative estimate would be tens of thousands of dollars.

Filed Under: Australian News, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: ,

Victorian Bushfire support continues in Second Life

February 11, 2009 by 3 Comments

Across the Second Life grid, fundraisers continue to occur for the victims of the Victorian bushfires. Tonight I heard about a fundraiser occurring at Bringiton’s Music Hall of Fame.

bushfire_fundraiser

Australian owner Bringiton Paine is hoping to raise up to half a million Linden Dollars overnight, so if you’ve got some spare time and want to have a dance, join the party and make a donation. There were more than 40 people having a good time when I jumped in, including a significant proportion from Austria, Germany and France to name a few. Another example of grass-roots fundraising at its best.

Don’t forget there’s a growing list of Second Life vendors selling goods to raise money for the cause.

Filed Under: Australian News, Events, Non-Profit, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: , ,

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