The AK-1RA Sports by Detect Surface in outer space … this is what may happen if you are too daring in “↑Second Life“ (SL) … you will be catapulted into limbo, then into oblivion. I am proud to be able to state, that I am a testpilot with D&D Creative Labs in the (SLurl:) ↑City of Abaddon. I was on a stunt-test-drive with the brandnew bike, visualized by ↑Detect Surface
and scripted by acid Zenith. Suddenly I hit a glitch in the matrix and was blown out into non-space.
william gibson meets bat segundo
In last year’s ↵writing culture and cyberpunk I tried to show the close kinship of anthropology and cyberpunk—and I never cease to voice my opinion that the cyberpunk writers are huge fans of sociocultural anthropology. Four days ago I received an e-mail from writer, playwright, and director ↑Edward Champion, hinting me to “↑The bat segundo show #133“ [54:42 min | .mp3] featuring an extensive and, to me, very interesting interview with ↑William Gibson … are you ready? Are you hangin’ on the edge of your seat? Well, hold your breath then and have a quote from the godfather of cyberpunk, from the man who invented the concept and the word “cyberspace” … sit down and listen to Mr. William Ford Gibson:
Those are the moments I enjoy fieldwork online to the max. To the left is ↑Detect Surface, creator-god of (SLurl:) ↑Abaddon. He wears something peculiar—Detect: “very first sculptie armour in SL baby :P” Acid and me independently voiced that involuntarily it worked out as a perfect homage to the original Doom-guy. To the right is Yours Truly, wearing work-in-progress, the prototype-head of a full android, somewhat Terminator-style … things to come … and my body is made as skinny as possible, in order to make it fit seamlessly into the android later on. Our conversation in the very moment of the picture went like that:
Another one. Several weeks ago, when Ye-Ole-Japanese-Fishing-Village section of cyberpunk’s incarnation in “↑Second Life“ (SL), the City of Abaddon (my home!), still was under construction by means of the D-man’s virtual hands, we all were standing together at the fish market. Some tourists sightseeing in Abaddon drew near, glanced at us, and one guy went:
Is it a eurocentric bias on the visual that the majority of constructivist works start out with optical illusions? I am not sure. But be it as diverse personæ as von Foerster, Watzlawick, Maturana & Varela, or even Francis Crick—Berger & Luckman are an exception—, optical illusions serve as a stunning starter for their arguments. Me personally, I am a downright fanboy of illusions of all kind, hence I am of the opinion, that Alan Sokal’s warning to the social sciences and humanities—not to use metaphors which are way more complicated to understand than the phenomena you want to illustrate by their use—does not kick in here. Although the phenomena in question may have quite complex basis’ or even reasons unknown. Because of their immediacy, almost everybody can experience the phenomena ad hoc, I take optical illusions to hold immense argumentative and didactical value for all things constructivist. Now,
↑Michael Bach collected ↑72 Optical Illusions & Visual Phenomena on his website and renders them masterfully—especially in this respect online technology has at least one great advantage over printed matter on paper: illusions depending on the moving image can be demonstrated:
Am I allowed to cheaply capitalize on the above? … The small percentage of people who do not see the empirical world at all, but illusions and figments of their own exclusively, are called politicians and bureaucrats.
… and I missed it. On 02 August 2007 the godfather of cyberpunk, ↑William Gibson, publicly read from his freshly published, latest novel “Spook Country”—read live in “↑Second Life“ (SL). The event was ↑staged by Penguin, and on YouTube there are several documentations of it. To my eye the best one is “↑William Gibson enters Cyberspace“ by Munich’s very own musician, composer, and audio producer
↑Bernhard “draxtordespres” Drax. Then there are “↑Gibson reads from Spook Country in SL
“, “↑Answers from William Gibson in cyberspace“, and “↑Answers from William Gibson in cyberspace part II“—documentations in the strict sense of the term and therefore a bit dull pieces of machinima. Interesting I find the two part interview (“↑Across the Border to Spook Country“, “↑On Second Life and in Second Life“) done by amazon. Let me quote the latter one, where Gibson talks a bit about his first experience in SL last winter:
The very last known sentence Gibson spoke in SL so far? … “If you ever run into me in Second Life I hope I won’t look quite so much like Quentin Tarantino.”
Chris Kelty posted this movie at ↑Savage Minds under the header “↑Understanding Modernity Hiply,“ and commented: “There are some great subtle moments in it. Whoever made it has read far too much ↑Edward Tufte [… of “↑The cognitive style of powerpoint“ fame. See the excerpt “↑PowerPoint Does Rocket Science “].”
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Imagine there’s no Heaven It’s easy if you try No hell below us Above us only sky Imagine all the people Living for today Imagine there’s no countries It isn’t hard to do Nothing to kill or die for And no religion too Imagine all the people Living life in peace |
You may say that I’m a dreamer But I’m not the only one I hope someday you’ll join us And the world will be as one Imagine no possessions I wonder if you can No need for greed or hunger A brotherhood of man Imagine all the people Sharing all the world |
You may say that I’m a dreamer But I’m not the only one I hope someday you’ll join us And the world will live as one |
Remember the ↵bombenkrater fusion plus ↵discussion, and my babbling about appropriating urban landscapes ↵by mastership? Well, in Paris ↑they ↑do it, too—of[f] course.
Everybody who ever “set a foot” into “↑Second Life“ (SL), ↑just watch, please.