Nothing Virtual About Teesside

Posted January 27th, 2008 by Taran

I caught an email on the CIResearchers email list that spoke of a 'Social Inclusion' project, and like so many emails that I get - I took a quick look. The video at the left is a part of what you can find at the link to the Social Inclusion Demonstrators. Why, yes, that is Second Life in the video - though the moving lips of the avatar was done afterward.

Intriguing. I deal with Second Life myself, so I sent an off list email to Steve Thompson, the Community Media Coordinator of the Institute of Digital Innovation at the University Of Teesside which culminated in my poking around and chatting with him within Second Life. It was kind enough for him to stay up late to do so, and I did appreciate that. Normally, I would write about Second Life related things over at Your2ndPlace.com, but this isn't so much about Second Life as it is extending a presence - a real presence - by leveraging technology. This isn't about a company looking for another place to peddle its wares, it is about creative and well intentioned minds finding outlet. That places it easily on KnowProSE.com.
The area that they shot the footage is part of a residential area within Second Life itself - the inworld location is Cedar Island (96,83,23), and it isn't an active place. But if you feel the need for your avatar to walk where a machinima was shot, have a look.

Here is where the new jetty is being built: Sea Turtle Island (106,96,545). You'll see a bit of the Octorama being built here as well - you can read an entry on that here.

Steve's place (Straad Tomsen) in Second Life can be found at Cedar Island (197,141,41), and its chock full of information about the various projects he's involved with. Here are some sample links:

Technology And Society - Design And Civil Society: Something I will have to pry more into, especially since they are using Drupal.
Tees Valley Community Media: Real people doing real things.
STMedi@: Steve Thompson, Songwriter and Producer. Really - check who he has written songs for. Wish I could find my way around an instrument.
WMDJ: The Voices exhibit online is worth taking a look at.

When I started looking into this, I thought that this would be something that would be relatively simple - but because the endeavors (or adventures, Steve) are so many and so interesting in many ways (like the Digital Cemetery project!), I'll have to keep tabs on the electrons that these folks in Teesside employ. They seem quite productive and interesting. Second Life is only an extension of that - a useful tool for some things. As it should be.

I look forward to seeing what these folks do in the future. Where I originally thought I would write a 'closed' post, this seems like more of an introduction of what is being done by a creative group of people in a place I did not even know existed before this morning. And that, by itself, is exciting.