Tag: The Drax Files World Makers

The latest episode of The Drax Files turns to the prolific and ingenious Scottius Polke, aka artist Scott Rolfe.

Tall and blond in real life, Scott presents himself as a two-foot-tall gregarious, sunglass wearing, fedora-hatted otter in Second Life, where he is known – as in real life – for producing incredible works of art.

Joining SL in early 2008, he was also quick to release the potential of the platform not only as a means of artistic expression, collaboration and social engagement, but also as a means of counterpointing elements of his own real life personality and giving creative freedom to aspects of himself which might otherwise not always be so obvious to those meeting him.

“I am a Tiny otter,” he says of his SL persona. “Well, otters have kind of carefree spirit, they enjoy fun and I was hoping it would balance-off some of my more rigid personality; I’m more introverted in person and the otter is bombastic and out of control!”

He also notes that while a digital creation, Scottius nevertheless has an energy of his own, one which Scott likes to associate with, and which appears to feed into and connect with his more conscious creativity, allowing his real and virtual lives to complement one another, adding depth to his work in both.

He’s also a first-rate ambassador, as the film reveals, quick to engage others on the subject of Second Life, demonstrate it, and draw them into the world which has captivated him and show them that it is a place of enormous potential  – and fun. In this, he’s very quick to turn the widespread perception many people have about Second Life being a place for those “without a life” completely on its head.

“It seems that … there is very much a detachment from everyone else in the public sphere,” he says in reference to real life while discussing things for the episode, “[In] coffee shops here, you don’t go and suddenly there’s a big gathering of people. No. You go to your table and you might be with one other person, or with your laptop, and it’s almost completely quiet. Second Life is the opposite of the perceptions that a lot of the public hold. It’s not a place where lonely people ignore each other; it’s a place where minds connect!”

Real life can be isolating in other ways as well, and often and not Second Life really can counter it and open the doors to many rich and diverse means of genuine and positive interaction, as Scott again points out during the pre-production conversation.

“There are issues [as an artist] of putting your work out there and not getting any feedback or knowing what people are thinking about it,” he says of real life. “And you know, we don’t live in a vacuum. and an essential part of art is sharing it with other people; and for the longest time, all it seemed I was doing was storing my art in my house and in my closet, and that’s killing the purpose of art.”

With Second Life, the interaction and feedback is there and it is immediate, from peers and friends alike, and it fuels the creative and collaborative processes, something with Scott likens it directly to the vibrant and positive atmosphere he was immersed in when studying art in college which served to further fuel his creative desires; something that he admits he’d never really felt in the time between leaving college and discovering SL.

This is another fascinating insight into the way in which Second Life have captivated someone and enabled them to find further means of expression and creativity and release. Scott’s experiences and his sheer enthusiasm for the platform offer another visual and positive means of presenting Second Life to those who have not experienced it for themselves.  The breadth and depth of topics covered here once again raise the bar in terms of the reach of this series. This is not an episode to miss.

Related Links

• The Drax Files episode 15 on You Tube
• Scott Rofle’s website
• Draxtor Despres on YouTube
• Draxtor’s website
• The Drax Files World Makers in this blog

I regret, no conversation with Drax this time; real life and family matters didn’t offer sufficient time.

Second Life has always been a powerful medium for artistic expression, whether it be 2D (through the creation of photographs and machinima  taken in-world, or the use of SL as a means to display paintings and drawings, and so on), 3D (in the form of sculptures, models, etc.), or immersive (such as partial or full region builds).

Such is the platform’s versatility, that it has always attracted amateur and professional artists, who have formed one of Second Life’s strongest and most vibrant communities of users who have created some of the most stunning pieces demonstrating the creative power inherent within the platform.

Rose Borchovski an artist in both RL and Second Life is renowned for both her immersive works in the latter and for her multimedia music theatre performances and multimedia art installations in real life, of which perhaps the more internationally recognised being The Blue Planet, produced in collaboration with her RL spouse, director Peter Greenaway (with whom she is also collaborating for a new installation in Rotterdam entitled Sex and the Sea).

Within Second Life Rose is perhaps best-known for her Susa Bubble creations.  Susa,  is child-like character who “went to bed single and woke up double”, came into being in Second Life when Rose’s own daughter was ill, and Rose created the first story for her.

Since then, of course, the Susa Bubble story has become famous across Second Life, and Rose sees the platform as the means by which she can carry forward the developing story of these small, fragile-looking but nigh-on indestructible characters as then go about their own explorations and mischief.

Along the way, she has created some of SL’s most memorable immersive spaces, such as The Inevitability of Fate, The Arrival and Echoes in the Garden.

Rose sees SL as a means of expression on many levels; not just in what we might regard as “art” in the usual sense, as demonstrated by her one pieces in-world, but also in how we chose to present ourselves through the medium of our avatar, it’s appearance and what we bring to it from the real world in terms of our own thoughts, desires, ideals and physical attributes, such as our own voice, touching on all this combines to affect how other react to us and identify with us.

“I still would like to convince you that you’re going to film Rose, my avatar, and not me. Because Rose is handsome and she’s slim and I have a charming accent, so Rose is much more sympathetic as an image,” she tells Drax at one point. In many respects, the creation of our avatar presents a level of freedom in how we express and present ourselves which simply isn’t possible in real life for a variety of factors, external and internal. As such, the artistic and emotional involvement we have in the process of creating and refining our avatar is a means by which each of us can artistically express ourselves, if we so wish.

And of course, how we opt to behave when using our avatars might also be seen to be reflected  in some of the tales Rose tells through her Susa Bubbles stories …

Second Life is also very much as practical tool for Rose. While she has stated elsewhere that as a means of artistic creation, SL can be a slow and time-consuming medium in which to work, it is one that nevertheless greatly assists her real world art; allowing her to visualise and model her real life installations and walk through how she wants to stage them and have them appear to the visitor.

In this she touches upon two other aspects of Second Life which lift it above the “mere” definition of it being a game or simply an open sandbox: it can have both a practical feedback into our real lives, much as it helps her visualise and build real life installations, objects and models, and it can form an even greater channel for emotional and creative release because it can feedback equally into our real lives as much as we feed into it from our real lives; something I believe I’ve been experiencing in my own small way through SL photography, which has started to feed back into my real life activities.

For the artist, Second Life has always, and in so many ways, been at the cutting edge of expression and development. That is as true today as it was back when SL burst into the public consciousness. Almost every visual development and enhancement to the platform adds yet another opportunity to the visual artist. As Rose herself says, more fool those outside of the platform who could benefit from it in their refusal to accept it as a means of expression; given its global reach, they are only denying themselves a new, and potentially huge, audience.

Continue reading “The Drax Files 14: Immersiveness and creativity” →

Ole Etzel is someone who knows exactly how to measure success. “My definition of success is that I can do what I want,” he states in the opening minute of the latest segment of The Drax Files.

This doesn’t mean that Ole is wealthy enough to do whatever he wants, or anything like that. It means that he has created an environment in which he can enjoy a huge amount of creative freedom in his work as a machinima maker, and is in a position where he enjoys complete creative control over all of his work.

This success has been largely due to Second Life, a platform Ole immediately saw as an incredible medium for a brand of artistic expression.  In this, his story is, on the surface, little different to that of many others who have come into Second Life and found a niche in which to excel, be it art, photography, physical content creation, game-building, or as an actor or voice artist or singer, and so on. It’s also a further demonstration that someone can actually be involved in a platform like Second Life and have a life, and isn’t actually using it as some form of escapism to slip free of real world pressures.

“I don’t think working at the computer is escapism,” he says of his work during the extended interview. “Perhaps it was escapism when my grandfather went down into the basement where he had a little miniature train and he built his world there. It’s really not very different. But it’s not escapism. It’s creativity.”

Ole’s machinima is a skilled mix of animation, music, storytelling and a very eclectic selection of themes and ideas all presented in something of an avant-garde style focused on his two principal characters of Mr. and Mrs. Bones. His creations, which together with his RL work can be found on his YouTube channel, demonstrate a painstaking level of creation which really does mark out machinima as being more – to borrow from Drax – than “hour-long Call Of Duty gameplay uploaded in unedited form”, which is sometimes how machinima can be perceived by those who have heard the term without actually studying it (or have engaged in an hour-long recording of their latest blast on Call of Duty…).

Art can often be a powerful means of political expression, and Ole’s pieces are no exception to this; several of his films do carry a political message. In fact he sees Second Life as an ideal platform for art as political commentary, noting that many people involved in Second Life are political, “They use the tools to build little artworks with a political message; things that matter in the so-called real world.”

Given his desire to at times to produce works which touch upon the real world and / or which stir the cognitive processes, freedom  – creative and expressive – is something Ole sees as essential to his work. So much so, that he has consciously striven to keep his real-life identity completely off of the Internet and to adopt what he refers to the “eastern” approach to presenting oneself online, whatever medium he is using.

“There are these two attempts of how to deal with the Internet,” he says, “The more western, the more American attempt of putting your name and a lot of photos on Facebook, then there’s the more eastern, the more Japanese attempt of the avatar.”

Ole’s position is not unique; there are a number of artists involved in SL who only do so through their avatar alter-egos because of the freedom they gain for themselves, and because it allows their work to stand on its own without potentially being overshadowed by perceptions gleaned as a result of people being able to connect the digital with the “real”.

This segment offers a fascinating insight into the machinima maker’s art, from storyboarding an initial idea through to the final product. Yes, it can be a lonely process – as Ole points out in the extended interview, he has a day job as well as his family, so his machinima is something which is restricted to evenings and weekends, when he has the opportunity to spend a couple of hours producing around 10 seconds or so of completed material. But the flip side to this is that the entire process is liberating and empowering.

“I used to run around with a big VHS camera on my shoulder … I needed a second person already for the sound, and then the cutting afterwards – it was terrible! I have a lot of footage, but I never finished a movie,” he notes.

Second Life and machinima have freed him from all that. Together they provide a means by which he he can steer his work through from beginning to end, and can do so unencumbered but either the cultural weight of more traditional, studio-driven film faire, or by the need to compromise on subject, technique, approach, etc., which can arise as a result of the collborative needs of more traditional independent film-making. In machinima, every aspect of the product can be creatively controlled and presented exactly as the machinima maker envisions, limited only by the technical constraints inherent within the platform.

And even the technical constraints needn’t be as limiting as we might think; particularly when it comes to getting started with Second Life – a subject Ole also has some very clear views on.

A common critique levelled at the platform is that it is “too hard” for people to get to grips with, and the learning curve is too steep. That critique, more often than not, is levelled by people from within the platform. But is it really? As Ole points out, “Try using Blender. THAT’s a hard learning curve.”

His view is liable to be controversial in this regard, but I admit I actually understand where he is coming from and what he means. It’s easy to forget that the knowledge which allows us to use SL in the ways we want didn’t come to us all at once. Why, then, do we often look at newcomers to the platform and believe that they immediately need to be encumbered with the vast majority of knowledge which we only accumulated with the passage of time?

True to his word, with this episode, Drax is building on the foundations he’s laid throughout the series to date, offering another piece which invites those outside of SL to reconsider any preconceptions they may have with the platform and re-evaluate it as a valid medium of creative expression and endeavour. In Ole, we have the perfect spokesperson who can address both the world beyond SL and perhaps challenge the perceptions and bias those of us engaged in the platform may ourselves carry.

Related Links

• The Drax Files episode 12 on YouTube
• Ole Etzel on YouTube
• Draxtor Despres on YouTube
• Draxtor’s website
• The Drax Files World Makers in this blog

There are always challenges and there are shortcomings. Sometimes you just want to bang your head against the wall. But then you realise it’s really a world without limitations, and puts no restrictions on your imagination … Before Second Life, how could you have done what you can do now?

These words, spoken by Dante Spectre in episode 11 of The Drax Files sum-up the technical dichotomy that is Second Life. On the one hand, it is a platform that offers people the freedom to create anything they want, participate in almost any activity be it social, educational, creative, game-oriented, health-related, research-focused and so on; and to be almost anyone or anything, enjoying a freedom of expression which may not so easily be found in real life. Then on the other, it can be a real PITA when things go wrong or new capabilities hiccup as they are introduced, and so on.

Very often, for those of us involved in SL, it’s all too easy to focus on the latter, the challenges and shortcomings, than it is to remain focused on the former. Which is why this episode of The Drax Files serves as a useful reminder that – as Dante says, if not for SL, how could we do what we do in-world?

In exploring the world of Dwarfins, created by Dante and his wife (and project manager!) Judy Chestnut, together with their “adopted daughter”, Jaimy Hancroft, this episode reminds us of the incredible power Second Life puts at our fingertips, whether in the ability to create something as technically advanced as the Dwarfins themselves, or to create fantasy environments we can enjoy with friends and others, which can be populated by NPCs like the Dwarfins.

This is also a piece that reaches out to those beyond the walls of the Second Life garden and really tries to frame the reasons why many of us involved in SL are so involved. Where other segments have been framed more around the human aspects of people’s lives and their time with SL, this show unashamedly dives into more of the inner workings of the platform, more directly picking-up the threads laid in earlier shows and weaving them together to create a picture of how Second Life is a user-created world and how it allows people to be creative and, if they so wish, enjoy something of a financial return on their work.

In many ways the Dwarfins team are an ideal showcase for this; as they demonstrate the fact that virtual environments allow people to develop a shared interest which helps to creatively enrich their real lives, and which forms bounds of friendship, family and even entrepreneurial endeavour around the globe.

“In real life I would never have met Jaimy, or anyone like Jaimy,” Judy tells us. “First of all she’s in Belgium; she’s about twenty years younger than me, almost. I very much feel a mother / daughter relationship with her … except she doesn’t really listen to me, either. So it really is a mother / daughter relationship!”

In expressing this, Judy opens the door on the ability of virtual worlds to provide whole avenues of very human interaction between people, regardless of age, background, geographical location and to develop genuine friendships and relationships with one others which simply would not otherwise happen. This is again something so often missed by those outside of Second Life; indeed it’s fair to see it’s an element of the platform almost completely overlooked when promoting Second Life – not that it is particularly easy to portray.

Similarly, Judy and Dante have enriched their own relationship through this joint endeavour of creativity and invention, just as another couple may well share and enjoy an evening of putting up photos on Facebook or whatever.

In episode 11, Drax once again provides a fascinating insight into how people relate to Second Life and what it is such a captivating and immersive world. More than this, however, is that he also shines more of a light on why people become involved in SL and how it can present opportunities and freedoms unmatched by other digital mediums. And he does so in a way that encourages a greater curiosity about the platform which might just lead some to take another look.

Continue reading “The Drax Files 11: the power of creativity” →

[With] every single thing that has ever happened in Second Life people have yelled, “It’s the end of Second Life as we know it!” And in fact it is – because it keeps getting better.

So states Robin Sojourner. And if anyone is in a position to make that point, it is Robin. She has been involved in Second Life for just shy of ten years (her anniversary falls on September 16th). This being the case, and given this is SL’s tenth anniversary, it is perhaps fitting that she be a subject for an episode of The Drax Files.

I’m going to take a little time out here and confess that when Drax confirmed to me that Robin was to be appearing in the series, I was overjoyed. I’ve long been an admirer of her work both inside and outside of Second Life, and it was one of her products which formed my first “really useful” purchase in SL way back in time – and which I still use today. So I make no apologies for dwelling as much on her work outside of SL as in; Robin is someone very much worthwhile getting to know – even if I do only know her distantly – and she and her work very much deserve discussion.

As well has bringing the perspective of being involved in SL almost since the beginning, Robin also brings another unique perspective to the table when discussing Second Life. She is a member of what the UK media refer to as “the silver surfer generation” that is, a member of an older demographic of computer users. I say “unique” not in respect of her seniority per se, but rather because that on the one hand, she represents the very broad appeal Second Life can have with people, while on the other, she represents a demographic that – perhaps – the Lab is gradually shying away from in its push to build an audience among younger generations.

Robin came to Second Life as a result of suffering from Fibromyalgia, which impacted heavily on her ability to create and draw and, being a creative person, she sought alternative avenues by which she could continue to create, and SL offered her one of the most comfortable mediums.

As I mentioned above, I’ve long been an admirer of Robin’s artwork ever since I discovered it back in 2007, which I admit is rather late-on in the day.

If you’ve never visited her website, I cannot recommend it highly enough as a place to visit; it is a veritable Aladdin’s Cave. Within it you’ll find samples of Robin’s art, such as her magnificent Robinton, Masterharper of Pern, a piece which has gained worldwide recognition for its depiction of one of Anne McCaffrey’s most-loved characters from her Dragonriders series.

The image is stunning in its detail, and very evocative, perfectly capturing its subject in his later years, his glass of Benden wine raised in salute, his quizzical smile and eyes hinting at the depth and breadth of his intellect and his wry humour. Little wonder Anne McCaffrey bought the original!

Within the website you’ll also find information on Robin’s books which include a must-read for all cat lovers and owners, The Theory of Cat Gravity, as well as her titles on Tarot and Wicca. Robin’s essays are also to be found here as well, and they make thought-provoking reading for anyone prepared to approach them with an open mind, and reveal much of Robin’s heart, intellect and the warmth of her humanity.

As a content creator within SL, Robin started with the very humble  prim – basic shapes, no flexies, no sculpties. Since then she’s been able to observe each and every change wrought in SeCond Life in terms of tools and capabilities for content creation, and to do so objectively enough to be able to recognise their benefits without all of the ballyhoo which all too often marks change within the platform.  Instead, she’s simply accepted them, learned about them and been at the forefront of putting them to good use – as the shots of her use of materials in the video demonstrate.

She’s also very aware of the empowerment latent within the platform for people to reach beyond themselves through it  – if they are prepared to make the effort. As she says of her own observations of the platform, and her real life experiences as a teacher, Second life offers people who have no idea that they are creative or who have convinced themselves, due to the pressure of society or through some inner self-editing process that they are not the “creative type”, discover that actually, they are.

In this, it makes no difference if people make the discovery using prims and then move on to other tools outside of Second Life. As she says later on in the programme, when talking about the so-called “Second Life / real life divide”, there is no dichotomy in starting out with in-world creation, then moving on to tools outside of SL. It is simply people learning skills, developing techniques and using tools, all of which combine to enhance their creativity, increase their pleasure and self-expression and  – ultimately – help to continue to make Second Life better.

In terms of the idea that those engaged in Second Life somehow need to go out and get a life, Robin has a very simple response, one which also offers up a huge an essential fact about the so-called “SL / RL divide” – it doesn’t have to exist.

“I can go out and smell the flowers,” she says of the idea that people need to go “get a life”, “But if I spend all day outside smelling the flowers, I’m going to get a horrible sunburn. ”

She goes on to point out that life is about balance in things, and Second Life very much plays a part in achieving that balance. In her case, it allows her to create a quilt pattern through one programme, import it into Second Life and create a finished quilt there and use the pattern in the real world to create a quilt of her own. Thus, Second Life is a natural part of a blending of the creative process which mixes the real world and the digital world bringing a completeness to both. But as Robin points out, the ability for the platform to bring together the real and the digital goes further than that.

“I don’t think that there is as much difference between virtual stuff and real stuff as people seem to think that there is,” Robin continues. “Emotionally, there is not any difference between doing stuff in real life and doing stuff in Second Life. It hits you emotionally in exactly the same place.”

Which is why there is no need for those engaged in SL to consider going out and getting a life. The vast majority do have a life, and see Second Life as it is meant to be, as another vehicle by which they can express and enjoy themselves. In this, it is actually no different to the freedom and enjoyment some find in painting their faces and going to a large stadium with several thousand others to watch two teams kick  / carry a ball around a large rectangle of grass.

Providing one is prepared to approach it openly and honestly, Second Life can provide positive emotional fulfilment; that it can is no reason to shun it or depict the fact that it does as a weakness in those who use it.

Rather the reverse. It’s another aspect of the magic of Second Life.

A Conversation with Drax

Sadly, real life at the moment, coupled with extremely poor planning on my part meant that I didn’t have the time over the last couple of weeks to clear my schedule, sort out thoughts and questions as this episode of The Drax Files was coming together, and get to sit down with Drax and Robin as I’d hoped. So unfortunately, no conversational piece this time around :(. All things being equal, we’ll be back next time around.

Related Links

• The Drax Files Episode 10
• Robin Wood Ent (Robin’s website)
• Robin’s Zazzle Store
• Robin’s in-world store SLurl (Rated: General)
• Draxtor Despres on YouTube
• Draxtor’s website
• The Drax Files World Makers in this blog
• Information on fibromyalgia:
  • American Fibromyalgia Syndrome Association
  • Fibromyalgia Association UK

Print images © Robin Wood Ent, used with permission.