Virtual Ability – Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld

The Virtual Ability 2023 IDRAC conference in Second Life

Posted on November 10, 2023 by Inara Pey

Virtual Ability Inc., will be hosting its annual International Disability Rights Affirmation Conference (IDRAC) on Friday, November 10th 2023 at the Sojourner Auditorium on Virtual Ability Island.

A professional conference held in-world in Second Life that is to the public, IDRAC features an international line-up of guest speakers each year, with individual sessions lasting between 30 and 90 minutes, and may include opportunities for Q&A. For those who cannot make the in-world venue, it is live streamed via the Virtual Ability You Tube channel.

IDRAC 2023, via Virtual Ability Inc.

The theme of the conference this year is Do, Create, Live, and sessions are as follows (all times SLT):

07:00	Joseph English (QuadRebuild) will talk about how setting up QuadRebuild to help others changed his new life as a quadriplegic.
07:30	Erin Willis and Daniel Garza (University of Colorado, Boulder, Lilmesican Productions, Inc) will explain their research on patient influencers who do direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical marketing.
08:30	Emily Wright (It’ll Be Alwright), who survived multiple concussions, explains how she rebalanced her mind
09:30	Downs Syndrome sufferer John Cronin and his father Mark describe running John’s business, John’s Crazy Socks.
10:30	Panel discussion: what “Do, Create, Live” means in education.
11:00	30-minutes break.
11:30	Keri Gray (Keri Gray Consulting Group) discusses the National Alliance of Melanin Disabled Advocates (the NAMED Advocates).
Noon	Panel discussion: what “Do, Create, Live” means in the arts.
12:30	Judy Mittag explains how advocates got federal legislation passed to require insurance coverage for lymphedema supplies
13:30	Heather Markham (Making Waves for Good) shares how we can each choose a title for our own stories
14:30	End of sessions

*The Sojourner Auditorium, virtual Ability Island*

You can learn more about the speakers via Virtual Ability’s IDARC 2023 web page.

VAI’s Mental Health Symposium in Second Life

Posted on May 11, 2023 by Inara Pey

*Sojourner Auditorium, Virtual Ability Island, Second Life*

The 2023 Virtual Ability Inc., (VAI) Mental Health Symposium on Friday, May 12th, 2023, a little ahead of the internationally supported Mental Health Awareness Week (May 15th through 21st, inclusive). As such, it forms a part of a wide range of physical world and virtual world events framed around Mental Health Awareness Month, which has been throughout May observed in the United States since 1949.

2023 marks the 12th such symposium hosted by Virtual Ability Inc., and has the theme Self-Identity and Mental Health. As with previous years, the symposium will feature a broad cross-section of speakers, who this year will be talking on a range of identities, from “mad” to autistic, from military to caregiver.

The Symposium will take place in the virtual world of Second Life, at the Sojourner Auditorium on Virtual Ability Island. Those from outside of Second Life wishing to attend can do so by creating a free Second Life account through Virtual Ability’s Sign-Up Portal, and then entering Second Life via Virtual Ability’s New Resident Orientation Course.

*The Symposium schedule – click to view*

The schedule of speakers for the event can be found on the Virtual Ability Inc., website, and presentations commence at 07:00 SLT (US PDT) on the morning of Friday, May 12th, and run through to the concluding presentation, which starts at 12:00 noon, with each session lasting approximately one hour. For ease of reference, a brief summary of the presentations is provided below – but do please check the complete schedule via the link above for the fullest information on speakers and talks.

07:00 SLT: Dr. Joanna Fox, Associate Professor in Mental Health Recovery at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, England – “Mental Ill-health and the Recovery Process”.
08:00 SLT: Dr. Yasuhiro Kotera, Associate Professor in Mental Health at the University of Nottingham, England – “Cultures and how we feel well: Making a global map of mental health personal recovery”.
09:00 SLT: Dr. Kate Cooper, clinical psychologist and researcher, University of Bath, England – “Autism social identity and well-being”.
10:00 SLT: Dr. Fred Berlin, Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA – “Transgender Persons (Gender Dysphoria)”.
11:00 SLT: Dr. Bonnie Vest, Research Associate Professor in the Primary Care Research Institute, Department of Family Medicine, University at Buffalo, USA and Dr. Rachel Hoopsick, Assistant Professor in the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA – “Military Identity and Service Expectations among Reservists: Associations with Mental Health and Substance Use”.
12:00 SLT: Wonkyung Jung, PhD, RN, Postdoctoral Fellow in the RESILIENCE Centre, Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing, Baltimore, USA – “Social Integration and Resilience”.

About Virtual Ability

Virtual Ability, Inc. is a non-profit corporation, chartered in the state of Colorado, USA. It is a non-profit tax exempt organization under section 501(c)(3) of the United States Internal Revenue Code. This means that for US citizens, contributions made are deductible as a charitable donation for federal income tax purposes.

Virtual Ability hosts this annual Symposium to share information about mental health and mental disabilities with the general population. Within its cross-disability community, VAI has members who deal with a variety of mental health issues. So, not only is this an opportunity for VAI community members to learn more about topics related to mental health from experts they probably would not have a chance to meet otherwise, it allows the general public to attend a professional conference at no cost.

With thanks to Gentle Heron for the information.

Virtual Ability: mental health awareness in Second Life 2021

Posted on April 16, 2021 by Inara Pey

The Virtual Ability community in Second Life is hosting its tenth annual Mental Health Symposium on Friday, April 16th, 2021. The theme for this years even is Mental Health in Trying Times, focusing on mental health in the age of the pandemic.

The symposium will once again feature an international group of presenters offering a wide interpretation of the theme, based on their interests and academic backgrounds.

Virtual Ability Inc (VAI) and the Virtual Ability community hosts this annual Symposium to share information about mental health and mental disabilities with the general population. Within this cross-disability community are people who deal with a variety of mental health issues. So, not only is this an opportunity for community members to learn more about topics related to mental health from experts they probably would not have an opportunity to otherwise meet, it also allows the general public to attend a professional conference for free.

The schedule is as follows (all times SLT):

07:00-08:00: Clara González Sanguino, Complutense University of Madrid (Spain) – the impact of Covid-19 on our mental health. A longitudinal study from the beginning of the pandemic to the return to the new normality in Spain.
08:30-09:30: Laura Ritchie, University of Chichester Conservatoire, UK, and Daniel P Cervone, University of Illinois, will share their research Projects pursued and abandoned: Pandemic reactions of care & coping.
10:00-11:00: Catherine Ettman, Boston University School of Medicine – the prevalence of depression symptoms in US adults before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.
11:30-12:30: Tom Boellstorff, University of California, Irvine, and students Evan Conaway and Sandy Wenger discuss their research on the impact of Second Life and Animal Crossing during the COVID pandemic.
13:00-14:00: Ryan Schultz, Sciences and Technology Library, University of Manitoba, Canada – Acedia During the Coronavirus Pandemic: A 5th-Century Term for a 21st-Century Problem.
14:30-14:30: Mark Czeisler, Monash University, Australia, Mental health, substance use, and suicidal ideation during the COVID-19 pandemic—disproportionately affected populations.

Sessions will also be available on the Virtual Ability You Tube channel.

The Symposium takes place in Virtual Ability’s Sojourner Auditorium, on Virtual Ability island and full information can be found here.

About Virtual Ability

Virtual Ability, Inc. is a non-profit corporation, chartered in the state of Colorado, USA. We are a non-profit tax exempt organization under section 501(c)(3) of the United States Internal Revenue Code. This means that for US citizens, contributions made are deductible as a charitable donation for federal income tax purposes.

For further information on the board of directors, please visit the Virtual Ability About Us page. If you wish to keep up with Virtual Ability news and updates when on the move, you can follow them on Twitter.

With thanks to Gentle Heron for the information.

The remarkable art of Tucker Stilley in Second Life

Posted on April 7, 2021January 1, 2022 by Inara Pey

*Cape Able Art Gallery: Tucker Stilley – Palimpsessed*

Commencing on Wednesday, April 7th, and running through until the end of May at the Cape Able Art Gallery is a most extraordinary exhibition of art from the physical world. Entitled Palimpsessed, it features the work of Tucker Stilley.

The exhibition is being hosted by Virtual Ability, who have worked in partnership with Tucker and his sister, filmmaker, editor, and producer Kate Stilley Steiner to bring the exhibition to Second Life, and I was invited by Gentle Heron of Virtual Ability to a preview of the exhibition ahead of the first of a series of special events that will accompany it.

Born in Santa Ana, California in 1961, Tucker Stilley is a veteran intermedia artist and distinguished alumni of the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, where he was a member of the Studio for Interrelated Media. A leading member of the Boston arts community throughout the 1980s and 1990s, he has worked the MIT Media Lab, and with his partner Lindsay Mofford, in a range of environments – academia, technology , corporate, public – producing a broad range of art exhibited at the likes of the Museum of Fine Art, Boston, the Boston Film Foundation and Harvard University, as well as continuing to work with the “arts underground”.

Now residing in Los Angeles, California, Tucker Stilley is now completely paralysed, the result of ALS/MND (Lou Gehrig’s Disease), with which he was first diagnosed in 2005. Nevertheless, he continues to create the most incredible art that is rich is substance.

He does so using his one means of communications, a hybrid computer he controls with his eyes and which allows him to essentially “live” within the world wide wide, remaining in contact with friends, colleagues and artistic collaborators, seeking inspiration and engaging in research.

Through this computer, and most recently using ophisticated generative software, Stilley literally pains with his eyes. The pieces he creates bring together a host of genres and styles – abstraction, post-modernism, conceptualism, touches of surrealism, collage, etching, and perhaps in places a hint of fauvism – in the most remarkable and fascinating of ways, all of which is demonstrated in the exhibition at Cape Able. Within these pieces can be found simplicity and complexity of expression, hints of irony or whimsy.

Palimpsessed can be further enjoyed every Wednesday through April and May 2021, when Cape Able Gallery will be hosting guided tours between 17:00and 19:00 SLT.

This is a genuinely extraordinary exhibition that is compact enough so as not to overwhelm, but rich enough to provide a look into the life and creativity of a most amazing artist and visionary.

SLurl Details

Cape Able Art Gallery (Cape Able, rated Moderate)

Previewing Virtual Ability’s 2020 IDRAC conference in Second Life

Posted on September 26, 2020September 26, 2020 by Inara Pey

Virtual Ability Inc., will be hosting its 9th annual International Disability Rights Affirmation Conference (IDRAC) on Saturday, October 10th, 2020.

IDRAC is a professional conference held in-world in Second Life that is open to professionals and the public alike. It is held at the Sojourner Auditorium on Virtual Ability Island.

As 2020 marks the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disability Act, this year’s conference will have a particular focus on Disability Right, both in the United States and globally, under the theme Where have we been? Where are we headed? How should we get there?

The conference will again feature an international line-up of guest speakers, and for those who cannot make the in-world venue, it will be live streamed via the Virtual Ability You Tube channel. Individual sessions will last between 30 and 90 minutes, and may include opportunities for Q&A.

Schedule of Sessions.

The following is a summary of the conference and speakers / subjects. For more detailed information, including biographies on the participating speakers, please visit Virtual Ability’s IDRAC 2020 conference page, which will also include any updates to the schedule that may occur between now and the conference.

Note all times below are SLT and apply to Saturday, October 10th, 2020.

07:00	Manohar Swaminathan (Microsoft Research India) – Ludic Design for Accessibility
08:30	Amelia Fiske (Technical University of Munich) – Exploring Ethical and Social Implications of Embodied AI
09:15	Margaret Nosek (Baylor College of Medicine) – Memories of 1996, the White House signing of the Americans with Disability Act
10:00	Barry Whaley (Southeast ADA Center) – Who are the Heroes? A History of the Disability Rights Movement
11:30	David Larson (Hamline School of Law, Dispute Resolution Institute) – TBA
13:00	Krista Watson (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) – Employment and the ADA
14:30	Rhoda Olkin (Alliant International University) – Women with Disabilities: Experiences of Microaggressions

Be sure to save the date in your calendar / diary.

Mental health awareness in Second Life 2019

Posted on April 26, 2019 by Inara Pey

The Virtual Ability community in Second Life is hosting its eighth annual Mental Health Symposium on Friday, April 26, 2019. The theme for this years even is Mental Health in the 21st Century: Digital Destruction or Support? It features an international group of presenters will offer a wide interpretation of the theme, based on their interests and academic backgrounds.

The schedule is as follows (all times SLT):

08:30-09:30: Evelyn McElhinney is a Senior Lecturer at Glasgow Caledonian University (Scotland) – The importance of positive health assets from participation in 3D social virtual world communities to living and coping with long term conditions in the physical world.
10:00-10:30: Antonius (Tony) J. van Rooij is Project Leader for Gaming, Gambling and Media Literacy at the Trimbos Instituut, the Netherlands Institute of Mental Health and Addiction, Utrecht – Gaming, problem gaming, and gaming addiction in the Netherlands: An introduction.
10:45-11:45: Panel discussion – Life in a Digital Environment – with Michelle Colder Carras, Antonius (Tony) J. van Rooij, Nicholas (Nick) Bowman.
Noon-12:45: Nicholas Bowman is an associate professor at the Interaction Lab of the Department of Communication Studies, West Virginia University, US – How do I relate to me? The emotional demands of our online personae.
13:00-13:45: Michelle Colder Carras a public mental health researcher and informaticist – Video games, social interactions, and mental health: benefits and problems.
14:00-15:30: Kevin Holloway is the Director of Training and Education at the Center for Deployment Psychology (CDP) at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda – Virtual World Training for Mental Health Providers.
16:00-17:00: Fatemeh Rezaee is a Ph.D candidate at Seoul National University – Designed Addiction.
17:00-17:45: casual mixer – an opportunity to chat about the symposium.

The Symposium takes place in Virtual Ability’s Sojourner Auditorium, on Virtual Ability island.