Avatars are something that have fascinated me for quite a while. From back in the days of MUDs, and MOOs; through to my current presence in Second Life as Professor Donshades Korobase - being a big of a daydreamer I have always liked the idea of pretending to be somebody else.
But beyond living out S.L. Wild West fantasies; or buying designer furniture for my room in Habbo Hotel; the concept of the Avatar is one which I believe is only just beginning to creep from infancy to an almost-useful adolescence.
The guys over at Oddcast have just announced two new interesting services. Sensible, interactive Avatar building services, and the ability to take a photo of your face, and wrap it in 3D around the head of a character walking through any clip of video... It's difficult to explain - best check out their demo here.
So what's with my sudden interest in Avatars? I must point out that it's nothing to do with the recent BBC documentary on Second Life Sex.
If Avatars are being given brains of their own, then will we soon be able to give them tasks of their own to handle? If I'm out of the office, can my Second Life avatar take messages for me? Contextually reply to my emails in a warmer tone than a catch all 'out of office', message. Could the hotel clerk in Habbo Hotel book me a room in a real hotel? Could call centers soon be managed by artificial intelligent agents?
This is awesome. This guy has hacked a Nintendo Wii to turn it into a head-tracking device; which in turn gives a virtual reality appeal to his computer screen.
Fast forward to the last third of the clip for the good stuff.
Well; these are exciting times. In the last three weeks I've been glued to my technology blogs; and the underlying theme on Convergence is one which is plain to see.
First up was some great work from adrien.noterdaem (don't be put off by the page turn effect on his site!), who has used papervision, a globe camera, and some techno-creative wizardry to present us with a 360degree interactive video.
Next came the amazing 2nd life hybrid space project, posted below.
And now you can have your own live interweb TV station, as brought to you by the nice guys over at Mogulus. This allows you to mix pre-recorded videos with multiple live feeds. You can also add graphics and overlay audio tracks at run time... and what's great is the service is free! Could this be the ultimate narcissistic exercise? I'm quite sure myself that it'll spawn a whole new wave of rubbish content, badly executed live events and recycled projects masquerading as "the real thing". Hence I would exercise a note of caution to anybody wanting to broadcast just for the novelty value; but I doubt anybody will listen to me.
What's really exciting for me about all these things is that they are great examples of convergence. The Great technology waterfall; where we start in the reservoir of the Military, before going downstream to University land before hitting the world of Pornography then into the world of the Populous. The Military usually develop the hardware, 360degree cameras, mobile communication stations etcetera. Then the Universities get involved and develop software; such toys as iptv, distributed location independent databases and browser plugins. Then comes the great content vacuum; lots of stuff, new channels, but no message to broadcast. It is nearly always the Porn industry who are the first to hook up these bits of technology and software in order to present us with download, live broadcasts and virtual simulations of X rated content in order to satisfy the lust which is hard-wired into human nature. Eventually these developed systems disseminate into the wider realm and while multinational co-operations will always develop ways to charge you for these services; the great converging brains out there on the web will also work together to bring you the service for free. That's the part I love.
Also check out Earthmine - GPS/Google Map/ Photo mashup - still in it's early stages but looking like it'll cause quite a stir.
What we have in with these first noteworthy projects of 2008 is the coming together of technology, ideas and innovation. It is still early days, but the potential here is very exciting stuff for all. The old divisions between 'Creatives', and 'Tech-heads' are breaking down; with the key players of the now being creative-techologiests, strategic-producers and techno-planners.
Flo just sent me the coolest thing I've ever seen. Anybody who up to now thought I was a geek for being into second life can now bite my shiny metal ass... check this shit out:
This is one of the finest examples of converging technologies I've seen so far this year. Suddenly the possibilities are endless and it starts to make a useful and universally engaging system out of what was just a plaything for geeks, freaks and tech-heads.
Maybe There is hope. Interestingly after my recent blog post relating to useless face-book related time wasting crap, I get this popup. Maybe the data-mining conspirators are right after all... Facebook is Watching...
I'm not fun. I don't take digital happy pills (I'm told the real-world ones are better), I don't have a "kind of eye" - I use real ones, I already drive in the real world, I don't like poker because I'm shit at it, I'm not superhero (contrary to popular belief, tho I'm pretty quick on the draw in 2nd life), I don't have time to take a movie quiz, I am me and cannot be compared to others - it's pointless, I don't consider some friends as "top friends" and others as "not top friends" - all my friends are tops in my book, I "Live it up" just about every night of the week, I don't want to "share the love", I'm not fun and don't want a fun wall, I'm not lovable, I don't want to be nominated for anything, I don't like taking uncalculated risks ... shall I go on?
Everybody keeps asking me about new year resolutions. I thought I'd post here to say NO! I DON'T DO NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS. I think they're a silly idea and they just make me feel bad when I break them: i.e. I don't like unresolved resolution.
Where was I?
Oh yes, flicking through some pages in my diary from a recent trip to Berlin, I realised that I do have less a resolution, more a new mantra:
JUST DO IT
I've never been a fan of Nike (tho I like what they do on the web); their 'swoosh', which seems to get in front of me at every opportunity: however while sipping a beer in the Kunsthaus Tacheles squat I suddenly realised the true inspirational genius of the thought. Judging from the scrawl in my notebook, the inner monologue went something like this:
JUST DO IT. Do What? IT What's IT?
Well, look about you.
You're in an artists squat in the middle of a city which 60 years ago was raised entirely to the ground and has suffered countless oppressions since.
Looking around I am overwhelmed by colour, vibrancy, emotion, contrasting perspectives and freedom of expression. I don't like all the work, but I love the fact that the work is being produced in such an uncompromising, edgy non conformist way.
Indeed the one philosophy uniting entirely the work of the circumcised-cunt sculpture artist and the painter of the most beautiful landscapes of mournful morning sorrow is that of JUST DO IT. Say what is on your mind, make what needs to be made and it's not the final result, but the process which is of upmost importance. Learning through doing, through making, through getting off your arse and putting yourself up for scrutiny by following through your ideas and translating them into tangible works.
This is a lovely contrast to an adverworld where we are at times so intent on hammering the idea into such a refined state, that any form of palpable execution will only go to reveal the gulf between the purity of that idea and the harsh realities of budget, time lines and squeezed delivery dates. Here our world inevitably diminished the importance of process in favor of product; with no space left for happy accidents, serendipity or just plane fucking around until you get to somewhere that you like.
Tacheles for me felt like I had come home. It reminded me that I need to spend more of my own time in the JUST DO IT frame of mind, putting results as subordinate to process; putting aside thinking in favor of creative impulse.
So, we're back to the new year and my lack of resolutions. Well actually that's a lie - I have 6 things noted down here:
What was the last thing? Oh yes. JUST DO IT and Poo. Well the poo bit came from all that crazy Wurst that I ate in Berlin - as a warning really. If you go to Germany, don't eat more than one Wurst in a day (I had 4 on one day), as it gives you... how shall we say... akward poo. Poo made me think of a funny Gondry film on the same subject matter; now there's a man who has truly taken the JUST DO IT Philosophy, and run with it:
