Tech
OCAD's Second Life
It's not uncommon for a university or college to have its own website; but a virtual campus? That's an entirely different story all together.
For the past year, this is exactly what OCAD has done, using the popular Second Life computer game as a platform for its online campus and gallery. Yesterday's open house, hosted by lead researcher and OCAD Integrate Media Chair Judith Doyle, presented audience members with a closer look at OCAD's online property, and some of the projects that have graced the college's online installation.
For those unfamiliar with the software, Second Life acts very much as the name implies; users are given the ability to create what is essentially a secondary, online life for themselves. With almost limitless possibilities for creation and interaction with other residents, it's the sort of environment that proves ideal, not only for interaction amongst OCAD's Integrated Media students, but with other worldwide art schools as well.
Ian Murray, who designed the majority of the online campus - dubbed OCAD Island - gave the audience a virtual tour of the school's two island's, and sky-based learning center. The campus, he explained, is an online "exploration in art and architectural installations." Buildings range from a library, with online learning materials, to multiple conference centers, intended as a "very fruitful way to meet, especially when collaborating from other places."
In fact, the 45-minute tour was even broadcast on OCAD island's own auditorium, for other residents around the world to watch as well.
But while the existence of the online campus is a feat in and of itself, what proved most interesting were the projects created within the game. OCAD students and professors demonstrated one such collaboration, with Cuzco, Peru's Amauta New Media Center. Centered upon Peru's tumultuous history of civil war and political unrest, artists from the school presented a number of their 3D sculptures within OCAD's online gallery.
Closer to home, OCAD's own Goly Farrokhkish, along with partner Edison Osorio, used Second Life in the creation and presentation of their own installation, entitled Coloured Laughter. According to Farrokhkish the project is "based on the cultural experiences of what one encounters when they come from overseas," and incorporates both a documentary video and user submitted content. The film, which can be viewed by Second Life residents within the installation's auditorium, features numerous Canadian immigrants whom each tell their own amusing anecdotes and experiences regarding the culture shock of arriving in a new country.
Other OCAD students used the online medium in a similarly creative fashion, with one team even attempting to bridge the gap between real and virtual by means of an exercise bike that controlled its own virtual replica.
While there's no doubt that the idea of using Second Life as a medium for artistic creation and presentation is an interesting one, it's actually quite logical, considering the online world's intended similarity to our own. Yet, one can't shake the feeling that there has to be a better way to collaborate artistically than through the use of an online game. But as OCAD's online campus continues to improve and grow, perhaps the students and professors involved can prove otherwise.
Projects like these, and others from OCAD's Hybrid Media Lab will be presented during both OCAD's 94th Annual Graduate Exhibition in May, and the Subtle Technologies festival in June.
Image courtesty Flickr users swilton.
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We are told, in the article above, that "users are given the ability to create what is essentially a secondary, online life for themselves." Hello, and welcome to the 3-D version of Facebook; you may now return to sleep.
To quote further, "With almost limitless possibilities for creation and interaction with other residents, it's the sort of environment that proves ideal, not only for interaction amongst OCAD's Integrated Media students, but with other worldwide art schools as well.” What are these “almost limitless possibilities for creation and interaction?” For starters, they seem rather limited, since all of these no doubt wonderful possibilities exist solely inside computers and their software programs. Limitless? Hardly. And about the stated interaction… Are we really that bored and/or socially bereft these days, that this is what we refer to as ‘interaction’?
As for OCAD’s intention of having “a virtual campus,” perhaps congratulations are in order for the attainment of new heights of triviality. Does this mean that the learning taking place in such an institution will also be ‘virtual’? If so, I suppose that this could lead to other glorious trends and fads, such as virtual classes and eventual virtual graduations, along with the virtual conferment of degrees. Virtual applause! Virtual congratulations! Of course, for such exalted virtual learning, I suggest that students be able to pay for their tuition fees with virtual cash, though something tells me that such a thing might not meet the approval of the board of directors. (Perhaps it’s time for a virtual board of directors.)
However, why stop there? Instead of OCAD simply hosting a “sky-based learning center” to explore whatever today’s latest crazes happen to be, why not locate a virtual interplanetary workshop with 3-D interconnectivity on Pluto or Saturn, or perhaps in the middle of an exploding supernova? Imagine the almost limitless possibilities for virtual learning and interaction in that particular scenario! The mind virtually boggles…
We’re told that the online campus is an "exploration in art and architectural installations." If it is, it’s a very limited one. Architecture, in its true essence, requires that we move through it physically, and not simply virtually. Architecture is a place; a real, physical place. It’s not an imagined virtual place or space that sits on a screen (even if it’s a big screen). To think of it as such is to misunderstand architecture. (The same can be said about art.) Pretending, for instance, to visit a building is far different than actually visiting it in person. The physical experience of it is much different than pretending to walk through it while staring at a computer monitor. (If that isn’t obvious, or doesn’t seem to make sense, imagine, instead, the difference between eating a real meal and eating a virtual meal that appears on your computer. Can you taste the virtual difference? If not, or if this particular concept is still a bit too hazy to grasp, try to imagine the difference between having sex with your spouse, and pretending to have sex with them while you’re sitting in front of your computer, alone. There’s a difference; at least, for most of us there would be.)
We’re told that OCAD’s online campus features a virtual library. Hmmm… I wonder if it will be used as infrequently as real libraries are. After all, a great number of students avoid libraries and instead use the internet for research (if anything at all). Something tells me that, as exciting as a virtual library may appear to many, it’ll probably be avoided just as much as are real libraries in the real world. (Just a hunch.)
Also, the conference centres are intended to be a "very fruitful way to meet, especially when collaborating from other places." Are we really so unimaginative that we now need to pretend to meet other make-believe and self-created “avatars” in order to do any sort of collaborative work? Do I really have to create a pretend version of myself, in order to pretend to meet someone else’s pretend version of themselves, in a pretend conference centre environment on a pretend virtual online campus? This isn’t an online world; it’s not an online campus; it’s an online video game. A pretend video game, at that. We pretend that it’s all virtually real and exciting, so that we won’t pretend that it’s all a game (and farce). As stimulating as that may be to many, I’d prefer to concentrate on educating myself, and I’ve not yet forgotten that there’s a difference between educating oneself and entertaining oneself (though I certainly wouldn’t be terrifically entertained with OCAD’s online learning campus, either).
In honesty, though, perhaps this online centre of creativity could be of some use. Perhaps I could enrol in this exciting and new virtual online campus, and send my self-created and exciting virtual avatar/persona to school, while my own physical and very real actual self gets a real education in the real physical world at an actual location and centre of learning. Maybe I’ll even walk into a real library, with real books, and a few real thoughts, because thoughts of the real kind seem to be in a limited supply these days.
As for the author’s contention that using Second Life for these purposes is “actually quite logical, considering the online world's intended similarity to our own,” I wonder if it’s them talking, or their computer-generated persona (avatar) talking. Whoever or whichever one it is, their logic isn’t all that logical. The online world is far from similar to our own, and its false images of complexity are appallingly simple, trivial, and trite. At the stage of development in which they now exist, they’re a far cry from complexity and intelligence. Unfortunately, all things bright and shiny seem to attract the mediocre and the dull.
In the end, it all seems like a virtually colossal waste of time.