Sonicity Fitzroy continues to be a trailblazer in Second
Life. Her latest project is a collaboration
between Southern Illinois University & the University of Western Australia. On Saturday 20th July Soni celebrated her RL birthday by launching this new project and its associated sims.The Southern Illinois University-University of Western Australia virtual worlds project at Virlantis, Second Life is an educational themed experiment in the creation of sound and animation content, with its long-term goal being the development of machinima and online media that serves at-risk learning communities.
The immediate goal for this summer was to create an
immersive environment - the Sonic Lab - for teaching sound online historically
and culturally as art and practice. For
that purpose, a multi-layer sound lab was constructed to help students develop
critical listening skills, by virtually tuning into the modern origins of music
and learning to appreciate the sonic environment, now and then, that
contributes to our daily soundscapes.
The virtual classroom experience leads students through time, place -
and sound. The Sonic Lab connects students to the sounds of the past, present
and future. They enter the virtual world via a medieval realm soaked with
layered sounds ignited by one's presence and touch. Visitors acoustically
engage into a soundscape rich with nature's lush greens and harbor sounds, and
perhaps stop into the local tavern for a chat and music. Their travels take
them to modern times, from Ragtime's Scott Joplin, to experimental masters
Edgard Varèse and John Cage, to those they have influenced, Reich, Zappa, The Beatles,
Hendrix, Ramones, Riot Grrrls, and New York's alternative scene. The sound
installation was funded by a course development grant awarded by SIUC's
Distance Education program for Summer 2013.
Beginning August 2013, Southern Illinois University (in
partnership with the University of Western Australia) launches phase two of its
larger plan in the development of virtual media studies and production. Machinima World is a three year experiment in
the design of an open-ended, accessible and collaborative animation platform
that focuses on outcome based learning for at-risk communities. Part of the process involves assisting
educators with some production basics: character and story/curriculum
development, original sound composition, set construction, to motion capture
animation that can be imported and exported between virtual platforms. The idea is to help educators participate
and lead in the virtual media making process and develop creative and relevant
animation (and mixed reality) content targeting youth from communities that
lack resources and skills. Of course,
whenever possible, the target audience will participate in content development
and production. Ultimately, educators
(and students) would be encouraged to contribute machinima and other virtual
media forms to an archival web site of shared content, techniques, and program
reviews. A pilot series will be created
to demonstrate the process.
Themes addressed include social justice, collaboration, diversity representation in all its forms, and science/technology.
Themes addressed include social justice, collaboration, diversity representation in all its forms, and science/technology.
The goal is to open
up the diversity of voices, from all locales, from South Chicago to South India
to Western Australia, and so forth. Critical are representation of
characters/voices pertaining to gender, ethnicity, disability, and
socio-economic level.
Visit the sim, spanning four levels and six regions, when we
unearth the sonic mysteries of sound, as noise, music and art.
Contact Sonicity Fitzroy for more information,
sonicityfitzroy@yahoo.com.
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