NYE Art Project

This is a featured project at Instructables, which is pretty cool after all I have learnt from that site.

Craig helped. He needs a website I can link to.

Article for Australian Teacher Magazine

Here is an article Stefan and I just wrote for Australian Teacher Magazine, about the use of virtual worlds in education.

A couple of DJ sets

A couple of blasts from the past.

FESTIVAL ISLAND 2007 SET SET


This was played at a virtual event, however I also played similar music at the party where this was filmed.

DOWNLOAD THE FESTIVAL ISLAND 2007 SET

Tracklist
Kaiser Souzai - Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon Remix (Urge Overkill/Neil Diamond)
http://www.myspace.com/kaisersouzai
Solead - Disco Sux
http://www.soleadmusic.com/
Sikk - My Washing Machine / D-Nox - Rocksteady (Oztron mash)
http://www.myspace.com/sikkkk
http://www.d-nox.com/
Adam Freeland - Hello Remix (The Doors)
Coburn - We have the Technology
http://www.coburnmusic.com/
Loopus - Let's Dance Remix (Bowie)
http://www.loopusinfabula.com/ <--LEGEND! Sonify/Prosect - LSD Remix (Hallucinogen) http://www.isratrance.com/artists/prosect-a421.html
Hoxton Whores - Sunshine of Your Love Remix (Cream)
Electric Tease - Midnight Toil (Midnight Oil)
Hoxton Whores - Girls & Boys Remix (Blur)
Dirty Funker - Whole Lotta Love Remix (Led Zeppelin)

DALE VS GRAZA 2002 SET

Ancient psytrance. Here is an artist's rendition of our audience at this stage....


Never heard a complaint.

DOWNLOAD THE DALE VS GRAZA 2002 SET

Tracklist
Star Shpongled Banner - Shpongle
http://www.twistedmusic.com/
Byronic - Eat Static
http://www.eatstatic.co.uk/
Shpongle- DMT- Hallucinogen Remix
http://www.twistedmusic.com/
Bushmen Of The Kalahari - Kalahari Sand Storm (Steve Hillage Remix)
http://www.discogs.com/Various-Global-Eyes-Tranction-2002-Project/release/57370
Synchro - F-Buckets
http://www.djsynchro.com/
Loopus - Yellowjackets
http://www.loopusinfabula.com/
Mr Peculiar - Charlie's Trip
http://www.myspace.com/mrpeculiar
Mk ultra - E-babe
http://www.australiens.net/profiles/mkultra/
Machineries of Heaven - Velvet Black (Remix)
http://www.psydb.net/labels/koyote-records/compilation-noughty-krlp010.php

Music Videos

Although I am incredibly ungifted when it comes to making music, it has had a huge impact on my life.

Here are a couple of promotional clips I have made for friends who run some wonderful music festivals here in Victoria.





Here is a music video made using Ray Zed's great 'Everything(Radiohead)' remix and a lot of archive.org material.



Here is a clip of one of my dj sets at a beach party, with the same audio redubbed to remove the wind. Not the biggest gig but certainly one of the best, that place is magic.

Article about the Avatar Project in The Age

First time I have bought the Age in 5 years. Looking good guys!

Click here for the online article

Other links;
Stuff.co.nz
Vodpod
Sydney Morning Herald
SL
and many many more, it's amazing how fast news can spread.

Connected Lives Video Interview for Vichealth

This is a video of Stefan, John and I explaining the project we are doing in partnership with Vichealth and Interchange Gippsland.



TRANSCRIPT

"What we are really interested in is seeing how these technologies can positively impact the sense of connectedness of young people with disabilities, particularly with Asperger's Syndrome and related conditions. I guess this has been inspired by some of our students at the uni who had Asperger's Syndrome, and we found that they used virtual worlds to practice being social, at the same time they were really good at computer skills themselves."

"We will be working with a group of up to thirty young people in a range of activities within a virtual world. These activities will be designed to engage them in social interaction and a range of other areas. We will be measuring that interaction to measure how this technology impacts these young people."

"The project involves Interchange Central Gippsland who are connecting us with the younger people, and it will be researched by Victoria University. I am really looking forward to the project, it's a great opportunity to work with cutting edge technology and young kids who really need it."

TUG Engine

Another description I have posted recently on the site of one of our major (and most enjoyable) projects at the uni, the TUG Engine.
This should be ready for testing in a few weeks.


TUG is an open source educational games engine.

Funded by the Victorian State Government and administered by Victoria University, Australia, TUG is a 'game engine' using Second Life/Open Sim, PHP and MySQL which can be used for education and vocational training. The project also includes a research component.

All of our work is open source - scripts, models, textures, PHP code, MySQL databases, and other intellectual property.

Osvr.net

From the description I just put up on the site, this is a dream project for me.

OSVR.NET is an open simulator network administered by Victoria University, Australia and supported by various institutions including Vichealth.

The purpose of this network is to provide a safe, configurable virtual environment for institutions to hold activities in. More details about the background of the project can be found here.

In addition to this, there is a research component which provides extensive data on activities within the simulator.

Working with Secondary School Students in Virtual Environments

These are a few examples of the work I have done with Secondary School students over the past couple of years.



First up is a Virtual Make Poverty History Concert held at Melbourne Grammar School as part of their annual Leadership Conference.







The week after this virtual concert I went to Sydney with a group of students for the Skoolaborate Congress.

Using machinima characters to tell stories is a great way of getting kids to document events, we did the following one a couple of weeks after the conference. It allows kids to add a personal and creative touch without exposing themselves too much.
The background is a simple image slideshow(easily done in Sony Vegas, you can automate the import effects and transition times etc.). The foreground has the Second Life avatars of the kids, originally filmed in front of a virtual green screen whilst speaking jibberish into a mic to get the speech animations happening. The voices we recorded in a stairwell on a mobile phone - the only place in the school we could find some peace.



Here is what the workshop I was helping facilitate at the conference in Sydney produced. Students from New Zealand and Australia(and teachers from Australia, US and NZ) worked together to create this virtual news report.

Videos of Victoria University Student Projects

Below are some videos which show the range of work we have been doing in Second Life, and now OSVR. Creating work which can be captured as a video and then uploaded to youtube is often appealing to students, it gives the work a sense of purpose.

Future Melbourne 2051
This was one of the results of my first year using Second Life with students in Interactive Storytelling and Writing for Multimedia classes at Victoria University.
This class chose the topic(a futuristic, post-apocalyptic kind of Melbourne) themselves and then developed stories and builds to suit the theme.
More details on this project can be found at Melbourne2051.com.



The following year at VU we decided on a more restrictive theme which would also place more individual responsibility on the students. It probably worked for the better students.
The task was to create a 'Seinfeld' like short machinima. Each student was given a small apartment space in Second Life to use as a set.
Here is the class blog.
Here are a couple of the better results;

Terence & The Metaphysical Mushroom



Around the block



The students that did well with this exercise continue to do well at uni or in the industry. I think it was a good exercise for gaming and multimedia students as it involved a high level of organisation and a wide range of production skills - although I must confess a lot of 18-21 year olds seem to think Second Life is not very 'cool,' for lack of a better word.