GLOCAL IN SECOND LIFE! Phase One Point Five - More Speculation...

Our tiny little GLOCAL sign has now evolved to the size of a billboard (the little sign is still in the park) and has now been formally placed on top of the retail facade looking over the plaza of Canada in SL. In about a week, this will evolve further into a video-billboard but for now, it just has our newest logo. The billboard was not placed where we had originally intended but is good enough for our promotional and marketing purposes.

Hey there GLOCAL blog-readers!

We have some more progress to report on GLOCAL's presence in the popular virtual world known as Second Life:

1) We have received some price quotes on having the Surrey Techlab in SL. This includes both the architectural estimate and the land rental costs.

2) We have a billboard now in Canada in SL. In a few days, we should have our flash animation promo video embedded into the billboard for all to see.

3) The Surrey Art Gallery's Curator and Coordinator have been speculating some other islands such as the possibility of setting roots on the popular artists' community known as Odyssey Island (curated by Sugar Seville) as a place to host the entire Surrey Art Gallery.

Here are some more photos of our current situation for you:

This was where the GLOCAL billboard was initially placed.

Here is the GLOCAL Coordinator Newton Dinzeo inside someone else's retail space in the Canada in SL Plaza (trespassing allowed, right?)..Newton took this pic to get a better ambient view of the billboard outside. This space has some nice hardwood floors!

Here is a pic of Newton zooming out via flying in order to get a better sense of Canada in SL's overall island-shape... From this perspective, it looks like just one big box and not the conventional image of what an island should appear to be.

Here is the office space in the basement of Canada in SL that has been temporarily reserved for the (or perhaps just "one of many) Techlab(s).

Here is a pic showing Newton and Canada in SL's Manager Raine Renard inside of this reserved space...He thinks it would be good enough for a temporary Techlab, wouldn't you agree?

Here is a pic of Newton sitting in what might be one of the Techlab's immediate neighbors in the conference space below the plaza.

Here is Newton posing with Canada in SL's Decorator Pielady Smalls (who is also a member of Dancoyote Antonelli's Skydancers) and the architect, Sam Portocarrero from a subcontracted company called Dominion Custom Homes. They are figuring out how to embed our Flash promo animation into the new billboard...as you can see, Sam is scratching his head trying to come up with a solution. We finally figured out that the GLOCAL Artist Jer Thorp will need to convert the flash anim into a Quicktime Movie (MOV). Hopefully that will be ready later this week :-)

With regards to the company (Raine and Ramada), we got some price quotes for the space rentals and the building of the Techlab so we are moving forward.

GLOCAL IN SECOND LIFE! Phase One - Promotion and Speculation

Here is a portrait of GLOCAL's Coordinator Newton Dinzeo (Jeremy Owen Turner). Dinzeo is sitting on a tiny GLOCAL ad in the Edmonton-based Second Life property, Canada in SL. This sign may appear relatively insignificant in the grander scheme of things but in the weeks to come, GLOCAL will have a more solid presence in this increasingly mainstream metaverse. The faces on Newton's pants actually belong to the Coordinator himself in RL...His image was filtered via the first version of the Motion Sequencing Application (a free download on this blog) and then was texture-mapped as clothing. Newton Dinzeo has his own blog which you can check out here.

Hello GLOCAL Blog readers!

GLOCAL is finally getting down to entering Second Life and setting down virtually local and global roots there.

We have started with the placement of a tiny ad in the Canada in SL property and will be adding a larger and flashier billboard very shortly. In the long-term, we will also likely have the Surrey Art Gallery's Techlab reproduced in Second Life :-) At the moment, we are beginning the first phase of promotion and property/architectural speculation...Here are some more photos of our first official ventures into this Brave Not-So-New virtual world...

Here is a portrait of Newton sitting on one the GLOCAL signs. You will notice that this particular sign is close enough to the hot dog stand. This placement is intentional since we need to ensure that people will happen to notice our ad while eating their hot dogs! The best ad-placement is always near the refreshments :-)

This picture is not too much different from the last one except that the Coordinator is standing instead of sitting down...

Did we mention that Surrey is also in Canada? Some of you more worldly avatar travelers may have thought we were based somewhere near London but I think this picnic table will be a blatant reminder for you once you come over to visit us in-world and take a few pixel-bites off one of the available hot dogs (while quantities last, of course). One of the reasons we had picked Canada in SL was because they offer free advertising for Canadian non-profits and fortunately for GLOCAL, the project is hosted by the Surrey Art Gallery.

Here is a side view of the Coordinator sitting on the sign... In this picture, you can also get a sneak preview of our future billboard area...Do you see that turret at the top of the mall's plaza located in the middle of this screenshot? We plan to install our first billboard right on top of there...If you still cannot find it, not to worry...We have some more photos for you.

So, here is a close-up of this new billboard location. In this photo, the Coordinator is speculating the billboard area with his palm pilot (which very likely also includes its own GPS). Speaking of close-ups, this photo is a good excuse to show another close up of the Coordinator's official GLOCAL self-portrait-pants. ;-)


This photo is really just an excuse to show the...er... "back end" of the GLOCAL Coordinator's own personal...er...buttressing strategy ;-)

Another reason why we are considering a move to Canada in SL is because this property appears to be virtually quite close to "Vancouver" - well, at least a photo of Vancouver anyway ;-) Photo of Vancouver courtesy of the Graham Guru Photography Gallery.

The photo-shoot took all day because before we knew it, it was night-time...Wow, time accelerates quickly in virtual worlds, eh?

Please stay tuned for more developments on the GLOCAL Project in Second Life!

GLOCAL at Winterfest 2008...

Self-portrait of Jeremy Owen Turner (Project Coordinator - GLOCAL - Surrey Art Gallery) with the other booth participants from the Surrey Art Gallery. For this photo, the Coordinator used the Glocal prototype interface.

Hello GLOCAL Project blog-readers,

As Coordinator, I have finally taken some time to reflect on my Winterfest information presentation on behalf of the Surrey Art Gallery and the Cultural Capitals of Canada Initiative. This mass-media event took place at Central City (Surrey Central) - more specifically, in the foyer of Simon Fraser University's School of Interactive Arts and Technology (SIAT).

As some of you might know, Surrey has been declared Canada's official Cultural Capital of 2008 so this was a landmark opportunity to showcase the latest in interactive digital media art and technology.

The GLOCAL presentation was a huge success. Many onlookers from every demographic description felt compelled to play with this interactive screen... Some kids had even begged their parents to return to my booth to explore the video processing application developed by the GLOCAL team and many people wanted to learn more so I managed to hand out most of the official GLOCAL brochures.

I believe the reason why the GLOCAL booth in particular had such a steady stream of activity throughout the day was due primarily to the fact that this interactive screen directly engaged the audience in realtime. The webcam was also mobile enough for each attendee to casually play with the viewing angles and by doing so, a unique video-mosaic was created straight out of their own imagination.

I think that most people who visited the GLOCAL booth felt they were directly interpreting the shifting sights of the Winterfest as if they were one of the performers being featured at the event.

As a result of this booth presentation, I think there will be sufficient interest from schools and individuals from the Surrey community to engage in both short-term and long-term workshops with the artists that comprise the GLOCAL Team.

I will have more photos from this event in a future blog posting but for now, here are some officially released photos:

Here is a portrait of Dan Nielsen (Project Manager - Surrey 2008 - Cultural Capital of Canada) using the GLOCAL prototype interface.

Photo by Rick Chapman. Here is what the official Winterfest sign looked like...

Photo by Rick Chapman. The GLOCAL Coordinator is pictured on the far right in front of his FUSION information booth. He is wearing a white t-shirt and standing not too far away from an over-saturated white TV screen that is suspended from the ceiling. The computer screen used to display GLOCAL's prototype software application looked really nice in person but the photographer had used a flash so the GLOCAL screen is not very visible in this picture.

Photo by Rick Chapman. Inside that illuminated window was where all our information booths were so you could imagine how powerful and loud the fireworks were since they were practically exploding right next to the building complex's facade. When the explosions first went off, everyone thought someone had detonated a bomb.

Photo by Rick Chapman.Here is another view of the fireworks display that occurred right next to the entrance to the SIAT building.

Photo by Rick Chapman. Here is one last view of the fireworks for Winterfest which by the way, had the keyword FUSION as its theme for this year....

Official GLOCAL Team Workflow Planning Photo...

From left-right: Jeremy Owen Turner (Coordinator), M. Simon Levin (Artist), Jer Thorp (Artist), Sylvia Grace Borda (Artist).
Photo taken by Brian Foreman on January 18, 2008.

GLOCAL Article by Tom Zillich in NOW Magazine - Feb 08, 2008

GLOCAL Project Coordinator's Official Introduction..

Hello GLOCAL blog readers!

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Jeremy Owen Turner and I am the Project Coordinator for the GLOCAL Project at the Surrey Art Gallery's Techlab.

Hopefully, you will not confuse me with one of the actual artists from the GLOCAL Team who is also named Jer(emy) (Thorp).

I am available in the Techlab usually between Monday-Friday from 10 AM - 5:30 PM if you wish to visit the GLOCAL Studio in person and ask me questions about the project. I can also give you a demo of the first version of their software interface.

My official GLOCAL phone number is, 604-598-6987. My direct email is JOTurner@surrey.ca

Please check out our Facebook group and our Flickr Photo Pool for more documentation and information.

In the coming days, I will post photodocumentation from our information booth at Surrey's Winterfest.

It was an amazing event and many people took away brochures and wanted to know more about GLOCAL.

Cheers,
Jeremy