Burqa-Shaped Sunglasses

Prolific Bahraini blogger and entrepreneur Mahmood Al-Yousif who I first met at an Aspen Institute retreat in Jordan, refers us to a fascinating new discovery and illustration of the Imagination Age: Burqa-Shaped sunglasses. The sunglasses are an effort to to retain "elegance and respect [for] our culture." The website offers a design-your-own glasses feature as well as a making-of video. As digital venues provide newer and wider access to ways to mix-and-match and explore authentic identity, innovations like this in fashion will only open up newer and more exciting cultural synergies.



From the site:

The burqa was widely used by women from the Gulf in the nomadic times. It played the role of a face cover and a protection from the sun. Not to be confused with the head-to-toe cover worn by women in Afghanistan.

Burqa is made of a piece of fabric dyed with indigo. It is not metallic. The indigo stayed on the woman’s face and after she washed, it made her skin softer and brighter.

Wearing the burqa meant a lot for women. It was a way to communicate that they were just engaged or married. It symbolized womanhood and pride. The older generation still wears the burqa.

The “bq” project intends to revive this unique and traditional accessory.

[bq website]

Vintage Iranian Breakdancing

The YouTube description reads, "break dancing in tehran in 1369-1370." And it must be watched in its entirety. The story is a powerful illustration of the power of music, dance and art as a constant that transcends and intersects culture creating connections. This video has everything -- the "top" Iranian breakdancers from 1991, a wedding party, pompadours, and even a break-dancer on crutches. (Hat tip to @alexismadrigal)

Andrew Kneale on Talking Cultural Relations

The British Council's Andrew Kneale has a new blogpost up on the British Council's blog about a recent conversation with British Council head Martin Davidson on differing approaches to the definition of and priority of cultural relations. As we've spoken and mentioned many times before, the British Council is the model by which other countries should base their cultural relations outreach efforts. No other country has an organization with this level of independence and a concurrent commitment to cultural relations. The fundaments of the organization are based on a critical basis: mutual Trust & Understanding.

Andrew notes,

"during the roundtable, Martin was quick to point out that in 1936, then British Council Chairman William Tyrrell successfully appealed to the Chancellor for more funds, making the argument that the organization should be seen as ‘assisting practically in our national defence. Modern defence consists not only in arms but in removing misunderstanding and promoting understanding’. This belief, Martin said, still rings true today."

[Talking Cultural Relations with foreign policy thinkers in Washington]

Worth Watching: Interview with Rodrigo Nogueira of Viva Favela

On the frontlines of cultural relations and citizen journalism sits Viva Favela. Check out this interview on the Global Voices blog with Rodrigo Nogueira, Viva Favela's editor about their work. Favelas are the densely populated Brazilian slums that sit alongside or often inside major Brazilian cities. Nogueira is working to reshape the narrative around slums in Brazil. Work to transform the favelas has been an ongoing issue for Brazil for dozens of years. They have also been a source of creativity and innovation in Brazilian culture, with some of Brazil's well-known artists and musicians coming out of the favelas. You can follow Nogueira on twitter @rodrigonogueira. Amazing stuff.

From the site:

The first Internet portal in Brazil designed exclusively around the needs and interests of low-income communities, Viva Favela has a team made up of journalists and “community correspondents” – favela residents qualified to act as reporters and photographers.

With their “inside” perspective, they help expose all of the human, historical, cultural, economic, and social dimensions of these areas.

Started in July 2001, Viva Favela aims to broaden the digital inclusion of these communities and to reduce social inequality. It is the only Latin American portal of its kind.

A Trip to the Imagination Age

The Imagination Age is set up to foster maximum collaborative creativity from groups exploring cultural and economic development.

Max Burns (AKA Gatsby Crumb in SL) recently caused a stir when he posted "Why Do Government Islands Frequently Fail?"on his Pixels and Policy blog. We recently took a tour together of the NASA and NOAA spaces within Second Life and we're currently collaborating on a piece of machinima to document the experience. Pixels and Policy's mission is: Uncovering the ways virtual worlds change our politics, policy and culture.

Gatsby Crumb, left, Eureka Dejavu and Hackshaven Harford aboard a virtual trawler in Second Life.

I also took Max on a tour of the Dancing Ink Productions sim in Second Life, The Imagination Age, and put him on assignment to document the experience, which did not include any of our clients' spaces but just the sections of the sim devoted entirely to exploring the role of the imagination in unlocking cultural and economic development. The only mandate was that he write about whatever moved him as an introduction to readers about the content he experienced. His essay is posted below:

Creativity as a Business Model at The Imagination Age
by Max Burns (images by Rita J. King)

Second Life is an environment of unusual creativity and self expression. This is partly because Linden Lab provides content creation tools that allow virtually any object, house, or landscape to flow from the hands of capable designers. As a tool for unlocking the imaginations of potential artists, the prim system is unique in its field.

But the ability for limitless content creation alone is not the reason for the boom in Second Life’s creative class. A trip to The Imagination Age revealed that, for many Second Life residents, the true beauty of art comes when it merges with purpose in engaging and often unexpected ways. I found myself taken aback by the skillful blending of work and art at The Imagination Age, and opted to explore the trend further.

The Imagination Age constitutes not only the Second Life presence of Dancing Ink Productions, but a bold new idea on how to do business in the Metaverse. Meetings with and presentations to real-world groups are often conducted only a few steps from soaring mountain peaks and hundred-food statues of Buddha.

The sound of running water emanates from a grotto designed both as a space for quiet contemplation and as a housing for Dancing Ink’s philosophical model, the Johari window. The Imagination Age isolates nothing. It is a realm where conference areas sit next to glistening time machines, and avant-garde art installations serve to explain the philosophy of the organization.





Using Art to Explain Business

The first thing one perceives when visiting The Imagination Age is the sheer amount of truly beautiful art installations spread across the island. It would be a mistake to regard The Imagination Age as merely an upscale virtual art gallery, though, as each piece was commissioned by outside parties and serves as a unique way of looking at the evolution of human consciousness, creativity, and collaboration.

Most of the installations are interactive. They ask users to reflect on how their interaction is changing the artistic experience with each piece, to consider how the user’s perception of the art changes as the installation responds to their presence.

One piece in particular displays the collaborative potential of human creativity. The “Flickr Gettr II” is a tower of light surrounded by pulsing purple squares, beautiful enough in itself, but when the user enters a word into the Flickr Gettr, its purple squares transform into a collage of photographs related to the submitted word.


The piece, created by Mencius Watts and Taggert Alsop, is a beautiful way to display photos from Flickr, and the Flickr Gettr invites one to think about how these photos are floating about in an open space, placed in the ether of the virtual world by millions of collaborative minds unknown to each other. As art alone, the Flickr Gettr deserves accolades, but its true charm comes from showing through user participation the kind of thinking Dancing Ink Productions tries to promote.

There are other examples. The U.K.-based group PROBOSCIS commissioned the creation of 27 “STORYCUBES,” interactive blocks that allow everyone who interacts with them to add parts to a community story. The cubes span the physical and virtual worlds, in addition to an “augmented reality cube” that implements webcam technology to straddle the line between the physical and virtual spheres.



Eureka Dejavu prepares to create a virtual version of the PROBOSCIS commission on "Transformation: How We Become Who We Are," in Second Life after Rita J. King created the physical version, shown above. Click here to activate the augmented reality cube, which is part of the installation in the physical world and in Second Life.

Why the Culture of Collaboration Works

What’s so thought-provoking about the interactive art installations at The Imagination Age is how effortlessly they prove – without words or PowerPoint slides – how important and engaging large-scale creative collaboration can be.

The STORYCUBES project moves beyond the content creation capabilities of Second Life by bringing interactive art into the real world. Without a drawn-out lecture on the subject, Dancing Ink Productions succeeds in acknowledging the creative roles of both the real and the virtual, and carves out a space for each to receive equal attention.

As companies move online in ever greater numbers and employees find their workspace shifting to the virtual landscape, both companies and employees will be forced to look at the old models of “doing business” in a new way. Consumers will expect engagement in addition to marketing, and the interactive art projects at The Imagination Age invite the user to think and create while receiving the message of the piece.

As a study of the evolution of understanding and collaboration in a shared space, these installations provide priceless points of reference. Dancing Ink can watch users interact with art to fine-tune future installations and contracted pieces, continually refining and improving their ability to respond to evolving ideas of what virtual culture means.

From the perspective of an individual still adjusting to the many ways business is transforming in the Metaverse, The Imagination Age appears to represent what is best about the possibility of working and creating in virtual space. Rita J. King’s philosophical paradise represents a merging of art and work in a way that redefines both without cheapening either. It aims to build an entirely new paradigm for collaborative creativity.

The Imagination Age succeeds.

Software Architect Grady Booch: Pure Thought to Create the Future

IBM Senior Fellow Grady Booch is Alem Theas in Second Life. This video reminds us that everything we do--from texting to stargazing--is really a complex combination of 1's and 0's. His job is to create the illusion of simplicity to create the future. Most important of all?

"Have fun," says Booch. "That's the fuel for your imagination that will bring your ideas to life and help change the world."

Novia Halostar

At the opening of an art installation at the virtual Hotel Chelsea in Second Life tonight, I discovered the work of Novia Halostar, the proprietor of the URSA MAJOR Gallery and Studio. I especially love the light on the curtain next to the green chair, and the way the bird appears to be made of flames.

Congratulations Rita J.King

We're a bit remiss on blogging this past week. Lots of exciting projects in development. More on those soon. In interim, we'd like to congratulate Rita J. King on being appointed Senior Fellow for Social Networking and Immersive Technologies at the Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress.

An Immersive Google Earth?

The ubiquitous Malburns pointed us to the above new virtual world about which the Guardian will be reporting. This virtual world is an explorable version of planet earth. Seems ambitious and interesting.

Mundos Virtuais, Culturas Reais

A new Brazilian enterprise, "Webcitizen," which seeks to stimulate citizen engagement between citizens and government, conducted an extensive interview Rita J. King and me at the Gov2.0 conference about the power of virtual worlds for cultural relations and digital diplomacy. The interview and write-up, Mundos virtuais, culturas reais can be read in its entirety here. (Note to readers: The text is in Portuguese.)

No Tweet Til Brooklyn

The writer Jonathan Ames, creator of the hilarious, fabulously well-written new HBO show Bored to Death, got his Twitter on tonight when he asked if anyone would host him and a friend in Brooklyn so he could watch his own show, since he doesn't have a TV (see the Tweets below). I was in San Francisco, reading his new book, "The Double Life is Twice as Good."

On the Creation of Digital Identities

We are faced daily with choices about how much like ourselves our avatars should be, whether choosing a profile picture for Twitter or determining how much to reveal in the "First Life" tab of a Second Life profile.

I've been studying the effects of digital anonymity since 1996. One of my most widely read and cited articles, a 2001 cover story for the Village Voice, examines this issue:

"Just as playing Dungeons & Dragons doesn't turn a kid into a wizard, pretending to be a homicidal maniac online doesn't make a man a killer. But determining what it does make him is one of the biggest ethical dilemmas facing modern society."

Eight years later, this question remains unanswered.

The Creation of Avatars

Some avatars are created for recreation and others are representational figures for serious use. Some serve both functions.

Narrative role-playing is fascinating, especially when participants stick to the story to maintain the suspension of disbelief. World of Warcraft is one of many immersive games in which players create a character, become immersed in an environment created for specific tasks and eventually, level up within that framework. Other types of more personal and professional interactions might take place during the game, and players may choose guilds and affiliations based on real world ties, but World of Warcraft remains a game.

Upon registering for Second Life, participants also choose avatar names, which, for many, creates the impression that Second Life is a game. However, as Wagner Au noted in New World Notes today, Second Life residents are weary of the insinuation that Second Life is a game. While it is a spectacular environment in which to create games and many forms of entertainment and learning adventures, it is also filled with serious, sophisticated projects that involve identifiable participants and exercises that can save real lives.

Split Identities

Gartner just released a report on how avatars should present for business, since they are "creeping" into business environments. (Read SL resident Crap Mariner's funny response). Gartner recommends a split between avatars for personal and private use. Having an alternate avatar (or two, or three) can be a lot of fun and very helpful.

But what's wrong with using one identity for work and play?

The most common argument against being forced to create multiple avatars is that people aren't expected to shed their daytime identities when going home at night in the physical world, so why should people who work virtually have to switch in and out of various bodies? But people in the real world do switch between modes. In his landmark book and film The Corporation, Joel Bakan illustrates this very clearly by describing the manner in which regular, "good" people who have Sunday brunch and read to their kids can commit by day to what he calls the "pathological pursuit of profit and power."

This split implies that workers can be separated from their personal identities while under the banner of a brand and then ostensibly liberated from the brand's tether during non-work hours. The evaporation of the boundary between work and play has rendered this distinction difficult to maintain, which can have positive, far-reaching consequences on the global culture and economy as people from all over the world interact in an exploratory way within the digital culture. Play leads to work, work leads to play, and people are happier and more "themselves" within the emerging culture. On the other hand, there's no way to separate professional activities from private ones. And what if your avatar has a name that's associated with a company that you leave?

Leveling Up Into the Great Beyond

Some people attempt to construct the identities they wish they could have in the physical world, whether through fashion, giant muscles, new groups of friends or even a spectacular virtual beach house overlooking a golden, glowing, simulated sunset. Some people lack mobility in the physical world and a virtual world levels the field for interactions. Some live in isolated areas and virtual worlds connect them to new people. Some obtain degrees. Other become themselves in ways that could not have been predicted during the first few steps in an unfamiliar avatar body.

In many ways, I have experienced this myself. When Eureka Dejavu was registered, I had no idea that she would transform into my representative for business relationships with so many individuals, companies, universities, think-tanks and global organizations of all kinds. I didn't realize that my own life in the physical world would change so much as a result of the people I would meet and the things I would discover about myself. Despite the fact that we have different names and she's seven feet tall, Eureka Dejavu is as much me as I am.

Some people develop serious issues as a result of too much time in Second Life and not enough time taking care of themselves or the people in their physical lives, but that's not surprising. People become addicted to all kinds of things. Yesterday, Irena Morris announced that she had deleted her Second Life avatar, Eshi Otawara. Her goodbye letter to her friends from Second Life ends with the words: "Wish me luck in recovery from identification with an avatar."

In the end, Eshi Otawara was one of the many lovely creations Irena Morris offered her clients and fans, but she was not Irena Morris. Her letter illustrates the idea that as we grow and change, we have the opportunity to delete identities that once represented us or even helped us grow to a new place in our lives. We can upgrade ourselves, for real world transformation. I have a feeling that down the road, Irena might be one of the many people for whom Second Life was a training ground for leveling up in the physical world, either physically, emotionally or spiritually.

UPDATE: Amanda Linden wrote an excellent post on the subject of professional avatars. My collaborator Joshua Fouts recently secured his real name for his business avatar (though I've noticed Schmilsson Nilsson nearby a lot). I'm going to keep Eureka Dejavu as my business avatar, but I love the idea of people using their own names in Second Life because it's much easier to keep track of real life identities that way.

New World Politics Review Essay

I have a new essay on World Politics Review on "Social Media, Virtual Worlds and Public Diploamcy." The article explores factors that constrain our current foreign policy apparatus from fully utilizing social media and virtual worlds for public diplomacy and provides data and suggestions on how efforts could be improved.

The site requires registration to view it. You can get a free 30 day trial subscription here.

Eshi Otawara: In Memorium

A cryptic Tweet from Irena Morris, (who still goes by @eshi_otawara on Twitter) made it known that her Second Life avatar Eshi Otawara has been deleted after rumors swirled that the designer might be gone--forever.

The brilliantly creative Second Life avatar Eshi Otawara has been deleted by her creator, Irena Morris.

Will a memorial service be held in Second Life in her honor? And what will Irena think if she sees the machinima?