Jo Blogs Drama Education

One of the great joys of this summer has been collaborating with my Deakin arts ed colleagues to create our Deakin Arts Education Centre on our island in Second Life. We have been working with Gary Hayes, Head of Virtual Worlds at The Project Factory to bring our ideas into virtual reality.

We began by creating our avatars and spent some time ‘in world’ exploring many SL islands to try to imagine what might be possible for our Arts Education community. The building began with a bare island and a lot of imagining. We provided a brief to Gary Hayes and over several weeks the infrastructure began to appear. Our buildings are modern buildings almost entirely off the ground interconnected by a series of aerial walkways – it is complex and Escher-esque. My colleagues, Jenny Grenfell aka Belle Shan (Visual Art) and Fiona Phillips aka Yasmar Arida(music) have spent many wonderful hours meeting  in world to work on the project. We have got lots of great meeting places on our island – one is a giant floating fruit bowl where you can sit on banana seats around a fruit salad stage. We have also met others in Second Life and are really looking forward to meeting some of our students in there as we open the doors to our wonderful, new virtual Arts Ed facilities

Meet Kismet Cazalet – my avatar

Its difficult to describe what the island has to offer- a welcome area/arrival deck with its own Deakin Bard, dedicated studios for each art area, a multi story art gallery, performance spaces ranging from large amphitheatres and festival spaces to intimate fire side performance areas on beach.

You can teleport from place to place on the island or of course walk or fly around the island but there are also, bicycles, motor bikes and row boats. You can also take a flying guided tour.

The Drama Education space has a lounge and library section - with a video screen. A laptop for immediate access to this blog and other drama ed sites. A seating area with cushions, a screen for slide shows, a stage areas with changeable backdrops and theatrical lighting effects and access to two holodecks. One is next door – this one takes you into a wide range of different environments  (or scene changes) ranging from a medieval church to mountain top to under the ocean. The other holodeck is one that you teleport to from the Drama Studio – its 600 metres in the air above the drama studio. This one has a selection of rooms that can easily be changed around you – instant scene changes from bedroom to office to dance club.

Kismet under the sea

If you have not yet been in SL, you can join – it is free but you will need a good computer and internet access. Click here to find out more and join. You’ll be asked to create your avatar and then spend some time on orientation island getting your SL legs.