Re: [-empyre-] Introducing Adam and Fabio

Adam Nash <adam@yamanakanash.net> · Thu, 9 Aug 2007 22:36:26 +1000

Hi All,

Thanks for having me as a guest. I've been really enjoying hearing  
what people have to say so far, I hope I can contribute a little. I'm  
an artist, I like to make things, everything I attempt to say is said  
far more eloquently in my work, so forgive me if I babble like an  
inarticulate moron :)
Links to my work can be found at http://yamanakanash.net/projects.html
As an artist working in realtime 3D for 10 years now, I'm happy that  
Second Life is currently very popular, as it marks the beginning of  
the mainstream 3D MUVE (Multi-User Virtual Environment) era. It's  
been a long time coming, and there's been many false starts. Along  
with meme timing, I think the chief reason SL was the one to take off  
is precisely because of the real world copy philosophy that we all  
agree is so irritating. It is a way in for the uninitiated. Once  
they're in, most people are happy to identify the differences between  
SL and the physical world.
Second Life's chief advantage is its popularity, which (only for a  
short time no doubt) justifies working within it's technically very  
limited and frustrating environment. It has no scenegraph, so any  
kind of nested animation is impossible, as is interesting programatic  
animation/interaction or procedural generation. Also, everything is  
server-based, which makes elegant or computationally intense  
animation and interactivity almost impossible. However it is a very  
popular realtime 3D MUVE.
I identify the realtime 3D MUVE as a post-convergent medium. It is  
not primarily a visual medium, nor is it primarily any single media- 
element, rather it is post-convergent. This means that distinctions  
such as audio/vision, real/virtual, live/archived are misleading.  
Sound, vision, time, data, network and social interaction all  
converge in a symbiotic relationship environment. The idea that,  
within such an environment, a person must be represented by a single  
visual/temporal presence seems anachronistic and unworkable. The  
logical conundrum presented by the avatar is easily demonstrated  
inworld by simply 'alt-clicking' on something else - suddenly your  
avatar is no longer representing anything, it's simply another  
collection of empty geometry.
With a background in performance and music, I approach the medium as  
a formal abstract system, referring to but not beholden to any other  
system, real or otherwise. Of the pre-convergent media, perhaps music  
has the most sort-of-similar approach, since it is also a formal  
abstract system that is not overtly subject to a desire to  
realistically represent the physical world.
Regards,
Adam Nash (Adam Ramona in SL).
On 09/08/2007, at 6:41 PM, Melinda Rackham wrote:
When SL first appeared in around 2002-3 I was writing my PhD Thesis  
on the

theoretical and technical construction of avatars and virtual reality

multi-user environments. Linden Labs sent me the install disk for  
an early

release.  I spent a bit of time exploring it than  totally  
dismissed Second

Life as far too limited to generate  any real creativity - it  
seemed to me

form my interactions and immersion within 3d art environments a  
superficial,

unsophisticated reproduction of first world hierarchical norms and  
values.
As I  was also working as a world author/creator in VRML, the  SL  
modeling

potential seemed very limited compared to the freedom I was used  
to.  I

didn't think it would take off - I was rather vocal about its  
limitations

and the pervasive normalcy of its  avatar choices. I guess I  
considered it a

little suburban.. Not really an arena fit for serious artistic  
investigation

and predicted that it would hang around for few years and then die  
an quiet

death.
So I come from a position as a SL skeptic as well. Because its has  
sustained

and grown- many think through its reporting in traditional media.   
Theorist

Geert Lovink posted recently on fibreculture list "The hype around  
SL has

been intense lately, mainly fed by old school broadcast and print  
media and

the wannabe cool corporations." This may be the case - but I've had to

reconsider its importance as an artistic arena and its hype is not  
really an

issue in terms of what sort of fascinating practices have been spawned

inWorld.
This brings me  to introduce to Adam Nash and Dr Fabio Zambetta ,  
both from

RMIT in Melbourne and working in world with sound and artificial

intelligence:
Adam's artistic practice in Second Life is an extension of his  
previous work

in multi-user virtual environments. It explores the medium for its  
formal,

performative audiovisual qualities, fundamentally questioning  
representative

audiovisual practices in virtual space, especially that of the  
avatar. His

sound/composition and performance background strongly informs his  
approach

to creating works for virtual environments, embracing sound, time  
and the

user as elements equal in importance to vision.
To Fabio SL represents an ideal platform for freeform exploration of

technical challenges in the area of 3D embodied agents on one hand,  
and of

networked entities on another. He has two projects starting soon:

 1) Building a Virtual Services Infrastructure in Second Life.

The goal of the project is to build virtual services in SL that  
exceed what

is currently achieved by e-business applications such as virtual  
bookshops,

digital libraries, online shops, etc.An investigation of how 3D  
environments

can constitute a better and/or more efficient and immersive user  
interface

with respect to standard web interfaces is expected to be carried out.

2) Generalized Reinforcement Learning for 3D Learning Characters

The goal of this project is to build a solid and adaptive decision  
making

strategy for 3D characters embeddable in entertainment and/or  
simulation

applications (e.g., video game, serious games, etc.).The main area of

investigation at the moment revolves around building virtual senses  
that can

augment the characters’ perception of their surrounding and hence  
produce

better information to be used in the decision making process.

Please welcome Adam and Fabio to -empyre-:
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Adam Nash is a new media artist, composer, programmer, performer  
and writer.

Heworks primarily in networked real-time 3D spaces, exploring them  
as live

audiovisual performance spaces. His work has been presented in  
galleries,

festivals and online in Australia, Europe, Asia and The Americas,  
including

peak festivals SIGGRAPH, ISEA, and the Venice Biennale. He also  
works as

composer and sound artist with Company In Space (AU) and Igloo (UK),

exploring the integration of motion capture into realtime 3D  
audiovisual

spaces.
He is currently undertaking a Master of Arts by Research at the  
Centre for

Animation and Interactive Media at RMIT University, Melbourne,  
researching

multi-user 3D cyberspace as a live performance medium.
His work as programmer, composer and lead performer in Virtual  
Humanoids, an

acclaimed live and online cyber performance piece seen in Australia  
and the

UK, led him to his current interest in virtual performance. He was  
composer,

programmer and performer with The Men Who Knew Too Much from  
1994-2001,

including several national and international tours. He has also  
worked as

composer/sound artist with Not Yet Its Difficult, Theatre Of Hell,  
and Adam

Bronowski. He has performed drums, keyboards and vocals with many  
musical

groups and bands in Australia and Japan, including Japanese noise- 
chaos

collective Proud Flesh, Melbourne electro-dub outfit Half Yellow,  
Brisbane’s

Choo Dikka Dikka (responsible for the legendary underground hit  
‘Cyclone

Destroys Expo’) and Melbourne Concrete Poetry group Arf Arf, among  
others.

He also runs the net label concentrated-sound.net to distribute his  
solo

sound work under a Creative Commons license.
He is currently a Lecturer in Computer Games and Digtial Art in the  
School

of Ceative Media at RMIT University. He has been a writer and  
reviewer for

Digital Media World magazine, and editor of the Computers and Internet

department at LookSmart. He was also a Project Officer at com.IT, a

community charity he helped to establish that recycles computers and

redistributes them for free to NFPs domestically and overseas. He  
is fluent

in the Japanese language.
~~~~~
Dr Fabio Zambetta holds a Master in Computer Science majoring in  
Applied

Maths and a PhD in Artificial Intelligence.
He has been working in the multi-disciplinary area of embodied

conversational agents and learning 3D characters over the last four  
years.

He has mainly contributed to the advancement of the area of  
intelligent and

learning characters, working on the use of reinforcement learning  
techniques

and classifier systems as a mean to achieve autonomy in characters and

generate meaningful and believable behaviour.
He has also investigated a variety of problems in the 3D characters  
area

like human and facial animation and modelling, and human computer

interaction as witnessed by his publications.
Dr Fabio Zambetta has extensively applied his research to the  
entertainment

and e-commerce application domains in the last few years, and has  
worked as

a software consultant/instructor in the games and software industry.
Dr Fabio Zambetta served as a guest researcher at the prestigious

Fraunhofer-IPSI institute (Darmstadt, Germany) during summer 2001.  
The bulk

of his investigation revolved around the design of techniques for the

efficient transmission and animation of facial expressions in  
lightweight

web clients.
Over the past four years Dr Fabio Zambetta has co-supervised more  
than ten

Honours Students on topics including facial animation, learning  
characters,

web agents, and he is currently supervising a PhD student on the  
use of

emotions and learning to improve adaptation and individuality of NPCs

(Non-Player Characters) in videogames.
His current research focus revolves around interactive storytelling  
on one

hand (a book chapter is in preparation for the very well known AI Game

Programming Wisdom series, to be published in 2008), and on 3D  
character

perception and decision making on another (this research being  
funded by the

RMIT Emerging Researchers Grant, 2006 round).
In his spare time Fabio loves modding games such as Neverwinter  
Nights,

Unreal Tournament, Warcraft, and programming cool pieces of software.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Regards
Melinda
--
Dr Melinda Rackham
Executive Director
Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT)
PO Box 8029
Station Arcade
South Australia 5000
ph: 61 8 8231 9037; fax 61 8 8231 9766
http://www.anat.org.au
director@anat.org.au
Australian Network for Art and  Technology (ANAT) is supported by  
the Visual

Arts and Craft Strategy, an  initiative of the Australian, State and

Territory Governments;  the Australian Government through the  
Australia

Council, its arts funding and advisory body, and the South Australian

Government through Arts SA.

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