LPDT2/3

The ground level is comprised of many elements, but most prominent amongst them are the spiral sea and the "Tower of Babel," which perpetually constructs itself out of text that is imported from the Gutenberg text generator. This tower is flanked by a number of flat, semi-transparent islands which also display dynamic text from the same source.

And here is the full monte, shot from a distance.

LPDT3_The Master of Ceremonies

For those occasions when the project will be exhibited in a physical gallery space we have felt the need to provide an avatar with whom designated personnel can demonstrate the work to the audience. Our reasoning comes from the fact that not too many people are skilled at navigating three dimensional virtual spaces by themselves, and thus some help may well be called for.

The somewhat ominous gentleman shown above will therefore be the Master of Ceremonies of LPDT3.

The Project Transformed_LPDT3

The New Genres Grid version of LPDT shows significant changes to the Second Life build.

Some of these have to do with technical restrictions, but some are also the result of technological advantages: While the SL version of LPDT2 relied very heavily on virtual physics, the OpenSim does not allow for much in this regard and consequently we had to consider alternative visual approaches. On the plus side however are the NPCs (non-player-characters) of OpenSim, which are quite wonderfully versatile in what one can do with them. Thus - less physics, more robotic avatars, amongst much else that is now different.

One addition has been bringing far more color into the architecture; and yet another one is using "real-life-like" objects. Some of these have materialized as tables and chairs that reflect upon Roy Ascott's long held "table-top" metaphor as a platform of interaction. Further real-life-like elements are also a number of quite realistic looking doors that use some of the original texts of La Plissure du Texte 1983 in lieu of glass door panels. These doors are also navigational devices, since walking through them will take you to another level of the architecture. And finally, our new robotic avatars also look different - they are now camouflage avatars!

What follows from all this is that we have decided to rename LPDT2 as LPDT3, which shows the connections to the earlier work, its sequential attributes; whilst at the same time pointing at the fact this is also a new art ecology that stands apart from its predecessor in many ways.

LPDT3_Navigational Diagram

A cross sectional diagram showing the 5 levels of LPDT3. Since only the ground level is visible upon arrival, it may well turn out that some visitors may miss a good bit of what is here. Hence, this diagram, which will hopefully make the construct more comprehensible as a whole.

LPDT3_Ground Level: Sim Entrance

The sim control center is an area for internal usage where some of the scripts of the build are stored. There is however also a navigation panel, and a "useful tips" panel for visiting avatars, placed directly at the landing point.

And gift items which are given to visiting avatars, so that they can have a more fulfilling, immersive experience by wearing the clothes of the indigenous NPC population as they go to the different levels of the architecture.

LPDT3_Ground Level: The Letter Avatars

The letter avatars are located on the ground level of the sim. They walk along a catwalk and then stand in formation, writing words and sentences by aligning themselves according to the letters on their chests. And then they eventually disappear, making way for a new formation, a new word or a sentence.

The magic of Selavy...

LPDT3_Ground level: The Plastic Transactions Table

Selavy and Max have brought Roy Ascott's "plastic transactions" into the metaverse!
www.flickr.com/photos/syncretica/3404612834/in/photostream

LPDT3_Level Blue

In its default state, when you first arrive there, Level Blue is a pure, minimalistic space in which huge three dimensional letters that form sentences from the Gutenberg text generator quietly float in strongly colorized blue architecture.

There is however a hidden element which reveals itself when you start walking in the space and an irregular cube upon which more generative has been mapped materializes and deconstructs the architecture.

Residing in this emergent confusion are a group of NPC avatars who blend in and out of the architecture with their camouflage attire.

LPDT3_Level Pink

Level Pink, at 2000 meters is a standalone work by Selavy Oh, thus we call also call this area "Selavy's Spirals." Huge spirals, some of which display dynamic text input from the Gutenberg text generator, slowly revolve in the sky.

The NPC avatar for this floor blends into the motion of the revolving spirals. Thus, even when standing completely still the avatar becomes animated by dipping in and out of the spirals that revolve around her.

LPDT3_Level Red

Level Red at 3000 meters is the only floor which still shows traces of the first version of the project in Second Life. However, the strong color that has been added to it by Selavy has changed the concept of the floor from what we called "The Syncretic Cathedral" in 2010, to something that is altogether more contrasted, playful and wild.

The NPC avatars designated to operate on this floor carry the color as well as the stripes of the wall coverings upon their bodies and their attachments, which are made out of large cubes that display text from the Gutenberg text generator.

LPDT3_Level Hyperbleak

Although in many places the architecture is a close collaboration between Selavy and Max, nevertheless there are also areas where one of them has worked more or less solo. Such is the case of level "hyperbleak," the uppermost level which is Max's stunning contribution to the architecture that he has placed at 4000 virtual meters above the ground. One fine morning we looked - and there it suddenly was!

"Hyperbleak" created a challenge when it came to creating the attire of the NPC avatars who are expected to operate on this floor: Since the architecture itself has relatively little text, the role of text carrier has fallen upon the avatar. Thus, the avatars carry sticks of sentences and gigantic toruses which also have text mapped onto them upon their bodies. All of this text derives from the Gutenberg text generator, and the motion is provided by cycling 10 textures over each component of the attachments.

LPDT2 > LPDT3

From this point on, the earlier posts on this site are about LPDT2, the earlier version of the project, built in Second Life in 2010.

A condensed video of the SL installation

Since the full length video which was used to exhibit LPDT2 at ISEA2011 is very long, we have also made a shorter version that covers some of the highlights of the build, as well as showing a few images from 1983, the time of its original realization.

LPDT2 @ ISEA2011

LPDT2 was also in the ISEA 2011 exhibition, featured in the subsection entitled Uncontainable/Hyperstrata: http://isea2011.sabanciuniv.edu/other-event/uncontainable-hyperstrata

Above are a few panorama views of the installation at KASA Gallery in Istanbul.
With many thanks to Lanfranco Aceti...

Documentation video of the Second Life version of the installation

Before leaving Second Life every part of the architecture was documented both as photographs and as video footage.

The 2 videos above (the first a condensed version of the second) show the ground level, the lettercube, and the three sky structures which were all placed upon huge platforms that could be accessed through teleporters.

Separate locations within the installation also had their own soundscapes and the video helps get a sense of how sound and visual material were brought together.

LPDT2 @ the New Genres Grid

We have started building version 2 of LPDT2 on a new grid which is a part of the Hypergrid. The New Genres Grid has been initiated by our very own Max, and is solely dedicated to artistic output. And we are utterly delighted to be its early Residents.

Whitenoise avatars

The amazing Whitenoise avatars, created by MosMax Hax, are the actors of the Whitenoise Opera performed in February 2009, as well as the participants of the performance/installation Semiautonomous Puppet Architectonics performed in May 2009, in Second Life.

They also made a much welcomed (albeit highly discreet) appearance at LPDT2, in Second Life

LPDT2 @ SL, cross sectional diagram

The textual architecture is huge and stretches itself over the surface of a full Second Life island, as well as rising 3000 meters into the virtual sky, placed over several floating platforms. Neither is this text generated world devoid of inhabitants - several bot avatars reside at different levels of the construct.

Visitors can fly and teleport to various destinations, starting from an entry area on the ground level. A cross-sectional diagram which explains the layout through showing screenshots placed next to the different levels, may help viewers who see the work in a physical gallery space - particularly those who have no deep familiarity as to how terrain, sky and architecture may all come together in a virtual world.

The Second Life avatars of LPDT2

Stop motion video

LPDT2 windlight 02

We create our own sky preset; a spin off from Second Life's "Fine Day", however with enhanced contrast and lessened saturation.

LPDT2/3 is the metaverse incarnation of Roy Ascott’s groundbreaking new media art work La Plissure du Texte (“The Pleating of the Text”), created in 1983 and shown in Paris at the Musée de l’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris during that same year.

Almost 30 years later, in 2010, LPDT2 was created by Max Moswitzer, Selavy Oh and Elif Ayiter in Second Life; and a new version of the project, renamed as LPDT3, was realized by the same team in the open metaverse, at the New Genres Grid in 2012.

The title of the project, “La Plissure du Texte: A Planetary Fairy Tale,” alludes to Roland Barthes’s book “Le Plaisir du Texte”, a famous discourse on authorship, semantic layering, and the creative role of the reader as the writer of the text. As was also the case in its first incarnation “distributed authorship”, a term coined by Ascott has been the primary subject of investigation of LPDT2.

Whereas in 1983 the text was pleated by a number of human storytellers positioned around the globe; in the three dimensionally embodied metaverse the storytellers show novel and unexpected attributes: An emergent textual architecture/geography, as well as a number of autonomous “bot” avatars which dwell inside this bizarre, literary landscape are pleating the text by acting as communication nodes between the narrators of this new version of the tale: The persistent distributed authorship is now accomplished by many writers throughout the ages:

A text generator telling a non-linear, multi-faceted, often times poetic, story harvested from the famous online Gutenberg Project is now distributing its output amongst architecture and its inhabitants, generating dialogues and iterations taking their trajectories from masterworks of classical literature, thus creating distributed authorship not only amongst individuals but also amongst textual output that originates from different epochs.

The pleating resembles musical sampling, the connection between the sentences fades, text becomes noise, from which the audience generates meaning.

Version one of LPDT2 has been projected into Real Life in Seoul, Korea during the INDAF new media art festival held at Tomorrow City, Songdo Incheon, throughout September 2010. The project was also open to visitors in Second Life during this month, starting from September 1st.

LPDT2 was also shown at the ISEA 2011 exhibition in Istanbul in the Fall of 2011.

LPDT3 will now be shown as part of the exhibition "Roy Ascott: Syncretic Cybernetics," within the 9th Shanghai Biennale 2012, curated by Juliette Yuan, starting from October 1st.

Roy Ascott's project is being co-authored in the meatverse (Second Life, 2010; New Genres Grid, 2012) by Selavy Oh (concept, programming and architecture), Max Moswitzer (concept, architecture and terrain) and Elif Ayiter (concept, avatars and soundscape). Further associates are Heidi Dahlsveen (avatar animations); and for the Second Life version, LPDT2, also i-DAT from the University of Plymouth, UK (Real Life SMS input).

Special thanks go to the University of Applied Fine Arts, Vienna and Sabanci University, Istanbul who have made the project come to life through the provision of virtual land for the duration

of the work.