Austin's Digital Cultures Blog

Its chilly in Sony PlayStation Home – the central plaza has ice scupltures…

I, Me – Course Introductions I was intrigued by the course introductions and it gave me a change to bring out some of my interests, many of which have involved Internet collaboration on shared digital artworks and models. This kicked off some work on a personal “Life Wall” which was fun. Only a small number [...]

Final Assignements The majority of my work on the course finished last week, and I am now engaged mostly in reading over again selected papers that are relevant to my essays and final assignments on the EDC11, IDEL11 and ULOE11 courses. Some Lifestream events relate to tidying up and preparing extra screen shots for some [...]

On my research project related to supporting the OpenVCE communities I was engaged in setting up a new group portal on the APAN (All Partners Access Network) hosted by the US Government for non-classified work between government agencies, NGOs, organisation and individuals across the world. This replaces the previous HarmonieWeb portal. the APAN network uses [...]

I have been working on my Digital Cultures course final project for a couple of weeks now. It is a study of Identity, Avatar and On-line Identity, Community Identity and the use of an Analytical Eye over these topics. http://atate.org/ai/pi/ I would welcome feedback from anyone who has a look at the artifact in its [...]

Posthuman Pedagogy I got ahead with my contribution to the posthuman pedagogy and produced my input over the weekend, entitled “Think Like a Robot”. So I was able to provide it to the class at the very start of the week for discussion. Some commenting on this and other entries as they came in towards [...]

See http://atate.org/mscel/think/ When discussing the nature of an individual’s beliefs about intelligence, knowledge or the learning process, I have noticed in a number of discussion forum threads on EDEDC and ULOE11 where it can be a useful device to put oneself into the position of an artificial intelligence agent, knowledge-based computer system or a robot. [...]

A very beautifully designed Second Life region is worth exploring. I suggest you arrive in the Meta_Body area first. Use this teleport link: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Porto/132/109/703 Look at the (freely available) avatars to explore your identity and see which feel strange to you, and some which might appeal. Consider why (Bayne, 2008). There are a few male [...]

I was pleased that David Richardson (Twitter @_djcr) was able to join in Digital Cultures as my class friend for discussions on “The Posthuman” for the current two week block. After an exchange between us about a couple of the readings (Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto and Pickering’s Asian Eels and Global Warming) he has been [...]

When discussing the nature of an individual’s beliefs about intelligence, knowledge or the learning process, I have noticed in a number of discussion forum threads on EDEDC and ULOE11 that it can be a useful device to refer to an artificial intelligence agent, knowledge-based computer systems or robot. Hayles (1999, pp 23-24) mentioned Philip Dick’s [...]

The work on digital ethnographies dribbled over into this week with continuing comments on the ethnographic studies of others in the class, and feedback to those kindly commenting on my own ethnographic study on the GA-MMA community. I made a few changes to the study artifact to take into account some suggestions made. The refined [...]

You may be amused to read an account of virtual worlds and computer gaming circa 1962 to 1972. You needed imagination to play then! As you needed imagination for the MUDs and MOOs of the early 1980s. This is an on-line version of an article in Rolling Stone magazine of 7th December 1972 entitled SPACEWAR [...]

The EDC11 ethnographic study was completed over the weekend, and provided to allow comments by others on 31st October. It was very interesting to see the other studies as they slowly became available… and I commented on those where I had some inputs to give. It was also Halloween of course, so I could not [...]

My ethnographic study was of the GA-MMA group… the Gerry Anderson Model Makers’ Alliance. The study is at: http://atate.org/mscel/ethno/ Please leave any comments here.

It’s Halloween from bat, from AT, and this time its not Ai but from Be… and what’s that about Z? See the Holyrood Park blog entry.

There was an excuse provided by the subject of study on IDEL11 in the last week to look at a “Personal Learning Environment (PLE)”, e-Portfolios like “PebblePad” and “Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs)” like WebCT/Blackboard and Moodle. This was actually quite timely as I was getting concerned that the volume of assets I was creating for [...]

The automated recloning worked just as planned… and after a server upgrade to OpenSim 0.7.2 Dev Master r/17006 the two autoreplacing clones I had set up on the Avatar Identity region reappeared …

Ai, Be, Clones … Zap. I have been putting off upgrades to the Openvue region that hold the AI – Avatar Identity digital artifact… because I have gown quite fond of all those clones and the amusing and strange positions they have adopted as objects and the breeze have moved them a bit and they [...]

My lifestream shows continued commenting on Digital Artifact entries for classmates… and I produced a few more images of my own artifact. There were some very amusing visual effects when I entered the OpenSim region on which the artifact is based and continues to develop as avatars slide about, knock into one another, start bouncing [...]

After some discussion with the group and my tutor, Sian, I have chosen to do my ethnographic study on the Gerry Anderson Model Makers’ Alliance (GA-MMA). I did some preparatory work, got some facts and figures together, etc. I started the report itself , as is my working style, on the web page at http://atate.org/mscel/ethno/. [...]

An ususual view from under the water looking to all the clones and avatars above the water’s surface. Following a rescue trip to bring out stranded avatars (me, he, she, us, them) who had got knocked into the water…

YouTube Video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Sa8Fdc5U-0

“Digital Artifact – AI – Avatar Identity” The week’s lifestream entries reflected the work that went into the production of the digital artifact for the Digital Cultures course at http://atate.org/ai/ai/ and related experimentation with non-player character (NPC) production via scripts in OpenSim. I use this to produce avatar clones in various outfits in a fantastical [...]

The Aldebaran Robotics Nao European Tour for educators was in town today, and I went along to see the robot and its software interfaces being demonstrated.

I am continuing to explore ideas in using my “Life Wall” for professional and academic purposes, such as presentation of a scientist’s thematic contributions and achievements. I have been testing out ways to describe professional life events as “Placemarks” described in KML and to add them to Google Earth or Google Maps. An example on [...]

This is a mixed use and mixed institution educational area, with a number of plots used by a range of Universities, coverages and academic groups. There are a number of “classrooms in the sky” on various levels. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/EduNation/219/231/74 (Castle to Overlook the Region) http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/EduNation%20III/136/127/900 (High Dive Platform) On arrival and initial exploration, the area is [...]

My two avatar MyCyberTwin OpenSim chatting away together in OpenSim. Part of an exercise for the Digital Cultures EDC11 Digital Artifact exercise: http://atate.org/ai/ai/res/2011-10-09-chat-log-ai-and-be.txt At least they don’t bicker like some recent chatbot to chatbot chat experiments: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnzlbyTZsQY

I have always been fascinated by fast cars, advanced planes and spacecraft and there is a thread running through my interests which I have been able to explore while creating my “Life Wall” – http://atate.org as part of the MSc in e-Learning Digital Cultures course – so this blog post fills in some background. Fast [...]

The White Screen of (Slow) Death The week was characterised for me by being on travel and working with mobile devices and a slow 3G connection. It is a time to remember that not all our students and distance learners are on fast broadband networks, and every item of content, image and thumbnail download and [...]

@ is perhaps the iconic symbol of digital culture and computer use. More so even than the ubiquitous “www.”. The @ symbol we all use in e-mail came about very early on in the development of computer networks and inter-personal collaboration. In fact it was used on some of the very first Digital Equipment Company [...]

Experiments with avatar cloning facilities as a basis for non-player characters (NPCs) in the latest development versions of OpenSim… for a possible visual artifact as part of the MSc in e-Learning Digital Cultures Course.

I am travelling this week and in a location with no broadband or desktop computer. When travelling like this, I usually use a mobile device and 3G wireless access and limit myself to basic e-mail and a few low bandwidth browser operations. I make notes and lists of things to do on my return. But [...]

I am finding the summary of logos postings, comments and image uploads that I engage in across a typical work week an interesting observational sport.  I did a bit of analysis of the keywords and phrases in my postings across edc11.education (for EDEDC11) and Holyrood Park (for IDEL11)  and a Wordle scatter diagram of the [...]

While reading Bell (2001) I was reminded of the time in the late 1960s and early 1970s when cyberculture was beginning.. and how quickly it grew after basic computer access and communication became possible.  We are social beings. Let me recall a few things as stepping stones. My own use of computers began in the days [...]

Simulations of real or imagined worlds have been used for many years to assist in training. One of my favourite simulated games is the PlayStation Gran Turismo series… our long loved Toyota MR2, now no longer with us, is still available to me to take for a spin in GT5…

The detailed realisation of Pandora, its geography, flora and fauna by James Cameron and his creative team for the film “Avatar” is a good example of the detailed imagination and background hard science that goes into the creation of an imaginary “other world”.  For some this detail and level of potential immersion in the film [...]

My Lifestream was set up on Monday 19th September 2011, and allowed to import activity in a number of feeds backdated to 1st September, so there were quite a few initial records. I blog and tweet as myself and as my virtual words avatar “Ai Austin”, often for very different purposes and roles, so I [...]

The elements of the Life Wall have been encouraging me to dig out all sorts of stuff that was buried away, and recall events and dates (sometimes with the aid of my wife and others) which were already only dimly there.  But they have been brought back to vivid life through developing my personal Life [...]

I have found the development of the “Life Wall” a very interesting experience, and sort of went to town on developing something that potentially could be reused in different contexts and used by others. Here are some notes I am making on its development. Origins The Life Wall came about in September 2011 as Austin Tate [...]

I have been inspired by the WallWisher and ideas for creative media in some of the course guides for the MSc in e-Learning… and have begun to think of ways to explore the use of tags and clippings to let someone tell their life story in unstructured, time line and narrative ways. I wanted to [...]

I am pleased to announce the creation of my bog for the MSc in e-Learning at http://edc11.education.ed.ac.uk/austint/ Feeds on my LifeStream are being aggregated from myself and my virtual worlds avatar “Ai Austin”.  They initially include Twitter (@batate and @aiaiaustin), WellWisher walls and the OpenVCE.net Virtual Collaboration Environment where I frequently post content.