NYC 1939
Gallery: The Automat, Virtually
The Automat. A Painting by Edward Hopper, and now a Virtual Installation for the public in Second Life™ by RJ Kikuchiyo, an award-winning VR designer. Here, RJ demos the beverages and food vending machines for an upcoming event.
The technology of the time allowed visitors to get a meal without interaction with the food preparation, very much predicting the science of food vending in the modern age. A coffee was a nickel. A sandwich, two nickels. In the age of Hopper, this was a refuge from the urban outdoors, a place of comfort, even if only for a short time.
Interestingly, this was a time when modern design was coming into view, forward-looking and fantastic. Perhaps this painting by Edward Hopper was a reaction to that cold steel and glass society. I embrace the humanity represented in the view, a single female patron, her emotion and her poise in the face of the new technology within which she finds herself surrounded.
Linden Endowment for the Arts, or LEA™
“Linden Endowment for the Arts has granted RJ Kikuchiyo a 3-month residency in LEA2, where an “Open Studio” retrospective of work from 2006-2016 will be open to the public.
Also on site is the Bauhaus Museum and collected works by Steadman Kondor, of 1920s Berlin”
Visit the virtual reality location here
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/LEA2/119/123/26
Linden Labs™, the makers of Second Life™, have recently awarded RJ Kikuchiyo a sim for 3 months as part of the Linden Endowment for the Arts program. I’ll be using this space as an ‘open studio’ kind of environment, accessing my inventory to exhibit virtual model environments from previous projects. I’m still sorting out what to do with the ground level, arranging a virtual city of lighthouses as a starting point. More to come and updates soon!
Gallery: Graf Zeppelin SL Barn
Every Zeppelin needs a cozy space to get out of the elements and maintain the Airship. This Barn is based on the original Lake Constance Facility seen in the research. The overall plan is 192x256m, but the barn takes up only 64x256m on an SL sim, that’s about one quarter of the sim. There’s room for more, but as we are winding down the construction of the Graf at Scale, the rest of the updates here will focus on the specific areas being updated from the medium scale. This construct started with plan-scale, then to 1:5 avatar scale, and finally 1:1 scale, where the details really come out. Thanks for riding along and now enjoy the view! Sorry about the scratches in the lens ;-P
Gallery: Graf Zeppelin Photograph and Film Research
Gallery: SL Graf Zeppelin Avatar Scale Airship
In a virtual world, sometimes you reach over the clouds, and a peaceful place can be found in the sky, for work or pleasure. This accurate scale version of the Graf Zeppelin, allows you to walk through a full-size zeppelin in realtime. This gigantic floating cruise liner can put you in a time and space not seen since the 1930s. The specs: 1/4 Sim in size, (256x64x80m)
Gallery: Graf Zeppelin visits Knaptrackicon Sim in SL (Flight Test)
Gallery: Graf Zeppelin in SL 1:5 Scale Walkthru and Further Lighting Tests & Development
More Lighting tests and mood choosing for the upcoming episode or chapter of Ice Domes of the Bandit Queen by K.T. Sebastian
Gallery: 1:5 Scale Zeppelin in progress – Interior
Some revisions to the decks, bulkheads, and more lighting tests…
(more…)