Upgrade!

Last friday the 22nd of March I attended a Upgrade! Boston gathering streamed directly to Second Life, hosted by the Emerson College SL, landmark: Emerson College Island, Emerson Island (182, 112, 23), the real life event taking place at real life Emerson College, Boston (I think). See Wirxli Flimflams lively report of the SL event HERE, including a litle criticism about the technical problems we're still facing with these new live broadcasting possiblilies.
There were to speakers: Eric Gordon, "The Digital Possessive: Private Spaces in Public Space", and Show'n Tell about her book "web Affairs", "webAffairs is an artist's documentary of an adult video web community. In this book the artist, Show-n-tell, tells her story of being a voyeur and eventually becoming part of this community through a series of images and actual chat text. She participates in the community both as an observer and a performer. " Fun thing she told at the end of her speach was that she has tried the sex life of Second Life too. You can hear what she said in my litle video from the event:

Now, Upgrade! is new to me so I wanted to find out more about it.
The Upgrade! International organization - International network of gatherings concerning art, technology and culture has about 20 nodes around the world and more coming, also one in Second Life. About Upgrade! International's mission HERE. "Upgrade! is an international, emerging network of autonomous nodes united by art, technology, and a commitment to bridging cultural divides." It's supported by other organizations like Eyebeam, Turbulence.org, New Media Scotland, Art Centre Nabi, The Western Front, The Society for Arts and Technology (SAT), InterSpace, i-camp, DCA, CCA, No-Org.net, Art Interactive, NOMAD/santralistanbul, program angels/lothringer13, Open-Node.com, t-u-b-e, C-M.TV, Lisboa 20, AT. joburg, University of the Witwatersrand, Ars Longa, 911 Media Arts Center, Ars Virtua / BitFactory (Second Life). Links to all these organizations you'll find HERE at the bottom of the page.

25th of March there will be a lecture or a panel discussion moderated by Eric Gordon (aka Boston Borst) at the Museum of Science, Boston, called "The Art of living a Second Life", with with Wagner James Au (aka Hamlet Linden), embedded journalist in Second Life; John Lester (aka Pathfinder Linden), community manager for Linden Lab; John (Craig) Freeman (aka JC Freemont), artist in Second Life (who was our host at Emerson College SL last friday). The lecture is one of the events in the Boston Cyberart festival. It seems this lecture is going to be streamed into Second Life too.

Plurabelle Posthorn