Welcome to OpenCafe in SL!

Hi all – I am Szavanna and here is a blog all about OpenCafe in SL.

I’m happy to let you know that our little initiative has its own Second Life

The SL cafe is located on the Non-profit commons together with other great initiatives that are worth checking out. If you have a nonprofit project – you can also apply for free space there – let me know if you need more info. Here is a few shots of the SL Cafe – though it is always chaning as I carry on learning more building skills – if you’d like to help with building tasks – please contact me!

Performing in the Light Theater show for the first time

Sza ready for the show

It was a great experience even with allll the laaag and worries whether all my clothes will rez or not :0)

Thanks to Juni, Medora, Blanche Siri and Janne for the great time – I hope we can do it again soon!

Click here to visit the Flickr photos about the show. Thank you Any1 for sending the photos

Lightshow mosaic

Special OpenBuilding project : Taking part in the Imagine Festival

Imaginefest logo

The OpenBuilding school decided to try a new kind of project – the first time – taking part in the organizing process of an SL festival – from beginning till the end.

Working the logo, be responsible for an African Imagine event, help sign musicians, put a 3 day program together ….. it is so much work but also the most rewarding SL experience so far.

The festival got everyone going and artists started building weeks before the fest was scheduled. Everyone was in the creative mood – new ideas, new shapes, colors appeared along the way – discussions, interviews and more …. it was a bit like how I imagine the creative energy at the OpenCafe at its best

Here is the official notecard about the fest :

IMAGINE FESTIVAL SPANNING VIRTUAL CONTINENTS AND IGNITING CREATIVITY

The Imagine Network works for a better world, with a focus on human rights, as well as social and environmental justice for all.  Our work in Second Life seeks to connect people to people, group to group, and network to network.  We aim to identify the root causes of the larger toxic global problems facing us in order to help find solutions, and to help people act together in cooperation toward that goal.

Our mission is dedicated to awareness and imagination, not fundraising.

THE SECOND LIFE IMAGINE FESTIVAL

The Imagine Festival is about creating a dream though art, music, poetry, drama, and interactive experience.

The festival launches at Four Bridges – a wonderful new Imagine build by AuraKyo Insoo. Events at Four Bridges, the base of Amnesty International and many other good causes,  are dedicated to imagining a world with all human rights realised.

The Imagine Festival moves over amazing spaces across the grid, spanning virtual continents over 10 sims. It has participants from Argentina, France, South Africa, Sweden, Germany, Netherlands, UK and USA and other parts of world.

The Imagine Festival takes us to the opening of the Imagine Peace Tower commissioned by Yoko Ono.  The Tower will be unveiled and officially opened on Imagine Peace Island at 3:30pm SLT, Friday 9 October. Yoko will be taking part from a real life visit to Iceland.

Also featured in the Imagine Festival is a major build offered by UTSA (University of Texas at San Antonio).  The UTSA’s newly developed Art Space consists of a full-sim exploration of the seasons that has come to life through the artistic impressions of a diverse group representing some of SL’s most prominent artists.  Each of these artists have made contributions to one or more of the seasons that speak to the future of weather in a unique way.

A major section of the festival is based in Africa Live, featuring Beautiful Africa stories, music and dance the Open Cafe initiative to share open source software and information.

The great CARP creative team present a new show – the Imagine Future Show with a fabulous journey across 10 scenes of our future

Other creative journeys to be found in the Festival are;  CHAMBER of our HEART,  Undersea Mermaid Poetry,  Pentagon of Peace by Netroots Nation, CARP (Cybernetic Arts Research Project), a talk at the French Ecologia sim and truly…so much more.

IMAGINE is weaving a tapestry of the collective consciousness. This festival is a collaborative effort between various individuals and groups sharing their time, talent, and vision of a better world. Come share this vision and explore who we are and what we can become.

Catch the Dream
Just Imagine!

IMAGINE Festival
Events October 9 – 11, 2009 Exhibitions beyond.

Media please contact: Sapphoria Shilova
IMAGINE PR Director
sapphoria@gmail.com

*NOTE* Media requests should be made via email at – sapphoria@gmail.com*

For additional information please contact:
junivers Stockholm (Europe)
Medora Chevalier (Europe)
Paulette Felisimo (Europe)
Siri Vita (US)
Szavanna Anatra (Africa)
OhMy Kidd (Australia)
Gamma Infinity (Music bookings)
Sapphoria Shilova (UTSA – Future of Weather)

Thank you Medora ( Mom Imagine and Juni for keeping it all together – I feel lucky to have been part of this right from the beginning. Thanks to all the artists, musicians, builders, the core team ( Siri, Paulette, Cotton, any1, and everyone else ) – for the real inspiring 3 days

See the Festival’s site at http://imaginefestival.wordpress.com/.

Imagine Festival - Africa Live! skybox

The Africa event took a lot of work to prepare – Cecilia created the big Africa image, Soly worked on a French Logo, Artemisia worked on all the African tales part, Joanne built a stage, I built an OpenCafe, Bafana did a lot of work as well – Puff helped manage things the day of the event etc.  – it worked out well and the audience had fun

Africa Live! Audience

The idea is to continue and take this energy to new heights – join Medora’s Imagine Network to share ideas, and get down to working on ideas to make your life – and those around you – better.

For example you could get into a dreamy and creative mood recreating a new version of the official festival logo – a basic dreamcatcher class is available with step by step building instructions at the OpenBuilding school.

Here is how it looks:

dreamcatcher

…and if you like it – come and get the dreamcatcher and the tutorial with it here:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Geo%20Island/206/11/29

See OpenBuilding’s Flickr set for the Imagine fest

Festival collage

• Read more about our Africa event on Puffy’s blog here and here.
• See some of the events on Junivers’ TV channel.
• Read any1′s article about the fest.

( I will be updating this post as I find more info – if you have info, links, etc. about the Imagine Fest – please include it in this post as comment and I update my post as well. )

First Jam in our Africa room

Silvio, Makin, Nelson and Szav jammin

Originally uploaded by OpenCafe in SecondLife

I am busy setting up our galleries and rooms and decided to put some drums which we tested last night with great success!

I hope jamming becomes a regular activity at the school Makin decided to record the event – have a look .

(Many thanks Makin !!!)

Juni playing at the Amnesty Iran event

Snapshot_9july2009_juni_001

Originally uploaded by OpenCafe in SecondLife

Opencafetalk at the Openbuilding school

29may2009 Opencafetalk at the Openbuilding school

Originally uploaded by OpenCafe in SecondLife

The first OpenCafe chat in SL in the new OpenBuilding school as one of the Ring Discussion’s regular Thursday events. Thanks Juni for inviting me to take part.

It was a fun event – it also gave me ideas for setting up such events in the school.

Join the Rings Discussions group – and come to the Thrusday discussions – lots to learn there :

More about the group :

Explore the potential of SL to take humanity to a future of cooperation instead of competition. Positive about solutions and acting for change using creativity.

http://imaginenetwork.ning.com/

http://www.earthweek.wordpress.com/

http://www.flickr.com/groups/slearthweek/

http://www.koinup.com/group/SLEarthWeek/

Facebook Group – Earth Week in Second Life

http://www.slhumanrightsfestival.wordpress.com/

Metropolis

Some time ago I got to see Metropolis in SL. Here is what their notecard says :

METROPOLIS…the Re-Make…..every Friday and Sunday 2 PM SLT

After an idea of Debbie Trillling to do a re-make of METROPOLIS the fist science fiction movie made in 1927 by Fritz Lang, Velazquez Bonetto and Josina Burgess started with working out this Idea to bring it to Second Life.

Velazquez Bonetto rebuild the Whole Metropolis,  wrote programms and scripts, situated every scenery at its place and brought new technology into SL .
Josina Burgess created all the caracters, avatars, costumes and together they used Muybridge simulations for mass groups where needed.
Nnoiz Papp wrote and composed the music specially for Metropolis.
Windyy Lane build the upperclass scenery and made all the animations
Sca shilova build the robot and the animations for it.

the actors are:
Debbie Trilling
MillaMilla Noel
Efrantirse Morane
Josina Burgess
Velazquez Bonetto

A Camera system is build in the seats where the audience will sit , also the seats, with audience in it,  will fly around in Metropolis form scene to scene to be a “part” of the whole.

Its  so far the biggest project ever done on SL, it took months of working, building,creating, rehearsing and animating.
The actors/avatars playing the  key figures teleport from stage to stage and perform in between camera close-ups.

The whole Metropolis is a 1 hour breathtaking experience on SL, but not only on SL even in RL people will be able to watch this via You Tube as a new way of making a artistique event going beyond borders.

Read Metropolis ( the original film ) here.

SLURL :http://slurl.com/secondlife/Benvolio/36/63/1497

Times : every Friday and Sunday 2pm SLT ( be early! )

Metropolis

Go and see it – it’s not something you see everyday

Juniver’s show during Earth week

Juni's lightshow

Yesterday I spent some time listening to the live shows at Nany’s sim – Virtual Native Lands. I love live music – there is nothing like listening to the artists singing or playing their instruments live  – chatting to the audience about their songs.

Juniver’s show was breathtaking and spectacular – great tunes and fantastic lyrics – an amazing light show accompanied him and the girls, Any, Medora and Blanche who danced in beautiful earthly outfits while the lightshow was going on behind them.

Listen to Juni’s tunes at http://www.myspace.com/sevenjunivers.

About the Nany’s sim : Virtual Native Lands ( from the website):

Virtual Native Lands was conceived as a response to the lack of authentic Native American presence and content in virtual worlds. Although there are dozens of virtual worlds in existence with more being introduced every year, very few Native Americans are yet present in any of them.

A high level of public interest in Native American cultures worldwide combined with limited authentic Native American presence results in misrepresentation of Native cultures and issues in the emerging 3D internet.

Furthermore, Native Americans have not yet begun to make use of the capabilities virtual worlds offer which are uniquely suited to the needs of widely dispersed and fragmented tribal communities.

The Virtual Native Lands project began to take shape in June, 2008, as an entry in the USC Annenberg School for Communication Network Culture Project, Second Life and the Public Good Community Challenge.

USC Network Culture Project

Virtual Native Lands, then called Native Lands, was one of three projects selected for a three month long study of a beneficial use of virtual worlds.

Virtual Native Lands was incorporated as an educational nonprofit business in Washington State in September, 2008. Virtual worlds locations for educational exhibits, training in the use of virtual worlds technology, and collaboration with other nonprofits and educational institutions were obtained in the following months.

Virtual Native Lands is serving as a contact point in virtual worlds for those seeking connection with real world Native American organizations and authentic information. Virtual Native Lands also serves as a contact point for Native Americans seeking connection with virtual worlds organizations and information.

Virtual Native Lands

Click to visit Virtual Native Lands in SL!

And click here to visit the SL Earth Week blog and read about all the other events as well.

Earthweek April 2009 – Artemisia’s talk

Earthweek April 2009 – Artemisia is giving her talk

Originally uploaded by OpenCafe in SecondLife

It’s Earthweek and SL has a lot of things going on. My little parcel on Africa Live got busy a few days ago – Artemisia decided to give her talk there.

Artie talked about the Mangrove forests – the talk and slides are still available right there on my parcel at Africa live. So go and visit – it is an interesting slideshow to go through.

Here is some info ( from Artemisia’s talk ) about Mangroves to give you an idea :

“Mangrove forests : one of the most productive ecosystems and the richest of the planet, but also most threatened. Their protection and rehabilitation have become a major concern and are continuing throughout the world.

These forests are characteristic of tropical coastal regions and subtropics regions on all continents, they cover ¾ (75%) of coasts and deltas, or approximately 200 000 km² (20 million hectares). Mangroves are formed by groups of mainly woody plants. These plants are subject to the influence of tides and freshwater flows in shallow areas ….”

Mangrove forest

Best practices in education

Best practices in education

Originally uploaded by OpenCafe in SecondLife

I took part in a panel discussion with Nany Kayo (Virtual Native Lands), Gentle Heron ( Virtual Ability ) and Penguin ( Techsoup ) and discussed about ways to help make virtual tools reach those living in areas where computers and the Internet is not easily accessible. It was a great experience – thank you Oronoque for organizing it all.

Click to visit vwbpe.org to read more about this event.

The new OpenBuildbuilding school on Geo island

The new OpenBuildbuilding school on Geo island

Originally uploaded by OpenCafe in SecondLife

Thanks To Zeppo Romano and the Department of Geology-Geography at Illinois State University – we have a new location on Geo island so we can restart our “openbuilding activities”

We also have a sandbox right next to the school just like on Tresor so come and build away – there is lots free textures and tutorials to choose from. Soon we will start classes as well.

SLURL to the new school :

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Geo%20Island/205/49/31