[…] The Second Life Dorkbot meeting started at ten in the evening … The meeting took place in the Odyssey Theatre furnished with a fine looking rhizomatic seating system made for the dorkbot sessions by Sugar Seville … When I arrived there, the meeting already was in full swing, with an attentive avatar audience ‘listening’ to a presentation by Angrybeth Shortbread, aka Annabeth Robinson.

One could imagine such a talk being talked, using audio-streaming. But that was not the case. Angrybeth’s talking was texted. Here are parts of what she told us (the hyperlinks were added by me):

“My interest in exploring the possibilities of artistic practice and distribution within the metaverse, is what made me stay in second life. I was hooked very early on. […] As I discovered scripting, I found it reminded me of director lingo and actionscript, and found it quite easy to get my head into it. When I started Second Life, it was fortuitous, that the Port Community, led by artists Goldin & Senneby, had just set up. […] I felt it important to think of Second Life as a Studio, and I had no problem with people seeing ideas in development, rather than only finished work. […] Most of my work, generally evolves. taking ideas or processes from older projects and adapting them into new forms. So that’s the quick background.”

Angrybeth then presented a sound work in progress: the height harp. “The height harp,” she explained, “uses a sensor to detect avatars within a certain area, reads their height, and assigns a note.” The area in which the sensors are active was represented by a sort of green circle, resembling a round plastic swimming pool, and the avatars at the meeting were invited to hop inside that circle, in order for the harp to measure them and play their note.

“The avatar’s height needs to be between 1.4 m and 2.1 m,” Angrybeth continued while more and more of us took a leap into the ‘pool’. “The harp uses the scale of C … What somewhat forced the issue with the kinda of tones I used was the 10 sec limit to uploaded sounds, so I created samples with a slow attack and decay over 10 secs, which […] produces that quite nice baroque sound …” …. From With a Dorkbot here and a Dorkbot there … by HarS.