Public Forum Invitation: join Fanton and Ondrejka on MacArthur Island, May 18
5.7.09 | MacArthur Foundation President Jonathan Fanton and the co-creator of Second Life, Cory Ondrejka (now at EMI Music), are the featured discussants in a public forum to be held May 18th, 2009. In their conversation, Ondrejka and Fanton will examine the future of virtual worlds and philanthropy. The event continues a two-year investigation into the role of philanthropy in virtual worlds led by the University of Southern California and Global Kids, with support from the MacArthur Foundation.
Scheduled for 2pmPT/5pmET, the event is the first to take place on MacArthur Island, a virtual island dedicated to supporting the public good. Located within Second Life, the island features 3D interactive exhibits on issues ranging from biodiversity to human rights and education, and is available to other foundations and nonprofits for events and activities in the public interest.
This public forum will be broadcast as a webcast to standard internet browsers. For those with avatars, a visit to the MacArthur Island will offer a new opportunity for understanding MacArthur’s grantees and partners.
The hour-long event, scheduled to begin at 2pmPT/5pmET, will include Q&A in both Second Life and from the web using Treet.tv, and for those in Second Life, a 30-minute reception will follow. To participate in the event in Second Life, you will need a fairly recent computer (PC, Mac or Linux) with a broadband connection to the internet. Accounts to use Second Life are available at no cost. To get started, sign up for Second Life, download the software and test your avatar at least a day in advance to make sure that you can participate.
For background on the Foundation’s work on philanthropy and virtual worlds, check out the recap of the first event with Jonathan Fanton, which was held in June of 2007. See also posts on the topic by Doug Thomas of USC, and Barry Joseph and Rik Panganiban of Global Kids.
The exploration of virtual worlds and philanthropy is led by the USC Network Culture Project and Global Kids’ Digital Media Initiative. Both of their websites include greater detail on the broader investigation.
UPDATE: details on the live event are now available at this url.
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Kate Miranda (Music Island/Sea Turtle Island http://slurl.com/se)
5/8/09
9:36am
Music Island has been presenting value-added content in the form of weekly live classical concerts, workshops and multi-media performance art since November 2007. The project exists as part of an open-learning community created to provide space for and foster learning and research by individuals and small groups within Second Life… as opposed to work supported by and funded by large institutions and non-profits. Financial support for the project has come from a handful of individuals.
Labour on the project and artists contributions have been donated or on a free-will offering basis (artist tips). We have been poised to expand activities for sometime but it is impossible to do that as a totally volunteer initiative, due to the constraints on time and resources.
As I am a professional arts administrator in real life, having worked in arts management, artistic coordination and marketing, I have started to think about how to get some modest funding to bootstrap the volunteer initiative to the next phase where artists can be paid modest honorariums, and a part time coordinator can dedication about 20 hours a week to the promotion and coordination of a varied series of artistic programming in Second Life.
In beginning to seek such funding, I have realized that one of the leading strengths of the project is the international nature of audience and performers but that strength also makes it difficult to fund a smallish arts project in virtual reality. The difficulty is that most arts funders are nationally, province/state wide, or municipally focused. They fund art to support local artists and to improve the cultural life of local communities. By contrast international funders concentrate on large organizations with international connections.
I thought that this dilemma might be something worthy of consideration during your upcoming discussion. More information on Music Island and classical music in Second Life can be found both in the Music Island blog and in a recently published article available on Arts Management Net at: http://artsmanagement.net/index.php?module=News&func=display&sid=1146