Dr. Bryan Carter of the University of Arizona spoke last night at San Jose State University’s School of Library and Information Sciences in Second Life. Bryan is a specialist in African American literature of the 20th century, and he has a particular interest in the Harlem Renaissance. He’s worked on various incarnations of The Virtual Harlem Project for over fifteen years, and began building in Second Life in 2006. Not much later, I began bringing gaggles of Women’s Studies students on field trips, and sometimes we were lucky enough to have our trips coincide with a cultural event, a jazz concert or art exhibit that really gave depth to our work for the night.
I particularly remember our visit to Le Cactus, an art installation by Maya Paris, where students could put on costumes and animate their avatars to the music of Josephine Baker. Music and movement add so much to the learning experience, as Laurie Landry’s machinima demonstrates:
Unfortunately, as with many of the great sims, Virtual Harlem and its companion site, Virtual Montmartre, are no longer in Second Life. But Bryan hasn’t slowed down at all. He’s moved Virtual Harlem and Virtual Montmartre to Open Sim, and he’s also started work on a much more detailed and realistic version in Unity3D.
It’s always encouraging to talk with Bryan, he is so enthusiastic, yet so level-headed. He reminded us all of the many advances that are going on right now in our field, and talked about possibilities outside of Second Life. I was particularly interested in his work with Arizona State students in The Virtual WorldWide Web project. This project is in the alpha stage right now, but should open in beta in a couple of months; screenshots in the video below demonstrate the stunning quality of this work. Virtual WorldWide Web is also developing Curio, a 3D web browser that will make access to sites much easier.
