Something remarkable happened last night at the Hub2 Honan Library Park design session. People were laughing — laughing because they were having fun and enjoying an open design process. Nine residents of North Allston sat down with our staff, experienced the space virtually on both the big screen and their own laptops, and brainstormed how […]
Eric Gordon and I will be presenting on Hub2 tomorrow at Tufts’ Civic Engagement Research Group (CERG) tomorrow, 12:00-1:30 in the Rabb Room at Tisch College. The event is free and open to all. More details here.
Well, that was a fun panel we just had — we managed to hit most of the topics on our list and had some lively exchanges among panelists and with the audiences. There was a surprising interest among the audience about virtual “black markets” — it was unclear whether they were curious about activities online […]
Mixed Realities is an exhibition and symposium that explores the convergence—through cyberspace—of real and synthetic places made possible by computers and networks. Mixed Realities links and overlays the Huret & Spector Gallery (Boston), Turbulence.org, and Ars Virtua (Second Life). I will be moderating the morning panel on February 8, Real World Implications of Virtual Economies, […]
The Hub2 evening group (that’s the one I teach) is hosting our open house this evening at 7pm EST (4pm SLT). We’ll be showing off our Greenway design system, Second T neighborhood tour creator, and Local Talk diner. Please come by and give us your ideas and feedback to make Boston Island a truly immersive […]
My Hub2 class is chugging along, and I thought the halfway point would be an opportune time to “publish” the class agendas for the program so far on the off-chance that they might prove useful to someone contemplating a similar effort. I’m afraid it lacks the level of detail most people would need to run […]
Workshop panelist Grace Lim-Tan Keh Buoy has posted photos from our workshop at State of Play V in Singapore. Thanks Grace! I’m still hoping to acquire some video from the event, which I’ll compress and post as soon as possible.
How we mixed virtual with real in our workshop: 1. Audio streaming. We couldn’t secure a real-time audio stream, which would have been ideal, but we did OK by routing our audio through voice chat. The problem with this is dropoff, which the listener can override. Or we could have created a group chat, though […]
And now, to follow up my earlier teaser: I’m excited to announce that my colleague Eric Gordon and I will be teaching a new, experimental class at Emerson College on exploring, imagining, and building civic places in real and virtual spaces. The class was born of an idea hatched by the City of Boston to […]
Last semester, Seattle U. Professor of Law Elizabeth Townsend-Gard taught a 1L property class that included a Second Life component, in which students explored virtual property as a way to gain insight into real property. I find this pedagogical tool of using virtual worlds as a cognitive foil for the real one a fascinating way […]
