MU Talk

Izzy 14:07 on 30/01/2015 Permalink Reply
Tags: Jane Jacobs ( 4 ), Penny Patton ( 2 )   

A Matter of Scale

Tiny “1-story” Izzy, dwarfed by 1-story house w/vaulted-loft ceiling. Which in turn is dwarfed by many stories tall tree.

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M E D I C I U N I V E R S I T Y
Office of The Provost

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Dear Campus Community,

Thank you so much to everyone who’s contributed trees & other landscaping to the MU Campus! The place is starting to look better and better every day!

One small observation is that many of these trees are rather large in scale. Many things in SL are rather large: Buildings, Avatars, Camera Height. Yes, this is the land of “Impossible IRL”, but I think when everything is oversized, somehow the experience is smaller.

I’m not asking for the removal of anything! But, if you might have smaller trees or other landscaping, perhaps you can substitute?

As you arrived at MU it was pretty barren! Your contributions are really starting to help! Yet because of the large scale, it’s beginning to look a bit like a forest. In spite of our hilly geography, MU is an urban space. It is, or I hope it will become, a city.

The guiding text for our MU Campus design is Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities. This book is a masterpiece of insight, clear thinking, and counter-normative understanding. Our chief goal with the physical campus is a dense (hopefully more dense with people than with forest! 😀 mixed use, urban campus space.

If Jane Jacobs is our guiding principle for vibrant cities, then SL’s Penny Patton is our guide for effective Avatars, Cameras & Building in VR space. In just 3 posts she’s laid out how to build a better world:

* A Matter of Proportion
* A Matter of Perspective
* A Matter of Scale

Professor Blaylock from the MU School of Public Art has provided a handy index to all of Penny Patton’s essential insights to creation in our world.

Thank you all, so much, for your contributions to our evolving MU Campus!

To all of our new, arriving students, WELCOME TO MEDICI UNIVERSITY!

GO MU! (pronounced, Go Moo!)

Warmest Regards this January,

Izzy

Isabella Medici
Provost
Medici University
isabella.medici@mediciuniversity.co.uk
MediciUniversity.co.uk/talk

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  rmarie 20:30 on 30/01/2015 Permalink | Reply

  One thought I had in reading through this is that you’re expressing a covenant. Many estate sims have covenants that the inhabitants are expected to work from. Adapting to these can bring out creativity – like being handed a green crayon. Where does the covenant start and end?

  Scarlett and I were talking about about doing a campus stroll to sort of look at individual areas closely in terms of the “urban” landscaping. I like the idea of Medici being 1100 years old, a bit further east than Florence, with layers of old and new. Maybe urban trees in “new” sections are never more than two times the height of an avatar. Maybe Camille, where the commons has settled, is older so those trees are a bit larger? Which sections do we consider to be newer?

  One idea is to pass out a basic kit for the standard street or walking path, to give that to everyone and have them create the streets and walking paths in their sections, but with the caveat that they can depart using those materials (for example, if the covenant said “use this flagstone,” then in some areas that flagstone might be texturally worn, or a different color, or graffiti’d, potholed, deliberately routed and stacked up by the side of the road, etc). “Reinterpreted consistency.”

  Is it even possible to suggest that sort of meta-consistency to people moving in? What about the SL Art School city and fantastical things that defy the laws of physics? Where does that fit?

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    rmarie 20:35 on 30/01/2015 Permalink | Reply

    Of course, the message here was one of scale. I won’t forget that!

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    Izzy 20:46 on 30/01/2015 Permalink | Reply

    These are wonderful ideas rmarie, care to implement them? 😀

    Re: laws of physics — once again I turn to the sage Penny Patton, in fact it’s right on her profile page if you want to look her up:

    My minotaur avatar is over 7′ tall! Not exactly human sized. In RP sims where you’re playing a character, it just makes sense to make your avatar the size of the character you intend to be playing. Why claim to be a 6′ human or orc then make your avatar 8′ tall? A 12′ tall werewolf isn’t a werewolf, it’s a fuzzy giant.

    Just like writing good fiction, I can accept anything that is consistent unto itself. If you want to do “Impossible IRL” work, well, I don’t expect it to follow the “laws” of RL physics! But, whatever framework it exists in, it should be consistent to that.

    We hate deus ex machina endings because they cheat the narrative contract the storytellers have made with the audience. The audience was willing to “suspend disbelief,” or to use the term Robert Pratten prefers, “active co-creation of belief.” As Pratten says,

    They know it’s fiction, but they want to believe.

    They want to believe, if only you’ll do enough work to let them. So deus ex machina endings suck.

    When I see Impossible IRL work by an artist like Betty Tureaud, it’s great! It doesn’t pretend to be about the laws of RL physics and it shouldn’t have to. But it does “feel” right. It is designed in a way that feels consistent unto itself. That’s really all we can ask of Architecture, Cities, Artists, Avatars, Fiction, or anything else.

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      Newton 22:42 on 30/01/2015 Permalink | Reply

      They are just ideas – probings into how real consistency could really maybe be achieved. Nothing can be done without the participation / feedback / discussion / logistical commitment of others. At least, it’s not as fun.

      As far as deus ex machina, don’t tell Spielberg those endings suck. There’s something about the human psyche that loves them, or maybe it’s cultural. I’m glad the pushing of the envelope is another matter entirely!

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        rmarie 22:45 on 30/01/2015 Permalink | Reply

        Well said brother. Now get to work. 😉

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  Veyot 14:42 on 02/02/2015 Permalink | Reply

  I found another thing that makes a good neighborhood–back doors. I am already planning to remodel my office at MU. The way it is now, if I want to go visit my neighbor Agnes, I have to go out the front door and run all the way around my house. I do have myself set on “always run”, but still, it’s a bother.

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    Izzy 16:12 on 02/02/2015 Permalink | Reply

    That’s so great Veyot!

    IRL Laneways, the small service roads in-between buildings have become popular places either to build small houses or to create things like restaurants that face tiny pedestrian-only streets. These too-small-to-do-anything-with spaces have become sites of civic renewal and social interaction.

    Sadly we didn’t really leave any laneway space between studios, but it’s great that you’ve envisioned a way to create that sort of connection anyway! 😀