Thursday, June 30, 2011

People's Choice Vote Open (June Round), Winners Ceremony 6am SLT Sunday 3rd July

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The June round People's Choice Vote in underway for the UWA 3D Open Art Challenge. Come check out the 59 outstanding pieces and vote for your faves. Great stuff as usual. Voting ends Noon Saturday July 2.

Awards ceremony is Sunday July 3 at 6AM SLT. HERE

Japanese Blog Featuring some June Artworks

1 Anje.Aichi UWA Clocktower Mood
2 Artée Manege Incertain
3 Artée Musique Aleatoire Pure
4 Barry Richez Bodyspace
5 Betty Tureaud The Poem
6 Betty Tureaud The world balance
7 Cherry Manga Soul
8 Cherry Manga Spring Box
9 Corcosman Voom We Sailed Off To The Stars
10 Daco Monday anche l'occhio di Dio psichedelico cornice
11 Daco Monday urlo 2
12 Dagmar Klaar Liberty Perseveres
13 Dagmar Klaar Weiner Dog Art Redux
14 Darek Deluca Amorphous Torus - Random
15 Dusty Canning The Get-Away
16 Dusty Canning UWA TV Morning Exercises
17 Earl Dinkin Mailbox Steps Doorbell Other Side Same 2
18 Eifachfilm Vacirca Titan
19 Emilin Nakamori Dangling Narrow Chain Demonstrator Final
20 Fae Varriale The Lady of Llyn y Fan Fach
21 fiona Blaylock Earth angel
22 fiona Blaylock storm
23 Frankx Lefavre Vortex on Blue
24 Fuschia Nightfire Psychedelic Box
25 Gleman Jun Life Is Like Riding a Unicycle by Gleman Jun
26 Haveit Neox Serendipitous Kitchen
27 Katz Jupiter Cow woman isn't amused!
28 Kolor Fall BeforeY
29 Ling Serenity Kokeshi Queen
30 Lollito Larkham Boxing room
31 Milly Sharple Jacob's Ladder
32 Miso Susanowa Thy Rod On Staff, He Comforts Me
33 Miso Susanowa Daddy (Venomous Constricter)
34 Nettrice Beattie Wildstyle 1
35 Nino Vichan Piume di Pavone
36 Nish Mip Run for the Shadows
37 PeanutbuttahJellehTime Magic Figure This
38 PeanutbuttahJellehTime Magic We're Toast!!!
39 Penumbra Carter Egg squishing thing
40 RAG Randt Monkey Kitchen
41 RazorZ UFO - INVASION ABDUCTION
42 RazorZ Stargate Pyramid: A monument to time travel
43 Rebeca Bashly The ninth circle: The frozen river Cocytus
44 Rory Torrance DreamFlower
45 Rory Torrance Eight-Fold Path
46 Secret Rage Torn
47 Secret Rage No Stones
48 Sharni Azalee Love's Eternal - Inspired by Bay Sweetwater and Twinkle
49 Silene Christen if you gaze for long into an abyss
50 Sledge Roffo Here Comes the Sun
51 Soda Lemondrop Determinism
52 Spiral Silverstar fractal flowition
53 Spiral Silverstar Morphing Fractal Series- #2 UWA
54 spirit Radikal Trust
55 Thoth Jantzen Kaleidoscopium II
56 Toughlove Sabra When Angels Stop Caring
57 Ub Yifu In Out There
58 Uman Kesslinger Tribute to the Geofictional society
59 Zany Foxtrot Butterfly tree

THERE BE DRAGONS
AND MORE OF THEM
THE GODS CANNOT SAVE YOU

THE GUARDIAN AWAITS
ALSO be sure to catch FreeWee Ling's Full-SIM installation "Angry Gods", the June Chapter of the UWA Full-SIM Art Series. Closes June 30!

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Twinkle Arrives at North Woodvale Primary School

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School Principal, Greg Brice receives 'Twinkle's Journey' and '100 Treasures from UWA' from Jay Jay Jegathesan, Manager, School of Physics, UWA (and lead of UWA Virtual World projects) on behalf of Bay Sweetwater of California, USA


Students of North Woodvale Primary watch on as Twinkle arrives

It was the end of one journey, and the start of another, on Tuesday the 31st of May at a special assembly of North Woodvale Primary School. Many stories merge here. Click here to read the full journey.

A number of other videos were also presented to the school, including Braclo Eber's 'Journey to the Top' and Corphaelia Ninetails, 'Voyage to Antarctica'.

Much thanks to Greg for giving permission to publish these photos.

EDIT: MORE POSTSCIPTS

Pallina60 Loon created a machinima for SLB8 and dedicated it to Twinkle...




Sharni Azalee created a 3D Artwork called 'Love's Eternal'. 
A dedication to Bay Sweetwater & Twinkle

SHARNI AZALEE'S LOVE'S ETERNAL
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MachinimUWA IV: spyVspy Aeon's 'Qubit - Cognitive Distortion'

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A wonderful look at the artworks of the UWA 3D Open Art Challenge,spyVspy Aeon's 'Qubit - Cognitive Distortion'is among the first entries to MachinimUWA IV: Art of the Artists, which brings together 2 of the powerhouses of virtual worlds, Artists and Machinimatographers!Entries to the L$300,000 MachinimUWA IV closes on the 10th of November and seeks for the creation of machinima featuring artworks that are part of the UWA 3D Open Art Challenge.

In spyVspy's words:

The real inspiration so as this idea came from the elaborate synthesis of many poems I wrote "1986" (poems in desk drawers). Qubit is nothing more than the character of this deep cognitive distortion. This work is included in the Challenge of the University of Western Australia in Second Life for the IV Edition, as well as 3D works displayed in this composition, as they are mentioned on the description / credits.

Special Thanks to Maya Paris - Veparella - Secondlife

Music By Krzysztof Kurkowski - Spacer robotów
License Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Video Editing and Voice by spyVspy aeon
All content of this artwork is licensed

3D Artists
(in order of appearance)

Claudia222 Jewell
Nish Mip
Lea Supermarine
Toughlove Sabra
Zwagoth Klaar
Ub Yifu
Barry Richez
Anley Piers
Secret Rage
Fae Varriale
Research Projects
Miso Susanowa
Typote Beck
Haveit Neox

*Qubit, form the (quantum bit) - The smallest unit of information in a computer designed to manipulate or store information through effects predicted by quantum physics.

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Monday, June 27, 2011

New Group& Grand Finale Awards - UWA 3D Open Art Challenge: Phi Designs & Open This End

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Ginger Alsop: Founder and President of Phi Designs


OPEN THIS END - GRAND FINALE SPONSOR

Continuing in an amazing series of art philanthropy gestures relating to the UWA Art & Machinima challenges, Phi Designs, led by Ginger Alsop has stepped in as of June to offer monthly Group Prizes 'The Phi Designs Prize (@L$5,000)' through to the end of the challenge.

"As scripters and artists, we know how hard it is for an artist to create scripted objects to evoke an insightful, intellectual or artistic reaction in a viewer.  A well scripted and cool looking submission means nothing unless it also communicates a message.  This award is directed at those artists who have mastered this technical choreography and created a work of art that communicates a message beyond the bounds of its objects and technology.  It is very challenging to create an artwork that does this with scripts, and an even more difficult area to judge.  Scripts don’t have to be particularly complicated; they can even be subtle in comparison to other submissions.  What will appeal is the overall quality of the artwork and how its scripts make the artwork come alive."

Open This End, led by Cristina García-Lasuén (RL) / Aino Baar (SL) has also come in with a L$30,000 provision towards the Grand Finale prizes.

All of this brings the total prize pool being distributed each month to over L$96,000, with the overall prize pool across the year including the Grand Finale breaking L$1,400,000

The October Round is the final round of the year long UWA 3D Open Art Challenge. Right now, the People's Choice vote is ongoing for the June round of the challenge, and artworks are being sought/received for the July Round.

Friday, June 24, 2011

MachinimUWA IV Prize Pool Rises to L$300,000: Thanks to CEC & OTE

SPONSOR FOR MACHINIMUWA IV

SPONSOR FOR MACHINIMUWA IV
The University of Western Australia in Second Life would like to thank Cutting Edge Concerts (CEC), led by LaPiscean Liberty & Open This End, led by Cristina García-Lasuén (RL) / Aino Baar (SL) for their support of MachinimUWA IV which will bring the total prize pool now to L$300,000

With MachinimUWA IV, the challenge is to create a machinima that features some (or one) of the artworks submitted to the UWA 3D Open Art Challenge. You can choose to film as many (or as few) as you like, and you may submit any number of entries. This is a companion event to the UWA 3D Open Art Challenge, and the GRAND FINALE for both events will run simultaneously.

CLICK HERE FOR FULL DETAILS ON MACHINIMUWA IV: ART OF THE ARTISTS

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

FreeWee Gets Angry

The normally mild-mannered FreeWee Ling, Curator of the UWA 3D Open Art Challenge, has been working at an impressive pace to develop her full-sim installation at UWA Virlantis. Titled ANGRY GODS, it's a hard core apocalypse on a biblical scale. An open house is planned for Saturday beginning at 10AM SLT and continuing for the afternoon.

FreeWee recommends visiting with a small handful of others. There are special requirements for Windlight sky settings with instructions at the landing point. Use your maximum graphics capabilities (including draw distance at least 250 meters), even if it causes you to lag. FreeWee says the sim is still in development, but most of the more spectacular effects are in place. It will be in place only for the month of June. Watch for further announcements and see FreeWee's blog post for a fuller explanation.

Update: People have been taking some really great pictures of Angry Gods:
Let FreeWee know if you have pictures and/or machinima of Angry Gods.

MachinimUWA IV: Ginger Alsop starts the Ball Rolling with 4 entries

MachinimUWA IV, had a 'soft-soft launch' last year even prior to MachinimUWA III and with the proper launch of machinimUWA IV, Ginger Alsop kicks it off with 4 entries from the outset!



LIQUIDITY by Ginger Alsop



Ginger Alsop's UWA Favourites for December 2010



Ginger Alsop's UWA Favourites for January 2011



Ginger Alsop's 'Aurora'

Friday, June 10, 2011

Laslopantomik Yao's: MAY WINNERS OF THE UWA 3D OPEN ART CHALLENGE

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The groovy sounds of Laslopantomik Yao shows off the May Round winners of the UWA 3D Open Art Challenge!

Stepping in to the big boots filled by Iono Allen & Yesikita Coppola, making a guest appearance while Yesikita is away!

WINNERS OF THE MAY ROUND OF THE UWA 3D OPEN ART CHALLENGE

(By order of apeareance)

1st Prize
ONE AND FOUR TIMEBOARDS by L1Aura Loire

2nd Prize
UNE HORDE DE CORDES by Aristide Despres􀀄

3rd Prize
5x8 COMPUND CUBE by Wizard Gynoid

TIME AS A HELIX OF SEMI-PRECIOUS STONES by Miso Susanowa

Best Non-Scripted Prize
SPATIAL by Sledge Roffo

UTSA Prize
DEATH TO PROFIT by Anley Piers


SL Art Prize
BUTTERFLY BALL by Milly Sharple

Odyssey Prize
UNCANNY VALLEY by Oberon Onmura

Pirats Prize
THE REAL COST OF OIL by Toughlove Sabra

CARP Prize
THE HUMANICAL FROG by Lollito Larkham

Nordan Art Prize
TSUNAMI by Betty Tureaud

BOSL Prize
THE HUMANICAL FROG by Lollito Larkham

S&S Gallery OFA Prize
REFACER by Lollito Larkham

Tornado Gallery
TIME AS A HELIX OF SEMI-PRECIOUS STONES by Miso Susanowa

The Workhouse & Art place d-oo-b Prize
HOUSE OF UNEASY CHAIRS by Hypatia Pickens

project Z Prize
DANU by Pumpkin Tripsa

Curator's Choice Award
WITNESS: THE GROWTH OF AN IDEA by Secret Rage

People's Choice Award, 1st Prize
BALL by Silene Christen

People's Choice Award, 2nd Prize
QUALIX by Luko Enoch


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Sunday, June 5, 2011

TIME AFTER TIME - The Professor Heads Artee, Wizzy & Miso: Winners of the MAY Round, UWA 3D Open Art Challenge

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Professor Lori Landay (L1Aura Loire), Associate Professor of Cultural Studies at Berklee College of Music took 1st Prize in the May Round of the UWA 3D Open Art Challenge with a remarkable piece created in the process of filming 'Time Journey' for MachinimUWA III. 'ONE AND FOUR TIMEBOARDS' won out over Aristide (Artee) Despres, whose musical number UNE HORDE DE CORDES (a horde of strings) won 2nd Prize, just beating out 5x8 COMPOUND CUBE by Wizard Gynoid and the Kandinsky inspired TIME AS A HELIX OF SEMI-PRECIOUS STONES by Miso Susanowa, which also won the Tornado Gallery Prize. The Non-Scripted Prize went to SPATIAL by Sledge Roffo, while Lollito Larkham made splash in his very first month in the challenge, winning a record 3 Group Awards between his pieces, THE HUMANICAL FROG and REFACER, gaining direct entry to the Grand Finale in the process.


FULL RESULTS FOLLOW AND THE TEXT OF THE WINNERS ANNOUNCEMENT IS REPRODUCED BELOW IN ITS ENTIRETY

1st Prize: (L$10,000)
ONE AND FOUR TIMEBOARDS by L1Aura Loire

"Thank you very much for this award.  I'm thrilled to be a part of the art community in SL, and create art in virtual worlds.   I believe what we are doing here with 3d immersive and interactive art is as important and groundbreaking as what Joseph Kosuth and the conceptual artists did with pieces like "One and Three Chairs," on which my piece is based, and installed meticulously according to Kosuth's directions by curator FreeWee Ling.   (Plus the extra teleportation script and vortex experience from my machinima "Time Journey" that highlights what we can do only in virtual art!)  I hope people enjoyed the experience of the piece and also considered how virtual art connects to the developments in art that have gone before it, and on whose shoulders we necessarily stand, and off which we can teleport"  L1Aura Loire

L1Aura's kindergarten twins were nearby and could be heard on voice when the announcements were made. "My kids were soooo! excited! they were saying: you won first prize!  yayy mummy!! one of them was saying, What is the prize?  is it those big boots? someone was wearing big boots in front of my avatar. The other one was far from the screen and kind of jumping around. One thought "UWA" was supposed to be "USA" so he corrected me. lol." L1Aura Loire

2nd Prize: (L$7,500)
UNE HORDE DE CORDES by Aristide Despres


"Thank you for the UWA team for this prize that encourages me strongly to keep on going which my little reseach on random sounds. I am specially happy for the winning of Lollito Larkham today ! Lollito is particularly engaged in the creation with Blender, he deserves that totally !" Aristide Despres

3rd Prize: (@L$2,500)
5x8 COMPOUND CUBE by Wizard Gynoid

TIME AS A HELIX OF SEMI-PRECIOUS STONES by Miso Susanowa


"I am very happy that this work could expose many people to the wonderful vision of Kandinsky, who saw the world as a beautiful, vibrant and moving space of color and light." Miso Susanowa

Best Non-Scripted Prize : (L$5,000)
SPATIAL by Sledge Roffo


"I'm touched.  It means so much...many months of work..and I am honored for the prize.  Thanks so much." Sledge Roffo

UTSA Prize: (L$5,000)
DEATH TO PROFIT by Anley Piers


"Thank you for this prize UTSA , I am really surprised and happy for this ^ ^ thx at the UTSA staff , really ; ))" Anley Piers

SL Art Prize: (L$5,000)
BUTTERFLY BALL by Milly Sharple

 "I am honoured to receive this prize for my little whimsy - thank you SL Art" Milly Sharple

Odyssey Prize: (L$5,000)
UNCANNY VALLEY by Oberon Onmura

"This piece is a new direction for me. It was really interesting to see how much discussion it created, and how varied were the responses to it. I don't know if this is a direction I'll continue to explore, but it's great to know that there is support for artists trying out new things."  Oberon Onmura

Pirats Prize: (L$5,000)
THE REAL COST OF OIL by Toughlove Sabra

"I am amazed at winning, and more amazed at the caliber of artists in the challenge.....I am still in shock....I mean, WOW ..Thanks to all those that make this happen and challenge us all to create...and inspire us to keep creating the most amazing works." Toughlove Sabra

CARP Prize: (L$5,000)
THE HUMANICAL FROG by Lollito Larkham


"I'm so happy ! Allways exciting to attend a contest, but specially here with all those great artist participating. And  it's a good reaction to my art piece which i consider a new direction in my work in SL. I must thanks also Artistide Despres for her help in scripting The Humanical Frog" Lollito Larkham

Nordan Art Prize: (L$5,000)
TSUNAMI by Betty Tureaud


BOSL Prize: (L$5,000)
THE HUMANICAL FROG by Lollito Larkham


S&S Gallery OFA Prize (L$5,000)
REFACER by Lollito Larkham


Tornado Gallery (L$5,000)
TIME AS A HELIX OF SEMI-PRECIOUS STONES by Miso Susanowa


The Workhouse & Art place d-oo-b Prize (L$5,000)
HOUSE OF UNEASY CHAIRS by Hypatia Pickens


project Z Prize: (L$5,000)
DANU by Pumpkin Tripsa


Curator's Choice Award (L$5,000):
WITNESS: THE GROWTH OF AN IDEA by Secret Rage


"Thuds! hahaha... I didnt come here really to try to win...just to be a part of it all ....but it is very very nice to win as well... but thuds is my real reaction...lol" Secret rage

People's Choice Award, 1st Prize: (L$2,500)
BALL by Silene Christen


People's Choice Award, 2nd Prize: (L$1,000)
QUALIX by Luko Enoch


ARTICLES REFERENCING UWA EVENTS IN MAY
Soror Nishi on Wizrad Gynoid's Full SIM Work
Juanita Daharo on Wizard Gynoid's FULL SIM Work & UWA
AHUVA on Wizard & Miso @ UWA
Honour McMillan on Wizard @ UWA
Lalo Telling on Wizard & Miso @ UWA
Nordan Art Blog on the May Round of the UWA 3D Open Art Challenge
Chestnut Rau on MachinimUWA IV
Virtual Outworlding on MachinimUWA IV

 For anyone interested in seeing the full text of the announcement by Jayjay Zifanwe, delivered from 6am slt on Sunday, 5th June, it is reproduced as follows:

Greetings everyone, and welcome to the University of Western Australia, or UWA as she is known and also welcome to the MAY round announcement of winners and party for the UWA 3D Open Art Challenge. As is tradition at UWA, I would like to acknowledge that the University is situated on Nyoongar land and that the Nyoongar people remain the spiritual and cultural custodians of their land and continue to uphold their values, languages, beliefs and knowledge.

This is the 7th of 12 monthly rounds for the UWA 3D Open Art Challenge. Not so long before it all comes to an end! The first thing I would like to do is to thank and acknowledge the major art houses and groups in Second Life that are part of this Grand Collaboration. These include The University of Texas San Antonio (UTSA) led by Dr Carmen Fies, SL Art led by Gleman Jun & Sunset Quinnel, CARP led by Josina Burgess & Velazquez Bonetto, Pirats Art Network led by  Merlina Rokocoko & Newbab Zsigmond, Odyssey led by Fau Ferdinand & Lizsolo Mathilde,  BOSL led by Frolic Mills and Editorial Clarity, Nordan Art led by Flora Nordanskiold, S&S Gallery of Fine Art led by TheDove Rhode, The Workhouse Gallery led by Astarte Haalan, Art Place d-oo-b led by Eifachfilm Vacirca, The Tornado Gallery led by Taralyn Gravois, project Z led by Zachh Cale and UWA with Professor Ted Snell, Chair of the Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council for the Arts as Chair of the UWA judging panel.

UWA would also like to acknowledge fellow sponsors, MidnightRain Glas, Philip Vought, Bohemian Ghost and Patch Thibaud.

78 entries were received for the MAY round, spread out across this sim-wide 'Living Gallery'! Was great to see lots of new artists (to the UWA Challenges) in the May round including Cat Carfagno, Delgado Cinquetti, Finn Lanzius, Lollito Larkham, Persephone Requiem, Rory Torrance, spiral silverstar, torno Kohime, Toughlove Sabra,  Uman Kesslinger, zany foxtrot and Zeni Rain to name a few.

We have been through 19 monthly rounds since all this started in August 2009 and more than 400 artists have been involved. Through now... only one artist has been part of every single round. None other than the incomparable soror Nishi! Thank you for your amazing support! I have heard she has started geting skilled at Machinima as well, and hopefully we see a soror Nishi entry for MachinumUWA IV.

This L$1,000,000 challenge will see more than L$80,000 being distributed each month, with the Grand Prize winner at the end of it all pocketing a cool L$100,000. The many contributions coming in from everyone through the little donations receiver will this year be put towards special prizes, including the Curator's Choice Award.

It is important to me to also acknowledge everyone who did contribute over the month towards prizes across the year and the Grand Finale. Thank you Lollito Larkham, jumiray Waffle, Gumby Roffo, Sangreal Arnica, Ava Whelan, Milly Sharple, Clovis Luik, Eliza Wierwight, Moeuhane Sandalwood, Armany Thursday, Moll Fitzroy, Hypatia Pickens and alea Rae.

As always I acknowledge the international connections made through SL, and up to now, the various challenges have seen artists, builders and machinimatographers hailing from India,  Colombia, Poland, Norway, South Africa, Sweden, Ukraine, Taiwan, Hungary, Latvia, Russia, Venezuela,  Belgium, Mexico, Wales, Canada, the USA, the UK, Uruguay, Scotland,England, Spain, Switzerland, Italy, France, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Denmark, Holland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Portugal, Austria, Cuba, Serbia, Tunisia, Germany, Japan, New Zealand and Australia. 6 of the 7 continents of the world represented.

At this point I would like for all of you to help me acknowledge the amazing work required to keep all of this going. Curator of the UWA 3D Open Art Challenge & Creator of  gallery .......  FreeWee Ling.

Do check out the amazing photo gallery she has put together over the months https://picasaweb.google.com/freeweel

As always many things happened since the last announcements.

We had Yesikita Coppola's official machinima of the APRIL round winners:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT_E3Dp6a_g&feature=player_embedded

Unfortunately Yesikita will be away the next 2 months and she can't create one for the May and June rounds, but I am very happy to announce that Laslopantomik Yao has kindly agreed to step in for the month of May! For June, I will have to think about what I can do for June, as, umm I dont know many machinimatographers....

We had an incredible 50 entries come in  for MachinimUWA III: Journeys, congratulations to the many winners, especially to the Joint-Champions, Eric Boccara and Tutsy Navarathna. Heartfelt thanks also to Peter Greenaway who kindly was the guest speaker of honour on the day. For those of you who missed the happenings, save this link please:
http://uwainsl.blogspot.com/2011/05/eric-boccara-tutsy-navarathna-grand.html

A hard to believe post script to MachinimUWA III happened, and led to me writing the first true article I have ever written on the blog, titled 'The Most Important Thing I have Done in Second Life'. Also the machinima 'Twinkle's Journey' and the '100 Treasures of UWA' book was donated to North Woodvale Primary School in Australia, curtesy of Bay Sweetwater of California. Photos of the handover event to the principal of the school, and the remarkable events associated with it can be found here:
http://uwainsl.blogspot.com/2011/06/twinkle-arrives-at-north-woodvale.html

Along with this I encourage you to please listen to this amazing song, 'Emelia Sleeps', by Loveshadow http://ccmixter.org/files/Loveshadow/26807

The UWA RL/SL Photo Comp ( UWA Friends of the Grounds Photo Comp) just close on the 31st of May as well. Results will be known by the end of June. I received the following message from the organizers:

"Finally, I have been able to review all the entries to the competition.  I shall paste in as section of the summary I have made.  At this stage, I have not seen the images so I cannot say exactly how many are from the virtual world - some are obvious, some suspected and others ... who knows? 
Number of entrants:   
-    60 (with 240 images)  which includes: 13 old friends [ie they submitted last time, too] & 8 recognizably from Second Life

Entries have come in from Perth, Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangkalan, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Balearic Islands, Illinois USA. There are quite a few related to the Hail Storm of March 2010 and its aftermath. The virtual Sunken Garden has a good workout - as do the parrots therein! there is also an image of the Winthrop Tower under water."

Actually, its not that it was underwater. Was the first time she saw an image like that. It was actually taken from below the Linden water surface in the reflecting pond looking up at Winthrop Clock Tower! Anyway the organizers have told me that they are keen to ensure that at least ONE second life photo is among those selected as it does represent something different. This will go into an RL calendar for 2012.

For UWA's full sim art series, I thank Wizard Gynoid and the mathematical wonders brought to us throughout the month of MAY. Sacred Geometry, the 'Fractalized Tensegrity Icosahedron' and the like. And we move on to an artist whose work we have not seen in some time. Mostly because shes been working with a mean and demanding taskmaster who has not allowed her any time for her own art to flourish. Very thrilled to say that in a few days, the UWA FULL SIM ART Series will open with the works of FreeWee Ling!

We had also announced over the past month that we were taking the advice we received from a survey sent out to keep the monthly collections together for a longer period, and are thus will be closing entries on the 20th of each month, meaning the full sets of monthly art collections are together for 2 weeks at least. We're still collecting your ideas and impressions about the UWA Challenges. If you haven't yet had a chance to participate in the survey, please save the following link. It will be open for another two weeks perhaps. It shouldnt take more than 5 minutes, and will help me out a great deal. Go to: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/UWASecondLife

AND, I also now officialy launch MachinimUWA IV: Art of the Artists (Series 2)! Ask me for the NC after the announcements, and news will also be up on the UWA blog. For this at present we have a L$230,000 prize pool. The challenge here is to create a machinima that features some (or one) of the artworks submitted to the UWA 3D Open Art Challenge. You can choose to film as many (or as few) as you like, and you may submit any number of entries. The theme is wide open, only the subject matter is fixed in that it must have been exhibited at some point for the UWA 3D Open Art Challenge. This is in a sense a tribute to the wonderful 3D artists who have created all the masterful works that surround you now. A big thank you to the incredible Eliza Wierwight for the challenge logo!
http://uwainsl.blogspot.com/2011/06/journey-continues-machinimuwa-iv-art-of.html

I would like also to acknowledge the members of the UWA judging panel. On the panel were:
1. Professor Ted Snell (RL) - Director, Cultural Precinct, The University of Western Australia 
2. John Barret-Lennard (RL) - Curator of the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, UWA 
3. Raphaella Nightfire (SL) -  Snr Writer Best of SL Magazine, Owner Sanctorum Gallery
4. Len Zuks (RL) - Award Winning West Australian Sculpturist 
5. FreeWee Ling (SL) - Curator, UWA 3D Open Art Challenge
6. Laetitia Wilson (RL) - Assistant Professor, School of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts, UWA
7. Lyn DiCiero (RL) - Editor, WA Artist's Chronicle
8. And king of the photocopier machine  ...... Yours Truly

Those who followed procedings last year would know that for the Grand Finale, the panel expands to include many SL Art personalities, and for this new challenge, the expanded panel will include:
1. Sasun Steinbeck  -  Creator of the Art Galleries of SL list at http://sasun.info/ArtGalleriesofSL.aspx
2. Tayzia Abattoir (SL) Owner of  The Oldest Virtual World Art Museum in SL, curator of the Aho Museum & Arts Simulacra on the NMC Campus and Relay For LIfe of SL Event Chair
3. Lumiere Noir (SL) - Creator of the Ivory Tower Library of Primitives
4. Dr. Phylis Johnson (RL) - Media  Professor, Southern Illinois Uinversity, Author - Machinima: Aesthetics and Practice (a.k.a, Sonicity Fitzroy, SL Virtual Journalist)
5. Rowan Derryth (SL) - Art & Design Historian; Writer for Prim Perfect Publications
6. Persia Bravin (SL) -   Journalist and Media Producer (SL newspapers, magazines, radio and television)
7  Dr Carmen Fies (RL) - Second Life Lead: University of Texas San Antonio & UTSA Artspace
8. Apollo Manga (SL) - examiner.com Writer & Novelist
9.  Jordan Whitt (SL) - Editor in Chief, ICON Lifestyle Magazine
10. Mariposa Upshaw (SL) - Curator - Ventura Art & Jardine; Officer, Arts Council of Second Life
11. Saffia Widdershins (SL) - Owner and Editor of Prim Perfect Publications
12. Phillip Vought (SL) - Art Philanthropist & Founding Patron of UWA-BOSL Amphitheatre
13. Bohemian Ghost (SL) - Art Philanthropist & Owner of Summerland Estates
14. Ally Aeon (SL) - Founder Aeonia Artist Group, creator/owner of the art region Aeonia
15.  Aino Baar (SL) - Owner of the Open This End Group

Now for the winners. The winners will be announced in 1 minute intervals. We invite everyone to comment and congratulate the winners and for the winners to respond before the next announcement (and if they could please use the SHOUT function).

First the People's Choice Awards. For this, I always start off by thanking GeeJAnn Blackadder, who created this wonderful voting system for us.  Its been working a treat since being set up, and greatly assists in the running of the People's Choice!

The People's Choice Award, where all of SL is invited to vote, carries a 1st ($L2,500) and a 2nd prize ($L1,000). A lot of interesting works in the running for the MAY awards, and came down to the final few votes cast!

For the PEOPLE'S CHOICE AWARD, 2nd prize (L$1,000) goes to:
Qualix by Luko Enoch

Very happy for Luko. I believe this is Luko's first award. Well deserved.

And I am very happy that the following won the this as I could spend hours watching it. The winner of the MAY PEOPLE'S CHOICE AWARD (L$2,500) is:
BALL by Silene Christen

Very strong in the voting for the People's Choice Award (and in no particular order) were  .......  Maryva  Mayo's 'Kaleidoscope', Cherry Manga's 'Poetry Elixir', Lollito Larkham's 'HUmanical Frog', Spiral Silverstar's 'Zen Fractalis', Milly Sharple's 'Butterfly Ball', Secret Rage's 'Peace of Mind'. Miso Susanowa's 'Time as a helix of Semi Precious Stones' and Cherry Manga's 'Soul Nourishment'.

TEN Art Group Prizes of L$5,000 each have been awarded by the various judging panels for the MAY Round of the UWA 3D Open Art Challenge:

The Odyssey Prize (L$5,000) with a panel led by Fau Ferdinand & Lizsolo Mathilde goes to
UNCANNY VALLEY by Oberon Onmura

The SL Art Prize (L$5,000) with a panel led by Gleman Jun & Sunset Quinnell goes to:
BUTTERFLY BALL by Milly Sharple

Said the SL Art committee, "The quality of the textures are so good and she matches different color tones so perfectly. The forms she uses are elegant and different and the movements are soft and amazing"

The UTSA Prize (L$5,000) with a panel led by Dr Carmen Fies goes to:
DEATH TO PROFIT by Anley Piers

The CARP Prize (L$5,000) whose focus is on scripting with a panel led by Velasquez Bonnetto & Josina Burgess goes to:
THE HUMANICAL FROG by Lollito Larkham

Next the joint Workhouse & Art Place d-o-o-b Prize (L$5,000) with a panel led by Astarte Haalan and Elfachfilm Vacirca goes to:
HOUSE OF UNEASY CHAIRS by Hypatia Pickens

The panel said, "are pleased to award the prize for May to Hypatia Pickens for  House of Uneasy Chairs. We found this work to be a fresh exploration of the tensions and anxieties of domesticity. The accompanying machinima expressed a profound sense of solitude and yearning. We loved the way this piece interactively combined flat images, sculpture, movement, video, poetry and music. It captures a moment of detachment and doubt we’ve all felt at one time or another"

The BOSL Prize (L$5,000) with a panel led by Frolic Mills & Editorial Clarity goes to:
THE HUMANICAL FROG by Lollito Larkham

2 Group Prizes for the Humanical Frog, means direct entry to the Grand Finale round!

The Nordan Art Prize (L$5,000) with a panel led by Flora Nordenskiold:
TSUNAMI by Betty Tureaud

The panel offered "Betty Tureaud's work 'Tsunami' consists of a large transparent green box. The transparent part of the bottom of the box is darker green, making it look like water. In the water there are three large tilted houses moving and floating. Sporadically shooting up from the bottom to the top of the box are white human shapes. Looking at this work, one is struck by the simplicity of it; box, houses and white figures. Yet it soon becomes clear that this seemingly simple creation relays a message of a more complex nature, namely the tragic consequences of the tsunami. Betty's work stands out to Nordan Art because she has succeeded in using a few simple symbols to relay a difficult event. It makes the viewer contemplate this disaster and the devastation and losses that inevitably resulted from it. Betty uses a few basic forms and movements and manages to leave a lasting impression."

The Pirats Prize: (L$5,000) with a panel led by Merlina Rokocoko & Newbab Zsigmond goes to:
THE REAL COST OF OIL by Toughlove Sabra

First time Toughlove has submitted an artwork, and takes the Pirats prize!

The S&S Gallery OFA Prize (L$5,000) with a panel led by TheDove Rhode goes to:
REFACER by Lollito Larkham

Said the panel, "Thank you for this amazing piece!!  Hands put to a motion not always expressed. Bravo!!"

3 Group awards in the first appearance by Lollito Larkham! Amazing. We hope to see much more from Lollito in coming months.

The Tornado Gallery Prize (L$5,000) with a panel led by Taralyn Gravois goes to:
TIME AS A HELIX OF SEMI-PRECIOUS STONES by Miso Susanowa

A member of the Tornado Gallery panel commented, "This piece immediately caught my eye, and then when I read that it was a reflection of Kandisky, one of my favorite artists, it all made sense. Miso did a great job of making this 3D piece feel like a Kandisky, the colors and movement pull you into the piece just like a Kandisky. Thank you Miso for sharing your talent"

The project Z Prize (L$5,000) with a panel led by Zachh Cale goes to:
DANU by Pumpkin Tripsa

Next, in FreeWee's words:
"The Curator's Choice serves to highlight and encourage work by artists who show depth of vision, passion, or promise. This month's recipient shows all of these traits.   I have watched with interest as this artist's work has grown in quality and sophistication over the last several months. I look forward to seeing what comes next. "

FreeWee Ling's Curator's Choice Award (L$5,000) goes to:
WITNESS: THE GROWTH OF AN IDEA by Secret Rage

Now for the Best Non-Scripted entry. The MAY round saw furious debate among the UWA panel whose members favoured different works. Normally we settle differences by awarding a joint-prize, but this time the fight went on, and and one side came out on top. And so the winner of the Best Non-Scripted Entry (L$5,000) is:

SPATIAL by Sledge Roffo

stopping Haveit Neox from going back-to-back-to-back in the non-scripted category!

Now for the top 3 Prizes.  All of these works will go straight to the Grand Finale round. From what you see in the Group awards, and the great variety there is there every month, one can imagine that its always hard to choose, and May was a particularly difficult month with many many deserving works just missing out.
3rd Prize for the UWA 3D Open Art Challenge  for MAY  goes to:

5x8 COMPOUND CUBE by Wizard Gynoid

a small component of the incredible FULL SIM WORK that Wizzy created, and yet standing on its own as well in gaining a top 3 spot with only 100 prims!

HOWEVER, while it may stand on its own, it does NOT stand alone in 3rd place. Exhausted from the long discussions that allowd a single winner for the Non-Scripted category, the panel compromised and awarded a Joint 3rd Prize.

AND joint 3rd Prize (@L$2,500) for the UWA 3D Open Art Challenge for MAY, goes to:
TIME AS A HELIX OF SEMI-PRECIOUS STONES by Miso Susanowa

In the first year of the challenge Miso won numerous awards but did not feature in the Grand Finale. This year, Miso has 3 works in the Grand Finale.

Both 3rd prize winners were also actually very close to 2nd, however we did just manage to avoid all 3 getting 2nd prize, with the next creation just winning out. So, 2nd Prize (L$7,500) for the UWA 3D Open Art Challenge for MAY goes to:

UNE HORDE DE CORDES by Aristide Despres

Now to the winner of the UWA 3D Open Art Challenge for MAY, following in the footsteps of past champions Snubnose Genopeak, Glyph Graves,  Atomic Gaffer, Fuschia Nightfire/Flivelwitz Alsop, Julez Odigaunt, FreeWee Ling, Bryn Oh, Nish Mip, Josina Burgess, Cherry Manga, Igor Ballyhoo, Suzanne Graves, Lea Supermarine/Jarapanda Snook, Ginger Alsop, Gleman Jun and Dusty Canning.

It is with great pleasure that we announce that the Winner of 1st Prize for the UWA 3D Open Art Challenge for MAY 2011 is:

ONE AND FOUR TIMEBOARDS by L1Aura Loire

Yes, the one and only  L1Aura Loire or Professor Lori Landay, Associate Professor of Cultural Studies at Berklee College of Music..... This artwork actually came about because of MachinimUWA III: Journeys, and was an integral part of her Machinima submission, 'Time Journey', which you can see here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpWN0ELs0jk

Congratulations to all the winners and a big thank you to all the artists who have entered the UWA 3D Open Art Challenge. We are officially receiving artworks for JUNE, so please do send in your entries as soon as possible as the entries will close on the 20th of the month in line with the survey feedback we had. And again the survey link is here https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/UWASecondLife

A big thanks and welcome back to to our DJ Eifachfilm Vacirca to whom I will be handing the floor, for the "Power Half Hour". 30 minutes of after tunes to enlight your minds and to move your stereo. Please help me look after him everyone. Over to you Eif.

Saturday, May 28, 2011

The Most Important Thing I have Done In Second Life

The Evolution of Understanding

I have a little more than  2 years of experience in Second Life. In this time some amazing things have happened... nomination for the Linden Prize, building of Winthrop & the Sunken Gardens, the art and machinima challenges, hosting the artwork of then CEO of Linden Labs, M Linden, Peter Greenaway being guest of honour at UWA, and many more things. However, in my mind, what I will do this Tuesday, will be the most important. I'll explain below.

Now I dont normally write like this. There is in almost all of my previous posts, an 'official sheen'. However I need to be myself if I want to convey this evolution of understanding that has come about in me through a number of things that have happened across and following MachinimUWA III: Journeys.

 
I think these days, it is very hard to get below the surface with anything, to really know something or someone beyond the superficial exterior. News, happenings with acquaintances, friends, relatives sometimes go by in a blizzard of email, facebook and twitter posts. Many times we look, we read, we post, but we do not really see, we do not truly understand, nor do we really communicate. Sometimes though something happens that allows me to break through this fog...

On the 4th of February, MachinimUWA III was launched.... entries started coming in steadily, and on the 11th of April, I received an entry called 'Twinkle's Journey', by Bay Sweetwater of North California, USA, and it carried this message from Bay. "My machinima entry for MachinimUWA III is finally done and entered. Wipes forehead in relief. What a heartrending ordeal."

 I looked at it, I remember wondering a little bit about why I didnt see the star too much through 'Twinkle's Journey', apart from right at the start, and I do remember one of my colleagues commenting to me that it was very different from all the others. I didnt really know how to relate to it though then, and to me it seemed a quaint video for kids. The comment I made on the machinima in fact referenced not the machinima, but one of the art creators whose work featured in it:

"Very nice Bay... and wow... Julia Hathor, of legend"

The competition continued, and reached its finale on the 22nd of May 2011 Peter Greenaway's talk and the winners announcements. 'Twinkle's Journey' did not feature among the winners. Bay Sweetwater however, did, as she was in a 4-way tie for 3rd place in the viewer participation event. Part of her prize was to be the book '100 Treasures From UWA' released for the 2011 centenary of the University of Western Australia.

The following day many people sent me links to various news articles and posts about the winners ceremonies, and one of the links I received, was a link to a post Bay Sweetwater had written in her blog:

"I was feeling so low all day (yes, even tears) at my little “Twinkle’s Journey” video not placing anywhere in the MachinimUWAIII machinima competition this year. (See results here, heartfelt congratulations to all the amazing winners and award recipients)."

I know through my experience over the past 2 years with the art and machinima challenges that there will always be brilliance missing out on any awards that might be given out following the conclusion of the challenges, and I always try to be encouraging with anyone I know to be feeling disheartened, and hence, I responded to her in comments as follows:

"Hey Bay, don’t feel down. Your work was wonderful, and had a lot of great comments during the Machinima review days. Full audio is linked on the uwa website. It was truly truly hard not to give everyone something. some brilliant brilliant works including your missed out, and with so many talented artists and machinimatographers out there, thats always going to happen. Chin up. Smile. Your work is wonderful"

I then reminded her that she had actually won a prize, and that there was to be a book posted to her. She said instead of sending it to her, I should donate it to a primary school. When I heard this I thought it was a rather unusual request and I was a little ambivalent as to whether I would in fact do that, or let it be, as I was busy organizing to post the book to all the other winners and it would have been so much easier if I could have done the same in this case.

Anyway, some little thing inside me told me I should contact a school, and try to honour the request.  And so it was that I contacted the principal of the North Woodvale Primary School, Greg Brice, and told him that, someone in the United States had won a prize, and asked for me to donate this prize to a school, and that I would like to donate it to North Woodvale Primary, along with the machinima 'Twinkle's Journey' that Bay had created (this will be happening on Tuesday, the 31st of May).

Having organized this, I wrote to Bay and told her this and asked if she had a message that I could convey, as I was giving this on her behalf (in my mind, it was to be a message to the principal). Anyway, here is the message Bay asked me to convey:

Twinkle always believed in herself and her dreams, and look, she got all the way to the stars! You can too. Always believe in yourselves, no matter what anybody says, and you'll find your dreams, just like Twinkle. I'm so glad you're watching my little video. You'll probably notice that you feel Twinkle in the movie, but you don't see her anywhere! That's Twinkle's little mystery. No one can see her, but she lives everywhere. You can feel her in the trees and the rocking horse and the unicorn--all the things she loves. Especially that star up in the sky that has her name. So when you go home tonight, go outside when it gets real dark and wave to Twinkle high up in the sky. I bet she'll wave back to you! A big hug to every one of you, Bay Sweetwater

Again, I thought it a rather unusual message, and found it quaint she chose to direct her comment to the kids. But I did flash a smile when I saw through this comment, that the star not being present through most of the machinima was by design, and I thought here it made sense at last as to why I didnt see the star throughout the journey.

So,  had organized everything, had received the message, and copied the movie onto a thumb drive and was feeling good that I could do this. And I decided to watch the machinima again. 'Nice songs', I remember thinking.

But I still wasn't 100% happy with the message, and I wrote again  to Bay (26th May, 11:57)  saying:

"One other thing I would like you to add, if you could, is a general message from you to them (the kids). why you wanted to give your prize to them :)"

A few hours later (26 May, 14:37), I was to write again:

"Hi Bay
Oh my... i have read it now a few times and finally really really understand it. Its perfect Bay. In every way."


What had happened was, I had watched Twinkle's Journey again, and finally saw what I should have seen before. The comments she had in the description:

"A child's journey to the stars, told by those of us who are left behind."

I was thunderstruck. I was finally starting to see.... the curious words appearing close to the start of the  in the machinima became crystal clear to me at last:

"How I wonder where you are my little star. We thought you'd gone, yet here you are. You never left us."

The words from her blog, when she submitted the machinima, came back to me... 'what a heartrending ordeal'. I could hear the sound of a million pennies dropping.

I went back to her blog, and saw another post which said the following:

"I love my Twinkle’s Journey entry. I know it’s probably not the best technically or artistically, but my heart is in it. Here’s a poem for Twinkle; no matter how far your journey to the stars, your home is always in my heart.

FIREFLY IN A JAR
by Bay Sweetwater
Spring never woke that year, no eye
beheld the flowers, no tender sigh
escaped its lips. My tears wouldn’t dry.
I hailed a passing butterfly.
He’ll carry me, he’ll carry me.

Through stormy nights and days anew,
O’er woodland green and waters blue,
I see all love come shining through.
Yeah, love itself will get me through,
And carry me, and carry me.

It doesn’t matter where you are,
My own cupped hand or farflung star,
I’ll always hold you in my heart:
My firefly in a jar.
I’ll carry you, I’ll carry you.
It was so clear now to me how Bay was in overcoming her sorrow trying to share the best memories of her little star with all of us. I was so glad that I had taken the trouble to contact the school and had looked beyond the surface.

I watched Twinkle's Journey again and felt drawn to one of the songs in it.
Emelia Sleeps, by Loveshadow. I searched for the words and found them:

Emelia 9.04.08 - 4.01.09

Emelia Sleeps
Under pastures green
Under leafy Skies
By the old Oak tree

And the windmills turn
And the toys will fade
The Seasons come
And the angels play

Emelia Sleeps
But she speaks to me
From another place
In eternity

Tells me she was loved
More than most will know
China Teddy Bears
Say it’s so

If I could trade one day
Then I surely would
Cause Emelia Sleeps
By the Blubell wood.

LS 2010 


There was not one, but 2 heart rending stories contained in Twinkle's Journey. Mirroring my thoughts that many of us look but do not see, these comments were made by someone who has listened to Emelia Sleeps,  'A sweet and tender lullaby', to which Loveshadow responded, '...if only it were just a lullaby'.

I made an announcement that Bay had donated her prize to the School, and more people started to understand the truth behind Twinkle's Journey, and had I believe communicated their feelings and support to Bay.

I had hoped that all of this would somehow help her through her grief, but it wasn't something I could ask of course. Then she posted this message in the comments section of Twinkle's Journey:

"Thank you everyone for all your kind and heartwarming comments. They mean more to me than I can say. How thoughtful of you, Jay Jay, to extend Twinkle's Journey to Woodvale school, along with the copy of the UWA book, quite an amazing treasure in itself! Btw, in addition to Loveshadow's bittersweet tune "Emelia," this video features the music of Anchor Mejans' gladdening song "Welcome Home," which opened up my heart to make this little video. A big hug to you all."

And this is the evolution of my understanding, and in my thoughts the most significant chapter in what has been my own journey through Second Life, and will come full circle when Twinkle makes the journey to North Woodvale Primary School.

Jay Jay


EDIT:
This is what happened next, with images of the occasion at the Primary School 







Friday, May 27, 2011

31st MAY CLOSING - UWA RL (and SL) Photographic Competition: A Century of Seasons

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University of Western Australia's "A Century of Seasons Photographic Competition" is being held to celebrate the diversity of The University of Western Australia’s campus at Crawley as well as other sites associated with the University. Images that reflect the seasonal, scenic, academic, botanical and/or atmospheric characteristics of these sites are sought.

Closing Date : 31st May 2011
Method of Entry: Webform on UWA Office of Development and Alumni Relations Website

MAIN PAGE:
http://www.development.uwa.edu.au/friends/fog/photo-competition

ENTRY FORM
http://www.development.uwa.edu.au/friends/fog/photo-competition/entry-form

TERMS & CONDITIONS http://www.development.uwa.edu.au/friends/fog/photo-competition/terms

MESSAGE FOR SL RESIDENTS FROM JAY JAY ZIFANWE:
The above is taken from the website of the Office of Development and Alumni Relations, UWA. This was initially envisioned by them as an RL only Photo competition, however, they have now confirmed to me that PHOTOS TAKEN IN SECOND LIFE AT THE UWA CAMPUS ARE ELIGIBLE!

I am adding a L$25,000 prize to anyone whose works are selected for the calendar.

This is the message I received from the Chair of the UWA Friends of the Grounds Photographic Competition and Calendar Sub-committee.

"I was forwarded your email [as chairperson of the relevant group who organizes it] last week regarding the eligibility of photos for the virtual UWA site. Having consulted the others in the Group, all of whom attended your excellent presentation a few weeks ago, we think it is a great idea – the competition is called 'A Century of Seasons' and surely this includes the 'then', the 'now' and the future. Please encourage your friends to submit their images. I look forward to seeing them – and hearing the comments of the judges."

I am not closely involved in the running of this competition, and in fact intend to submit a few snaps myself. If any avatars feature in a photo you want to send in, please have written permission from the person allowing you to send the photo in.

The SL campus at UWA is made up of both replications of the campus grounds, as well as areas that exist only in second life. I do not have detailed knowledge of the judging criteria, but my personal advice would be to focus on areas of the campus which can be recognized against the RL campus, meaning areas like the UWA 3D Open Art Challenge Gallery, will probably have no traction (and this is just my guess). To assist the many who would be unfamiliar with the RL campus, here are some suggested areas, that the panel would recognize as being representative of UWA:

Winthrop Clock Tower & Reflecting Pond

Sunken Gardens
Physics Building

School of Business Building
The Ken & Julie Michael Building (Motorola Building)

Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery
Moreton Bay Fig Trees

Peacocks
UWA Law Building









Thursday, May 26, 2011

Twinkle's Journey to North Woodvale Primary School

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Bay Sweetwater (of the United States) won one of the prizes announced at the 22nd of May Grand Finale of MachinimUWA III. One of her prizes was to be the book '100 Treasures From UWA'. Bay had however requested that the book be donated to a Primary School of my choice.

This has been arranged, and on Tuesday the 31st of May, the book, along with a copy of the Machinima created by Bay, 'Twinkle's Journey' will be given to the School Principal of the North Woodvale Primary School (Western Australia), Greg Brice during a school assembly.

I asked Bay if she would be kind enough to share a message with the children, and this is what she sent:

"Twinkle always believed in herself and her dreams, and look, she got all the way to the stars! You can too. Always believe in yourselves, no matter what anybody says, and you'll find your dreams, just like Twinkle. I'm so glad you're watching my little video. You'll probably notice that you feel Twinkle in the movie, but you don't see her anywhere! That's Twinkle's little mystery. No one can see her, but she lives everywhere. You can feel her in the trees and the rocking horse and the unicorn--all the things she loves. Especially that star up in the sky that has her name. So when you go home tonight, go outside when it gets real dark and wave to Twinkle high up in the sky. I bet she'll wave back to you! A big hug to every one of you, Bay Sweetwater"

As per the tributes on the machinima, Twinkle's Journey is "A child's journey to the stars, told by those of us who are left behind."

"I love my Twinkle’s Journey entry. I know it’s probably not the best technically or artistically, but my heart is in it. Here’s a poem for Twinkle; no matter how far your journey to the stars, your home is always in my heart."

FIREFLY IN A JAR
by Bay Sweetwater

Spring never woke that year, no eye
beheld the flowers, no tender sigh
escaped its lips. My tears wouldn’t dry.
I hailed a passing butterfly.
He’ll carry me, he’ll carry me.

Through stormy nights and days anew,
O’er woodland green and waters blue,
I see all love come shining through.
Yeah, love itself will get me through,
And carry me, and carry me.

It doesn’t matter where you are,
My own cupped hand or farflung star,
I’ll always hold you in my heart:
My firefly in a jar.
I’ll carry you, I’ll carry you.

Thank you Bay, thank you Twinkle. Twinkle's journey now continues to North Woodvale Primary, and we hope will inspire a whole new generation.

EDIT: And thank you Loveshadow for sharing this

Tutsy & Jayjay Interviewed on MBC News: MachinimUWA III, IV & V

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MBC News May 25th, 2011 from Metaverse TV on Vimeo.


Dousa Dragonash interviews Tutsy Navarathna, joint-winner of MachinimUWA III, and Jay Jay Jegathesan/ Jayjay Zifanwe, who gives an insight into what might be in store for the future. (interview proper starts from approximately 14:55)

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Tribute By Open This End on MachinimUWA III

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Aino Baar of Open This End has sent in the following tribute to the MachinimUWA III works. Much thanks to them for their sponsorship of the event and efforts in putting together this E-Book:


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Monday, May 23, 2011

Eric Boccara & Tutsy Navarathna, Grand Prize Winners for MachinimUWA III!

Peter Greenaway Speaks @ Grand Finale (photo by PJ Trenton)

In a nail biting finish to MachinimUWA III: Journeys, it came down to the final judges scorecard sent in 20 minutes before the midnight deadline causing a tie between the double epics of  Eric Boccara's 'Juroney', and Tutsy Navarathna's 'Journey Into the Metaverse' each winning L$85,000 and a special package including the book released this year for the centenary of the University of Western Australia, 'The 100 Treasures of UWA'. Bryn Oh's 'Rusted Gears' took the much coveted Peter Greenaway Prize (L$60,000), while Alfonso Kohn's 'Unplugged', an avatars journey to reconnect with her 'creator' took 3rd prize. 


A small section of the audience (photo by Andy Graycloud) 



The Phoenix Embers Showcats Kicked off the Grand Finale (photo by PJ Trenton)

Results and reactions are summarized next, with the full text of the announcements on the day provided below:

GRAND PRIZE WINNER of  MachinimUWA III (JOINT) (@L$85,000):
JOURNEY INTO THE METAVERSE by Tutsy Navarathna
JURONEY by Eric Boccara of the Netherlands


Tutsy Navarathna (photo by PJ Trenton)

"Wow, what an honor and a pleasure to have my work selected from this group of astoundingly impressive submissions!  Many thanks to the University of Western Australia for its pioneering support of 3D artists and budding "machinimatographers," as together we give birth to this new and exciting art form. Word will spread and the rest of the world will become aware of us soon, no doubt! I would like to specially thank the now-famous Jayjay Zifanwe. Without his vision and enthusiasm, none of this would be possible. And of course, my profound gratitude to all of the 3D artists and builders of Second Life, for their generosity in giving me access to their work, rather than insulating themselves with copyright concerns. I am moved by this display of artistic solidarity and freedom of expression. Special thanks to Blotto Epsilon, for the Spencer Museum of Art, and to SuzeLaRousse Milo, for Risk City." Tutsy Navarathna


Eric Boccara (photo by Jayjay Zifanwe)

"Its an honor to win this award. I honestly did not see it coming, as while my Machinima had flashy graphics detailed animations, and all the good things graphics wise. It didn't have much of a story.
There were Machinimas out in this contest with such a deep story, that i actually wondered if i would stand a chance against it. But to my suprise i won, alongside with the talented tutsy. And guess what. I'l be back for UWA4!" Eric Boccara


Peter Greenaway MachinimUWA III Prize (L$60,000)
RUSTED GEARS by Bryn Oh

"I am honoured to have won this award from Mr. Peter Greenaway.  It is remarkable that a man of his stature would come forward to support the machinima arts. His presence and willingness to engage in dialogue is greatly appreciated.  It helps to illustrate that the critics of this new frontier in art are merely short sighted, as we know most critics are at the beginning of anything which challenges their dominance of understanding.  We are currently in the Salon des Refusés and may we always remain there." Bryn Oh

3rd prize for MachinimUWA III (L$50,000)
UNPLUGGED by Al Peretz (Alfonso Kohn) of Miami Florida, originally hailing from Colombia

"I found an interesting competition. Once again thank those who participated in this film and everyone who saw my movie. This is another step we take to keep learning and improving. In future we hope to present a better job. Congratulations to the winners" Alfonso Kohn

MachinimUWA III Special Award for JOURNEY AND MACHINIMA ADAPTATION (L$37,150):
THE EGG by Animatechnica Umbarundu

"I am turly honored to be recognized tihs in wonderful celebration of art" Animatechnica Umbarundu

MachinimUWA III Special Award for ‘FEEL’ & MUSIC (L$37,150) :
BAKERMAN’S JOURNEY by Arrow Inglewood


"I would like to thank the UWA and Jay Z for their incredible and  generous support, encouragement  and  promotion of  this new art form.  I would like to extend my admiration and  congratulations to everyone who entered and contributed to the growing lexicon of machinima. I would also like to make a special acknowledgement of the Winthrop Hall Clock tower for providing such timely inspiration." Arrow Inglewood

MachinimUWA III Special Award for IMAGERY (L$37,150):
BEGINNING OF KNOWLEDGE AND OF SORROW by Laslopantomik Yao

"Special recognition for Cat Carfagno as she was my right hand in making our little piece posible.
Also special recognition for the great deep australian voice of Talesin Llanfair.  I am amazed how could we ever win such a prize (MachinimUWA III Special Award for IMAGERY ). Imagery sounds magic.  I want to thanx everybody on UWA university, judges and everybody that follows this pioneer event. For me the most important is the journey towards being able to do something that is nice to share with all machinima comunity and makes you feel something. I am very very happy for this recognition. More then all, the best is to  be part of this comunity." Laslopantomik Yao


MachinimUWA III Special Award for NARRATION AND HISTORICAL CONTENT  (L$37,150):
KAPHD by Hypatia Pickens

 I'm so very gratified to receive this award for narration and vocal content.  I think I worked hardest on the voice and singing than even the imagery and animation...take after take after take in Sound Booth.  Thank heavens I learned to sing Hildegard's antiphon, and I love her invented words.  It was such a pleasure creating this for the UWA; I felt I took a risk focusing on the 12th century. My heartfelt thanks to all the judges for thinking well of it, and to the UWA for sponsoring this challenge." Hypatia Pickens

MachinimUWA III Special Award for MESSAGE AND IMAGINATION (L$37,150):
ESCAPE by Veruca Vandyke

"I am grateful of the honor that my movie has recieved and thrilled that others have enjoyed it too." Veruca Vandyke

MachinimUWA III Special Award for INTERPRETATION AND DELIVERY (L$37,150):
WARRIORS OF ALIVENESS by Cecil Hirvi

 "UWA III was one of the best, fairest machinima contests ever devised. Leave it to a Physics guy to run a better art film festival."  Cecil Hirvi

MachinimUWA III  Honourable Mention Prize JOINT  (@L$18,575):
REQUIEM by Kobuk Farshore

THE JOURNEY by Soda Lemondrop

"Very inspirational to know your work is being seen and acknowledged and makes you want to try harder and to create more and better art. Loved being a part of the Machinima and really excited to see what I can create for next year." Soda Lemondrop

MachinimUWA III Viewer Participation Prize 1st Prize (L$30,000)
PIA KLAAR

MachinimUWA III  Viewer Participation Prize  2nd Prize (L$20,000)
CISKO VANDEVERRE

MachinimUWA III  Viewer Participation Prize JOINT- 3rd Prize (@L$2,500) 
ZENI RAIN
LALIE SORBET
BAY SWEETWATER
ARROW  INGLEWOOD

Open This End Awards of Excellence in Film (@L$3,000)
BRYN OH (Toronto, Canada) - Rusted Gears
HYPATIA PICKENS (Rochester, New York, USA) - KAPHD
CECIL HIRVI (Citizen of the Universe) - Warriors of Aliveness
ARROW INGLEWOOD (Toronto, Canada) - Bakerman's Journey
ED VESPUCCIANO (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) - The Marine Corps Does Not Want Robots

Open This End Awards of Excellence in Directing(@L$3,000)
AL PERETZ [ALFONSO KOHN] (Miami, Florida) - Unplugged
ANIMATECHNICA UMBARUNDU (Northern California, USA) - The Egg
ERIC BOCCARA  (Velp, Netherlands) - Juroney
PIA KLAAR (Brewster, Massachusetts, USA) - The Red Shoes
TUTSY NAVARATHNA (Frenchman in Pondicherry, India) - Journey into the Metaverse

Open This End Emerging Artist Awards of Excellence (@L$3,000):
ANDY GRAYCLOUD (Moscow, Russia) - I Want to Go Fast
ANRI EMERALD (Riga, Latvia) - The journey of life and death
FUSCHIA NIGHTFIRE (Dorset, UK) - Take the Road Less Travelled
KOBUK FARSHORE (Alaska, USA) - Requiem & Home
LASLOPANTOMIK YAO (Barcelona, Spain) - Beginning of Knowledge and of Sorrow
MIMESIS MONDAY (Oslo, Norway) - Yourney
NICOLEX MOONWALL (New Orleans, USA) - Journey Into
OONA EIREN (London, UK) - Onward & Upward
SILENE CHRISTEN (The Balears Islands, Spain) - Lost Souls' Island
TAUBCHEN SONNENKERN & MERIT COBA (both of Alkmaar, Netherlands) - Object

NEW WORLD NOTES (WAGNER JAMES AU) REPORT ON THE WINNERS

NORDAN BLOG REPORT ON GRAND FINALE

PJ TRENTON'S PHOTO GALLERY OF GRAND FINALE

MACHINIMUWA III REVIEW WITH LAPISCEAN LIBERTY & KINTE TRILL (FULL AUDIO OF DAY 1 & 2

SOROR NISHI BLOG REPORT ON GRAND FINALE

ROWAN DERRYTH (PRIM PERFECT) BLOG ON GRAND FINALE

NICOLEX MOONWALL MACHINIMA OF THE AFTER PARTY

BRACLO EBER'S BLOG

EDITORIAL CLARITY 'LIVE FROM SECOND LIFE' ON JURONEY

BRYN OH BLOG ON WINNERS

For those who are interested, full text of the announcements by Jayjay Zifanwe which took place from 6am slt, Sunday 22nd May as follows:

Greetings everyone, and welcome to the University of Western Australia, or UWA as she is known and also welcome to the Grand Finale of MachinimUWA III: Journeys, the 3rd in the series of UWA Machinima Challenges. As is tradition at UWA, I would like to acknowledge that the University is situated on Nyoongar land and that the Nyoongar people remain the spiritual and cultural custodians of their land and continue to uphold their values, languages, beliefs and knowledge.

Before I do or say anything else, we have a real cracker to kick off the Grand Finale, and I would like to introduce to you Laurina Hawks and The Phoenix Embers Showcats, with the debut performance of a brand new show! Over to you Laurina!

LAURINA HAWKS & The Phoenix Embers Showcats debut performance of 'The Cinema Show' followed.

Today brings to an end the amazing journey of MachinimUWA III which kicked off on the 4th of February 2011. It will see the end of the rein of Laurina Hawks and Bradley Dorchester who are now on the judging panel, and see a new champion take the mantle from the 50 amazing entries that have come in from Spain, the USA, Mexico, India, Canada, Poland, Spain, Russia, Netherlands, South Africa, Italy, United Kingdom, Germany, Norway, Sweden & The Ukraine. Both Alaska and Antarctica are represented as well!

Its been an absolute pleasure for me to work with some wonderful people who have gone above and beyond the call of duty to make all of this a success.  Many, many of you helped in inumerable ways, but I do want to take this opportunity to thank LaPiecean Liberty, who is one of the true unsung heroes of second life, and with AviewTV has been instrumental in putting everything together. Thanks also to my co-host, machinimatographer, dancer extraordinnaire, and reigning UWA MachinimUWA Champion, Laurina Hawks. Also to Taralyn Gravois for all her work in the lead up to the ceremony, as I am sure she has been speaking to many of you. Thank you to Yesikita Coppola, the UWA Official Machinimatographer, who created the wonderful trailer for MachinimUWA III. Also to Aino Baar and Open This End, co-sponsor, and the craftspersons of quite an amazing surprise, which you will hear of soon. Due to AviewTV, Open This End, Jon Stubbs of UWA, the Cultural Precinct of UWA & the Vice-Chancellery, the Prize pool sits at approximately L$660,000.

But of course, the biggest thank you goes to our Special Guest of Honour, multiple award winning Director and Judge for MachinimUWA III, Peter Greenaway, who not 3 days ago, presented to me the most remarkable series of answers to questions I had asked (and you can find this on the UWA blog). I am honoured to welcome Peter to take the stage.

(Peter Speaks)

Thank you Peter, it was truly a privilege to have you here! At the end of all the announcements, we will be able to hear the amazing voice of Tukso Okey, who has kindly agreed to give one of his much sought after live performances. Someone else I need to acknowledge here are Metaverse TV with Mal Burns and Dousa Dragonash who are covering this event live, and helping to stream voice across the globe. Also thank you for all the amazing exposure you gave to the machinima submitted to the challenge over the past few weeks!

The machinima challenges would not have started if White lebed had not hounded me into starting the very first one, and which was also the most difficult to organize due to the extremely narrow theme, of displaying the Teaching, Research, Art and Architecture at the UWA SIMS. It was a necessary evil.... as because the machinima created by Chantal, Cisko, Bradley, Pyewaket Bellman and others who were part of this broke through the RL barrier at my university. If you will recall, the prize pool for that started with L$10,000 and increased to more than L$220,000 once it was seen by the RL side of UWA. This led to increased funding for machinima, and we had MachinimUWA II: Art of the Artists, followed by the current. I can now confirm that MachinimUWA IV, which is an 'Art of the Artists' challenge tied to the UWA 3D Open Art Challenge, opens immediately after this, and runs through approximately October 2011.

I want to thank our judging panel for their sterling work in looking through the incredible array of 50 entries. It was unbelievably hard to seperate things, and the panel was put to a great deal of work and this was an amazing 26 member panel made up of people from all around the world involved in a diverse array of related areas.

Peter Greenaway (RL) - Acclaimed Director
Professor Ted Snell (RL) - Director, Cultural Precinct, The University of Western Australia
Jay  Jay Jegathesan (RL) / Jayjay Zifanwe (SL) - Manager School of Physics/ Lead of UWA Virtual Worlds
Cristina García-Lasuén (RL) / Aino Baar (SL) International Curator, Art Writer, Founder & Owner of Open This End group
Yesikita Coppola (SL) - Official Machinimatographer for UWA 2011
Laurina Hawks (SL) - Joint Reigning UWA MachinimUWA Champion
FreeWee Ling (SL) - Curator, UWA 3D Open Art Challenge
LaPiscean Liberty (SL) - CEO AviewTV and UWA Virtual World Technical Media Advisor
Nazz Lane (SL) - Journalist and Author
Rowan Derryth (SL) - Art & Design Historian; Writer for Prim Perfect Publications
Apollo Manga (SL) - examiner.com Writer & Novelist
Dr. Phylis Johnson (RL) - Media Professor, Southern Illinois University, Author - Machinima: Aesthetics and Practice (a.k.a, Sonicity Fitzroy, SL Virtual Journalist)
Lowell Cremorne (SL), Owner & Editor-In-Chief, The Metaverse Journal
Mal Burns (SL), Metaverse News Aggregator and Broadcaster
Paisley Beebe (SL), CEO of Perfect World Productions TV
Flimsey Freenote - CEO of Metamix TV (Mixed Reality Television)
Rhett Linden (SL) - Linden Labs
Bradley Dorchester (SL) - Joint Reigning UWA MachinimUWA Champion
Dousa Dragonash (SL) - COO Metaverse Television
White Lebed (SL) - Former Lead of Burning Life Art Department, Director of Special Projects @ UWA
Madeline Bates (RL) - Program Manager (Film), Perth International Arts Festival, UWA
Chantal Harvey (SL) - Founder of MaMachinima Group
Jon Stubbs (RL) - Director of Student Services, UWA
Dr Lisa Cluett (RL) - Project Leader - ALTC Viral Leadership Project, UWA
A/Prof Peter Mudie (RL) - Film: Imagist Avant-Garde, School of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts
Thomas Chadwick (RL) - UWA Student Guild Public Affairs Council President

One more acknowledgement. The trophy for the winners of MachinimUWA III is a fabulous nano version of Winthrop Clock Tower, created by the Nano Artist Mkoll Wiles especially for this Challenge. Thank you Mkoll! Laurina Hawks will be giving this trophy to all winners after the ceremony. If you dont receive one in the next few days, do contact her (as SL sometimes plays up).

Before going on, some announcements as to happenings with UWA in Second Life.

First of all, on one of the UWA SIMS, we have been having a full sim art series, where an artist was given a full sim for an entire month to work their magic. The month of May till the 30th features 'The Art of Wizard Gynoid', and as it says on the Linden Showcase, this is a "dazzling display of colorful geometric art inspired by fractals, tensegrity and hyperboloids". Do take time to see it before the end of the month. Save this slurl  http://slurl.com/secondlife/UWA%20VIRTLANTIS/132/139/24

Next, the People's Choice Vote for the May round of the L$1,000,000 UWA 3D Open Art Challenge is open right now, and will be open for voting till the 3rd of June. More than 75 amazing artworks in for the May Round, do visit when you can http://slurl.com/secondlife/UWA/63/132/249 Also do note down the date of the winners announcements which will be from 6am slt on Sunday the 5th of June. We are alo receiving artworks as of now for the June Round. We had announced that we were taking the advice we received from a survey sent out to keep the monthly collections together for a longer period, and are thus closing entries on the 20th of each month, meaning the full sets of monthly art collections are together for 2 weeks at least. We're still collecting your ideas and impressions about the UWA Challenges. If you haven't yet had a chance to participate in the survey, please save the following link for a rainy day. It shouldnt take more than 5 minutes, and will help me out a great deal. Go to: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/UWASecondLife

Also, the 31st of May is the closing date for UWA's RL/SL Photo competition. "A Century of Seasons Photographic Competition" is being held to celebrate the diversity of The University of Western Australia’s campus at Crawley as well as other sites associated with the University. Images that reflect the seasonal, scenic, academic, botanical and/or atmospheric characteristics of these sites are sought. Anyone good with an SL camera, save this link:
http://uwainsl.blogspot.com/2011/05/uwa-rl-and-sl-photographic-competition.html

On to the awards!

Okay, first of all will be a special series of awards by one of the co-sponsors of the challenge, Open This End, led by Aino Baar. This group had a separate RL based sub committee looking at all the machinima, and they saw such an abundance of excellence, that they decided to provide 20 Awards of Excellence of L$3,000 each. This was a pleasant surprise to me, as I had been wondering how even more of the wonderful creators of the Machinima could be recognized.

Firstly we have 5 Open This End Awards of Excellence in Film (@L$3,000), and these go to (in alphabetical order, as opposed to the reverse Klingon Alphabetical order that we listed all the machinima on the UWA blog):
BRYN OH (Toronto, Canada) - Rusted Gears
HYPATIA PICKENS (Rochester, New York, USA) - KAPHD
CECIL HIRVI (Citizen of the Universe) - Warriors of Aliveness
ARROW INGLEWOOD (Toronto, Canada) - Bakerman's Journey
ED VESPUCCIANO (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) - The Marine Corps Does Not Want Robots

Next, there are 5 Open This End Awards of Excellence in Directing(@L$3,000), and these go to:
AL PERETZ [ALFONSO KOHN] (Miami, Florida) - Unplugged
ANIMATECHNICA UMBARUNDU (Northern California, USA) - The Egg
ERIC BOCCARA  (Velp, Netherlands) - Juroney
PIA KLAAR (Brewster, Massachusetts, USA) - The Red Shoes
TUTSY NAVARATHNA (Frenchman in Pondicherry, India) - Journey into the Metaverse

And because they are great believers in supporting the development of machinima from the grassroots up, there are 10 Open This End Emerging Artist Awards of Excellence (@L$3,000), and these go to:
ANDY GRAYCLOUD (Moscow, Russia) - I Want to Go Fast
ANRI EMERALD (Riga, Latvia) - The journey of life and death
FUSCHIA NIGHTFIRE (Dorset, UK) - Take the Road Less Travelled
KOBUK FARSHORE (Alaska, USA) - Requiem & Home
LASLOPANTOMIK YAO (Barcelona, Spain) - Beginning of Knowledge and of Sorrow
MIMESIS MONDAY (Oslo, Norway) - Yourney
NICOLEX MOONWALL (New Orleans, USA) - Journey Into
OONA EIREN (London, UK) - Onward & Upward
SILENE CHRISTEN (The Balears Islands, Spain) - Lost Souls' Island
TAUBCHEN SONNENKERN & MERIT COBA (both of Alkmaar, Netherlands) - Object

Next for the Viewer Participation Prize, which has a prize pool of L$60,000, in which anyone in the world who was not on the official judging panel was invited to provide what they thought the top 10 would be as decided by the actual panel. This was no mean task, as the viewer had to watch all 50 machinima and then rank them, and I can tell you.Aside from the Lindens, the winners will receive in the mail a special RL pack that includes a copy of the book, 'The 100 Treasures of UWA' which has just been released to commemorate UWA's Centenary, as UWA are 100 years old this year! The first prize winner will also be invited to be on the official judging panel for MachinimUWA IV.

There was a maximum of 100 points that any viewer could get, and this is if they were spot on with every single selection and matched the exact order as well. For example, if you listed a machinima in 1st place, and it actually won first, you would receive 10 points (there is a difference of ZERO between your selection and the actual). If you listed a Machinima as 1st, and it got 10th, then you would get one point (difference of 9 between your selection and actual). Now the average score achieved by entrants for this was 32, with 62 being the top score, and 11 being the bottom.

Anyway, we had a wonderful response, and a curious outcome for 3rd place. Finishing on exactly 43 points, in the Viewer Participation Prize were ZENI RAIN,  LALIE SORBET, BAY SWEETWATER and ARROW  INGLEWOOD!  All will be sent the RL packs, and the 3rd prize will be split, so each takes home L$2,500.

The 2nd Prize Winner for the Viewer Participation Prize, had 58 points, huge gap between 2nd the group at 3rd. 7 of this persons selections turned out to be in the actual top 10. And so, the winner of the L$20,000 2nd Prize for the Viewer Participation event is:

CISKO VANDEVERRE

Unbelievable.... what has he not done. Cisko won the original Machinima challenge, helped organize the 2nd one and now takes this prize. Maybe he should have been on the panel all along, but then again, I was hoping he would have his aliens create another journey!

And now the winner of the Viewer Participation Prize, on 62 points, just beating out Cisko, and also picking out 7 of the top 10. Another amazing story here. This person ALSO won one of the top 3 prizes for viewer participation in MachinimUWA II: Art of the Artists, of course this time with the viewer prize pool being so much more than it was, the difference in prize money is by a factor of  30! And so the winner of the L$30,000 First prize for the Viewer Participation Event is:

PIA KLAAR

Congrats Pia. Well, Pia will now be invited onto the official panel for MachinimUWA IV, though I am secretly wishing she declines and submits another one of her wonderful machinima for the event instead. Anyway, that will be left to Pia to decide.

Now on to the winners of the competition proper. When the winners are announced, it will be done in 1 minute intervals. We do invite everyone to comment and congratulate the winners and for the winners to respond before the next announcement (and if they could please use the SHOUT function). Hopefully we can get pictures of you attending the event. Anyone taking good pictures of today, please email them to me at jayjayaustralia@hotmail.com

Now to explain  how the judging was done. Each judge listed their top 10 in order of preference. 8 points was allocated for a 1st place vote, 6 points for a 2nd place vote, 4 points for 3rd, 3 for 4th, 2 for 5th, and 1 point each for 6th – 10th. Straight aggregates were then used for the top 3, with the special awards decided by discussion among a smaller subset of  judges taking into consideration the overall rankings. There is of course the Peter Greenaway Prize as well. One thing to note is that for these in particular, a 1 prize only rule was used. Also know that the judging was extremely diverse with even the 1st prize winner featuring in 19 of the 26 top 10 lists. The average number of top 10’s any given work featured in was about 4 to 6.

There are 7 special prizes of L$37,150 each.

First of all,  and you can see the trouble started here, we have the Honourable Mention Prize. However, the judges were hopelessly deadlocked. And so it was, that we had a tie for the Honourable Mention Prize, which becomes L$18,575 each!  And so the Honourable Mention Prize for MachinimUWA III (L$18,575) goes to:
REQUIEM by Kobuk Farshore

this was one of the earliest entries received and truly set the standard for the challenge!

and the Honourable Mention Prize for machinimUWA III (L$18,575), also goes to:
THE JOURNEY by Soda Lemondrop

If only we had a Best Comedy category!

Moving on, the MachinimUWA III Special Award for  JOURNEY AND MACHINIMA ADAPTATION (L$37,150) goes to:
THE EGG by Animatechnica Umbarundu

Very very much a favourite of many, containing one of my favourite phrases ‘The Hindus Were Right’ !

Next, the MachinimUWA III Special Award for ‘FEEL’ & MUSIC (L$37,150) goes to:
BAKERMAN’S JOURNEY by Arrow Inglewood

Its a pity Arrow can’t be here today as he is off somewhere tripping the baguette fantastic!

And now the MachinimUWA III Special Award for IMAGERY (L$37,150) goes to:
BEGINNING OF KNOWLEDGE AND OF SORROW by Laslopantomik Yao

Wonderful machinima which has its origins in a book written in China several hundred years ago.

Next, the MachinimUWA III Special Award for NARRATION AND HISTORICAL CONTENT  (L$37,150) goes to:
KAPHD by Hypatia Pickens

Amazing atmosphere created in this machinima, and we see Hypatia’s vocal versatility

And now the MachinimUWA III Special Award for MESSAGE AND IMAGINATION:
ESCAPE by Veruca Vandyke
In books we find the soul of the universe. Thank you for reminding us of that.

And to cap it off, the MachinimUWA III Special Award for INTERPRETATION AND DELIVERY goes to:
WARRIORS OF ALIVENESS by Cecil Hirvi 

Thank you for bringing to UWA, the staggering conclusion to the saga of Cecil!

And next, for the staggering conclusion to MachinimUWA III!

The 3rd prize for MachinimUWA III is L$50,000. Now across 26 judges and 50 machinima, only 4 creations received more than two 1st Place votes. The 3rd Prize winner in fact received four 1st Place votes, and featured in the top 10’s of 19 of the 26 judges, with an overall point total of 72. This was a truly ground breaking piece, and I am in awe of its creator! And so, 3rd Prize (L$50,000) for MachinimUWA III: Journeys, goes to:

UNPLUGGED by Al Peretz (Alfonso Kohn) of Miami Florida

Apart from being amazing, this machinima also beautifully demonstrates to the world, how exactly virtual worlds work.

Next we come to 2nd Prize. And I tell you truly 20 minutes prior to the end of the deadline for the judges to provide their feedback, when the final judge had yet to send their submissions in, I had already done all the other calculations, and the name I am going to read out next, is NOT the name that had been inked in prior to me receiving that final judges listing 20 minutes before the end. It was that close. Every single position decision made by the judges, totally counted, and if there was even one deviation from any of them with regards to where this piece was placed, things would have been different. I was left shaking my head, as I am sure some of you will be in a few moments. And so, 2nd Prize for MachinimUWA III, goes to:

NOBODY

Some of you who know me will have already guessed why.

Before we move to 1st Prize, we come to a very special and much coveted award. The L$60,000 Peter Greenaway MachinimUWA III Prize. The winner of the prize, received four 1st place votes and featured in 15 of the 26 top 10 lists. The most amazing thing about this work to me, is how different it is from all of the other works in the top 10. And so, the winner of the Peter Greenaway MachinimUWA III Prize is:

RUSTED GEARS by Bryn Oh

And now for the Grand prize. Unfortunately, we can no longer award L$100,000 to the Grand Prize Winner.

This of course is because, as some of you may have guessed, we have a TIE for the Grand Prize with both these creations finishing on 91 points, decided by that fateful final result which came to me 20 minutes before the midnight close on the 18th of May. One of the winners had FIVE 1st place votes and featured in 20 of the 26 top 10 lists, while the other had FOUR 1st place votes, SEVEN 2nd place votes and featured in 18 of the 26 top 10 lists. So we had to recalibrate the prize, and put the 1st & 2nd Prize together and divide by 2, making that L$85,000 for each of the two 1st Prizes!

So, the JOINT-GRAND PRIZE WINNER of  MachinimUWA III: Journeys (L$85,000) is:
JOURNEY INTO THE METAVERSE by Tutsy Navarathna

Our much beloved Frenchman in Pondicherry who showed us the connections between an avatar and creator via this passage to India.

And now, the JOINT-GRAND PRIZE WINNER of  MachinimUWA III: Journeys (L$85,000) is:
JURONEY by Eric Boccara of the Netherlands

In the words of Bradley Dorchester (MachinimUWA II winner), whose place he takes on the podium, “I take my hat off to this guy. Great show and inclusion of the tower at the end. I like the protagonist’s unswerving focus to reach his destination. Attention to detail, music, story, sheer quality. I’m going to approach him at some later stage and see if he wants to do a collab. Could be awesome”.

Could be awesome indeed!

Thank you so much Mal Burns and Dousa Dragonash and your team for the live broadcast of this event and helping stream voice during the announcements!