Metaverse Territories

building with (im)materials

1. Keystone Bouchard 06.08.07 / 9pm

   So true - it is indeed sad when a physical installation like this surpasses the responsiveness of virtual architecture. I like to imagine that we’re on the cusp of the next generation of virtual interface, and look forward to that transition.

   However, I have to question the first point in your blog’s principles, but perhaps I’m misunderstanding:

   “disrupt the ostensible but wrong-headed efforts to find connections between real world architectural practices and the conception of virtual world space”

   I think of the connection between real life practice and virtual world space as an inevitable and transitional process. Virtual modeling, and virtual community, has clear and obvious advantages for real life architects. Based on these inherent benefits and opportunities, it seems logical that this will be the first phase of exploration for many architects and designers. Thereafter, I think their path of discovery will naturally lead toward an eventual transcendence into the exploration of purely virtual architecture.

   Many of the same fundamental principles of architecture and design still apply in virtual space, and a background in architectural practice lends itself very well to a virtual mode. It seems that finding and encouraging connections between the two worlds would be beneficial and positive, not wrong headed.

   I actually believe the same is true of all physical replication in virtual worlds. I don’t think it can be so easily dismissed. I see it as a natural, inevitable and transitional process we can observe, learn from and build upon.

   Why not juxtapose familiar cities and buildings against the immaterial metaverse? At the very least, it would serve to lower the threshold for the average user, acting as a base or departure point they can more easily identify with. There’s nothing stopping anyone from transcending it, or walking the line between them, or simlpy using it as a springboard to jump into purely virtual exploration; moving us closer to that singular expressive language and the emergecne of the unique expressive media we’re all looking forward to. Surely there’s room for both?
2. kliger 06.08.07 / 11pm

   You did not misunderstand me; but I am, with precise volition, trying to occupy an extreme position on the subject of “architectural practices” versus “building with immaterials.” While there certainly is, as you contend, a “transitional process,’ I believe that its “inevitability” is not a question of transition, but rather a result of radical acts that provoke a clear disruption with the spatial order as we know it, as we are practicing it. Even though history has witnessed examples of both transitive and disruptive change, I contend that now is the time for the later.

   Do, in fact, “many of the same fundamental principles of architecture and design still apply in virtual space”? Keystone, this wisdom should certainly be debated, especially by those trained as architects. By raising this objection, I am neither dismissing that which architects can bring to the virtual world table, nor necessarily accepting the baggage that we’re toting inworld with us, but rather, carefully, experimentally picking through that body of knowledge –a historical, theoretical, critical and practical experience– to find that which resists.

   And while we’re totally on the same page concerning the image, idea and inevitability of “juxtapos(ing) familiar cities and buildings against the immaterial metaverse,” I think we’re talking about 2 different things: before the convergence can occur, both “realities” must exist, be present and operational, in their respective worlds. I contend that such a mashup will only have traction when the coming spatial order of the virtual places we are inhabiting, architect built or user created, are capable of self-expression; autopoiesis –Metaverse, the spatial media.

   (I’m sorry that I don’t have the time right now to go any further. You are a careful reader, and I appreciate and respect that. I look forward to continuing this line of reasoning, it can only be constructive for us, as well as for the rest of the SL community, or at least those who might be interested).
3. The ARCH 15.08.07 / 8pm

   […] with Theory Shaw, Far Link’s post on ‘Swarm Architecture,’ posts by Kliger on Metaverse Territories, and intense scripting collaboration with Fumon Kubo.  […]

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