Second Life Event Presentation

My part in our event was coming up with the art work and clues for the Virtual Exhibit. I drew a few of the paintings specifically for this project, but many of them are drawings and paintings I did in the past because there simply wasn't enough time to draw every single piece from scratch.

Coming up with the clues for the event was sort of a difficult process. I had to find ways to connect various existing images in ways that wouldn't be too obvious to the participants. For some, it was a matter of slightly altering an image (like replacing a black cat with a white rabbit, while allowing the caption to still talk about the fat black cat), and others simply had captions that related to one another. Chris worked with me on the captions for many of the images, especially the ones that weren't a part of the clue chains. They served as a way to sort of throw participants off and made it so that the clued images weren't too obvious to spot. Zoe came up with the script that we used for the images, which whispered the image's caption to the participants when they touched the images.

 

Edited Image

 

Original Image

(in this case, there was never a cat, but the caption said there was for the purpose of our event.)

After the event started, it was evident that the way the clues were set up wasn't as clear to the participants as they should have been. Some thought that all the clues were inter-connected and led to a final piece of evidence. It was intended to be 3 different clues with their own, separate, chains leading to 3 different answers that would fit together to point out who the thief was. 

 

During the class event, it became apparent that the clues might have been a bit difficult to decipher. I didn't want to make it too difficult to solve the case, but I also didn't want make it too easy for everyone. In the end, I thought it would have been better off having the puzzle be too difficult and occupying our allotted time slot, than being too easy and ending up with a lot of people with nothing to do.

Back to Zoe

  

Experiment Review/Report

Our event was a very abstract art exhibit where participants had to run around looking for clues to solve the mystery of who stole a painting. It took place on an empty lot which we transformed into a sort of octopus structure with floating structures and glowing rings. There might have been issues with navigating the space in the beginning. I don't think everyone was aware that the clues could be on floating surfaces, or that some of the shapes were enterable.

More screenshots, info, and videos can be found at the blogs of the other members of our group:
http://627zoechang.blogspot.com/
http://627mattc.blogspot.com/
http://627christophert.blogspot.com/

I spent a lot of time making the individual pieces of the gallery. It was particularly challenging for me to find ways some of the images connected, or make clues that are obvious enough for people to figure out, yet still challenging enough for it to not be too obvious. Our team worked very well together, everyone helped everyone, and we met and worked together frequently.

Some examples of the paintings i did for this gallery:

Overall, I felt that our presentation went over well. Here are the results of the survey taken by Zoe.

And some of the Feedback for our event:

Gorgeous artwork!!!

11/4/2011 3:57 PM

I was not entirely aware who was which roles, and I also thought that the thief could be anyone in 627 rather than one of the four roles. It was fun exploring and Sam's art was very impressive!

11/4/2011 3:38 PM

Conclusion:

In the end, I felt that our event well rather well. The roles that we set out in the beginning weren't as apparent as we thought they would be, but it didn't make much of a difference. Many thought that it might have been a bit too difficult, but most of the participants spent more than 40 minutes on the event. I felt that the difficulty of the puzzle made was important for filling up the hour we had to fill. I was afraid that if we made it too easy, the participants might solve it too quick and have nothing to do for the remaining amount of time.  I also thought that the participants would have worked together more than they did, which is also why i made the clues so difficult to decipher, but it seems most of the players preferred to work on their own.

The Art Theft Event (Closing)

Now that the event is over, I can post this link to my google doc that outlines the exact chain for solving the puzzle. I only have the guide for the first and second clue, but Prof. Veeder solved and went through the third chain which led to the baseball cap.

https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AX8QeUGvnZUnZGZ6bTlua2ZfMzNnNHA2NnR4bQ

I also have a video documenting a bit of the area that our project took place, with various people navigating around the area trying to solve the case.

 

The 3 Clues

The thief has left 3 clues for you, the detectives, to figure out who he or she may be. Why he or she would do such a thing is unknown. Maybe he does it for cheap thrills, or maybe pride. Either way, these clues are vital for figuring out who the culprit is.

Clue 1: "This key historical figure saw something different from what we were all led to believe."

Clue 2: "This girl likes her books and her fat black cat,
                All she needs now is a broom and a hat."

Clue 3: "This industrial city holds a very important piece of the puzzle."

Updated Second Life Event Plan

Our second life event has changed a bit from my last post. Everything can be found in this link to Zoe's blog, which also links to other members our our group's posts.

http://627zoechang.blogspot.com/2011/11/final-sl-event-plan.html

Event Project Plan

Experiment title: Digital Art Thief

Scenario: artwork was stolen in a gallery and participants are encouraged to help
investigating the event.

Experiment Mechanics: Clues might be found in the artwork or environment. This encourages
participants to look around, get interacted with others, and pay attention to what's going on in the
environment. Audience dynamics is the main focus in this experiment.
SL Location: To be announced.
Roles in the event: (Member names hidden to exclude bias)
(Suspect 1) Security guard: Answers questions, makes official announcements, etc.
(Suspect 2) Crazy person: Spreads rumors, tells people random clues (True/False).
(Suspect 3) Regular person: Among all visitors/participants.
(Suspect 4) Detective: Doing documentation and asking around.
(Non-suspect) Gallery owner: Taking people's report for whoever they thought might be the thief
in the last 20 minutes. Jane, could you be our gallery owner?
*Optional: All official roles in the event will have captions on top of their heads labeling what roles
they are and if they are suspects. This makes it easy for people to identify and report.
Roles in the project:
Sam: Gallery director who is mainly in charged with other artists and makes final art decisions.
Chris: Creative writer who is mainly in charged with the storyline/crime scene settings.
Matt: 3D architect who is mainly in charged with 3D models and layout of the environment.
Zoe: Event organizer who is mainly in charged with planning/communication/documentation/survey/scripting.

Assets provided: Shirts and Hats

Participant preparation: Participants will have to put on their assigned clothing and they will need to read the instructions before they investigate, which will be a notice, placing on the wall where the piece of artwork is missing.

Feedback survey: To be announced.

Standard detail feedback forms: OK!

Production plan: Brainstorm story/plot lines for this mystery and design the game. Design and
create survey. Decide on the style, theme, and branding of the gallery and all artwork. Decide on
location of the event. Design structure, construction of the environment. Building, Implementing,
and modeling. Test environment and potential problems that might encounter. Rehearsal. Finalize
survey and deliverables.

Experiment review report/presentation: OK!

End it: The gallery owner will come in to the gallery for the last 20 minuets, and people can
go tell the owner who they think is the thief. If someone gets it right, the show will end.

Ideas for Second Life Event

Our little group has decided to possibly make the focus of our Second Life event a virtual art exhibition.
I've decided to list a few ideas that we could possibly use for this upcoming event:

- It was planned that the building we will be creating for the exhibit is going to be structured vertically, and I think we can take advantage of that by having the work exhibited scaled really large, something u cant do in a typical art gallery.

-if the structure is going to be vertically oriented, perhaps we could have a spiral path that goes all the way up, giving patrons the option to slowly walk up and observer everything or simply flying up. 

- Possibly to display artwork in a more interesting way, we could have it floating outside of windows.

-SECRETS! secrets would be a fun addition to have scattered throughout the place. Something like the secret message on top of the fossil skull found in the second life introductory tutorial. There could be a prize for someone who finds all the secret messages.

    - We could also have scavenger hunts that invites viewers to look closer at artwork to find something specific, and maybe riddles.

   - If a painting could be set to phantom, where someone could walk through it, we could have a secret room for visitors to discover.