Rock Paper

Do you know there is a whole world, 

in books, newspapers, articles, drawings and paper-all ...

romy Nayar

It was Saturday night, and time to become a Papermakis spy.
The Papermakis are shy, party-loving paper-based creations by romy Nayar, a Paris-based artist. Her partner Ux Hax  helped with the scripting.  You may remember Ux from last year's Barcelona/Buenas Aires event Geometry of Sound with Maria Grot. The install is still up on another part of this hugely popular, Lady-friendly MetaLES sim,co-owned by Ux and Lanjran Choche, specializing  in performance and interactive art by women. Here's the group's blog, with lots of machinima - don't miss romy's own blog too, or the group's install Nanobosque, made for the cancer-battling Istituto Catalan de Nanotecnologia.

But today we're strictly black white and read all over, with the Papermakis.
Thanks to the magic of SL, now we mere avatars can be

Take It Easy

Don't let the sound of your own wheels make you crazy

We met, not on his sim Imparafacile Island, but in a real-life Tavola Calda, on the outskirts of Milan. Tell no-one. His avatar's name means 'easy learning'. An IT instructor in schools and colleges in Lombardy, Imparafacile Runo - Impa for short, and Gio' dalla Bona in RL, is boundlessly enthusiastic for his inworld schemes -but as we all know, when it  comes to keeping up a vigorous interest in virtual culture, you need more than enthusiasm; it's all about staying power. As he sat down to a plate of vitello tonnato (I went for the Caprese), Impa told me about the idea behind his Island.
Imparafacile Runo: The important thing is to take small steps, and form a solid basis for our work. We have hosted many different kinds of shows over the past years, from educational seminars to art shows, e-learning courses, poetry readings, and social gatherings. Just a few weeks ago, we had a hugely successful immersive art event called IONOI (in English, I/Us), filmed by Christower Dae.

Italians have a schizophrenic attitude towards the internet.  Even among the younger people, it seems like half