UgoTrade

On Sunday February 17 at 11 AM SLT, Eureka Dejavu and Schmilsson Nilssson will be hosting and bringing into Second Life a virtual world Arts & Culture round table live from the Brookings Institution-hosted U.S.-Islamic World Forum, Doha, Qatar. The panel features a cross-section of artists, including Nashwa Al Ruwaini, who is, among many things, Executive Director of the Middle East International Film Festival, Howard Gordon, executive producer and show-runner of 24, and Salman Ahmed, founder of the Pakistani Rock Group, Junoon.

Eureka sent me the picture above and explained:

We wanted to contribute in an artistic way, not just host an event. But when the subject is bridging gap between Muslim and Non-Muslim cultures through art, what can you do? Obvious cultural and or religious images are often too loaded emotionally.

Nevertheless, we wanted people to feel they were in a cathedral of sorts but open to all. Tricky…

So….we took my kaleidoscope to Venice Beach and shot a whole series of light paintings symbolic of the way cultures develop in isolation and then build bridges over time coming together in unpredictable ways due to people meeting one another in various ways, including, now, in virtual worlds, which are unprecedented in bringing people together who never would have met otherwise.

While “questing the globe” to find out about the meaning of virtual worlds in the lives of real people, Eureka and Schmilsson, have been blogging their experiences including some of their preparations for the Qatar event in their, “Dispatches from a Virtual World.”

In this post Eureka who is Rita J. King (CEO and Creative Director of Dancing Ink Productions) in “Real” Life works with screenwriter and producer Howard Gordon as he creates an identity in Second Life. Eureka writes: “Howard Gordon’s creation of characters and storylines on the Fox show 24 has sparked dialogue about the artist’s role in creating a deeper understanding between cultures.”

And, in this post, Eureka describes how Dancing Ink Productions finished creating the avatar for Salman Ahmad of the multi-platinum South Asian rock band Junoon. Eureka writes:

Salman is also a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for HIV/AIDS. As an artist, he works to build peace between India and Pakistan. In fact, we could go on all day about his remarkable accomplishments and luminous insight.