Here is the video of our last Metaverse Meetup: OpenSim & Virtual Worlds Interoperability 7.23.08 (from Vimeo). The video of this landmark event was produced thanks to the awesome Annie Ok, Artist, Creative Director, Curator, Video Director, Metaverse Evangelist/Consultant, Co-Organizer of Metaverse Meetup.

While Annie’s first love is art, she has been involved in an extraordinary number of projects (see her bio here). Notably, Annie Ok, with Jeff Crouse, & Stephanie Rothenberg made the documentary and helped with the amazing Invisible Threads project which shows how excellent Second Life is for such innovative mixed reality installations. The documentary premiered at Synthetic Times. Annie also created the interactive, collaborative Timeline of Virtual Worlds that the whole community can help with.

Photos of the meetup are now posted here on Flickr and some nice portraits here on Facebook.

With the video Annie sent out a great write up about the meetup.

Annie noted:

“Adam Frisby and David Levine gave us incredible insight into OpenSim and shared compelling details that really expanded on what has previously been known about its amazing potential and revolutionary role in the future of the metaverse.”

And she was very kind about my really minor supporting role!

“Tish Shute was great as the guest moderator, asking key questions and adding salient commentary.”

And I really agree with Annie’s synopsis about what is at the heart of our metaverse meetups!

“It was so nice to see all the familiar regulars as well as meet the new ones. In true Metaverse Meetup style, we migrated en mass to a local bar where we continued the conversation about all things metaversal and had fun hanging out with fellow avatars until the late hours.”

Thanks to everyone and especially Global Kids for making the meetup possible.

Please be sure to check out the list of Metaverse Meetup links on the new About page. There are now Metaverse Meetup group on LinkedIn, Flickr and FriendFeed, as well as a list of Metaverse Meetup chapters in other cities for those of you who are not based in NYC.

Looking forward to seeing you at the next meetup!

There were many demonstrations across Second Life today in support of peace and justice in Myanmar (Burma) where hundreds of Buddhist monks are being arrested in government raids on monasteries after leading large protests against the military regime.

I joined one of the avatar chains organized by Second Life avatar Vivienne Casavettes. It stretched across multiple sims. Many of the participants wore robes or like me “went bald for Burma.” It was a powerful experience to meet so many people in Second Life finding ways to show there support for the monks and people of Burma.

There were T-shirts, placards and note cards giving updates on events in Burma handed out. I chose this T-shirt asking for the freedom of dissident Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Suu Kyi is a pro-democracy activist and leader of the National League for Democracy in Myanmar, and a noted prisoner of conscience, advocate of nonviolent resistance. “A Buddhist, Suu Kyi won the Rafto Prize and the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 1990 and in 1991 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her peaceful and non-violent struggle under a military dictatorship. She is currently under detention, with the Myanmar government repeatedly extending her detention.”

Rik Riel on his excellent blog has posted some of the Other steps you can take, suggested by the Peacemaker Institute:

1. Protest – Look below for details of worldwide protests. Contact US Campaign for Burma to sign up to hold a march, vigil or any sort of event in your area- thelma@uscampaignforburma.org .
2. Spread the word – Invite your friends to this group, email all your family and friends, write to local newspapers
3. Write to your elected official – they will respond if enough people contact them.
4. Wear red clothes on Friday.
5. Email the companies that still operate in Burma, their email addresses are listed here
6. Sign up for the petition! US campaign for Burma, Petition Online, AVAAZ

I am a second generation Western Buddhist. Today (Sunday) I will also observe 5 minutes of silent aspiration with members of the sangha of Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, in NYC, in support of the protest of the Buddhist monastics and lay sangha in Myanmar, and against the violations of human rights and suppression of religious freedom now being enacted by the government.

Second Life avatars Vivienne Casavettes, Sugar Seville, and Dizzy Banjo are just some of the Second Life Residents who are organizing support efforts in Second Life. Also see Cryogenix’s, Dizzy Banjo’s, blogs and here for more. Dizzy has a video of a vigil organized by Sugar Seville

A road-map for imagining a future and the benefits of virtual worlds was laid out at The Serious Virtual Worlds Conference held in Coventry University, England last week.

In the picture above are David Wortley, Director of the Serious Games Institute (holding the user interface for Guitar Hero) and on the right Dr. Timothy W. Foresman pioneer for the global expansion of the Digital Earth vision.

On Day 2 all the speakers presented wearing the Guitar Hero guitar. Perhaps this was a reminder of Babbage Linden’s warning from Day 1 to beware of making false dichotomies between play and work. But with this in mind and wearing the guitar, Dr. Tim Foresman made a serious call to action for a Digital and Virtual Worlds Commons to address the most pressing needs of the 21st Century.

In an interview with Ugotrade Dr. Tim Foresman gave a prediction for Second Life.

Second Life taps into an element called culture. Culture is that which we have evolved to which doesn’t exist in other species which is the creme de la creme for our evolutionary consciousness. Culture is the key here.

This will be the penultimate statement I am going to give you. The Chinese are not ready for us to watch the Olympics in Second Life. And, we are going to watch the Olympics in Second Life. And, it is going to change the dialogue ‘cuz there are going to be a whole lot of Chinese people sharing the details of Chinese social and cultural evolution within the context of that display. And I am predicting that will be the milestone for 2008 for social shifts and the technologies that impact on them.

There are so many Chinese who can make this happen and so many interested people who have this figured out.

Digital Earth, Virtual Worlds and Our Future

Dr. Tim Foresman’s early inspiration was Captain Jacques Cousteau. Foresman brings a quarter century of experience as a scientist, professor, author, entrepreneur, consultant manager and administrator, and world traveler to imagining a future with digital and virtual worlds. Dr Tim Foresman explained to me the trajectory of his career which has always included working inside and outside of institutions and being active in communities on environmental issues:

to give back what Jacques Cousteau gave to me and to provide inspiration and honesty as to what is going on in a positive way.

He explained how his concern with the environment led to entrepreneurial efforts. He also played a pivotal role in Keyhole Corp. which was bought by Google in 2004 and has become Google Earth.

So once I started realizing the power of spatial tools – when the satellites went up in 1972 – I fell in love with that. ‘Cuz I was out in the field doing research the hard way. And all of a sudden I could use these computers to map what I had been walking and communicate to other people these issues – just mind boggling.

So I started my own company right out of grad school because there were no companies behind me in those days so I started a company. And I have always shown that entrepreneurial spirit. But I have also joined various organizations. I have worked for the EPA, worked for NASA and for the UN. When the time is appropriate and you role is to work within an organization, I have felt it was a good thing to do. So I have worked in all kinds of the positions.

But the constant theme is to really take seriously our role here but also to have fun. ‘Cuz if you are not having fun you’re going to be spending the kinds of hours and time that I do.

I asked Dr Foresman how he became involved Keyhole Corp.

Because I led the Digital Earth program at NASA headquarters when it started in 1998. And I was monitoring all the various groups that were doing these kinds of technologies and actively engaging them and coming together and saying we need to harness this technology to deal with a virtual globe that will make a meaningful difference for the community at large – so there will be free access and we can all share information that is easily accessible and understandable. Because you are looking at the earth you are looking at your neighborhood, it makes sense.

So Keyhole was four young programmers in San Mateo. And, in 2001, I gave them there first contract when I was the chief scientist of the United Nations environment program.

We were able to demonstrate how this would profoundly change the decision making process with which the policy makers are involved with at the UN – 200 nations come together and make decisions about fisheries and forestry. They don’t have the information. This was going to be a different approach. So Keyhole was a wonderful, wonderful way of demonstrating this with our data on that display mechanism.

So Keyhole really only provided the framework, we put the information around it the satellite data etc. Well then Google bought them and now they are Google Earth. They are one of the many that are successful. There is also NASA World Wind which is open source and very good, powerful.

Imagining a Future

I snapped this slide during Dr Foresman’s presentation. It very clearly shows that how we represent data makes a meaningful difference. All the water in the world is shown on the same scale as earth on the left, and all the air in the atmosphere on the right. This puts a whole new perspective on the myth of great expanses of ocean and atmosphere.

The ITC Framework for the Operating System for Planet Earth

This slide is also from Dr. Foresman’s presentation. People working in disciplinary silos will be able to engage in collective environmental, economic and social decision making through a Digital Earth vision. But just as important as the unification of science based knowledge is the active, distributed community enabled by free access to the basic infrastructure.

I asked Dr. Tim Foresman about the role of open source and open standards in creating an operating system for planet earth.

We have to be vigorous and vigilant in all things and not assume that the approach right now is sustainable. I think that is very important. We have to actively engage and ensure that the parts of it we need for public dialogue and good decision making are done in open systems and international protocols for data interoperability – ISO standards – all the good standards for interoperability that we use. We need to be vigorously monitoring that. That is very important.

And are there any threats to that you see on the horizon re this? I asked.

When I see different systems offered for pricing and I realize that there is no policy by Google to keep this stuff free. There is nothing written down. This is just based on their good will at the moment. And corporations and goodwill are two different things. Corporations have to answer to their stockholders. And if they make a corporate decision they could end up saying well we are no longer offering it for free. But the competition will probably keep it out there for free….ArcGIS Explorer, Geomatrix, NASA World Wind.

Google is going to recognize that they have got their spot in the sun now. But it is not guaranteed and if they don’t behave they will be underwritten.

I have posted recently on the Second Earth project by NOAA that merges Second Life and Google Earth. I asked Dr. Foresman if he was aware of the policy of Linden Lab to fully open source Second Life and if he had had discussions with Linden Lab.

Yes I have talked with various members of Philip Rosedale’s team. They came out to Berkeley to our 5th International Digital Earth Conference. And the open source issue was definitely a strong suit. I think Philip would have to move his offices out of San Francisco if he went proprietary. Because that is open source Mecca. It has become a philosophy.

Yes it seems to me they are moving as fast as they can on the full open sourcing of Second Life. I added.

What we find out is that if you are a purist open source really isn’t 100% open. You are always going to find that it is difficult to find code at certain levels. But what it is – is the best that we can do and that is the approach. And by allowing the best that we can do then we can balance that with proprietary systems, interchange standards and that becomes a very effective playground. And that is what we want.

Active distributed community and the networked intelligence of humankind.

Dr. Tim Foresman gave a brilliant and commanding demonstration of why and how a Digital and Virtual Word commons will provide the operating system for planet earth and its inhabitants and fulfill the words of Buckminster Fuller.

Currently Dr Foresman is working with many international institutions and agencies promoting availability of and enhancing access to the scientific information needed by decision makers as well as the planet’s citizens for as sustainable future.

From 2000 to 2003 he served as the director of the United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Division of Early Warning and Assessment from the Headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya and then as UNEP’s executive science advisor. He gave Keyhole (now Google Earth) their first contract at this time. And in 2001 they were streaming information from UN servers. They zoomed in on Africa and used this system to protect resources and to communicate issues.

Dr Forseman stressed that operating system earth will remain inoperable without us! The networked intelligence of humankind depends on all of us. We need to be involved in designing our future. And Dr. Foresman doesn’t just talk brilliantly, he walks the walk. He reaches out to all including children with the message of concern for the environment. First Editions of his new children’s book “The Last Little Polar bear” are available from Blueline Publishing (see thelastlittlepolarbear.org).

At the end of the presentation I asked Dr. Foresman if connectivity issues presented special problems in Africa. I explained that I have talked to many different people about the potential of Second Life in Africa. But broadband connectivity issues often come up as an obstacle to the idea that Africa should be at the forefront of the paradigm shift in global communications exemplified by the collaborative, immersive 3D experience of Second Life.

Dr. Foresman said that we should be careful of setting up false assumptions. He has lived and traveled in Africa and he explained:

The roads are well paved enough almost every where I have been in the world to where that is not the problem now. I worked in the mid-nineties on a project reducing poverty with women. I sat and listened for two years to how they were using technology. And when I listened from that perspective, I found they are using whatever is available. So it is a continuum.

That was why I was laughing yesterday when I talked to Maggi [Prof. Maggi Savin-Baden presented the Second Life launch of Coventry University Island and experienced lag as many Second Life avatars and "real" life conference goers sucked up the bandwidth]. That is how I experience Second Life because I am on the end of a Satellite dish. You get spoiled here with your bandwidth.

It is a matter of saying no we’ll use the tools and we will use them effectively. But we won’t use them like you see in some of the images in New York City.

The Serious Games Institute – Creating Buildings that are Sexy and Smart

The picture above is of Prof. Lizbeth Goodman (right) and Babak Davarpanah Varnosefadarani from the SMARTlab Digital Media Institute being given a tour of the Serious Games Institute “smart” building by David Wortley.

David Wortley talked to me about the SGI “Smart building” project. David “aims to make the SGI a thought leader and focal point for games based learning simulation and immersive 3D environments.” He plans to take the concept of “smart buildings” to the next level. Buildings will not only be smart and helpful to people and the environment. They will be sexy – intelligent, entertaining, conversationalists that are fun to be around.

When I talk about “smart” buildings – there is a lot of debate about what people consider “smart” buildings – I think most people consider “smart” buildings as buildings with environmental controls built into them, e.g., the light switching off when someone goes out of the room, or the heating going down when no-one is there, being able to recognize where people are and so on and keep the costs of the building down to the minimum.

I go much further to say I think smart buildings of the future are going to be about how the building represents your organization and adds real value to its stakeholders. So, instead of saying let’s design buildings that keep our overheads down to a minimum, I say let’s design buildings that use technology to increase our income and the effectiveness of our operation.

So if you are a local council you want to make the building as approachable and friendly as possible and suitable for the stakeholders who go into the building. That is why we are trying to embed technology that will allow us to do some really sexy things that will say what we want to say about Serious Games and the companies that are based there.

In this way we will bring business into these companies, helping to develop a reputation for the university, and the West Midlands region. That is why we have invested in digital signage and interactive type displays, and are implementing location tracking so that when people move through the building you can identify where they are and use that in clever ways to deliver content to them based on where they are in the building.

We are also thinking that when someone goes into a building with a PDA or mobile device the location tracking detects that person and creates an avatar in the virtual version of that building. So as you move about through the building the avatar moves about in Second Life and can interact with people in the virtual world as well as the physical world.

The photo on the left is of avatars listening to Serious Virtual Worlds 07 in Second Life. On the right, is a picture I took at the Smart building demonstration, tour and cocktail reception. Roo Reynolds, IBM, (the tall guy with his back to us) manages to keep one eye on the video stream from Second Life and an ear to the conversation in First Life.

David Wortley noted that at the cocktail party some of the ways the “smart” building can orchestrate interactions between first and second life were demonstrated.

In both the “real” and virtual versions of the Serious Games Institute there is a projector streaming video for the people gathered in both worlds. In the virtual reception there was video being shown from the “real” reception:

The thing that fascinated me was the fact that when we got the projector set up and logged on to Second Life where my avatar appeared there was nobody in virtual reception with me. We set the video streaming going and over a period of a few minutes more and more avatars began to appear in the virtual reception sitting down to watch people enjoy the real reception.

David noted that while this was a simple example it was an indication of how compelling interactions between virtual and “real” worlds can be.

Artists are playing a key role imagining a future and the benefits of virtual worlds

I have frequently posted on the vital role that artists, musicians, architects and performers are playing in creating the experience of Second Life. David also noted

One of the things that has come over extremely well in this conference, and is personified by people like Prof. Lizbeth Goodman (who is a dancer and performing artist by profession – so her background isn’t in technology) is that highly creative and passionate people have realized the potential of technology and performing arts to deliver social benefit to people in need – disadvantaged women, disabled people etc.

Hope for the future comes from grass roots people who are doing really clever things with technology

There is a lot of hope for the future for the way that technology can shape our sustainable development and that hope comes from grass roots people who are doing really clever things with technology that technologists don’t imagine.

Two of the stellar presenters that I met at the conference were the awesome Simon Stevens, (a.k.a Simon Walsh in Second Life) who presented “Wheelies – Second Life and disability: a review of the issues,” and Prof. Lizbeth Goodman, “Virtual World Community Applications.” I will meet both in Second Life to continue our conversation

Like Roo Reynolds (see his blog), I was nearly moved to tears (actually I did have to grab a tissue) by Lizbeth’s work enabling severely disabled children to play games and explore and create in beautiful custom-built worlds. And how severely disabled adults with control of only eye movement and a single neck muscle can gain the ability to create music.

The picture above is from the SMARTlab Flickr stream that has many more pictures of their great work. As part of their project “InterFACES: the human face of assistive technologies” SMARTlab has been testing the effectiveness of available tools for using eye movement as a control mechanism for communications by people with little or no other voluntary muscle movement. This picture is of collaborator James Brosnan, the ‘alpha user’ of the system.

Fireworks on Coventry Island

I was fortunate enough to be there for the whole of this superlative event. But if you weren’t the video archive is being made available on Wednesday from http://seriousgames.org.uk/ Don’t miss this ground breaking event! You will also find notes on all the presentations for Day 1 and Day 2 posted on Roo Reynolds – What’s Next? and see Eightbar. And, as Roo notes, there were a bunch of people conference taking photos. Andy Powell grabbed some great screenshots (e.g., picture above) of the Second Life portion of the event when Coventry University cut the ribbon on their Second Life island.

Here are four of the presenters preparing their digital cameras and PDAs for the Flickr and Twitter fray.

From left to right: Roo Reynolds, IBM, who presented on “Virtual Worlds for Corporate Collaboration” and engaged in some serious mo blogging repartee on Twitter with Ren Reynolds (a.k.a RenZephyr) from Terranova throughout the conference. I was sitting right behind them both most of the time. I kept in touch with their conference commentary and humorous backchat through Twitter. It added a lot to the experience of the event much the way IM channels enhance conference experiences in Second Life.

Next right is Christian Renaud from Cisco Systems who gave the keynote “Getting Serious About Virtual Worlds.” Christian is pioneering the creative use of the special qualities of networked virtual environments – the power of these electronically mediated social environments to enhance communication. “It won’t be face-to-face, but it can be richer.”

To Christian’s right is Dave Taylor (a.k.a Davee Commerce in Second Life), National Physics Laboratory, who presented on his innovative Second Health project and the use of Virtual Worlds for informal education and knowledge transfer (see Ugotrade post here).

To Dave’s right is Fabrizio Cardinali, CEO Giunti Labs, chair European Learning Industries, “Innovating learning in a flat, virtual world.”

And although he wasn’t there in person Rik Riel showed up on a slide in Dr. Timothy Foresman’s presentation!

Second Life Art is beginning to enter the mainstream of the art world. Visionary artist and art theorist Richard Minsky (his avatar in Second Life is appropriately called ArtWorld Market) and Second Life’s rising art world star Jeffrey Lipsky - known as Filthy Fluno in Second Life – are playing key roles in bridging the two worlds.

Minsky is publisher and managing editor of the brilliant and gorgeous SLART^TM magazine. “In urban slang a slart is between a slut and a tart,” Minsky notes. I caught a glimpse of SLART^TM in real life at SLCC. SLART^TM will be launched as a series of in-world books and exquisitely produced real life limited editions.

Filthy has been making the news and traveling with his exhibit, “The Adventures of Filthy Fluno.” On sept 14th, his show will open at “The Revolving Museum” in Lowell, Mass with a live performance from renowned boogie blues musician Komuso Tokugawa (see a video and post here).

Live from Japan, Komuso will broadcast his raucous guitar stylings and singing into the Revolving Museum using Second Life technology!

SLART^TM and the Second Life art exhibit at SLCC curated by Lipsky had a huge “must see” buzz going on in Chicago. I talked to Richard briefly after his presentation on The Art World Market of Second Life. But I really caught up with ArtWorld and Filthy in Second Life on Thursday, Sept 6th, just as they were preparing to stream the opening of “Crater New York: A Lunar Drawing Contest” into Second Life from Soho’s Location One.

Soho + Second Life

On September 26th a special jury of artists, journalists, a rocket scientist and a realtor will select three winning drawings. The drawings will all be exhibited in Second Life until the judging. “Crater New York” is one of a series of very high profile mixed reality events that are planned for September. See SLART^TM for the full schedule.

I live only a short subway ride from Soho in NYC but was nearly late for the opening. As Tara5 Oh, my avatar on SL, I was busy chatting with Filthy and ArtWorld while they set up the streams from Location One into multiple locations in Second Life. It was almost 6.30pm when ArtWorld urged, “hurry – you’ll be late.” I hastily packed up my laptop and camera and jumped on the #1 train down to Greene Street.

And soon, with the help of Location One’s IT guru, Drazen Pantic, I was logged into Second Life and watching 3D artist Everett Kane making his drawing for the contest both in real life, right in front of me, and on my laptop in Second Life (see the picture below). Filthy was still in-world. I continued my chat with him while explaining Second Life to interested gallery goers, many of whom had never seen Second Life before. Second Life will be projected into Location One for the rest of the show on a large screen.

I met and had an interesting talk with Location One Executive Director, Claire Montgomery and Director of Media Relations Flavia Destefanis. Location One is a very cool art center devoted “to the convergence between visual, performing and digital arts in a time of rapidly changing technology.” And, I met the conceivers of this participatory project – the artist duo of Nora Ligorano and Marshall Reese. Crater New York playfully explores topics pressing to art theory and global culture like “what happens to landscape in an age when nature is increasingly replaced by humans?”

Ligorano/Reese’s project gives a new spin to “deeper questions about affordable housing and the place of artists in the New York of the future. A trend that also mirrors the shift in perception of the moon from a heavenly body to real estate.” Crater New York uses the moon as “a model for contemplation,” and “a launching pad for your imagination.” The winners of the drawing contest will each receive a deed for property on the moon.

The Location One team has turned the gallery into “a control room that channels your imagination into the great beyond.” And, as Marshall explained to me, this thinking naturally led them to Second Life, and:

A series of networks of live video feeds and internet streaming virtualcasts your work from First Life into Second.

See, “Whose crater is it anyway?” for more (or click the picture below left) and see Rhizome. The picture on the right shows the stream coming into Second Life. In the picture below, gallery goers discuss the moonscape.

The Metaverse and the Moon

Ligorano/Rees have invited other artists to help them imagine and create the first colonies on the moon – the first lunar group show!

Look closely and you’ll find fantastic architecture: hydroponic gardens, lunar residences, an amusement park, a cathedral, an intergalactic reading library, an oil derrick, coffee shops, and a monument for the Apollo program (visible from earth in 1:16 scale).

Second Life is, of course, the first and greatest group show in the metaverse with countless metascapes to explore. And now there is a world class meta art theorist/avatar, ArtWorld Market (Richard Minsky), to bring the emerging art movements of Second Life into a mainstream critical context.

See here for the SLART^TM visit to the amazing world of Sabine Stonebender, or Visit her Zero Point environment now..

Sabine Stonebender inside her scalar work Plasma Cheerios.

The Art World Market of Second Life

Minsky presented a paper at SLCC that contextualizes the art of Second Life that has no RL equivalent as “using in-world tools and scripts to create native artworks that could not exist in RL.”

These [works] can be huge in virtual scale, animated, and interactive, and can combine visual art, music and performance. These works have no RL equivalent, and the artists are dependent on in-world collectors, individual, institutional and corporate patronage, or their own resources.

Minsky articulates an art world view on creation, production, marketing, distribution, ethical and legal issues of Second Life art.

I found out when I met two of Minsky’s ArtWorld Market avatars in Second Life that this is a man/avatar with some extensive bandwidth.

Minsky is not only a successful artist with a considerable reputation. He also is chairman of the board for The Center for Book Arts. He was Visiting Artist at Brown University, “at the Ivy League East End of things,” and taught on Advanced Thought Particles at the Wizard Academy in Austin, Texas last year. He worked for the Hirshhorn Museum when it was in NYC before they moved to DC. Minsky had a contract to bind their books, which quickly turned into an art history education. Then he took a job as the museum’s photographer, and shot about 2000 paintings and sculptures.

All the best art photographers came to take pix there, at the Hirshhorn Warehouse. I learned a lot about how to look at art from them.

And now, Richard Minsky brings us SLART^TM which got a chorus of WOWs and AMAZINGs at SLCC where he previewed it.

Interweaving the worlds of paper and electrons

Minsky is introducing the world to the metaverse’s art stars. I have already been fortunate enough to meet and talk with one of the brightest, Jeffrey Lipsky, Filthy Fluno in Second Life. Filthy Fluno’s “biomorphic surrealism that brings together graffiti and cartoons recalls the work of Tanguy, Matta and Arp,” Minsky notes.

And, “Lipsky takes the lead in interweaving the worlds of paper and electrons.”

Filthy talked to me about how he got started in Second Life.

i started to really become inspired by the people and creations i came across in SL… so i started making RL art about it pastels and charcoal drawings. i’d photo them…upload them to SL and exhibit them and share them with my community. Next thing you know people started asking for the real stuff. Then i met someone from IBM [Doug McDavid]… he thought what i was doing was interesting so they flew me out to San Jose to lecture and make art… that led to more commissions and more lectures and more chances to travel to exhibit like at Gallery 555 in Porto, Portugal.

More about Filthy’s success story here. And, how he is using the island Artropolis as a platform to help other artists.  Also, see Filthy’s blog and a YouTube of “Filthy Drawing NMC”  here.