The NMC Symposium on creativity continues steadily through this week's schedule. The conference demonstrates that the "medium is the message" by developing an open learning environment within the participating community. The key lies in instructing attendees on the tools they need to empower their own innovative ideas. To achieve their goal, NMC makes use of their professional organizational methods and top-notch educational material, both in "print" and in the form of incredible workshop leaders.

To explore the attitudes, attendee stories, and daily events, I highly encourage you to read the symposium collaborative blog at Creating Pandora's Box. CEO Larry Pixel set the tone of the conference with a compelling speech on why creativity matters, which is now available online.

Read on to see which pieces of the puzzle may have contributed to a positive reaction .

What do you call the kind of art that cannot be captured in photographs and even machinima falls short somehow? It can only be unique and visionary.



I have only words of praise for DanCoyote Antonelli's sim-wide installation on Arts and Letters opening today at 6 pm SLT. Second Life is full of beautiful and interesting art exhibits, but DanCoyote (DC Spensley in real life) has taken his insights into the virtual space to a ground-breaking level.

Continue reading on for a sneak peak before the opening and some tips for a better experience!

The NMC symposium on creativity kicked off today at 2 PM Second Life time, with nearly 100 avatars present and about 150 avatars signed up. Considering that the virtual conference is one week long and registration was charged, this is quite impressive.

The art displays organized by Tayzia Abattoir and Ravenelle Zugzwang will be present and provided free throughout SLCC. For those interested, the live performance by DanCoyote Antonelli and the amazing ZeroG dancers is also free for Monday night, at 6 pm and at 7, 8, and 9 pm on Friday, August 17th. Correction - Monday night at 6 pm is the opening of the DanCoyote art sim - Arts and Letters, while the ZeroG Dancers will be performing Friday at 7, 8, and 9 pm SLT. Please check the comments for more info directly from the artist!

If you've never seen the ZeroG dancers, this is something not to be missed! Get to the event spot early on Arts and Letters, shows are limited to 30 avatars. To learn more about it check out the Second Life Art News blog or the YouTube video of one of the performances.

Coming soon: more about the wonderful events and content that keep everyone busy at this meeting!

Having now read the notecard which is provided on the platform about new west art show, I believe I may have gatecrashed the 8 o'clock performance of the ZeroG skydancers, as I certainly hadn't made reservations. Who knew I would be in SL at the eye-popping time of 4am?

I'm glad that I was, and that I read about the three one-of-a-kind performances of the ZeroG Skydancers. I had a bit of trouble getting there, being bounced four or five times to an adjacent sim before I successfully reached the platform high in the sky which is where the performance took place.

An illuminated round seating plan was provided for the audience. We were instructed to force midnight and to wait for an instruction to cue our music, ready for the only Hyperformalist dance company in either world.

The stage was DanCoyote Antonelli's massive "interactive prim cloud" hyperformalist sculpture entitled "ZeroG lll".

Avatars wearing amazing attachment costumes flew around and through the sculpture, while music played in the background and some incidential sounds were triggered by the skydancers. It was an amazing sight, and made me very glad that I had seen it.

The skydancers were Kokoro Fasching, Deborah Strangelove, Anhinga Chaika and Kumi Kuhr. They did an amazing job, wheeling and diving in a 200 cubic metre space, 700 metres above the Brilliant sim.

Most of all for me it was inspiring, and pushed the boundaries of what could be considered an artwork and an event in Second Life.