Peekaboo  . . .

Yes I have been silent a long time. But that’s not a crime I think . .
Today however,  I break the silence with a blog on a machinima I have created.
Eupalinos Ugajin and Tutsy Navarathna made an installation called Get Drunk, Enivrez-vous.
It was based on a poem by Charles Baudelaire with the same title.
On the day I publish my blog and machinima the installation itself has its last day and cannot be seen anymore.

No sense

It maybe makes no sense at all to who have not visited the installation and have not or will not read the poem. But getting drunk in general makes no sense  . . .  right?  At least not if you do it the way I did initially. But hey, I was attacked  . . .  by wine and whiskey. Can’t blame me for that having an effect on how I function. I blame Eupalinos and Tutsy for that and they can expect a lawyer at their doorstep. I want my regular AO back. I walked drunk for weeks and still feel like having rubber legs. Shame on them.

Augmented Reality

I do not really show the installation itself so clearly, I have to admit. I made the machinima more for the message behind the poem and played with that. One element I did not use is the part that used the Augmented Reality technique via an app on your mobile device. The app is called Eyejack and was used to add sound and animations to pictures. They came alive when following the instructions. Very nice ; ))

Imagine you can bring me to live in that way  . . . make me move in the way you like me to move or let me say things you want me to say.  I think I do not want to know how that looks like. But in fact when using Second Life we bring all kinds of ‘dead’ matter to life and add reality layers as well.  We change our views on others with adding our own imagination, beliefs and ideas to them. We construct an image of that person based on our experiences we have with them, but moreover by our interpretations of these experiences.  If that is a matter of being wrong or right is not so easy to say. Fact is you see what you see, think what you think, feel what you feel and shape realities with that. I can look at person A through my glasses and see a completely different image than someone else looking through his or her glasses.

We are not so accurate as we think we are . . .
But being accurate and imagination are not the best friends.
Imagination means you have to play with reality a bit.
To bring it to another level of consciousness and recreate values and meanings.
Playing is good. As long as you know there can be many other realities that are as valuable , true and genuine too.

Here is an example of one the four AR pictures that was shown. It is called recalcitrant. I will offer both ways of seeing it in action. The official way and the lazy way. The official one needs this app: Eyejack. Once you have installed it you need to open it and scan the QR image below the picture and click on the white button. The AR starts to load itself and when you move the screen of your mobile device over the picture below you will see it come to life. It’s really very cool. Movement AND music. Tutsy created this part of the installation btw. The images I use I have with his permission on my blog. The avatars that can be seen in this specific image and animation all are made by Alpha Auer. More here: https://www.elifayiter.com/

Too lazy? Tsssskkkkkkk. But well okay, let’s call that an escape from your hard day’s life as well then and getting drunk on being a lazy ass. Who knows it is a new virtue  . . . . being lazy.  Procrastinate is the chic word. And yes guilty as charged here as well with that.  Anyway, the lazy way is below the 2 pictures. It simply shows the animation and music which are activated when doing it the official way.

Memories

We can bring memories to life as well, both Second Life and Real life. The installation did so with the poem of Baudelaire. To not forget we need to escape life a bit sometimes. To need imagination, distraction and getting high on something or someone we like, love or need. The impact of a full blown unfiltered reality should be allowed some softer escapes. Not because you deny the presence of raw life experiences and maybe even need them to stay ‘real’  (what is real   .  . . ), but because you need recover time to face the next experience of unfiltered life. Carrying the burden of all and everything is too much asked and useless. No one can do that without getting physically and mentally exhausted.

Sooo, laugh and sing and dance. Alone, together, with food or wine or poetry or love and sex. Whatever makes you feel like orbiting into a more relaxed space where negative impacts are less present. And to not feel bad with doing so makes it complete. To truly enjoy your little or big escapes from realities taking you down a bit too much.

A cat in the installation calls it this: Heaven can wait.
For me that means we can focus too much on what we call heaven, as a kind of magical future scenario. A wannabe place for later, after all the hard work is done. We better create our own heavenly spaces right here and now and immerse into them like taking a nice warm bath. Not endlessly, but cleaning up some dirt and smells.
Thank you Eupalinos and Tutsy for the funny yet also serious installation.

Thanks to the following persons as well for having contributed in some way to the machinima

Aneli Abeyante

Chimkami

Dividni Shostakovich

Elvira Kytori

Naxos Loon

Tiger Zepp

(War)Beagle

La Maison d’Aneli – Aneli Abeyante

Walsh County – Randonee Noel

Enjoy the machinima  below :))
And just saying  .  .  .  I’m a fantastic guitar player.
Epic even  . . . ; P

Voice over text:

It all started here
With a poem on getting drunk

Enivrez-vous, enivrez -vous sans trêve
De vin, de poésie, d’amour, ou de vertu
à votre guise

Get Drunk, get drunk without apprehension
On wine, poetry, love or virtue
As you wish

My own choice?
Wine and whiskey literaly attacking me?

I lost that battle . .
But I always fight back

My quest had only just begun
I wanted secrets
I wanted magic
Ooooh I wanted love

But all I found was . . .
Pénélope Jolie Coeur
Pénélope was fearless . . .
Close to dangerous and mad.
But Pénélope showed me how to be a bit more LaLa
And how life is all about love

And that’s how I found ALL
How to escape into light and happiness
With music and spirit
How to do the walk of life
With friends and lovers

Get drunk . . .
On wine, poetry, virtue and love

Become Baudelaire (Beau de l’Aire)
Beautiful air
Fly high
Because heaven can wait . . .

And Serge Reggiani, the French singer you can see in the machinima for a short while, reciting the poem of Baudelaire, also did a song on Get Drunk: