Charles Hutchins, Shelly Knotts
Was performed at:
Mozilla Hubs has been cancelled. This graphical VR environment is no more, as tech attention drifts towards AI. Adopters of the virtual platform are looking forward, for the next thing to replace it. We propose looking backwards.
When Neal Stephenson wrote Snow Crash in 1992, there were already thriving VR communities using text-based MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons) and MOOs (MUDs Object Oriented). Users could have any avatar they wanted, which could perform any action they could describe. Their only limit was imagination and language. This collaboratively built VR was live coded by the users who built objects through iterative design within the platform. Shelly and Charles will use SuperCollider within a MOO environment to create a text and sonic adventure available to the audience and people who log in from home, at blessing.exchange. MOO-SiC creates a telepresence of the imagination, while the music grounds it in real lived experience. We present this as an alternative vision, merging embodied and virtual, as a candidate for inclusion in the cybernetic meadows and virtual fantasy spaces, imagined by permacomputing enthusiasts.