In Spring of 2007, I (Rob Powell) was given the opportunity to work with Suguru Goto while he was in residence at the Aesthetic Technologies Lab at Ohio University. Our goal was to incorporate Second Life interaction into a project he was working on there.

Initial programming was focused on using input from a motion capture suit to control an avatar and object positions in Second Life. Both avatar and object interaction required us to customize the Second Life Viewer source code (C++) to accept input from the suit. Object interaction also required in-world LSL scripts to function.

This project has continued in 2008, with the notion that we will perform this work at conferences and symposiums later this year and next. The extended work involves mirroring the existing work - in addition to the motion capture suit(s) controlling avatars in Second Life, avatars will be controlling robotics here in First Life.

Many of Suguru's works explore different representations and forms of the human body or "person". The intention of this work continues in that vein by exploring the blending of realities - who people are in this world and who they are in Second Life. And because this work is in Second Life, the social context for live interaction goes from those who are right around you in this world to almost anyone from anywhere who happens to be using Second Life at the time.