The Many Faces of Pop Art Lab – Update!

Once again we have been swamped in busy RL and blogposts been rare. Due to RL changes as I am moving into new locations PAL been forced to postpound most activities including new machinima musicvideo contests (as mentioned in previous post here). We are sorry for the delay!

When that’s said there’s a lot going on behind the virtual scenes.

First of all we have turned our lab into a RL musicpromotion agency!
Lately we made an arrangement with US million selling recording artist Edwin McCain to PR and support his upcoming Danish May tour including no less than 8 liveshows.
To feed all local RL media with promo, setting up interviews for the press with Edwin McCain and whatever else need to be done to get his tour rolling to the max, we teamed up with Danish marketing specialist.
This is also PAL’s transition into new markets as it is our very first totally non-game related PR campaign!
We love it so far and am pretty sure to continue this path and serve foreign artists promotional efforts and branding while touring Denmark.

Next we are still dealing with setting up machinima musicvideo contests. Two cool indiebands are in the pipeline and we hope the machinima community are ready for some tough schedules!
In case everything works out well we might need one musicvideo ready start of June and next one in August! We count on 1 month filming duration for both contests. Let’s see! Keep an eye here on blog or get your updates at our Facebook.

Also of note we have been contacted by professor who’s making research in virtual TV and I’ll be interviewed about our Pop Vox TV shows. Our audience and the Pop Vox team will be included in research as well.

Finally I’ll participate and do a speak at Copenhagen Business School Seminar “Innovation and Market Creation in and around Virtual Worlds” May 11.

To sum up it might look like PAL is pretty low-key on inworld activities and we are! Behind the scene we are not!

The many faces of Pop Art Lab luckily flourish into new directions and opportunities – Love it!

Pop Art Lab in 2012

As announced inworld, on our Facebook and so on; we are back and focused streaming music again regularly after a very busy real life in January! This is good timing because the record labels are usually quiet in Janauary too, and increase their releases from early February-we have CD’s raining on our RL desks! Just like in 2011, we promise to filter and stream the most refreshing, new and captivating new and established artists in 2012.

Claus has just returned from the MIDEM convention in Cannes, France, which is the world’s leading conference regarding the current state of the music industry (and their use of new shiny tech apps and platforms). Beside an action packed programme full of exciting panels and presentations he went to some very inspiring and interesting meetings with record label executives, artists, promo agencies and development teams.
This leads to our two main tasks at Pop Art Lab in 2012……….

Firstly, it’s about time to showcase the current quality and expertise in the art of machinima (videos recorded by using game engines). As in 2011 where we facilitated two crowd sourced music video contests (for the highly recommended indie bands ‘Giana Factory’ and ‘Emma Acs & The Inbred Family’) and we hope to kick-off the new 2012 contests soon. Some 4-5 artists/bands are on radar as the topic for this contest and we are just clearing scheduling, rights policies and contest limits. More news to follow very soon on this!

Secondly, we are looking into how to develop Pop Art Lab into a more stable platform. Second Life is a unique tool for creativity and prototyping but it still lacks stability and especially growth. The basic concept of Pop Art Lab is to enable people to come together in game simulated virtual environments and to share a social music experience. This has to become easier, more fun and accessible via iPad, iPhone, Android and direct Facebook login. Whether our lab will move towards a more closed ‘game’ like world, or if it will be part of some other platform is far too early to say. What we can say is that it’s time to evaluate and rethink our goals and find out ‘how and where’ and on which platform we are able to reach a wider audience.

No matter what happens, we will continue to operate in Second Life but our presence might be reduced-perhaps by downsizing our sim from a full Class 5 and by moving to a smaller plot of land. Time will tell. But as we move forward into 2012, the whole team at PAL are energised, determined and committed to expanding our services for new and old members alike. Happy New Year and hold on for a fast ride!

/Persia Bravin

(Pics taken at Midem, Cannes, France – January 28.-31. 2012)

Pop Art Lab in 2011 – A Brief Summary!

As the year of 2011 comes to an end, here is a timeline of Pop Art Lab highlights!

Back in Januray I had the pleasure to meet founder of SoundCloud Alexander Ljung as part of a 25 min. one-to-one meeting arranged during Midem tech/music conference in Cannes, France.

In April we hosted Danish indie noir band Giana Factory video contest and later on made Social Media measurement of entire campaign. The results was impressive! 1.2MM impressions/eyeballs.

We also presented our lab as a case study for educators as part of the biggest Virtual Worlds conference entitled Virtual Worlds Best Practice in Education (VWBPE).

We even managed to broadcast and had the pleasure to interview UK Deathline in our Pop Vox TV show.

In August we broadcast our Emma Acs video contest

Also of note PAL was featured on Spanish site Todas Musica y creatividad en redes sociales 3D: Pop Art Lab.

In September we hosted and celebrated our 3 year anniversary with a huge party and a lot of fun!

In October I was invited by TAG Strategic to participate in a very inspiring debate/evening held in Copenhagen and led by Ted Cohen. About 15 leading established as well as startup companies participated in the 3 hour long open forum.

We also had our lab presented as “research object” by Roskilde University (RUC) at AOIRs (Associations of Internet Researches) annual conference to be held in Seattle, Washington (full abstract)

In November we held our Pop Art Lab in Pictures photocontest which gathered some amazing photos!

More recently, here in December, I have had the pleasure of presenting PAL for one of the Majors (one of the big four record labels) and for one of the largest marketing companies in the USA.

And what more… oh yes we have been featured 3-4 times on front of secondlife.com site, launched this shiny new blog and hosted 3-5 Blackout DJ events.

2011 have seen our lab heading and zooming more into RL and we might have reduced our SL presence when it comes to events etc. but we definately love our virtual community.

The vision of Pop Art Lab have always been to lessen the gap between the real and virtual and I believe we’ll face and even bigger integration in coming years as virtual worlds and social MMOs gains more acceptance, attraction and adoption.

Merry Christmas everyone and to all who have supported, participated; its been a wonderful year, Thank You!
A big up for our core team Emily, Persia, Austin and Olivia.
/Claus Uriza

Photo Contest Winners!

The winners in our photo contest are:

1. Corcosman Voom
2. Fae Varriale
3. Shamus Jefferson

Many thanks to ALL who entered! The jury consisting of four PAL team members had a tough time finding the best. We had almost 10 pictures in the final heat.
Above gallery shows those of which all jury members liked! Please consider all as winners!

Also thanks to all who joined event. Roughly 150-200 stepped by during the 5 hours making it one more historic and successfull PAL event!

A lot can and have been said about virtual worlds but I have to say one of the most fascinating observations is to have the opportunity to meet, dance, chat and share a lot of good music with a global bunch of like-minded. Love it!!

We’ll take a short break here on blog. Meanwhile stay up to date via our Facebook, Twitter or inworld group.

Next event is scheduled in December and themed IDM glitchy tech down in club!

We are currently puzzling with our next music project and if everything works out we’ll launch a project of yet unseen proportions related to music marketing in Virtual Worlds!

Stay tuned!

PAL Photo Contest Entries – Slideshow!

STAY UPDATED ABOUT NEWS ON “WINNER ANNOUNCEMENTS EVENT SATURDAY NOVEMBER 12″ AT FACEBOOK

TO SEE ALL FULL SIZE ENTRIES PLEASE VISIT FLICKR ARCHIVE

EVENT DETAILS

Pop Art Lab Photo Event!

Pop Art Lab Photo Event!

November 12. – 12:00-05:00pm SLT/PDT – 21:00-02:00 CET

Time is up! We’ll be announcing the top three winning photos in our contest!

After much thinking, a few arguments, and lots of beers consumed, the judges made from the RL/SL Pop Art Lab team have finally reached a decision. Who will the winner be? Join us to find out.

As always, Pop Art Lab can’t produce an event without having a huge party-and we have the best DJs and live music lined up for you.

A huge thank you to all the participants, to all our friends and business colleagues in both lives and to the whole PAL in world group for your continued support.

Programme!

12:00 pm DJ BRB aka Claus Uriza (DK) Tech DubHop Indie
01:30 pm Winning Annoucements w. Hosts Persia Bravin/Claus Uriza (Pop Art Lab)
02:00 pm Live Music: Engrama (Arg/Esp) Indie
03:00 pm DJ Unknown aka Evil Laa (US) Dubstep
04:00 pm DJ Denard Henry aka Sonic Architect (US) Minimal Tech
05:00 pm Departure – Afterparty

Access: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Pop%20Art%20Lab/173/78/21

Photo Entries can be viewed here

Pop Art Lab on Facebook:

Contacts:
Claus Uriza: CEO RL & SL Pop Art Lab
clausuriza(at)gmail(dot)com

Persia Bravin: Marketing Manager RL & SL Pop Art Lab
Persia(dot)bravin(at)yahoo(dot)com

About Pop Art Lab

Pop Art Lab is a real world music research company that is exploring the use of virtual words such as Second Life as alternative music performance venues. Each week, we stream up to twenty new CD releases from world famous recording artists full length and 24/7 from our class 5 sim, so SL residents can listen to fresh music releases from all genres of music.

We also invite real life musicians, DJs and record labels into SL to encourage creative collaboration; we produce a TV music series in partnership with Treet.TV, and work with machinima makers, virtual artists and many other content creators for mutual benefit.

With a full range of services available, and a team of professional staff, Pop Art Lab is blurring the boundaries between the real and virtual. One recent music video contest gathered over one million hits and as we move into the future, our plans are to expand our activities and services in both worlds.

Above all, our mission is to make music social: by using virtual worlds such as Second Life, people can enjoy music with others from across the globe-and all in real time.

Secret Landmarks for PAL Photo Contest

Here is some secret LMs at Pop At Lab for our ongoing photo contest!

At first, it might only seem we have one level at the PAL sim-but in fact there’s a lot more.

If you need inspiration for the photo contest-check out these more secret LMs below.

Happy shooting!!

Sky Stage: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Pop%20Art%20Lab/144/181/2127

ArtBreaker: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Pop%20Art%20Lab/114/83/2126

Giana Factory Stage: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Pop%20Art%20Lab/166/133/1204

Trippy Place: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Pop%20Art%20Lab/213/181/2127

Red Gramophone: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Pop%20Art%20Lab/82/91/28

PAL Restaurant: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Pop%20Art%20Lab/15/15/21

PAL TV Studio: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Pop%20Art%20Lab/172/71/104

Pop Art Lab in Pictures

Pop Art Lab presents its first ever photography contest in Second Life™

17th- 31st October 2011

Music and photography have always been natural artistic partners. Think of all the seminal musical moments in history captured through a lens: the concert performances, candid shots of rock stars behaving badly and behind the scenes images that show rock n roll history in all its gritty glory.

Now in its third year in Second Life, Pop Art Lab is inviting photographers from across SL to unleash their artistic vision as part of our anniversary celebrations. If you love taking photographs and like music- we want you to enter!

It’s up to you to decide what is in your shot, but the Pop Art Lab sim must be shown in some way. Apart from this, the creativity is all yours!
The top three winning images will all receive a cash prize, plus they will be seen by real life global record labels, recording artists and media companies who we work with in both worlds.

Prizes
The prizes are as follows:
1st Prize Winner: L$15,000
2nd Prize Winner: L$10,000
3rd Prize Winner: L$5,000

How to enter
1) First join our group in Second Life by searching for: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Lab (this is where all notices and information on this contest will be posted).

2) Visit our sim to find inspiration and a good location to take your shot:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Pop%20Art%20Lab/152/163/28

3) Take any type of image you like. There is no restriction on themes and you can include avatars, props etc. The only thing we ask is that some part of the Pop Art Lab sim is featured in your work and is clearly visible

4) Upload your shot to the Pop Art Lab flickr group, with your name and any other information in the description box.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/popartlab/

Contest Requirements
1) All entrants must join our SL group and flickr group to complete their entries
2) Shots MUST feature the Pop Art Lab sim in some way
3) There is no restriction on themes: you have complete freedom to choose composition-anything goes!
4) If you need rezz rights at our sim, contact Claus Uriza
5) Post processing such as Photoshop is allowed
6) By submitting your entry, you give permission for Pop Art Lab to use your images in SL, on its website and for real life promotional purposes

Contact:
Claus Uriza: CEO RL & SL Pop Art Lab
clausuriza(at)gmail(dot)com
Persia Bravin: Marketing Manager RL & SL Pop Art Lab
Persia.bravin(at)yahoo(dot)com

About Pop Art Lab
Pop Art Lab is a real world music research company that is exploring the use of virtual words such as Second Life as alternative music performance venues. Each week, we stream up to twenty new CD releases from world famous recording artists full length and 24/7 from our class 5 sim, so SL residents can listen to fresh music releases from all genres of music.
We also invite real life musicians, DJs and record labels into SL to encourage creative collaboration; we produce a TV music series in partnership with Treet.TV, and work with machinima makers, virtual artists and many other content creators for mutual benefit.
With a full range of services available, and a team of professional staff, Pop Art Lab is blurring the boundaries between the real and virtual. One recent music video contest gathered over one million hits and as we move into the future, our plans are to expand our activities and services in both worlds.
Above all, our mission is to make music social: by using virtual worlds such as Second Life, people can enjoy music with others from across the globe-and all in real time.

Music Shared Real Time in 3D – Forever Changes!

Been a while since we posted on the PAL blog, but the team have all been busy in real life! But we are back and have some great new things happening at PAL we have to share.

From this week, we have expanded our streams at PAL which means that now, each dome (listening booth) will have a weekly selection rotating 2-4 new albums (not just one!) making it now possible to hear 8-16 instantly compared with our previous static 4. Truth is we have been meaning to do this for some time now but as autumn sets in and everyone stays indoor real life more – this season seemed the perfect time to launch this new service.

We hope you enjoy it. By doing this, we are also able to promote even more music from real life musicians and we hope that after listening to the new streams with us that you are inspired to go out and buy new releases – please don’t forget to support the hard working musicians! This new model of streaming at PAL will be more flexible – just expect the unexpected: so bring your friends, partners, lovers, mothers, pets and neighbours to PAL, and enjoy music shared in real time. [visit recent streams in our music section currently under construction]

To quote Mark Zuckerberg at the recent FB8 Developer Conference on Facebook Music announcements: “Here is how it works: Spotify users who connect to Facebook can now automatically share the songs they’re listening to through Facebook’s new news ticker. Their friends can then click on any of those song links, which will launch the Spotify client in the background and play the very same song in a synchronized fashion. “You discover a huge amount of new music this way,” said Zuckerberg.

In other words: Facebook/Spotify launch a service allowing multiple [connected] users to listen to the same tune real time. This set bells ringing with us at PAL because we have been running “shared real time streaming” for 3 years (without all the “let the data do the work” cool shared social media features FB offers). We really should rezz some data mining inside the lab … someday.

PAL also got a great mention in the October issue of the ‘Best of Second Life’ Magazine where the society reporter, Sonicity Fitzroy, was kind enough to attend our third anniversary event – thanks to BOSL!

Also, in the next week or so look out for other new PAL activities coming up such as more live gigs, our new photography contest, details of Artbreaker 2 plus how PAL and the world of SL fashion will be working together…

Please shoot feedback here or inworld. Thank You!

Persia Bravin/Claus Uriza

Pop Art Lab 3 years Anniversary!!!

Pop Art Lab 3 year Anniversary!

September 3. – 12:00-06:00pm SLT/PDT – 21:00-03:00 CET
Black Celebration: Blackout DJ B-Day Special

Suddenly we are 3 and want to bang the drums!!! We have hosted endless (50-70) events and seen SL change, grow but we still here! We have had up at 75.000 visitors. We have streamed more than 1750 full lenght albums! We have been mentioned in LA Times and endless other Read more →