By Wendy Levy (aka Shayna Capalini in SL), BAVC Director of Creative Programming
If Michael Moore knew about Second Life before he made Sicko, he might not have dragged all those sick people to Cuba on a little boat. There is now an actual prototype of Guantanamo Bay prison in the virtual community of Second Life, a site where visitors become “detainees” and important lessons about habeas corpus, due process, and civil rights are illuminated as never before. Media matters in so many new ways these days, consumed on demand, on cell phones, on ipods, on game consoles, and in multi-user online communities and web-based social networks. On Monday, September 17, the Seton Hall Law School National Constitution Day program on Interrogation and Intelligence Gathering was webcast on the Guantanamo Bay site in Second Life. This virtual detention center was developed by Nonny de la Peña, producer and director of the documentary “Unconstitutional: The War on Our Civil Liberties,” and Peggy Weil, Professor of Interactive Media at the University of Southern California at Bay Area Video Coalition’s (BAVC) Producers Institute for New Media Technologies. Check out the a video report from Second Life: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT7p231Cfxk
By Dillon Thomas, BAVC Youth Productions Instructor
BAVC Youth Productions has employed 26 youth in the last 18 months while producing over two and a half hours of original media content and instruction for 22 different Community Based Organization’s (CBO), educational institutions, and government agencies across the Bay Area. With work aired on the big screen and small screen locally, BAVC Youth Productions is having an amazing impact on the youth who work in the program. They see for themselves the creative work and effort they put into a project, and how it is then put to proud use by their client organization/agency. One recent video, which BYP produced for the County of Alameda, featured the work of youth in the Tri-Valley area working together with mentors to tell their personal stories of addiction, self mutilation, and teenage pregnancy. The resulting video has had such an impact, that people were begging to buy copies of it. One parent, who as a result of participating in the video, chose to change careers and become a teenager counselor. Another example of our good work is a PSA that was produced for STAND Against DV, a Concord CBO dedicated to raising awareness about domestic violence. (more…)
Our EVL hosts were Maxine Brown and Jason Leigh, who together direct the world-class research lab focused on advanced visualization and networking technologies. Their projects are a fusion of art and computer science that yield creative innovations for next generation technologies. Founded by Larry Smarr who now heads Calit2 at UC-San Diego, EVL is an example of the new learning that BAVC has been engaged in since the successful first year of our Producers Institute for New Media Technologies, housed within our Community Innovation Lab.
If Michael Moore knew about Second Life before he made Sicko, he might not have dragged all those sick people to Cuba on a little boat. There is now an actual prototype of Guantanamo Bay prison in the virtual community of Second Life, a site where visitors become “detainees” and important lessons about habeas corpus, due process, and civil rights are illuminated as never before. Media matters in so many new ways these days, consumed on demand, on cell phones, on ipods, on game consoles, and in multi-user online communities and web-based social networks. On Monday, September 17, the Seton Hall Law School National Constitution Day program on Interrogation and Intelligence Gathering was webcast on the Guantanamo Bay site in Second Life. This virtual detention center was developed by Nonny de la Peña, producer and director of the documentary “Unconstitutional: The War on Our Civil Liberties,” and Peggy Weil, Professor of Interactive Media at the University of Southern California at Bay Area Video Coalition’s (BAVC) Producers Institute for New Media Technologies. Check out the a video report from Second Life: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT7p231Cfxk
I recently had the pleasure of visiting the 
