Virtual Academy
A 3D model of campus in Second Life will have buildings, conference and exhibition halls, information libraries and clubs for visiting avatars. The buildings will get a shape of contemporary architecture, which adapted could later be transferred also into the physical environment. The conference hall will be “equipped” with most innovative technology available in virtual reality: plugins for real time video and audio conferences, private and public chat rooms, direct access to archived lectures and profiles of each student and lector as well as information libraries for Creative Laboratory phases. Exhibition spaces should get a shape of a very flexible space where students could curate their solo and joint exhibitions. Each academy will have at least one web cam installed in the campus, so all students could follow also local events especially while travelling with campers. Beside activities in Second Life, Virtual Academy will own a central media server for storing video clips, sound material, sketches and other documentation collected during the process. Media server will host services in order to broadcast activities in real time. For a fast access to archived material a website will be launched. All these three units – media server, Second Life and a website – will be interlinked to each other.
Virtual Academy will always remain as the central station where students come back to meet each other, work further on the projects, take classes or show activities while travelling. Dispatched mobile units will consist of 3-5 students and will be equipped with a relevant infrastructure: laptops, PDAs, mobile phones, video cameras, GPS receivers and power generators. Using UMTS technology students will be always plugged into the Internet in order to keep activities report in the Second Life territory as well broadcast live events from European Capitals of Culture and on the road towards them for a wider audience.
Virtual Academy with its model in Second Life will serve for teaching, live performances, seminars and other studying and leisure related actions. Lectors from participating Art Academies, EU, as well as from the rest of the world will be giving classes and lecturing in real time. Student groups will be taught to use technology for realizing various projects. The studies will cover the phenomenon of migration between spoken and written word, technology and arts, physical and virtual worlds, gravity and non gravity, personality and society.



