Randommedia, the UK based games/web design people, have a fascinating virtual world called Dreamdomain.

You design yourself a “drone” – a flying insect, with a “blindwatchmaker” genetic algorithm and then off you go to fly round some very weird landscapes.

The dots are messages – text, and video!

But you are not at all alone – there are others in there too – you can talk to them, leave messages, or, if you have a video camera attached to your machine, you can send in live video.

The new Presence Project “Preforming Presence: from the live to the simulated” has got me thinking of the issues of virtuality and what makes you commit to an environment such as this.

It certainly isn’t photographic verisimilitude!

Archaeological connection and relevance –

Think of archaeological landscapes – their fragmented folding – and their collective constitution – all those accreted stories that people know and retell. And that they are never complete – always being rebuilt as people make new stories and archaeologists find old remains. How might we deal in such topology, this ever-changing and percolating time.

Well, here is one attempt to re-present, to work with such experiences.

Thanks to Sam (Schillace) for this link.