On October 9 at 7am SL time (4pm Stockholm time, 10am New York Time) we’ll be having another installment of our series of free Swedish lessons for beginners. They’ll be held at the auditorium of the Second House of Sweden on the Swedish Institute sim in Second Life. Join instructor Kvint Larsson for a half hour of basic Swedish followed by a period of free-form discussion - for example for questions from people who may already know some Swedish.
Second Life is not a physical place but a virtual world that anyone with a computer and a broadband internet connection can reach. To take part in the lessons if you have never been in Second Life before, start here. You will be asked to download some software, open a (free) account, and then begin with a tutorial. If you want to attend the lessons, give yourself at least half an hour to download, install and familiarize yourself with the controls.
Last week’s lesson provided us with some valuable feedback as to what works and what doesn’t. This next lesson will be a lot more structured, as requested by those who attended. See you there!
What: Free Swedish lessons for beginners
When: Four courses, starting Tuesday, October 2, 7am SL time (4pm Stockholm time, 10am New York time)
Where: Second House of Sweden auditorium, Swedish Institute sim.
Ever wish you spoke just enough Swedish to break the ice with the cute Swedish boy/girl/furry you’ve been spying at the other end of the dance floor? The Swedish Institute can help.
Starting Tuesday, October 2, at 7am SL time (4pm Stockholm time), we’ll be giving a series of free Swedish lessons in Second Life for beginners. You’ll find that you in fact understand quite a lot, even if you have never have heard spoken Swedish before. You don’t need to prepare beforehand or know any Swedish — just show up, hang out and have fun learning.
Instructor Lasse will be conducting four courses in total, using Second Life’s voice chat technology and a video screen. Expected dates for the subsequent courses are October 9, 22 and November 5, all at 7am SL time. Attend one, some, or all.
See you there!
Note: Please be sure to have voice-chat enabled (to hear Lasse and others) and Quicktime installed (to view the live video).
What: Gallery Talk by Nationalmuseum at Second House of Sweden
When: Tuesday, September 25, 15:30 Stockholm time (06:30 Second Life time)
Where: Second House of Sweden, Swedish Institute, Second Life
Who: Helén Hallgren Archer, Nationalmuseum’s curator for art education
How: Using Second Life’s new voice technology
Nationalmuseum’s gallery talk in August got great reviews and feedback, and we are happy to host another one this week. Helén will be talking about four of the artworks from Nationalmuseum that are on display at the Second House of Sweden, exploring how nature inspired these Swedish artists in different ways.
The four art pieces are by these artists:
Ernst Josephson (1851-1906), “The Water Sprite”, painted 1882;
Anders Zorn (1860-1920), “Midsummer Dance”, painted 1897;
Prince Eugen (1856-1949), “The Cloud”, painted 1896;
Märta Måås Fjetterström (1873-1941), “Unicorn in the forest”, textile from 1920.
During the last gallery talk, we were testing to see if Second Life’s voice technology really works when used with a lot of people. It did. This time round, we hope to have ironed out some of the kinks, so the whole experience should be a lot smoother. See you there!
Invasão Sueca (”Swedish Invasion”) brings Swedish pop music to Brazil, and now also to Second Life. This whole week, Swedish bands such as Love Is All, Hello Saferide, Maia Hirasawa and Suburban Kids With Biblical Names are playing in Recife, Porto Alegre and Sao Paolo — on September 21st, the performance is also being broadcast live via streaming video to the Second House of Sweden, Sweden’s virtual embassy in Second Life.
The concert starts at 23.00 Sao Paolo time (Sept 21), 22.00 New York time, (Sept 21), 19.00 Second Life time (Sept 21), 04:00 Stockholm time (Sept 22). On stage will be Suburban Kids With Biblical Names and Maia Hirasawa. See you at the Second House of Sweden on the Swedish Institute sim.
About Invasão Sueca: Invasão Sueca is a project by the Swedish Institute and Export Music Sweden to promote Swedish music in Brazil. In 2006 Jens Lekman, El Perro Del Mar and Hell On Wheels toured Brazil, which resulted in front-page news on the culture pages of Sao Paolo’s largest daily papers. In June 2007 José Gonzales toured Brazil with Invasão Sueca.
About the live video broadcast in Second Life: As with everything we do in Second Life, we approach this project as a playful experiment. We will do live but informal testing on September 20th (same times, but 24 hours earlier, so do drop by Second House of Sweden then and help us stress test:-) What’s the technology involved? On stage, a video camera and microphones relay the concert to a computer connected to the internet, running Wirecast. Wirecast encodes the video and sends it to Qbrick in Sweden, which in turn broadcasts the video to all those who visit the auditorium at the Second House of Sweden.
[UPDATE: Due to technical difficulties -- a bad internet connection in Brazil -- we weren't able to bring this live. Apologies all round, that is the way it is new technology:-)]
Andy Nyman’s Polarbear Podcast, a weekly radio show about all things Swedish in English, is now being piped into the Swedish Orientation sim. Press play on the music player while walking around there, going for a swim or while sitting in the Sauna to listen to the latest edition.
The only tricky bit — moving from one sim to the other interrupts what you’re listening to. That, alas, is the limit of Second Life technology today:-) Best to stay put in the sauna then.
Since the launch, we’ve been manning the Second House of Sweden for a few hours every weekday, using our own existing internal resources. But we’re short on manpower at the Swedish Institute (in real life), and an embassy needs to be manned for longer than that — even a virtual one, as people can visit at all hours.
Starting September 1, we’ll be raising the number of hours you can find somebody staffing the sim to a minimum of six hours per day, seven days a week. If you want to learn something about Sweden, its virtual embassy in Second Life, or even just Second Life, come and pay us a visit; chances are good you’ll find someone to talk to.
To help us in this endeavour we’ve hired Praetores Laboratory AB to recruit bright and knowledgeable Second Life residents. You might have heard of Praetores Laboratory before: They’re the very talented people behind the “Second Sweden” sims.
We’ve had many people responding to the “We’re Hiring” sign at the reception desk. Praetores Laboratory will now be interviewing people, with a view to hiring suitable candidates.
What: Gallery Talk by Nationalmuseum at Second House of Sweden
When: Wednesday, August 22, 15:30 Stockholm time (06:30 Second Life time)
Where: Second House of Sweden, Swedish Institute, Second Life
Who: Helén Hallgren Archer, Nationalmuseum’s curator for art education
How: Using Second Life’s new voice technology
Helén writes:
I will give a gallery talk about four of the artworks from Nationalmuseum that are on display at the Second House of Sweden. These four motifs were made at the end of the 19th century and the early 20th century. We can see how nature inspired these Swedish artists in different ways. Nature reflects the inner moods of these artists, while at the same time the artists express Swedish tradition and culture through these motifs.
The four art pieces are by these artists: Ernst Josephson (1851-1906), “The Water Sprite”, painted 1882; Anders Zorn (1860-1920), “Midsummer Dance”, painted 1897; Prince Eugen (1856-1949), “The Cloud”, painted 1896; Märta Måås Fjetterström (1873-1941), “Unicorn in the forest”, textile from 1920.
See you there! It’ll be interesting to see how the new voice technology can be used in this setting.
You can still visit the Wallenberg room in the Second House of Sweden even if you are on a computer that doesn’t have the Second Life client installed. Budapest’s OSA Archivum, who contributed the material for the room, also have a web page up describing the room, with plenty of screen shots. There is even supplementary material, such as a complete transcript of the radio play (mp3) that you can hear while in the room.
Now that we have the raw video feed from the inauguration on DVD, here is the part where Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt inaugurates the Second House of Sweden. Taken on May 30, 2007 at the Swedish Institute in Stockholm:
I'm Stefan Geens (email), I work at the Swedish Institute, and I'm managing Sweden's virtual embassy in Second Life, the Second House of Sweden. This blog is about what we're learning in the process.
