Greg Verdino, July 16, 2008

If you’re like me, you sometimes need an excuse to take a breather in the middle of a hectic week. Maybe this video, “Metaverse” by NYC-based visual artist Derek Lerner, will fit the bill. If you can find five minutes of downtime — or more importantly, if you need five minutes of downtime — Lerner’s piece might be just the thing to help you detox, de-stress and focus on something other than the chaos of your day-to-day grind.

Metaverse from Derek Lerner on Vimeo.

[Feed and email readers, click through to watch the embedded video.]

If you’re totally geeked-out and want to learn more about the inspiration for this video, here is the story in Derek’s own words.  Interesting stuff for those of us who expend even a small portion of our massive brainpower on topics like mobility, virtual worlds and the blur between our physical and digital lives.

“For the last year I have been heavily involved in virtual worlds, primarily Second Life. This has prompted many thoughts about the concept of virtual space in general as well as blurring lines between simulation and real.

Mixing of realities, infinite space, multi-user online 3D collaborative environments, and time travel.

When asked to contribute work to the NOKIA Trends Lab project I immediately started to think about the level of connectivity and immersive experience handheld wireless hybridized multifunction devices offer, resulting in a type of virtual space. The sense I get when walking down the street taking photos, listening to the radio, & then uploading images to a server is of a disjointed reality where one’s mind is in another place but body is walking down the street.

Inspired by this, I used a NOKIA N93 to film video feedback loops creating abstract video drawings as a metaphor for 3D immersive virtual space. Infinite syndicated regurgitated communicative white noise evoking feelings of becoming so intertwined with digital communications that the grayness of life as we currently know it is a blurry place of virtual and real.” 

via: http://gregverdino.typepad.com/greg_verdinos_blog/2008/07/a-meditation-on.html