Detailed+Brief

=Detailed Brief=


 * Scenes for the space:**

There are 5 scenes to be included within the space: the entrance point, the village of Eleusis, the river, the underworld and the Eleusian fields.


 * Entrance Point**

The entrance point needs to be a contextualising space for the background of the story. Ideally this space would be set up as 3 small 3D sets along a path with pose balls for people to stand on to participate in the story introduction. The path starts with a gorgeous field, moves along to a great ravine and winds up a mountain (or something similar, depending on space).

At the beginning there should also be an introduction and acknowledgement note. The note is contained inside an open pomegranate (serving to foreshadow elements of the myth):

The open pomegranate will be the object throughout that contains notecards and text. The entrance point pomegranates can have hovertext over them. The hovertext on this one will be “Welcome and Introduction”.

Introductory Text:

//Welcome to “Finding Persephone”, a Second Life adaptation of the myth of Persephone and Demeter (also known as Prosperine and Ceres). This myth is Greek in origin, but was used in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Book 5), and retold from a feminist perspective by Mary Shelley. The myth symbolises loss of innocence, resilience and rebirth. This adaptation invites you into the story and asks you to interact with it on several levels – as a character from the village Eleusis (pronounced el-ev-sis), as your online persona, and as yourself. Please tag any flickr images, blog posts or machinima with the tag “persephone” to enable us to share and enjoy your experiences. Please feel welcome to contribute to the storytelling and secret sharing opportunities whether you are a student or not. Designed by Dr Angela Thomas (Anya Ixchel) for students studying English literature, English education, digital culture, and TESOL with a grant from the University of Sydney.

Supported by the New Media Consortium and built by the NMC team of CJ Carnot and Stella Costello. Sound Design by Lorin Tone. Special thanks to Dr Larry Johnson and Alan Levine.//

Set 1: scene = beautiful fields, Persephone and Demeter poseballs to be holding hands walking in the fields. Narcissus flowers in the field. A pomegranate can be clicked to start the story:

//A long time ago, when the Gods roamed the Earth, Demeter, the Goddess of all harvest and nature taught her beloved daughter Persephone all she knew.//

Set 2: scene = fields at night, great crack in the earth. A chariot drawn by black horses is positioned half in the crack, one poseball is for Hades, sitting in the chariot, another poseball has Persephone caught up into his arms in the act of kidnapping. Pomegranate clicked for part 2:

“While Persephonee once dallied in that grove, plucking white lilies and sweet violets, and while she heaped her basket, while she filled her bosom, in a pretty zeal to strive beyond all others; she was seen, beloved, and carried off by Hades--such the haste of sudden love. “The goddess, in great fear, called on her mother and on all her friends; and, in her frenzy, as her robe was rent, down from the upper edge, her gathered flowers fell from her loosened tunic.--This mishap, so perfect was her childish innocence, increased her virgin grief.-- “The ravisher  urged on his chariot, and inspired his steeds; called each by name, and on their necks and manes shook the black-rusted reins.” (adapted from Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 5)

Set 3:scene = mountaintop, poseballs are for Demeter (on knees, head in hands, upset) and Helios (goddess of sun, one hand on Demeter’s shoulder comforting her. Pomegranate clicked for part 3:

//“Helios, she showed a well-known girdle Persephone had lost, by chance had dropped it in that sacred pool; which when the goddess recognized, at last, convinced her daughter had been forced from her, she tore her streaming locks, and frenzied struck her bosom with her palms. And in her rage, although she wist not where her daughter was, she blamed all countries and cried out against their base ingratitude; and she declared the world unworthy of the gift of corn. “For that she broke with savage hand the plows, which there had turned the soil, and full of wrath leveled in equal death the peasant and his ox-- both tillers of the soil--and made decree that land should prove deceptive to the seed, and rot all planted germs.--That fertile isle, so noted through the world, becomes a waste; the corn is blighted in the early blade; excessive heat, excessive rain destroys; the winds destroy, the constellations harm; the greedy birds devour the scattered seeds; thistles and tares and tough weeds choke the wheat. (adapted from Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 5)//


 * The Village of Eleusis**

The village of Eleusis should be a village in crisis, covered in snow, bleak, dark, cold, dead and death all around (dead vegetation and a dead animal). The colour palette should be realistic but washed out, everything with a blue tinge (including blue shadows) to symbolise the cold as much as possible in the aesthetics. The central purpose of this space will be for visitors to be immersed in the after-effects of Demeter’s curse, and to take on a role of one of the villagers who is affected.

The village should consist of:

- A focal point of a town square / marketplace. - The square has a Greek statue / well in the centre : - The town square / marketplace has 8 stalls (house with shopfront) around the square. (Actually it could have 10, with 2 empty houses, and students could be responsible for developing two additional characters from scratch). Each of these houses / stalls should reflect the personality and background of an individual person in the village. Although naturalistic, there should be symbols in each of mythology – i.e. posters on the wall, decorations in the room, photographs of ancestors doing battles with monsters, posters or statues of Greek gods, an ipod with a song title playing – all the details. Ideas:
 * Lion skin (Heracles)
 * Golden-horned deer, many-headed Hydra, savage boar, man-eating birds, marauding bull, golden girdle, golden apples (heracles)
 * Vulture eating a mans liver (Prometheus)
 * Locked box (Pandora’s box) (any attempts to open the box could result in the avatar spinning out of control, off the sim)
 * Pan pipes (clicking to reveal sound of Debussy’s “syrinx” – actually I wrote the code for this for Robbie Dingo’s flute, maybe we could ask him if we could have some pan pipes and the code for that music in the musician’s house!)
 * Lyre and books of Greek poetry (Orpheus)
 * Wings (Daedulus and Icarus)
 * Snakes stolen from a gorgons head, a shield, an eye, a tooth (Perseus and the Gorgon’s head)
 * Thread (Thesues and the Minotaur)
 * A loom and weaving shuttles, woven wall hangings depicting Gods, a spiderweb and spider in the corner (Arachne and Athene)
 * Golden Fleece (Jason and the Golden Fleece)
 * Beauty ointment (Psyche and Cupid)

All these objects serve the purpose of building character background seeped in mythology. The teacher could assign each pair or group of students a house to study, then take the class on a visit to each house where the owners introduced themselves and used the objects in their personal storytelling. This storytelling allows for a great deal of intertextual referencing for students experienced with Greek mythology (or who have researched it well), yet allows for students to also use their imaginations and do improvised storytelling – so no prior knowledge is essential. Students may add an object to decorate their house provided they weave that object into their story and it fits into the rest of the characterisation.

Each house should have a shopfront and then either a loungeroom or a bedroom – in the additional room there should be a closet, and in the closet, a couple of free outfits that would suit that person to wear. Students should wear one of their outfits when telling their story. Each additional room should also have some form of journal by the bed / on a desk – clicking this journal will elicit a journal entry which can be written by the students. The task they will have will be to write a journal entry in role to express their feelings about the terrible devestation wreaked upon the village by Demeter’s curse. There should be an EASY way to drop their journal entries into the journal like a mailbox, and then have visitors retrieve them to read at leisure.


 * Marketplace House and Store 1 – musician: visitors must come here to buy the lyre
 * Marketplace House and Store 2 – narcissist: mirrors, beauty products, fashion wardrobe, pandora’s box
 * Marketplace House and Store 3 – poet / writer / bard
 * Marketplace House and Store 4 – priest – symbols of ritual and worship
 * Marketplace House and Store 5 – weaver/spinner: Woven products, loom, threads
 * Marketplace House and Store 6 – farmer: fruit and vegetable stall, but products are sparse and small and withered looking
 * Marketplace House and Store 7 – fisherman: fish and fishing products, again fishing gear is there but fish are minimal and covered in icicles
 * Marketplace House and Store 8 – merchant trader: assortment of Greek wares
 * Marketplace House and Store 9 - empty
 * Marketplace House and Store 10 - empty

- A pier to a fishing wharf – dead fish, iced patches on the wharf, crashing waves, stormy clouds. - Fields around the village – dead trees, dead crops, wilting flowers, lots of wind sounds, sleet coming down, needs to be hauntingly beautiful - A graveyard with freshly dug graves – these graves should not be too neat – their positions should be askew and some should be overgrown. Rusty iron lace can be scattered around and these can be the “seats”. Lots of mist should be swirling around. Candles can be placed on some of the central graves for gothic lighting effects. This is where the storytelling will take place. The graveyard storytelling circle. - A small temple. The purpose for the temple will be for villagers to offer sacrifices to Demeter to try and entreat her to remove the curse from the land. A second purpose will also be to collect the first clues to the quest. Visitors should go enter and pray to the Goddess – can we have on posing in prayer position, automatic text generated that is a message from Demeter:

//I am too distraught help you, you must rescue Persephone yourselves. But make sure you take money for the ferryman and the music which soothes the savage beast from Orpheus’s lyre.// - In the temple should be offerings of flowers and fruit, food and drink (wine), candles, an image of Demeter and Hestia (two female Goddesses), and some incense burning


 * The River**

At the outskirts of the village is a river, the river Styx. The river is what separates the living from the dead who live in the Underworld. The only way across the river is by using the ferry, and by paying the boatman, Charon. The river should be grey, black, dark green, misty and surrounded by dark withered looking trees. Some elements of life (a few plants) can exist on the “life” side of the river, but the river itself needs look murky and menacing. So there needs to be one or two poseballs on the boat and just like the raven from Macbeth, people will ride it from one place to another. It would be good if it was a windy ride around the edges of the village before going across to the other side, so that images of winter and sounds of sadness are seen and heard along the ride. The only way to activate the ride is to pay Charon, the ferryman. You must add something to Charon’s tip jar as payment. (I’m sure people won’t object to paying 1 Linden and if they do, they can fly across instead of taking a ride. But paying the ferryman is critical to the myth’s integrity).

The ride finally ends at an entrance to an underground cave: The Underworld.


 * The Underworld**

The entrance should be behind a rock, quite narrow. The rock is guarded by Cerberus, the three headed, serpent-tailed hound of hell J Bits of rotting flesh and dismembered body parts should surround him (lets have some bits be noob avatar pieces!) On approach, Cerberus wakes from a sleeping state walks back and forth growling at you. Cerberus should have two states: 1) pacing and snarling, and 2) sleeping. Cerberus should be large enough to make it very difficult to walk through the small entrance while he is in state 1. If you walk too close, you end up dead and dismembered – maybe for 10 seconds and words from nowhere appear: //You did not pray for the guidance of Zeus.// The only way to get past Cerberus is to lull him to sleep by playing on the lyre of Orpheus. Somehow the activation of the notecard must also speak to the sleeping state of Cerberus. There are other ways in mythology that Cerberus is lulled – one was in the story of Aeneid by Virgil, which used three tranquillisers – one for each head, and another was to feed him biscuits. But I kind of like the song best, even if JK Rowling also used it! Maybe the lyre comes with 3 different possible songs. Song A makes 1 head go to sleep, Song B makes 2 heads go to sleep, but only Song C (Syrinx!) is the one which makes the entire beast go into sleep mode. Figuring this part out should be challenging and fun and (as with all good computer games) may need a few attempts to work it out. Plus the dead avatar next to Cerberus makes a great photo opportunity, so even failing is fun. But then the realism stops, as entrance to the underworld takes you literally into another world, a surreal world, starting with a dark path deep down into the depths of Hell. This should be under sea level so that everything looks murky and shadowy.

=
For most, life in the underworld is not particularly unpleasant. It is rather like a miserable dream, full of shadows, without sunlight or hope. A joyless place where the dead slowly fade into nothingness.======

//Geographically, the underworld is surrounded by a series of rivers: The Acheron (river of woe), The Cocytus (river of lamentation), The Phlegethon (river of fire), The Styx (river of unbreakable oath by which the gods swear), and The Lethe (river of forgetfulness). Once across the rivers an adamantine gate, guarded by// [|//Cerberus//]  //, forms the entrance to the kingdom. Deep withen the kingdom is Hades vast palace, complete with many guests. (// [|//http://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Places/Untitled/untitled.html//] //)// I really like the idea of having some cyborgs in the Underworld – these next images are sureeal cyborg-ish cyberpunk kind of images that capture a lovely meld of the kind of Underworld for a digital culture.

The path can curve and descend deeper and deeper. The path is mazelike but in an organic way, not sharp corners. However, unlike other mazes where a dead end is wrong, here three of the dead ends are populated with the judges of the Underworld (  [|Rhadamanthus] ,  [|Minos]  , and Aeacus    )  who offer clues on how to best rescue Persephone. Visitors must collect the clues to rescue Persephone (and themselves) from the Underworld.

At the beginning of the path, entry text will guide the visitor:

// Seek out the knowledge of the deceased to learn how to rescue Persephone. You must dig deep into your own soul before this will come to pass. // Clues include the three lines that must be spoken to Persephone and Hades to elicit responses to solve the problem of how to beat eternal death.Questions given by each judge  [|Rhadamanthus]  ,  [|Minos]  , and Aeacus     in the dead ends of the maze and the respective answers from Hades and Persephone include:

//Question 1: Hades, Lord of the Underworld, please will you release Persephone? Answer 1: No! Persephone stays! She has eaten the fruit of the underworld!

Question 2: Persephone, I entreat you leave the Underworld and be reunited with Demeter? Answer 2: I miss my mother, I miss the sun, I am not used to the darkness, and yet, I cannot, as I have eaten the seeds of the pomegranate.

Question 3: Persephone, did you eat any seeds of the pomegranate? Answer 3: Yes, I did, but…. Hades, I will go! You will release me, for at least some months of each year. , you have given me the strength I need, I will return with you to see my mother Demeter. To release me, please locate and click on the uneaten pomegranate. // Along the path, symbolism should be used to represent fear, oppression, depression. As the path twists and turns, symbols might include:

- A screen with facts and figures of current day economic crisis - A hall of mirrors with distorted images of beauty / ugliness - A section devoted to phobias: spiders, narrow spaces (perhaps the avatar must crawl to get through one section), crowds (the avatar must walk through a group of people), germs (a giant germ) etc… - A section devoted to loneliness and depression: dark clouds, black dog, - A section devoted to superstitions (ladder, black cat, broken mirror,…) - Soundscape: dog howling, people crying

Note: the path is meant to be evocative, haunting, sad. Not Halloweenish. Ideally for me, I would love the path to be filled not so much with these some of these obvious symbols, but with Beth’s amazing sculptures, making the path a gallery of artworks which symbolise genuine and real adversity – sculptures that make people think. A woman with an empty womb, a disfigured child, some comment about race and prejudice, things that resonate with our times yet are universal. Maybe we could invite other artists to donate something that fits in with the theme of adversity for our Underworld “gallery”?

A section of the path should contain a “post secret” script (think Robbie Dingo’s whisperbox script) where people add their own secret about the adversity or struggles or angst they must overcome in their own lives. The entire path then becomes a representation of the things that hold us back from living the best life we can.

On entrance into the post secret section visitors are prompted with the whispertext:

//What prevents YOU from living the best life you can? Please add your thoughts to the pool by speaking a line or two about adversity in your life. Your avatar’s name will remain anonymous. // <span style="color: rgb(70, 6, 6);"> Secrets are displayed in hovertext randomly, anonymously, and in the shadows. Instead of speakers like the whisperbox by Robbie, let’s use the same pomegranate as the entrance for spots above which the text will hover.

Upon walking through the post secret path turning a corner will bring you into the palace of Hades – the palace can be small but needs to suggest grandeur. Persephone and Hades sit together on a throne. On enter whispertext says: //<span style="color: rgb(70, 6, 6);">Hades: Halt ! Persephone: What do you have to ask us, ? // If the visitor has collected the questions they ask them in correct order and then upon clicking the uneqaten pomegranate to release Persephone, they are transported to the final space, the Eleusian Fields. If the questions are not asked, whispertext can prompt the user to return to collect them.

<span style="border-collapse: collapse; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;"> Hades' personal chamber

Off the central cavern are two chambers. Hades' chamber has a bed, the cap, [|his diary]. The diary will link out to Hades' blog. Alan is making a small list of things to add.


 * Persephone's personal chamber**

Persephone's personal chamber has a bed, her [|sketch book] with some charcoals or inks, and a diary. Diary links out to [|her blog]. Persephone was kidnapped so she did not bring anything with her to personalise the space really. Maybe a few dead flowers that she had been picking before being clutched.


 * The Eleusian Fields**

Here are beautiful fields, Spring has sprung, everybody is happy and light. Some scholars make this the resting place of dead souls judged worthy and righteous. For us its just the idea of rebirth, regeneration and growth. It should look beautiful, swathed in shards of sunlight. Heavenly harmonious tones can be heard. Dancing balls available for dances of joy.

A flickr screen should be at the edge of the fields which streams in images (and captions) that visitors have taken whilst in the sim. It is both celebratory and reflective, and serves in the shared retellings of experience.

A final set of poses should have Demeter and Persephone in an embrace, to suggest resolution and link back to sets at the beginning of the story nicely.**

Tartarus


 * At once both a place deep beneath even the [|underworld] and a personification of the place. So dark and sunless is Tartarus that its gloom has its own personification - [|Erebus] . To reach Tartarus an anvil dropped from the surface would fall for nine days. It is below the roots of the earth and the sea.

We will make this a secret underwater torture chamber hidden away at the back of the entrance to the Underworld. See sketch for ideas. An anvil, some poseballs for torture, a dead bot drowned. One myth had some tantalising grapes overhanging the river and the evil person being tortured was stuck right underneath half immersed in water, trying to reach up to eat, but his struggles were in vain and he drowned to death without having eaten the grapes.