Virtual Architects to Speak at Sim-U Conference

Arkansas alumni Jason and Sunny Cerchie have had diverse careers – Jason was a baker, a professional musician and a stonemason, and Sunny took 15 years of ballet, learned soap making and also was a stonemason.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Arkansas alumni Jason and Sunny Cerchie have had diverse careers – Jason was a baker, a professional musician and a stonemason, and Sunny took 15 years of ballet, learned soap making and also was a stonemason. But after graduating from the University of Arkansas with degrees in architecture, the couple finally found dream jobs, and now Rez Menoptra (Jason’s “avatar,” or online personification) and Endira Udal (Sunny’s avatar) design buildings that sometimes defy gravity and push the boundaries of the real world.

Endira Udal

The Cerchies work for the Electric Sheep Co., which specializes in creating three-dimensional content for virtual worlds. They will be speaking on Friday, Sept. 7, at Sim-U, a day-long conference dedicated to exploring the positive characteristics of video and computer games and the people who play them to find effective ways to teach the generation now entering college. The conference will be held from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Donald W. Reynolds Center. It is free and open to the public, although the main audience will be students and faculty.

Jason Cerchie will be in Fayetteville for the conference, but Sunny Cerchie will be joining in from New York by way of Second Life, a virtual world for which the Cerchies and others at the Electric Sheep Co. provide content. They will talk about learning in the virtual world and some of the skills needed to get a job in such a world.

Jason and Sunny Cherchie, known virtually as Rez Menoptra and Endira Udal, work as virtual architects for the Electric Sheep Co. They will speak as part of the Sim-U Conference on campus from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sept. 7 in the Donald W. Reynolds Center.

After graduating in 2005 from the School of Architecture, the Cerchies were job hunting when Sunny came across an article on a woman who was making real money by developing land in Second Life. They decided to join and, in Jason’s words, “became hooked.”

“The tools were intuitive to us, and allowed you to build your own content,” he said. “And since it’s a virtual world, the laws of physics need not apply.”

The Cerchies began buying more land, building more buildings and meeting more people in the virtual world.

“We started using it as a 3-D sketchbook for ideas we had,” Jason said. They met someone from the Electric Sheep Co. and worked on a project with them, which led to their eventual hiring and a move to New York City.

Working in the virtual world requires a specialized skill set – the ability to think in three dimensions, good hand-eye coordination and the ability to think in terms of systems, Jason said. In addition to computer skills, it also requires good people skills and business skills – talking to clients, managing expectations and interacting with a variety of people.

“There’s a real social aspect to the world” in virtual worlds such as Second Life, he said, because there is no end goal.

Some universities and businesses are conducting classes in the virtual world, connecting people from locations worldwide in one spot.

“There’s a real sense of being there because everyone has an avatar,” Jason said.

He also points out that because of the game dimension of the virtual world, people may feel more free to experiment and risk failure or loss than they would be in the real world.

Rez Menoptra

“Second Life is very much a meritocracy. You don’t really know anybody beyond their avatar and what they have created,” Cerchie said. This atmosphere creates a venue for experimentation and innovation.

Jason and Sunny will present at 10:50 a.m. Friday, Sept. 7, in the Donald W. Reynolds Center. The keynote speaker will be Ian Bogost, co-founder of Persuasive Games, an independent video game studio that makes games about social and political issues, including airport security, Christmas shopping, the global petroleum market and disaffected workers. The co-directors of the Learning Games Initiative, Judd Ruggill and Ken McAllister of the University of Arizona, will also speak. Ruggill and McAllister both study the cultural and pedagogical import of video and computer games.

Throughout the day, there will be an exhibit from Ruggill and McAllister’s video and computer game archive, consisting of toys, books, articles, clothes, posters and, of course, games – from all over the world and from the beginning of computer gaming forward.

The afternoon will include a panel of University of Arkansas students, who will discuss the ideas and issues brought forth during the conference. The panel will be moderated by Kenneth J. Knoespel, professor and chair of the school of literature, communication and culture at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Knoespel’s interests lie in the role of technology in modern-day culture. He will close the conference with a round-up of ideas generated during the conference.

The event is free, but registration is required. Advanced registrants will be eligible for one of three Nintendo Wii game consoles, which will be given away sometime during the day. Registrants must be present to win. More information and a link to the conference’s Facebook group can be found at: http://simu.uark.edu/.

8-8:45 a.m. – Light breakfast, history of video games exhibit

8:45-9 a.m. – Welcome from Chancellor White

9-9:45 a.m.  – Judd  Ruggill, University of Arizona

9:45-10:30 a.m. – Ken McAllister, University of Arizona

1-1:45 p.m.  – Ian Bogost, Keynote Speaker, Persuasive Games, Georgia Tech

1:45-2:30 p.m. – Student panel with Ken Knoespel of Georgia Tech as moderator

2:30-3 p.m. – Ken Knoespel, Georgia Tech

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