Kat Johnston

Category: Interesting Links

  • EaHH Announcement: We’ve been featured in the news!

    EaHH: A Jar full of hugs for an excellent cause.

    The pic features the ‘Jar Full of Hugs’ by A.D.D Andel and the ‘Deluxe Fairy Tale Gown’ by Deviance… because I just think it’s a great idea to have a picture with the post.

    So anyhow… big news, everybody! Our efforts with Extend a Helping Hand has been featured in the news at both ninemsn.com.au and brisbanetimes.com.au (and a few other places, too, but the story is the same). Just click on either link to go to the stories, and have a little read.

    As everyone knows, there is a lot that a story can’t cover, so let me get a couple of things out of the way right now: thank you to everyone who has taken a part in organizing or participating in Extend a Helping Hand. I know that the thank-yous are a little early, but I just want to make special mention of a few people while those articles are still fresh.

    • To Andel Rhiadra, a big thank-you for donating the event hall location, and for being right on board from the very first ‘I wonder if I should…’.
    • To December Larkham, who has been an excellent event manager and kept me sane.
    • To Mariposa Upshaw, for giving me the connections I needed to make music a big part of this fund-raising effort.
    • To Bundy Xue, without whom the Australia Day Flood Relief Benefit simply could not have occurred (her organizational ability is just stunning).
    • To Serenity Semple for being there when I’ve felt close to pulling my hair out.
    • To Iki Akiri for spending that tension-filled day of the 11th at the event hall with me, while our city was being flooded – until she had to be evacuated out!
    • To every vendor who has taken the time to put a product together to fund-raise for the cause.
    • To every musician, singer, artist, dj, event-holder and donation-point for dedicating your time, effort and locations to raising money.
    • To every blogger for promoting the event, and all others who have spread the word.
    • To every single person who has donated so far and will do so for the weeks to come: every single linden counts.
    • And most importantly, to my husband. Because he’s had to put up with me during all of this!

    I’m sure I’ve left someone or something out. To write everything I actually need to write here would take up more space than any normal person would happily read, but I hope I’ve gotten the general idea across: thank you everyone for making this event great and getting us to where we are now.

    We’re quickly approaching US$5000 raised for the Premier’s Disaster Relief Appeal – let’s power forward in these last couple of weeks and blow that figure out of the water!

    Oh, and quickly: go check out the article, Virtual world reaches out to flood victims!

  • Sanu/Exhibition: It was a Blur.

    Sanu in Second Life/Kat Johnston: A preview of what you can expect at the “It was a Blur” Exhibition.

    Second Life, as many of you know, has a fantastic potential for artistic expression. It was a Blur is a premiere example of the capabilities of Second Life in this artistic arena.

    Bringing together numerous artists and designers from across the grid, Radio Signals has curated a show which invites viewers to immerse themselves in a truly stunning and visually interesting environment – the likes of which I have never seen in Second Life or anywhere else, for that matter. With a strict texture palette consisting of only two flat colour squares and varying transparency levels allowed, the way objects created interact with the environment and with each other proved both a challenge and a delight.

    The artificial environment is like a pristine blank canvas upon which these 3D objects become flattened – where depth has no meaning beyond an almost ‘theoretical understanding’ of it within the space. You know that if you move your camera around, it is going to show you a different angle of what is most definitely an object with more than two dimensions, but because of the textures used and the structure that surrounds them, they seem to lack the third in a space that seems endless. Only the blurriness and size of objects far away, combined with the people who are traversing the area provides hints of depth. It is quite incredible to feel that the space these objects occupy is both condensed, and yet might continue on forever within the very same instant.

    What also makes this exhibition most interesting is the ability for the viewers to become active participants in the art. Many of the installations were supplied with poses, sounds and animations – built-in methods by which visitors could feel a part of the work. This could also be enhanced by purchasing wearable art and design pieces, which were created specifically to enhance people’s ability to blend with their surrounds and make a statement once back in the ‘real world’ of Second Life. The following are some of the products I created to compliment my installation work. They are now available at It Was a Blur.

    Kat Johnston/Sanu in SL: The gemini skin in pure, which goes perfectly with the Blur Sphere in the same shade.
    Sanu in SL/Kat Johnston: The Gemini skin in the sullied tone, which goes perfectly with the Blur Sphere of the same shade.

    Similar to the environment, I wanted my products to mimic a similar colour scheme and two-sided nature. Thus, these skins come in Pure and Sullied. I want to include a picture of the Spheres here (I created them in both the Pure and Sullied shades also, to blend perfectly with the skins when worn), however my ads for them do include some pixel nudity… so I’d better not, I suppose! The first image in this post does show it off adequately – it is the sphere upon my back!

    I also created three sets of jewelry which I have not surprisingly entitled ‘Blur’ for people to remember the exhibition by.

    Sanu in SL/Kat Johnston: Monocles created to accompany the ‘It was a Blur’ exhibition in the virtual world of Second Life.
    Kat Johnston/Sanu in SL: The earrings set for sale at the Blur exhibition in the virtual world Second Life.
    Kat Johnston/Sanura Sakai: Facial and belly button piercings created to accompany the ‘It was a Blur’ exhibition in the virtual world Second Life.

    You can see some more images I’ve captured of the exhibition wearing two of my own wearable art offerings on my ‘It was a Blur’ set on Flickr.

    You can visit It Was a Blur too, between now and August 16th.

  • Sketch: My heart belongs to Old Spice Guy.

    Kat Johnston Sketch: My heart belongs to Old Spice Guy.

    Ok, I’ll admit it… I still think that it is beyond awesome that my tweet got picked to get a personalized response by the Old Spice Guy on youtube. From the surely thousands of questions that would have been propelled towards the Old Spice team, it feels really great to be one of the ordinary people who got a personal reply. This was my tweet:

    “@OldSpice If Old Spice was originally for the ladies (as Wiki states), are you certain these new scents are quite manly enough?”

    I was informed that Old Spice was originally for the ladies (this is the wiki article I was referring to), but its many very manly side-effects made it more suitable for the menfolk. He even did air-quotes around the ‘as Wiki states’ bit!

    That video has now racked up over 76,000 views. How awesome is that?

    Annnnnyhow, onto other things!

    For those of you who would have picked up the Hootie Set last weekend at Sanu in Second Life, you might recognize the picture today! It is a similar blue heart, and a bit of a sneak peek at a new little product which will be out soon. I’ve been so flat-out with things lately that I haven’t had time to finish them up yet though, so it might take a few days before they’re out. Right this second I am so flat out with real life thingies and the Blur exhibition in Second Life that I just haven’t had time to finalize them yet. Doh!

    That’s all for now, in any case. The Blur exhibition opens up tomorrow, and once I am finished with everything for that, I will be sure to post pictures of my contributions. I’m really exciting to be taking part in it!

  • I’m an Old Spice Gal!

    Oh. My. God. I sent a tweet into the Old Spice Guy (real name Isaiah Mustafa) in the hopes of possibly getting a personalized response in what has to be the most successful commercial viral marketing campaign I have ever seen. Annnnd I got a response!

    As much as I wish I could say that this has turned me onto Old Spice, I do have to admit that I was already an Old Spice girl far before the new Old Spice adverts (and these incredibly awesome personalized responses) came out. My husband wore Old Spice back when I met him, and I won’t actually let him change his scent. I love it to bits. He now claims that the Old Spice Guy is based on him! I’m not sure I’m fully convinced. Are you, Old Spice Guy?

    Back on subject though, I’ll state again that this has to be one of the best examples ever (that I have seen) of commercial viral marketing gone right. The short video responses are not only packed with humor making you want to watch each and every one of them, but they really promote sharing. Just like Professor Farnsworth, you can just hear his voice in your head when you see the line of text he is likely going to read in the response. With such a brilliant and iconic character, it is no surprise that Old Spice is onto a winner. You can see more of these great response videos (and the original commercials) at Old Spice’s Youtube Channel.

    Thank you Old Spice Guy. You have made my day.

    Monocle Smile!

  • Sanu in SL and Photography: Tastes of Summer.

    Kat Johnston Photography: A photograph of plump, juicy strawberries, with one dipped in home-made white chocolate ganache.

    Let’s start with a nice little photo I took last night! I really need to get a better camera, better lighting and some reflectors if I plan on doing this all that often – but I still think they turned out pretty great. For a post-baking snack I had some plump, juicy strawberries dipped in some left-over white chocolate ganache which I had made up to top some very tasty cupcakes.

    If you’d like a recipe for the ganache, I’ve posted one with this picture on flickr. Ganache is really rather simple to make, is very versatile and tends to impress, too! You can also find the rest of the strawberry pictures there in the set ‘sweet treats’!

    Sanu in Second Life: A peapod lounge, bringing together the awesomeness that is peas and lounging!

    And here’s the Sanu update for today. There’s actually three colours of the peapod lounges available – all nice, fresh shades of green. This lounge has been in the works for a little while, actually – they were built soon after the yummy peapods were made. I just had to wait a little while to get the perfect system for adding the animations.

    Rather than having to rely on pose-balls, these lounges use low-lag scripts which have a menu, allowing anyone who sits on it to adjust their position perfectly using movements in all directions and rotation where needed. That means that it can fit almost any avatar every time! Certainly an improvement on needing to have the owner around to adjust it for you if needed, don’t you think?