Fibreculture Journal critiques DanCoyote Antonelli's 'Art and (Second) Life'

Jo-Anne Green, co-director of New Radio and Performing Arts - Turbulence, has alerted me to a just-issued and noteworthy paper on art in Second Life.

Malia Ventura (aka Caroline McCaw) is a senior lecturer and academic leader in communication design at Otago Polytechnic, in Dunedin, New Zealand. She has just published the paper Art and (Second) Life in Fibreculture Journal, an Australia-based peer-reviewed international journal that "encourages critical and speculative interventions in the debate and discussions concerning information and communication technologies and their policy frameworks, network cultures and their informational logic, new media forms and their deployment, and the possibilities of socio-technical invention and sustainability."

Mostly, she explores two running themes: the Hyperformalist art of NPIRLer DanCoyote Antonelli (aka DC Spensley), his philosophy and accomplishments, and the context in which his art is produced and read, while addressing the environmental metaphors of Second Life. In the second thread, she also draws parallels between his art and the settler culture of New Zealand, "to consider the role of art in new environments."



Notably, Ms. McCaw's paper is derived from interviews conducted with DC during August of 2006, which preceded his Full Immersion Hyperformalism installation, and the second ZeroG SkyDancers Dancing with Angels , as well as the latest and current ZeroG SkyDancers event.

Gary Hazlitt's trailer is the next-best way for those not using Second Life to get a sense of what transpires during Second Spring: ZeroG SkyDancers, which is in the final stretch of its three month run and expected to close at the end of March.


You can see a higher resolution version of this here.

I contacted DC to get his impressions on Fibreculture Journal's piece:

DanCoyote Antonelli: I am very proud to be written about by such a scholarly person as Caroline McCaw. Her critical credentials are impeccable, and in the short time we had to speak with each other, she has gleaned more about my project in Second Life than most. It is often said that art in Second Life is without critical intervention. For the most part this is true. However, this work of Ms. McCaw's is as good as it gets and I am delighted beyond words that my work in virtual worlds is the subject of her paper.

This has been a good month for DC, insofar as Real Media exposure is concerned. He is also featured in the print edition of the March/April 2008 issue of Step Inside Design - along with artist Sabine Stonebender.