Tuesday, October 14, 2008

DanCoyote Antonelli responds to whiny residents and Linden Lab with art: Hostile Space

This morning, Juria Yoshikawa suggested that I take a look at the art installation that DanCoyote Antonelli (aka DC Spensley) had created at Brooklyn is Watching in response to resident Selavy Oh's temporary banning from Second Life® for allegedly abusing another resident with her art (see our previous post).

I took one look at Hostile Space and immediately contacted DanCoyote (we call him DC) to get the skinny.


In lieu of photography, I created this quick video to show you the piece.
Music: "Stars" by Beth Quist
Video: Bettina Tizzy

DanCoyote Antonelli: Hostile Space (teleport directly from here), is not really hostile in real terms. It is cheery and cute but removes the figurative conceit from the viewer's experience and literally intends to drop stuff on their heads. The viewers have been forewarned that it is Hostile Space.

So what Selavy did accidentally is being done deliberately to foreground the issue of whether it is correct to consider an avatar to have personal space. In the case of Selavy, it was literally an accident and on a known free-for-all art sim. It was unconscionable to suspend Selavy for the accident. I agree that making someone's avatar do stuff against their will is assault. I don't agree with Gazira Babeli on this. But an accident? Just silly. So Hostile Space is there to poke gentle fun at the whole concept of getting bonked on the head. So look out! Stuff WILL FALL ON YOU HERE! Bonka Bonka!

The artwork also references Adam Ramona with a sound component and yesterday I added some Mutant Hossies in the bottom part as a non sequitur element that also references Pavig Lok's reassembly of ant parts a few months ago. The Mutant Hossies are reassembled parts of a horse made by Nomasha Syaka and while not abstract like most of my work, are more in the spirit of the coming holiday.

I'll have to get with DC later to find out what kind of holiday celebrations he has!

DanCoyote Antonelli: Hostile Space has layers. Is the space hostile to the viewer? Is Second Life hostile to artists? And WTF are these surreal Mutant Hossies doing there anyway?

4 comments:

Juria Yoshikawa said...

Yeah! This piece is a celebration. Cool work DC! Worth paying it a visit and getting bonka bonka.
- Juria

Bettina Tizzy said...

Juria, thank you for pointing me to this. You have a good eye :)

DanCoyote said...

Thank you guys both for the groovy network ink! I guess the Selavy thing has kinda been talked out for the time being. Let's hope that it doesn't become a trend to persecute artists in SL.

Every artist I know works super hard for very little reward to bring the most compelling and state of the art experiences to SL. We deliver our best daily and mostly we dont get paid for this folks.

If I had a nickle for every time someone told me that a work of Juria, or elros or Vlad Bjorensen, or Seifert (this list is long) made their Second Life worth living I would be one rich coyote.

It would be a very bad thing to destroy this art historical moment when other alternative worlds are emerging that also need such good content.

In the urban scape it is the artists who move in and become the unwitting harbingers of gentrification. Could it already be time to find another ghetto? I'm hearing rumblings....

On another subject,

I'm worried about Jay over at Brooklyn is Watching. Narry a peep from those guys at all.....

Your devoted,
Desert Critter

DanCoyote said...

Oh! By the way....

I would never refer to fellow residents as "whiny".

I have filed my share of abuse reports in the past. Probably this Selavy incident was simply an error in judgement on some new person at LL.

Cheers!

Dynamic Crockpot