Posted by Bettina Tizzy
Blame the summer heat, my haste in recent months, or simply my incomprehension and obtuseness, but I didn't appreciate what others saw in Oberon Onmura's Second Life® work. I was also quite unhappy with Oberon a few months ago when the New York artist left a large gray scripted building plop atop the works of others on the Brooklyn is Watching gallery floor, thereby inhibiting my ability to enjoy everyone else's pieces. While this was not good form, it did have the effect of branding the name "Oberon Onmura" on my brain. It was going to take a lot to turn me around.
And a lot has happened: Two striking and, I feel, important highly kinetic and interactive installations.
The first appears to have been assembled in a flash. Plaza or "Uneven Floor" is rezzed for just a short while on the new Brooklyn is Watching floor (teleport directly from here). Oberon describes it thusly: "A quick piece converted from the 'Storm Cells' scripts, It's a plaza where the pavers rise and fall, and change color from white to gray to black. Also, they randomly rez chairs which are physical objects that often fall or get disrupted by the changing design of the plaza."
The Tunguska Event (teleport directly from here) simply bowled me over. Oberon has harnessed Second Life's winds and physics to portray his vision of a powerful explosion that occurred near Russia's Tunguska River on June 30, 1908.
To get the overhead effect, sit on one of the red "cushions" at the arrival area or on one of the four corners of the installation, and then hit "escape" a couple of times to enable Oberon's special viewer. It helps to maximize your draw distance and particle effects, too
It is believed that an air burst caused by a large meteoroid or comet fragment about 5–10 kilometres (3–6 miles) above the Earth's surface, estimated to have the energy equivalent of 1,000 times the Hiroshima bomb, knocked over approximately 80 million trees spanning 2,150 square kilometres (830 square miles).
Curated by Zachh Cale, who will perform a piano piece he has composed especially for the public opening at 2pm SLT, Sunday, September 20th, the installation was sponsored by Project Z Gallery.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Oberon Onmura knocks me over and blows me away
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Want your virtual art to receive Real Life recognition? Here's the recipe
Last Friday at Jack the Pelican Presents Gallery - the Real Life counterpart to the Brooklyn is Watching project in Second Life
Posted by Bettina Tizzy
Sautéed Real Life recognition of Virtual Art
(Serves 1,000+)
Ingredients:
1 (one) Second Life® account/avatar
1 (one) or more prim-based virtual artworks
Patience, a pinch
Tolerance (omit ego)
Jay: The biggest thing that has changed in my mind because of my experience organizing this show is that I really think control needs to start to shift in the direction of the community that has grown up around this project. There are people remote from Brooklyn who are willing and able to have more of a say in what BiW is and what it becomes and I'd like to find ways to let them.
Jay: Well, organizing artists is like herding cats... but I knew that before. Never try to organize something this complicated in two months. Don't have a day job. No really - the parts that have worked very well in all this are the parts where specific people had discrete tasks they were responsible for and the authority needed to see them through from soup to nuts: Penumbra Carter and Stacey Fox making the machinimas, Dekka Raymaker and Wltrr Rajal making the virtual version of Jack the Pelican (art gallery in Brooklyn), and so on. Where I got into trouble was when people had overlapping or dependent duties - one person couldn't act without another. Also, give yourself twice as long to plan as you think you'll need.
How much do you get out beyond the BiW borders? Will this remain the same or do you intend to explore other lands?
Jay: I probably won't as long as I'm involved as I am just because I don't have time. I do think that focusing the conversation on what people bring to BiW is useful for two reasons: 1) You can't have a good conversation about everything. You need to limit it somehow and this is an easy (if arbitrary ) way to limit it. 2) It is one thing for us to give our honest opinion about art by artists who have actively sought out our opinions. It would be pretty nervy of us to just roam the grid saying what we think about all kinds of stuff when probably the people who made that work never wanted our opinion in the first place.
How has your opinion of art in a virtual setting changed from day one of the project to now?
Jay: Really this summer has just confirmed what i thought about it before -- its uncontrollable, it wants to stay wild. I think the virtual art has the capacity to undermine peoples assumptions about art more than art in a real space can. The SLon De Refuse is amazing - its more BIW than BIW - and Selavy Oh's show within a show inside the final five is another great example of how virtual art can turn everything on its head.
What has all of this activity meant to Jay Van Buren and his real life and how are you finding the time to balance both lives?
Jay: I'm not. I'm completely strung out and brain-fried. After the 23rd of August I'm gong to hide for a week from everyone and then I'm only going to talk to a few people at a time about where BiW should go. In late September we'll emerge from hibernation stronger, better, with a solid plan for the future and more people on board helping me in some kind of official capacity. With job titles. And sharks with lasers attached to them. I'm going to get me some of those, too.
- Teleport to Brooklyn is Watching's headquarters, sponsored by Popcha! and the University of Kansas' Department of Visual Art, from here. This is where you can rez new artworks on a weekly basis.
- Teleport to the 30 Best, sponsored by the University of Kansas' Department of Visual Art, KU Art, directly from here.
- Teleport to the Final Five exhibit at the East of Odyssey from here.
- Drop by the Real Life Jack the Pelican Presents gallery at 487 Driggs Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11211.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Why you need to pay attention to Brooklyn is Watching's "Best of Year 1 Festival"
Posted by Bettina Tizzy
It's been a big year for Brooklyn is Watching (BiW), the mixed reality arts project sponsored by Popcha and taking place simultaneously at the gallery Jack the Pelican Presents in Brooklyn, New York and in Second Life®.
In fact, it's been the only year that BiW has been in operation, and what a year it has been. In March of 2008, I reported on the new performance space and presentation/sandbox that had been set up in Second Life (teleport directly from here), and the avatar in the shape of an eyeball and going by the name "Monet Destiny" that would be viewing and projecting the goings-on there onto a large screen monitor at the Real Life gallery.
Now the project's founder, Jay Newt (aka Jay Van Buren), has announced The Best of BiW Year 1, a two month-long festival spanning parts of 3 sims and the Jack the Pelican Presents gallery in Williamsburg (Brooklyn), with artist talks, panel discussions and two art shows leading up to the BOBIWY1 Prize. Anyone may nominate artworks that have been rezzed at Brooklyn is Watching during its first 52 weeks, but the key difference between this and other virtual art competitions is that the five finalists will be invited to create new works or adapt existing work to be displayed in Second Life and at Jack the Pelican. In the interest of full disclosure, I'm tickled that I've been asked to be one of the five judges, along with AM Radio, Amy Freelunch, AngryBeth Shortbread and Sage Duncan.
Nominations have begun and the Brooklyn is Watching Year 1 Prize (the golden eyeball) will be awarded on August 23, 2009.
I caught up with Jay to get the skinny:
Has your work with BiW impacted Jack the Pelican gallery? How are things different there from one year ago?
Jay: The biggest evidence of it having an impact is the fact that it is still there. Don (Carrol - he runs the gallery) was really going out on a limb to give the project space in the beginning. So the fact that now, more than a year later and even in these tough economic times, he's still devoting space where artwork that could be sold means that he must feel it is important. Many of the artists who hang around at Jack the Pelican have told me how blown away they are by the quality and variety of artwork that SL is showing us at BiW. BiW has kind of become a fixture at the gallery, and now with the coming RL show, it will be getting a much bigger profile than its ever had.
Have any non-SL users been won over by experiencing BiW from Jack the Pelican gallery?
Jay: Both Jenna Spevack and Norene Leddy (Norene is the first site if you Google her first name! She's like Cher!) were not that much into SL before they became involved and they have both got so interested in it that they joined the project and became my collaborators.
How has YOUR view of virtual art changed over the course of a year?
Jay: I just continue to be amazed and excited by what artists are doing. I think that the work is getting better. I don't know that my view has changed that much. I feel my belief that this is an important medium has been vindicated.
If you were to identify the three things that most helped to transform BiW in one year, what would they be?
Jay: Well - we would have never got off the ground with out Amy Wilson, and then I think Beth Harris and Steven Zucker really brought us a lot of fresh energy. The biggest thing is the growth of the BiW community, and I love that they complain when they don't like the podcasts - there is a reciprocal relationship.
If you could have three wishes come true in regards to BiW, what would they be?
Having Dekka Raymaker and Penumbra Carter show up in RL with a bottle of champagne was fantastic. I loved getting to go to Estonia for Estonia is Watching, and the last one is this upcoming RL show which will bring a new level of attention to some very deserving artists.
Who is sponsoring the land on the three sims?
Jay: We're going to have the "30 Best" show which on part of the University of Kansas Department of Visual Arts Sim, and Part of a new sim the University is getting called "Impermanence" that will be the new home of the regular Brooklyn is Watching Tower and space which will continue through the Festival as well. And lastly, the "Final Five" show will be at the Odyssey sim.
Do you remember most/all of the artwork that has been rezzed at BiW? What if an artist who has rezzed there wanted you to see something different? Would you be okay with that?
Jay: I don't think I even saw half of what was there - there's been so much it's just staggering - it's mind boggling. The idea of "30 best" is that its all artworks from the past, so we're going to be including specific works. Certainly the artists will be welcome to put notecards on those works that offer TP's to places where more and newer work can be seen. In the "Final Five" show the idea is that the five artists can create an entirely new work for that show, or choose to adapt and existing work.
What's showing at Jack the Pelican these days?
Jay: There's a painting show up in the front room - a group of young New York artists who all work in a style of fairly realistic looking images of fanciful, improbable or just slightly "off" subject matter. They're really good paintings.
Jay is especially excited about the Nomination Wiki: "It is going to be a fantastic resource for future art historians. I predict that sometime in the next 20 years at least 5 of the artists that have shown at BiW are going to have one-person shows in Real Life museums, and monographs written about them.
Friday, May 8, 2009
Comet Morigi's Mt. XXYYZZ
Posted by Bettina Tizzy
UPDATE: I'm delighted that Comet Morigi has translated this blogpost to Japanese, which you can read on her own blog here.
It is not unheard of. People often anchor prims onto sims in a way that they extend well beyond the sim's "borders." But I gasped this morning when I caught sight of Japanese land artist Comet Morigi's super-colossal latest at Brooklyn is Watching (BiW): Mt. XXYYZZ. 
Using a total of 4 prims, Comet surrounded the sim that BiW sits on - Popcha - with mountainous terrain on all sides. In fact, this installation is so large in scope that I was unable to photograph it in its entirety to my satisfaction. 
She used a terrain scanner-to-sculpty to create a 1024m x 1024m x 256m mega prim and added a 1024m x 1024m water-coloring panel. "Only two mega prims, and their anchor prims for a total of 4 prims," she explained to me.
While Comet's art work is nearly always gigantic in size, Mt. XXYYZZ seems to impress visitors to BiW more than most. Still, Comet seems to be taking all the fuss in stride. "Technically, it's not so rare in-world." Perhaps not technically, though her execution is superb, but visually, this piece of extraordinary size and power is a feat.
Teleport directly from here.
See also: Land Art in Second Life: A historical perspective and an introduction to virtual artist Comet Morigi
Monday, May 4, 2009
Like springtime blossoms, art is thriving at Brooklyn is Watching
Try as I might, I can't keep up with all the new artists and artwork on display at Second Life®s acclaimed art critique Mecca, Brooklyn is Watching (BiW) (teleport directly from here).
I dropped in yesterday and the place was bursting at the seams with mega sculptures. From left to right: That big brownish thing looming in the sky by DanCoyote Antonelli; like a burst of champagne fizzies, Juria Yoshikawa's piece invites you to drink it in; and a new artist discovery for me, Werner Kurosawa's rockin' spinning-prim sphere. 
Not in this photo but well worth checking out, Oberon Omnura's kinetic forest.
Never heard of Brooklyn is Watching? Here's the 101, plus info on how you - and your art - can be a part of it.
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?
Is Linden Lab hostile to art?
UPDATE: October 17, 2008 - 10:41am - meade Paravane has submitted a proposal for a "Top Scripts on Parcel" estate flag so that parcel owners can see script times on their land (and have that enabled on mainland). Vote for it here: JIRA - SVC835. While not a fix-all for artists and their art, this would certainly prevent situations like the one that elros Tuominen (see below) is experiencing.
Whoa! I've been so self-engrossed this past month that I've partially or completely missed some important incidents. I'm not looking to be excused, but it's been quite the time. In my Real Life, it was my birthday, then workers on my street were tearing up the sidewalks and hit a gas main. The fire department made us evacuate for four hours. The next day, an electrical fire next door caused by the high winds had huge sparks raining down on my roof. And then there was the market slide, as I watched a lifetime worth of investments slide down to squarely half the value they'd had just two months ago. Still! Geez! What in the heck is happening on the grid?
A few weeks ago, kinetic sculptor elros Tuominen had much of his art returned and himself suspended from Second Life® because - according to Linden Lab - his scripts were affecting the performance on the sim. Upon his return, elros learned that he could convert his scripts to Mono (an open-source scripting engine that dramatically speeds up the running of scripts), and he did exactly that, but because he doesn't own the sim his gallery sits on, he is unable to pull up the Region Performance tab and determine how many milliseconds each of his scripts in his Region is taking. elros' art was returned again, and again he was suspended. He has been so disheartened that he hasn't been back since October 7th.
On my wish-list: The ability for all parcel owners to see the speed of their scripts.
I know elros well enough to say - beyond a shadow of a doubt - that this is just raging, undiluted silliness. elros is like the most well-meaning guy I know. All it would take is just one conversation between himself and a Linden with some enlightening information beyond the classic abuse report, for him to repair, change or even delete things that were causing trouble to others.
Yes, there are hundreds of thousands of persons using the grid at any given moment, but this is elros, someone who has pleased thousands of people - including a number of Lindens - with both his art and his daily prose, which many people depend on to begin their day.
And then there is physics artist Selavy Oh's story. Selavy frequently exhibits new pieces at Brooklyn is Watching. On October 5th, a piece of Selavy's art fell on a visiting avatar. That avatar filed an abuse report (oh brother!) and Linden Lab suspended Selavy from Second Life for one day. Selavy explained it this way:
"I've been banned for one day. Ironically, the "scripted object" was not at all scripted to attack other avatars, but to self-repair. It was part of the self-repairing chain, an artwork for "Brooklyn Is Watching". A 'bug' in the physics engine of Linden Lab causes the chain to break from time to time, and the falling parts may then accidentally hit avatars at the sim."
Yet another instance of an artist who gives us much pleasure - and Selavy is conscientious, methodical and well-meaning - being abused by an automatic system.
There are good discussions about these cases over on the Brooklyn is Watching blog and another on the forums initiated by Dekka Raymaker.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Brooklyn is Watching reaches a demi-milestone
It hardly seems possible that more than six months have elapsed since Pavig Lok clued me in to a new development on the grid, which I subsequently shared with you when I announced that Brooklyn is Watching had arrived. 
It was back in March when a blurry-looking viking dood, Jay Newt (aka Jay Van Buren), showed up with his strange green screen flooring - Second Life's equivalent to the bad shag rug - and an annoying eyeball follower, to openly question and discuss, without any reverence whatsover, the "art" that was plunked there. 
Jay and his jolly troop of merrymakers (art historians, critics and assorted other experts) - I'm sure there's a lot of beer involved somehow - have taken the whispered veneration out of art in this new medium and put it on the block for a real review. The consequences of these critiques began as a tiny ripple and are now being felt throughout the grid.
Art in virtual worlds is coming of age. Carry on...
"Brooklyn is Watching" is a project sponsored by Popcha, a New York based media technology company, and taking place simultaneously at the art gallery Jack the Pelican Presents in Brooklyn, New York and in Second Life. Artists are invited to place their work here). An avatar, in the shape of an eyeball and under the name Monet Destiny follows the goings-on there at all times and projects what he sees onto a large screen monitor at the Real Life gallery. Every Wednesday evening, Jay and several other notables, including Shirley Marquez , Man Machinaga (aka Patrick Lichty) and Max Newbold (aka Beth Harris of the FIT) gather to discuss what is rezzed at BiW.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Art 101 redux - Penumbra Carter
I have no idea who Penumbra Carter is, but this is the best summary of art in Second Life® I've seen to date in one video. Who are you, Penumbra and what did you mean by all of this? Please do tell us!
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
It's hip (this week) to be square-ish
In Real Life, a monolithic cube might make you think of the Kaaba in Mecca. 
This photograph by Muhammad Mahdi Karim
In Second Life®, especially if it has some special physics feature, it makes me think of conceptual artist and scripter Selavy Oh. As art professor Amy Freelunch pointed out, Selavy has carved a niche for herself with pieces that almost always feature a cube or cubes falling, pushing or floating, such as some of her Tectonics series, and her Architectural Intervention piece.
Much of art in Second Life® requires some degree of technical/scripting skill to produce. This week, the theme seems to be physics... and cubes.
Those of us who spend even a wee bit of time at performance space and presentation/sandbox Brooklyn is Watching (BiW), have been aware for some time now that Selavy has been planning the opening of her "Nested Cubes" installation to the public today, at 4:30pm SLT (teleport directly from here)... 
Selavy's Nested Cubes isn't really orange... I've been playing some more with Torley's Windlight presets
...so it came as quite a surprise yesterday when I discovered this piece by Hyperformalist DanCoyote Antonelli (aka DC Spensley) at about 1,200m above the Brooklyn is Watching space (teleport directly from here and take one of the chair tours he offers there).
Subtractive Reactive Social Sculpture by DanCoyote Antonelli
Notably, I inspected it and it was created July 22, 2008. Yesterday.
I immediately sent DanCoyote an IM that read simply, "rascal." He was busy working but his brief reply read... "I am a coyote." I have not yet been able to confirm that he understood why I was calling him names, and if his response addressed my implied charge or, shall we say... question. I hope to learn more.
Higher resolution version here
Music: "Neurofunk," composed by Michael Genato, ASCAP; published by Mike Genato Music, ASCAP and Freeplaynjj, ASCAP
Video: Bettina Tizzy
At any rate, I visited Nested Cubes recently with postdoctoral mathematician Seifert Surface (aka Henry Segerman), who's astonishing Noobility installation, created in collaboration with his brother, Art Laxness (aka Will Segerman), is now wowing the crowds over at Rezzable Productions' Black Swan (teleport directly from here). Seifert was my companion of choice for this expedition because of his knowledge of physics, especially as they are related to virtual art. As I expected, upon rezzing he was examining the piece with care. I hope he won't mind my sharing his comments as we reviewed it.
Seifert Surface: I checked to see if the things that fall are the same objects as the things you fly into. Not always the case... there might have been a switcheroo.
To mix it up?
Seifert Surface: For some reason or other. Eg, it could have been done so that the things you fly through go invisible and at the same time rez a physical cube in the same place... so it looks like you fly through the thing and it falls, when in fact the original cube is still there, just invisible. Then you bring back the original cube at a later date. That isn't what's going on here, though. The original cube is falling... invisiprims, and some sort of pusher. These are all good things to be experimenting with.
I later contacted Selavy to ask if she had used Keystone Bouchard's (aka Jon Brouchard) marvelous Reflexive Architecture scripts, but she clarified that all the scripts are her own. I also learned that Nested Cubes re-rezzes itself after a ten minute absence of avatars. "The viewer is an important part of this work, as in any work," she said.
~*~
Aha! Just as I was preparing to publish this piece, an email came in from DanCoyote Antonelli:
"Sel is a friend and I think a very big talent in Second Life... a rising star and diehard Hyperformalist.
My installation of the RSSS (Reactive Subtractive Social Sculpture) at BiW was in response to her cubic arrays in BiW and at Design Island. This is an example of similar morphology (cubic array) and completely different conceptual behavior. The demonstration of this fact accounts for my timing.
The piece I have at BiW was pioneered in late 2006 and is a well documented and coherent approach implicating the viewer into a sculptural relationship with the work. In fact, I contend that it implicates two viewers since the active viewer who is in the piece cannot see the length and breadth of the metamorphosis of the piece, so it takes at least two.
You know what they say... "The simpler the art, the more complex the explanation..."
Thursday, July 10, 2008
It is majestic: DanCoyote's Antonelli's Tower of Light
Hyperformalist DanCoyote Antonelli (aka DC Spensley) has been away from his keyboard for several weeks, and while I have not yet had a chance to catch up with him, word has it that he is feeling refreshed. Drop in at Brooklyn is Watching (teleport directly from here) and look up and into his Tower of Light.
...but when you do, you must take his tour (look for the white chair) and teleport to the various sections of this epic installation. In particular, be sure to go about 1,200m and look down from there... then ascend to about 2,100m and discover the surprises tucked into one of the two large blue pods. 
There is a very high degree of difficulty in portraying what can be seen there, so I'm especially excited to point you to Arahan Claveau's video of this installation with audio that gives it a mysterious and shimmering quality, not unlike Stanislaw Lem's Solaris.
In addition, Arahan created the first in what will hopefully be a weekly series of videos capturing one or more art pieces that have been rezzed at Brooklyn is Watching just prior to their Wednesday podcast, which I've had the pleasure of participating in two weeks running. That video will be posted on the Brooklyn is Watching blog later tonight.
Monday, April 14, 2008
A postcard from Brooklyn
If you haven't heard of Brooklyn is Watching, you might want to start by reading this first.
On Saturday, I spent a very pleasant hour catching up with Jay Newt (aka Jay Van Buren) of the Real Life art gallery in Brooklyn, NY, Jack the Pelican Presents. His Brooklyn is Watching project only just got underway a few weeks ago and, like a stick of dynamite, it has exploded onto the Second Life art scene. I invited Jay to share what has transpired there with us, and soon after received this. - Bettina
by Jay Newt
Brooklyn is Watching has now been up for 5 of its scheduled 52 (at least) weeks and the response has been greater than even my ridiculously grandiose dreams. Our blog is getting more traffic all the time and so is our sim, and in the physical gallery in Brooklyn, playing with the installation has become a favorite pass time of the crowds at the various openings and receptions that happen every couple weeks. 
Hip art fans playing with the BIW installation during an opening at Jack the Pelican Presents
Last time we had a crowd waiting to take turns at the keyboard, while others cheered them on and asked Second Life artist Cheen Pitney to make them a virtual beer.... which he did! Pretty much every time I spend any time at the gallery I meet a new person who has never seen Second Life or only heard about it vaguely and who gets their mind completely blown by the quality and variety of the work that they see on the BIW sim. 
Teardrops in the Rain by elros Tuominen
In some ways this project is a Noob-Mind-Blowing-Machine, which is good for anyone in Second Life, since every radicalized NYC art-fan who leaves the gallery buzzing about Second Life just raises the world's profile that much more.
As for the professional Second Life crowd, we may get the NYC Metaverse Meet Up to have one of their next meetings at the gallery so the Real Life local profile of the project is about to explode. We also got a lot of exposure at Virtual Worlds 2008 because of the enthusiasm of the Lindens who put our project up on the screen at their booth.
The sim filled up within days (largely thanks to NPIRL's original blogpost I'm sure) and has had a steady stream of new art for the last 5 weeks. People are starting to figure out that we record our podcasts on Wednesdays, and that the gallery gets the most traffic on Saturday and Sunday, so they're rezzing new things then, and we're getting some good dialogue going on about the art that we praise or mock on the podcast. 
"Mixed Opposites" by Juria Yoshikawa photographed with dot/bot Monet Destiny
Podcast 3 was a disaster, and was only saved from being a disaster by the fact that Kat2 Kit (a tiny panda in SL, and Brooklyn-based artist and photographer who has joined the project and saved our bacon several times) recorded a really interesting interview (in panda voice) with PatriciaAnne Daviau, an artist who made a 'tortured prim' tiny-tiny city at BIW. Podcast 1, 2, 4 and 5 were pretty strong I feel, even though we've had lots of technical problems.
I've been learning how to be a talk show host in front of everyone - trying to control the collision of egos and the crazy mixture of people who know alot about art but little about Second Life, people that know alot about Second Life but little about art and of course, a lot of people who know alot about both. Don's been bringing in a steady stream of fine art luminaries and we've also included Second Life art-stars Strawberry Holiday and DanCoyote Antonelli on our panels, as well. The conversations have uncovered some really interesting areas of disagreement and areas that we could, and will have whole shows about in the future. 
Nebulosus Severine's Bunnykinball
We're trying actively to get an audio recording and editing sponsor or partner and a streaming video sponsor so that we can improve the audio quality of our podcast and also get a video stream of the gallery piped back into Second Life to "complete the circle" --- I would love to make it so people in Second Life can see the folks in Brooklyn who's minds they are blowing. We're also looking for help on our blog so anyone who is interested in writing about art should contact us at watchable@brooklyniswatching.com.
Selavy Oh's capture of DanCoyote Antonelli's sky art
One so-far-untapped possibility is of a performance in the BIW sim for the audience at the gallery -- anyone that's interested in doing something could let us know ahead of time so we can promote it around the neighborhood, or just do something the next time JTPP is having an opening and surprise us. The openings are always announced on the Jack the Pelican website.
Basically, this is a great time to be watching Brooklyn and we can't wait to see what insanity the next 47 weeks will bring us!
Monday, March 3, 2008
Brooklyn is watching (us)
Pavig Lok, lead creator of the inimitable Greenies Home Rezzable, put a bug in my ear about a new mixed realities project that is just getting underway in Second Life. It sounded promising, so I set out to learn more.
Since March 1 and for a year, artist Jay Newt (aka: Jay Van Buren) of the Real Life art gallery Jack the Pelican Presents is going to navigate the virtual world of Second Life and hobnob with les pixelated artistes as part of his conceptual art project Brooklyn is Watching.
"BROOKLYN IS WATCHING" FAST FACTS
* "Brooklyn is Watching" is a project sponsored by Popcha, a New York based media technology company, and taking place simultaneously at the art gallery Jack the Pelican Presents in Brooklyn, New York and in Second Life. A performance space and presentation/sandbox in Second Life have been set up for this. (Teleport directly from here) An avatar, in the shape of an eyeball and under the name Monet Destiny will view and project the goings-on there at all times onto a large screen monitor at the Real Life gallery. 
* A computer at the gallery will run the Second Life application at all times when the gallery is open (every day from 9am to 3pm SLT, except for Tuesdays and Wednesdays) – via the eyeball avatar Monet Destiny - and when visitors to the gallery so choose, they may drive the avatar and take it wherever they want. The BiW avatar is scripted to follow anyone who approaches the stage, if its not receiving any commands from a person at the gallery. The stage itself, is rigged with a giant spring that raises the stage suddenly and violently when someone in the tower presses a special button, catapulting anyone on it, off it immediately. This creates a ‘gong-show‘ effect where people in the gallery can express their displeasure or boredom with the activities on the stage.
* Avatars will be able to send a jpg snapshot to the gallery and anyone inside the gallery will be able to email snapshots back to the BiW avatar. A dedicated blog will document the exchange and other activities.
* A weekly podcast called “Brooklyn is Watching” will be recorded at the gallery featuring 'guest stars’ from both the Real Life art world and Second Life. The format will be unabashedly patterned after Diggnation, a popular podcast about tech-news.
Jay Newt: Brooklyn is Watching is about “cultural colonialism,” marketing, the attention economy, critique, dialog, power-relationships, and the difference between potential and actual with four parts spanning the virtual, 3d space of Second Life, the two dimensional “traditional” Internet and the ultimate hipster mothership, Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It is an artwork, an entertainment product, a venue for critical dialog and a marketing vehicle. It also will be a hell of a lot of fun.
Bettina Tizzy: Who is Jay Newt in Real Life and what are you all about?
Jay Newt: I am a painter mostly. Born in Kansas... moved to NYC in 1997 to get my MFA in painting at Parsons. I first found out about Second Life from Rubaiyat Shatner - who I met at a College Art Association conference. He told me about it and I got in world - this was about 2 years ago - and I immediately had this feeling on the back of my neck like "oh my god this going to be huge." It was like the Internet was in 1994... just about to break out.
I got involved in Ars Virtua - one of the early "serious" virtual art galleries - helping curate some things and sitting on the board that selected artists in residence, and then that gallery gave me a virtual show, which was really when I got more emotionally involved.
Jay Newt: Jack the Pelican Presents has been around for about five years. It's a gallery run by Don Carrol who has been an artist and an art critic for years. JTPP has an international reputation. When I had an artist residency in Holland, I was amazed that people had heard of this Brooklyn gallery that is a few blocks from my studio, and the same thing happened when I visited London. It's got a better rep in Europe than it does across the East River in Manhattan. 
Bettina Tizzy: ... and your own art? What is it all about?
Jay Newt: I make paintings, and do events. The paintings are of stuffed animals, spaceships and fursuiters. The events have, up to now, been artworld-furry world combined happenings, like the "fursuit portrait paintoff' which I've done in Rotterdam, Brooklyn and Kansas City.
Bettina Tizzy: Are you a furry?
Jay Newt: I'm not. I call myself a "fan of the fandom." One of my furry friends calls me a "meta furry." I am fascinated and delighted by furries, partly cause I just don't quite get it and never will.
Bettina Tizzy: How close to your original idea is "Brooklyn is Watching?"
Jay Newt: It really is very close. Boris Kizelshteyn built everything just like I drew it. 
Jay Newt: I'm convinced that Second Life is the future. So what is "fun" to me is to create a venue where people can show their stuff and have an audience that will take them seriously and help "break" Second Life to the wider world, especially the NY art scene. It's like a portal into another country or something.
Amy Freelunch (aka Amy Wilson) is a good friend of mine and for years we've shared a blog. She's a painter, and has been shown in lots of prestigious places. She went through a whole "SL sucks" and then "wait, no it doesn't" process. Had to do with meeting the right people.
In May 2007, she published a book called Postcards from Second Life.
That's me, in an avatar by Yoa Ogee, interviewing Jay Newt
Jay Newt: We will have a weekly podcast starting next week. It will use the blog as its agenda to record everything that happens... well, everything of interest. We're just a bunch of people in Brooklyn with our own slant on things and no apologies for being biased.
Bettina Tizzy: What is Williamsburg, Brooklyn like?
Jay Newt: It's New York's young artist neighborhood, but it's also full of 23 year old trust fund kids with art degrees, and lots of people who work in media, advertising, etc. It's really cool and really annoying sometimes. Have you ever seen "Hipster Olympics?" That was filmed in Williamsburg, like a block from this gallery.
According to artist and scripter Sasun Steinbeck, there are 404 art venues in Second Life. Sasun knows this because, for the past two years, she has managed a gallery information kiosk system she created - and updates every week - that has dispensed 115,375 gallery lists, so far.
Meanwhile, Brooklyn is one of the five boroughs of the city of New York, and also the most populous borough, with more than 2.5 million residents. It is said that if Brooklyn were an independent city, it would be the fourth largest in the United States. Brooklyn has its own Sasun Steinbeck, better known as the Brooklyn Arts Council.
Brooklyn has many neighborhoods, but the two most recognized for their art and gallery scenes are the DUMBO district (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass), and Williamsburg, which in 1992 was declared "The New Bohemia" on the cover of New York magazine. For years thereafter, Williamsburg - blessed with low rents, and a belly-to-belly proximity to the seat of power in the Americas: Manhattan - began its ascent up the hipster hill as buzz about it being a haven for the artist community got louder and louder. This had the reverse desired effect however, and rents have nearly doubled in the area in a very short while.
