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

1 (one) each, notecard giver and notecard explaining your artwork

1 (one) Brooklyn is Watching landmark or slurl
Patience, a pinch
Tolerance (omit ego)

Instructions:

1) Log into Second Life

2) Using the landmark or slurl, teleport to Brooklyn is Watching

3) Rez your virtual artwork there

4) Garnish your artwork with your notecard giver

5) Sit tight until the following weekend

5) Direct your browser to the Brooklyn is Watching website and listen to the weekly podcast to hear if Real Life art critics reviewed your piece.

~*~

That's my take on the recipe offered by the man who conceived it, Jay Newt (aka Jay Van Buren), back in March of 2008 when he launched what was to be a one year mixed realities project: Brooklyn is Watching (BiW).

That year has come and gone, culminating with the two-month long Best of Year 1 Festival and the unquestionably "not possible in Real Life (NPIRL)" installations created by the Final Five: Dancoyote Antonelli (aka DC Spensley), Glyph Graves, Bryn Oh, Selavy Oh, and Nebulosus Severine (aka CM Pauluh), not to mention a write up in the New York Times.

The finalists were tasked with creating original virtual art that relates to the virtual version of the Jack the Pelican Presents gallery, and...

Nebulosus Severine enveloped the virtual gallery in a luminous fortress-of-solitude-like structure — that is a meditation on the nature of the self.

DanCoyote Antonelli exploded the metaphor of the virtual gallery by using the building blocks of that illusion as raw material for a dynamic, rhythmic, abstract sculpture stretching up into the sky.

Selavy Oh exploited the intrinsically flexible nature of virtual space by creating an interactive maze of nested, shifting Jack the Pelicans in which she curated a show within a show featuring artists not selected by the judges.

Bryn Oh turned the gallery into a ruin of glowing technological fragments infested with digital flora, inviting the viewer into her own idiosyncratic fantasy narrative.

Glyph Graves used the gallery to show how art is a reflection of its physical and social environment by creating a work that changes based on the number of people viewing it.

~*~

The project is now slated to go on... indefinitely, and while it's had its share of bumpy technical moments, the concept and the people behind it have given the most acclaimed virtual artists in Second Life a reason to roll up their sleeves and not only participate with their art, but also to launch their own BiW initiatives and boost the effort in every way they can think of.

I thought we'd find out what is on Jay's mind these days now that so much has gone down, and the future seems to be wide open.

We already know what your original vision was for Brooklyn is Watching. What is your current vision of what BiW can be?

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.

Regarding the Festival, what have you learned from this experience that would be valuable to other Second Life'rs wishing to organize events around a theme? Or around the arts?

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.

Artists consider Adult Content ratings in Second Life, and I reach my own conclusions

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

Let me first say that I understand Linden Lab's motivations for rating (see "Upcoming Changes for Adult Content and sections of the Second Life® grid. In fact, about three months ago, I decided to rate my own sim PG in support of my desire to make it newbie friendly. Newbies already have a lot to deal with when they arrive, and rezzing next to a couple that's copulating in the woods (I still don't get why people do this in very public spaces, but eh) is, in my view, too much of a test, not that I enjoy coming upon these situations myself.

However, I do prefer environments that provide for the greatest level of individual freedoms within a framework of accountability, and I always worry when any entity takes it upon itself to tighten controls over what is right and wrong. I do believe that Linden Lab will rue the day it ever decided to walk this lawsuit-happy path. Notwithstanding special viewers and other automated processes, they are going to devote copious amounts of precious time and resources in arbitration.

Tateru Nino over at Massively is still working on her coverage of this story. "I can't find three people in SL that can all agree on what's allowable in a PG sim," she told me. She shared a few more very fascinating insights in a Not Possible IRL group IM immediately following the announcement, so I'm especially looking forward to her post, which may come as soon as tomorrow.

I was immediately curious to hear what people in Second Life's art community opined on this topic so I did a quick roundup.

New media superstar Gazira Babeli was busy making some interesting changes to how the Odyssey sim will appear on the map when we spoke (we'll have to wait for the next system refresh to see it). Gaz and I agree that this is going to consume a great deal of Linden Lab's time and resources. "That means decadence. Resources lost in details always result in decadence," she said.

Artist and lead creator of many of the grid's most popular sims, including the Greenies, Pavig Lok: Part of me says "about time" and part of me says "best option available" and part of me says "dammit the unicorns and fae have gone from our world, curse you loss of innocence!"

Artist and founder of Second Life's art-critique mecca Brooklyn is Watching, Jay Newt, responded to my email this way:

"It's a really interesting question. It seems to me a little like the movie rating system, and I like the movie system, because it is voluntary. There is the category "unrated" and you know that that means: "who the hell knows what it is going to be." I wish they would make these categories for SL content voluntary in that way so you could advertise your content as fitting into one of those categories or you could elect not to participate in that particular categorization scheme and then people would know that they are just taking their chances coming to your sim.

I also think that SL artists will likely get upset over this because of what they think will happen as a result and the truth is that none us of us knows what will happen as a result. It could be that most places will list themselves as "adult" just to have the freedom to do what they want, even if they aren't about sex or violence, and there will be no stigma attached to that label...

We're all jumping ship from SL as soon as there's a large enough community on some un-regulated open source distributed server system anyway, right? :)"

Hyperformalist and producer/director of ZeroG SkyDancers DanCoyote Antonelli offered an intriguing perspective: "If any company leans on the US legal system in their Terms of Service and are protected by US laws, they should also follow through and support the right to free speech provided for in the US Constitution. Want to be protected by US law? Then provide US rights as outlined in the Bill of Rights.

Leading fashion designer and artist, Eshi Otawara: "If the concern is children, this still will not stop them from entering Second Life and pursuing their curiosities. It's the responsibility of the parent to supervise their child. As far as adult content being 'offensive' to adults, I am sorry to say- there is far more of both natural and less natural human activity that offends a lot of us on a more profound level then adult content ever can. But in those cases it is socially acceptable so those who don't agree must conform or keep quiet in the least.

"For me, this is just another step that Linden Lab, unfortunately, must make - to protect the company from the people whose state of mind is so unfortunately fragile they cannot handle functions of their own bodies and who are indoctrinated into false pretensions that assuming what is commonly and unfortunately for human kind referred to as 'purity' vs. embracing the human nature provided to them at birth by whatever/whom ever one chooses to put faith towards makes them somehow more in control of anything. For the rest of us, there are always contentedness, laughter and hope Darwin takes care of it in the long run."

Finally, artist and co-founder of Arthole, the often-controversial arts center that will surely be affected by these new rules because it sits on the mainland, Nebulosus Severine, wrote back a very thoughtful response.

"As you know, I have some very strong opinions on the upcoming changes in SL that would restrict a lot of so-called Adult content. The way LL is handling it is still so unclear to me, and I keep going back and forth from optimism to pessimism.

I don't have to worry about all aspects of this new policy. I am already payment verified, so my presence in SL won't be limited; that is at least some relief to me.

However, I have already taken preliminary steps in considering what will have to be done with Arthole. Arahan and I will be talking soon to figure out what to do. I know he and I both agree that we must have absolute creative freedom to address any subject matter with our art. As we frequently choose controversial topics, I think the safest bet would be to move Arthole to an Adult piece of land.

However, this will limit the access of several friends who, although adults, are not age-verified (for their own personal reasons), and wouldn't be able to come visit Arthole, if it does end up on Adult land. That is really frustrating and heartbreaking.

Not to mention that I have had the same piece of land in Kress for nearly 4 years. I suppose a move isn't that big of a deal, but it's still an inconvenience to say the least.

When it comes right down to it, I believe that LL is censoring SL. I've read their arguments to the contrary, and I don't trust their supposed reasoning. And with their proposed definitions of what "Adult" is, it seems as though they'd have an easier time making a new PG continent and keeping THAT all together. The Mature rating is effectively useless, too. Why not divide the grid geographically into "Adult" and "All Ages" and keep it simple?

Seriously... "illicit drug use" will be considered "adult"? I have never been to a live concert in SL that did NOT have an avatar (or three, or ten) smoking on a prim joint or tripping on scripted 'shrooms.

Anyway, I could go on and on. My bottom line is that I distrust and despise ANYTHING that would seek to restrict freedom of expression. I consider censorship to be one of the biggest violations of human rights. I know LL is a private company, but the more that censorship is imposed on people in any community, the more people start to just accept it as a fact of life, and THAT is dangerous," concluded Nebulosus.
~*~

"Why not divide the grid geographically into 'Adult' and 'All Ages' and keep it simple?" suggests Nebulosus. This sounds appealing, smart and effective doesn't it? And cost and resource thin, right? Oh, wait! Isn't that what is already in place? Which leads me to conclude...

Why change a system that just needs to be implemented properly?

Is this just busy work that will result in the same-ole same-ole put in place just to hush some fundamentalist and ultra conservative groups, at the great expense of art facilities like Arthole?

See also: What will happen to art?

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!

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.