Selavy Oh's work, as long as I've known it, has always involved math and physics and, for the most part, it features cubes or sticks coming together and/or falling apart in different ways.
I can think of four recent installations by Selavy that break this pattern or do something entirely new: Dancing Mountains, a landmark Land Art piece in Second Life consisting of mountains that rise and fall guided by scripts, even in her absence; The Final Show, her entry in the Final Five showcase for the Brooklyn is Watching Best of Year 1 Festival, where she curated the works of other artists within her own virtual recreation of a Real Life art gallery; the monumental State of Formation piece at the IBM Exhibition Space last month, where land rose to meet your feet as you crossed water and a camera guided you right back to the inside of your avatar's head; and finally her latest and for my money, the finest work at this year's Burning Life: Irregularity.
Photo by Selavy Oh
The contrast between the brutally dry desert land of the thematic build festival and this delicate structure is already striking but it was in conversation with Selavy that I learned that it is also self-healing and not in the way that you might think. It seems it has a mind of its own: "I'm really curious what the end result will be. It transforms. Every visitor flying to it adds to the irregularity. The edges don't go back to the same place; it already is different and no longer completely regular."
"I added random numbers to the position to which an edge moves back. It's basically adding noise. In reality, everything is affected by noise, but the point here is more that the visitors cause changes. When an edge moves back, it is displaced from the last location by maximally plus-minus 0.2 m in x and y and +0.5 in z, so it'll slowly rise. One edge may, by chance, move completely away; another one may approximately stay there, and on average the whole structure will retain its shape."
Selavy was inspired by Sol Lewitt's minimalist sculptures, which are mostly cube-based - and doing very well in art sales, by the way. Last week, his Horizontal Lines, Not Straight Not Touching sold £3,000 over estimate at auction for £11,000.
The notecard offered at the site of Irregularity reads:
'irregularity' consist of 1872 identical poles. The poles are arranged so that they form edges of a three-dimensional regular grid of 2.5x2.5 cubes. By omitting cubes and edges, the remaining poles, still organized in a regular grid, form a hollow sphere. thus, constructing the sphere can be conceived as removing those parts of the grid which do not contribute to the shape, like a sculptor carving wood.
Initially, the structure is completely symmetric and regular, but becomes more and more irregular over time. Each visitor actively participates in this transformation: When avatars fly through the structure and collide with it, the edges touched fall down and the structure temporarily becomes damaged. After a certain time, which depends on how many visitors are present, the edges will start to rise and slowly move back towards their original position. However, they never end up in exact the same position, thus resulting in an accumulative disarrangement of the structure.
Irregularity will be even more irregular after my hard work at the site
By way of an introduction Anyone who has had the patience to read what I write about will have noticed that I have a few bees in my bonnet to which I keep returning over and over again. One is avatars and identity creation; the other one is the creation of cohesive visual systems over standalone objects/or conversely the presence of a strong system within the standalone object; and the third one is narrative. Now, it is here with this third one that I tend to get into the biggest trouble in that more often than not I end up getting vastly misunderstood: It is inevitably assumed from my lamentably unclear delivery that I am talking about tangible stories with a beginning, a middle and an end - things that are decipherable, that can be conveyed in the spoken language just as well, if not indeed much better, than a visual manifestation. Nothing could be further than the truth - and it is entirely my mistake in that I have really not been at all clear about just what it is exactly that I mean to convey when I say "narrative".
For starters I should probably be using "visual narrative", rather than just "narrative" which does, after all, mean "story". But in any case, here is a quote from Marcel Duchamp, talking about "humor", which does come very close to what I want to convey when I say "narrative" in my hitherto fumbled manner of expression (please note the bold text):
"A great power; humor was a sort of savior so to speak because, before, art was such a serious thing, so pontifical that I was very happy when I discovered that I could introduce humor into it. And that was truly a period of discovery. The discovery of humor was liberation. And not humor in the sense "humorist" of humor, but "humor" humoristic of humor. Humor is something much more profound and more serious and more difficult to define. It's not only about laughing. There's a humor that is black humor which doesn't inspire laughter and which doesn't please at all. Which is a thing in itself, which is a new feeling so to speak, which follows from all sorts of things that we can't analyze with words... ...A large amount of rebellion, a large amount of derision toward the serious word... ...And it's only because of humor that you can leave, that you can free yourself".
And here is yet another quote, this one supplied by Soror Nishi, during a conversation we had going on her blog a while back: "a long, immense and deliberate derangement of the senses" - already suggesting narrative in that in it is embedded the very notion of temporality and process.
So, for me (amongst much else) visual narrative, i.e., the construction of a visual language is primarily a vastly complex set of maybe half verbal and very possibly even entirely non-verbal elements which conglomerate to form "a thing"; a temporality, a process, a visuality in which things are implied, half implied and yes, maybe even not even implied at all. A dark process involving metaphor over description, enigma over clarity. A thing whereby the individual components converge to create a whole larger than the sum total of its parts - a Gestalt.
And no, in no way does visual narrative have to involve recognizable objects, things which are realistic or are endowed with realistic references at least. My own work is of such a kind that a power plant does in fact look like a power plant (well, sort of anyway...) and a gym like a gym (regardless of whether the exercise stations may be placed on steam pipes). It does not mean that this is the type of work which I prefer, which I take to be the sole carrier of the potential of visual narrative. The starkest abstraction can be a powerful conveyor of what I consider to be visual narrative. If anything, indeed probably much more so, since precisely in the very abstraction lies a vast potential for the conveyance of metaphor, of enigma, of process - of the telling of the story that really has no words whereby it can be told...
Which would, of course, bring me to Selavy Oh; an artist whose work I have loved from the very moment in which I set eyes on it. ...
The creation of an identity I had already assumed that Selavy Oh's choice of name was not a random event, but was closely associated with the famous alter-identity of Marcel Duchamp, Rrose Selavy. And so indeed, the urge to find answers to questions such as "would it be possible to create an identity out of nothing", what exactly "would be needed to create an identity that is separate from your own", and very importantly whether you "would need a history" were what led the human behind the avatar, who incidentally is a computational neuroscientist in Real Life, to the creation of Selavy Oh, whereby a contextual, if not historical, reference to not only Duchamp but to the whole idea of "alter-ego" seems to be implied.
"Impact" and the power of abstraction The metaverse is teeming with so-called art objects which are meant to interact with the avatar. What is usually meant by that is that something completely ineffectual occurs as I approach or touch the object in question. I say "oh" and move on. I have not changed, nothing fundamental has occurred to me which has brought on "a long, immense and deliberate derangement of the senses". And not only the metaverse obviously: The whole web is a dump site of "interactive" art installations. Very few resonate with me in any kind of meaningful and profound way, they simply do not interact with me, my inner being...
The Giant Arc, Photograph courtesy of Selavy Oh
So, how is Selavy Oh's work, the kind which does interact with the avatar, different? The keyword here, I believe, would be impact! This is, of course, yet another word hard to pin down into a description in that it could be constituted of different attributes in different cases. In Selavy Oh’s case, at least one of these attributes is scale. So magnificent, so vast, so sublimely endless and yes - ultimately so visually satisfying in its amazingly cohesive system is the huge arc which stretches itself over the virtual sky above the Museum of Hyperformalism (teleport directly from here), and which begins its unutterably sad and yet graceful disintegration and demise upon my touch; that as I watch spellbound, something is in fact changing in me... ...
I am slowly demolishing the cubes...
So absorbing in its complexity, the complementarities of the contrast between the hard edges of the cubes and their soft descent upon my collision, are the nested cubes, which Selavy Oh rezzed for me, thanks to the generous hospitality of Mab MacMoragh, that I spent an entire afternoon and early evening slowly demolishing them.(I am indeed very proud to be able to proclaim that apparently I am the second avatar in metaverse history to have completely done so, the first one being Wizard Gynoid).
My reward? The magic of having them restructure themselves in a choreography, the enigmatic beauty of which would be very hard to describe in mere words. That is the impact of the abstraction of minimalism when it transcends the ordinary and moves into the realm of the resplendent: You cannot describe it, what it does to you, what it means to you or even how it looks. It is completely intangible and therein lies its huge power. And yes, I dare to say it, again: its ultimate power of narrative - as I define it in "a long, immense and deliberate derangement of the senses"... ...
But does "something" really need to do "something" before it becomes truly "interactive"? The third piece of Selavy Oh's that I wish to talk about after the sky arc and the nested cubes is static: Formes Nocturnes, now no longer in existence - alas. Nothing moves - or at least it did not while I was there. A torrent of bits which has become frozen in a tempest, reminding me of Goethe's famous words that "architecture is frozen music". Interaction is not pushing a button. Or bumping into an object which then goes "squeak" or whatever. Interaction happens in the mind: Something or someone evokes a change in me - interaction has happened.
Formes Nocturnes. Photographs courtesy of Selavy Oh
And with Formes Nocturnes and Goethe's statement I come back full circle to Duchamp, and his pre-occupation with frozen time and space: The strong connection which I felt that the island had to Duchamp's glass painting "The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even". I was gratified to hear that my instinct was not unfounded, that there had indeed been this connection in Selavy Oh's mind as well. A connection with the temporal fragility of the "Bride" and with happenstance and chance (apparently the glass broke during transportation), as well as the shared obsession that the artist has with Duchamp: "Dureé", temporality and space, reflected throughout the extraordinary output of Selavy Oh. …
I have been wondering how to end this post and what I think I will do is refer back to an email conversation which Selavy Oh and I have been intermittently conducting over the past week or so, concerning wherein might lie the difference between the creation of cohesive visual systems and visual narrative. One would almost be tempted to say that the difference between a cohesive visual system and visual narrative is a matter of degree. However, ultimately, I suppose the difference lies in the temporal element given that “static” visual work can have a temporal connection/element, be endowed with an attribute of temporality even though it captures only a single instance in time. A cohesive visual system need not necessarily have embedded into the notion of the 4th dimension, whereas visual narrative would. So, in the end, in a way, it is still a matter of degree, I suppose: The output of creative activity (and I would dare to suggest that this would involve the output of all creative activity, regardless of whether it is text, sound, visual or indeed scientific data) relies on the engenderment of systems to come to their full fruition. While textual and audio systems inherently carry the element of temporality, when it comes to static visual systems there would seem to be a distinction, they need not inherently possess this dimension: It is whenever we find that the 4th dimension has been evoked within a static visual system that we can begin to talk about “visual narrative” having begun its magical process. The process of the art of Selavy Oh. …
Selavy Oh’s Flickr stream from which I have borrowed some of the photos of this post can be viewed here. You can teleport to the giant arc at the Museum of Hyperformalism from here.
And they said you couldn't move mountains... Oh ye of little faith!
Physics and now Land artist Selavy Oh has created a script that operates the terraforming capabilities in Second Life®, resulting in the continuous and automated reshaping of land, even without her presence.
To my knowledge, this is without precedent.
That's me filming in the center of the mountain peaks. Selavy was not even in-world for that portion of the taping!
Terraforming, the ability to intentionally transform surface topography, atmosphere, temperature or ecology, is not unique to science fiction or even science (where it is primarily called planetary engineering).
In his book, The Making of Second Life, Hamlet Au (aka Wagner James Au), explained the in-world terraforming process quite poetically: "Standing on a hill like a demi-urge, a Resident can wave her hand and cause the ground to swell, expand, or even collapse into the sea."
In Second Life, terraforming land is a skill that looks easy to do, but frequently results in unrealistic and poor duplicates of mountains, lakes and canyons.
Selavy, who rezzed in February of 2007, is most widely recognized for her physics work with the most basic of prims: the humble but noble cube. She has expanded her range considerably in the past few months and now works with any number of shapes and even Alpha textures, but physics are always involved. Art historian Amy Wilson once compared Selavy to Rauschenberg, explaining that, "I can’t help but think she’s the Rauschenberg of SL, albeit one whose hands are much, much tidier than his ever were (makes sense for the environment we’re talking about). Navigating in this little space created by artists whose work is pure abstraction (DanCoyote, Juria) and artists whose work specifically references real life (Cheen, Nebulosus), she comes to find some very fertile ground indeed."
Given recent developments with Comet Morigi's terraforming explorations and her anchoring of huge prims to sims - thereby extensively and surprisingly expanding the canvas - and now Selavy's epic work - many of the most exciting innovations in virtual worlds at this time have to do with Land Art so extreme that I can't help but wonder what James Turell and Micheal Heizer would think.
Possibly the closest reference to Dancing Mountains in Real Life might be Heizer's 1971 Double Negative project in Nevada, for which he removed 240,000 tons of stone to make two slices 30 ft wide by 50 ft deep on opposing sides of an existing canyon to suggest a line between the canyon walls. His focus was on the removal of something, thereby creating a Land Art piece that stressed space, rather than an object. But I have no Real Life reference for land that wiggles, shrinks and grows, with no attending human, in an automated fashion.
Selavy accomplishes this by leaving her scripts with Negative Overland, a bot that is hidden underwater.
Some years ago, I was traveling in the rain forest in the heart of Costa Rica. My traveling companion and I had just sat down to a white tablecloth dinner at a lodge perched a top a mountain less than two miles opposite the Arenal volcano. The volcano was erupting (and still is to this day). Constantly. With a surprisingly loud and deep rumble, the mountain would cough up the fiery lava and rocks, dressing itself in a never-ending kinetic skirt of thick veins in an orangey red.
We struck up a conversation with the couple sitting at the table next to us. They were vulcanologists from Finland and they spoke about volcanoes the way we talk about virtual worlds. The woman shared how she got a kick out of hugging active volcanoes at the base and putting her ear up to them. She swore they sounded like the loudest heartbeat on earth. That certainly had a lasting impression on me.
For some reason, it was the first thing I thought of when Selavy teleported me in to watch a proof-of-concept demo of Dancing Mountains. She has managed to breathe life into the landscape in ways heretofore unimaginable.
~*~
Dancing Mountains can be experienced on arts patron Mab MacMoragh's Soup sim by teleporting directly from here.
In addition, Selavy nearly always has an installation at Brooklyn is Watching. Teleport directly from here.
You may wish to listen to the music that is played at Poetik while you read this.
Oh, to be cherished by Nur Moo and JuJu Dollinger (aka Ju)! To be housed and given unfettered artistic freedoms by the new Medici of the Second Life® grid!
Nur is an esteemed fellow-Flickrite with a photo style somewhat reminiscent of Tamara de Lempicka that I am fond of, but I'm only just now realizing the degree to which she - together with Ju - has mutated into a bona fide patron of the arts. Months of assembling, fostering and cross-pollinating an electrifying cross-section of artists and musicians will finally come together full force tomorrow, Saturday, March 14 with a party that is expected to run 24 hours.
Event poster featuring the Patron Saints of Poetik
The duo began their curatorial work back in March, 2008 on the mixed-use sim Sintetika, even before they took ownership of it, but what they are best known for are their branded parties: Poetik. I've never been to one but as I understand it, they expose people to new ideas and environments, and then encourage them to be disruptive and create. Hmmm. Sounds like a good workplace tactic, doesn't it? In their case, it's about parties: art parties, concept sound and light reveries.
A few months ago, Nur (a graphic and fashion designer in Parma, Italy) and Ju (a French artist in Real Life) boosted the pace and snapped up a pair of sims because, "...using Second Life network possibilities to share Art, we are trying to create a different visual / sound experience that goes further than what is possible in Real Life." They'll get no arguments from me on that count.
"I was always surprised, from the beginning of my second virtual life, by how much people try to copy reality and don't try to be more creative," said Nur. "That's why I look for the most visionary people on the grid and (then) try to support them. (We try to make) Poetik this total experience; every month a different artist creates a different installation and every week there is a music event there."
"Different, but always experimental, is our project with the first sim [formes nocturnes]. We call this sim "our art playground," and invite the artists we like the most in the virtual world to play here with 15,000 prims... so it will be really an unique experience. Selavy Oh is the first artist to build at [formes nocturnes]," said Nur.
Selavy Oh's hallmark is the studied application of physics to prims
Nur added, "With time, the Poetik party has grown. We needed a new place, a whole new sim, and we decided to share this new 'work' with Hern Worsley, an open-minded artist and one of best builders in Second Life with whom we share a creative vision for what the metaverse should be like."
Speaking for myself and given my schedule, wild horses couldn't make me blog these days, but I'm not completely crazy. One teleport to the new Poetik Velvets sim where Hern Worsleyhas been ensconced and Kung Fu'ing prims for three months, and I was tossing my busy calendar aside.
Poetik love by Hern Worsley
You remember Hern, don't you? Owner of Avz and hairdresser of my dreams? Creator of the cyberpunk specs worn by that chimp that left me frothing with curiosity?
Hern Worsely at Poetik
Turns out that Hern is about way more - eons and tons more - than fantastic avatar adornments. To begin with, I'm a sucker for black and white striped ticking, and a whole sim ground textured with it strikes me as elegant and completely chic. Then consider the environment it is all situated in... Why, it's an endless aurora borealis!
This photo was taken using the Funky Funky Windlight setting, which Hern recommends at Poetik
Then... take a good look at this edifice on its own merit. It is, at once, industrial and organic.
The moment I saw it, I was reminded of a certain chair...
The Wassily Chair was designed by Marcel Breuer in 1925-26 while he was the head of the cabinet-making workshop at the Bauhaus
I had a chat with Hern to learn more.
There are some of us who are convinced that you are actually a master architect, here to let loose some creative juices.
Hern: It's just about nice lines and pleasing shapes that flow. I think stuff should just speak for itself really, and everyone can interpret it how they like. I've been doing Audio and Visual stuff in my own time in Real Life but it has never been my profession. It is now, though... apparently. I've learned everything in Second Life, to be honest. Without Second Life, I'm prolly not much use to anyone as far as creatively goes. ;) For me, it is a perfect medium to work in. I just hope it carries on and develops. I think it is possible... the next 5 years, once all the hype is over, and all the inflated expectations and misunderstandings, etc. Now that we're just coming out of that phase, I hope we'll move into a more steady growth phase where people who really "get it" are coming in and working.
How'd this come together?
Hern: Nur has been a good supporter of my store for a while now. She'd commission custom work from me a lot, so we've kinda developed a relationship via this around work. So yea, she just mentioned to me that she was looking to get a new SIM and would I build it? I knew I'd get freedom so I was pretty much up for it from the start.
What were her stated objectives?
Hern: She didnt really have 100% solid ideas. I had to talk with Nur the whole way to solidify what she wanted, etc. I'm not sure I'd do this without freedom, basically. She's a dreamer, really, but it's great. Wouldn't have it any other way. I see it as her showcasing the artists she likes. We both want to show that Second Life can be a lot more than just orgy rooms and shopping malls. Come try this... It's fun. Follow me, plz princess.
He then weaved his way (he uses an endearing kinda tipsy walking animation) over to one side of the building and invited me to sit on a sphere.
Sit on one of these for a bouncy ride to the ground level
Hern: For me, the time is always "now." I love what is new. I don't like looking back all the time. I'm excited by technology. We should be celebrating Second Life and virtual worlds and all the new possibilities they bring us, not building toy towns, and little versions of Real Life: cars, houses with kitchens...
Hern: I have this idea. How often do you zoom right out from a SIM, like to see it all? When I was doing this I thought people should be able to zoom out and then the surfaces of the SIM can have buttons and hold info, like a giant 3D website, basically. That would make it really elegant. If you go back to the scale of an avatar, all these surfaces are also really nice spaces for your avatar to be in... getting that connection in scales could be interesting.
By the way, to fully experience Poetik Velvets, you simply must, must, must disable camera constraints. Only in this way will you be able to free your camera and zoom way back to view the sim from above and all sides. This is something everyone in Second Life should learn how to do.
Thank you, Torley, for your smart and fun tutorials!
If there aren't too many people on the sim, please increase your draw distance so that items will render for you at greater distances.
Increase your Draw Distance > Edit > Preferences > Graphics > Check the "Custom" box if hasn't been already > Use the slider to go to 512m (the higher, the laggier, but it's worth it unless you are in a laggy situation) > Hit the OK button and close IMPORTANT: Many people forget to set the Draw Distance lower after they've been maxing it out. I keep it at about 200m most times these days, and increase it when needed.
Music to work by is of critical importantance to Hern, and he shared the stream that he used throughout the three months of creation: http://205.188.215.225:8018/, which I thought was mighty generous of him, since most people keep their stream sources private like a great hand of cards.
Hern: It would be pretty selfish of me to keep them all to myself. This radio station was a huge influence on my work. They were in Second Life a while ago but not anymore. I may try to coax them back soon though. This station makes me more intelligent, lol. I don't really have words for what I make, but music does a great job of explaining things I think.
The Moo Gallery
Was there an "aha" moment?
Hern: Yea, the "aha" moment was about 5 evolutions ago, though, lol.
Hern created about 90% of the textures he used. He has just gotten started on Flickr. You can access his stream here.
How did you alter the water surfaces?
Hern: Mega prim, double layer. Secret recipe ;)
Are the shapes for this silvery wheat-like growth on the sim inspired by kitchen utensils a little bit? (Silly question, I know, but I cook so maybe not so silly). Musical chords?
Hern: I guess I see 'em as kinda receptors or circuitry, but then I see a lot of correlations with nature and technology anyway. Art nouveau and art deco styles definitely reflect that, too.
Hern lives in a British town but has big plans for the not-too-distant-future.
Hern: You know what I'm gonna do :) I'm taking a laptop and going off to Asia, and I'll be working in Second Life from all over the world soon, I hope, via wifi.
Ah, sounds like an adventure and good economy!
Hern: Yea, like my ideal... live in a treehouse and work in a virtual world. I think I can see a way to like travel and earn money from my work in Second Life, which means I don't have to ever stress about work or running out. I don't see it as a holiday, I see it as a lifestyle. I'm treating it like a mission. I'm gonna take a lot of tech with me. I've found a way to run a laptop with solar power.
Theft is an important hindrance. And in the world economy that we are entering now, it is a primary consideration.
Hern: To be honest, what I earn here in Second Life is more than most people earn in many countries in Asia, but I want to get away from the west and its values and priorities. You can't let fear rule you or you'll never do anything. I am of the belief that 90% of human beings are very nice people, and I expect I'll find out I'm right when I travel, too. But yea, I will be equipped up and as secure as I can be for my tech stuff.
Last question. What did you learn from making Poetik that you are taking with you to future creations?
Hern: A lot. Well, for one, I learned I can do it. Also, it has engaged me a lot more closely with the "art" scene in Second Life, something I'd not really been into a great deal before. My first attempt at here... I was very serious and planny, but it didn't work or help anything. Just killed it. I threw that away and just went for it, and it worked out anyway. You have to give yourself time to play, and if your lucky like me, (you'll) have a client who will let you do that. They are rare. Either there's total trust and good communication or it won't work. If it's a build for someone else, it's important if they have specific ideas that you get them out of them, or it will just cause probs later.
~*~
Unlike most builds that I admire, the strong vibrations I'm feeling at Poetik Velvets aren't just about prims and sculpts, or the people who created this place, but also the folks who will inhabit it, as you will appreciate in Lyric Lundquist's- my new obsession and a favorite machinimator's - vid.
Slurl effective March 14th at 8am SLT: Teleport here.
The sim will feature the works of Hotel Dare artists (curated by the founder of that concept, Gattina Dumpling), including soror Nishi and artoo Magneto, as well as Alpha Auer, four Yip, Pixel Price, and several others. I'll be telling you more about them over the course of the coming days.
Gattina Dumpling has been hush hush about which artists she will end up featuring at the new Hotel Dare location. We'll have to get it out of her
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?
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 Performancetab 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.
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 HyperformalistDanCoyote 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..."
June 27 Update: Seems polysilox Apogee had also discovered Light Waves' sculpture, way back on May 17th! polysilox had been photo blogging and was checking for the names of content creators for attribution when she made the discovery.
Every time I think about Light Waves, I find myself grinning. There is something about his personality that simply inhibits any other reaction. Beyond the fact that he is the creator of many, many of the creations we most admire in Second Life®, including his groundbreaking (sometimes literally!) sculptures...
...and his elegant and mysterious Black Swan sim today...
Beyond all these staggering accomplishments, it turns out that Light Waves is quite a likable dude. Yes, I don't think I'd known him but a couple of minutes before I'd called him a curmudgeon, but he always cracks me up and always keeps things in perspective. What I'm trying - badly - to say here is that, despite the fact that he is quite possibly the most revered artist and scripter on the grid, Light Waves is a grounded, earthy kind of guy. Some might (do!) call him crusty :P
Anyways... a few days before the Garden of NPIRL Delights opened to the public, I IM'ed Light Waves asking if he'd like to make us a little something for it. The next day, you can imagine the extreme rush of pleasure and excitement I felt when there was an inventory offering from him waiting for me called simply "Something for the Garden."
Did I have to go to a sandbox just in case it was very large, I wondered? I couldn't wait. I rushed to my inventory and rezzed it - quite breathlessly - to the ground... and waited what seemed like an infinite number of seconds for it to rez... Later, Light Waves told me he had wondered if I was going to laugh or cry when I saw it, LOL.
I guess I did a little of both... the crying and laughing, I mean. I know that Light Waves is very busy these days, so I was astonished to receive anything at all. But this little naughty gnome! Taking a tinkle on our Garden, no less! Harrumph!
Fact is, I'd give my right arm to be able to make anything as well done as this just once... and to think that he made this simply as a joke. What a talent!
My brewing mind quickly came up with a plan: I'd extend the joke to everyone who visited the Garden. Knowing that I'd be taking a break from Second Life for several weeks, I shared the news of the gnome with the very talented Nectere Niven and entrusted her with it, asking that she move it around, if necessary, to keep people looking for the famous "Light Waves" sculpture. She did better than that. She rezzed it in plain view and even created a little park-like setting around him.
Join us in our quest to discover the best of Virtual Worlds
Experience - first-hand - the creations, ideas and innovations that are pushing the boundaries of what is real. No, we're not in Kansas anymore! Virtual worlds are where all the disciplines of art and technology combine to make for the most compelling and exciting adventure imaginable.
Blogger Bettina Tizzy
NPIRL founder - Madly, wildly embracing the impossible made possible in Virtual Worlds.
Blogger Alpha Auer
"I need a new clockwork brain!... Indeed, maybe two?"
Show me, I'll show you...
A central goal for us is to collect and distill what's really happening out there and pare down your options to the essence of what's cool, trendsetting and even groundbreaking, always within the context of Not Possible IRL. This is not intended as a calendar of events and our selections are, by necessity, subjective and opinionated. To learn more about the criteria for what is NPIRL, click here. If you'd like to share a landmark, notecard or hot tip of any nature with us, kindly share it with us in-world. We try to always credit the finder, too.
A great place to rez your art and have it critiqued by art critics.
A Glossary of Terms and Abbreviations Commonly Used in this Blog
Cam - The act of zooming and panning one's viewer (camera)
FLART - Flat art in a 3D world (more often than not, imported Real Life paintings and still photography)
HUD (Heads-Up Display) - A visual display of preset options as part of the user interface (UI)
In-world - Being inside or "online" in a virtual world
IRL - In real life
Landmark (LM) - An "address" and shortcut that enables a Second Life® resident to teleport to another place
Linden - An employee of Linden Lab™, the company that owns Second Life®
Linden Lab (LL) - The company that owns Second Life®
Linden or $L - Currency in Second Life®
Mega prim - A very large and useful prim that is not endorsed by Linden Lab, and not scaleable
NPIRL - Not possible in real life
NPISL - Not possible in Second Life®
PIRL - Possible in real life
Prim or Primitive - A 3D object that is manipulated and used as a basic building and creation material
Rez - The action of creation in a virtual world; also the birthdate of an avatar/account
Sim - A simulator and virtual region hosted by a single server CPU
SLT (Second Life® Time) - Local time within Second Life®, which also happens to be Pacific Standard Time because Linden Lab is located in San Francisco, CA
TP or Teleport - Moving from one location to another in a virtual world
Windlight - Sky, water and atmospheric lighting effects in Second Life®
