AM Radio's tree, reloaded

Years ago, Second Life® artist AM Radio created a digital illustration of a dead tree suspended in mid-air that he later realized in 3D for Burning Life, working within the confines imposed by the virtual Playa.


AM's Burning Life contribution, the first "Beneath the Tree that Died"

Now and through January 1, 2009, the University of Kentucky and its curator - an artist and contributor to this blog - Tezcatlipoca Bisiani, have provided him with a 256 square meter canvas on the virtual campus to recreate Beneath the Tree that Died .


The original illustration can be found on one end of a country road, surrounded by a grouping of open umbrellas which are set to "physical" and can therefore be tumbled around like sagebrush by visitors to the installation. Click to see large

AM appreciates a vast expanse that invites solitude; this much I know from visiting each of his virtual art works. The immersive environments he creates are intimate despite the apparent immensity of the space they occupy: panoramic and seemingly endless pastures or meadows surrounded by lines of trees that are far, far away. Nature is the perennial headliner and often one can sense the cycles of life, for while a field of wheat may be waiting to be harvested, the rusty carcass of an old train engine sits exhausted in its midst.

He succeeds where most others fail when it comes to enabling us to suspend belief, for while we never quite forget that we are logged into a virtual environment, the sensation is as close as I've experienced to "inhabiting" a work of art, largely because everything is executed with technical skill, taking the medium as far as it can apparently go; not quite a copy world and yet...

Hyperreal scenes then give way to the surreal as he introduces unexpected elements: violins floating in an icy pond, dozens of hammers suspended in mid-air, animations that make it possible for the visitor to hover gently over - but always near - the mise en scène.

AM has also created the hat and umbrella for the Mary Poppins avatar. This isn't surprising given that his own avatar is somewhat of a male version of the same: seemingly conventional and yet quite extraordinary, as dragonflies cling to him and he is often carrying a load of sticks on his back.

And then there is always a radio. It's the first thing you hear when you arrive at the University of Kentucky's island.

Beneath the Tree that Died

The elements of Beneath the Tree that Died are few, but not spartan. There is the original illustration surrounded by umbrellas on one end of a New England parkway. Further along, a large dead tree with its roots intact is suspended above that same country road, and a 1948 Plymouth is nearly beneath it, not quite aligned with the roadway. In fact it is crossing the line. Something may be amiss.


Turn your media on and you will note that the texture on the ground megaprim is code-generated. An algorithm will begin running in Javascript on your computer. Each person sees a different pattern and the design evolves. Hit Stop and Play and you will see a different design

Just beneath the tree and also on the road, a telegram...


This photograph by AM Radio. Click to see large

When asked what his art meant during a preview of the new show, he replied: "I think it means what you bring to it. Here I have my story. Things that are precious to me. Moments in my life, a tree, a car, the weather station my grandfather always listened to. This is simply me, my most inner thoughts and dreams and feelings. What it means, I suppose is what you bring to it, your own story. Here is a narrative that can only be complete when you view the work and react to it."

Second Life has a one-year old client-side feature called Windlight - a lighting and rendering system - that enables its residents to set atmospheric conditions such as the times of day or night. Several users have created "presets," which make it possible to share specific sky and water palettes with others. Soon after Windlight was introduced, AM created a mustardy preset called Nostalgia that is utilized today by many photographers within virtual worlds. In the past, all of AM's installations have not only invited the use of Windlight, but often benefited from it. Beneath the Tree that Died thrives exceptionally in the default atmospheric setting, or as AM puts it, "It likes the time of day."


This photograph by AM Radio. Visitors can change the color of the car by touching it.

"Beneath the Tree that Died," can be accessed by teleporting here, and touching a red door.



See also:

* At the root of the matter
* AM Radio and Miki Gymnast collaborate - Two distinct art languages converse
* Become practically perfect in every way
* The safety of spaces
* Photo restoration via Second Life
* Second Lifers' love of wheat
* Pixelated wheat buys real cows for families struggling against poverty and hunger
* The wheat field... has a secret

The beautiful rich world we choose not to connect to: Strawberry Holiday

There are times when I long for those Wednesday mornings when Second Life® would go down for maintenance and I'd be forced to step away from it all and plug back into Real Life. I sometimes wish there was an enforced day-off for all virtual worlds, so that my will power wouldn't have to be exercised.

Strawberry Holiday took a close look at the relationship between our Real Life and our propensity to plug into everything technological when she created Disconnected, which she unveiled today. I asked her about that and also learned a bit more about what's been keeping her unplugged from our pixelated world.





It's great to have a new Strawberry installation, especially when we know you've been so busy in your Real Life. What's going on there?

I've been working as the director of a preschool and toddler center. As part of that, I teach a preschool classroom and art lessons to preschool and kindergarten age children. While love this part of my life, I'm really starting to feel that I'm not contributing as much as I could be and I'm itching for a change. With all the changes in the country and so many states working to make early childhood education, namely preschool, part of the public education system, I've decided to go to law school and help influence the laws and decisions that actually impact children instead of just being a cog in the works.

Were you an artist before you joined Second Life®? If so, what were you doing and are you still doing it?

I have a bachelor's degree with a focus in visual art. I explored the art of light in college with enough credits for a minor in Neon. I've also done small metal and jewelry work as well as 2D drawing and painting. Now most of my art is done in-world, except for some limited drawing and painting and the lessons I do with the children.



Has your increased distance from your own Second Life helped you to gain some perspective or insight that led to the concept behind this work?

Besides the decision to go to law school, there's another aspect of my life that has been taking up some of my time. I've been spending more time with the love of my life as we prepare to move in together after nearly two years of dating. We met in a club in Seattle but after dating for only about six months I moved away up to the beautiful island of San Juan near Vancouver BC for my current job. So the majority of our relationship has involved a sundry of vehicles, cars, ferries and seaplanes to taxi us back and forth to each other! As I'm considering Law Schools, we're also preparing to move in together in Seattle. All these changes, both happy and stressful, really have caused me to realize how lucky I am to be at this stage in my life.

The last few weeks, between when I took the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) and before I received my scores, I really wanted to focus on building. I did want to make sure that I was keeping time for my Real Life and not getting overwhelmed by Second Life so I could keep enjoying my love and the anticipation of the LSAT close to me. (Strawberry has since learned that she not only passed but also scored very high). Working on this balance kept bringing to mind a picture I drew back in 2005 of a woman surrounded by technology but a close-up into her brain showed that she wasn't plugged in.

And that's how I came to the concept for this piece. In Second Life, it's so easy to show concepts that I could never really capture in paintings. The image of the woman alone in her space surrounded by the flashy images and noise of technology (that all seems the same) while not connecting or living within herself is powerful. Especially with the soothing trees and calm grass that surrounds her. Just outside her walls is a beautiful rich world that she chooses not to connect with.







Did you have any collaborators?

The first challenge of this build was finding space, which Truthseeker Young has generously donated for the duration of the build. WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget provided production support, doing tedious things like updating scripts in dozens of prims, or deleting every other blade of grass, or sanding and activating scripts as needed! Without her this would have been impossible. And Moongold Munroe was commissioned to develop the sound scheme for the build. They complete the build!

Your new grass is sumptuous. How'd you go about making it?

My grass has developed over the last 6 months. Originally inspired by the wheat at AM Radio's Wheatfield, it was first used in Throes of Rapture, a collaborative build with the Fallopian Fighters. This particular version of the grass is different because while the graphic is in the shape of individual pieces of grass, what is masked over it is a photo of a field of daises in the grass, giving for a much more rich texture. Not possible in real life, I know, but its green, and on the ground so our minds read it as grass!

Teleport directly from here.

Real Life inspires: The most alien looking place on Earth

My jaw dropped when I followed a Digg post for The most alien looking place on Earth (PICS). The article by Rachel and Avi Abrams boasts some of the most astonishing nature photography I've ever laid eyes on.

If you create virtual landscapes, you should definitely have a look. The website, Dark Roasted Blend: Weird and Wonderful Things, reads (and looks) like a Real Life version of this blog. In fact, I'm adding it to our blogroll.