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.

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?

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?

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..."

The Museum of the Globe - 2D gets 3D

Last year, Hidenori Watanave, a Japanese architect in Real Life with an active Second Life®, sat on a jury for something called the Digital Design Competition 2007, and the Grand Prix winner - with a 2D submission - was Museum of the Globe, by Atelier Ten Architects, a Japanese metaverse developer and web services company, not to be confused with the prestigious global environmental design firm Atelier Ten .



In June, TeaCup, the Japanese free blogging service division of the publicly traded Internet services and web hosting company GMO, provided technical assistance in collaboration with Atelier Ten to take the 2D design and realize it in 3D. The actual construction was realized by Ichiro Furse of Atelier Ten Architects.





Hideroni will be presenting this at the International Electronic Langauge Festival FILE 2008 in Sao Paulo, and at SIGGRAPH2008 in Los Angeles, in August.

I asked Hyperformalist DanCoyote Antonelli (aka DC Spensley) for his opinion of the sim-wide installation.

DanCoyote Antonelli: This is pure Hyperformalism. It is messy in a unique way, but it keeps its overall shape well. It is in between my cubic and cylindrical arrays and Seifert Surface's spore. It is not dirty enough data for me in total, but I think it is a wonderous thing, in some ways related to the shatter sphere.


Seifert Surface's "Spore" - photo by Bjorlyn Loon

How do you mean "dirty enough?"
Dancoyote Antonelli: I mean the data is perturbed in a way attributable to the artist's hand. There is such a thing to me as "too far removed from the work..." - too distant, and the piece slips out of my range of interest and becomes a photograph of some data and not art. Some imperfection must make it a human work I think. I love the little trees below, too. They reflect well in the water.

Teleport directly from here

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.

Kiss the Sky: Tipping point on the axis of a virtual world

2008 has already been a landmark year for art in virtual worlds. It is the year that Brooklyn is Watching gently dipped its toes in Second Life® and found itself nearly crushed by a multitude of artists and artwork. Babelswarm, the winner of the Australia Council for the Arts' Second Life arts residency, came to life. Blackthorn Hare got his Masters degree in Second Life sculpture. This year also marked the launch of Arthole, which I will write about soon, and the opening of the Kirsti Aho Museum, and one week ago, we celebrated the unveiling of our Garden, simply the largest collection - ever - of content creation that is not possible in Real Life.

Meanwhile, another show just debuted that is critical to our understanding of the unique possibilities in a 3D virtual medium, and the list of participants reads like a Who's Who of virtual abstract art. I welcome guest blogger Bjorlyn Loon, and her insightful piece on this collection.


by Bjorlyn Loon



DanCoyote Antonelli’s (aka DC Spensley) new exhibit, Kiss the Sky, is an historical document in recognition of a community of artists in Second Life. Like most of us, artists and critics are searching for new words and constructs to define their virtual experience. Says Antonelli: “Since virtual worlds are a change of venue – a drastic change of venue – the former critical language is not enough.”

Dancoyote Antonelli: "The people in this show are each like a Picasso, or like the abstract expressionists of our time. They have embraced virtual world conditions, and are representing an avant-garde within an avant-garde that is nearly incomprehensible in material-world art. Feel the history, we are living in it!

One of the reasons that Hyperformalism has not mainstreamed until now is that there are a lot of practitioners that are not communicating with each other. In Second Life Hyperformalism has found a home in that it is an indigenous art form. Hyperformal work has always existed uncomfortably in the material sphere.

While space in virtual worlds is a simulation, place can be real. In fact, art experiences are the only thing that can be real in both the virtual and material worlds at the same time.” Kiss the Sky is tiered in the air above New Media Consortium’s NMC Arts Lab (teleport directly from here), and visitors are encouraged to interact with the works, and to experience them on many levels, including sight, sound and play.

Not all of this work is brand spanking new: it is not intended to be. What is new about it is that it is all together. This is a survey, a critical milestone to mark this time in history and present the shared histories of these artists in one concentrated punch.”

In addition to work from DanCoyote Antonelli, Kiss the Sky artists include Chance Abattoir, Vlad Bjornson, nand Nerd, Selavy Oh, Adam Ramona, Nebulosus Severine, AngryBeth Shortbread, Sasun Steinbeck, Sabine Stonebender, Seifert Surface, elros Tuominen, Juria Yoshikawa, and i7o Zhu.

Antonelli has developed a new native architecture for experiencing this exhibit, which might otherwise be difficult to maneuver as a result of its massive scale. Strategically placed purple seats call up a menu where you can select from among the 35 works in the exhibit, and the seat will gently transport you to your choice. Says Antonelli, “What is important is that there is no remediated architecture here: Interface serves content. The seats take you to all the exhibits, near the sign that only opens when you are near enough to read. The signs and seats are in the same place in each exhibit, so once you get it, you have it.”

Hyperformalism is non-figurative abstraction in a hyper-medium, including abstract objects arranged in simulated space, navigable on a network, as well as expressions of reactive and interactive artwork behaviors and geometric or algorithmic pattern play in 2, 3, and 4 dimensions. Because Hyperformalist works are unique created entities that are not representational, viewer relationships are less fettered by pre-existing symbolic weight and the artworks encourage fascination with form and pure relationships. The virtual world provides the ability to liberate the work from scale constraints and provides a perfect context for this post-conceptualist movement.


Juria Yoshikawa’s creation embraces Kiss the Sky in sheer physical dimensions. "In all three of my works, as the name of the show Kiss the Sky suggested,” says Yoshikawa, “I tried to create forms to pull people in and draw them skyward. In the large piece Infinite Pixel Loop most of all, I was aiming at a reaction of immersive upward motion."


Conversely, the pulsating rock specatacle of i7o’s Zhu Name Unknown contrasts with the aerial setting of Kiss the Sky, suggesting a literal and conceptual grounding.


According to the artist, Adam Ramona’s works in Kiss The Sky “explore the audiovisual relationship between the avatar and virtual space. Sound and vision are created and modified dynamically by the avatar's movement through space, creating a real-time composition unique to that user and time.” Seen here: A Rose Heard At Dusk


Seifert Surface is directly concerned with the mathematics of 3D, which Antonelli describes as “one genre of hyperformalism.” For example, Surface’s Spore, created in 2006, “is based on a process that turns up in nature a lot: 'growing' new objects around some axis at an angle of 2pi/Phi from the previous one, where Phi is the golden ratio, (1+sqrt(5))/2.” Siefert’s Meandering Hypercube “is a projection of the hypercube from 4d to the 3d of Second Life, just as the 3d of Second Life projects to the 2d of a computer screen.”


Veteran artist Sabine Stonebender describes her KissTS – MoreAndLess as “Positive space vs. Negative space in an endless cycle,” and it is mesmerizing.


Of his Plant Deco installation, artist Vlad Bjornson says “The changing, geometric shapes of each piece are fractal and self-similar in nature, somewhat like the structure of Real Life plants. The colors of each piece were inspired by some of my favorite artists, borrowing color pallets from their works. Each piece changes to a unique configuration each time it is touched, with billions of possible combinations.”


AngryBeth Shortbread extends her Real Life art into Second Life with a strong emphasis on sound, play, and interactivity. Her Pusher-Tron is no exception.


Nand Nerd, who refers to himself as an… “Artist? I'm no artist. What would I know about art? I'm an Engineer, damnit,” has always been intrigued by Antonelli’s art. “The flexi-hedra started off as a whimsical use of the new flexible path feature,” says Nerd, “Once I'd seen the outcome I was hooked and developed a range of polyhedra to be given the same treatment.” Nerd’s Square Antiprism Tower at Kiss the Sky responds to touch in unexpected ways, which defy gravity.


Nebulosus Severine, who has been working in Second Life since 2005, produces works which she describes as “Chromotive [Chroma (color) + Emotive (drawing out or evoking emotion)].” Her Pulse Points (I, II, III) is a crystalline structure which surrounds the avatar in pulsating light.


Chance Abattoir is interested in interactivity, and brings skills in texturing, building, 3d modeling, and scripting to the artistic task. His 5.3.5(2) juxtaposes dissimilar shapes which evolve according to the angle of view, and change further, and more dramatically, upon touch. Chance elaborates, “It's not meant to convey anything other than self-reflexivity. Each part of the art refers to another part of the art.”


In the year and a half that elros Tuominen has been in Second Life, he says that he has “never stopped learning about building, scripting, textures... I feel like a child, playing with everything I find, and expressing myself freely.” Tuominen is a prolific artist, treating his friends to new poetry or sculpture every single day. For elros, Underconstruction City v.06 is a massive work, demonstrating his increasing mastery of the medium, and communicating his expanding reach towards impossibilities.


Sasun Steinbeck has been working on her Morphing Sculpture for years, perfecting it. It scintillates against a starry night sky or cloudless blue with equal impact. Like many of the works within Kiss the Sky, Steinbeck’s is configurable by the visitor, in this case via choices of texture.


Selavy Oh describes her Soft Structure as “part of a series of conceptual works exploring and utilizing inherent properties of the simulated world of Second Life. Motion of the structure is created by virtual wind, the color reflects cloud density, and the cloud-like fragility of the installation is emphasized by temporarily dispersing the elements upon avatar intrusion.”

In sum, for all their differences, the works of art in Kiss the Sky achieve Antonelli’s goal of creating a historical node. People will look back at this exhibition, with the experience of years, and see a tipping point, where, according to Antonelli, “Hyperformalists on Second Life have more in common with each other than we do with the material or conceptual art worlds.”

All photos by Bjorlyn Loon, with these exceptions: Overview: Antonelli, Infinite Pixel Loop: Yoshikawa, Morphing Sculpture: Steinbeck, A Rose Heard At Dusk: Ramona, Pulse Points (I, II, III): Severine, and Soft Sculpture: Oh.

The one, the only, Sabine Stonebender

October 6, 2008 update: On July 16th, Sabine Stonebender's Zero Point and shop were inadvertently destroyed. Sabine has been hard at work rebuilding Zero Point and her permanent store is now open for business (teleport directly from here).


The extraordinary Sabine Stonebender. Photograph post-processing by KadeKlate Karson

In the constellation of artists within Second Life, she is royalty, and I have no doubt that art historians in the future will document her work in textbooks - or whatever the format might be - because Sabine has pioneered an entirely new approach - a movement in and of itself - and has thoughtfully laid down the foundation for many artists in virtual worlds to come.

So much has been written about her already, but we will never finish examining this woman's work. There is the SLART piece, Amalthea Blanc's review and video, the SL Cool story, and of course, the SL News coverage. Jurin Juran frequently features her work both at her Blackwater Gallery and on her blog.

April 14 update: In the interest of longevity and for the record, and because some new material came in - namely a couple of great pics of Sabine's Real Life art works, and quotes from both Torley Linden and DanCoyote Antonelli - I decided to republish with these additions.



To see the greatest concentration of her work, as well as her store, visit Zero Point (teleport directly from here).

I always feel like I am stealing a little beauty from the metaverse whenever I take Sabine Stonebender's (rez: 2/2/2005) time for one thing or another. I imagine that she might be mixing a new palette of those jewel colors and shiny things, and whipping all into a froth of exhuberant particles that dance around her whenever she appears.

So, I stole a little beauty from the metaverse... a few hours of this gifted content creator's time, and here is what I discovered.



What is your Real Life background and where are you located?

Sabine Stonebender: I am a studio artist by training with a BA of Fine Arts - Studio Arts - Jewelry and Metalsmithing. I got into the arts to be a professional at it. I'm in Texas, and graduated from the University of Houston in 1997.


Sabine's "Griffon" in Real Life

Jewelry and metalsmithing... doesn't sound very 3D - as in digital - to me. How on earth did you end up in Second Life?

Sabine Stonebender: More than you might think. Jewelry is very sculptural in nature. Digital graphics fascinated me ever since seeing the first pixel blocks of Pong. I learned to use Poser on my own, as a hobby, which led me to Second Life. When I ran a web hunt looking for ways to extend Poser, Second Life popped up due to its animation file connection.

What did you think when you got here and what was your reaction?

Sabine Stonebender: A bit puzzled, but I liked the fact that I could make things and keep them or even sell them. The first weeks were rather boring, though, as my comp barely could run Second Life. The public sandboxes were where it really got going.

Did you work alongside anyone interesting there?

Sabine Stonebender: I would meet all sorts of builders making wonderful stuff. Folks like Torley and Jesrad Seraph. One who really inspired me alot was Jessica Qin. She's an all-original and has a brilliant mind.


A very early photograph of Jessica Qin, who had this to say about Sabine: "The wonderful thing about Sabine is that she's always inventing and experimenting and innovating and attempting to do truly original things that no one else has done before. She's a true Original."

Unlike most creators of interactive art, you are also involved in creating a "journey" of sorts for the person experiencing it, via your tunnels, the roller coaster, and your transport systems.

Sabine Stonebender: I like to think of life as a journey with all that implies, so it seemed logical to bring that mentality here. We change as our travels broaden our experiences. It is my hope that, in some small way, I can change folks a little as they interact with my work.


Message upon arrival to the Station Control: WARNING!! DANGEROUS MAGNETIC FIELDS BEYOND THIS POINT!! PROCEED WITH CAUTION!! USE RESCUE TELEPORT IF YOU ARE FLUNG BEYOND THE STATION

Your work involves a great deal of scripting, which is so distant from Metalsmithing!

Sabine Stonebender: I use a lot of very simple scripts for much of what you see. Only the recent work has become script intensive.




What is Vomit Comet and how did that come to be? It is a Second Life classic and novel even to this day.

Sabine Stonebender: That was a toy I built back in 2005... one of my early big works, which was a real learning experience. It is now a means to really throw a viewer into the heart of the storm. That level at Zero Point is sensory overload, plain and simple.




Incidentally and per Wikipedia, Vomit Comet is a nickname for any airplane that briefly provides a nearly weightless environment in which to train astronauts, conduct research, and film motion pictures. In Sabine's case and in her words, Vomit Comet is "a rocket sled-type propulsion ride, and the chair fires up a sticky camera for a bit better view of what's going on." You can take that ride on the top level of Zero Point, ground zero for Sabine's showcase of her work.

Your colors! No other artist in Second Life even comes close to touching your intense and intensely beautiful palette. Tell me about your sense of color and how it evolved?

Sabine Stonebender: Part of it stems from my love of color in my Real Life work, as I am a stonecutter. I cut raw minerals into gems and bring out the color. A stone has a range of colors unlike many things in painting and graphics. Among the stones that I work with: Tigers Eye, labrodorite, opal, sodalite, obsidian. Stones have special fx built in. Tigers Eye is what they call "chatoyant," - the so called cat's eye effect.


Tigers Eye photograph by Photolitherland


Kinetic art at Zero Point


Obsidian, as photographed by Mila


I'd venture to say that sometimes Sabine improves on nature


This photograph of an opal taken by Chris Ralph .


Sabine's opalesque effects... "Opal is special as it is a spectrum and has amazing depths"

Sabine Stonebender: Labrodorite has its own unique effect to reflect light back as color. No two alike. The fractal effect is partly the surface and partly from the internal refraction. My first texture was labrodorite. This is a prime example of some of my fave colors.


Sabine painted a prim to demonstrate her labrodorite texture

Sabine Stonebender: Some of the colors I work with also came from ceramics. I nearly have a minor in that. I loved glazing.

I have heard jewelers wax eloquently about the forests that appear inside emeralds. Are all your colors inspired by nature?

Sabine Stonebender: Not all are natural. I also played with graphics programs and was drawn to the bold and brightest of the colors... things that nearly glowed. What really set me alight was back in old Second Life, we had light as a material. To hold a block of light was fascinating. In the edit menu, there are object material properties: wood, stone, metal, rubber, etc. Light used to be on that list.

Do you miss it? Now we have glow... is that a good replacement?

Sabine Stonebender: They replaced it with glow recently, so I don't miss it so much, but before glow, yes, I missed it. My horn was from that era. Much of that old content was broken.


An earlier version of Sabine's avatar

It was not lit for a while? How long ago did it disappear, more or less?

Sabine Stonebender: Yah, I had to settle for Fullbright. Must have been around the summer of 2006 when they broke the old lighting engine. We had a period of almost a year with no local lighting.

Have you made jewelry here?

Sabine Stonebender: I don't make jewelry in Second Life. I acquired a taste for large-scale sculpture. I have a 500lbs steel dragon in my Real Life backyard.


Hex, Sabine's dragon in Real Life, weighs 500lbs!



How soon after you rezzed did you begin to build large? Was it an epiphany of sorts?

Sabine Stonebender: Probably 6 months, as that's how long it took me to really get a clue. Second Life was small then, too. It was more of a slow progression. I'd learn a skill, build on it, and so forth.



Two builds, "Big Foot" and the "150 Ton Hammer," by Sabine dating back to the fall of 2005

What are the most important considerations, in your opinion, in creating an installation, and... is there a prim you like to reach for most when you start?

Sabine Stonebender: The primary consideration is "What does it make me feel?" And Function is what I use most. As a jeweler, form and function go hand-in-hand. Useable and beautiful... but in Second Life, I could also go for pure form.

Do you test how avatars interact with your art, and do you still work with Poser?

Sabine Stonebender: (smiles) I put my own work through the wringer with my avie. Poser, not as much. The current version is rather annoying to work in and I've little time for it.


Sabine Stonebender on her throne at Zero Point, as captured by NPIRL Flickrite, Luna Zolnir


Detail of one of the dragon heads from that throne

What tools do you use, software, etc.?

Sabine Stonebender: I'm an open source junkie. GIMP 2.4, Irfanview, Sculpty Paint, PloppSL, and any free graphics or modeling tool I can lay my paws on.

Any advice for people who are just getting started in this area?

Sabine Stonebender: Find forums, and do a lot of experimenting with the editing menus. I would poke at every filter, plugin, etc., just to know what it was. Nothing beats hands-on empirical know-how. Gimp was a trial by fire.

You are renown for your textures, and I am thrilled to own several of them... how much work is involved and did it hurt to put some of them up for sale?



Sabine Stonebender: It really varies. I use a lot of photo elements as well as pure digital rendering. Both can be slow or fast depending on the detail. As for sale, some I do hate to let go, but many I am eager to share, as I know they can be useful. I used to teach classes here.

Your particles are unlike any others in Second Life, and I especially enjoyed how you used them in the Godzilla build for Burning Life 2007, and in your teleporter. When you teleport from one place to another, you "arrive" in a storm of particles.


Godzirra! at Burning Life 2007

Sabine Stonebender: Oh, my flight tail. The default of me has the real tail. My particles use a lot of textures I make myself. One of the reasons they have a certain look is that I am a transparent texture junkie. Overlays are a wonderful use of Second Life. Layers are fascinating, especially in motion.

"Sabine Stonebender has attained mastery over animated textures. Seems simple enough: you drop a script in, and tweak a few parameters. But beyond this, when you assemble prims in various geometric alignments, you can create powerful, fluid sculptures which are a feast for your eyes, and bordering on optical illusions. Through Zero Point, a skyward installation not unlike The Crystal Maze, colors and motion run rampant, culminating in visual delights to be enjoyed by all visitors." - Torley Linden


"Eye Window" - An earlier work by Sabine

What considerations came into play in the creation of Zero Point?

Sabine Stonebender: One thing about Second Life that I've learned is that rails aren't really needed. We all fly. Many things we use in Real Life are bad user interface here. Thus the open format of the Sky Gallery.

What do you call that gorgeous red tower?


This photograph was taken in early February. The build has changed since then

Sabine Stonebender: Oooh lol, that's part of an experiment that's not open to the public yet. That zone is new and will be replaced soon with the final one. This is a proof of concept.



How soon do you expect to finish it? I wonder if I might publish the photos I've taken prior to your opening it up.

Sabine Stonebender: Sighs... when I can make the time, honestly. I don't mind. I get ripped off on concepts a lot, so there is little I can do other than present my current vision while it is current.



Want to talk about that?

Sabine Stonebender: Only insofar as we live in a cut-and-paste society now. Far easier to copy, than create new. Sometimes, some concepts will diverge, and some I've tossed to the wind, hoping they would be used.

DanCoyote Antonelli calls you a true original and considers you to be completely unique.

Sabine Stonebender: I do make a point of not being too derivative whenever possible. I am a student of art and art history, so I know when I am being a slave to it.

Do you collaborate at all?

Sabine Stonebender: Yes, DC (DanCoyote Antonelli) was one of my early collabs. I got him turned onto the notion of the cascade attachments, as the first ones were my work for the first ZeroG SkyDancer shows. I did the costumes. I liked his concept and tried to push it further in my own way. It was a lot of fun.

"I discovered Sabine's work in a sandbox. It was her immersive worm experience that you walked into the mouth and then went through the belly through to the other end. It was then I knew I had to befriend this person. I sent an IM and did just that. Sabine is a profound inspiration to me and a loyal and dedicated friend. Sabine is undoubtedly the genuine article, the real thing and a humble, helpful good natured, serious artist. She is my favorite artist in Second Life and personifies all the best aspects of the Second Life community. This is an amazing talent and we are lucky to have this person working in Second Life." - DanCoyote Antonelli



The textured megaprims worn by the dancers in this video by Gary Hazlitt are what Sabine calls "cascade" attachments

Anyone you'd like to collaborate with whom you haven't?

Sabine Stonebender: Mmms, that's a tough one. I've looked up to many folks but often due to how different their work was from my own. Seifert (Surface) was an early inspiration, but our methods are way too different. Seifert used scripts early on for prim manipulation, while I was never that good at them, so went for brute hand-built, sometimes with similar results, but not unlike many of Seifert's early creations.

Author's note: Since conducting this interview, Sabine collaborated in a build exercise with elros Tuominen.


Entrance to Zero Point

If you could bring one person in world who is not here today, to your knowledge, who would that be and why?

Sabine Stonebender: I admit, I'd like to meet folks like Boris Vallejo or Olivia de Berardinis, but I doubt they would find it here as fun as I do. They have fantasy worlds of their own.

This gold texture at Zero Point's Sky Gallery is extraordinary.



Sabine Stonebender: It is something of an anomaly. They never culled its size: 2048 x 1024... a rare high res texture.

How'd that happen? Just a bug?

Sabine Stonebender: Really don't know. Ask Linden Lab :3... but I'd rather it stayed high res.

Oh yes! We won't share with them (note to Linden Lab: Don't you touch it!). What about your avatar, and its evolution?

Sabine Stonebender: My face was made on my third day in Second Life. My Poser experience made that easy. I already knew UV mapping, but didn't finish the body till a year later, though. I hate seam fixing. Pure laziness, too.


The earliest version of Sabine's avatar

A question, mostly for my own edification? You don't use animations to walk and stand. I notice that a lot of oldbies don't. Why?

Sabine Stonebender: AO's, as a rule, are bandwidth hogs and the early ones were cumbersome and hugely laggy. I found them annoying. I do wear them on rare occasions, but never for long.

There is one default standing animation that drives me nuts. I imagine I'm a lag disaster and should trim that, since I wear so many huds.

Sabine Stonebender: (smiles) Oh, so am I, but that's my tail. It's also a multitool.


Sabine Stonebender: Blazer Neko tail -star call: Scanning for AGENTS within 96 meters. [13:45] Blazer Neko tail -star call: Scan: [1] Detected Bettina Tizzy (cb84betxa-60aa-4ba7-85c7-a9999c12345) at coordinates (107,67) at a distance of 2.38 meters and an altitude of 502.28 meters.

Very detailed...

Sabine Stonebender: It's far more than just a bell or a particle effect. A super scripter wrote the set that powers it: Karsten Rutelage, maker of the game Greedy Greedy and numerous other things. Only I have it.

Everything about you is one-of-a-kind.

Sabine Stonebender: Yes, I'm a unikitty. Sabine is an old idea, was more equine back then. I am very catlike in my personal habits, but I have a need to help folks and heal to some degree. Technically, Sabine is also both male and female, as I have a very dual nature.


Photograph post-processing by NPIRL Flickrite Suzanne Graves

Looking ahead, what would you like to see happen with art in virtual worlds?

Sabine Stonebender: I'd like to see digital work gain recognition as fine art, in its own right. One reason I try to be original is, if it can stand on its own, then the naysayers can't condemn it as software fabrications. Many consider it nothing more than filters and logarithmic effects.



Do you see a change in that direction lately?

Sabine Stonebender: Yes, many others here have taken up the same banner. DanCoyote Antonelli was one I preached of this to, and he has really pushed it far, and I do get preachy about it. I feel very strongly about that idea... that and the fact that art can and should involve the audience. Immersive art, in essence, becomes performance art, with the viewer performing a part.

The interaction requires a mind. Without the mind, it is static. While static art has its place, it rarely involves the viewer except as a distant observer. Second Life offers a dynamic that can't be replicated in Real Life. I want folks to ride art, climb into it, merge with it even. In many ways, builders here are what the magicians of old were proposed to be. We can bend the world to our will on so many levels. In Real Life, not even close.