Ducky...

Posted by Alpha Auer

Ever since I wrote the post on art in the age of computational (re)production a few weeks back I have been meaning to follow up on it with a few posts exemplifying what it is that I am actually trying to say there. What my point in all of that ultimately is.

I wrote a while back that it seemed to me that the folk that stayed the course in Second Life® were in fact the very ones that were creatively active: Only so much shopping and disco hopping you can do - and let's face it, when it comes to those kinds of activities Real Life is really far more engaging. So yes, as far as I can see, the metaverse is teeming with creative activity. We seem to have gone past the early days and entered a new era where more than just a few select individuals are putting out the content. These days Second Life seems to be in the process of transforming into a petri dish of activity where individuals from all walks of life are engaged in creative expression.

And one remarkable manifestation of this is the output of the Second Life community on Flickr, which is where I encountered Ravenelle and Ducky.

Now, although some of the "point and snap" photo documentation undertaken in-world by Residents is very accomplished indeed, the output that I have in mind here is the one where an individual takes the raw images captured in Second Life and then proceeds to manipulate them in an external bitmap application. In other words, the image processing activity surrounding Second Life photography. Indeed, I am quite surprised that this phenomenon isn't being widely talked about and indeed exploited in the "serious" Real Life art enclave out there. Probably is already, and I just don't know it yet...

So, why Ducky? Why is Ducky so very special? I am not going to spend a lot of time discussing the visual accomplishment of these, I would instead urge you to go and take a look at the collections on Flickr. I will say this however: There is a finesse, a sophistication in Ravenelle's visual approach which reminds me of the Renaissance masters. I will merely give links to who/what these images below remind me of and then proceed on to say how it is that Ducky really grips my heart.


Sandro Botticelli?


Georges de la Tour?


Leonardo?
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And then of course there are these here, in a world of their own, maybe reminiscent of Max Ernst's Bride, come to life in a new shape and manifestation?




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Unfortunately - and no matter how I slice this - I do have a real gripe with solely "viewable" art. I have had it for a long time I suppose, long before I ever came into Second Life, in fact. And I think the reason that Second Life grabbed me as a creative platform in the first place is the very fact that here creative activity has the hope, the chance of metamorphosing into a lifeform. Into becoming a living entity. An organism in its own right. Not something on a wall or a designated 3D space - but alive! (Really - an installation, no matter how accomplished - is absolutely no different to a modest 2D painting in my book - it is still there to be viewed and then gone home and left behind!)...


Ducky and Torley

Ravenelle gives us no textual clues outside of the visual material about Ducky. And yet, as I look and watch the videos, a fully formed persona emerges: A creature of ladylike elegance, with dreams and affections. Unspeakably delicate and feminine. Who loves her all too human Torley. With fears that haunt her and then the occasional lighthearted playfulness. Just as it should be, the personality slowly emerges as we watch. We get to know her over a passage of time. She is there, present, alive. Not hanging on a wall. Not on display in a showcase. She is wandering Second Life, she is wandering in the crevices of Ravenelle's mind and now she is also wandering in mine.

And no, this is not just about "building" a gorgeous avatar. Ducky is a gorgeous avatar - no doubt. But, far more is involved here: This is about making something come alive. This is about the deep commitment of an individual to a being created out of her own innermost being. An emergent, ongoing process. One which evolves and changes over time. One which I, with my huge tribe of alts, have yet to master. Alas...
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Is Ducky Ravenelle? Well, maybe. Only Ravenelle can say. She has emanated from Ravenelle for sure.

Is Ducky "art"? I say yes! Emphatically so! I believe that a decade from now the "serious" art world will be making room for a new category of artistic expression: They will probably be calling it "avatar art". Just like "body art" "performance art" today... These were not around 50 years ago, or at least the activities undertaken in these domains did not yet have these handles attached to them. And I really think that "avatar art" will take its "official" place as a novel form of artistic practice in the very near future. Hopefully the officialdom of it all will not ruin the spontaneity, the unselfconsciousness, the selflessness, the utter abandonment to the joy of the creative process of its early day practitioners like Ravenelle...
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Again, you can get to know Ravenelle's Ducky here.
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An Airborne Leviathan?

Posted by Alpha Auer

Half seal, half whale - or maybe some other mythical hybrid creature which emanated from archetypes residing within the imagination of Feri Beckenbauer, looms over the sky of the sim Beckenbach.


This is a really wonderful structure housing a shop of fantasy/cyberpunk apparel beautiful enough to make me drool over most of that I saw on display.


While seeming to be ominously hermetic from the outside, the construct turned out to be surprisingly spacious and un-claustrophobic once inside due to the split ceiling.


Very beautiful, 3D display of merchandise. Why don't more apparel designers do this I wonder?


A gaggle of birdlike annexes follow the creature... Claws made out of giant propellers, a befitting entourage...

Creative output, the roots of which lies in archetypes has always held a particular fascination for me. Indeed, as Joseph Campbell has already shown us in his studies, sometimes I wonder whether our human imagination, bound as it is in a collective subconscious which seems to have spun the same myths over and over again regardless of geographic and chronological dispersion, can ever fully step outside of what is archetypally relevant. And when it comes to the generation of a true act of imagination, as Feri Beckenbauer's wondrous creature shop seems to me to be, I cannot help but start thinking very much along these lines:

Despite its airborne quality this creature has predominantly aquatic attributes, such as fins rather than wings. Consequently it reminds me of Leviathan, the Biblical sea creature which has become synonymous with any large sea monster. In Herman Melville's classic novel Moby Dick the term Leviathan refers to great whales. Partly due to this influence, Leviathan has come to be associated by many with the sperm whale. There is Walt Disney's depiction of Pinocchio's being swallowed by Monstro, a sperm whale and then of course there is the story of Jonah who is miraculously saved from the consequences of a sea accident by being swallowed by a whale where he spent three days and three nights, at the end of which, following God's orders, the creature vomited him out at the shore. And then of course there are all the numerous references to Leviathan ranging from Milton's Paradise Lost, where the creature is symbolic of Satan, to the words of Puck in Shakespeare's Midsummernights Dream.

For me, humanity bypassed a huge opportunity of self exploration through the means of visual creativity when it took a wrong turning on the path during the mid 20th century, choosing the follow the route of realistic rendition in Surrealist art. True, there did remain the odd hardcore contentual surrealist like Max Ernst, but for the large part the display of craftsmanship took over from the investigation of archetypal subconscious content, resulting in a mass of maudlin and trite, if not borderline sentimental output gathered under the heading of Surrealism. And now, here in Second Life®, I am daring to hope that this past error may be rectified. Maybe not so much in the form of "high art", although there is some hopeful evidence of that as well, but certainly in the emergence of design output that truly seems to be looking at archetypal content which is usable - making the whole self-investigative adventure even more dramatic, even more immediately accessible and powerful. We do not merely look at archetypes, we become immersed, in fact we become archetypal characters ourselves.

Feri Beckenbauer's giant airborne hybrid creature would seem to me to constitute a primary example to this. Unselfconscious imagination, yet ever so subtly evoking a millennia old, ever present, omnipotent archetype?

Wow!

You can teleport to see the creature shop housing Beckenbauer Productions directly from here.