An interview in Chinese and English with virtual superstar Cao Fei - Will you be the next artist showing at RMB City?

Cao Fei (aka China Tracy in Second Life) is one of six finalists for the 2010 Hugo Boss award. The $100,000 prize is presented every other year to “the artist (or group of artists) working in any medium, anywhere in the world” for making the most important contribution to contemporary art.

In Second Life, we know her as the artist who conceived and produced the four sim/islands work collectively known as RMB City, and also for her 3-part i.Mirror machinima, a documentary shot in Second Life and presented at the 52nd Venice Biennale 2007.

This is a second blogpost in a two-part series we are publishing today. The first, "Wherein I finally love Cao Fei's RMB City," can be found here.



These days, it is almost impossible to pick up an art journal, read an art blog, or watch a TV documentary on the arts without hearing about Cao's Second Life persona, China Tracy, the pig-tailed avatar that looks to be a cross between a medieval dragon slayer and a space-age bot girl. This global fawning is not without merit. As PBS' Art:21 points out in its recent episode Fantasy and Contemporary Art, Cao "reflects the fluidity of a world in which cultures have mixed and diverged in rapid evolution. Her video installations and new media works explore perception and reality in places as diverse as a Chinese factory and the virtual world of Second Life."

Now that I've confessed (in the preceding blogpost) that I'm late to the China Tracy fan club, I can also say that I've been making up for lost time by learning considerably more about the artist. Soon after my epiphany and subsequent appreciation of RMB City, I sent Cao nine questions, and I didn't pull any punches, either.


B. Tizzy: 如果让你说出你事业中最关键的时刻，它对你选择从事现在的工作起过至关重要的作用，你觉得是什么时候？为什么？
If you were to identify the most pivotal moment in your career; that moment that most shaped what you are doing now, what would it be and why?

Cao Fei: 我创作的发展旅程是一个自然发展和逐渐过渡变化的过程，没有突然的转折点，没有什么重大时刻，它是一个循序渐进的、对这个世界、包括自己的人生的一个慢慢堆积、感悟、理解的过程。
My work has developed along a natural and gradual trajectory. There haven't been any sudden turning points or significant moments. It's been a gradual progression and a process of accumulation, inspiration and understanding of the world, including my own life.



Shot entirely in-world at RMB City, this video is by Lainy Voom, with writing by Wagner James Au (aka Hamlet Au)


B. Tizzy: 你所从事的工作是从什么时候开始有全球性视野的？你是有意决定这样做的吗？
At what point did your work take on a global aspect, and was it a conscious decision?

Cao Fei: 生活在今天的中国，每个个体都不能避免被卷入这全球化的运动，都不能对我们身边的激烈变迁视而不见，我只是在用自己的方式记录、表达我对身边这些变化的深切感受。这是个身不由己的时代，时代会迫使你作出一定回应。
No living being in contemporary China can avoid globalization or turn a blind eye to its acute changes. I am merely using my own method to document and express my honest feelings with regards to the changes that surround me.









B. Tizzy: 你是使用什么软件建立起了第一个人民城寨••••••是我们一开始在Youtube见到的那个吗？你是先做好了它然后才发现第二人生的，还是你那时就已经是虚拟世界居民了？
What software did you use to create the first RMB City... the one we first saw on Youtube? Did you make it first and then discover Second Life, or had you already become a virtual world resident?

Cao Fei: 我是在2007年1月成为虚拟世界居民，然后用了半年时间在虚拟世界旅行，拍摄了i.Mirror，紧接着，就有了建造人民城寨的构想，并开始用3D Max软件把城市基本构想勾勒出来，也就是后来你们在youtube看到的video: RMB City Planning (2007)。
I became a virtual world resident in January 2007. Then I spent half a year traveling in the virtual world and filming i.Mirror. Soon after, I had the idea of building RMB City and started building the basic blueprint with 3ds Max software. The result is the youtube video which you have seen: RMB City Planning (2007).



RMB City on Cao Fei's computer



RMB City in Second Life


B. Tizzy: 人民城寨备受现实世界艺术评论家以及博物馆和媒体的推崇，但却未得到第二人生居民的充分赏识。我们是应该解决这个问题，还是转向只针对现实世界（Real World）来做这个项目?
RMB City is acclaimed by Real World art critics, museum and media, but under-appreciated by Second Life residents. Does that matter moving forward, or was this project intended for Real Life?

Cao Fei: 我想，这是个悖论，我们总是很难做到周全而完美。要得到更多第二人生居民的赏识，我还需要做很多我不胜任的工作，如如何竭力保持社团的黏性，如何不断组织虚拟居民喜闻乐见的活动，如何发展会员等等。人民城寨项目是一个艺术项目，它具有在当代文化概念上的指涉，以及在这个框架下的实验价值，它不一定要具有虚拟社会内的普罗大众的功能，而做一个在虚拟社会里很pop的地点也不是我的初衷，我更原意把它当作一个超越对固定理解之外的“现场”，不刻意针对现实世界或虚拟社群，甚至忘记其的虚拟特性和现实依据，它是一个模糊的、开放的、不被彰显定义的地带，一切事物都可被卷入而最终不再成为他们的原本。而它作为一个具有沟通现实世界特性的项目，迂回在两个世界之间，这也可能是其他虚拟城市／项目所缺乏的。
I think this is a paradox. It's always difficult to create a perfect thing. To win the appreciation of more Second Life residents, I would have to do a lot of work that I am incapable of doing, such as maintaining a tight-knit community, organizing regular activities that interest Second Life residents, develop membership, and so forth. RMB City is an art project and contains references to contemporary cultural concepts. Given the experimental framework, it doesn't have to serve the proletarian function of virtual societies.

Furthermore, it was not my intent to create a very pop place within the virtual world. I would rather treat it as a "site" that transcends fixed interpretations. I don't purposely address the real world or virtual groups and even forget its virtual characteristics and foundation in reality. It is an ambiguous, open zone that eludes definition. Things get pulled in and may never revert to their original form again. This project channels real world characteristics and rests outside of two worlds, something that perhaps other virtual cities/projects lack.


B. Tizzy: 人民城寨被认为是具有讽刺意味符号集合的典型。事实如此吗？还是你有别的看法？
RMB City is typically described as a satirical collection of icons. Is that what it is or is there something else?

Cao Fei: 除了讽刺，还有赞美，甚至歌颂，但这都不是它的全部。它还有失落、忧郁，以及回忆和怀旧。作为一个文化意义上的“空间”，它具有研究、讨论、实验、实践的特性。作为一个心灵景观，它无时无刻都在上演流动的戏剧。作为一个折射当代中国的镜像，它有着后现代的狂欢和梦呓，同时有着反省与自悟。当然也有包括其他城市都共同具有的特性 ——“虚空”。
There is satire, but also praise and even admiration. But this does not describe it in its entirety. There is also loss, melancholy, memory and nostalgia. As a cultural "space," it lends itself to research, discussion, experimentation and realization. As a spiritual site, it is a constant, ongoing drama. As a reflection of contemporary China, it has the revelry and balderdash of postmodernism. At the same time, it is introspective and self-perceptive. Of course it also includes the one trait that all cities have – “emptiness.”


B. Tizzy: 飞机撞上大楼的景象让美国人见了就火冒三丈，什么促使你把它带进了人民城寨？
The image of a plane flying into buildings is nauseating for Americans. What compelled you to introduce that to RMB City?



Cao Fei: 我想这个问题所表现出来的先入为主是文化差异的表现，或者是差异所导致的联想。我们城市里的飞机不是撞上大楼，而是卡在密集的建筑之间，中国急剧的城市化导致建筑密度大幅增加，不断外扩的CBD淹没我们的天际线，逐渐的，我们只能在楼宇和城中村的缝隙间看到飞机越过天空，而在RMB City，飞机一旦掠过城市，就再也飞不出去了，永远地卡在这个溢出的都市中。
I think immediately of cultural differences, or rather the associations that form as a result of difference. The planes in our city do not crash into buildings; they are caught between densely concentrated architecture. China's rapid urbanization has resulted in a building boom. The constantly expanding CBD has submerged our skyline. Eventually, we will only be able to see planes from inside buildings or gaps within the city. When a plane flies over RMB City, it can never leave, and is forever trapped inside the overflowing city.


B. Tizzy: 人民城寨有什么需要发掘的秘密吗？有什么是第二人生居民不能理解，或是觉得不值得关注的？
Are there any secrets that need discovering at RMB City? What haven't Second Life residents understood or picked out that is noteworthy?

Cao Fei: 人民城寨从来没有什么秘密，也没有什么需要去发掘的，去慢慢体味它可能更适合，或者你尝试放弃飞翔去徒步漫游，再或者飞到城市之颠或无限接近城市的边缘。喜欢一个城市与否，和你喜欢某本书一样，有人喜欢畅销书，有人喜欢冷门的诗歌集，大部分人喜欢流行乐，还是有人喜欢偏门的噪音，这就是趣味和选择，我们很高兴人民城寨能成为另外一种选择或者众选择之一。欢迎大家，也许，有一天你会爱上它，或者短短的一次性旅程能让你记忆深刻，以至于它在某天突然消失了你恍然间感到隐隐不舍。
RMB City has never had any secrets or things waiting to be unearthed. It's probably more appropriate to slowly experience it yourself; you can give up flying and walk around or fly to a high point in the city or one of the countless peripheral points on the outskirts. Whether or not you like a city, is the same as whether or not you like a book. Some people like best-sellers and some prefer obscure chapbooks; most people like pop music, but still some prefer experimental sound This has to do with preference and choice. We are very happy that RMB City can be an option or one of many options.


B. Tizzy: 请再给我们介绍一些关于人民城寨新古根海姆大楼的情况。
Tell us more about the new Guggenheim building at RMB City.



Cao Fei: I have been invited by the Guggenheim Museum to participate in the 2010 exhibit: “Contemplating the Void: Interventions in the Guggenheim Museum Rotunda” for the museum's 50th anniversary. The Guggenheim invited approximately 250 artists, architects and designers to imagine their dream intervention in Frank Lloyd Wright’s rotunda.

Therefore, I built a virtual Guggenheim that can transform into an "ox horn." I chose an ox horn because of an ancient Buddhist story. Second Life is an intangible non-physical space that has its conceptual foundations rooted in the virtual dimension. As such, our perception and comprehension of this space is largely reliant on visuals and psychological impact. Within Second Life's RMB City, the Guggenheim Museum is transformed into an ox horn floating in the city's sky, like a manifestation of the notion of "nothingness" as depicted in the story of Milarepa Thera and the horn, and the parallel relationships that the virtual and real worlds possess towards "nothingness." On some level, it is also akin to the idea of inherent harmony amongst disparate entities within Buddhist cosmology.



Director: Cao Fei (SL: China Tracy)
Concept/Script: Huang He (SL: QueenShoe Voom)
Translation: Venus Lau (SL: Nokan Vlodovic)
Project Manager: Samantha Culp (SL: Miniature Tigerpaw)
Project Coordinator: Mengxian Li (SL: Ume Freiman)
Engineer of Fengshui Project: Sinewave
Camera / Editing: Avatrian
Co-produced by Kaaitheater, Festival PERFORMATIK 09, Brussels, Belgium


B. Tizzy: 放眼未来，你对未来人民城寨合作在艺术以及艺术家发面有什么期望？
Moving forward, what are you looking for in art and artists for future RMB City collaborations?

Cao Fei: 人民城寨它是一个持续时间为两年的艺术项目，接下来还有1年的时间就要结束了。人民城寨是一个用来运转的作品，它不仅仅是用来看和游览的，它鼓励和邀请人们参与，对系统建设性地提出问题与假设，并向更开放的方向发展。称之为：行动的，自由的，系统之间的。
RMB City is a two-year project. There is one more year before it ends. RMB City is a revolving piece and not just for viewing or visiting. We encourage and invite people to participate and raise questions and hypotheses about the system structure so we can develop a more open(ly and) in an even more open direction. It should be considered: moving, free, seamless between systems.


Many thanks to Philana Woo for making this interview possible with her English to Chinese/Chinese to English translations, and to Honora Shea of Vitamin Creative Space for making the arrangements. I also especially want to thank Cao Fei for graciously agreeing to this interview at a time when she is busy caring for her baby son Cowboy Lim, born in March of this year, in addition to working on her many projects within and outside of Second Life.

Out of the Blue: Why I care about Blue Mars

With barely any content to speak of, no currency, audio, media, or voice, and a User Interface that allows for limited communication and camera movements, it’s not hard to understand why Blue Mars has its detractors. Despite all of its early Beta deficiencies, however, there are compelling reasons to believe that it holds great promise for current and future aficionados of 3D immersive environments.

Most Second Life residents I’ve spoken with don’t know quite what to make of Blue Mars,
but none appear to believe that it will supplant or even displace their virtual world, though I do sense a modicum of concerned solidarity and defensiveness. There’s this Capulet-Montague thingy going on… like, if you so much as praise one aspect of Blue Mars it’s a form of treason or something. Personally, I subscribe to the Romeo and Juliet canon: “Can’t we all just get along?” Or am I misquoting?

Conventional wisdom would indicate that Second Life, which – ironically – could be called a mature virtual world by comparison, with its entrenched communities, tons of content and hundreds (thousands?) of events a week, is here to stay… but Blue Mars, in its infancy, has not yet begun to demonstrate its gravitas. It will take time, money, and a growing community of dedicated developers and residents.


Would you feed this little bitty baby vitamins or Kryptonite?

In development

Every time I have a chance to speak with Jim Sink, recently named CEO of Avatar Reality, the company that owns Blue Mars, I come away feeling energized and hopeful for this budding platform. In a recent conversation, I asked him what they were concentrating on at the moment. “In order to create a vibrant virtual world community, we need to have outstanding content and we need to attract extraordinary developers. In a coming release, we’ll be offering the ability to create clothing, and we’re providing new uploading tools, too,” he explained.


Meet Blue Mars’ Ruth. Yes, these are default avatars created by unfashionistas at Avatar Reality, with a little fiddling I did around the eyes within the Face Customization editor. Please hurry up fashion designers, and make me something I want to wear

“At present, most of our energy is focused on laying the groundwork to prepare Blue Mars as a development platform. Of course, things like the UI are exceptionally important – we know how important this is to the community – and we’ve already begun to implement changes based on users’ feedback. There’s no shortage of things we need to do.”

Money makes the world go around (especially if you can cash in/cash out)

And one of the things that Blue Mars plans to do soon is launch the Blue Mars currency and, as Jim puts it, “the fundamentals of the economy.” I wondered out loud how musicians who depend on tips would make out in Blue Mars since only developers can cash out. To this, Jim had some very good news: “All developers will be able to cash out and anyone can become a developer, but Blue Mars requires more information and needs to know a lot more about you if you are going to be moving money in and out of the platform.“

Location, Location, Location (and putting a price on things)

Another impending feature will reside on the web-based Developer MyPages: Soon developers will have the ability to upload blocks of shops, set prices to items – including ready-to-use residences, clothing and stuff, and also real estate. Land! This is cool, but here I am going to dig my heels in the ground hard… there ain’t NO way I’m going to have a cookie-cutter home. Not here, not there, not anywhere. I once lived in a development and had the bad habit of driving right by my home because it was indistinguishable from all the others on the block. This just isn’t my thing. I don’t do it in real life, and I sure as heck am not going to do it in my virtual life. Yes, I’m that neighbor that annoys everyone by painting her house purple.


Blue Mars Betti in the kitchen? No, no, no! This isn't the kind of cooking I plan to do


Web to Blue Mars and back

Blue Mars has every expectation that they will be unveiling new MyPage web pages for end-users, too, from which they can edit their in-world profile, and purchase Blues, among other things.

Repeat after me: It’s a PLATFORM

Many of us, myself included, have been calling Blue Mars “a virtual world,” when it is actually a platform for many virtual worlds, and a staging area for all kinds of new – to me - talented people. For developers, entrepreneurs, artists it is a next-gen technological solution from which you can build your environments. For end users (the jury is still out on what we are going to be called… Residents? Martians? Colonists?) it is intended to be a destination offering rich diversity and choices.



These gorgeous photos of coming new content courtesy of Richard H. Childers, president of Virtual Space Entertainment (VSE), one of the first City developers on Blue Mars

“Scurvy-inducing 3D”

Jim Sink recently tweeted, and of course, I looked, “CryEngine isn't just for realism. Check out this amazing work that would look right at home in Blue Mars.”

Games… yes! Blue Mars is flinging its doors open to members of the thriving Crytek modders community, inviting them to create their own games and content. A recent scrumptious example is Monkey Island 2, in which free-lancing 3D artist Hannes Appell first demonstrated how, with a little “voodoo,” he could enhance the gorgeous hand painted 2D concept art with a basic camera projection. Those pirates sure are mean to little froggies.



He then went on to demonstrate – just for fun - how original Monkey Island 2 backgrounds can look and feel in a modern 3d game engine, by building the sets with Maya and then exporting them into Cryengine's Sandbox editor.



Hannes is a Bavarian and now lives in Germany where he will soon graduate from the Institute for Animation & Visual Effects of the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg. If LucasArts doesn’t hire him after this little “experiment,” someone sure will. This video has only been posted on YouTube for 19 days and already it’s had 329,000 views and the comments beg him to “MAKE A REAL MOD OUT OF IT.” A little Blue Mars, Hannes?

Role Playing

I’m also like a stuttering deer caught in the headlights when it comes to Role Playing, but were I an elf, Trekkie, furry, or inclined to hang out in locations that attempt to accurately portray a historical era, such as Second Life’s Roman Forum or the 1920’s Berlin Project, Blue Mars’ built-in ability to control incoming content such as how an avatar looks or dresses would make suspension of belief considerably more intense.


Photo courtesy of VSE, a Blue Mars City developer

Architecture and design

I like the way h3oworldz, a CryEngine modder group, used the platform to demonstrate how valuable a "3D realtime walkthrough" a structure or set can be to demo environmental effects and scale. They would likely be interested in hearing about DB Bailey from Second Life and his success at using a virtual world to demonstrate a real life structure to ultimately sell a real life project.

Vinyl"Club from h3oconceptz on Vimeo.

Machinima

VAM United is a German group working on a science fiction movie project using the CryEngine2 game engine. They’ve created this proof-of-concept as they prepare to produce a feature-length machinima based on a “loved and acclaimed” book. I highly recommend that you watch it here for better quality, but here is the YouTube version for you non-clickers:



What will the work of the likes of Lyric Lundquist or Lainy Voom or Colemarie Soleil look like, shot in Blue Mars?

Look at this one. Tell me, with a straight face, that you can't make use of these graphics and physics to create your vids...

See also:

• August 29, 2009: This is it! New virtual world Blue Mars rolls out open Beta
• July 31, 2009: More Blue Mars – The official roll-out dates (and some musings)
• April 15, 2009: New answers and more questions regarding the upcoming virtual world Blue Mars

A new machinima from the fertile mind of Lyric Lundquist

I consider it an event whenever Lyric Lundquist publishes a new machinima of hers, and this time is no exception. She had taken a short break from Second Life® - we missed you, Lyric! - but apparently got right back to work making beautiful things the moment she returned.

"I named this video after a quote from one of my favorite books by Chuck Palahniuk - Invisible Monsters," she explained.

"The world," Brandy says, "Is your cradle and your trap. And if you can find any way out of our culture, then that's a trap too. Just wanting to get out of the trap reinforces the trap."

Lyric, who's lush cinematic videos always make me think that MTV is creaky and old by comparison, continued, "I tried to take my time with this machinima instead of totally indulging myself and just going for images that are aesthetically pleasing and meaningful only to me with no obvious story line to an outside viewer. Instead, I kept the images I loved while also attempting to portray a story."

"The surface level story is about a girl trapped in a black and white world, but when she films, she sees a world of color with a darker, more lustrous version of herself. It tempts her to cross over and leave her colorless world behind. In the end though, I try to show that perhaps the key is not trying to find a way 'out of the trap,' by choosing one world over the other. Both worlds have their dangers, and by struggling, it only reinforces that the bonds that hold me down are real," said Lyric.

cradle and trap from lyric_lundquist on Vimeo.

Credits:

• Song is by Saltillo - Backyard pond.
• Locations: Chouchou and a sim being developed by Hern Worsley.
• Clothing and accessories by Cora Lu and her Paper Couture, Triangle Cauldron, the creator of "ghost!," and Bark Aabye's BjD "Hades Horns."
• Animations by Surrealia Anatine
• Lyric also wishes to thank Skills Hak for creating the Emerald Viewer: "It injected my SL with a whole new kind of magic. After playing endlessly with the myriad of settings, it was what originally inspired me to make this lil film."

Forget text, forget voice. EMOTE!

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

Polish Olza Koenkamp (aka Piotr Kopik) is a full time artist with two full lives: one as a human and another as an avatar in Second Life®. His virtual self operates a store where he sells freakish avatars of his own creation. In Real Life, he paints and is a co-founder of szu szu, a group that creates art for public spaces.

Now Olza has made this charming seemingly animated machinima in which his avatars speak not with text, or voice, but with emoticons.



Olza is fascinated with the inside of his body. He doesn't care what it looks like, but concentrates instead on his feelings, how his body works and its relationship with his mind and psyche. His interest in Eastern philisophies and practices such as yoga, led to his "realization" that he needed to REBUILD himself.

From that point forward, he gave his Real Life works the moniker PSYCHOSOMATIC REBUILDING. In Second Life, he refers to his activities as PSYCHOSOMATIC REBUILDERS.

You can teleport to Olza's PSYCHOSOMATIC REBUILDERS shop from here. Hat tip: Cutea Benelli.

See also:

• Head, move back up to the neck, please!
• Olza Koenkamp looks inside out

Sneak peek: Feature length machinima VolaVola

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

Nearly two years in the making, VolaVola / FlyMe is the Italian feature length machinima shot in Second Life® and directed by Berardo Carboni, expected to have its debut in a few months.

Pre-production work is now in effect for the same screenplay to be shot in live action in Rome, Italy. Two films, two mediums, but the same story.

The plot aims to disorient the viewer and make it difficult to discern what is real and what is not.



Credits:
Director: Berardo Carboni (aka Finally Outlander)
Machinimatographer: Evo Szuyuan
Assistant Director: Fau Ferdinand
Editor: Simone Bellonio
Screenplay: Berardo Carboni and Frank Koolhaas
Music: Andrea Gabriele
Builder: Stella Costello
Costume, Hair and Makeup Design: Honey Fairweather
Production Assistance: Liz Solo

Moonwalkin... Second Lifers REPRESENT

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

5:09pm UPDATE: And here it is: The chosen segment live and... moonwalkin!

In a marathon session yesterday, at least twenty Second Life® residents moonwalked around the Bogon Flux at the Odyssey under the direction of Mescaline Tammas and his cheerful partner in crime, four Yip. The goal is to submit a filmed segment to Eternal Moonwalk (click, click, click), an everlasting virtual tribute to the late, great rocker, Michael Jackson.

Kindly click through and vote on your favorite segment here.



Animations were provided by Iron Serpente. The lovely ducky Ravenelle Zugzwang made a "the making of" machinima, too! We are so serious in Second Life. :P

Real Life illustrator four Yip has already submitted her clip, and it's a wowzer, of course.

Is Second Life the theatre of the absurd? Ask the Kool-Aid Man in SL

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

Net Art/New Media artist Jon Rafman has been getting rave reviews and first-rate press coverage with the likes of Rhizome and other coveted art outlets as the Kool-Aid Man in Second Life®, offering free guided tours in-world. His dedicated website features a promo video that I guarantee will produce an emotion in Second Life residents, and invites folks to sign up. I first got wind of this video when Paddy Johnson of the art blog Art Fag City twittered “Best Link Ever! Kool Aid Man gives a guided tour of Second Life and it doesn't suck (like most SL art)!”

Unlike every other machinima I have seen that strives so hard to get past the technical challenges to convey the beauty, the love, the horror, the possibilities within, because of, and thanks to our virtual lives, Jon’s is a breezy, often hilarious tour that celebrates the absurdity of our immersiveness. Second Life users will recognize many favorite builds and installations.

WARNING: This video contains a lot of X-rated content.

Kool-Aid Man in Second Life (.com) - Tour Promo from on Vimeo.

Jon rezzed in Second Life on 12/10/2006 but used it sporadically until recently. I’ve spent a couple of evenings this week in-world with him and I can tell you that he’s a pleasant, intensely curious, and intelligent fellow. He received his Master of Fine Arts degree from the Art Institute of Chicago, and double majored in philosophy and English. I’d call him spontaneous, easily bored, and a fascinated yet detached explorer. I expect you’ll be as curious as I was to hear what he had to say about this. I sent him some rather open-ended questions via email to see what I’d get back.


Why did you elect to omit music to that video?

Jon Rafman: There is a tendency to use music as a crutch and let the soundtrack manipulate the tone of the work. I want the visual aspects of the video to speak for themselves. The formal qualities of the landscapes should dictate the mood of the piece rather than the soundtrack. Moreover, I always felt like the generic in-world sound effects, like the ominous low-pitched wind that blows across SL, creates a subtler emotional resonance than music.

Kool-Aid Man is on a quest for sublime kitsch in Second Life. Music used inappropriately corrupts the underlying mundanity of my avatar's search.

At certain points in the video there is music; however it's always what was streaming in that sim during the time of capture.

I don't want to assume anything so I have to ask: Are you really going to give guided tours?

Jon Rafman: I like this question. It forces me to ask myself: Where's the "Art" happening in this project? How important is the actual tour-giving process to the Kool-Aid Man in SL? Is the core of the artwork the video and photo collections? Or is it the process of the tour itself and the interaction with people in a virtual world that is the core of my project?

Yes, I'm giving tours. It is not a hoax!

But...

Even if the tours were a hoax and the project existed only conceptually, I'd be cool with that, too. I'm a big fan of work that walks the line between fake and real, ironic and tragic, fiction and documentary.

Do you intend to continue your work in Second Life?

Jon Rafman: I'm currently integrating some videos I've captured in SL into a larger documentary film about professional video gamers. I'm searching for ways to transcend the kitschiness inherent in the SL aesthetic and haven't decided yet on how significant of a role SL will have in the film yet.

I'm also toying with some story ideas for a few Kool-Aid Man in Second Life short video series. There's so much potential with Second Life machinima, but I have yet to see a work of machinima that's truly inspired me. Maybe I haven't looked hard enough though.

What do you want Second Life'rs to know about you most of all?

Jon Rafman: I found an analogy for surfing the web in the act of exploring Second Life as Kool-Aid Man. User-generated realms of Second Life can be viewed as a 3D virtual expression of the Internet’s anarchic psyche. Kool-Aid Man is my alter-ego, a secular icon that resonates with decades come and gone.

I see Kool-Aid Man as a self-conscious professional web surfer “breaking through walls” into various Second Life communities and subcultures. He never fully fits in, but he empathizes with whatever he passes. Like Baudelaire’s Flaneur, wandering the arcades of Fin-du-Siecle Paris, Kool-Aid Man keeps a cool and curious eye, strolling through the virtual world in search for the banal sublime. Kool-Aid Man's motto is best summed up by a line at the beginning of Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil: "I've been round the world several times and now only banality still interests me. On this trip, I've tracked it with the relentlessness of a bounty hunter."

I wondered as I read Jon's response if he was aware that French author, photographer and film director Chris Marker is very active in Second Life. Perhaps there are two bounty hunters then? It is unlikely we'll ever know, given that Marker famously does not take interviews.

Jon Rafman: The Kool-Aid Man in Second Life project is partly an attempt to investigate certain 'outdated' concepts from bygone eras and to reframe them or test them out in distinctly contemporary pop-cultural contexts. I am interested in the disjuncture between earlier uses and my own use and what this reveals about how consciousness has changed over the past decades. Whether a fundamental change has occurred is an open question as the forms of alienation that existed one hundred years ago are present today in mutated forms. But these subtle changes are revealing of what it means to be alive today. What are these subtle changes I mention?

The fragmentation that started with the emergence of mass culture has only intensified. Decentralized global society is epitomized in the World Wide Web. This is not to say that the power of centralized authority has declined or that a new genuine techno-democracy has been achieved. This is far from the case; I’m interested in the ways that self-regulating authority manifests itself from the ground up.

I do think that the task of grasping the present clearly has become more difficult because so much now obscures us from seeing it. I frame my quest for the banal sublime as doomed from the beginning because I am trying to highlight the loss of a certain type of consciousness.

Am I nostalgic for Fin-du-Siècle Paris?:

Yes, my project is a somewhat melancholic attempt at pointing towards the importance of understanding the historical context in the digital age. I can’t deny my nostalgia for earlier modern periods; however I am also aware that the image of the past that I yearn for reveals less about the past and more about an acute lack that exists in the present. And it is this “lack” that I want to point towards.


Jon moved to Montreal from Brooklyn, NY recently. He prefers that I not reveal his in-world name. So what do you think, Second Life residents?

Attaining Presence: 4Jetpacks4 and Bryn Oh

Posted by Alpha Auer

4Jetpacks4 was an immersive installation created by Bryn Oh, with the participation of Glyph Graves and Nonnatus Korhonen earlier this year. I was privileged to be one of the group of avatars that were given the tour of the research centre back on March the 6th. I will not talk here about what 4jetpacks was all about. The extraordinary video by Evo Szuyuan above does that far better than I ever could. What I will attempt to do instead is to talk about "immersion" and "presence" as integral parts of virtual world creativity. I know from personal conversations we have had that this is a subject as dear to Bryn Oh's heart as it is to mine, the thing which she puts at the center of her (virtual) creative activity.

I will quote a bit from scientific sources while I try to set up a basic definition of "presence", as a sense of “being there” in a mediated environment (IJsselsteijn, deRidder, Freeman and Avons, 2000). Lombard and Ditton (1997) define it as an illusion of non-mediation in which a user no longer perceives the display medium as a separate entity. A high level of presence will help users remember a virtual environment as more of “a place visited”, rather than “a place seen” (Slater et al., 1999). A success indicator of the attainment of presence is also considered to be the realization of similar behavior patterns in virtual environments to those in the physical realm (Slater and Wilbur, 1997), and even the manifestation of similar physiological responses towards a given event to its approximation in the physical realm (Meehan, 2000).

Various definitions of the term “presence” and their relevance to the immersive virtual experience are discussed by Mantovani and Riva who challenge the notion that experiencing a simulated environment deals with the mere perception of its objective features; instead proclaiming that presence in an environment (real or simulated) means that individuals can perceive themselves, objects, as well as others not only as situated in an external space but as immersed in a socio-cultural web connected through interactions between objects and people, leading us to the paramount importance of the interacting agent within a virtual culture, i.e., the avatar.

And this to me, lies at the very heart of the problem where artistic activity in a virtual world such as Second Life® is involved. Is the goal to be sought the "perception of objects" only? Or could it be that what would set artistic activity in a virtual world as a genre apart, would involve conditions wherein "individuals perceive themselves, objects, as well as others not only as situated in an external space but as immersed in a socio-cultural web connected through interactions between objects and people"? For me, without the shadow of any doubt, it is the latter. And it seems to me that this definition is what 4jetpacks is/was all about as well: That the creation of an immersive experience was the primary intention became obvious to me during Bryn Oh's opening statement where she addressed the importance of "presence" in virtual art. In her terminology the word "presence" is interchanged with "immersion", which does of course add up to very much the same thing. "Viewing" art, i.e., "the mere perception of its objective features" does not seem to overly interest Bryn Oh, and I am so very heartened to observe this in a fellow content creator, and one for whom I have a great deal of respect at that.

Bryn Oh is an exquisite builder. Every texture, every prim, every shape and object placed in perfect proximity, culminating in visual systems that I am awed by over and over again. And a very good thing that this is so: The immersive experience needs that level of concern for perfection to be pulled off with credibility. Creating an immersive experience does not imply that one can get away with shoddy visuality. If anything, it would imply the exact opposite: For us to become fully "present" within the "artwork" involves a level of visual expertise on behalf of the artist whereby perfect cohesion and gestalt are achieved to the extent at which not even a tiny component of the installation appears out of sync, thus distracting us from the immersive experience through its ineptitude or its misplacement within the overall system. Whether the visual gestalt that is meant to bring about "presence" involves high levels of abstraction or realism, opulence or stark minimalism would not be the issue at all by the way: I would seriously doubt whether one would need minutely detailed craftsmanship emulating realism to attain a state of presence. But, I would dare to say that what one would need would be a continuity of visual language - which as any artist worth his or her salt knows is a devil of a thing to pull off.

However, presence needs more than visuality. It also needs narrative. It needs a story or a situation endowed with sufficient power and imagination to pull us in. "Presence in art" needs substantial planning. An observance of fine detail whilst maintaining a firm grip on the whole. In other words, not a thing to be pulled off in one afternoon. Amongst much else, it is visuality, performance, role play, cyberpsychology combined. Bryn Oh has whatever it takes...

In the end, for me, the attainment of "presence" is more than likely to be the thing which will eventually create a "genre" out of the currently rather haphazard conglomeration that is the state of art in virtual worlds today. It really does seem to me that art generated in virtual worlds needs to be contextualized within the broader framework of contemporary art, given a raison d'etre, a property unique onto itself - and the attainment of "presence in art" would be a not too easily imitated attribute of virtual world based artistic activity. 4jetpacks gave me huge hopes in this direction and I am very grateful to Bryn Oh for having given me just that - hope!

...

A video created by Bryn Oh on 4jetpacks ends this post:



Also please read the post by Hamlet Au on NWN talking to Evo Szuyuan about her utterly remarkable SL-video skills and all that is involved in the attainment of the perfect SL-video here.

Bryn Oh pokes fun at da boys

Artist Bryn Oh has discovered machinima, and we never know what she's going to do next!

Beautiful Mondays in the eyes of the Virtual Build Archive

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

If you read this blog with any regularity, I trust that you are already quite familiar with Bryn Oh's stunning sculptural and narrative work and especially her sim, Immersiva (teleport directly from here), as well as her Condos in Heaven installation, which I blogged about last year. Nevertheless, prepare to shine a new light on the subject.

This is the second video in what is to become a weekly documentary-style series produced by the Virtual Build Archive, a joint project of Gala Charron (Tamara Russell) and Lainy Voom (Trace Sanderson).

Condos in Heaven from The VBA on Vimeo.

Lainy shared with me yesterday that this is Gala Charron's first machinima in Second Life® (can you believe it?)! She explained, "The VBA started because we both love exploring Second Life and wanted to keep a visual record within some kind of framework. It will hopefully become a mix of regular builds and some art installations. It makes me sad when builds are no longer there. We want to create something permanent from something transient and (are) also trying to communicate something that is beautiful and inspiring, especially sometimes to non-Second Lifers who complain that there is nothing going on in Second Life and say that it is an ugly place!"

The pair's stated aim is to publish a new machinima every Monday "to document, through film and narrative, some of the most beautiful builds within the virtual world of Second Life. We hope, over time, to build the site from a small acorn into quite an extensive catalogue of in-world created content. Both Gala and Lainy will take it in turns to create a video of an inspiring build and present it on the archive site."

Mondays just got a little brighter...

"SL is killing me" redux - A new video by Lyric Lundquist

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

If machinima is undergoing a Renaissance, and I believe it is, then Lyric Lundquist would be the one who is leading us into new glory days. In just a matter of weeks she has won my admiration and affection for her intellect and blistering narrative power... painting - with her moving images and rhythms - moments that make us vibrate. It is one thing to make art - which she does - and to excite our sense of wonder (check!), but she hones in on what matters to us and frames it so eloquently, that I feel understood by her. I have never spoken with Lyric, but today she brought tears to my eyes.

It hasn't been a week since I blogged "SL is killing me," but response has been high, both in-world and via comments to this blog. Still, nothing could have prepared me for this.

She writes: "it's not that -i- necessarily feel like i've hit a wall, but some of my closest friends in SL recently have (maybe you know who you are?). so it was more about me acting out what they might be feeling, and how it saddens me when people that i connect with go "awol" because of SL burnout."

Hit the HQ button!


credits::
sim >> poetik velvets [particles in bryn oh's exhibition by colemarie soliel, sim build by hern worsley, steam room by jojoruno runo, flickering box by selavy oh, poetik idea by nur moo and juju dollinger.]
avatars >> lyric lundquist and story takakura
song >> yonderboi - before you snap

7:30pm Update: While I try to read New World Notes every day, I somehow missed Hamlet Au's full blown "Mixed Reality Profile" and interview with Lyric.

Kazuhiro Aridian's dreamed creatures - Tomorrow's featured NPIRL-Koinup Safari

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

Tomorrow, April 18th at 10:30am SLT, and awaiting on the other side of your teleport (directly from here) will be Kazuhiro Aridian in a newly created environment that simply begs to be photographed.


The delicate, leafy and aquatic Seadryke avatar, worn by its creator, Kazuhiro Aridian

I've seen Kazuhiro turn a sandbox into a stadium with hordes of people simply standing there, jaws dropping to the floor, watching Kaz make some of the most complex, ferocious or vulnerable (and animated and flawlessly realized) avatars on the grid, including the much celebrated and feared Dravyn and the gentle Seadryke.



Now, get a behind-the-scenes look at what's involved, as well as the evolution of Kazuhiro's non-human avatars. Meet the artist and get a peek at new creations, as well as a fantastical new virtual space. Lots to photograph. We'll begin by teleporting here.



Once a month, NPIRL and Pierluigi Casolari's (aka Koinup Burt in SL) Koinup - an inclusive social networking site for all Virtual Worlds that permits storage and sharing of imagery: photography, Machinima, and "storyboards" - are offering the NPIRL Safaris - with many of Second Life's best content creators, exposing the participants to new sims, new content, and new ideas that are leaving the old world behind and breaching the future.



Among the Virtual Worlds you'll find images of on Koinup: Second Life®, World of Warcraft, Lively, The Sims, IMVU, vSide, Kaneva, There, and more.

The Not Possible IRL (NPIRL) and Impossible IRL (ImpIRL) groups are dedicated to identifying and sharing well conceived and realized content creation in Virtual Worlds which would not be possible in Real Life: architecture, landscaping, art, animations, fashion, particle effects, building tools and scripts... show me, I'll show you.

How can we explain what you are missing?

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

Avatars often grapple with how to demonstrate what it is that appeals to us so much about art, architecture and fashion in Second Life®, to people who will not or cannot log in. It's a dilemma akin to sharing a new color or flavor, because the immersive qualities of the 3D experience cannot be conveyed in words or even via film, given its flatness. So we take photographs. We create machinima. And we talk and talk and blog and twitter. Still, you are left out until you decide to take the plunge and devote sufficient time to learn how to move your camera and your avatar around.

I recently spent a pleasant hour chatting with a journalist about my own appraisal of content creation in virtual worlds, and while I'm an evangelist and like to think myself persuasive, I was unable to secure his interest in joining me to have a look with his own eyes. Still, we'll keep trying, and experienced early adopters that we are (remember when we tried to tell you about something called the Internet?), we know we will win in the end.

In the meantime, despite its 2 dimensional limitations, we'll blog about the experience with you however we can, sharing machinima like this stunner by artist Lyric Lundquist...

Be sure to click the HD button for higher quality transmission


... or Sepp Schimmer's inaugural video, featuring Bryn Oh's Immersiva and GutterBlood Spoonhammer's Error sims.*

Be sure to click the HD button for higher quality transmission


* A sim is a simulator and virtual region hosted by a single server CPU. You real-life folks call it an "island."

Hasta la vista...

Eternity in an hour

Posted by Bettina Tizzy, with contributions by many

We struggled over the name for it. It is one of his best works ever and despite its short life, it couldn't remain nameless.

Charlene Trudeau, owner of the land it will sit on for the next 30 days, suggested that this enormous creation by Spiral Walcher looked like a nebula, an atom, an exploding star, a galaxy and a solar system all at the same time. She then quoted the poet William Blake:

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

Charlene Trudeau: "Eternity in an hour." I think that's what I'd call it.


Infinity by Sleeves Rhode

Temporary creations in Second Life® often leave me with a tinge of melancholy. I can love them, but only for a very short while. Such has been the case with many of Miki Gymnast and Eshi Otawara's installations, as well as Chasm by Nebulosus Severine, to mention just a few. These were works that took my breath away and then... disappeared forever.

For one month only, the newest creation by that King of Glow, Spiral Walcher, will pulse brightly and then, like all stars, it will die.


Machinima by artist Nebulosus Severine

While many believe this to be made of particles, it is actually all-prims. Take a look for yourself by teleporting directly from here.

Second Front's theatre of the absurd: Loosin' it

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

Works by Second Front aren't to everyone's taste, and they don't care. Since 2006, the members of this maverick performance group have been challenging our notions of virtual narrative and embodiment via "theatres of the absurd."

Losin' it was performed at RMIT Creative Media in Second Life® by Fau Ferdinand and Lizsolo Mathilde, with sound by Zeb Vindaloo. Machinima by Osprey Therian.

Caged and suspended, Fau and Lizsolo are looking for something most people take for granted.


Shadow Draft client by Kirstenlee Cinquetti

Click through to blip.tv for a smoother performance if this one is choppy for you.

Viva la Vida: A video of AuraKyo Insoo's epic installation on the highs and lows of being human

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

It no longer exists, except in memory, but AuraKyo Insoo's soulful and sculptural Viva la Vida breathed earthy life and passion from every prim. An enormous installation that was truly impregnated with Aura's distinctive and immediately recognizable style, it required a good hour to take in. I shot the footage for this video weeks ago, and it wasn't lack of interest but the usual series of interruptions that held back its completion. I'm afraid I've done a shabby job of capturing the entire story and the enormity of it, but hopefully a glimmer of its effusive spirit is evident. If you missed it, I understand that Aura will have an opportunity to re-rez the show soon.


Shot and edited by Bettina Tizzy
Music: "Between two floors" by Five Star Fall
If you find that it is running slow, you can view it here.

Viva la Vida is a Spanish-language expression that loosely translates as Hurray for Life. The show - sponsored by Rezzable Productions - transported the visitor most elegantly through nearly every phase of life, beginning with a birthing and ending with peaceful and loving human interaction, but also touching on war (never more), cruelty, courage, fame and solitude.

In conversations with Aura, I have come to know her as a woman who embodies and lives by her own mantra, viva la vida. An Argentinian by birth and an artist in Real Life, Aura is also a poet and an activist. Viva Aura! We want more, and more can be had. Aura is currently showing at the Human Rights Festival in Second Life®: Reconstructing Rights; Humans in Process, which you can visit through January 20th by teleporting here.

Watch all ten episodes of Molotov Alva's "My Second Life" on your 'puter - Will there be a sequel?

A little over a year ago, HBO acquired the ten-episode series My Second Life: The video diaries of Molotov Alva, which had been shot entirely in Second Life®, and written, directed and produced by NPIRLer Molotov Alva (aka Douglas Gayeton). It later aired on Cinemax, after the first episode became a smash hit on YouTube practically overnight.

The possibility of a sequel was never far-fetched, and Douglas - a filmmaker, television producer, and multimedia artist in Real Life - gave it the working title "Futuretopia: The further adventures of Molotov Alva," or alternatively, "Brave New World," a line he states repeatedly in My Second Life.

Douglas has since parted ways with Submarine, the Dutch company he partnered with to produce My Second Life, so he was more than surprised - he tells me - to learn today that they have been approaching folks about appearing in their sequel.

When I asked Douglas about this, he replied, "Imitation is a sincere form of flattery. It also gets you sued."

You can watch all ten episodes of the series in the USA here.
If you are in Europe, you can watch them here.

Olza Koenkamp looks inside out

Polish Olza Koenkamp (aka Piotr Kopik) is a full time artist with two lives: one as a human and another as an avatar in Second Life®. His virtual self operates a store where he sells freakish avatars of his own creation. In Real Life, he paints and is a co-founder of szu szu, a group that creates art for public spaces.

Not for the squeamish, Olza's avatars give us a view from the inside.



Olza recently participated in the collective virtual show called "Stop Making Sense." Above, a torso glides happily on ice, and below Olza, wearing one his avatars, spins gracefully alongside the torso object. Visitors to the installation could hop in the rink and select from several skating animations to interact with it.



For years, Olza's art explored his relationship with physical reality: objects that are within hand's reach, simple human gestures that are usually considered unattractive, like nail biting, or piles of abandoned objects and trash usually found at construction sites. In his show There is some escape, it was possible to peer at the busy world outside from inside a pile of junk.



Today, Olza is fascinated with the inside of his body. He doesn't care what it looks like, but concentrates instead on his feelings, how his body works and its relationship with his mind and psyche. His interest in Eastern philisophies and practices such as yoga, led to his "realization" that he needed to REBUILD himself. From that point forward, he gave his Real Life works the moniker PSYCHOSOMATIC REBUILDING. In Second Life, he refers to his activities as PSYCHOSMATIC REBUILDERS.

When it comes to expressing the feelings of the body, Olza believes that there will always be some deformation. "When I think, for example, about my tired eyes, I need to draw them with really heavy eyelids. The eyelids may need to have some additional flaps, the color might need to be more violet to express some little pains around the eyeballs..." explained Olza.

He doesn't care or want to control how people react to his work, whether they find it scary or funny. Furthermore, he is surprised that people are sometimes shocked by it. "Look at pop culture, look at all those games for children, thousands of litres of blood and killing. Look at the movies, with huge horror monsters and children's cartoons with spitting and farting. And what about the history of twentieth century art: piss paintings and drawings by Warhol, Viennese Actionism (Schwarzkogler cutting his penis) and many, many radical and classic artworks. Compared to them, my avies are funny little bunnies," he said.

Olza now crosses back and forth between Second Life and Real Life to create his art on either end. He uses his Real Life graphics as the basis for his virtual works, and his avatars to make collages and avatar stickers in Real Life.



See also:
* Olza's Flickr stream

You can teleport to Olza's PSYCHOSOMATIC REBUILDERS shop from here. Many thanks to Tooter Claxton, who greatly admires Olza's work, for the introduction.

Proper attribution of images taken in virtual worlds

Who is the artist in this shot? The photographer? In this case, that would be me. Or is the creator of the Far Away, AM Radio, the artist? Or should both of us be credited?



In Real Life, when a photograph of a place is published... say, the Empire State building in New York, one is not expected - nor is there a legal requirement - to credit the building's architects, owners, the construction companies involved or the city of New York. So why is it different in virtual worlds?

Six weeks ago, the owner of a Flickr group featuring Real Life photography accused me with these words when I submitted a machinima I had created of my own sim (Chakryn) by saying, "videoing someone else's video doesn't really make it an original image / photo / capture now, does it?" I should add that I had credited and tagged the video with the names of the creator of the forest (Andrek Lowell) and the art (Glyph Graves).

This isn't the first time this has happened to me on Flickr. People who are unfamiliar with virtual content tend to think that I have either "painted" the art, or photographed someone else's "painting."

How about this shot?



Is it enough to credit the creator of my outfit (3star Tyne) and the creator of the Tunnel of Light (Spiral Walcher), or do I also need to mention that it sits on Rezzable Productions' land, that Ordinal Malaprop contributed with scripts... and oh! What about my hair, shape and skin? Do I need to list the creators of those things, too?

Where do we draw the line? What is the correct (and legal) way to attribute photography and video shot in virtual worlds?

This just in... awesome vid of Bogon Flux

UPDATE! Bogon Flux is in flux, but will soon have a new home. It is no longer rezzed at Hambone or China. We'll keep you posted.

Mescaline Tammas just slipped me the link to this machinima where Mescaline documents one of the most imaginative builds I've seen in Second Life® to date. I blogged about the wacky steampunk thingy previously here, but it sure does help to see it in action.



If you didn't have an opportunity to visit Bogon Flux at Hambone, here is your chance to see what it is like. Its creators, blotto Epsilon (rez 9/17/2005) and Cutea Benelli (rez 3/10/2007) have instantly become two of my fave virtual artists.