Want your virtual art to receive Real Life recognition? Here's the recipe

Last Friday at Jack the Pelican Presents Gallery - the Real Life counterpart to the Brooklyn is Watching project in Second Life

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

Sautéed Real Life recognition of Virtual Art
(Serves 1,000+)

Ingredients:
1 (one) Second Life® account/avatar
1 (one) or more prim-based virtual artworks

1 (one) each, notecard giver and notecard explaining your artwork

1 (one) Brooklyn is Watching landmark or slurl
Patience, a pinch
Tolerance (omit ego)

Instructions:

1) Log into Second Life

2) Using the landmark or slurl, teleport to Brooklyn is Watching

3) Rez your virtual artwork there

4) Garnish your artwork with your notecard giver

5) Sit tight until the following weekend

5) Direct your browser to the Brooklyn is Watching website and listen to the weekly podcast to hear if Real Life art critics reviewed your piece.

~*~

That's my take on the recipe offered by the man who conceived it, Jay Newt (aka Jay Van Buren), back in March of 2008 when he launched what was to be a one year mixed realities project: Brooklyn is Watching (BiW).

That year has come and gone, culminating with the two-month long Best of Year 1 Festival and the unquestionably "not possible in Real Life (NPIRL)" installations created by the Final Five: Dancoyote Antonelli (aka DC Spensley), Glyph Graves, Bryn Oh, Selavy Oh, and Nebulosus Severine (aka CM Pauluh), not to mention a write up in the New York Times.

The finalists were tasked with creating original virtual art that relates to the virtual version of the Jack the Pelican Presents gallery, and...

Nebulosus Severine enveloped the virtual gallery in a luminous fortress-of-solitude-like structure — that is a meditation on the nature of the self.

DanCoyote Antonelli exploded the metaphor of the virtual gallery by using the building blocks of that illusion as raw material for a dynamic, rhythmic, abstract sculpture stretching up into the sky.

Selavy Oh exploited the intrinsically flexible nature of virtual space by creating an interactive maze of nested, shifting Jack the Pelicans in which she curated a show within a show featuring artists not selected by the judges.

Bryn Oh turned the gallery into a ruin of glowing technological fragments infested with digital flora, inviting the viewer into her own idiosyncratic fantasy narrative.

Glyph Graves used the gallery to show how art is a reflection of its physical and social environment by creating a work that changes based on the number of people viewing it.

~*~

The project is now slated to go on... indefinitely, and while it's had its share of bumpy technical moments, the concept and the people behind it have given the most acclaimed virtual artists in Second Life a reason to roll up their sleeves and not only participate with their art, but also to launch their own BiW initiatives and boost the effort in every way they can think of.

I thought we'd find out what is on Jay's mind these days now that so much has gone down, and the future seems to be wide open.

We already know what your original vision was for Brooklyn is Watching. What is your current vision of what BiW can be?

Jay: The biggest thing that has changed in my mind because of my experience organizing this show is that I really think control needs to start to shift in the direction of the community that has grown up around this project. There are people remote from Brooklyn who are willing and able to have more of a say in what BiW is and what it becomes and I'd like to find ways to let them.

Regarding the Festival, what have you learned from this experience that would be valuable to other Second Life'rs wishing to organize events around a theme? Or around the arts?

Jay: Well, organizing artists is like herding cats... but I knew that before. Never try to organize something this complicated in two months. Don't have a day job. No really - the parts that have worked very well in all this are the parts where specific people had discrete tasks they were responsible for and the authority needed to see them through from soup to nuts: Penumbra Carter and Stacey Fox making the machinimas, Dekka Raymaker and Wltrr Rajal making the virtual version of Jack the Pelican (art gallery in Brooklyn), and so on. Where I got into trouble was when people had overlapping or dependent duties - one person couldn't act without another. Also, give yourself twice as long to plan as you think you'll need.

How much do you get out beyond the BiW borders? Will this remain the same or do you intend to explore other lands?

Jay: I probably won't as long as I'm involved as I am just because I don't have time. I do think that focusing the conversation on what people bring to BiW is useful for two reasons: 1) You can't have a good conversation about everything. You need to limit it somehow and this is an easy (if arbitrary ) way to limit it. 2) It is one thing for us to give our honest opinion about art by artists who have actively sought out our opinions. It would be pretty nervy of us to just roam the grid saying what we think about all kinds of stuff when probably the people who made that work never wanted our opinion in the first place.

How has your opinion of art in a virtual setting changed from day one of the project to now?

Jay: Really this summer has just confirmed what i thought about it before -- its uncontrollable, it wants to stay wild. I think the virtual art has the capacity to undermine peoples assumptions about art more than art in a real space can. The SLon De Refuse is amazing - its more BIW than BIW - and Selavy Oh's show within a show inside the final five is another great example of how virtual art can turn everything on its head.

What has all of this activity meant to Jay Van Buren and his real life and how are you finding the time to balance both lives?

Jay: I'm not. I'm completely strung out and brain-fried. After the 23rd of August I'm gong to hide for a week from everyone and then I'm only going to talk to a few people at a time about where BiW should go. In late September we'll emerge from hibernation stronger, better, with a solid plan for the future and more people on board helping me in some kind of official capacity. With job titles. And sharks with lasers attached to them. I'm going to get me some of those, too.

• Teleport to Brooklyn is Watching's headquarters, sponsored by Popcha! and the University of Kansas' Department of Visual Art, from here. This is where you can rez new artworks on a weekly basis.
• Teleport to the 30 Best, sponsored by the University of Kansas' Department of Visual Art, KU Art, directly from here.
• Teleport to the Final Five exhibit at the East of Odyssey from here.
• Drop by the Real Life Jack the Pelican Presents gallery at 487 Driggs Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11211.

Fabulous falsies

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

It was very late in my Second Life® when I discovered "false" eyelashes and now I want more. More styles and colors and by all means longer, crazier, hotter ones. Sure, they raise your ARC (Avatar Rendering Cost) a tad, but I'm willing to cut back in other areas if I can have some fantasy springing from my own peepers and basic lashes. Maybe we can persuade Jopsy Pendragon or Darek Deluca to make some with particle effects, or who knows what Cutea Benelli would attach to them... Dollar bills? Miniature scissors? Spiral Walcher would make them glow, of course. It's a pain to get them to fit properly in both lives, but worth it, I tell you, so very worth it.

D.W. Griffith came up with the idea for false eyelashes back in 1916 when he was directing the film Intolerance and wanted actress Seena Owen's lashes to "brush her cheeks."

I was chatting with virtual artist AM Radio who must have been simultaneously searching on the web, because he began to send me one link after another that led to the more than theatrical lashes that Japanese company Shu Uemura makes (check out their Tokyo Lash Bar). Perhaps this is an area where Real Life has trumped us on the fantastical plane and we need to catch up?






All photography via Shu Uemura

The Impossible Made Possible - A Panel on the Future of Architecture

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

Most Real Life architects who join Second Life® do so because they are seeking a new tool. In the beginning, there is much confusion as they acquaint themselves with the interface and become a part of one or more communities.

And then they begin to build recreations of Real Life buildings.

And then...

This Friday and on the occasion of Second Life's sixth birthday, hear the stories of seasoned Real Life architects who arrived in the metaverse to explore the possibilities and discovered that their path was not at all what they expected to be. Walk through a visual history of their trajectory, as they explain how one thing lead to another, culminating with them learning that the impossible is possible in virtual worlds. Cut short your own learning curve and advance your understanding of how virtual architecture can - and already is - richly benefiting Real Life architecture.


Event chair DB Bailey landed an important commercial contract thanks to his work in virtual worlds. Seen here in front of a building he created in Second Life for Stanford University

WHEN: Friday, June 26, 2009, 10am SLT - 90 minutes
WHERE: Cetus Gallery District, teleport directly from here

PANELISTS:

* DB Bailey (aka David Denton), Architect, urban planner and artist, event chair
* Keystone Bouchard (aka Jon Brouchoud), Architect, urban planner and artist
* Lou Tones, multi-media producer and founder of Green Islands
* Bettina Tizzy - Introduction from the founder of the Not Possible IRL group

DB Bailey is designing a Real Life project (for Cairo, Egypt) in Second Life. He will be giving a tour of the commercial building and discussing the meaningfulness of this venue for architectural design in the future.

DB Bailey and Keystone Bouchard have both gone full circle in Second Life, starting off in Second Life by recreating Real Life architecture as do most when first starting to build virtually. Then they both discovered the truest potential of this technology: to produce environments they would never have conceived in Real Life.


Multi-award winner and the creator of Reflexive Architecture, Keystone Bouchard has benefited Real Life with his virtual work in ways he never could have imagined

DB, Keystone and Lou Tones are all seeing the wall between the two worlds disappear as Second Life becomes more of a tool - but not how they originally expected it to be - in their Real Life work.

Lou has been observing for many years the evolution of the virtual world. He will discuss the ecological advantages of Second Life and the importance of Real Life buildings designed in Second Life.

Feel free to contact Bettina Tizzy should you have any questions. Please be punctual as the presentation will get underway at precisely 10am SLT/PDT.

Mescaline Tammas' sunglasses for Second Life

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

I've been shouting from the roof tops in Second Life® for at least a month now about Mescaline Tammas' set of delicate, dusty and seriously elegant Windlight presets. If you enjoy photography or just wandering around in a haze of beauty, these are a must. I was astonished just now to discover that his post on Flickr (with links and instructions to download and install them) has only had 783 views.

Ah well. I guess I'll have to keep one of Second Life's best secrets to myself.



Windlight makes it possible for you to adjust and customize sky, water and atmospheric lighting effects in-world, so while the person next to you may be seeing everything from a nighttime lens, you can be enjoying your world in the comfy haze of London's dawn, or within a dusty Western patina.

Oh, I know this has nothing to do with Second Life, but just look at this animated film clip Mescaline created. Talent, eh?

There's a hair in our cake

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

That Pandora Wrigglesworth has struck again. I'm still chuckling, even as I type.

The annual Hair Fair 2009 in Second Life® is a massive (hairy?) affair that just about everyone loves, despite that fact that it lags us nearly to death (attendance is sky-high), but we like it especially because it benefits Locks of Love, the charitable organization that provides hairpieces to children suffering from hair loss due to chemotherapy and other medical reasons.

Now, Pandora is known for her utterly surreal, over-the-top and laughter-inducing creations and her exclusive coiffs for the fair do not disappoint.

She writes:

"None of these styles will be available until the fair opens and, for the duration of the fair, will only be available at the fair."


The "Lampshade Hairstyle"

"Why choose between glamour and frivolity? You can have both and be the life of every party! When you walk in with Lampshade hairstyle, you are sure to light up the room!

Lights up just like a Real Lamp! Just tug on the single spring curl beside your right ear.

Hide in plain sight from Stupid People!"


The Let Them Eat Cake Off Of Your Head! style

"The people may be revolting but don't hold it against them. Let them eat cake with the Let The Eat Cake Off Of Your Head hairstyle! Treat your guests to six delicious varieties of cake, artfully arranged within a tower of lavish curls and garnished with delicate flowers.

People can help themselves to any of the three cakes you are currently wearing simply by touching the cake they want. Forks and plates are complimentary."

Hostess and Buffet in One!

The most SCRUMPTIOUS hairstyle ever!

Infinite Cake!

The Cake Menu includes:
- Chocolate Cake
- Strawberry Shortcake
- Carrot Cake
- Cherry Cheesecake
- Red Velvet Cake
- Birthday Cake

It seems we can expect three hairstyles from Pandora, and we haven't seen the third yet. I am all anticipation!


Photographs by Pandora Wrigglesworth.

Why you need to pay attention to Brooklyn is Watching's "Best of Year 1 Festival"

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

It's been a big year for Brooklyn is Watching (BiW), the mixed reality arts project sponsored by Popcha and taking place simultaneously at the gallery Jack the Pelican Presents in Brooklyn, New York and in Second Life®.

In fact, it's been the only year that BiW has been in operation, and what a year it has been. In March of 2008, I reported on the new performance space and presentation/sandbox that had been set up in Second Life (teleport directly from here), and the avatar in the shape of an eyeball and going by the name "Monet Destiny" that would be viewing and projecting the goings-on there onto a large screen monitor at the Real Life gallery.

Now the project's founder, Jay Newt (aka Jay Van Buren), has announced The Best of BiW Year 1, a two month-long festival spanning parts of 3 sims and the Jack the Pelican Presents gallery in Williamsburg (Brooklyn), with artist talks, panel discussions and two art shows leading up to the BOBIWY1 Prize. Anyone may nominate artworks that have been rezzed at Brooklyn is Watching during its first 52 weeks, but the key difference between this and other virtual art competitions is that the five finalists will be invited to create new works or adapt existing work to be displayed in Second Life and at Jack the Pelican. In the interest of full disclosure, I'm tickled that I've been asked to be one of the five judges, along with AM Radio, Amy Freelunch, AngryBeth Shortbread and Sage Duncan.

Nominations have begun and the Brooklyn is Watching Year 1 Prize (the golden eyeball) will be awarded on August 23, 2009.

I caught up with Jay to get the skinny:



Has your work with BiW impacted Jack the Pelican gallery? How are things different there from one year ago?

Jay: The biggest evidence of it having an impact is the fact that it is still there. Don (Carrol - he runs the gallery) was really going out on a limb to give the project space in the beginning. So the fact that now, more than a year later and even in these tough economic times, he's still devoting space where artwork that could be sold means that he must feel it is important. Many of the artists who hang around at Jack the Pelican have told me how blown away they are by the quality and variety of artwork that SL is showing us at BiW. BiW has kind of become a fixture at the gallery, and now with the coming RL show, it will be getting a much bigger profile than its ever had.

Have any non-SL users been won over by experiencing BiW from Jack the Pelican gallery?

Jay: Both Jenna Spevack and Norene Leddy (Norene is the first site if you Google her first name! She's like Cher!) were not that much into SL before they became involved and they have both got so interested in it that they joined the project and became my collaborators.

How has YOUR view of virtual art changed over the course of a year?

Jay: I just continue to be amazed and excited by what artists are doing. I think that the work is getting better. I don't know that my view has changed that much. I feel my belief that this is an important medium has been vindicated.

If you were to identify the three things that most helped to transform BiW in one year, what would they be?

Jay: Well - we would have never got off the ground with out Amy Wilson, and then I think Beth Harris and Steven Zucker really brought us a lot of fresh energy. The biggest thing is the growth of the BiW community, and I love that they complain when they don't like the podcasts - there is a reciprocal relationship.

If you could have three wishes come true in regards to BiW, what would they be?

Having Dekka Raymaker and Penumbra Carter show up in RL with a bottle of champagne was fantastic. I loved getting to go to Estonia for Estonia is Watching, and the last one is this upcoming RL show which will bring a new level of attention to some very deserving artists.

Who is sponsoring the land on the three sims?

Jay: We're going to have the "30 Best" show which on part of the University of Kansas Department of Visual Arts Sim, and Part of a new sim the University is getting called "Impermanence" that will be the new home of the regular Brooklyn is Watching Tower and space which will continue through the Festival as well. And lastly, the "Final Five" show will be at the Odyssey sim.

Do you remember most/all of the artwork that has been rezzed at BiW? What if an artist who has rezzed there wanted you to see something different? Would you be okay with that?

Jay: I don't think I even saw half of what was there - there's been so much it's just staggering - it's mind boggling. The idea of "30 best" is that its all artworks from the past, so we're going to be including specific works. Certainly the artists will be welcome to put notecards on those works that offer TP's to places where more and newer work can be seen. In the "Final Five" show the idea is that the five artists can create an entirely new work for that show, or choose to adapt and existing work.



What's showing at Jack the Pelican these days?

Jay: There's a painting show up in the front room - a group of young New York artists who all work in a style of fairly realistic looking images of fanciful, improbable or just slightly "off" subject matter. They're really good paintings.


Jay is especially excited about the Nomination Wiki: "It is going to be a fantastic resource for future art historians. I predict that sometime in the next 20 years at least 5 of the artists that have shown at BiW are going to have one-person shows in Real Life museums, and monographs written about them.

A sculptural installation that has attained A State of Grace

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

Glyph Graves' latest, largest and certainly most stirring installation had many births. Originally conceived in early spring of 2008, it didn't reach fruition due to his busy schedule and limited prim availability. Since that time, however, he has made a name for himself as a notable sculptor in Second Life®, and today marks the public opening of his Strangers Also Dance, the inaugural show at IBM's brand new art and architecture exhibition space, curated by Tezcatlipoca Bisiani (aka Andrew Sempere, Research Designer at IBM's Center for Social Software).

Glyph is an Australian biologist who's virtual self is best known for kinetic, mostly abstract alpha sculptures that emit musical notes and eerie-to-sweet sounds when triggered by an avatar's proximity, though he is increasingly working with partially inverted solid-textured sculpts.

I've been a fan of Glyph's work for some time now and frequently feature his work on my own sim. This winter I happened upon this video by Todd Vanderlin and shared it with him as it reminded me of the behavior of several of his undulating sculptures and their responsiveness to avatars.

Scary Vines from vanderlin on Vimeo.

Glyph has since incorporated this thinking and included it in his reactive reeds. I mention this because he is an artist that is unusually receptive to new ideas and, like his sculptural work, acknowledges and rapidly evolves with his environment. This isn't to say that he is malleable or excessively adaptive. Rather, he is acutely aware and sensitive to exploration.

Strangers Also Dance is a remarkably immersive installation based on a poignant story that conjoins our Second Life universe with an alternate reality sweetly suffered by jellyfish that ventured too far from their warm gas giant home, becoming displaced in an environment that they find difficult but make the best of.

Importantly, Glyph approached the design of this build and its narrative beginning with its climatic circumstances. The Second Life ground upon which the adventure begins is suitable for humans (aka avatars) but too cold for these extra-SLterrestials and plants. Even so, the landscape is other-wordly. Obeying the laws of natural selection, a delicate pink creature was unable to keep up with its peers and has crystallized, laying dormant until it is visited, and touched, and therefore warmed by the avatar's body.





The avatar is enveloped by the creature, which begins to whisper to its guest:

Freed Alien Jelly: Nothing that will hurt you little one. Your warmth has freed me from the cold down here. Let me show you something few have ever seen... rest now. In your sleep, strange fragments of dreams of swimming in strange clouds come unbidden. Suddenly you feel disturbed as the hard crystalline surface you rested on melts away, then comforted by a sense of gentle enfolding and warm gratitude.

Delicately, a luminous jellyfish breaks free from the crystal, enclosing the avatar and floating upwards, all the while reassuring its capture that it will be gentle until...



... finally, almost tenderly, it deposits its human prize somewhere new, somewhere quite different, on a strange and wonderfully tropical terrain.



Sit on one of the immense tubes and you are one with this new matrix, downloading information as quickly as the creatures can share it.

The time was a memory past
through banded clouds
over hot seas
we swam

then later,

of cold stars and eternal night
we arrived,
we stayed too long
we could not go back

Released, you begin to explore, learning as you go about their sorrowful plight which they seem to accept with enormous grace. As I listened and absorbed their story, I couldn't help but admire their forbearance. My empathy grew.


"Do you want to know how we felt?" asks Biocrystal darkness. "When we first left the cradle of our world? Remember, our home, always bathed in warm clouds, always immersed in soft light. (Silence) Then dark. (Silence) What light there was, sharp like thorns and cold. (Silence) Enter. And feel."

Technically, there are a number of hallmarks: All sounds throughout the installation are played note by note. The speakers (the green plants) are designed to produce a spatial sense by cascading the notes down prim by prim as well as having them arranged around the sphere. A stereo effect is created by splitting the stereo track into mono components and playing them in opposite prims, which is also swirled by playing the pairs in consecutive prims.

Glyph's cellular automata react to both the avatar touching them and to the state of each of their local neighbors. After they've been touched, the music begins to self-propagate in a repeating pattern, which is different each time.

Since 2006, IBM has played an active role in empowering Second Life content creators with the IBM 6 sandbox which recently doubled in size and is open to all residents on the grid, whether they work for IBM or not. PatriciaAnne Daviau, its manager, has done an admirable job of maintaining a lively and active community there, though I can't help wishing that they didn't force teleports to one central location. It makes it very difficult to share works-in-progress with others who must then go by the coordinates to find their way.

Thanks to Jessica Qin's (aka Craig Becker, CIO Office of Strategic Initiatives) initiative and drive, IBM has moved to advance its presence with the content creation community, and particularly fans of art and architecture, with the launch of the new two-sim IBM Exhibition Space.

Teleport directly from here.

Don't let your virtual creations die with you - Will your Work Day

December 29, 2009 Update:

I've decided to expand this concept to ALL digital creations. I'm going to need your help to get the word out. Bloggers, website creators, media, tech geeks and geekas... Will you help me? Please contact me at bettinatizzy (at) gmail dot com and we'll mobilize together!

~*~

German, Dutch, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Italian translations of this information are available here


Dear fellow Residents of Second Life®:

About three weeks ago, virtual artist Vanfarel Kupfer died. Had he not left copies of most of his work (no trans, no mod) with his virtual girl friend, Native Aeon, his only legacy would be what is currently rezzed today.

Avatars in Second Life devote thousands of hours to creating content, and all that work is LOST when they die. Yes, even if they backed up that work by giving it to an alt. Even if they gave their account password to someone. When you die and unless you have taken appropriate measures, no one, not even Linden Lab, can legally access your work. It is simply lost forever.

According to Linden Lab, the correct and only procedure for "willing" one's creations - or for that matter, any Second Life assets - is indicated here.

I propose that we mark this day, May 18th, as Will your Work Day, to encourage content creators to consider their situation and act on it annually.



The goal would be to celebrate Van's art and remind people to either give copies of their work to one or more avatars (not their alts) whom they trust, or add them to their Real Life will.

Also beginning today and for one week - and working with his beloved Native Aeon - Vanfarel Kupfer's work will be exhibited at four locations: his former home sim, EnLuminaria, the Crescent Moon Museum, the Blackwater Gallery, and Chakryn Forest. Understandably, Native is still very much in mourning over her loss, and when I asked her how I could help, she stated that her greatest wish is that Vanfarel's work become known throughout the grid. So be it. Native: Sachez que nous sommes de tout coeur à vos côtés.

Please share this message with your fellow residents and help to get the word out. You will find numerous translations of this letter here, prepared by the following individuals who generously volunteered their time: Lano Ling, Osiris LeShelle, elros Tuominen, Tonjampae Amat and Gore Suntzu. Tell your community in your own way, in your own words.

I leave you with the colorful, dreamy work of Vanfarel Kupfer in a video by Jurin Juran. May he rest in peace.

Here's to enduring great virtual content!
Bettina


The art of Vanfarel Kupfer, as part of Will your Work Day
Machinima by Jurin Juran

Art Box - A new way to become the art in Second Life®

Now you, too, can be a part of Banksy's "Pulp Fiction," complete with a banana gun


Posted by Bettina Tizzy

This is the second piece in a new ongoing series on how and where to regain our "fun," in Second Life®, when so many of us are hard at work and living two full lives.

A summer rite of passage for many Southern California residents is to attend the Pageant of the Masters at the Festival of the Arts in Laguna Beach. The show is the presentation of a series of recreations of works of art brought to life as living pictures or "tableaux vivants" using heavily made-up and costumed people to portray anything from human figures to a piece of Wedgewood china.

Tickets cost anywhere between $20 to $50 and then you must drive there (traffic is a nightmare), park (another nightmare) and devote at least 45 minutes to walking to the venue and finding seating. I'd recommend doing this once in your lifetime, but even though it's impeccably realized, I must admit that it actually gets a tad boring after 20 minutes, let alone an hour. Once I got over the shock of how perfectly they had recreated an image, my mind began to stray towards thoughts of dinner and the guaranteed traffic jam home.

Much more fun is to be had simply by logging in to Second Life and spending an hour or two with friends hopping from one virtual destination to another, turning our avatars into art.

This notion of becoming part of the art piece is not new in Second Life, as we have seen with AM Radio's Death of Marat, and Robbie Dingo's staggeringly beautiful Starry Night video (do NOT miss this if you haven't seen it already). Then there was yet another virtual Starry Night created by Tr3ssis, and of course, the delightful and surreal freebies that four Yip was giving away when we first discovered her.

Thanks to a fellow by the name of Frankie Rockett and his Art Box, there is a new way to become a living part of classic or contemporary paintings. Art Box employs Holodeck technology to rez a series of famous illustrated, painted or photographed backdrops on demand, and then makes a number of props available to you, including clothes, a sandwich, a banana gun and what not, to complete your "picture."


"Son of SL Man" by Frankie Rockett

You may have seen this machinima of Frankie's that takes place in his 3D recreation of Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks"...



That Nighthawks set is now available to you and your friends, free of charge and with lots of cool props, as well as backdrops from Andrew Wyeth's Christina's World...



As well as the amazing photograph of workers taking lunch a top a skyscraper construction site by Charles C. Ebbets...



Or become part of the ad "blown away..."



Or scream...

Edvard Munch's The Scream

There are over a dozen choices of sets to rez and Frankie tells me that more are on the way. Fun! You can visit Art Box by teleporting directly from here.

Somebody... Give this woman a sim-wide show

Desert Rose: Spiral Threads #12, 1,000 prims


Posted by Bettina Tizzy
All photography and machinima by Suzanne Graves

I have an uncle who handily wins the prize for geekiest person in my personal sphere. The man has two interests in life and one of them is math. One Christmas years ago, as we all gathered round the tree for our gift exchange, my uncle showed up with a manila folder. When his turn came around, he explained that he'd spent the past several months creating art using math equations in his spare time and we could each choose one of his art pieces as our gift. This was my first exposure to the concept of fractals, and I've been indebted to him ever since. Oh, I know... it was such a dorky thing to do (and he is a dork!), but the fact remains, I love geek art.

I figure it has been two years now since I first became aware of an ardent explorer and photographer in Second Life by the name of Suzanne Graves. It must be about a year now since she hung up her traveling hat and began playing with scripts and prims. Random rotations, random locations, generative builds, animated textures, and more. Math-inspired art.

I'm here to tell you that this woman hasn't wasted a moment. Since her Slinky piece and Wireflower back in July, 2008 to date, Suzanne has discovered many more new tricks for making prims behave in arrestingly beautiful ways.

And now she is capturing these kinetic forms in her own machinima...


Viewable temporarily - along with two other sculptures by Suzanne - at Ars Simulacra. Teleport directly from here.
Music (c) Bertycox, Album: Synesthetism on jamendo.com

Suzanne calls this sculpture Sphere Balls as a play on words. "The spheres seem to be dancing at the ball," she explained. The piece, which she created quite by accident, consists of three similar sets of black and red spheres containing 200 spheres each that rotate in different directions simultaneously. Each of the three sets are positioned on an invisible/virtual bigger sphere, following a 3D curve on that big sphere.

"The size of each small sphere depends on the curvature of the 3D curve at its location. You may notice that the spheres on the top are smaller. Each "big" set is completed by (and linked to) an invisible prim, which is positioned at the center of the big virtual sphere, and this invisible prim responds to start and stop commands. I could add more commands such as changing the rotation direction, for instance," she added.

"The three sets of 200 spheres are concentric (their invisible prims have the same location), and the set in the middle rotates in an opposite direction relative to the outer and inner sets."

Because Suzanne's work is prim-heavy and script intense, it isn't easily displayed. In fact, I'm often frustrated because I don't know which sim or sandbox she is working in so that I can go and peek. I think it is time someone hosted a sim-wide show of her work. Don't you? Take a look...


Gold Box Sets


Spiral Threads #01


Spiral Threads #06

You can see more of Suzanne's work on her Flickr stream.

Comet Morigi's Mt. XXYYZZ

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

UPDATE: I'm delighted that Comet Morigi has translated this blogpost to Japanese, which you can read on her own blog here.

It is not unheard of. People often anchor prims onto sims in a way that they extend well beyond the sim's "borders." But I gasped this morning when I caught sight of Japanese land artist Comet Morigi's super-colossal latest at Brooklyn is Watching (BiW): Mt. XXYYZZ.



Using a total of 4 prims, Comet surrounded the sim that BiW sits on - Popcha - with mountainous terrain on all sides. In fact, this installation is so large in scope that I was unable to photograph it in its entirety to my satisfaction.



She used a terrain scanner-to-sculpty to create a 1024m x 1024m x 256m mega prim and added a 1024m x 1024m water-coloring panel. "Only two mega prims, and their anchor prims for a total of 4 prims," she explained to me.

While Comet's art work is nearly always gigantic in size, Mt. XXYYZZ seems to impress visitors to BiW more than most. Still, Comet seems to be taking all the fuss in stride. "Technically, it's not so rare in-world." Perhaps not technically, though her execution is superb, but visually, this piece of extraordinary size and power is a feat.

Teleport directly from here.

See also: Land Art in Second Life: A historical perspective and an introduction to virtual artist Comet Morigi

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.

Reach smeech... Second Life won't cut it with Nielsen yet, but it is POWERFUL in other ways

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

I was Twittering just now, and up came a twitter from a favorite follow of mine, Chimera Cosmos (aka @LDinSTL_Chimera), that read: "Yes! RT @metaMeerkat: inSL: @cybergrrloh says if one does not talk Second Life® when talking socialmedia, one misses an opportunity for REACH."

While I didn't attend @cybergrrloh's presentation - and I'm sure she provided many compelling ideas - I don't think for a nanosecond that Second Life is a tool worthy of consideration for advertising and marketing, not even exponentially... yet. However, I do believe in the power of the platform. Let me give you an excellent and very recent example:

DB Bailey (aka David Denton, AIA, in Real Life) is an architect in both worlds. I've blogged about his very virtual, very Not Possible IRL buildings many times here.


DB Bailey in front of a building he created for Stanford University

Not long ago, DB teleported me to a shopping mall he had created in Second Life. Given that I focus primarily on quality content in virtual worlds that would Not be Possible in Real Life, this was unusual, but it turned out to be a worthwhile trip. It seems that DB had been working with a potential Egyptian client, and the two had gone back and forth for two years... but DB had not been able to secure that client's buy-in on the project. One day, out of frustration or a creative burst... who knows, DB logged into Second Life and recreated his proposed shopping mall down to the plants. "I'm surprised how fast I did it," he shared with me.


Photo courtesy of The Arch Network

What happened next will underscore the point I am trying to make. The virtual platform of Second Life - where user-created content is possible - is mostly untapped and extremely powerful: DB showed the virtual and three-dimensional shopping mall to his client, and within three days he was on his way to Egypt to work on the Real Life project. He's there now. You can read about it here.

My Twitter handle is: @Bettinatizzy

A Burst of Conversation: AM Radio’s "The Red and the Wild"

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

Avatar AM Radio unveiled The Red and the Wild to the public yesterday. It is the first such art installation at the Institute for Digital Intermedia Arts, a hybrid art and design studio at Ball State University funded by the Lilly Endowment. AM is a narrative artist who uses prims, Second Life®’s basic in-world creation tools, to paint moody settings that are awash in nostalgia for a time when objects of wood and metal were shaped and crafted in a workshop or barn, and not in some faraway factory in Taiwan. A keen observer of nature, his Plein Air scenes are hyper-real, and always unmistakably American… the wheat fields of Illinois near his current home, and the vast expanses of the Northeast. Those who know, however, realize that there are surreal secrets and surprises tucked away in every AM Radio build.  

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It seems like forever ago; it seems like only yesterday. Matthew Kiddomen, then a member of our working group (NPIRL) and someone who left the grid for good soon after, sent me an IM some 20 months ago inviting me to come at once. “You must see this. It’s incredible,” he said.


I Set a Stack of Books by AM Radio

It was up in the sky above the IBM sandbox… a wheat field, an old rusty train, a table set with an odd assortment of objects including a violin, some grapes, and a sketch book. Also a quaint garage, an old fashioned gasoline pump, and a shadowbox recreation of Jacques-Louis David's painting The Death of Marat. There, too, was the creator of all this, a rather surprised but nevertheless congenial and very tall gentleman by the name of AM Radio, sporting a long black coat and top hat.



He had bits of straw about him and the air of a chimney sweep. Within five minutes there were many of us there. I recall that I teleported Pavig Lok and Orhalla Zander, among others. We peppered this man with questions and he answered them all quite obligingly. Yes, he’d created this about a year ago. Yes, it had been up in the sky all that time and no, he owned no land.

Today, even if you are only a minor explorer in Second Life, odds are good that you have ventured onto at least one installation created by AM Radio. You probably own a set of sticks that he has given you. Perhaps you also have one of his dragonflies.  

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Engine, by AM Radio

Edges, by AM Radio

AM and I spent an hour conversing on Saturday, looking back at all that has transpired, and how it has influenced his thinking behind the creation of his newest: The Red and the Wild.  

So much has happened to you in the past couple of years. 

AM Radio: Huge learning experience. Often people will see me and say, "Oh, you're a person." And I have gotten used to it, but AM Radio really sort of became a brand. People think it’s a bunch of people building. So I have learned a lot, you know, managing that. It really is a careful process. So there is the learning aspect, but really in the last couple years I think the most important thing, the most meaningful thing for me has been the idea that we can participate in these virtual world activities, and have a real impact on the real world… and sometimes it is only vaguely related. Showing up at a concert in Second Life, and someone in Africa gets a cow.

Not long after he rezzed The Far Away at Dreamworld, AM Radio began to sell plots of wheat to benefit Heifer International with 100% of the proceeds. Heifer is an organization that works to end hunger and poverty by providing livestock and environmentally sound agricultural training to improve the lives of people who struggle daily for dependable sources of food and income. It is best known for allowing people to "purchase" cows ($500US a piece) and other livestock. Today and just 20 months later, the sales of AM’s wheat have raised enough to buy a REAL herd of cows: $7,300 or nearly 15 cows.

Is there any way to know how your fundraising efforts have specifically benefited anyone?

AM Radio: Not specifically, not like the Adopt-a-Child programs you see on late night television. We like the cow metaphor Heifer uses. You know that $500 US is equal to a cow, or $120 a goat, but even then it’s impossible to say. Even if you knew you bought an actual cow because that cow’s milk is bought by other people in that town, trade occurs and neighbors converse, enemies begin to see advantages to understanding their neighbor. It's exponential.

Saturday was World Malaria Day. I recall that you did some fundraising for nets. Have you continued that effort?

AM Radio: Nothingbutnets.net - In 2008 I sold an off-road vehicle and the Lindens from those sales went to Nothingbutnets. That's a great program. Literally one net potentially saves one, or even two lives. For just $10 USD? I mean… come on, how better to spend ten bucks? Two Big Mac meals, or a teenager in Africa has anti-malaria nets at night to sleep in.

Is that vehicle still for sale?

AM Radio: That vehicle is not. You know, that was another thing I learned. Growth can be unpredictable. I had a very kind sim owner offer three sims, plus Princeton, and NMC and everything got complex really quickly, so I went back to my roots with the charity work, focusing on Heifer.

Sometimes it is best to keep the message as simple as possible, is it not?

AM Radio: Yes, exactly. Splitting off was requiring management at levels I am not ready for yet. I need help!

He went on to create The Quiet for Princeton University and Husk for the New Media Consortium (NMC). Then came The Refuge and the Expansion for just one week, a sim-wide version of the wheat field, and today that same installation is three sims large, under the patronage of art collector Alexandar Vargas. Since then, AM has conjured two other acclaimed sims: Beneath the Tree that Died for the University of Kentucky and Waiting for You.

Time-lapse machinima by AM Radio: "This is about 200 minutes of time lapse captured with FRAPS. A visitor with a powerful face-light visits about half way into filming and briefly lights up the center." Music is Artemis

If people wanted to help you, what could they do?

AM Radio: Right now, the easiest thing to do is get the word out. Often people apologize to me, especially at music events hosted on the sims. They say, sorry, “I can't donate right now.” And I totally hear that. But one of the great things about Second Life is that participation alone adds to the momentum. Showing up and being excited inspires those who do have the ability to donate.

How has your view of art in a virtual scenario changed in the past two years?

AM Radio: That Virtual Worlds is a valid art medium. It went from “Oh, this is neat.” To, “Wow,  something is happening here,” to “Wow, it's in the New York Times.”

Is this a confirmation? Or did you believe it was less than that before? And how about how you approach your art? Has that changed in any way?

AM Radio: I don't think I thought any less of the medium. I think I paused more on the perception of Second Life by its own users and the Real Life public, and yes, (it) absolutely changed my art process. I think in my Real Life art, I have always been drawn to organic subjects. The fields, the trees, but there was a frustration, having been born in the mid-seventies, and really growing up in a very plasticized and prepackaged, processed world... sunlight, for our generation, is something seen through Plexiglass windows, and my art is a reaction against that. It's looking for more… for the organic. So it was an attempt to tear down the fakery, all that plastic in impossible colors, and awful rugs, and terrible media, like television, but in Second Life, there's almost an acceptance that much of this generation has already been living virtual. Everything is controlled, and marketed, from the music to food, to the computers the cool kids use. And now, here I am in a virtual world, trying to create the organic. I think it is still a search, but almost feels like…(pause) …a responsibility.

The wearable HUD at The Red and the Wild plays a tone and guides your camera to a specific angle when you touch a specific number - Photographs courtesy of Newdoll Nikolaidis

AM Radio: You know my critics like to peck that I am too close to (Andrew) Wyeth, but why not? Why can't we bring that here? Why can't we make sure we don't forget where we are, that this is all those plasticized windows filtering our sunlight.

I can't help but think... you and I both spend so much time in world. How has all this changed your own sense of place? The ability to create your own environment and live in it, and share it?

AM Radio: Let me be careful how I answer that. I don't want to dissuade criticism of my work... but my work is deeply personal. What you see is so much a part of me; these are symbols of my life and events, and my emotions. Yates said “Tread softly because you tread on my dreams...” My sense of space here, I suppose, has become a more elastic version of real life. You know I can place out what I want and I can share things, but people can visit and bring their own emotional baggage, and see what they want, and expand my own understanding of my own memories. It's like having hundreds of people analyzing your dreams and posting their thoughts about them on Flickr... thousands of them.

You mean... that they can affect your own understanding of your creations?

AM Radio: Yes. Some artists…

…prefer not to read the reviews of their works, for whatever reasons. I take it this is not the case with you. How much of what you read/hear/discuss about your work are you absorbing? Is it malleable? Vulnerable?

AM Radio: I think I try to read as much as I can. I think I often do go off on tangents on builds, and I sometimes forget about the bigger picture and mission of Second Life. It's easy when you have access to a sim to just cover the sky when Windlight isn't really jiving with what I am trying to do, but I still find myself challenged by this specific limitation to not be able to easily share settings. What I did was try to make a build that allowed you to easily remove my tinting. You can lower your draw distance a bit and return to the default sky, for example, and also it is a tinting, so the Windlight bleeds through, allowing for the user to work with their list of presets in ways they haven't seen them work before.


sensations by Thea Denja - Taken at "The Red and the Wild"

Your works, all of them, seem to hearken to days - we can only speculate - of your childhood. What we do know is that most people don't live like that anymore. The train that was rusty in The Far Away is new and more of a concept at The Red and the Wild. Are we entering a new era?

AM Radio: Maybe more toy-like at The Red and The Wild. The new sim is inspired by elements of my boyhood. The house itself figured centrally in my life. The other houses I have built were more abstract memories of houses. This one is nearly accurate. In fact, it is odd to see people walking on its porch and not feel like they're trespassing somehow.


AM Radio's train at The Red and the Wild 

What age were you?

AM Radio: Oh, I must have been about ten.

Does the red abstract burst have a name? Care to explain it?

AM Radio: The sim has the same name (The Red and the Wild). I had been fooling with prims in an abstract way. I had started doing that way back; you might remember the boxes on The Far Away: The Way the Air moves.


The Way the Air Moves, by AM Radio

I think abstraction fails in a vacuum. I think an abstract painting looks far more interesting when a lady wearing a Packers jacket is fumbling through a museum looking at them, wondering if she should know more.


The Speckles in Your Iris, by AM Radio

AM Radio: There is a dialog between the abstract and the real that occurs in any abstract art, and I have had a really difficult time accepting abstract art in virtual worlds because that dialog is often missing. I think (that dialog... that ether for a relationship) most often works when the artist interrupts the abstraction with some inclusion of the avatar... with most avatars based on a very real human form. So, I have been really leery about using Abstraction in Second Life. I use it a lot in Real Life in my collage work. You can find some of those real life works on the new sim. 

Tiny Little Pieces of Radio, by AM Radio

AM Radio: I had been thinking about these large shapes and not really understanding how I might get away with using them, and be able to explain myself to an art critic, or press, and I was really kind of at a dead end with it, but a friend from Atlanta, a very talented music, film, and 3d artist, sent some music he had been working on. One of the tracks included samples from the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's. At one point in the movie, and in Capote's Novella, Holly, the main character describes her anxieties and her fears as “the mean reds,” and immediately I thought of this large shape, these looming things in our lives that seem to want to tear us down. At the same time, these looming things, these anxieties, inspire us to become who we are, how we behave, how we react to things, how we present our avatar, how we define our virtual spaces.

In fact, in the movie, Holly has created an entire virtual world for herself. Her escape is the commoditized world where money defines what's real, and I thought “Wow, this is really relevant to virtual worlds.” Later in the movie and in the novella, Holly says... "But you can't give your heart to a wild thing: the more you do, the stronger they get. Until they're strong enough to run into the woods. Or fly into a tree. Then the sky. That's how you'll end up, Mr. Bell. If you let yourself love a wild thing. You'll just end up looking at the sky," and suddenly my thoughts on injecting abstract shapes made sense.

I had the courage to say that this abstraction means something, that here is a symbol of something, that we have these abstract parts of ourselves, these fears, these wild things we try to bury, and without them, we don't become who we are. The Red and the Wild really is a comment on that relationship that abstraction and realism are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they rely on one another to even exist. In the end Holly, of course, realizes she's living in a self constructed world, and immediately begins to redefine it.

Teleport to The Red and the Wild directly from here. 

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AM Radio's project, "The Space Between Those Trees," is a finalist for the Linden Prize, which will be awarded to one Second Life Resident or team with $10,000 USD for "an innovative inworld project that improves the way people work, learn and communicate in their daily lives outside of the virtual world."