Note: I get a little tough on Ichibot here, but I do so because I think his work is strong enough to stand up to some serious scrutiny and raises some really fascinating questions. Normally, I wouldn’t critique a work of art off of the BiW island, but I’ve chosen to do so because he’s an artist we’ve talked about many times in the podcast and, again, I think his work can absolutely take it.

My avatar and I took a little field trip off the Brooklyn is Watching island and over to Arahan’s gallery space called Art Hole.

It was worth the trip. The third floor has an installation by Ichibot Nishi that is quite worth seeing and helped to refine, in my mind, the things that I really find successful about the best SL art and the things I still see lacking.

But first, the piece, as best as I can describe it:

You enter into a large room that dwarfs your avatar by its size. After changing the settings to either midnight or sunrise (as prompted by some text you encounter), the room starts to glow.

The first thing I notice, is a stack of… well, perfect silicon boobs (can’t think of another way to put it) that are mysteriously spelling out the word “SILENCE” in mid-air.

Well, sort of - they never quite get to fully spell out the word (in some cases, the word starts to form but is missing an I or an E or the C is misformed) before they tear across the sky and get sucked into this thing that looks like… well… a cocktail olive made out of skin.

In the “cocktail olive” is what appears to be an examining table, although I’m vague now as to what exactly was going on with that (as with many installations in SL, there is an enormous amount to take in and I have to admit that my memory is failing me on this detail). Throughout the room are scattered objects - is that a melting popsicle? a patch of grass. a hot tub also made of skin? - most notable to me is a pile of disembodied female heads, perfectly spherical, almost Tony Oursler-like.

So, a few notes on some of the strengths and weaknesses of a project like this, according at least to me:

Its strengths are many. Ichibot creates an eerie, unsettling space that allows you to explore it while never quite being sure how to interpret it (as I go on, I’ll talk about the problems with this, but I wanted to also note that it is a strength). I absolutely love the word mis-spelled out in mid-air and the action created by the breasts zooming off across the room; it’s almost hallucinatory in effect and sets up a situation where what you are viewing is part event and part static installation. The choice of the word (SILENCE) is mysterious and also evocative. I can’t imagine a better word disappear and reappearing like that. It held me captivated for quite some time.

As I walked around the installation, I found that strangely enough, the piece clarified for me the successes of an artist like DanCoyote. I’m pretty on the record as having mixed feelings about his body of work, but one thing that is absolutely sure about it is, When you encounter it in SL, you know exactly what to do with it. Which is to say, you look at it (seems obvious, but isn’t really given that there’s a multitude of ways you can interact with things in SL), you follow his very simple and straightforward directions (ie, “sit here,” etc)

What to do in a piece like Ichibot’s isn’t completely clear. On one hand, that adds to the tension and the psychological space the artist is creating, but on another it leaves me feeling lost as a viewer. Lost, as in, I don’t know if I am interacting with it in the way in which the artist intends, which results in me not knowing if I’m giving the piece a fair shake or not. This is where DC really succeeds - you walk away from one of his pieces fully confident of having a “complete” experience. While I like that Ichibot’s piece unfolds as you spend more and more time with it, I’m unsure as to whether I really did everything I was “supposed” to do. Did I really experience it or not? I’m not sure. (Again, this is a double-edged sword - on one hand, it adds to the environment but on the other it left me feeling deeply confused.)

Another thing to keep in mind about SL art is that the builds are never quite as exact as we all like to pretend they are. Everything is made of pixels and we have to suspend our disbelief that something is “actually” made out of whatever material it’s supposed to be made out of. Is that patch of grass really a patch of grass? Or is it supposed to be a patch of synthetic grass? Or something else entirely (fabric, fingernails, whatever), that’s been formed to look like grass? There’s no way for me to really know just by looking at it.

Ok, it’s an academic point when you’re talking about grass, but not so much when you’re talking about breasts. Are those supposed to be actual breasts? As in, cut off from a body? A specific body (well, several bodies), or the idea or concept of “the body”? Are they supposed to be perfectly round, or would it have been preferable had the artist made them more like natural breasts? Or are we all aware that it’s not an actual physical thing at all and it’s just the idea of a bunch of breasts coming together to spell out a word?

We know, from experience, that this is not a pipe and this is not a girl with a pearl earring. If I walked into a gallery in Chelsea and saw a lampshade made out what appears to be - but is quickly revealed not to be - human skin, I would take it as a reference to the Holocaust. However, if I walked into a gallery and saw a lampshade made out of what was very clearly credited as human skin, I would be outraged.

The point I’m getting at is this: There is a way to read works of art in SL, as there is in RL. The problem is that in SL, artists change the rules as they see fit - for a particular piece or body of work - such that it becomes quite difficult to understand them simply by looking at them. The way Ichibot might use skin or breasts could be radically different than the way that (for instance) Nebulous does. Could be… but I’m not sure. And I really can’t be sure, if I’m giving the piece the benefit of the doubt.

Which leads me to this (which is the whole reason why I’m posting this here, because I think it’s been an issue over and over): We need texts. We need context. We need something that explains the artist’s intentions or sets up some sort of parameters for the piece or otherwise gives us a starting point. What we don’t need is a text that tells us what to think or feel or overdetermines the piece. I absolutely hate it when I go to a museum and there’s a tag next to a painting that tells me what I’m supposed to think about the work in such a way that it doesn’t allow any room for me as a viewer to bring my own interpretation into it. But there is a razor-thin line that I think artists can ride, between giving it all away and allowing the viewer in, and that’s what I think artworks in SL need to start embracing.

(Can someone hook me up with a SLURL? I would love to link this - the project is very definitely worth seeing.)

Posted by Amy Freelunch on Saturday, May 3rd, 2008 at 2:53 pm.