I guess you can’t keep a big artist down! Juria is back this week with a large work that covers most of Brooklyn is Watching; it is up high enough that it doesn’t interfere with ground level viewing at all, but you can fly up and see the entire gallery through Juria’s semitransparent glowing lens. It’s pretty enough in its own right (it changes color and moves around), but I enjoyed looking at other things through it even more.

(Title edited to include Juria’s intended title — see the comments.)

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Last week I commented on Big Fuckin Ant! by Ron Hubbard, which Jay Newt had placed on one of the border hedges at Brookyn is Watching. Since then, the ant has been wandering around the sim, moving just about every day, and showing up in a variety of interesting places. But today, it seems, the artists of BiW have decided to broaden the sexual repertoire of the ants. The golden pair on the left side of the photo were placed by Dancoyote Antonelli; on the right, the dark one was placed by Jay Newt, and the light one by Milla Janick.

The ant in its basic form is a nice bit of prim work. But the artists have taken it further by placing them in a variety of contexts and now interacting with each other, making the exhibit as much about how the ants are used as about the ants themselves.

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I haven’t seen any of Kolor Fall’s work before, but I’m liking this one. The comment line says original acrylic - 30×40″, but what you see in Second Life is more than just a photograph of an RL canvas. Between Waves is made of three prims, and they move and flex slightly; it is a Second Life version of how one creates depth on canvas by layering paint, sometimes thickly so it stands off the canvas. The notecard available from the dispenser near the work says this about the artist and his technique:

“Kolor Fall (www.patrickfaith.com) is a emerging artist in both RL and SL. His RL paintings are centered in touch, where Patrick dips his hands directly into pigments and interacts with the canvas in layers of tension. As layer’s complete, he evaluates his connection with the canvas - weighing spiritual,sensual and natural. Kolor takes the RL paintings then uploads them into SL.”

Kolor Fall placed this work next to Robin Moore’s latest shadowbox work. I liked the juxtaposition, as both artists have been exploring ways to create depth in virtual space.

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These works aren’t present at Brooklyn is Watching now; they were returned shortly after I took the photos. (Jay agreed to leave them up so I could photograph them. The Dancoyote works and sky platforms are still there.) They were at best on the border of commentary and griefing, and possibly well over that line. And yet, I find this being a work that I want to comment on this week… if I’m just playing into the hand of a griefer by writing this post, so be it.

First, the background: Dancoyote put up two interactive pictures on sky platforms. The pictures change when triggered by certain unusual words in chat; there are now notecard dispensers near DC’s works, though they were not present when I photographed the commenting works. (Get your minds out of the gutter; they’re not naughty, just things that aren’t likely to come up in casual conversation.) DC’s works are a nice exploration of the possibilities of interactive art in Second Life; I recommend coming over to Brooklyn is Watching, reading the notecard, and trying them out for yourself.

Somewhere along the way, Femi Aabye put up two works that were photographs of the Dancoyote art in one of their possible states; the dc@spensley.com printed “signature” was still present on the copies. DanCoyote ZeroG Fugue also had a sign over it, pointing to the DC original and saying “this is a fake” and to the photograph and saying “this is original”, and offering to let the visitor click it to find out why. Here is the text of the notecard; it is copied verbatim, complete with bad spelling and punctuation, and it misidentifies the magic words.

“Hello! Thanks for clicking!

The work to the right is a screen capture of a dancoyote piece, but it az good az original which iz bad!  And iz free! Give 2 frenz!

The fake one on the left is  a an easily producbile piece you can make yourself if you haz a simpls skripting skillz. This is not specia  version that gives any viewer the ability to invoke dopey! IF you know the magic words you can get the painting to display any one of 1000 bad variations on the bad composition just by typing them into chat near the piece.

The Magic Word Painting is nearly 1000 bad paintings all in the user’s control!  Why just have one bad painting - pay $500 and get thouzandz!

The magic words are:

sim
sala
bim
douchebag

Cheers! And sorry for trying 2 sellz you bad art.

-DC

See bad art at all DC art locations!”

There are a couple of reasons why I don’t think this can be dismissed as garden-variety griefing. First, Femi has been in Second Life for more than a year. Second, the notecard is comically badly written, to the point of being a parody of bad online writing. Finally, two of Femi’s three visible groups are “Sith Lords of Chaos” and “Children of Dementia”; he clearly identifies as a trickster, and has made sure that everybody knows it.

Could this be a personal vendetta against Dancoyote? Again, I don’t think so; it’s just too obviously bad. I don’t see this work as griefing, but as a commentary on griefing. It’s unfortunate that DC’s work was obscured by it, but I doubt that any visitors to Brooklyn is Watching were misled by this piece. (A newcomer to Second Life might have been, so this sort of thing would not be appropriate for newcomer areas.) DC probably WAS targeted, but only because he is a high-profile artist, not because of any personal enmity on Femi’s part.

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This one is fun because it modifies the Brooklyn is Watching tower. (Not that it’s the first time it’s been done!) Naturally, make sure to use a glow-capable viewer.

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OK, its ready!

you can download it directly here

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and its on BLIP right here

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Get the CD our theme song is on.

Images from this podcast

This is a strange one folks, we have little direct discussion of the art work on the sim, and to redress that i’m going to try to work extra hard at doing some additional specific criticism on the blog here later today and tomorrow, but I really hope you will all listen to this podcast because the conversation goes in a different and very interesting direction because of the input of artist, Shane Hope (more about him below). I’m really curious to see what you all think about this.

Show notes:
Episode 20 is long, but its worth it!, we have a very interesting and deep discussion that in some ways goes deeper than we ever have before into what virtual art is about, how its different from art in RL, what personhood is and what, if anything is “new” about this project and the virtual art that is getting talked about. New York-based artist Shane Hope asks pointed questions of Boris and Jay about every level of this project and makes some really interesting observations from his own unique techno-art-insider-but-sl-outsider perspective. Artists discussed include: by Ichibot Nishi, Robin Moore, Dan Coyote Antonelli, Arahan Cleavau

Shane also provided me with this excellent bio which i was too chicken to try to read on the podcast. Further proof that I am a Painter/Teacher/Web-designer playing at being a talkshow host. Chris Mathews or Brian Lehrer would have dived right in:

/Bio/

Wehn not nought-unicyclin’ tuh keep all balanced n’ stuff, Hope may be transubstrationally parsed in Newer York gittin’ smart-faced, spinfoamation tech wupportin’ envirornamentally chalengd infomo’phic biorouters whilst lab-lobbyin’ fir thanatophiliacamouflagedecoy-decay writ rites n’ crypto-junkDNAnarch-key freeconomical policies plus post-singuluarity certifried tuh windup the overclockin’. Built in 2072, ve’s been uh member o’ the Misaligmnent-Matter Moguls fir the Managerrymanderment o’ Malfoamation Manufacturin’ n’ Anti-Monay Market Manipunation since 1000.0001 n’ dumbfounded the Dept. o’ Data-Debased Dark Matter Mods fir a Light-Livin’-Looksee Lab-Launched Lifestlyes Laber Union in 2045ingularity. He currenly intuh collablobject-oriented atomiclown nose jugglin’ n’ runs, er rather ist runnin’ on, uh Thanato.Tek Death Cube, whihc it enables particulate public domain piggy-backin’ o’ speculativernacular silicogenomic nooledge ontuh the wreckonomiclot-got-rot-a-lot-bots o’ evoluture futures.

shane hope
http://shanehope.info

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The title of this work pretty much says it. Good prim and texturing work, and I like the way that Jay placed it on the hedge. Picture taken shortly after sunrise for the dramatic light. Manipulating the SL time of day has been a theme in this week’s batch of photos; I’ve been doing more with it recently to try to show the art at its best.

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