Why film & post this, and not actual ART content? Unless you guys are already planning to do more video, in which case I apologize for jumping to conclusions.

Left by nebulosus.severine on December 19th, 2008

Ah, Arahan just pointed me toward this post (http://brooklyniswatching.com/2008/12/17/beyond-human/), which I read, and at the time I did not realize that the second picture was actually a video! So, yeah.

I still don’t quite understand what a virtual blue jeans company is doing in an art podcast/art blog.

Left by nebulosus.severine on December 19th, 2008

As I mentioned in my comments on the Podcast 39 post, it’s the fusion of art and commerce that I don’t like. I think the concept as a build is interesting, I simply don’t like commerce that is presented as pure art.

I did notice the video of Ara’s & Ichi’s work after I posted my first comment, but thanks for pointing it out. I look forward to seeing more vids on BIW, too — I think it will be a great attention to the podcasts & blog posts.

Left by nebulosus.severine on December 19th, 2008

Well, I’m sorry I’m stuck in some RL matters at the moment. This is a really crucial moment, and I think what we are seeing is the intersection between cultures (subject of upcoming essay in January). For example, DH is actually a critical piece, featured at the Sundance Film Festival. Last week, we saw Azdel Slade, which was another high-end SL-based project.

I hope that I can get my pen to paper in time, but I think that there are a lot of issues here – ahistoricity, acriticality, the conflation of art, entertainment and commerce (check the youtube of mcluhan on mcluhan), cultural narcissism, and the problem of subject, object, and audience. Add to that the problem of e-kitsch (poser, bryce, old Compuserve GIF communities, even Deviantart and the recent Risciamento Virtuale “conference”).

The problem is that I wonder if the gulfs between cultures are too large to have a meaningful conversation. Eventually we may be seeing schisms in which “SL-Art” as defined by the commuunity may be seen as roughly equivalent to so much Poser illustration.

The bottom line here is content, context, and audience. If SL artists are talking to “ART” (sic), there are three matters to consider, as it isn’t just about having fun and exploring one’s creativity.

First, in regards to the “art market”, this is a small, hip highly powerful bunch that not only talks a certain talk, but they are also connected with a certain community, nearly none of which are in SL.

Second, and I think that BiW comes closest to this, there is actually a humanist impulse to try to push our understanding of art in a historical context. Or, question what that might be… However, there are still conversations and contexts that have to be addressed.

Lastly, there is still the museum and academy to dael with. And this is again about conversations and having something to say when you sit at the table. Historians and curators still write the books with any weight.

This is not to say that SL is doomed to illegitimacy, or that the art world is always going to have a gulf away from SL.

What I’m trying to communicate is that we have to be able to be knowledgeable, intelligent, and respectfully critical if we are to learn or advance/develop the discussion. In the past few weeks, shows like Arena and Risciamento Virtuale have really pushed my limits of patience with indiscriminate selections of work, with RV’s criteria being largely based around promotion/commerce.

While I am not purely against capitalism as such, I am against the diminishing of content/concept in contrast with easy to sell sentimentality or empty hipness (the latter being pretty salable in the art world, though). or the use of same to purely establish branding. If you want examples, Koons and Murakami play the consumer card while putting the critical stake int he brightly colored bag, and Barney does it through sheer scope and transcendance.

Watch all 5 Cremasters (a lot of SL folks will probably hate them) or look at the Lozarno-Hemmer’s “Vectorial Elevation” http://www4.alzado.net/edintro.html and contrast that with the “grandeur” of a DCA piece.

For those of you saying that I’m conflating apples and oranges, I am – for a reason. The prevailing Linden PR wants the world to believe that Sl is a parallel and equal reality with the physical. From this, I’m merely saying that if SL-based art is to have the same “weight” as art in objective reality, it has to possess the same affective & conceptual qualities.

But this is a two way street, as artists wanting to use SL for a larger audience must address the audience in SL as well. However, understand this may not be “friendly”. There is a lot of debate as to the degree if sincerity that Miranda July’s “crowdsourcing” project, learningtoloveyoumore.com contained. If an RL dontemporary artist comes to SL, understand that they may be using you as a medium, but they may also genuinely like you as well. That’s the issue that comes up with Warhol’s “Superstars” at The Factory – did he celebrate or use his people… Same for Murakami’s colleagues at kikikai, and a lot of it comes out to expectations and relations.

Therefore, I think we are at a “good place…” that is very delicate. To which I quote Murakami in asking what we may do next –
Heal?
Summon Monsters?
or Die?

Left by patlichty on December 20th, 2008

The sound quality of this is WAY better than what we got through that other mic we were passing around.. unless this is the same sound and beth you were somehow able to clean it up in which case tell me how you did it… Maybe we should use this method for all our in-person podcasts and just take the audio out of the video for the audio-only feed. I’m going to create a BIW video feed too- somehow… as soon as I can so you can subscribe to BIW videos… and yes we’re going to do this alot more of the time – always meant to just didn’t have the time/expertise/collaborators to actually manage to do it, but now thanks to Beth, Steve and Norene joining the project… many many more things are possible. Hurrah. Anyway if you all wondered what it looked like when we were recording the podcasts at JTPP now you know.

Left by jvanb on December 20th, 2008

OH… and (damn i really do need to get that comment editing plugin don’t I, i’m sorry) Thatnks for these great comments Patrick, I love it when he says “well i don’t have much time to say much” then writes a mini essay.. anyway there’s a lot there and listening to the podcast again today I was thinking that part of the problem was that we never really talked about “beyond human” we sort of talked around it and got off into a meta-discussion- which hopefully can be corrected by some more talk on the blog and elsewhere- to me the podcasts, and the blog are always just one part of the dialog which always happens over multiple websites with the panel on the podcast being more “experts” than experts – and the exact make up of the podcast will always be as unpredictable as the the quality of the work that shows up at BIW.

Each member of the podcast and each poster on the blog speaks only for themselves and says whatever they personally think with the only rule being that everyone is honest and the only semblance of a guarantee of quality is that none of us are getting paid to do this so we’re all just doing it because we think its fun and interesting and all of us have chosen be artists, art historians, teachers etc. because we love art an care about it generally speaking.

All this discussion is great from my point of view, its boring if everyone agrees!

..And the culture clash that Patrick is talking about is part of what makes this all interesting- although certainly Ichibot and Arahan are coming at this from a very well informed and sophisticated contemporary art subculture framework despite their being very much invested in SL.

Right now I’m actually finding myself more drawn to artists like Ichibot, Arahan, Selavy Oh, Angrybeth Shortbread and AM Radio (list not meant to be complete), artists who work entirely inside SL but take it absolutely seriously and art trying to make art that aims at being as intellectually sophisticated as the best work you find in contemporary international galleries from a place entirely WITHIN the SL community, more than I find myself drawn to some of the SL/RL hybrid artists.

SL/RL hybrid artists- I guess myself included, I suppose, if you count BIW as an artwork which I still do in my own head although its not so important to me how much other people do.

I’m more into those artist who’s work is all in SL but who’s intentions require the attention of the RL contemporary fine art world precisely because of the difficulty in contextualizing it. I think wrestling with the context is pretty interesting.

I’ve actually been thinking very seriously about taking my fursuit portrait project on the road to some of the furry conventions that i’ve been to and selling them in the art shows there– this would mean getting far cheaper prices for them than i could (theoretically) at galleries which would mean that the galleries wouldn’t touch them with a 10-foot poll so i’d be a no-going-back kind of thing but i’m wondering if I really care about that so much.

The part of it that would be a little sad is that I’d not get the satisfaction of having anyone really SEE the aspect of these paintings that I care about most which has everything to do with my personal struggle against and with the legacy of painting in my own head and trying to paint in an authentic and way that is coming out of all the issues in contemporary painting but then getting over myself and just fucking painting whats in front of me. This is a struggle that only painting nerds care about, I realize but, that’s me.

An art critic who came to see my show in Kansas City in 2007 said that she saw a real similarity between the spirit of my stuffed animal paintings and
Mary Heilmann, who is a favorite of mine and I was like “YES, thank god, someone gets it” — and that’s far less likely to happen if I abandon the gallery system entirely. The really cool thing about digital art, SL art included is that it can be in two “places” at once, (or 100) so that there can be multiple levels of conversation about it in multiple communities with competing criteria for judging its value. I would love it if someday there were several towers at BIW connected to RL portals in multiple places each with its own community and community expectations and standards.

Left by jvanb on December 20th, 2008

I do need to respond but my brain hurts a bit after all the typing on the other thread, which I can see I need to say more on too.

Jay I am also what you call a ‘RL/SL hybrid artist’, not solely limited to SL at all, I tend to keep it separate though. This is the same for Ichibot, Nebulosus and AM Radio as far as I’m aware, all those people paint in RL and I know two of them have sold work. Interestingly, I have had two commissions for paintings via people I know from SL. One coming up next year which is funded by the Prince’s Trust.

I really like the fursuit portraits, I told you that before though. Your idea of taking them to furry conventions etc might not be such a crazy notion, I watched the video of the paint-off I think it was called? Maybe you could do a similar thing at the conventions, I bet it would be really popular. The idea being to seel them of course at the end of it.

Anyway, must sleep, back soon.

Left by Arahan Claveau on December 20th, 2008

AH! – what I actually meant by RL/SL hybrid was people that make art that is partially inside SL and partially outside, like the double happiness jeans factory thing where you people at the movie festival could interact with avatars who were (playing at) making their jeans. By saying you, Ichibot, Nebulosus, etc. were SL-only artists, I really meant that you were making art that only existed in SL, not that you might not also make art outside SL. Not sure i explained that so well, just there, but do you see what I’m saying? Like AM Radios ‘the far away‘ doesn’t have some RL component to it, for example. And… it needs none. I think that RL art people have an easier time taking art seriously when it goes from SL to RL or back and forth some how, and I think that is a prejudice that must be stopped.

Left by jvanb on December 21st, 2008

OK Jay understood! I do think that art made in SL should be exclusive to that environment whenever possible. I touched on some of this in the other podcast thread in response to a question from Beth so I won’t repeat myself here. But you’re right, there is a problem, which I think it is on both sides, there are SL artists that are living in a bubble and not entering into the necessary dialogue, and outside SL there seems to be a snobbery about the validity of the medium.

*and you installed the plugin! Nice one

Left by Arahan Claveau on December 21st, 2008