Werner Kurosawa’s awesome webbed sphere (name?)
Werner Kurosawa’s sphere has been surrounding BIW for a few weeks now, and I will certainly feel its absence when it’s gone. (single tear runs down face) In Episode 62, Patrick Licthy named the work the best piece of hyperformalism to grace the sim, and further sang and outlined his praises in the subsequent thread. He also compared the work to the Sydney Opera House, the modern expressionist wonder of 20th century architecture.
Brian Eno’s 77 Million Paintings at the Sydney Opera House
Interesting that this analogy surfaced in Kurosawa’s consideration of clean architectural form, as I was thinking about the Sydney Opera House’s recent visual overhaul in terms of the nascent, SL art lexicon. Now I know it may be a naughty “no-no” to apply the term hyperformalism to RL art, but I have to say Brian Eno’s project of intricately texturing his 77 Million Paintings onto the Sydney Opera House was the closest thing to grand SL hyperformalist art that I’ve seen in RL. Now this might be due to the installation’s “you can’t do that, oh no you didn’t!” scale and ambition, or the projection’s random patterning via generative software. Or maybe I’m experiencing some sort of SL/RL crossover induced-madness. BUT I am very interested in remediation, and the way that varied media appropriate each other’s forms and unique qualities, and redefine each other in all directions.
Eno’s 77 Million Paintings is a very slowly animated, and generative series of scanned drawings, paintings and ambient sound, that had been more traditionally projected in past art venues. You can also watch it at home on DVD (a friend owns it). Although beautiful in abstract visuals and audio, it is more or less an amped-up screen saver when viewed 4:3. It was not until 77 Million Paintings took on a complex 3-dimensional form, and an iconic one at that in the Sydney Opera House, that the term hyperformalism could be invoked. Now other artists have “projected onto” or “resurfaced” famous buildings (Doug Aitken, Christo) but I believe the transformative, meditative, experiential, and technological nature of Eno’s project really speaks to hyperformal or formal (or choose your own ____formal) SL art. Eno’s project actually ends today, but you can try to catch a last glimpse via webcam in the final day of the Luminous Festival.
So did anyone else have this thought, or do I just have too much BIW on the brain, and too much blind love for Brian Eno?
ohh bollocks read something backwards, ignore.
Left by Dekka Raymaker on June 13th, 2009