« I’m coming out!
Moving Day »

Bigness at war!

BIW with the Big Blocks invisible

Big Blocks and Don't Touch

On the floor (in the air) of the Big Blocks

Amidst Don't Touch

This week there are two large works on display: Big Brick Blocks by Oberon Onmura and Don’t Touch by Dancoyote Antonelli (DC Spensley). There is a THIRD large work surrounding the sim that I’m not looking at in this post. The two are fighting for visual domination of the area, leaving little room for recognition of anything else (and very little else was present when I visited, though a work by Selavy Oh can be appreciated during the times when the blocks aren’t visible). Notecards for both are available near the landing point.

The presence of these two dominating works at the same time is interesting because of they way they compete for space and attention. Oberon’s work comes and goes; when all the blocks are visible the space among them feels claustrophobic. (The blocks are all phantom; you can freely move around the space but your ability to SEE around it with the camera is limited.) DC’s piece is airier and partially transparent but it stays all the time. Both are explorations of the nature of virtual space and the difference between appearance and solidity.

Posted by Shirley Marquez on Wednesday, July 1st, 2009 at 12:44 pm.

3 Responses to “Bigness at war!”

Actually, DC’s work doesn’t stay all the time, exactly. :-)

Left by SoloMornington on July 1st, 2009

Hi Shirley -

Bigness is never the point for me. Neither is “fighting for visual domination.” Both are trivial pursuits in SL and really not worth the bother.

This piece came about after a passing thought — “I wonder if I can cover the whole BIW parcel?” It was truly just an idle thought at the time. But I did some measurements (Werner Yoshakawa helped me with that, made a few calculations, and decided to do it.

The real challenge, as always, isn’t so much HOW to do it, but (artistically) WHY to do it. For me, the why is usually about exploring some aspect of SL physics. I knew I could easily make a 120×120x120 meter cube of brick blocks, but then what? Well, what would happen if they were to lose their solidity and weight, and fall through the structure to the water below the green floor? If so, in what order should they fall? And once all that is decided, how will it look? How will it feel?

I like the result, and I very much think that the combination of the brick blocks with DC’s cubes is visually synergistic, especially when the the brick blocks start to fall and reveal DC’s cubes still inside. Hidden (ephemeral) structures are revealed. And then it’s all over.

:-)

Left by oberon.onmura on July 1st, 2009

I didn’t mean to imply that there was any intent of war by the artists; it was just an expression of the effect that having two large space-consuming works had on me as a viewer.

In this case, though, I think the bigness of your work is an essential part of its impact; it may not be big for the sake of being big, but it IS big to achieve its intent. A piece of art that covers a large fraction of a sim is going to affect me differently than a small one that I can stand in front of; that’s just the way things are.

Left by Shirley Marquez on July 2nd, 2009

Something to say?

You must be logged in to post a comment.