FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Press Contact: Juan Rubio and Bianca Ahmadi
email: Biwfest@gmail.com

Virtual Artists in Panel Discussion.

Lecture with One of the Pioneers of the Metaverse World.

Brooklyn, NY. August 3, 2009.

On August 15th 2009, as part of Brooklyn is Watching Festival One, a group of academics and artists will engage in a panel discussion regarding themes such as design strategies for large virtual spaces in Second Life. Pavig Lok who was responsible in part for the design of Greenies will present his ideas and first hand experiences. Lori Landay from Berklee College of Music will discuss what she considers to be the difference between virtual art and art that is shown in the virtual world. Stacey Fox will talk about her experiences with promoting virtual art in the Department of Visual Art at Kansas University.

Jerry Paffendorf will give a lecture on August 16th, 2009 at 7:00 PM. An artist and entrepreneur who lovingly refers to Brooklyn as Silicon Ghetto, Jerry will share personal adventures and new ideas combining virtual worlds, art, business, the web and what’s happening with Crazy Company and the LOVELAND project to collaboratively own land and create a new city on a grid of a million inches in Detroit.

Of the many virtual world-related project he’s worked on, Jerry co-created Destroy Television, an interactive virtual mixed reality art project in Second Life and precursor to Brooklyn Is Watching. Destroy Television was an avatar living in the kitchen cupboard of an apartment right around the corner from Jack The Pelican who recorded its life while being controlled by people over the web. You can read more about it in: Art Center

In the context of presenting the best in virtual art in Second Life for Brooklyn is Watching Best of Festival One, this conversation cannot happen at a better time. It will start a debate on how critically assess this exciting but still new form of art.

Brooklyn is Watching, conceived of by Jay Van Buren, executed as a collaboration with Boris Kizelshteyn and the Popcha! development team in February 2008, is a breakthrough relational art project that invites interaction between the two thriving art communities of Second Life and Williamsburg, Brooklyn accentuating the power relations between and among them. It consists of a series of inter-related spaces for artists, audiences, and participants. The primary spaces are a square parcel of land (sim) in Second Life where artists are invited to leave their work for one week (when it is automatically returned), and an alcove in the Williamsburg art gallery–Jack the Pelican Presents where the sim can be viewed on a large monitor and entered via an avatar.

Posted by jrubio on Tuesday, August 4th, 2009 at 4:24 pm.