City by PatriciaAnne Daviau
Apparently a response to BIW’s request for art that fits into tighter spaces, City illustrates just how much can be fit onto a tiny space in SL. Tiny graffiti details, as well as paintball splatters lend character to the painstakingly dilapidated little space. It even has a little suburb under construction that has wonderfully textured insulation packaging.
City asks the timely and important question as to what role scale should play in a digital world. By requiring the viewer to go through the unpleasant chore of switching around with view modes to view the piece, the audience is confronted by the arbitrary limitations of Second Life based on conventions for how big an avatar should “be”, and how objects around it should be rendered.
The limitations of the Metaverse are imposed in order to create an artificially level playing field, so communication and commerce can occur using existing paradigms. However, once we see the whimsical detail of a piece like City, we struggle against these constraints.
Beautiful work.
