Two artworks at an otherwise slightly deserted Brooklyn Is Watching caught my attention yesterday, when I came inworld to prepare my first post for the BiW blog.

But let me first tell you why there’s a new name on the blog. Selavy Oh, for whom I previously had authored brief essays accompanying some of her work, told me about the seemingly desolate situation at BiW and then introduced my to Jay, who was so kind to invite me as guest blogger.

As so often at BiW, it was the concurrence rather than one of the works separately that attracted me. Both works are repetitions of a single element each bearing an avatar name yielding a list of names. The one by SaveMe Oh called My Content / SaveMe’s Men (left image) shows 15 dress forms with text displayed above them, saying “X Y’s content taken by SaveMe Oh”, each one with a different, apparently existing name. The other, Gauntlet Cubes by Oberon Onmura (right image), also displays names, each above one of 25 black or white cubes. While SaveMe Oh’s work is static, the cubes start spinning, change color, and assume your avatar’s name, if your collide with one of them. From the title of Oberon Onmura’s work I guess that it is meant as a response to SaveMe Oh’s installation, referring to her artistic practice of provocation. While SaveMe Oh’s work is probably best understood as pointer to her social performances, or as a detail accompanying her activities, Oberon Onmura’s installation allows a little glimpse of what could possible if the possibilities of the medium were exploited.

“The list is the origin of culture.” (Umberto Eco)

But at this point it is time to ask: hey, is this all you can deliver? Do the artists, both of them well-known and respected in the community, truly think that these works qualify to be exhibited here? Has BiW really become a junkyard for discarded sketches? Don’t leave it at that, give us better work to look at, since we’re watching again!

Well we just got hacked- i don’t know how long we’ll stay un-hacked. Hopefully for a little while.

Sorry for going so long without posting — BIW is not dead. Just sleeping a little. Big new things are coming in March and with a little luck there will be more posts and podcasts well before that. Stay Tuned!

Thanks to those that braved the podcastpalooza last night and there were quite a few in the chaos including:  Jay Van Buren, Don Carroll as the ever naked Monet, Oberon Onmura, Penumbra Carter, Alizarin Goldflake, L1Aura Loire, Scarp Godenot, Sowa Mai and Shirley Marquez.  There were also non-voice appearances by Isabella Alphaville, Rod Mandel, Banrion Constantine and Persia Bravin.  As expected with this herd of people the podcast was pretty much a technical disaster-but very fun!  Sowa Mai thankfully recorded it and the unedited version can already be found here:  http://arsactual.com/BiW/.   Thanks Sowa!

The goal here was to celebrate BIW in the final podcast of 2009.  Although nobody brought maracas there were many unknown sounds and questionable echoes.  We discussed work by artists:  Gleman Jun, Pol Jarvinen, Kicca Igaly and Rod Mandel.

In the hubub hallaballoo of our herdchat we totally miss an important and beautiful piece by Italian artists Solkide Auer and Shellina Winkler titled “The Future”.  The sculpture is well thought out, wonderfully presented and the perfect piece to welcome 2010.  

In the meantime! I would like to invite anyone from the BIW community to join us in a year end podcastpalooza.
You’re all invited.  We might talk about art, we might talk about 2009 and if you’re not there we might talk about YOU. We might even talk about you even if you are there.

When: Wednesday December 30th
Where: Brooklyn is Watching at PUSH
Time: 5pm SLT (had to make it a little later-sorry)

TO PARTICIPATE IN THE SPECIAL EDITION BIW PARTYCAST please instant message Misprint Thursday in world saying you would like to participate.  Alternatively- just come and bring maracas.

On the parcel right now is an interesting piece by Gleman Jun and his notecard states:

“10 seconds of SL …SL joy or damnation, 2nd life or a mirror of the 1st? About 100 avatars of 10 different nationalities, have tried to express through the 3 communication channels of SL  (picture, voice and chat) their message summarizing in just 10 seconds. ”

The piece is a series of changing swirling SL snapshots that rattle of bits of peoples stories in text and in robotic voice.  It is the first work I have seen from this Italian artist looking at identity and has more of a narrative feel.  I like the departure for this artist.  Check it out!

Something else to check out is the piece by Sowa Mai promoting participation in an ongoing collaboation series at Caerleon Art Collective.  The sculpture that looks a bit like a recording booth encourages people to grab the note which gives instructions of how to give their voice/sound clip to the collaborative installation.  The note states: “All the sound clips collected will be placed on individual prims forming part of an artistic landscape and will also be part of a RL book published in early 2010.”

Here is a teaser for the soon to be posted podcast!  This little machinima was posted by Magggnus Woodget (avatar name) who was on the most recent podcast.  It was  great to have Magggnus and PinkPink Sorbet both from Austria on this episode along with Jay, Dancoyote Antonelli and Misprint Thursday.  Stay tuned.

Direct download here, or get it from iTunes or Feedburner.

In Episode 74 Jay is joined by Tezcatlipoca Bisiani ( Andrew Sempere, http://andrewsempere.org/ ) artist and IBM Exhibition Space curator in Residence, Jayjay Zifanwe of the University of Western Australia sim ( http://uwainsl.blogspot.com/ ) and Glyph Graves, SL artists and BIW final five show participant. We have a really interesting conversation (IMHO) about work by Betty Tureaud, Selavy Oh, DC Spensley, Kicca Igaly, Misprint Thursday.

Direct download here, or get it from iTunes or Feedburner.

Pictured here are more silhouettes by Lukas Loorden in a piece titled “we must march my darlings”…enjoying his work and you can see more of his clever stuff  here.   

Also upcoming on the next few podcasts will be some fascinating guests like:  JayJay Zifanwe, Glyph Graves, Tezcatlipoca Bisiani, Earth Primbee, Nazz Lane, and Arahan Claveau.   ALSO coming soon is Magggnus Woodget (SL name) who is a collaborator on an event called Roboexotica which happens this week  in Vienna.  Roboexotica is the first and, inevitably, the leading festival concerned with cocktail robotics world-wide.

There may also be some more action in the podcast land with people live from JTPP so stay tuned and rez art.

Teleport to BIW here