Things were getting awfully emo around BiW. After thinking and thinking and thinking about his work some more, I sent one last, pathetic IM to AM Radio, desperately trying to get an interview.

Amy Freelunch: Hey – give me five minutes of your time and I promise I’ll leave you alone forever

I parked Amy Freelunch under the sea and made her go to sleep. And I waited. And waited. It sort of seemed like forever (I turned and went back to doing work in my own studio) when, out of nowhere, the following popped up on my screen:

AM Radio: I have 5 minutes starting now!

Jesus Christ. Finally.

So the following is a little mini-, five minute interview with AM Radio. We barely scratch the surface, but I think you’ll agree that it was totally worth chasing the guy down. We will supposedly be talking again soon, specifically about his new installations (and maybe something he’s doing on BiW? maybe?!?) but we’ll have to wait and see for that. I kept all the line breaks because I love how it reads like poetry in places:

Amy Freelunch: Tell me about Frank Baum and the Victorians and their relationship to virtual worlds
AM Radio: wow
AM Radio: haha
AM Radio: this is a long answer
AM Radio: Well Second Lifers were presented with a world where suddenly people could make things, easily. Right? from shoes to farm equipment to jewelry.
AM Radio: and you could make identical copies
AM Radio: over and over and over

Amy Freelunch: and that’s similar to the Victorians and the birth of industrialization

AM Radio: right
AM Radio: however something else happened at the same time [for the Victorians]
AM Radio: something so exciting, so undervalued.
AM Radio: the photograph.
AM Radio: but not the photograph itself
AM Radio: [but] what it represented.
AM Radio: Previously when the news of say a President’s assassination was sent out, it took days, there were rumors and disbelief, and untruths about the events.
AM Radio: suddenly here was something, a virtual representation of the truth
AM Radio: that could be shared,
AM Radio: replicated and presented to everyone
AM Radio: as science

Amy Freelunch: that’s interesting too, because I think about someone like Muybridge in relation to your work
AM Radio: yes yes

Amy Freelunch: and of course, now you’re making me think of Walter Benjamin
AM Radio: but also
AM Radio: for example the photo of Lincoln’s death
AM Radio: has a profound affect, I believe on the preservation of the union at so critical a time.

Amy Freelunch: right
AM Radio: the sharing of information is virtualized
AM Radio: people now have a way to dissassociate their own experience
AM Radio: and experience it through someone else

AM Radio: at this moment
AM Radio: mankind is ready for virtual worlds
AM Radio: and all the technology
AM Radio: photographs, phonographs, radios
AM Radio: is all about creating alternate states for the viewer
AM Radio: art
AM Radio: even.
AM Radio: So the Victorians are the first there.

Can’t wait to talk more with AM.

art | 1 Comment »

Hoping the answer is yes, I wanted to post this video by AM Radio which documents some of his recent projects in Second Life:

Ok, I’m actually not really stalking AM – I am really just a fan who, as a combination of being happily married and fully medicated, no longer stalks strange men whose work I obsess over. But I am totally fascinated with his work and think it raises some of the best questions being raised by art in SL today. I keep hoping to meet up with him in world and somehow it keeps not working (I can’t be totally sure he hasn’t filed a virtual restraining order just yet and frankly, wouldn’t blame him if he did); if a proper interview doesn’t happen over the next couple of days, I’m just going to go ahead and write an article about his work. But I wanted to post this video as a teaser so you can see just how good his work is and why, after all, I keep obsessing.

art | No Comments »

Artists of Second Life, we need you. We need you to bring your stuff – your art, your things (interpret freely!)! – to BiW.

We’ve had some amazing contributors over the last few weeks, but I really want to start diversifying who we talk about in the podcast, and start talking about some different people. Of course, in order to do this, those different people need to come over to our sim and leave us something so we can talk about it. It doesn’t really work otherwise.

Somebody sitting out there reading this has an idea in their head for some sort of project. They want to put it on the sim, but they haven’t yet for some reason. This is silliness! Step up! Bring us your work! We’re not all that mean! We will give you exposure for your work and it will get beamed into a serious NYC art gallery!

In the meantime, I submit to you, the creative population of SL, the first (of what I assume will be many) recruitment posts, this time in the form of a love letter:

Dear AM Radio,

Creepily,
Amy Freelunch

I apologize for the bit about the oozing, but it’s a geniune call: If you know AM, if you think he’d even be open to doing something on our sim, point him our way! And then he and Amy Freelunch can have virtual babies together. It’ll be awesome.

art | 9 Comments »