Private Eye

Sadly, you'll never see Photo of the Month; this is a PG blog. It's of Georg Janick, wandering about Caerleon with his penis out. Questions whir across your mind - Who was the lucky non-gender-specific lady? swiftly followed by - How can you eliminate every atom of that mental image from your mind? and then - Is she kidding? Idk, with difficulty, and no.
Then again, it was at Caerleon, so maybe it was Performance Art? An ironic acknowledgment of general opinion? No, he'd have to wear the attachment a lot higher up for that to make sense.
Which brings us to: What is proper SLettiquette when you see unexpected genitalia in a public place? (Snapping a discreet photo is a given.) A floating tag above your head saying 'WANG ALERT' might make the people around you check their fly, but that seems a bit too client-side. Any suggestions?
I miss the heyday of the SL Fashion Police, so much better than the halitosis pumped out by shut-ins like Prok, Saveme and Crap.
Non-gender-specific ladies is a misnomer, of course; any real woman will tell you that we can all specifically spot a shemale a mile away, but like the Happy in the Room, we choose to pretend we haven't noticed, mostly out of pity, sometimes out of friendship. It's not an anti-gay/bi curious thing, it's an anti-don't take me for a moron thing. Everything from word choice to wardrobe lets us know you're a hetero father of three, just like you know we're not 21, and imagining anyone has anyone fooled is beneath your intelligence.
But then that whole Avatar Identity stuff is arrant (and arrogant) nonsense. You don't 'become someone else' when you enter a virtual world - your talent, real life experience, morals, and education don't suddenly take a giant leap forward when you log into SL. *Gosh, imagine those dire poetry evenings and art openings if that were actually possible.* You just drop some of your inhibitions, that's all.
When you open your mouth and move, the real you is revealed, whether you're aware of it or not. For some, that's a wonderful revelation worth sharing with the world, but in many cases, well, let's just say it would be better if you kept it in your pants.

Whoot

There's no getting away from it, you can always recognize a Caerleon build. No matter who is in charge of the construction, or whether you're in SL or reactiongrid, they suggest the study of an absent-minded professor, a mess of precious manuscripts and useful equations jumbled about the place. The cardigan and pipe tobacco imagery fade, though, when you get down to the individual sections of the build, and the new show Identity is no exception. A work in progress for about a year, it will be up through the month of October, starting this Saturday.

Marshalled by the talented Freewee Ling, many fine artists have become involved with the project, I'm sure you can find a copy-n-paste to give you all eighteen names. Best of all, check out Botgirl's manly blog on the subject - OK, don't actually read the whole press release, it's like War and Peace, but there's a video presentation, Woot! It's a great introduction to the show, as well as a fine example of why voice morphing wins hands down as the creepiest idea LL ever came up with.

So are we all

They whisper, shout and speak about love, poetry, politics, and location, about real life and about their experience of Second Life, and the fear of mayonnaise. In the shallows below Caerleon, among the pillars by Oberon Onmura, beautiful music weaves wavelets of individual thought into an ocean of shared experience. Until you go, this will probably make no sense.

Today there was the preview on Caerleon Isle of Your Voice as Art, Field of Voices, by Sowa Mai - Banrion Constantine and it officially opens on Wednesday April 7th which is why I am not giving you the SLURL. The note explains all the fancy stuff, who did what, grateful thanks etc., I'm certainly not going to cut n paste it here, but will point out that this is part of a Through the Virtual Looking Glass, involving galleries both in Second Life and in RL locations across Europe and the US. TP to the platform, and allow more than a few moments to rez, otherwise you might not get the full effect.

There was this tee shirt on offer, when the call for voices went out, and it rocks. A simple request, say something to Sowa Mai, I wonder if any of us imagined such a dreamworld would be patchworked together from all our mere five seconds ... mine is the lamest of all, but don't let it stop you wandering through the columns, enjoying the sunlight there are so many thoughtful and charming fragments here, from the exotically obscure, to the famous tones of Torley. Make sure you visit soon. It will make your spirit smile.

Come forse avrai sentito, sta per incominciare una grande iniziativa RL-SL : Attraverso lo specchio virtuale, un'esposizione mondiale in gallerie europee, statunitensi, australiane e metaversali. Partecipano PiRats, CARP, l'UWA, il museo del Metaverso e altri istituti prestigiosi e ci saranno machinima, esposizioni di sculture virtuali e reali, fotografie, discorsi, premi e serate splendide... arriva il sole anche in Second Life.

Ho ricevuto oggi all'ora di pranzo l'invito all'anteprima della luminosa incantevole istallazione di Sowa Mai  e Banrion Constantine. Il nome di Sowa Mai è un gioco di parole, vuol dire 'lo sono anch'io' ed è un nome significativo: quest'opera d'arte è fatta di voci reali, con l'intento di ricordarci che siamo ognuno di noi dietro l'avatar, persone vere, simili e diversissime. Le voci raccontano paure, idee politiche, poesie, saluti, parolacce, risate, speranze. Hanno preso le nostre frasi e hanno cucito un mare di esperienza comune, una foresta viva che fa cantare il cuore. 

Troverai le voci su Caerleon Isle, non vi do oggi il SLURL della mostra, ma da mercoledi in poi sarà aperto al pubblico. Spero che anche tu farai una passeggiata tra le nostre voci, che sono anche la tua...

Quoth Thoth

And again, unto me spoke the Seven, saying:

Child of the LIGHT, O THOTH, art thou,

free to travel the bright path upward

until at last ALL ONES become ONE

The Emerald Tablets of Thoth, The Seven Lords

Open Habitat is a sim and a group of about 700 oriented around science, philosophy, critical thinking, and the arts owned and founded by Maria Blaisdale. She was involved with the original Open Habitat, a project by Oxford's philosophy department to explore how SL could be used for teaching, etc. Maria took over the sim when the "experiment" ended.
Thoth Jantzen is an advisor and instigator to the group, his build "Cosmique III" is part of the 'art' angle. It's a unique place for people to go for some fun, and to help raise funds to defray the cost of the place. Philosophy and science have been the main focus of most of Open Habitat's events - some of them streaming a live debates from London. Philosopher Stephen Law came into SL to discuss a book of his, and they hold weekly discussions on philosophy, psychology, and and science led by professors and working professionals. For art, there's some work there by the likes of Artistide Despres and Glyph Graves. The Cosmique III are consists of various goodies, like the ground-level art gallery, which has Thoth's sculptures and a nice installation on a King Tut theme complete with a Mask of Tut that comes from the lost and lamented Rezzable show. You can TP to the Kaleidoscope, to the media active gallery and other places, from a Stonehenge portal system (it's like falling through the Time Tunnel!) Since names were being dropped, I asked Thoth how he picked his own...
Thoth Jantzen: The metaphor associated with the ancient Egyptian gods Thoth and Anubis tie together in different ways to a lot of interests I have; science, philosophy, linguistics, the arts, and I'm a bit involved on some community projects relating to those topics. About three years ago I started Thothica SL, an SL community focused on science, the arts, and philosophy, which is still going strong under the guidance of some friends,who have done most of the work, I'd say it's my "best" creation in SL.
We went to the nth dimension dance cubes, where "The Carnival Is Over" by Dead Can Dance was playing; all the constructs and sculptures are in sync with whatever is playing in the parcel at the time - can you imagine the chaos if it were otherwise? - but that particular song was so perfect for the visual effects, it was mesmerizing. All this tp-ing and bright lights, half the time I didn't know where I was, but that's how I roll. There was what I took to be Cirque du Soleil and Elton John live... it's very Vegas, ideal for such a big energy rich immersive experience. Staring at dear old Sir Eltie doing his thing all over the globe, I asked the usual question and after some 'Oh, there are so many to choose from' hedging, Thoth came up with two artists he feels worthy of being imported, interpreted and generally feted in Second Life.
Thoth Jantzen: Albert Einstein and Leonhard Euler. The formula's they've given the world embody SO much that's so deep, so important, and so simply and elegantly that in addition to the scientific value, there's a deep beauty that, I feel, certainly qualifies as art. As for how to best represent them in SL, I have zero clue...

Well, that's OK, I have no clue who Leonhard Euler even is.
We went to the media active art gallery and I admired the unique pieces by Feathers Boa, Glyph Graves, and 9-volt Borkotron. I asked Thoth about artistic collaboration in SL.
Thoth Jantzen: It means that some really good artists who'd otherwise not have much exposure get a chance to have their work seen by a lot of people. I've been involved in some groups and collaborations, including Diabolus and Caerleon. Collaboration in larger groups is sorta like herding cats when you talk about artists, and while the results can be great, the process can be...difficult, shall we say! Anyway, I see myself more as a builder. In a sense, all I really do is create a canvas on which the real art paints itself - in my case, music videos. When I came into SL, i had no idea I'd do much in the way of actual building, let alone anything resembling art. I was more interested in learning and community building. I sort of fell into the kaleidoscopic, 'media-active' stuff fooling around with some video screens one day. I felt that the normal flat screens were boring, and that was the start of what you see here now. The V-Max is possibly my favorite piece in SL, but the "Octoscope" on ReactionGrid is the newest and, I think, the nicest thing I've built so far. Working with the Caerleon Art Collection on the Reaction Grid - is great - sort of like 'pioneering', as Georg Janick likes to put it. The folks who run RG are great, very responsive, and despite a lot of unexpected "learning moments", it's been really good so far there. Places based on the OpenSim software, like ReactionGrid, SpotOn3D, and OpenSim, are growing in numbers and in size, and offer options to everyone, from artists and educators to businesses and institutions, and the casual user. I've recently begun to spread my 'virtual wings' to other places, and from what I've seen, it'd be a great idea for others to do it, too. Being 'virtually mobile' doesn't mean you have to abandon SL, but it does give you more options to explore things (waves hand) 'out there'...