Virtual Faith

Clouds of myst'ry pourin'

Confusion on the ground,

Good men through the ages

Tried to find the sun...

Creedence Clearwater Revival,  Who'll Stop The Rain

This week on the piece of grass next to the Omega snowglobe at PiRats you can see Totem, the new installation by Kolor Fall. The heart of this piece is a painting Kolor did last Saturday, look here to see it coming together.

 Kolor's experimenting with oils rather than his usual acrylics here, mixing his own colours and, in this case, has tried stand oil, perfect for keeping those whites white as well as reducing drying time. There's a figure towards the centre of the painting, and below two more, locked, it seems, in an endless embrace. Inworld, Kolor's imported the picture and then set it up on two prims in such a way as to create depth of field, the particles standing out in the foreground just as they do on the RL painting. More than that, he has expanded the concept into the familiar surroundings of his virtual playground, placing sections of the texture on columns and blocks and bubbles, filling the space with his own cello composition, over-arched by a strange dark forceful shape, reflected in the PiRats sea.

Is this our world, in the painting? Is that us, lost in the embrace of equals, surveyed from some hazy and unelaborated higher ground? Is that a tunnel, or perhaps a throat, an ascent among the chords, or a descent into the language of myth, the lowest form of truth? Trapped in the lag of PiRats, it's easy to see ourselves as primitive beings, victims of the mysterious whims of virtual weather - lag, and missing attachments, region restarts and distorted textures - and the power of the pantheon of Lindens who may or may not be directing our lives. Are they our totem? Not in the wooden pole sense, but in the anthropological sense, a non-human entity watching over the global clan. Should we believe in them? There are better blogs on the subject, no doubt, so I'll just take a page out of  Lévi Strauss' book and give you a field example: A woman told me the other day she felt she was living a charmed life in SL: several land deals had worked out in her favour,  she'd received some L$ from an unexpected source, and then a long-time griefer had suddenly disappeared from circulation. "I'm beginning to believe I have a Guardian Linden," she said, quite seriously.

Absurd, of course... or is it? The name itself is dense with signifying function. For unclubbable me, they never cross my mind; but two camps make their voices heard - those who see in Linden an almost malefic force, to be endured rather than appreciated, and those who read 'knowing a Linden' as a badge of pride. For the latter, does Kolor's opportunity to write an original piece of music for the opening of M Linden's art show place him high on that vague staircase between the watcher and the couple below? And vice versa? Does the totem choose and exclude? Are not all avatars equal, or are they only equal to their potential?
Is that going too far? In the language of California's Wintu tribe, there are five 'kinds' of knowledge: knowledge obtained through the eyes, or through other physical experience, knowledge reached through inference, or through deduction, and knowledge gained by hearsay. In a world made up of light and shadow, and the whispering grapevines of blogs and forums, the totem hangs in the hearsay, cord in hand, capable of pulling the plug on us all at any minute. Or is the Grid the totem, at turns dispassionate and spiteful, spectacularly open and then painfully narrow, freezing and freeing according to the rules of magic, not science? Among these forces, there are men and women, tinkerers and engineers, who have know how. Is the totem the knowhow itself?

I put it to Kolor that he is a shaman, manipulating the totem but not in control of it.
Kolor Fall: I'm not sure what to make of it myself. I for sure don't control it, I guess I "guide" it. This is running on a equation that I just slightly modified. I didn't place any of the prims ... aside from the invisible ones that are in the center of it. It moved the prims itself -  keeps on moving them actually ... a bit too much I think.
Certainly the version of Totem on sim Kolor is easier on the eye. It has a desolate quality that suggests it is far less visited than the PiRats sim; the construction has the advantage of being in its own element, not sandwiched between the other  exhibits, and here Kolor has added an extra feature.

Kolor Fall: Pirats is the same number of prims I think ... but there is no animal in the Pirats one; actually I think this would be cooler with less prims. Oh .. that's the totem animal, I guess... who knows? It's fun,  not so scary.
A personal totem, perhaps? Is the totem the viewer itself, the idiosyncratic gaze? At Pirats, a full sim is a captive audience, seeing and being seen, sharing lag and laughter, a source of satisfaction and performance anxiety for the artists and organizers; but when it comes to Totem, this audience in this setting is unlikely to observe the big picture. Yet they come and look. The instinct for huddling together, even in a world of effortless communication, remains one of the strongest forces at work. Can you see it? A constellation of far-flung illuminated screens, bright eyes and minds drawn to the warmth of shared praise, inventing and swapping accolades to glue themselves above and among each other, straying from the prosaic into the magical to find a frame of reference,  tumbling down the steps of emotion and intellect, drama and invention, concrete acts and rites, staging an epic tale on a platform as wide as the world. Do you believe that anybody is watching?

Cheep and Cheerful: Maya Paris' NightBirds

Fresh from the triumph of her bird-up-chimney chairs at IMPOCA, Maya Paris has a new exhibit on the lawn in front of the Omega Art Space and it opens today.

Set your world view to midnight and experience NightBirds, another interactive funscape, complete with beak, wings, eggs, animations, and sounds. Get a bird's eye view of Maya's spiky shiny imagination by roosting in the nests and embracing your inner egg - or beat a clutch of them and discover your own tune in the combination of their birdsongs, some supplied by Maya herself, others by folk singer and ornithological whistler, Man of Kent Nigel Hobbins. (Click and follow the links! He is hot and his new CD 'Out Of His Tree' sounds great... the accent is to die for!)

Maya Paris: Nigel is a friend of mine, and he provided the song of the yellowhammer and the chiffchaff, which is the first migrant bird we hear in the spring here in England. If you sit on an egg I can make you hop.
I like hopping. The nestiness was great fun, and all the eggs reminded me a little bit of Maya's Burning Life kitchen.
Maya Paris: Yes, eggy eggy. Try running around now and look at the grass behind you.

Lots of delicate white circles followed my footsteps and, being a dope, at first I mistook their meaning.
Maya Paris: I was thinking daisies...but if laying eggs works for you:)
Thirza Ember: For a moment there I thought you had invented the fried egg layer.
Maya Paris: It's pretty if you just spin.
It was.
Maya Paris: You can hear your egg?
Thirza Ember: Oh yes, it's whistling.

Maya Paris: Haha! Now click the eggs, and play me a birdsong tune! Oh there are two kinds of wings, feathery and pointy, and they have a flight assist, so if you ever need to fly really high, they will take you.
Thirza Ember: That is wonderful. I have a lot of wing envy.

Maya Paris: I can't wait to hear what this sounds like with a lot of people, I'm hoping it will sound like a flock of birds all chattering.
Just like your average vernissage, then, I thought.
Be at Omega tonight, there are lots of goodies in the globe, I liked Treacle Darlandes' 'The Storm' which is the pyramid installation in the foreground here.

And since we're on the subject of bluetits and loons, don't miss dear Gleman Jun's award-winning (oh my how he loves when I say that) 'Flame of creativity' and other artful and humourous pieces on Omega's top shelf.

Must fly.

New York State of Mind

Last week we went to New York for a few days, to see if we'd like it, my alt and me. My alt got sick and complained a lot, but I had the best time. First of all, the apartment was beautiful. There was a nice kitchen, and although we mostly ordered-in absurd quantities of Asian Fusion cuisine, I did make coffee - there and I bet you didn't think I knew how to boil water.

It was cold in New York. Definitely fluffy scarf and boot weather. The house is close to the Park, which looks as if it was just abandoned to the wildlife when they built all the skyscrapers, although of course this is cunning terraforming - Central Park is entirely artificial, from the lakes to the rocky outcrops to the lawns. Just our kind of place, except for the dirty snow.

A short walk along 5th Avenue takes you to Museum Mile - I'm such an uptown girl, my first stop was the Metropolitan Museum. I could have spent a week just wandering around in there. I really enjoyed John Singer Sargent's ladies, who look very primped and primmy. That neck is way too long to be real, isn't it? And if that hair isn't a wig...

I moved on to the Picasso room, where everybody was being awfully careful not to fall on the paintings - don't laugh, back in January someone managed to stumble right into 'The Actor' and tear it - how embarrassing! I thought it would be safer to sit down a bit, to avoid stiletto-related repeats of the incident. As you can see, pretty much everyone else had the same idea.

I went by that picture of Mao, and saw Damien Hurst's ridiculous shark - we have much better sharks in SL, ones that move... I was also fascinated by Pablo Bronstein's exhibition in which he assigns a mythical history to the Met, through pseudo-archival 'documents' - it was so our cup of tea. Pretty tiring, walking about in these shoes, so I finally assumed the position before some magnificent Pollocks.

My favourite bit in the whole of the Met was the Bronzino exhibition, I am all over Mannerism, it rocks, but it was too gloomy in the rooms for taking photos, where's the Full Bright when you need it. The most depressing part was the recreation of 17th and 18th century European rooms from Great Houses, ripped out of their homes and transplanted here with infinite care and attention to detail. Their doors and windows going nowhere, they always remind me of the elderly pickled organs you see in Natural History Museums, out of time and place. But one of them had a harp in the corner, so I just had to go in and sit for a while.

The Guggenheim, (entrance fee $18 - I just TP'd past the hippy at the ticket desk) is surprisingly dull inside. Talking about Mannerism, and long slow spirals, I think these people should check out the Scala Regia of the Villa Farnese at Caprarola before getting on their high horse about the 'originality' of this place. You aren't allowed to take photos of the interior of the Guggenheim, which frankly could do with a fresh coat of paint, so just for fun I went into one of the single unisex loos and took a few shots; when I came out there were two Eastern European cleaners eyeing me suspiciously.

Manhattan is just London all straightened out and simplified. I eschewed all the usual shots as I walked by, just to be boring - on the whole I tried to stay on the quieter streets, away from the unfathomable famousness born of the knowing nods of what felt like millions of passing tourists.  Lots of good food to be had, of course, though Italian cookery really doesn't make the transatlantic journey intact. With my little waistline, that was probably just as well.

Eventually I headed to Soho. The best way to get there is on the subway, which is small and easy and like a love affair, a jostling journey in the company of strangers, fraught with the anxiety of misread signals, and the fear of not arriving at one's destination, or of going too far with disastrous consequences.

At Broadway I lingered on the platform. After the rush of the train, it was very quiet. The few passengers hurried up the stairs out onto the street, having places to be, and things to do. They barely noticed the platform beneath their feet and the tunnel around them, this transitional space, this essential non-entity, between coming and going.

Not me. I had arrived. I saw the stains on the wall and the font of the signboards. I saw rats in a puddle. I saw the reflection of the neon lights on the tiles. I looked at the posters and the black trough where the trains run into the velvety thereafter.

I stopped and really saw it because I had been here before, here in SL at Pirats. Igor Ballyhoo's installation richly and masterfully captures the essence of the station as a physical space, and then re-illuminates the whole with photographs of the city, animated by trains. Here are a few photos of photos... but hurry, while it is still there, go and visit it for yourself.
Oh and then I had some rice.

Wall to Wall

Teacher: Get on with your work.

Pink Floyd, The Wall.

About an hour north of Beijing, draped along the the dry mountain ridges of Luanping county, is the Jinshanling section of the Great Wall of China. In the 1500's, under the watchful eye of the great General Qi Jiguang, tireless militarist, writer and poet, the wall was reinforced and manned by soldiers from Zanjiang by the South China Sea, where the winters are mild and the summers are long and languorous. So far from home, guarding the Northern Frontier from the Mongol hordes, the soldiers renamed the towers in memory of their home, and retold the legends of this most ancient borderland, legends rich with the threads of history, spread out across all the space and time of real history and into the virtual world of myth. There is nothing new under the sun.

Second Life's Great Wall is part of the Hosoi group of sims, and as you would expect, is beautifully crafted. The Welcome area is heavy on ads for modular and light on interpretive material, which is a shame, and if you're tall like Thirza you may have trouble getting through the doorway (I ended up flying over the wall, very Crouching Tiger). Not unreasonably, there's lots of non-realworld ocean around - I like to call it the Metarranean - but that just makes the photos pretty in windlight. Despite the proximity to the always busy sims of Hosoi Ichiba and the Edo period village on Japan Kansai, sim Mao has captured limnal loneliness one associates with the Great Wall, or even Hadrian's little version: it is easy to imagine a melancholy watcher up here, waiting for the action to start: speaking of that, at another wall...

This time at Diabolus, where Josina Burgess, Velasquez Bonetto and the rest of the C.A.R.P. gang are into their third incarnation of The Wall, the original soundtrack, with, and I quote, " an extravaganza of sound, light, dance, giant animated puppets, effects and many other surprises". The Wall is the rather miserable story of the descent into madness of a failing pop star, whose childhood, wracked with troubles - open vowel syndrome has always been, to my mind, at the heart of his problems- is brought to the brink through a series of flashbacks and fantastical set pieces... first an album, then a film with the Great Unwashed Bob Geldof, now in gorgeous virtual splendour and judging by the texture-rich set you see here, one can hope for much more than a Saaf-of-the-River accent, and smashed up Hampton Suites.

This pic is borrowed from Josina, for I fell off the sim before the show got underway, underlining once again the huge problem of lag. I know LL want to go in lots of new exciting directions, like getting behind the newish social networking site for avies of all worlds, AU, but really, solving a boring problem like lag would be much more valuable use of time and effort. Anyway, The Wall will be repeated every Friday at 2.00pm SLT for a few weeks, so hopefully we can go and see it in the near future... TP me if you get a good seat!!

Speaking of carp, once kicked from Diabolus, I ended up at another smashing show, by graphics tablet artist Alizarin Goldflake over on one of the Pirats sims. Isn't that a brand of tropical fish food? ...may be where she got her inspiration for these wonderful piscine specimens. You can admire her scales and fins, even swim among them: there are games of proportion and perspective to be played on both sides of the perspex. Visit Alizarin's studio to get the full picture, or if you're in the mood, take the Youtube complete novice tour, it's always fun to hear someone explain prims to the uninitiated. Her "Real identity" site is www.marthavista.com. OK now I suppose I put this all in again in the Other Language...

A circa un'ora da Pechino, disposta come una boa gigante sulle aspre montagne del Luanping, è la parte della Grande Muraglia denominata Jinshanling. Dalle belle torri di guardia oggi sono i turisti a sorvegliare la panorama ma nel '500 erano i leali soldati del Generale Qi Jiguang a tenere alta la guardia contro le incursioni mongole. Erano ragazzi nati nel lontano Zanjiang, una terra lambita dal Mar Cinese, non lontano dal VietNam. Queste secche rocce devono aver provocato una forte nostalgia nei cuori du uomini destinati a lavorare con grande disciplina e progetto per il loro Generale, poeta, docente di storia militare e arti martiali. 

C'è poesia tra queste mura: e se ti fermi e ascolti bene, forse sentirai le leggende del Imperatore di Giada, e del Maestro Ubriaco. Qui alla versione SL della Grande Muraglia si sente quella nostalgia, e il vuoto nello stesso tempo sprigionato e confinato che può esistere solo in un luogo liminale, come qui sulla frontiera... o nel cuore d'un uomo. Qui a pochi passi degli altri sim di  Hosoi Ichiba (da non perdere anche il paesino di epoca Edo!) è possibile trovare la serenità d'un mondo passato ma sempre presente,  dove in un certo senso il muro siamo noi...

...e da un muro ad un altro, la nuova produzione CARP Diabolus Josina Burgess, Velasquez Bonetto

e i loro collaboratori hanno perfezionato la loro versione del musical The Wall, di Pink Floyd, la storia della tragica esistenza d'un rock star Pink, drogato e sull'orlo della follia. Prima un album poi un film, ora rinato in SL con pupazzi giganti come vedi in questa foto. Tantissmi presenti per lo show di venerdi, non sono riuscita a rimanere al mio posto, ma spero di tornarci presto - la notice promette una replica ogni venerdi alle ore 14.00 SLT.
Fa meditare su una nuova versione del ritornello fanciullesco di The Wall, 'We don't need no education', forse se cantiamo ai Linden, con quello stesso accento orribile, 'We don't need no lag' si arrenderanno e risolveranno il problema, invece di perdere tempo promuovendo iniziative carine ma inutili come Avatars United.

Infine, una visita a Pirats dove non manco mai, e alla mostra di Alizarin Goldflake. Bravissima artista digitale, crea con Corel immagini molto delicati, e anche divertenti, ha portato in SL deliziosi pesci e piante acquatiche, grandi e piccoli. Puoi nuotare nel acquaio o semplicemente studiare lo squame da vicino... per conoscere meglio tutte le opere di Alizarin sia su Youtube che al suo studio inworld, basta un clic. Uffa... che voglia di fish and chips.....

        

Shortlist, hard workers

In praise of hard workers.

With the festive season behind you, the new year beckons full of promise and surpises, and what better time to stop and remember all the hard-working individuals who provide so much delight. Below are just some of the people and places that have caught my eye, I bet you can think of many more. Why not drop me a note inworld about your favourite place or group, so we can give them a shout-out here on SLArtsParks? Prefer to leave a comment? You can do so at the bottom of this post, or go over to our ning site and join us there!

First call, the incredibly hard-working Madmaninc Zapatero, seen here in his green lenses.

Do not miss the Festival of Short Film at Phantasmagoria Theater  GOING ON RIGHT NOW! Madmaninc has put together an extraordinary display of talent. Dozens of new short films, from mystery to docu-steampunk, to animation, to abstract art, the choice is yours, 24/7. What a treat! It's a brilliant way to see new talent and expression in bite-size form. You might also want to check out Phantasmagoria's presence on myspace  and at blip.tv(where you can see a video of their New Year's Eve party - these people know how to have a good time!) or subscribe to the podcast at itunes. (Make sure you have the latest Quicktime download, other wise you won't see anything.)

 On the musical front,  Nasus Dumart and the team over at Molaskey's Pub have put on some wonderful music, including the great Frets Nirvana and the past few months have seen a return to the music scene of my personal music-god, Von Johin.

May his tunes last forever!! Thanks to Votslav Hax, BobbiJo and the rest of the Symbiotic team for their unceasing efforts to bring us great talent. There are dozens of gallery owners who deserve praise, I'll just mention PiRats' super-duo Newbab Zsigmond and Merlina Rokocoko, supercool Zachh Cale over at project Z and the truly tireless Lion Igaly whose Diadem gallery just found a new home at sim imparafacile.

In the literary world, the variety of venues, genres and types of activity open to readers and writers is really breathatking, and the amazing work of people like Kghia Gherardi, Harriet Gausman, Jilly Kidd, JJ Drinkwater and the beautiful people over at West of Ireland deserves a standing ovation (though they might prefer a nice sit down and a cup of tea). Much praise goes to the hard work of the team behind the Antica stamperia Il Faro, which produces virtual books in Italian, and the fascinating series Scienza on the road, presented by Giovanna Delphin who, together with Marjorie Fargis brings many an Italian event alive with professionalism and good humour. Not always easy to do with the vagaries of SL performance!

Such a short list, for every name here mentioned there are dozens more, I'm aware... who springs to your mind? Let me know! Links, landmarks, hints and ideas all gratefully received! and with your contributions, what an exciting new year of discovery it's going to be!

The eyes have it

A recevoir tant de cervelles estrangeres,
et si fortes, et si grandes,
il est necessaire que la sienne se foule,
se contraigne et rappetisse,
pour faire place aux autres.

Montaigne 1:XXIV

It's always been a weakness of mine, a man in a kilt, or rather, commenting on a man in a kilt. The possibilities for humour are almost endless. Last night these was just such a specimen at the opening of the black and white photography show of Newbab Zsigmond at Tanalois. Newbab's photos are just splendid, real-world pictures with that otherworldly aura only black and white can reveal, the veiled spectre of feelings frozen in time, in a face, in a landscape. It is hard to believe it is his first solo photo show, he and partner Merlina Rokocoko are stand-out talents in their own right, as well as generous patrons and enthusiastic promotors of art in and off-world via the PiRats sims and their excellent website which, for some bizarre reason, I'd not thought of adding to the 'Other Blogs in English' list to your left. Until now. He has a wonderful eye for a landscape, and the portraits, many of them Merlina in RL, are just beautiful. Really worth checking out.
The man in the kilt was Igor Ballyhoo turned out to be more Bosnia than Bannockburn, if you know what I mean. And, yes, apparently it is airy down there. He did the usual wordskirimishing when I asked him if he was a producer or consumer of art, which is understandable, the word 'artist' is so loaded these days and few wish to come off sounding precious, even though they are rightly proud of their accomplishments.
I thought I remembered the name, and then he mentioned his Gargantuan Uterus /me clears throat and quotes from notecard:

"Welcome to the Gargantuan Uterus! It is made with only one idea - recreation of most important moment in universe ! All of us that come here have been already in this situation in RL, some time ago. So, my plan is simple: First, join Pirats group so you can rezz here !Grab for free the two vehicles here, (sperm-mobile and eggcell-mobile) rezz either of them - never mind which one, we are all made of both of these, sit in it and drive around bumping in other vehicles ! That is moment of creation of life !"

In the picture, that's me wearing egg and sperm at the same time (oooh! miracle of life!) as I wanted you to see how fun both vehicles are, and I was by myself... hey, who're you calling hermaphrothingy... The vehicles, are copy /transfer, but note the notecard warning: "If you sell it for money, God give you hemorrhoids!"

Meanwhile, back in the gallery... Igor offered to show me his 'axis of life' which turned out not to be a kilt-related offer but an Actual Thing Worth Seeing, on sim Salmo, one of a number of places the Itinerant Igor graces with this creations. Here it is, the axis mundi the centre of the universe, the point in which all the good and evil of the metaverse come together in mirrored glory. The next words out of my mouth you already know... but you get a better look at the bird bit of the installation down in the Italian blurb. And no, it's not my crappy camera, he really has no eyes, he told me he doesn't need them. No eyes, no trousers, we may have a theme developing here... Turned out, there was more - a whole platform of other sculptures including these two magnificent angels, and a very disturbed half-child... the top half, with tentacle arms that Igor said wants to embrace the world... if I were the world I'd stand well back. You can see what I mean down below.Back in his castle, next to his large fire and little scissor table (don't run with it) Igor told me of his love of classical music - witness the very nice chairs are upholstered with the score of Bach's Kunst der fuge (that's Laibach's version of it). As a final treat he showed me his pièce de resistance.... a magical music box that plays Für Elise or, as we used to call it when I was a child at piano lessons, furry knees. Anyway he made all of it, the beautiful carillon sounds, the moving parts, the textures, it is just beautiful! I'm hoping when he reads this he will give me one. Oh come on, what is it with you today? the box, I mean. Bellissime le foto di Newbab Zsigmond in mostra a Tanalois questa settimana, foto bianco e nero di RL; paesaggi misteriosi e ritratti luminosi frammenti di una vita reale ricca e nostalgica. Impossibile credere che si tratti della prima volta che il fondatore di PiRats, uno dei gruppi artistici più prestigiosi di SL, abbia voluto condividere con noi le foto della sua Francia e i ritratti della sua bellissima moglie Nathalie in SL Merlina Rokocoko.
Mentre ammiravo le foto ho notato una persona senza occhi e ...senza pantaloni e naturalmente mi sono presentata. Ho riconosciuto il nome, si trattava di Igor Ballyhoo ormai famoso a PiRats per il suo Utero gargantuo.... guarda meno brutto di quanto può sembrare, ci sono piccole navicelle, uno spermatozoide, e un... vabe' non sarò certo io a spiegarti come funzionano queste cose...

Igor mi ha proposto una visita al suo axis mundi e non ho saputo dire di no... ed eccolo il punto d'incontro tra il bene e il male, il positivo e il negativo di SL, come due piante che si rispecchiano un'infinità di rami e uno stormo di colombe, anzi due, uno per ogni albero: in un mondo fatto di tante sfumature creative e emotive qui la certezza del bianco e nero. Mi è piaciuto molto. Igor mi ha voluto mostrare altre altre sue sculture aprendo anch'esse una finestra sulla spiritualità dell'artista. Angeli, monaci e forbici cedono spazio a una figura un po' sinistra, il 'figlio' di Igor ma un bambino a metà, con dei tentacoli al posto delle braccia.... vuole, secondo il suo creatore, avviluppare amorevolmente il mondo; fossi io il mondo mi guarderei bene da un tale abbraccio... Dopo a casa sua, un castello tetro, ci siamo accomodati accanto al tavolino con le gambe a forbici - letteralmente - su queste splendide poltrone ricoperte da una stoffa sulla quale puoi vedere lo spartito del Kunst der fuge . L'artista ama molto la musica classica. Mi ha fatto ascoltare quella versione della fuga, e poi mi ha fatto vedere il tesoro a mio avviso più prezioso della sua collezione, una scatola musicale o carillon davvero strepitosa. Ha creato tutti i pezzi, persino la musica - il per Elisa di Beethoven.

Dalle immagini stupende d'un mondo bianco e nero di Newbab, all'intricato meccanismo del carillon di Igor, il metaverso - o meglio, i creativi del metaverso - non finiscono mai a stupirci, e chissà quante altre preziosissime sorprese ci aspettano ...

Abstra-cadabra

All great art is born

of the metropolis

Ezra Pound

Eye-tallian first again, me hearties, scroll down, it bounces back eventually...

Tre note di un accordo completamente diverse tra di loro ma allo stesso tempo in perfetta sintonia le tre istallazioni giganti visitabili al sim PiRats Art Network già da qualche giorno e in situ fino alla fine dell'anno. Secondo la note in inglese - un incubo di fitte frasi iperboliche - sono tre espressioni dell'astrattismo formale e, visto che si trovano qui nel metaverso, luogo di ipermedia dove il tempo e lo spazio non hanno nessun significato... uh, prova a dirlo a chi non ce l'ha fatto ad essere presente ad un meeting, che il tempo in SL non ha significato... ma tornando a noi, Pirats ci presenta opere dalla fantasia di tre artisti molto differenti tra loro. Il percorso inizia con gli spaghetti parlanti di Werner Kurosawa, due sciami di vermi che imettono suoni e interagiscono tra di loro e con l'avatar, se ci voli in mezzo. Bella anche questa piattaforma che consente allo spettatore la creazione e la disintegrazione degli sciami e di scegliere a quale velocità si muovono. A me piace spingere i bottoni. Accanto, degli oggetti su cui ci si siede per fare un giro che, in mouselook, ti sprigiona dall'avatar e ti fa venire i vertigini. Almeno in teoria. Un posto dove nasce spontanea la voglia di fare foto e girare qualche machinima, di addossare avatar fantascientifici come questo Robot di PAOLOBOLOGNA Vita - la versione vile della pura e buona Maria del film Metropolis.

Da non perdere il fiume immagini di Werner su flickr. Proprio belli i vermi di cromo, in qualsiasi luce, e puoi passare delle ore osservando e magari leggendo le varie notecard e i cartelli a disposizione, io ho preferito osservare i colori e il movimento senza leggere niente. Dai vermi ai tubi, si arriva alla seconda istallazione quella di Lance Shields, dal 2007 in SL come l'ambiguissima Juria Yoshikawa. Si autodefinisce artista multimediale e infatti dentro il percorso oltre alle luci i colori e textures incantevoli ci sono ben 200 suoni diversi. Un nome per l'istallazione non l'ho trovato, forse anche questo fa parte del concetto di una communicazione aldilà del solito 'dialogo antropocentrico'... sono due tunnel e altrettante sfere in cui perdersi, incontrarsi e scontrarsi con angeli e ricordi. Passeggiando e fotografando, ci sembrava sentire la tosse dell'artista, un rubinetto guasto, e i Beatles, e perché no, l'aforisma preferita dell'artista è ''l'Arte è qualsiasi cosa per cui si riesce a restar impunti'... un po' truffatore allora il nostro Lance. Quest'opera si consiglia di impostare il mezzanotte, ma per orientarsi conviene sbirciare un attimo con giorno perché è più grande sdi quanto sembra e rischi di perdere la parte più figo che è la stanza dei peli (la chiamo così io senz'altro ha un nome più sofisticato) nella quale i peli si attaccano all'avatar e si sentono i suoni più disparati.

L'ultima nota appartiene alla grande Josina Burgess in real cantante, pittrice, attrice, designer, ecc. ecc. L'opera si chiama The Turning of the Planets , e mi piace moltissimo. Volare qui dà la sensazione di volare tra galassie delicate e fantasiose. Fuoco e fiori, bolle e penne nascono insieme creando un piccolo universo arioso, nella quale ci si sente libero di attraversare uno spazio macro e microscopico allo stesso tempo.

Parlando di Josina e il suo gruppo CARP, un paio di giorni fa Imparafacile Runo del gruppo omonimo ha organizzato una serata RL-SL a Milano, dove è stato presentato l'ormai famoso spettacolo Metropolis. Leggi un po' qui:

Presentazione del Progetto Open Hospital, a cura di Informatici Senza Frontiere Proiezione dello spettacolo Metropolis Creaticitygate ospita per una sera Informatici Senza Frontiere. In questa occasione verrà presentato al pubblico presente in sala e in Second Life il progetto Open Hospital. Passando dal sociale all’entertainment, seguirà la visione di uno spettacolo molto particolare: una virtual-opera realizzata in Second Life, tratta dal famosissimo film di Fritz Lang Metropolis. Lo spettacolo, realizzato da un gruppo di artisti e performer, i Cybernetic Art Research Project (CARP) guidati dal regista Velazquez Bonetto, viene trasmesso in diretta live negli spazi di CreatiCityGate, sul suo blog, nel circuito congiunto della cineteca online Moovioole e del sindycation[sic LOL] di 2lifecast. Le due proposte possono sembrare molto distanti, ma per le tecnologie usate e per la formula di partecipazione sono accomunate dal medesimo obiettivo: presentare progetti, idee, aziende che parlano attraverso i linguaggi della tecnologia da Milano verso il mondo. E viceversa.

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Whether it's me or SL in general, can't say, but there seems to be a Big Art phase happening, and here's some more examples of it. PiRats is hosting a trio of giant installations on their Art Network sim, three pieces brought together like so many notes from a single chord in the key, I suppose I have to say, of what is termed Hyperformalist Abstract Art. TP to the main entrance and you will find a big board that directs you to each ...tone, no, it's n good I can't keep it up. The exhibition is accompanied by one of those notecards that seems to have been written by a person who swallowed an entire grad school without the requisite chaser of Beano, but don't let that discourage you from beaming up to see the goings on in the sky. First up, Werner Kurosawa who is from Belgium oo and has made these chrome worms which are odd colours in these photos because I was messing about when I took them. On a platform at about halfway up the installation, there are buttons which can stop and start the two contrasting swarms, fast and slow, light and dark, animated by all that algorithmic voodoo. If you fly in the middle, they sort of sing to you, and it's pretty nice. There's also a series of black cushiony things that sweep you around, but they made me sick, so when i was done flying, I kicked back with the good old fashioned couch fidget animation. Photos movies and dressing up seem de rigeur here, in the picture at the top, you can see a twerp I'm acquainted with, sporting a kick-ass Robot Maria avatar inspired by the film Metropolis - more of that in a bit. The avie goes so well with the strings, I just had to show you... itàs the work of PAOLOBOLOGNA Vita (gee guy, inside voice!) and is really nicer than my pic shows. This is a mesmerizing place, even better in Werner's own pics in his photostream on, you guessed it, flickr. Moving onwards and upwards, literally, you come to the second installation this one by the Tokyo-based US artist Lance Shields, better known in SL as Juria Yoshikawa. You're supposed to look at all this in Midnight, but the sensory deprivation that setting affords may mean you miss half the exhibit, which is a lot bigger than at first seems. There are tunnels, spheres and a big box of what I can only describe as sticky noisy hair, look for it, you'll be glad you did. This pic is one of the tunnels, there are some two hundred separate sounds or 'angels' you can bump into or walk through, everything from singing to a choochoo train. I'm allergic to bad music and baby belly laughs, so I keep SL muted, mostly, but this is one occasion I am glad I didn't, as the sounds trip over one another with each step on the blurry, fuzzy, windy path. Out into the fresh air for the last place of ...note. Sorry. This is the work of dress-smith, jazz singer, and all round artiste Josina Burgess and unlike the other installations which don't appear to have a name, feeding into to that whole 'non-anthropocentric' thing, this is called The Turning of the Planets which is a splendid name for these deliciously fragile creations, like an airy nursery of nebulae you can fly among and between, or just sit and stare at on the semi-transparent platforms available on all sides. Flames and feathers and bubbles and beads all come to mind, it's just gorgeous, don't believe me go see with your own cam: the notecard claims here time has been rendered moot, I would have to say not so much, especially if you were supposed to have a moot with someone and you forgot and were 1/2 an hour late because you were staring at this stuff. Talking of Josina reminds me to tell you about a coup for SL in RL, well, sort of, we are talking about Milan, now, so not entirely real by most standards. Josina and her group CARP are famous, you will remember, for their portrayal of the film Metropolis mentioned all over the blogosphere and not least in these columns. In an event organized by the group Imparafacile, their version of Metropolis was performed for a RL IT conference audience in a fancy part of the City of Fashion today Tuesday. Join the group to find out how it all went. Go on I dare you.