Node Zero Opening

We've got a new show opening at the Node Zero Gallery. Our theme this time around is 'The Senses of the Ghost in The Machine'. The work being shown raises questions of how our technology would see, hear, touch, and percieve us and it's surroundings were it given our sensory inputs. The show is a look at how we are filtered, translated, and reflected in our technology and how that relationship is evolving in virtual worlds.

We have the work of 6 artists on display, including Ub Yifu, Georg Janick, Adam Ramona, Aiyas Aya, Feathers Boa, and Bryn Oh (whose incredible sculpture work you see in the image above).

We are having a public opening of the show tonight (Thursday) at 6-9pm SL time. As well we will have an event where the artists will attend for the public to speak with on Sunday. Stop by and have a look http://slurl.com/secondlife/Vaoetere/61/190/286 .

Caerleon has arrived

Our idealist socialist art colony is finally ready for us to start experimenting with. The ever gracious Georg Janick purchased an entire sim that myself and a few other artists from different disciplines will occupy as our homebase. The island will play host to artistic collaborations, events, discussion and education. Above I'm sitting with Georg, Nonnatus (an Australia New Media artist), and the ever famous Torch Angel.

I spent the night dumbfounded, not knowing what to so with all the space and prims to work with and this is what my playing took shape as. I call it my cubicle.

Come visit us on Caerleon here...
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caerleon%20Isle/41/46/30

David Rumsey Maps

A fellow named David Rumsey has an entire island in Second Life that is a topographical map of Yosemite Valley, with the actual topography moulded in 3D space. It's pretty interesting to walk through a 3D space that is covered in a 2D human diagram of space and feel like their is something tangible about it. It's also funny that when I was in public school, a computer model of real topography was something that required a team of speialized Hollywood actors playing specialized Harvard scientists, but now David Rumsey has done it on his own for anyone with a free account to walk around.

Public Presentation Strategy

I've really been struggling with how to present my thesis study in a way that clearly communicates what I've been going on about all year and is also interactive and dynamic itself. After being told repeatedly that I was trying to do too much at once, I finally took it to heart and realized that perhaps it was true. So for my public presentation I've decided to focus mostly on only one of my 'three tiers of enquiry' (the gallery, interviews, and art projects). What I've decided to do is make my public presentation a final 'artwork' that embodies the very properties of virtual worlds that I've been trying to discover. Viewers will be able to experience these properties rather than read them.

The piece will be a collaborative creation between avatars and real life viewers that exists in both physical and virtual spaces. The piece is named "Basic Building Blocks of Mixed Reality" and the image above is a Second Life recreation of the real life installation.

Real life viewers will enter a room, see many 6" cubes (the most common primitive used in 3D modelling) and a large projection of Second Life. The viewer will see a live video feed of themselves on a large 'billboard' inside of Second Life.

In Second Life, a group of artists from around the world will gather around this 'billboard'. The artists will be surrounded by similar looking cubes in the virtual space. Real life users and Second Life artists will be able to communicate via microphone conversation as well as this visual setup.

On Day 1, Second Life artists will begin arranging the virtual cubes into a structure. They will also prompt real life users to build similar structures in front of the Second Life projection using the physical cubes. Each group (virtual artists and physical viewers/users) will then collaboratively create constantly evolving structures which are influenced by a backdrop of the other groups build.

To re-iterate, real life users will come and go, each adding a little to the physical structure in front of a projection of the Second Life artists' structure. Alternatively, Second Life artists will build a structure with their virtual cubes infront of a large video feed of the real life users' structure. This two way building of separate structures can instead be viewed as a collaboratively influenced construction of a single inter-related structure which exists within both physical and virtual space.

This installation is meant to highlight the real-time immediacy, 3-dimensionality, collaborative/interactive nature, and global reach of 3D virtual worlds as mediums for the creation of art. To make these themes slightly more transparent, I will also have 3 DVD players with audio and video captured interviews of the Second Life artists that will be participating. This will help to re-iterate the message as well as gives viewers an idea of who it is they are collaborating with.

You can view the Public Presentation Strategy write up for "Basic Building Blocks of Mixed Reality" here .

Digital Afterlife

This is what the afterlife might look like in the future when we have technology implanted into our brains which continues to stimulate our optic nerve after most of our biological brain functions have stopped. A hallucinatory heaven mediated by microprocessors that force feed our senses for the period between life and rotting in the ground.

Either that or it's a snapshot of a new build I am working on in Second Life.

Beauties Part 2 and so on.

I've installed "The Beauties of Flourescent Blur; Usher Out Our Tungsten Glow" a second time at the 'Art Maniacs' gallery in Second Life (VIT World, 33,33,33). The build is much bigger this time and includes an optical illusion that attempts to 'bend' space and further the message of the piece, if you are interested, you can read my statement here.

In other news, Georg Janick, a professor at the University of Massechuchets has purchased an entire island inside of Second Life which will become the home of an art collective/social experiment playing with socialist ideals and open-source style knowledge sharing. The island is not yet live but it will host a small community of artists from many different disciplines who will work together to learn, teach and express themselves. Will keep you posted.

In yet other news, the Node Zero Gallery has recieved a bit of a facelift and a new exhibition is installed there (Vaoetere, 60,217,289). Here are some snapshots...

The trouble with virtual life...

Is that is has no expiry date.