Installation ideas.

I've also been thinking about how to present my piece at the end of the year show. Regardless of what it ends up being, I think I will present it as a series of computer kiosks. Originally I was planning on projecting the virtual space, but I think it is more interesting as an intimate experience where a crowd of people aren't watching as you explore the space. If I end up doing a series of spaces, each kiosk could represents each space, or all spaces could be linked and the people at the kiosks will be able to communicate with eachother through the virtual spaces.

Regardless of that, I think I'd like to install the kiosks as shown in the diagram above. A relatively small half-circle with users standing in the center. I like this idea because I think it would be interesting for users who are inside the virtual world to also be in quite a close proximity to eachother's physical presence as well. It helps to articulate the overbearing worries of the virtual becoming so appealing that we forget our bodies. While you enter the virtual spaces, you are forced to be physically aware at the same time so as not to bump the user next to you. A slight encouragement for users of my piece not to forget their physicality. I just hope it's not to much of a distraction from the piece itself if the person next to you accidentally steps on your toe. Any thoughts?

Virtual homes don't keep you warm...but they are something to think about.

So...

I've been doing quite a bit of research and playing around inside of Second Life as of late. One of the first things I've noticed about it is how much the world imitates reality. I think its interesting that Second Life users are essentially focussed on building a virtual home and adorning it with virtual furniture/paintings/etc. I have also talked with quite a few virtual artists using Second Life as a medium and am having a hard time putting my finger on exactly what it is I am trying to accomplish by exploring the aesthetics of 3D virtual artmaking.

This coupled with an experience I had the other day has started me thinking about a slight refinement of my idea. The short version of my experience is that I was walking home from class and passed a homeless man who was trying to play guitar but couldn't get it in tune. He asked me to help him out, so I tuned it for him. Then he asked me to teach him something and I showed him how to play power chords. After which he was so bloody happy that he had at least a start to some sort of creative outlet... Which of course made me feel like a good, upstanding citizen who isn't entirely stuck-up and prudish.


So my idea is as follows... I have been considering 'exploring the aesthetics of collaborative artmaking in 3D virtual space' by co-authoring a series of 'spaces' with multiple collaborators. Essentially my thought was that I would create 4 or 5 different spaces (each with a different collaborator). Each space would be start as a blank 3D canvas and then slowly each of my collaborators and I would build our individual spaces in the likeness of our collaborative vision. At the end of the year show, viewers could explore each of the spaces separately and see the likenesses/differences that each of my collaborations share.

I still believe that this is something I'd like to pursue, but with the caveat that each of my collaborators has no 'real-world' home to inhabit. I want to see what the people who don't have a house adorned with IKEA would create if they were given the chance to mould their own 3D reality. My hope is that, unlike a lot of Second Life users, their creations will imitate a much less material place. So essentially what I am proposing is to create a series of interactive 3D spaces which are co-designed by me and people such as my guitar playing friend who do not really have their own space in reality.

There are some significant challenges to this idea, in that I will need to approach and find collaborators and meet with them on a relatively regular basis (which puts a lot of faith in the success of my project in other's hands). However I think that after a few conversations I can help to bring their visions to life by doing the actual modelling and creation of the virtual spaces on my own. My ideal would be to find a few people who are as excited about having a medium of expression as the guy with the guitar (e.g. I give them a pad of paper and they draw what they see, etc.), but I realize that this may be a little too hopeful. Regardless though, I really do think that people without attachment to a physical home are capable of coming up with some of the most interesting 'virtual' spaces. It's an interesting idea to create a virtual home for those without a physical one. It isn't going to keep them warm but perhaps it will help them expressed their ideas.

Any feedback on this thought is much appreciated as I am still not entirely sure about whether others will find it as interesting as I do.

A New Virtual Gallery?!

I just ran into and spent some 'virtual' time with a guy named Gary Bukowski... (Oh dear lord save me from myself and this virtual world).

Anyhow, the long story short is that Gary is a veteran to SL who is a founding member of a 'virtual content creation' agency called "The Wishfarmers". We got discussing art within SL and he is hilariously opposed to the majority of what he says he sees regularly. He claims that most 'virtual artists' are painters who scan in their paintings and show them as flat one-dimensional objects; but he is more interested in exploring what the inherent aesthetic of virtual art making truly is. He wants to forget the rules of art in the corporeal world and explore the potential possibilities that SL gives us as art-makers.

The reason this is relevant to my thesis is not simply that Gary is interested in the exact subject matter that I have chosen to study, but also that Gary is a landowner who is more interested in starting a virtual gallery to showcase this new kind of experimental art, rather than making it himself. So if all goes well, Gary and I may become close collaborators in founding a new 'virtual art' gallery which can host some of my works.

My First Week As A Virtual Person

So I cracked and am succumbing to everyone's encouragement to pursue my thesis inside of Second Life. I've signed up and have spent a little time running around inside the virtual universe; I must say that it's pretty insane.

So far my experience has shown me that 70% of Second Life is not really all that impressive. This majority of content inside the virtual universe doesn't really recognize the possibilities available to it and therefore just models itself after the real world; there's barren streets filled with obnoxious advertising, desperate consumers frantically searching for something to spend their Linden dollars on, and no real attention to detail. At first I was a little disappointed in this, the idea of an 'alternate reality' (which is what Second Life is) has so much potential to be mind-boggling and unfortunately a lot of Second Life doesn't quite live up to it. It's either a get-rich-quick scheme or a place to pick up virtual dates...

However! After this initial disappointment, I gave SL another chance and am (unfortunately) getting pretty addicted. The other 30% of the universe is incredibly talented people, using a completely new medium to do really cool things. Today I reserved land next door to the Ambassador of Second Sweden (who is in charge of representing the entire country of Sweden inside Second Life), I listened in on a live philosophical teaching by an elderly philosopher in India, and I met a few SL-artists who are already interested in participating in my thesis. It's insane the possibilities that SL affords us. Kind of scary really considering I don't get out much as it is...

With that said, I'm starting to understand what exactly my thesis is. Second Life literally is a new medium for expression. Like many contemporary mediums, it involves and blends many old media (sound, video, image, 3D, etc.) but it does that in a way which is undeniably social and comes with it's own set of rules... I've been looking for virtual land to purchase inside the world and have come to realize that a large plot of land to house all of my art that will come from my thesis is not entirely feasible (it's simply too expensive). So what I believe I might have to do is make contacts and rent small parcels of land, incorporating my artworks into the architecture and landscape of Second Life. Inherently, SL is pushing me to collaborate.

I'm still just scratching the surface, but I think that there is some validity in my undertaking 'the exploration of the aesthetics and sensibilities of collaborative art-making in 3D virtual universes'.

I still haven't bought any cool clothes for my avatar though...

Project Idea - Draft

In approaching the question of what I can explore as a thesis project, I developed a series of criteria to run all of my brainstorms through. The criteria were as follows:

- The project needed to be something that was engaging, carried clear meaning, and stimulated immediate response from the majority of my audience. I was very hesitant about being obscure for obscurities sake and felt the need to create something that was contemporary and socially relevant.

- With this being my last year as a student, I was very conscious of my willingness/committment to develop skills which would potentially carry over into my post-education art practice/professional career as well.

- With the rare opportunity to spend the majority of a year working on a single project, it was very important to me to create a piece which allowed me to excercise my skills in the various media I enjoy creating (music/video/programming/graphic design/etc.), all while having a cohesive over-arching idea.

- Lastly, I wanted to keep in mind that this project is meant to represent four years of new media study and experimentation. So it was important that the project embody much of the ideas that have stuck with me for the last 3 years.


After much brainstorming and consideration of these criteria, I was left with an interesting set of issues I wanted to address with my piece. I had found that I was very interested in the relatively new emergence of 3D virtual life and multi-user universes (such as Second Life, VastPark, etc.) . I was incredibly intrigued by the possibilities that were available inside these literal 'human-authored alternate dimensions'. However, I was unsure of what sort of problems/issues I wanted to address inside the virtual space.

Taking into consideration my first criteria, I set out to make something that no one could deny was blatantly political and social. So my interest began leading toward the creation of a virtual simulator which would collect data within a series of small virtual spaces. Each of these spaces was to be governed by a different political structure and my hope was to draw some sort of conclusion as to which structure the participants of my simulation preferred. However this idea quickly began to feel (a) a little out of my range to properly execute (I have no real political science training) and (b) simply too literal and without even possibility of really proving anything at all. It was social and political, but it wasn't really something that would affect anyone as it was.

So this idea slowly took a backseat and I continued brainstorming with my first criterion in mind. Through my research of virtual life and other relatively new technologies I came across a few other sparks of interest which caught my attention.

These ideas ranged from:
(a) examining how marketing/branding steals some sort of authenticity from human experience through the creation of a physical installation which would showcase a family whose entire life was 'sponsored'.
(b) staging an Orsen Welles inspired hoax using new forms of mass media to see if the public trusted YouTube more than CNN.
(c) creating a series of collaborations with many non-artists from very different walks of life.
(d) (an idea which abandonned my criteria but seemed natural to me was creating) an installation which would further explore my experimentation with concrete poetry and allow users to interact with poetic text through the movement of their bodies in physical space.

These ideas were interesting but yet again, none of them truly fit all of my criteria and their proper execution wasn't something I could easily imagine.

What I needed was a project that was contemporary, social, and a relevant summation to my career at Ryerson. On top of that I needed to do work that allowed me to excercise my various creativities as well as develop useful skills.

It was not until a wonderful conversation with the ever-engaging Alex Bal that I realized what I had been missing. I've been studying to be an artist. On top of that, an artist who works in the field of 'new media'. And like that, suddenly all of my ideas made much more sense and I had a piece which fulfilled all four of my criteria perfectly. I realized that I had been researching a medium that is literally new to the art world. I was fascinated with a virtual social tool (namely, the 3D universe) that allows content creation in a number of media and just happens to be a rapidly growing career-building opportunity. It was an chance to be a relatively early contributor in the truly new medium of 3D virtual life art-creation. And so I had my piece which satisfied all my needs.

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What I am proposing as a thesis project is to explore the aesthetics and sensibilities of collaborative art making within a 3D virtual space. I would like to create a virtual art studio & exhibition space in which I will work with other virtual users/artists in order to author our own reality and explore what it means to creatively collaborate within a space outside of the physical world.

These collaborations may very well include virtual instances of the aforementioned project ideas (3D concrete poetry, branding being the theif of authenticity, and explorations of 'democratized' media outlets) but the true experiment is to explore what it is to create art in a virtual social setting which can be considered a medium of it's own.

The project will take place completely within a virtual space, utilizing virtual social software that is, if not Second Life itself, something similar to it. The project will almost definitely utilize a variety of digital mediums (including sound, video, poetry, generative programming, 3D modelling design, etc.) which will be combined within the virtual space in order to create a new form of art making and exhibition. During the final new media show, viewers will be allowed to explore the final virtual space and communicate with both me, the artist, and some of my collaborators. It is expected that the virtual space which comes as the product of this project will continue to exist and grow beyond the scope of my Ryerson career.

In essence I propose to create, not simply a virtual representation of my art practice, but rather a very 'real' portion of that practice which exists only within virtual space. I hope to explore and possibly even participate in the establishment of the aesthetics of 3D virtual world art.

A pretty incredible idea...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxVDVggLqsA

After posting my last post, I did some searching for ideas and found this... Someone has essentially modelled Vincent Van Gogh's "Starry Night" painting... Unfortunately it isn't actually a space inside of Second Life... But its a ridiculously cool idea to re-create a 3D representation of a famous 2 dimensional painting and then allow people to explore that painting in three dimensions. This guy didnt technically do that, but it's what he was getting at and it would be really interesting to actually create a physical installation out of it.


http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/190479

Here is another interesting article from the Toronto Star... It talks about brand pollution and how it is ruining the virtual universe for a lot of people. About half way through it mentions an in-game group called the Second Life Liberation Army blowing up virtual stores... Pretty ridiculous... This article doesn't really turn me on to the whole Second Life thing, but it does make me realize how interesting it is that marketing has already become this terrible virus that spreads through everything, stealing and corrupting our ability to have experiences that feel 'genuine'. In my thesis, it would be interesting to incorporate a projection of when marketing will become such a scourge that it will render itself useless in catching anyone's attention.

Starting a second life...

In chats with my father about my ideas for a thesis, he mentioned the possibilities that are opened up by using a medium like the online virtual universe of "Second Life". Part of the problem I am having with my thesis is that I want it to include so many things... musical content, possibly video, design, 3D modelling, a social experiment, coding, etc. His argument is that a project within this virtual universe requires all of these aspects, and is inherently interesting simply in the sense that the entire project takes place in a reality that isn't where we spend our daily lives.

I'm still not completely convinced that something like Second Life (www.secondlife.com if you aren't aware of what it is) is something I am willing to commit a large chunk of time to... Like so many articles/sci-fi books that I have read, something about it is frightening and quite frankly, just a little to geeked-out. However it seems that this entire 'virtual life' phenomenon is clearly the new topic of much interest in the new media world. It would be interesting to perhaps blend some of my brainstorms together and perform an Orsen Welles inspired social experiment which somehow including creating a virtual space inside of Second Life. The virtual space could possibly include an area which holds my "Ghosts of The City" installation in a virtual manifestation; as well as musical/visual content I would create in order to further the experiment somehow. Lastly, the project would have to be collaborative as it would take more than one participant to pull of a large-scale, virtual social experiment.

Again, I'd have to do more research and further convince myself that spending the year in a virtual life simulator isn't suicide, but it could be a possibility that inherently raises many research questions related to our field of study. I briefly looked into the Second Life universe and it does have tools that give you a lot of freedom to create (and I believe that their proprietary coding language is based on Java)...

Sometimes I don't even like computers, but it's pretty bloody interesting that technology is rapidly moving toward a point where people can literally get confused as to what reality they are in...