the palace of memory...

I've been rather sick and home-ridden for the past few days, but it's given me a good excuse to mess about in Second Life a lot. I've mostly been building and scripting, learning about both... I've been reading a lot about both topics lately but hadnt really had a chance to commit some time to actually using the skills in practise. And I have to admit that it completely changes the Second Life experience. Second Life is definitely much more than an online game, there's something more going on for sure. 'Tis hard to explain but let it be known that I'm much more addicted now.

With that said, I actually have a plot of land. Here's a shot of it...

It looks a little blue, but that's because it is underwater... (Another benefit of virtual people not requiring oxygen). The plot of land was actually generously loaned to me by an Australian artist named Andrew Burrell (http://www.miscellanea.com). I met him through a virtual sound artist I chatted with a few weeks ago, and it just so happened that Andrew has been looking for other artists to surround himself with in his underwater domain. So for now I have the right to a small chunk of his land so that I can build things and leave them to persist between my sessions. Which is good news... My utmost gratitude to Andrew for his help and hospitality.

No matter what anyone says about the downsides of Second Life, the fact that I just happened upon an Australian new media artist based in Sydney, had a substantial conversation about art/etc. and he was friendly enough to set me up with a plot of land... The fact that I can do that almost accidentally is pretty incredible. The days of the artsies sitting at the french cafe are gone...

I should follow that with my realization that I have been pushing too hard to make my thesis project something that used 3D virtual universes as a platform, but was kind of half-committed to that idea. I think my fear just that working completely virtually was going to drive me insane and I had this urge to do something physical and social... But I think that over the past few days I have realized that if I am going to say anything interesting about this new medium, I really need to commit to it and explore the possibilities rather than just sticking one foot in the door... And as my aforementioned experience proves, there's no avoiding my piece being social if I frame it inside of the Second Life medium. So for all of the profs that I've been rambling to about my new idea of the hour, I think I've come full circle right back to my original idea. I am quite simply going to explore the new aesthetics that are made possible by collaborative virtual 3D spaces. Essentially, what I have always planned to do, minus the not-so-strong association with homeless people, strangers, etc. My collaborators will be people who I have a purely virtual relationship to. My focus will be on exploring/establishing aesthetics which are very separate from, but do not exclude (and perhaps even compliment) physical reality. I believe it is important that virtual 3D universes are seen as a powerful tool for the future, but not as something that will replace the physical world.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes.

So I've done a lot of thinking and talking about my project and I have decided to make a slight alteration to my proposal. I really am not sure that the ' 3D space designed by people without physical spaces' is how I want to frame my piece. I have been thinking about alternate groups of indivdual collaborators I could work with, and also ways that I could pull of the project all by my lonesome.

I was thinking of creating multiple 3D spaces which were modelled around musical compositions. So essentially, 3D visual stimulus that supports music which is part of an album I am working on. I like this idea in that I could certainly incorporate my concrete poetry which the supervisor's seemed to favor, but I feel as though that project undermines the fact that I am working in 3D space. It becomes less about my thesis statement.

Afterward I returned to the idea of collaboration, as I think that this is a big aspect to these 3D virtual universe technologies. Rather than focussing on a specific group of people to collaborate with, I realized that what I find more interesting is how the collaboration affects the authorship of these 3D worlds. So another option is to change my pool of collaborators from the homeless, to random volunteers, but with different group sizes contributing to each individual space. In essence, I will create one virtual space that is completely in my hands, it will be my baby and a direct expression of myself. I will then create a second space through a collaboration with a single other individual... We'll meet, talk about what we want it to look/sound/feel like and I will make it happen. Thirdly will be a space collaboratively created by a small group of people (3-5 seems like a logical number). And lastly will be a completely collaborative world, where anyone who I happen to bring the project up with can add a little piece of their own aesthetic values. The coherence and diversity of these separate spaces will become apparent when they are installed side by side.

Any thoughts?

Thesis Proposal

You can view a my thesis proposal as a .doc file here.

I've been having trouble with my new spin on the project (collaborating with the homeless to create virtual spaces). Something about it seems slightly under-developed... Kathleen made a good point that I need to bring 'how acts of imagination andcreativity intersect with issues of resource access or allocation' to the forefront of the project. The problem is that I am having a difficult time figuring out how to properly do this. At the same time I am having a difficult time finding a good way to approach people about the possibility of collaborating. Many people I have attempted to approach aren't all that interested in talking at all, especially not about something which, at face value, seems so irrelevant to them. I need to try a little harder and keep thinking about the best way to establish a relationship with them.

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...