Under the guise of my Second Life (SL) avatar, Ari Montreal, I went gallery hopping in SL for months. It was often hit or miss, but art was all around and there were some interesting things to see. My SL art experience culminated in an article about SL’s art scene for the Brooklyn Rail in April 2007.
But, after a few more months I stopped going, realizing that I didn’t have time for a three-dimensional cyber-life. Though I hope to revisit SL again…time will tell.
My new banner marks those months exploring SL’s art scene…..and it is my way of saying a special thank you to all the SL artists, critics and users that helped me find the treasures that lay within.
Over the last few months, Second Life’s (SL) art scene continues to mature and grow. One SL group known as 0100101110101101, consisting of Eva and Franco Mattes, has been trying to push some boundaries by performing classic performance art pieces in the virtual domain.
A series of reenactment of historical performances inside synthetic worlds such as Second Life. All actions are performed by Eva and Franco Mattes through their avatars, which were constructed out of their bodies and faces. People can attend the performances online, while in the making, or see the photo and video documentation afterwards. The series started in January 2007.(source)
Here’s the link to the Beuys performance site in SL–though you’ll need the SL program installed on your system before traveling there.
The Beuys recreation began on March 16, 2007, exactly 25 years after the original oak was planted:
The 7000 basalt stones have been stacked on Mattes’ island in Second Life: Cosmos Island. The diminishing pile of virtual stones will indicate the progress of the project, which will go on until all 7000 oaks and stones will be placed. Second Life inhabitants will have the chance to take part to the performance, placing stones and trees in their lands. (source)
Here’s a blow by blow of one of their February 1, 2007, performance on SL according to Wirxli Flimflam (link), who mentions that “This time their retro-performance trinity was being broadcast (possibly projected) into a contemporary art museum in Trento (Italy) known as the Galleria Civica d’Arte Contemporanea.”
1 – How did you become involved in Second (SL) art?
Well, I am an artist in real life (rl). I first started second life after my rl aunt and uncle read about it in “Spin magazine”. They came in, and saw what an incredible world it was. So I came in and fell in love with this virtual world. Started going to live music events, and going to the art galleries. And I realized this is a great venue for getting my art out there and seen by so many more people. I started to upload my art into SL, and rented a gallery space and from there, people started to see my art and I got invited to show at other galleries, and It has been wonderful ever since.
2 – Are you a professional artist, art student, or something else in your terrestrial list?
I have been painting for about 10 years now. I didnt want to be a starving artist, so I decided to get my degree in Art History. I am currently finishing my Masters in Art History and teaching part time at a Junior College. This gives me a great opportunity of being surrounded by art, one of the things I love the most, everyday of my life. I am currently having a website made and hope to start promoting myself much more in real life so that dream will come true. (more…)
Now that the Internet is ubiquitous and many of us prefer email, instant messaging and online chat rooms to live conversation, it was only a matter of time before our cultural pursuits followed us online as well. Now, a “virtual world” known as Second Life (www.secondlife.com), is offering a venue for the art world to expand its terrestrial (aka offline) presence into an online terra incognita.
What is Second Life? (affectionately referred to as SL). It is “a vast digital continent, teeming with people, entertainment, experiences and opportunity,” according to the website, where users, called “Residents,” manipulate online personas called “avatars,” who interact with each other. It costs nothing to register as a Resident, create an avatar, wander the SL landscape, and meet, date and have sex with other avatars. However, in order to participate in the SL economy and pay for anything from a haircut to a work of art, you must invest in the SL currency, which is called Linden Dollars (at an exchange rate of 1 USD to 250 LD).
Under the public radar for so long, this past February, SL marked a major milestone of four million registered accounts and revenues of over 1 million USD a day. This seemed to poise SL on the cusp of a broader social relevance.
It’s happened, Episode 1 of some new YouTube series has been posted and pushes some boundaries for online video. Here’s the premise & the first episode (04:48) of this minimovie:
…shot entirely in the popular online world Second Life…Filmmaker Douglas Gayeton came across a series of seven video dispatches by a character named Molotov Alva…a man by the same name mysteriously disappeared from his real world California home in January 2007. Gayeton put Alva’s dispatches together into a documentary of seven episodes. Will he find the answers he’s looking for?
I interviewed Richard Minsky for an upcoming article on art in Second Life (SL) for The Brooklyn Rail (which will appear in the April 2007 edition–here), and found his insights into the burgeoning art medium to be insightful and clear. So, I decided to post it online to help anyone interested in the online arts.
Richard founded Slart, a new art journal about SL art, and is an accomplished artist himself.
[Click below to watch a YouTube video (04:13) that explains the basics of Second Life.]
Hrag Vartanian (HV) – When and why did you becoming interested in art in SL?
Richard Minsky (RM) – Last November I heard an interview with Julian Dibbell, author of Play Money, on National Public Radio and that made me interested. I logged in and was amazed at the work that was going on. I started doing research and discovered that there was a symposium at the New York Law School in Tribeca scheduled the first week in December, organized by State of Play and Terra Nova. I registered for it, and bought some key books on MMORPEG culture–Julian’sPlay Money, Edward Castronova’s book Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games, and T.L. Taylor’s Play Between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture. Dibbell and Castronova were among the speakers at the symposium, which turned out to be a fabulous introduction to the issues. You can listen to a webcast of the symposium at http://www.nyls.edu/pages/5215.asp and the 2003-2005 State of Play conferences are archived, with videos, at http://www.nyls.edu/pages/2713.asp
HV – What are some of the characteristics of SL art?
RM – There is a huge variety, as there is in terrestrial art. There are many artists who photograph their art and import it to SL in the hope of either attracting interest in the global market or in selling enough images in-world to pay their rent in SL. There are also artists whose work bridges both worlds. And there are a growing number who use the in-world object creation tools to make art, including sculptural and scripted works.
