Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Grab Bag of Sonic Stuff

Just a few things I want to remember/point you at; no long essays this time *is deafened by cheers*


Belltower of Privilege

You probably can't get in to see it now unless you are in the Burn2 Access Group, but mark Raven Halaan's work as a must-see (and hear) on your Burn2 expedition. Raven's really outdone himself on this build; spectacular structure and really superb soundscape.

SLurl: Belltower of Privilege - http://slurl.com/secondlife/Burning%20Man-Black%20Rock/237/95/24



Sheds

More delicious soundscaping from a hermit who I discovered through the Pop Art Lab show and am dragging out into the light of day (hey, someone did it to me!), Mik Frequency's Sheds is a masterful and entrancing soundscape, some of the finest I have heard in SL. Treat your ears and get to know this guy's work; he won't remain obscure for much longer.

SLurl: Sheds - http://slurl.com/secondlife/Derby%20University%202/193/74/23



SL Addict

Awhile back, White Lebed had a blog article about another one of those "ooo juicy dirt in SL!" films/machinimas - grrr - more sensationalist "coverage" of SL. For a much more balanced and fair look at this question, I'll point you to Eifach's machinima SL Addict. Must-see.

URL: Eifach's SL Addict




The CIA in SL

Did you know the CIA is in SL?!?! Rilly! Spook yourself or your friends by pretending to be a Man in Black. Track down terrists and drag their avatars to the Guantanamo Bay sim! Laugh at them as their planz for Whirled Dominatrix are foiled by lag, non-rezzing seekrit documents, asset server borkages and missing nukalur prim-bomz! Keep your eyes peeled for a patriotical Hunt to assist in this most holy cause!

URL: CIA in SL omg



Icons of the Web

A little side-venture out of but concerning virtual worlds: I've always been fascinated by maps, not the least maps of the emerging net, and nmap.org has posted a terrifically-detailed map scan of the top million web sites by traffic. Go exploring or make a neato poster for your wall.

URL: Icons of the Web @nmap.org



House of Cards

... and last but not least, my Burn2 build (The History of Social Networks Considered As A House of Cards) is proceeding nicely, with the help of my partner Xenophile Neurocam. If you have access and want a little preview, pop on by and say hi. Under Construction, natch. Be sure to have your ears on (sounds/gestures audio enabled) as the House features an original soundscape designed for this build.

House of Cards at Burn2 going up

Friday, September 24, 2010

To Bryn, with love, from SL

This post is a response to a conversation Bryn Oh and I had today about the amount of "negative" press being given to LL and SL from bloggers. Today I am going to meet Bryn's challenge and give you a little bit of what Second Life has to offer me (and others). YMMV depending on your personal orientation and activities inworld.


1. Being Part of a Revolutionary Medium

If you don't know from talking to me personally, I have been part of the net and the WWW since its very beginnings. I feel like I am in at the birth of the most significant revolution in communications since television. I had one of the first widely-read pages/sites/"blogs" on the WWW in 1995. Second Life is an extention of the 3D web that was conceived in the VRML worlds of 1996-1999 and I was there. I went where that edge went in 1999 - to the gamer worlds, who picked up the 3D torch and made inroads and breakthroughs that formed the base of the multiuser worlds we have today. I came back through those worlds to Second Life as a medium of artistic work, but the continuum of my experience has been steady since 1981. This is the first time in my lifetime that I can be in on the very beginnings of a fundamental shift in human communication. I am committed to this revolution.


2. Unfettered Creativity

I have nothing in Second Life that I do not bring with me. I may be old, or young; I may be female or male; I may be tall, short, black, Chinese, an academic or a comic-book reader. I can even be "disabled" in the Offline world. I can create my self-persona free from every physical and external influence. That persona is as much an extension of my real being as the personas I wear at work, playing with a child or at an academic conference.

If I want to make things, I can make them. If I want to sell them, or give them away, I can do that also. I can dance if I wish to, or meditate peacefully. If I do not know how to do something, like scripting, I can learn; many people will help me.

Unlike in the Offline world, I can experiment with materials without using them up, destroying them, losing them, paying over and over for them or ruining them with one careless brush- or hammer-stroke. I can keep progressive copies of my assemblies at their various stages, and go back and take off on a tangent from original approaches. If I cannot afford my own land, there are public sandboxes to explore my creativity. Often the need to texture a piece I am working on will send me off to create a texture for it, or learn how to create something else for it, expanding my awareness and abilities in various other mediums like graphics or sound.



3. Possibilities/The Future

This really is a sub-topic from #1 above. This is a medium still in baby-stages. The range of possibilities for communication and for art are enormous. The contribution of this medium (the net) and 3d visualization will have profound and far-reaching effects on our future as human beings. This is extremely exciting!

For instance... many of us know the animation called "dream dance," which sends your avatar spinning and flying in a graceful and exuberant series of motions. I dunno about you... but I have often danced that way in my dreams... and in Second Life, I can share that with others.

Likewise, a Tasuko Ghost performance is as compelling and transporting as any big-budget modern rock show and often more transcending. Spending time with a Glyph Graves, a Bryn Oh or a four Yip piece is as fulfilling and soul-deepening as any revered novel or artwork... although you cannot sit INSIDE a novel or film or painting as you can in Second Life.

It took several years for the art of photography to influence the painters, and yet it has had a wide and thorough influence on modern art. Likewise, the advent of the electronic studio had to pass through the stages of "mere recording" to blossom and flower into its' own art, that of modern electronic composition. This is the stage SL/the grid/the multiverse is in now. Imagine being there at the birth of the telephone or radio and having the ability to influence its future state.




4. Communication

I have harped on this before, but it needs pointing out: communication is THE killer app of the net/the grid/Second Life. Just as telephones knit modern life together, Second Life offers the opportunity to speak with people halfway around the world; to interface and deal with universities, artists, scripters, computer techs, fashion designers, Reikian healers, Buddhists and the stunning variety of people who regularly log in to Second Life. You never know who is behind that avatar.

My prime example is talking to someone on the telephone. This illustrates the complete foolishness of the debate of "real" vs "virtual." We have "virtual" experiences every day through novels, television programs and films that nonetheless impact us, influencing our thinking and emotions and thereby our future actions. The meditative correlates to this are the wind and love; you cannot see, touch, smell, taste or hear them, but you can observe their effects; therefore, they are real forces.

We have all been affected by "virtual" experiences; great paintings, architecture, films, books. Such things give us touchstones to the human experience, uniting us with others who have shared these experiences and responded to them in kind.

The basis of all human progress, social life and co-operative endeavor is communication. It is one of the hallmarks that distinguish us; the desire to share the experiences of life as a human being on this planet with others of our kind, be them lovers, husbands, wives, children or friends.

We have continuously expanded and amplified our range of communicative abilities, from the first pictoral scratchings on the caves of Lascaux to the telecommunications satellites in geosynchronous orbit around our planet. We like to be together. We like to talk. We signal to each other with our clothing, our movements, our music and our art.

Second Life, and the emerging grid, add another dimension to our ability to communicate mind-to-mind. Just as photography expanded the written letter and film expanded the still image, the technologies which allow us to transmit even more personal semantic information in our exchanges with another person without their direct presence allow us to explore human communication in greater depth, perhaps leading to the ultimate goal of any symbolic system: to truly communicate with another person.


5. Play

Oh yeah, there's also... flying; one of the oldest dreams of humankind. When I first entered virtual worlds, and in every world I have entered, I spend a great deal of my first weeks there flying.

Where else can I dance and party and converse with people around the world, in many different societies and many different levels of them without spending huge amounts of money flying to the hippest discos and raves around the world?

Where else can I be a hippo, complete with sounds, gestures and AO? Wear a furry kitty tail and ears. Jump on a trampoline and soar 60m into the air without worrying? Wear the highest fashions without mortgaging my house? Build a house? Travel through time, or a painting; have flowers and trees talk to me and hug me; follow Alice as she chases the White Rabbit down a hole into a mysterious wonderland? Paint with light?



Psychologists will tell you that play is one of the most important tools of humankind. To think of play as an indulgence fit only for children is to be misinformed about the nature of the play experience. Play appears to allow our brains to exercise their very flexibility, to maintain and even perhaps renew the neural connections that embody our human potential to adapt, to meet any possible set of environmental conditions.

Play is an experience that is set Elsewhere; a mental and spiritual state distinctly separate from our quotidian life - our survival strategies, our long-term goals. We free up our neural circuitry from its accustomed pathways, unleashing the latent power of the human imagination.

"What is the point to SL?" is a question often expressed by people who are outside the experience. In this question is a whole lot of judgement and a modern and twisted view of time and value and experience. Most modern "play" is anything but - it is voraciously goal-driven, accomplishment-driven, timesliced and diced, allotted and calculated... more like work than actual play.


In Second Life, we can play. The medium offers us the creativity and tools to share personal dreams, visions and stories with others or to see our visions and dreams take shape before our own eyes. It allows us to struggle to bring forth the dim or bright shapes of our imagination by our own hands and see them revealed, expanded, clarified, explored. We can play with prims, or play with our avatar's image, or play with our manifestation.


In that playing, no matter how casual, a person's inner being is gradually revealed to themselves and to others. I have observed this countless times over many, many years. The deliberate crafting of a persona, as opposed to the haphazard way we create or absorb such personas in Offline life, can lead to surprising personal revelation and inner knowledge (ask Gracie Kendal). The opportunities for the average person to make wonderous things without formal schooling or expensive instruments or tools often liberates a tremendous amount of self-confidence, happiness and fulfillment.


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For all of the reasons stated above, and many more illuminated in the countless blogs, articles, journals and machinima (itself a completely new medium) about the arts, sciences, education and social possibilities of the Second Life experience, I am fully committed to the net, Second Life and whatever comes after.

In 1995, I had this same feeling about the explosion of the net into the World Wide Web. At that time I also encountered the same disbelief, resistance and condemnation typical of the uninformed or badly-informed average person regarding "this computer thing that is wasting your time, a simple distraction and won't amount to anything but a novel experience."

We all know how wrong they were. We all know what the advent of the web and the growth of the net has meant to modern business, communication, the arts and sciences and the awesome ability to have an entire reference desk, more complete than any local copy ever could be (I mean, I can tiptoe through the halls of the Library of Congress!) within reach of the average person.

Yes, there are problems. Yes, many focus on those problems often; my belief is that those people's sheer love and emotional intensity regarding their involvement in these worlds causes them to critique, to try to elucidate their feelings and experiences in these worlds in order to understand them and improve them.

There were problems with the early telegraphs, railroad journeys or transatlantic crossings too. There were problems and dangers in pioneering any new land or continent. There were carpetbaggers, corrupt officials, unreliable technology and natural hazards. There were battles for control of the new land.

None of these things stopped human beings from reaching for the next horizon, and they shouldn't stop anyone from exploring Second Life, the net or the new grids.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Project Hope - A Garden of Hope

I was asked by Arwen Mannonen to do a small garden in a section of her Project Hope sim. I decided to ask a few other "gardeners" if they'd be willing to contribute and was gratified by their openhearted support of this project.

It's just a small garden with sound for people involved in Project Hope to sit, talk with families or friends or just be alone in beauty. I'd like to thank the following artists for their kindness and generosity in helping to make A Garden Of Hope:

Alizarin Goldflake: for her enchanting Lupine Particle Garden and Luna Moths.

Raven Haalan: for the beautiful Chimes of Privilege.

Sabrinaa Nightfire: for one of her best flowers, Daisy Dazed Dots #2.

soror Nishi: for her marvelous and wonderful Happy Tree.

Trill Zapatero: for her painting "Rebirth of the Goddess (sun-moon-lake)"



I am grateful to have such creative and generous friends in Second Life. On behalf of myself, Arwen and Project Hope, thank you. And ty Arwen for the chance to do something for others.

You can read Project Hope's Mission Statement below:

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A Guide to Project Hope

Project Hope is a public island sim privately owned by the Project Hope group, and designed for foster a healing environment for all, including the loved ones who support those on a healing journey. Please feel free to join our group: SLProject Hope

Mission Statement:

SL Project Hope was created to empower and support survivors individually and collectively. We are committed to fostering hope, opportunity, peace, and empowerment for all those who are on a healing journey. SL Project Hope provides a nurturing environment of healing, courage, and strength.

Please feel free to explore some of the places located on Project Hope.

The Meditation Cave: Located in the center of the Sim. Tucked away for you to relax and meditate or do Tai Chi.

The Affirmation Room: Located near the gallery, a round room with affirmations to lift your spirit.

The Discussion/Resource Room: Located in the treehouse near the gallery. RL and video resources and small group meeting area.

The Gallery: Located off the ice cave, a gallery of SL/RL artwork by group members.

Reiki Meditiation area: Located on the SE corner off the gallery for Reiki Meditation and classes.

A Garden of Hope: Located on the south side of the sim at the bottom of the long stairs, for a peaceful place to sit and enjoy the beauty of life.


For more assistance or if you would like to volunteer, please contact Arwen Mannonen.




Friday, September 17, 2010

What's Wrong With Second Life and All That

I don't know who reads this stuff, but my current involvement with SL and my past as a virtual explorer are itching me to comment lately on other blogs and in private conversations with people. So I thought I'd take a stab at being a stable, rational and insightful individual for once minus my whacky just-havin'-fun persona and address what I think is the main problem for The Boyz in Second Life.

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Among the real techniscenti, the buzzwords "web 2.0" and so on are viewed with contempt and eye-rolling. Why? Because none of this is new. The entire net is an outgrowth of a new platform but the ability to self-conform and self-route was intrinsic in the structure of that platform from the beginning. The synergy, the diaspora of information, the convergence of the bits, the organic growth were all there; all these buzzflaps are only new-speak marketing terms to allow reselling of concepts; concepts which are still developing as the medium explores itself.


How is Flash "2.0"? Flash was created in 1996. Yeah, so you can do more stuffs in it now. How long did that take? "Cloud computing"? We used to call that 'dumb terminals' because you didn't have the server/computing resources on your end; you were in thrall to the high techno-priests of IBM. How far did that closed-market approach take their personal computer business? [hint - they're now called 'Lenovo']


"Web 2.0"? Evidently, these people don't know much about the history or theory of the original network. Of course things are converging; of course they are linking up and feeding back in cybernetic loops. This was the whole point of the internet. This is what the internet was supposed to do. This is the structure built into the network itself. "The Internet" is not merely some passive bunch of pipes and wires with signal traveling through them; that's cable tv. The internet has an organic component; it is truly a cybernetic feedback system.


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Second Life, to use an oft-mocked but valid analogy, should be a city on the information superhighway; maybe even the digital Manhattan. But SL will never be television. SL will never be The Web. SL may be part of the future but it will not be The Future. Get over yourselves. It's this tycoonish, arrogant shortsightedness that is harming your business model.

Second Life is an application in a new communications medium; a medium far different from books, films, radio or television. The net is not a passive medium. The net is spurring intercommunication between people to a degree not seen since the invention of the other major media arts. The net in turn is influencing new forms of communication itself in the same feedback loop previous technological leaps had. The medium is seeking its message.


Trying to make the net be like a previous technology is like using a cell phone to chip out heiroglyphics on clay tablets or make smoke signals; it is a stupid waste. The net is not television; passive and spoonfed [though segments of it can be that]. Nor is it newspapers [themselves in decline to little more than ad packages], radio [ditto, along with the homogenization of music] or films [big-budget pretty eye-candy yawners]. There's a reason the major entertainment industries are desperately trying to lock up common culture and regain their role as arbiters...


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Hollywood stole the ooo-shiny eye-candy of the game worlds, which had already started to reel in the feedback from gamers who played games to play games, not to watch dvds. Both industries show a remarkable decline in sales [when weighted against people only being first exposed] in recent cycles. This is a simple lesson in what "the public" want from films and from games. They don't want games to be films, and they want films to be stories, not eye-candy. Sure, candy is dandy, but homogenizing one medium's strengths to try to glom off some lagniappe from another medium only weakens the original.


The ridiculous focus on the user interface should be examined closely. Trying to "get hip" and "make SL like Facebook" is as useless and ridiculous as trying to glue a GPS unit onto your Princess telephone and pretend you have a new SmartPhone. I wouldn't try to slap System X on a microwave or Windows Vista/7 on a public bank terminal. The interface is not going to look like a Mac with its' Dock, or Windows, with its' theft of the Sidebar and Widgets from Linux because it isn't a server, a MacBook Pro or Facebook. Get over your Facebook Envy!


Users aren't turning away from SL because of the interface. If that was the case, no one would be using Blender or Photoshop by choice [two examples of hideously difficult interfaces]. There will always be a percentage, or even a majority, who prefer not to learn how their car works or what it needs and depend on a mechanic to do that. Great; so make it simple for them to find a mechanic. Then make it simple for mechanics to do the tinkering for those people. But you can't ignore the purpose of a car: to take people places. To do its fundamental job as a vehicle for transportation. The car has to be reliable or people will buy another car.



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The strength of Second Life is connecting with other people. Why should I go to SL when I, as an artist, could stay happily at home, making awesomeness in Blender or Maya or Photoshop and perhaps sending a few pieces to friends for their own enjoyment? Why would I go to SL, a program which is not "like Facebook" and therefore demands a little effort to utilize the interface, to hear a concert when I could just stay at home and listen to my cds or web broadcasts alone? Why wouldn't I be happy with some grownup Barbie-dressup game [Sims standalone] or a storytelling construction game, sitting alone in my own house making up pocket universes?

Because I want to be with other people and share things with them.
That is what cellphones facilitate; that is what email facilitates; that is what video cameras facilitate. That is why millions of people use them. People want to communicate, to share.

This is what should be the core focus at Linden Labs; that is, if they are serious about their own platform. After all, this is what I heard Phillip talk about in numerous speeches in 2004, and 2006 [and a loooonnnggg time before that, in 1996-7, they knew that; they also knew that in the late 1960s when the technology was being born]. All the fantastic visions, the glittery palaces, the concerts for kings and queens, the ability to work simultaneously in virtual space with collaborators... all these things.. everything, is rooted in and dependent on communication.



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Every single complaint by thousands of SL clients over several years boil down to one simple thing: broken communication. The ability to find a store and shop at it, then call a bunch of people in excitement and tp them in; the ability to reliably "tweet up" an event in Second Life with a group chat; the ability to run on over to the next sim, or merely sightsee and travel [see Nish Mip's thorough and funny travelogues]; the ability to have some friends over for a wild dance party; all these things are focused on people communicating with others.


They aren't spending 90% of the time cursing the interface [except when it crashes, belches or otherwise gums up]. In many cases, helping someone else find out how to do things in Second Life is one of its pleasures. Sure, people will remark and grumble sometimes, but they do in RL also. It isn't the focus of their core experience [there's some valid 1.0 terminology].

Here's the Magic Key to the Successful Future of Second Life. Ready? Ok, listen closely!


Fix Search. Fix the Marketplace. Fix the Asset Server. Fix Group Chat and Group Notices. Fix sim-crossing freezes. Fix permissions. Fix stability. Assure us Second Life has a viable and serious future.

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Forget the interface for now, Boyz, you got a major problem in your deepest premise: the communications in Second Life suck huge marbly rocks. Your foundation is rocky.

Anything you build on that foundation is wasted time and effort and money. Your measurements/metrics will change and sway with each gust of the market-wind and you will be forever trying to catch up. You will wither, unable to ride your own technological wave into the future.

Remember: how can you get to the future if your past [mistakes] are always present?


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Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Intel Breakthroughs, meat dresses and more!

Ok, after my intellekshul spazz of the last postie, i return forthwit to my usual sasseh intertubez styl-E and yet again attempt to be a Bloggin' Maven [ and typographical terror - ed ] and follow in the footsteps of my idol and hero Dorothy Parker.

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A good article about Intel's opensim load breakthrough @ New World Notes caught my eye, esp this comment by Arcadia Codesmith:


"And if that's the case, this could be a fundamental shift in the compartmentalization of OpenSim worlds (and Second Life, if they grasp the opportunity)."



This kinda blended with an verra funneh article on Alex Hayden's blog about 'The fun and fear in name changing' and the media hype controversy foofaraw about Lady Gaga's Meat Dress to inspire the following thought:

like Lady GG's dress (or her designer's web-crawling habits) 'Viewer 2.0' is a rather uncreative hack and mishmash of whatever's-shown-a-profit-lately or was a cool idea... some time ago. Client feedback (thx soror!) on the eye candy so-called features in Viewer Poo.0 has been voluminous and vociferous. Likewise, the 'name change' option that is being trumpeted as some kind of SL deus ex machina...

... when the truth is, Facebook ain't all that easy to navigate; like any other interface, it takes some time and exploring to grasp... just like SL. Making SL Facebooklike when there are really groundbreaking developments happening like crossgrid teleportation, IBM's load-balancing algorithmns and the like is both reductionist and ridiculous.

Either Second Life opens itself up to the pioneering genius that it originally had or it will be electron dust. It do seem like The Boyz In The Lab are deliberately 'engineering to fail' lately. Oh well; I suppose they can be happy joining the list of old-and-forgotten pioneers like Lycos, GeoCities, Cybertown, Compuserve, ActiveWorlds, Metaplace and the rest of the companies which died the slow death of 1000-budget-cuts in shortsightedness and thus sacrificed the huge future profits Google now has. *sigh* Next dummeh, plz.


Capcha Bonus
my comments on Alex's blog had this capcha: bratines :D


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You really should read soror nishi's blog if you want to know what's going on. Luckily, I made the time to get to her 'Tree of Trees' opening and was rewarded with several hours worth of good company, conversation and fun with some of the best people in SL. Highlights included The Born-Again Pagans set, which was soooo laid back that they didn't even show for the gig (now that's xtreme Laidback!); ColeMarie singin' an' 'sploding everyone with magicz (thankfully, the Brass Panties of the Goddess Athena that I bought on ebay with farmed Ls enabled me to weather the storms [eh heh bonus pun +2]) and helping me level up, maxing my Sassiness stat and allowing me to dream of running a raid on a Linden sim 'real soon' (who knows what loot a Linden would drop?).


How soror finds time to do such an incredible build while maintaining her high in-the-know profile and blogging on top of it, I just don't get :(

Oh ya- note to James Cameron's art department: next time, why don't you give some credit to obvious virtual-reality artists influence? I definitely saw soror's work in yer film. 'Nuff said.

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Another article that had me reading/fuming/fulminating/littering someone else's blog with a mini-essay in the comments section is 'Sex, Lies and Sundance Film Festival' on White Lebed's Applied Gameology. Can't LL get some real marketing people in there; people who understand their product and point out the virtues of it? Otherwise, all the metaverse will have in the way of press is these types of sensational infotainment belches.

I'm sure the number of cheating spouses, sex weirdos, pr0n-surfin' salarymen at work and the like using say, Yahoo Chat, Google Voice, Skype or for that matter the telephone or video cameras far outnumber the smutty little stories that can be found in Second Life... because they still don't get it: the Grid is a world/metaverse a-borning. As in any other world 'of a thousand stories: some of them pretty, some of them ugly. This one's... pretty ugly', sensationalist eyeball-grabbing churnalism© will float to the top like a prim turd, esp if you don't have a marketing department that knows Jack (oops wait- they do know Jack!) about their own product anymore and are selling concepts, not real value (the legacy of the vulture capitalists and the dot-com bubble)

Plus, there's the fact that this 'cutting-edge psychological exploration of the seamier side of virtual worlds' has been done before... in 1996.

Unfortunately, this film will get a large viewing among art cognescenti, confirming their worst fears about this new medium while leaving them with no other source of information to counter this impression, which would not be the case of someone at LL would take the work that the University of Western Australia, the University of Texas in San Antonio, the arts and university groups and the tech-experimenters are doing seriously enough to harp on the Marketeers to do their fskin' job, quit smoking the '2.0' crack and clouding up the room with their visions of 'if we could only have been like Facebook, we'd be wallowing in the bux!'


[I just sometimes wonder how many sensationalist stories there were about nude women and children being exploited, spouses cheating with their models, paint-addicted and obsessed artists swirling around painting and sculpture, radio, television and the printing press while turning a blind eye to portraiture, the Sistine Chapel, radio plays, 60 Minutes or spreading literacy. I bet that search would gag Google]

i hate 'splaining dis old-skool 1337 stuffs to n00bz over an' over *sigh*


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One more tiny tidbit: a comment of mine from my last blog about "marketing weenies" was picked up by Dividni Shostakovich and blogged, which has actually resulted in an interesting dialogue about the balance of the arts and marketing and who exactly are artists trying to reach (or should be)?

mmWAH! @ Dividni


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... and to finish misquoting Dorothy Parker,

"I've never been a Linden but I know I'd be just darling at it."

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Saturday, September 11, 2010

Deconstructing 'code dreams': breaking the 6th wall

I've been watching people enter my installation at Artbreaker! Some take a quick snapshot, some sit awhile; not sure how many listen to the audio... so I thought I'd indulge in some art-vanity: giving a tour through the installation and its meaning.

This post is long and analytical; a major essay. So either skip it or get some popcorn :D

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Outline

This installation, and the entire Artbreaker! show, is about SOUND. That is the focus and subject... my installation is a 6-dimensional soundscape. The objects are merely props for the sound. In fact, there are only two objects in the entire diorama that are not phantom: Shinjin [the poet] and the Bed.

The diorama is presented in a form that may be familiar to some people from computer adventure games: an environment that simulates a physical room. But nothing in such a room or environment is subject to the accidental influences and random variables of physical life. Every single object has been artificially made with great care and placed in the room. Everything is a signifyer. It is all artifice.

In such games this knowledge underlies and informs the player's approach and strategy. Exploration and observation are the keys to the game; to the storyline, available actions, 'powerups' (extras) and clues. You explore everything in your quest to divine meaning from the environment around you. You not only explore details, but you try to sense the overall pattern of the environment; the story arc.

code dreams is a detective game; the story is my world; how I perceive it. I am blessed/cursed with audio synesthesia. Random noise will suggest pattern to me; you might call it 'music' if your ears have an education in musics outside the Western Tempered Scale; have moved beyond pop music into esoteric sound experiments like Ambient, Industrial, Classical or Tribal or have heard the musics of other countries and instruments. code dreams trys to let you experience being me.

Observation in this case also includes hearing. The visual components of the installation are actually a red herring; subservient to the soundscape.

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The Room Structure

At the entrance to the installation is SLF Portrait, a small spinning cube whose form precurses the rest of the installation. It is made up of the code of my avatar, who is shown in various morphings. The data of the textures is both Visual Basic and hexadecimal, the codes of computers. Deep inside, obscured by this code, is a photo... which is just another code for a person; a visual one. This cube is the room you are about to enter.



The code on the floor is a section of the genetic code sequence for my particular biological being; racial type, sex, weight distribution, etc. It is composed of the primary structure of nucleic acids: Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine, Thymine [AGCT]. You will find this code scattered throught the installation.

These four nucleotide bases are the key to life on this planet. They are also as simple and fundamental as the binary code used to run a computer, which makes up all the other interesting, pretty, amazing or astounding things we can do with a computer. On/Off; Yes/No; 1 or Ø. From such small things, such limited variables, everything else is created: in computers, in life.

The binary on the walls is compounded from my real life data: social security number, driver's license, body stats, old addresses, bank accounts, telephone numbers, web site addresses, passwords [blurred and obfuscated of course]. It is the code of 'me' to various databases. It is a map of 'me.' But a map is not the territory.

Underneath the genetic code on the floor is another 'map' made by superimposing a cranial skull photograph and a map of Disneyland. This is a joke at my own expense, as is the headboard of the Bed :D Yet it interweaves with other jokes in the room to tell a truth about myself and my worldview (immature and juvenile as it is - honk honk!)

The hexadecimal code in the front of the installation and running around the back of the installation spells out m-i-s-o-s-u-s-a-n-o-w-a.



My skin, my age, my race, my height, my eye color... these are all bits and bytes of me; data about me. But they are not the unique philosophy and experience of me. I am the ghost in the machine. The sound of that ghost is the sound of this installation.

- * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * -


The Objects

[Right Side/input]

Tripartite Key


The first object encountered is in three parts. The first part is the floating unique UUID of my particular avatar in this particular world-construct [Second Life]. It is my avatar's 'key'; that key identifies the avatar known as 'Miso Susanowa' to the program that is SL.

On closer approach, the 4 letters of my name materialize; this is another code, a linguistic one - a label; the codename of me to people here. I am 'Miso'.

Approaching this sculpture, a painting is revealed. This painting is composed of visual binary code [the black and white spaces], the hexadecimal code of my avatar's body shape and binary code spelling out my name. All of this code assembles a 'Portrait Of The Artist As A Binary Process'.



The Sound of Miso

Continuing along the right-hand wall, you will pass an assemblage, 'Come In Out Of The Rain', which will play the sound of rain when you approach. This piece also shows an exploded hypercube. There are 5 sides to this assemblage, the same as the entire room. You have 5 extentions from your torso (legs, arms, head).

Further on you will encounter a piece entitled 'The Sound Of Miso'. Touching this sculpture will play the soundbyte 'Miso!' There is both a 2-dimensional screenshot of an audio program showing the structure of the waveform of this audio and a 3-dimensional sonic map of it made with a spectrum analyser. This piece is another code; a sonic one. It is also a 'code' [signifier] for my being; my focus in the world, a revelation of my interior self [Miso is sound].


To the right of this sculpture is an assembly of binary numbers, which decode to the letter 'I'. Touching this sculpture will give you an additional sheet of binary to decode :D




[Center/processing]

The Bed

The Bed is the point at which the soundscape is focused. 'Sleeping' in the Bed will trigger the missing parts of the base soundscape - the Dream Horn and the Barking Dog - completing it and focusing the ears on the spacial positioning and blending of the soundscape. Headphones will help tremendously in experiencing this movement and envelope.

The best way to experience this is to focus your camera on the Looking Glass, then back out until you are just short of having the front hexadecimal code show on your screen. Sit and listen for awhile; listen to the space of the sound, the shape of the sound, the position of the sound, the movement of the sound. If you listen for awhile you will hear the sweeping of the entire soundscape back and forth & front to back in the field of your hearing.


As mentioned before, the Bed is one of only two objects in the room that is 'real' and not phantom. The bedsheets are the reflection of the genetic code sequence on the floor. The Bed's coverlet is a reflection of the binary code on the walls. Around the Bed on the floor is a rug made of binary code, with scattered unit-letters of genetic and binary code all around; my toys, my building blocks.




If you touch the Dream Angel she will repeat a childhood prayer, referencing herself and reflecting my own child-self praying to the angels.

The various Dream Figures standing around the bed and the room will speak when you are in proximity. Their voices are made up of combining and recombining a polyglot of 7 languages spoken by text-to-speech interpreters available on the web [these figures are from a RL dream of mine, where they stood around discussing the human race in debate and wonderment, pondering what these young beings might aspire to when they grew up]





The Bedside Table

The Table holds several items of interest:

The Golden Key, which is the second of the two Keys to the installation's meaning, this one visual. Touching it will both read your avatar's UUID [identifying you to me] and deliver the poem 'code dreams'.

The Music Box on the table is a pun on the room/installation's world, echoing the entire room structure as a musical 'box'.

The Spring Fling Flower will give you a copy of itself [self-propagation].

The Magic Mirror will give you a little toy mirror, which is a copy of a favorite toy of mine, a 'Princess Magic Wand'. Touching your copy of the Mirror in different places will give you several of the soundbytes from the original physical Wand. It is also an echo of and a pun on the Looking Glass (Yes, it's crudely made; it's a cheap plastic toy, silly!)


Cygnus on touch plays a fragment of 'Over The Rainbow'; a Wizard of Oz element echoed in the Seedling Swan and the Ibis. Dorothy's base code erupts in her subconscious after her accident, removed from the censor/operating system which is the ego. Dorothy's experience in WoO is a dream which reflects her real life, yet amplifies and explores her underlying psychological patterns and feelings [base code and subroutines] in symbolic and meaningful elements [artifice].



[ The Swan and Ibis both hold verbal keys to the meaning of the installation; a personal one.

I was involved in virtual worlds from the barest beginnings, homesteading and creating in 'strict' VWs like the VRML worlds of Alphaworld, Cybertown & blacksun as well as the text-based MOOs and MUDs, the 2D webworlds of Virtual Places, The Palace, Excite Chat, role-playing forums, IRC chats and many more.

I created many VRML worlds at that time along with extensive "worlds" crafted out of linked web pages (my largest being over 100 pages). I was active in many gameworlds, continuing to build both objects and game maps for 3D games such as DOOM, MechWarrior, Freelancer and Neverwinter Nights.
I was familiar with and using tools such as Bryce, LightWave, trueSpace, 3D Studio Max, POV raytracing, VistaPro and many others.

Many reasons and circumstances conspired in having me leave the net community where I grew up and withdraw into private concerns for over 10 years. Second Life is my return to the multiverse and my recovery from this isolation. The quotes played by the Ibis and the Swan and the music in Cygnus reflect on my feelings about being 'home' again (on the net) ]




[Left Side/output]


Above Blossom-Tree and The Moon is my Solar Symphony. This is an interactive piece, composed of compound loops from a long RL piece of mine of the same name which spans approximately 9 minutes.

The Sun in the Symphony may be SAT on; from this point, each planet's Voice in the Symphony may be activated by touching and waiting for the loop to synchronize with the timing. The Symphony is able to sound all the planets at one time or in subsets/'chords' of planets to produce several different soundscapes. It is a meditation on the structure and music of the universe [organized perceptual set] being a function of the central position of the Observer (you). The universe really does revolve around you... at least the local universe you create in your head does.




On the wall is a painting, 'The Matrix ReRendered', which will animate a stick-figure representation of a pivotal scene from the computer film 'The Matrix' on touch. Stick figures... because one of the first works of animation I did as a child (and many do) was flip-books made by making stick figures in the bottom corners of a book or notebook and then flipping the pages quickly to produce a crude 'movie'.

It was also created as a sly comment on the elaborate nature of modern virtual art (mine in particular) and creating in that modern medium my most raw beginning attempts in animation.


Shijin [poet] will 'speak' several poems on touch. Shijin delivers poetry in text [encoded speech] but is silent; a pun on the nature of poetry, which should be heard to fully appreciate.


Data/Information is a cube in which the textures DATADATADATADATA shrink on approach to show a sphere of information hidden in the data. Touching the Information Point will deliver a copy my painting 'Portrait Of The Artist As A Binary Process' to you. This piece is a restatement of the nested-loop structure of SLF Portrait.


Hanging in the air is ME MEME ME, a pun on The Beatles' "I, Me, Mine" [a sound recording] and on the word 'meme' [ "a unit of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena." - Wikipedia]. I am [ME] the [MEME] of [ME].

At the front left corner of the installation is Building Blocks; AGCT arranged in a pyramid of 10 [1+0, the transposition in binary of a place to a higher place]. The Blocks play a soundbyte from Schoolhouse Rock about multiplying by 10 and the functions of Zero and One.

- * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * -

Main Soundscape Pieces


Storm Caller holds the Dream Drum.

Gridflower contains the sound of my old Hayes modem connecting to Compuserve, long ago.

Iron Orchid/Hallucinoflora #2 (for Michael Moorcock) gives an audio and spacial expansion to the main soundtrack.

The Earth Tone sphere above plays the root fundamental frequency of the planet Earth; the measureable tone the planet gives off spinning in space.

Tao (Dragon Dance) also contains this tone with harmonics added.

The Moon above the Blossom-Tree is a Gregorian Choir singing harmonics of the Earth tone.

[All three of these sound emitters were created with overlays of alpha wave frequencies, designed to relax the body and mind and to stimulate the pineal gland. Likewise, they are layered with binaural beats to reinforce brainwave entrainment]

Angelic Lamp holds the Dream Horn.

Canis Majoris holds the sound of the Barking Dog.

The flower on the Bedside Table, Feyharp, plays the Dream Harp.


Blossom-Tree uses the sung notes of the major scale - Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do. However, notes were shuffled and combined to make the Tree sing my name. If you listen you will hear the looping melody:

->SO, Ti La... La, Re, Fa, So, Re, Ti, MI ->


The Bellflower sits beside and harmonizes with Blosson-Tree.


- * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * -


The Codes

Scattered throughout 'code dreams' is information. Some of this information is encoded in the binary code of computers; some is coded in the hexadecimal programming language. There are also scattered QR code blocks and barcodes - if you have a capable scanner, scanning them will produce various statements, a biography of me, links to this website/blog and various other fun stuff. Some of these codes are embedded in the form or placement of objects; some of them are embedded in the tonal sequences of music and some are on textures. It is left to the explorer to puzzle out these little bonus items ^_^

For example, here is a QR code block hidden in the installation you might discover - scanning it will produce this text, which is representative of the theme of 'code dreams':

"There is information all around you; hidden meanings in the patterns of the world. Some people are aware of those hidden meanings; we call them shamans, witches, wizards. They read signs and wonders, trends and currents and know their meanings."

You might find the 4th Amendment, quotes from The Matrix and Blade Runner and the first verse of the Beverly Hillbillies theme song :D


You might also discover the barcodes, among them these:

"Secret message inside!"
"Eat At Joes"
"Im in yr codez bein sekrit"


- * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * -



Why 'code dreams'

The ancient philisophical debate and existential question: who am I? Am I what people say about me? Am I the collection of facts; data; the incidentals and accidentals of my physical passage through the world? Am I 'real' online? Am I 'real' when I talk on the telephone?



Are we preprogrammed, like machines? Are we imprinted with subroutines, like EEPROM chips? Are there strict pathways in our cortex and neurons which make is do what we do, always, like a machine? Do we have freedom? Who makes the world - the school where we were taught about it; the opinions and insights of our friends; the various compendiums of data [facts and figures] regarding the material world; the voice from the pulpit?



A programmer or an engineer is familiar with the old maxim: "the variables are variable and the constants aren't constant." Familiarity with machines or programming will reveal certain unexpected influences and reactions, variations and conditions. There are no "absolutes" in computing, nor are there in physical life.



The world spins; cosmic rays alter; spacetime is elastic [as shown by Einstein and the quantum physicists]; merely a phenomenom of local stature. Strict grade-school physics tells me that most of what I believe to be 'solid matter' is in fact composed of more empty space than of physical particles. Further, quantum and electron microscopy starts to question even the 'solidity' of atomic structures... we are all dancing and changing through time. This is what the Tao would tell you thousands of years ago or right now, or the ancient Vedas, or Plato's allegory of shadows on a cave wall.



If you work long enough with machinery, electronics or computers, you come to realize that many machines have distinct 'personalities'; random system noise that is picked up by the machine and spun into the routines and subroutines of its programs, which sometimes affect the entire operating system of the machine or its' output [analog synthesizers are a good example of this, as is 'prim twisting' in SL, where functions and data from one shape can disappear, bend or be altered, truncated or discarded by changing the base shape of the prim with varying interesting effects]



Autonomous processes are our system daemons and BIOS; childhood habits and experiences are EEPROMS and subroutines, partially reconfigureable with effort. Nervous systems are networks, carrying sense data which our brain/cpu/operating system assembles into information [coherent relationships of data].



From simple code arises complexity. From basic building blocks we assemble the program of the world. We are always code, dreaming to itself.


- * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * -

Miso Susanowa: we are only amino acids... if you are reductionist

Hypatia Pickens: But we do exist because of the code
Hypatia Pickens: We have a unique code, and we stand in a unique spot on the grid.
Hypatia Pickens: What isn't real about that?

Miso Susanowa: no more no less real that our usual persona masks in the physical world

Hypatia Pickens: And we play roles out there as well


- * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * -


i build these walls like i build my world
out of bits and pieces, flotsam and jetsam
junk and jewels and seaweed and sand
wrack washed up on the beach of being

dreams and fears and loves and deaths
bits and bytes and notions and fantasies
amino acids, nebulous thoughts
waves and participles, past and present

i dream in code:
adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine
i code dreams:
shape and surface, color and texture

code world; physical world
only masks on the core of experience.

- Miso Susanowa, "code dreams"
for Pop Art Lab/Artbreaker, Sept. 2010



You can see more photos from code dreams here:

code dreams Flickr set

... and Dividni Shostakovich has a very thoughtful tour of 'code dreams' and some wonderful writing on these topics here.

Unfortunately, Blogger kicked a wicket in posting my reply to his thoughtful review, so I am posting it here; please read Dividni's post before reading further:

[reply to that posting]

TY Dividni! A wonderful article and happy you came to HEAR how I think :D

We have no argument, contrary to your second half. You are making my points for me; it is my failing to communicate clearly. You have thought about the issues crucial to the installation and that is the point of artwork - dialogue and discussion.

Our minds are NOT computers; agreed. Nor are our minds "merely electrostatic discharges between synapses." The point of INPUT, as you remarked, is that "this is the label the machines have for the person running the avatar named "Miso Susanowa" but it is not ME, anymore than the sound of my name is me; these are labels.

The application of old-world computer metaphors of strict binary/dualistic processes echo the outdated thinking of Man-As-Clockwork-Orange theories that recur throughout history. We know now in computing as well as in biology that there is no sharp demarcation, no "dividing line" that can be applied to organic and cybernetic systems.

So the final lines in 'code dreams' refer to opposing forces in the same way a taijitu ('yingyang symbol' for you gaijin) expresses opposing forces, which in fact are an illusion and compliment each other to create a larger whole.

My life in code is a compliment to my life in flesh; neither one is "more real" than the other; merely... angles of view and perspective; only useful metaphors, not "the truth."

You mention "the codes and dreams ... are in difficult tension; perhaps the point is irony... or ambivalence." The approach/idea/conceit was to show these things as toys of the mind; toys to play with, to think about and dream about, but ultimately only toys; words to describe the wordless. It is the same theme stated by the initial Tripartite Key/Input area, where various labels and facts and characteristics applied to me are only fragmentary labels, not really "me." That a person is more than an assemblage of their facts and figures, in a database or in a casual stranger's eye. For the same reason, all objects in the room are phantom but for the Bed and the Poet (storyteller) - my worldview is subjective and not authoritative to anything but itself.


"when the codes become the background and not the focus of "code dreams," the work takes off." Beautiful! THIS IS THE ENTIRE POINT of the installation and you found it!!! The scenery, the objects are PROPS. The installation, like the rest of the Artbreaker pieces, is about SOUND. It is also about who i REALLY am, to myself; I HEAR. I make music which I hear in life, in objects and things and the rythmns of life. That is what is most "real" to me in my everyday physical life. The code is definitely supposed to be in the background; both sets of code, biological and computer.


"you could say that in music, "here's a note, here's another note, here are three at once" ... but you would be wrong. " You see? We are agreeing :) I apologize for stating my thesis in such a muddled way. Reductionist theory would have you break down Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata' into quarter-, whole and half-notes, or even further to scratchings of ink on paper. But it would not tell you why it can make you cry, or make you think deeply about the man who composed that music, or what he is saying about the condition of Man everywhere, in every age, at some time in her life. It would not be music.


Thank you so much for such a thorough and interesting exploration of my world (the other gentle mock in the entire build; it is not so nearly neat as input/processing/output; it's messy, like my mind, like life itself).


If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber'd here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
if you pardon, we will mend:
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.

- 'Wild Bill' Shakespeare




Thursday, September 9, 2010

Artbreaker on Treet TV and Another One Of Those Conversations

The Artbreaker! Event at Pop Art Lab is now on Treet -


... including the speeches of the artists, Pathfinder and Claus. It's worth a watch if you missed (or got logged from) the opening... and the Tasuko Ghost performance is the second half (look for the link). See below post for particulars.


also, Iono Allen's great promo for Artbreaker! is a must-see. Very dynamic and snazzy; Iono only gets better and better. Watch for this guy to go professional very soon...




* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Again, one of those conversations that can only happen late at night online...

Miso Susanowa: we need an otter president
Miso Susanowa: Scotti for Prez in 2012!
Miso Susanowa: wait, can you pay campaign contributions in Lindens?

Scottius Polke: maybe in herring
Scottius Polke: or clams

Miso Susanowa: not RED herring tho
Miso Susanowa: that would be commie

Scottius Polke: dont pay attention to the red herring


Miso Susanowa: the opposition can be The Red Herrings
Miso Susanowa: hahahahaha wouldnt that make a GREAT second life art/agitprop?
Miso Susanowa: run a presidential campaign in sl
Miso Susanowa: i will write speeches for you

Scottius Polke: i want to be a constable
Scottius Polke: because I like that word

Miso Susanowa: "We canNOT have, i say CANNOT have, persons in the White House who do not stink like fish!"

Scottius Polke: A "Dont' Ask, Don't Smell" policy

Miso Susanowa: omg giggle
Miso Susanowa: and the Weasels will oppose you
Miso Susanowa: The Weasel Party

Scottius Polke: and have to watch out for Mr Toad
Scottius Polke: at least in his horseless carriage

Miso Susanowa: for Mr Toad we can use a morphed pic of Rumsfeld
Miso Susanowa: he's halfway there

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Artbreaker Opening @ Pop Art Lab






"Two well-known and respected journalists were seen getting familiarly friendly at the big Pop Art Lab opening this Saturday..." aHEM *cough* ok, enough trolling for blog hits...

The Artbreaker opening at Pop Art Lab yesterday was chock-full (and over-full; at several points we had +63 avatars glued to their seats) was a wonderful, interesting and art-creamy event which had me spellbound to my computer/virtual car/magic mirror for 12 straight hours (given a few interruptions for food and etc).

See post below for particulars; the Artbreaker installations will be in place for at least a month so go HEAR them! Kudos to Claus Uriza, Binary Quandry and the ever-brave and gracious Persia Bravin, who nicely read my presentation speech for me when voice failed. This kind of globe-spanning event/conference/exchange is what virtual worlds are all about.

Highlights included an appearance and talk by Pathfinder (ex-Linden) John Lester, a true game god; interesting art blah-blah by the artists showing (particularly interesting/congruent with my own views was Bryn Oh's talk) (my blahblah is reproduced below if you wish to torture yourself); great dj sets by MommaLuv Skytower, a boffin' set by the Dead Heathers & Sky Galaxy and the always-spellbinding Tasuko Ghost (if anyone says to you, "Second Life is just a game" I heartily recommend you throw a Tasuko Ghost performance in their face and be prepared to catch flies for them as they gape).

Tasuko Ghost, ayaka Ocello, sixeyes Bluebird & ColeMarie Soleil enchant at Artbreaker



* * * * * * * * * * * * *


Today is both a sad day and a happy day; the last round in the present UWA 3D Art & Design Challenge gets voted on today at 5pmSLT. The Challenge has been an incredible stimulus to creativity for me, challenging me to create a new work each month to enter. Since I am an airhead about money/Ls (a well-known fact), the impetus for me has been the excitement of creating and the chance to let people view my works, prize or no prize.

I've foamed and gushed about the work being done by UWA before, so if you want to hear it again just search my old blog posts.



* * * * * * * * * * * * *

As for me, I will attempt to put into practice some blog-posting ideas promulgated by a marketing maven who spoke at great length about not much yesterday at the opening, advising bloggers such as myself on the art of pithy, zen-like SHORT postings to capture market-share eyeballs and so on. (waits three beats) HAHAHAHAHAH YEAH SURE! (cartoon eye-poke noises ensue) Listen up, droid-boy: it all depends on what audience you're trying to reach. Now go get some real-world experience and call me back :P

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

This is my presentation speech at Artbreaker, nicely read in voice by Persia Bravin:


I'd like to first thank Claus Uriza and the wonderful folks at Pop Art Lab for their amazing work on this show and in Second Life. Congratulations on your two-year anniversary! I'd also like to thank The Nordic Virtual Worlds Network and Treet.TV for their support and recognition of Pop Art Lab's efforts.

It is a pleasure and an honor to be included in a group of such spectacular and distinguished artists, and another pleasure to have a show dedicated to sound. Often in Second Life and other virtual worlds, the visual takes precedence; it is flashy and attention-getting; it integrates with the medium of light and color presented on the computer screen. We all like flickering pictures
:D

However, sound is one of the major senses, used for navigation, communication and a sense of location and presence in an environment. We are not eyes only; hearing works with vision (and smell and touch) to fill in our world; to expand our perception of the environment and deepen and enrich our experiences. You cannot have a world or a universe without sound.

For me, sound is so integral to my feeling and understanding of an environment, I couldn't imagine not focusing on it. In physical life, I will often sit and just LISTEN, whatever environment I am in. To me, hearing a soundscape is the same as watching a film; rich, engaging, enthralling. The way sounds shift, mix, delineate and describe events unseen expand my awareness beyond my immediate and visual surroundings to place me in the larger matrix of the world.

So please, as you tour these installations, LISTEN to these worlds; listen to what they are describing, whispering, saying... listen to the SOUND of the multiverse and let it expand your sense of these worlds and this environment. Let it fill in the volumes that color and light and form sketch; let it breathe into these digital spaces and let you know you inhabit a WORLD, not just a movie screen.

Oh... and be sure to TOUCH things, please! Interact with the works. You do this constantly in the "real world," so make this world real!

Thank you :)

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Artbreaker - Pop Art Lab's 2nd Anniversary


Pop Art Lab is one of the best displays for the exploration of the emerging new digital medium. Founded by Claus Uriza in 2008, PAL is a showcase of the synergistic digital arts, particularly in sound and music. There are four separate domes dedicated to Electronica, Rock, R&B and hip-hop, as well as performance venues for purely digital artists and collaborators.

On Sept. 4, PAL kicks off a two-month exhibition of art/soundworks to celebrate its' two-year anniversary in Second Life. There will be speakers, talks by artists and live music in a spectacular showcase for the possibilities of digital art.

Partners in this event include the Nordic Virtual Worlds Network and Treet TV. The artists include Abstract Baroque, Binary Quandry, Bryn Oh, Misprint Thursday, Sabrinaa Nightfire, Sledge Roffo, Sunn Thunders and myself.

Some of the best digital bands will be playing; check the schedule below and engage your ears for some dreamy earcandy.

Speakers: Robin Teigland (NVWN), Doug Thomsen (Remedy), Ryan R. Rasmussen (Zucalo Group), Claus F. Povlsen (Pop Art Lab)

Live music: The Dead Heathers, Craig Lyons, Engrama, Tasuku Ghost, MommaLuv Skytower and more.

September 4th, 12pm - 12am PST

12:00 Meet & greet

12:15 Artists presents installations
01:00 Speakers: Binary Quandry (Art Breaker), Claus Uriza (PAL)

02:00 MommaLuv Skytower (US)
03:00 CraigLyons Writer (US)
04:00 DJ TBA
04:30 Live music: Engrama (Arg/Esp)
06:00 Live music: The Dead Heathers (UK/Aus/US)
07:00 ART BREAK! – Tours at Installations

08:00 Meet & greet
08:15 Artists presents installations
09:00 Speakers: Dusan Writer (Remedy), Austin Ellison (Zocalo Group/PAL), Robin Teigland (NVWN)

10:00 Live music: Tasuku Ghost (Jap)
11:30 Live music: Skye Galaxy (US)
12:30 End'