Gazira Babelli coming to Window

Pioneering Second life performer, sculptor, and general cause of mayhem, Gazira Babelli will be staging a work at Window in the first week of June. One of the earliest artists working in this virtual space, Babelli has consistently pushed the limits of art in SL - from the grotesque distortions caused by hitting terminal velocity in COME.TO.HEAVEN. to the world-crashing, lag inducing cyber terrorism of Grey Goo.

Notable European contemporary arts/new media blog We Make Money Not Art recently featured a review of Babellis show at the Fabio Paris gallery in Brescia, Italy, as well as the iMAL in Brussels. The Window exhibition, entitled "Olym Pong" features a new work designed and coded specifically for the show, and will be interacted with by SL performance group, "Second Front", as well as available On Site, giving visitors to the opening a chance to engage with it.

Architecture from around the net

When Gehry's Guggenheim museum in Bilbao opened in 1997, it immediately became a tourist attraction and revitalised the surrounding area, putting the Basque region "on the map" and winning praise from veteran architect Phillip Johnson as the "greatest building of our time". But the audacious, radical contours of it's shape also highlighted the vital importance of digital mediation in the practice - they would be "nearly impossible" to build without CAD and CATIA (Computer Aided Three Dimensional Interactive Application) visualisations.


Lebanese architecture firm Atelier Hapsitus joins the dozens of high profile, high flying proposals currently underway in the UAE and Dubai, with it's fantastical Cloud building. And while the architects state (perhaps half seriously) that the project "is a dream, suspended between artificiality and reality", their cunning digital visualisations might just enable the Cloud to get off the ground.


Design boom has an extensive overview of dozens of other skyscrapers, 5 star hotels, and concept buildings currently under development. All prominently feature digital modeling and visualisation, some even basing their shapes entirely from algorhythmic forms. The Da Vinci rotating tower, with each story independently controlled, allows thousands of possible combinations, each able to be predicted by a computer simulation. The Dubai Hub One - a cultural and arts sphere - has been designed using "special programing scripts, creating a dense structure of spaces."


Buzzcut, a blog formerly focused on videogames, recently made the (not so) giant leap to focusing on virtual architecture, examining a range of digital and unrealised spaces, from SimCity to Second Life, Debord to Dubai. Virtual Suburbia continues in the same vein, focusing on the metaverse of SL and the dozens of innovative and unusual 'builds' from SL artists. Recent spaces include a replica of the Korova Milk Bar from A Clockwork Orange, historic snapshots of the early days of Second Life, and two major university student projects from Stockholm and Australia.


Not Possible IRL stays with the metaverse, staunchly concentrating on "well conceived and realised content creation in Second Life which would not be possible in real life". Not Possible recommended two spaces which still stand out to me as exceptional - Nathan Babcock's topographic terrain and AM Radio's wheat fields.


Finally Share Architecture and Best and Worst bring us firmly back to solid ground. Both sites are relatively new, the former highlighting new and innovating buildings globally as well as in New Zealand. Both sites also use the digital space as a sounding board - getting feedback via comments, forums, and polls, that will (ideally) come full circle, shaping the waterfronts, public spaces, and apartment buildings of the immediate future locally.

In Pictures: Babel Swarm installation

Babel Swarm, an interactive installation in Second Life has generated a lot of interest recently. A collaboration between Christopher Dodds, Adam Nash, and Justin Clemens, the work occupies a site in the metaverse, as well as being incorporated into a show at the Lismore Gallery in Australia. From the blog....

"Babelswarm is a real-time, interactive, audiovisual artwork built in Second Life. The installation is based on the story of The Tower of Babel – a mythical tale of humanity's desire to reach the heavens. Babelswarm is contained within an entire SIM with visitor chat captured and fed into a meta-babeller. This babeller spills words from the sky and into an amphitheater (performance space). The words shatter on their decent and, once settled, begin to swarm in random directions seeking out other letters that held the same numerical position in the word they were born with. If they find a partner they bond and help create the tower's structure. Eventually each letter will sleep, but can be re-awoken or destroyed by touch."

If you have Second Life installed, you can teleport directly to the installation via this SLURL (http://slurl.com/secondlife/ACVA/119/180/295/).

Prada's Trembled Blossoms fails to fully bloom

From ShowStudio comes word of "Trembled Blossoms", an animated short film for Prada. Directed by James Lima, the film depicts a "cyber woman's journey through a magical, illustrated forest", accumulating clothing from the fashion icon as she goes. And while "Blossoms" is an important shift from glossy photo spreads to moving image for fashion, what's more interesting are the cues taken from online worlds, videogames, and new media.


The film's protagonist, an androgynous avatar birthed into the world by a rose, is heavily influenced by manga and anime - featuring the long legs, large eyes, and faerie complexion favoured by Japanese artists. Beginning nude, but fully grown, the animation starts in the same way as notable online words like Second Life. The main item of clothing, a red and blue check sheath dress, isn't put on, it's transferred. Another avatar appears to bestow the clothing, virally spreading the distinctive check texture from herself to our heroine. A host of traits are picked up from online massive multiplayer environments like World of Warcraft: a pixie companion that circles the avatar, a camera that tracks movement, even glitter and glow effects that look downsampled and artificial.


Starting life as a series of stunning storyboards from James Jean, with beautiful finished watercolours from Jared Purrington, "Blossoms" mood boards are pieces of art by themselves. Elegant lines wrap around explosions of colour, pencil drawings of organic flower/high heel hybrids are delicately articulated. Unfortunately, the final work fails to keep it's cyber and organic influences in tension. Caught between pixel and paint, avatar and actor, "Blossoms" plunges into the Uncanny Valley.


Roboticist Masahiro Mori coined the term in the 70s to describe robots "with appearance and motion between a 'barely-human' and 'fully human'. We love the clumsy hulking metal of C-3PIO, but a more realistic woman cyborg with fake hair, skin and unblinking eyes repulses us. While "Blossoms" doesn't cause this degree of emotion, it fails to work because of it's straddling. Instead of an obviously artificial video-game walk cycle, or a motion captured female walk, the film uses a mediocre between - a badly animated slink that's more strange than sexy. Likewise, the avatars facial expressions are more than the real-time triggered response of a videogame, but they're also far less than human. The result is an experience that is beautiful but cold, stunning but not completely compelling.

Highlights from Second Life art tour

Interactive musical score, part of the Reflexive Architecture series. Notes can be changed by touching them, and are triggered as the avatar walks around the ring of notation.


Eva and Franco Mattes - whose other actions have included spreading a virus and making up artists - here stage a more traditional homage, recreating Joseph Beuys "7000 Oaks" project.


Waco Vaco enjoys sitting in an interactive igloo structure - part of the Reflexive Architecture series. Walking towards the shelter increases the scale of it, until it's large enough for two avatars to fit comfortably in.


Waco Vaco tunnels through Sabine Stonebender's installation at Zero Point. Many artists add a Cartesian dynamic to their pieces by offering elevators, seats, or vehicles to travel through their worlds.


Waco Vaco and Window Oh drifting through Edo Autopoiesis "Resonating with Wind" sound installation. Based on the highly localised currents in SL, each windmill lifts up a red mallet, before dropping it onto the bell at the base, causing a continuously unique sound composition.

Second Life and UpStage walkthroughs tonight

The team who run UpStage, which we've blogged about here in the past, are conducting a walkthrough tonight at 9pm New Zealand time. Just click here at the appropriate time to view the performance and be stepped through some of the features of the virtual performance software. If you'd like to be more involved as a participant, just e-mail them for a guest login.


On a related note, programmer and blog member Luke Duncalfe and myself will be taking a tour through some art projects, galleries, and islands in Second Life at around 7pm New Zealand time. Like to join? Signup for Second Life, login, then click here to teleport to Ars Virtua where we'll be meeting. We hope to visit a sound piece by Edo Autopoiesis titled "Resonating with Wind", Sabine Stonebender's Installation at Zero Point in Kelham , DanCoyote Antonelli's Arts & Letters Installation, and some scripted architecture (video shown above).

Quick Take: Virtual Pay? Virtual Strike

During negotiations with IBM, the union representing workers for the Italian branch of the computer giant asked for a salary increase. The request was denied, and the usual "performance bonus" incentives canceled. In response, the Italian union, together with Union Network International, have planned a virtual strike to occur in Second Life next week.

Interested residents can teleport to Commonwealth Island, where they're armed with a strike kit: from a UNI t-shirt, to signs stating "Our demand was...." and even giant animated fish which can be carried like balloons.

Gimmicky? Sure. Virtually useless? Not at all. What UNI understands is that the virtual can swing the physical - global media will ignore a local computer branch in Italy, but a strike via the transnational Second Life is both bizaare and compelling. From Information Week to The Register, ABC Spain to Radio Canada, UNI received the awareness which is so vital for activism.

Mediating the environment

Open on a shot of a kid walking the street with a black backpack, followed with a handheld videocam. He reaches his destination and unzips the bag. Spraycans? Homemade bombs? Surprise, sliding out of the bag is a digital projector. Snaking a cord to a nearby lamppost, the kid's just created a 50 foot screen - and an audience.

Years ago you'd have to know these guys personally. With the internet they can share it with interested artists and activists from Sydney to Paris - 8 in-depth steps on Instructables, including all the gear, best locations via Google Maps, and open-source code written in C++.

What's interesting here are not the tags themselves (sometimes juvenile or straight digital translations) , or the illegal buzz associated with it. Look past that, and you'll find kids mediating their environment - 'growing' generative graphics on slick corporate hotels, talking back to patronising billboards, humanising concrete with colour and line.


In the past this took the form of physical modifications. Modernisms famous whipping boy is the story of Le Corbusiers houses for factory workers in Pessac. Almost as soon as they were built, workers added shutters, paint, and knick-knacks to personalise their 'machines for living in'. In the future, this might be more abstract - students escaping their 30 square apartments in Auckland for a simulated or gaming world which is more expansive, both conceptually and in terms of 'space'.

Show and Tell: Avatars

At the Film Archive's current show, entitled Puppets to Pixels, they're shadow figures based on traditional fairy tales like Baby Yaga.

While Jason Rowe, born physically handicapped, is represented by a hulking metal robot specialising in ranged weapons.

I'm currently in the US for the next few weeks, so thought I'd start a little thread on avatars. What does yours look like? Where are they used? Any particular reason why they look the way they do?


Avatar Name: Window Oh Platform: Second Life
Like the majority of users of SL, I set up an account, wandered around the virtual world, learning the interface, and stumbling into objects, and have rarely returned. There are high points - dance performance, interactive galleries, and a wide-ranging, if glitchy, freedom. The avatar was one of the first experiments which ended up looking like an androgynous David Bowie with less hair.


Name: lukethor Platform: Nintendo Wii
My Mii avatar, much more similar to the real life version. Nintendo has cleverly picked up on the connection between avatar and player, onscreen and real world counterparts - it means more if your best friend Jamie misses that homerun catch than if COM1 does.

Show and Tell: Web-based performance

A small Japanese girl in traditional kimono steps onto the stage and begins a countdown. 3....2....1, before executing a perfect backflip onto a white box. Another performer responds by repositioning a second box in front of her. The first performer is the Second Life avatar of Markus, an artist based in Munich, the second is Mark, a RL (real life) artist based in Auckland. While this scenario is currently fictional, it's a potential for a show at Window sometime this year.

Changing technology means it's actually relatively easy to create this type of scenario. The onstage performer can see the virtual performer projected behind him with a basic computer logged onto Second Life. The virtual performer can see the action in the gallery via a cheap webcam which streams video to a page online.

It's this augmented reality aspect of Second Life which is rich with possibilities. There are dedicated performance groups, like SecondFront, which stage recreations of fluxus actions, or flamboyant, over the top events: cars are lit on fire, screenshots get LOL captions, members fly around a tower shouting lines and lines of Babelised text chatter. But there's a certain lack of subtlety and awareness there, which becomes apparent when you look at more thoughtful alternatives like Eva and Franco Mattes re-enacting of Beuys, 7000 Oaks, or the quirky, slightly alienated video pieces by Markus Kleine-Vehn (mentioned above), both practicing in other disciplines.

Locally, Marcia Lyons of the Digital Media Design section of Victoria, has plans to launch their programme in-world sometime in the next few months. This should provide some opportunities for collaborations, either in performance, world or object building, or just experiments in this relatively recent space.


Also around town is UpStage, a "web-based venue for live performance" project co-ordinated by Helen Varley Jamieson. She's just announced a series of performances using the online framework, based on themes ranging from childrens stories to virtual sex, big brother paranoia to air guitar.

And while the lo-res avatars and bandwidth limitations mean the platform is literally a little jagged around the edges, UpStage seems to provide a good degree of freedom and personalisation. It also stresses openness - audience members ("chatter" in UpStage lingo) can easily watch and contribute live feedback, albeit in a less overt fashion that the speech of performers ("players").

I've invited Helen to the group and also asked about the regular viewing/participation times that UpStage sets up, every first Wednesday of the month. So if you're interested, there might be an opportunity shortly to get involved or experiment with the platform.