I once had an art teacher that said that for something to be art, it was necessary that it contained a vision on our society as it is now, an analysis of it, society as a whole, or only a tiny part of it, by comparison, projection, enlargement, … . If this is the case*, you may definitely call Strawberry Holiday’s latest installation SLart - or maybe you can’t. Hmm… Anyway, reading about ‘Disconnected’ on Chestnut Rau’s blog I got curious about that prim lady sitting in an orb on a couch in front of a TV, next to two pc’s with a portable phone and a music player at that. What’s disconnected about that, she has all possible means of communications right near her? Well, not exactly. That beautiful technology dome separates her from the - also beautiful - green outside. She does not notice the things happening Outside, the leaves dropping, season changing, avatars dropping by to watch her, … .
Being - kinda - fanatic about web, ‘web 2.0′, virtual worlds and the like, I - think - to understand what Miss Strawberry wants to express with this installation. But I can’t whole hearted agree with this. We get more ‘news’ and ’status updates’ on the people around us then 10 years ago. I often know about something major going on at the other side of the world, before our television stations, as somebody mentions it on Plurk, IM, Skype, Facebook, … . BUT there’s so much distortion coming in also. Information overload, if you wish to call it that way. And the moment you can’t filter that constant stream of data anymore, that it becomes overkill, and you miss the important things because there is just to much, well, then you’re really disconnected. Eerr… so for Strawberry Holiday’s photography contest, I took the liberty to mod her art a bit, adding supplementary data noise. I hope she does not hold this against me, because now I can find myself in her installation, a full 100%.
If you want to see the original and interpret it yourself - and maybe even correct me where I’m wrong -, teleport to Starfish Four, 73, 133, 27. More on Miss Strawberry Holiday and her works, you can find at StrawberryHoliday.com.
* That same teacher said ‘mentally handicapped’ people could not produce art, which is pretty strange, as I don’t call cutting your own ear off exactly sane.
Today at the Virtual Worlds London Convention one of the panel members - don’t ask me _which one, RaR took home my Smarties and ate my notes - mentioned that a great story line - be it a television series, a game or something else - should have the power to make you cry, emotionally involve you. I must say, I did not stumble over such content in Second Life yet. Except for our virtual roaches maybe. Aurakyo Insoo’s Viva la Vida might be one of the first virtual world art works that has such a huge influence on avatars and the humans watching over their shoulders.
Viva la Vida - a tribute to life, as creator AuraKyo Insoo puts it - is a sequenced performance, taking up a complete (Rezzable) sim. As part of the Visions project, where artists get the chance and scripting-, promo- and whatever-else-they-need-support to port their virtual artistic vision to a whole-sim-build, AuraKyo created an engaging pathway through birth, life, suffering, death and in the end, salvation. Containing tons of little secrets, symbols such as a giant ark, a sound excerpts, compelling images, ups and downs, and things to click - hear, hear, Prok! - this ‘virtual ride’ with Miss Insoo as your guide is something that will definitely not disappoint you. If you have a mind willing and/or capable to think about what it sees & experiences, that is.
In this performance I want to tell what I feel with humility, because I believe that we must do something by the suffering of others and this world that dissolves in fragments. I really hope that you can live a beautiful moment of your life here. “Come on, the Ark will start the trip!” True the exhibition it becomes very clear AuraKyo Insoo is not a native English speaker, but rather than taking away from the experience, it adds to it, making it more easy to get to the essence of what she wants to share with us, in the mean while leaving some of the interpretation of her words & sentences to the audience, forcing our - sometimes tired brains - to think.
Visiting Viva La Vida
I advise taking some friends - or even complete strangers - along on your visit of this celebration of life, because you are bound to stumble over, into and under things, which will make you go ‘huh?’ and where you will want to consult others on what they think it means. I took Loaf and Roxette, whom made excellent companions! ;)
AuraKyo Insoo stipulated some rules - that make lots of sense, btw! - for photography/machinima which you should read before visiting: All the content of this installation has copyright reserved, that means that you can take photographs and video and show them only if you mentioned the creator and the place, but you can not manipulate and sell them because this is a non commercial creation. Thanks for understanding. For more information see: DMCA Copyright Legislation.
If you appreciate AuraKyo’s work of art - 100% guaranteed you will - make sure to leave a small - or huge - donation in her tip jar. I’ll add a little non-L$ donation to that. As her Viva La Vida inspired me to make my own interpretation of her work by adding some image & pixel manipulation, I return to her the idea & result that originally belong to her. I ’shot’ the snapshot above, but by this transfer all rights to the full, giant version go to AuraKyo (& corresponding human). It’s all hers now, to do with as she pleases. Does that make sense as a ‘thank you’?
PS. I’m not including much pictures, although Viva la Vida is definitely worth taking them. It’s my opinion you should see & experience this yourself!
PPS. Credits go to Madame Maracas and Ana Lutetia for helping me with the title of this blogpost! ;) The other optional title I had in mind was: ‘This is what Second Life was created for’.
PPPS. I left a secret behind when visiting the ark. Guess which is mine?
Beautiful, isn’t it? Innocent but passionate, lovely but a bit macabre, fascinating and bewitching, cute but with a sick twist.. I don’t know how to exactly describe the avatar and matching accessories Four Yip created as a gift for Passions of Crimson Shadow, and named ‘Lune-atic Yipsie’. It’s quite a complete set which contains a skin - based on Eloh Eliot’s skins -, shape, horns with or without candles, astonishing detailed red hair which you can wear with bats and flowers as well as without, a body skinsuit and a scarf made of rats. Accessoires include the table, chair & teddy bear to pose, as well as a backdrop with moon and apple to kneel down for. Lune-atic Yipsie hides under the table and sings, in a state of sleepwalking. Four Yip suggest you rezz her nightmare, so it becomes yours. Mind that this proves that nightmares can be beauty.
(For people who heard rumours about Vint naked artfully nude on top and under a table, this is it. Another photograph, taken by the wonderful - and Belgian - SL ‘photographess’ Kynne.)
Continuing the search for great machinima’s 2008 there’s ‘Carnival of Doom - Noobs Welcome’ filmed by PG Broadbent from Ididthisfilm.com. PG ((with some aid from his human Pier Giorgio Provenzano) shot this movie for Rezzable’s - which is, yes, my employee - ‘15 fps of Fame’ series. Regardless if they pay me or not - of course, I prefer that they do - this film definitely deserves a mention as notable Second Life machinima production 2008: Story line is fun, sound overlay is awesome - watch out for the cutting knife sound - and then there’s the exellent ‘noob’ performance by Miss Lokum Shilova. Starring more than 10 avatars in total, such as there are Griete Rasmuson, Vampires Bulloch and Pie Darkstone, and a whole lot of freaky carnival folks, puppets on strings and one innocent noob, this is definitely one to watch (over and over again)!
Carnival of Doom is one of the Rezzable sims that make me really go ‘woooow!’ skilfully prim-tortured and assembled by Beatrix Newt, it’s a delicacy for the eye and snapshot function! And then I’m not even mentioning the fun carnival games, hell and the freaky but oh-so sexy (ok, except for the evil clowns maybe) fashion & costume possibilities you find there. Follow the TP to go there. Not convinced yet? See this:
B. Kiddo (Simspremiere) - previously mentioned with her machinima The Cats Will Play and Surrealia Antanine (OneJovialSim) - also see link above - have another joined project: neko’s breakdancing and spinning ’round in the virtual subway on Timberland’s ‘Bounce’. B. Kiddo: ‘OneJovialsim and myself got our heads together and each of us shot and edited the same the video puting our own spin on this piece.‘ Take a look, and decide for yourself, which one you like the best:
B. Kiddo - Bounce
Adviced to click the ‘watch in high quality’ on it’s youtube page.
Surrealia Antaine - Bounce
But admit it, no machinima or music video can be bad if it features nekos & tails? ;)
Thought of and directed by Arahan Claveau & Nebulosus Severine ‘Orientation’ is a short, funny machinima featuring rabbits that bare a huge resemblance to George Orwell’s ‘1984′ characters going through an orientation process to end up in a factory which is a combination between a ‘this is how the body works’ instruction video & a Soylent Green like setting. Strangely enough - Arahan (or Steve Miller, for the humans) being involved there is a total lack of ’shock’ content. Except of course, if you are broadly offended by rabits holding an ‘I <3 anal' sign. Shot at Virtual Holland by Chantal Harvey. Overall judgement: cute, with a lovely sick twist!
Update: Apparently the previous video was removed from youtube. I wonder if it was because of the ‘I <3 anal' sign? Anyway, here you go:
What really does crank me up is the song that’s playing in the background. It’s a melodic version of a song I only know in Dutch ‘Sex met die Blonde’ (Sex with the Blond haired girl, low quality youtube link). What’s the English original, assuming there is one?
If you want to see more from Arahan Claveau & Nebulosus Severine, make sure to check out Arahan Claveau’s stream at Blip.TV For Nebulosus, you should also check out video & photo material from her Garden of NPIRL Delights build and check out the work she did with Callie Cline on a dress for Passion of Black Swan for which she is one of the participating designers.
We continue the quest for greatSecond Lifemachinima shot in 2008 by taking a look at Surrealia Anatine’s - from Kisai Studios - work B. Kiddo aka Joga Kidd (more machinima works on simspremiere.com), as was suggested by Phoenix Chapman. One of the most recent Surrealia Antatine’s works Beatrix Kiddo’s work is ‘The Cats Will Play’, a ‘Grindhouse’ - the defunct burlesque theatres, on 42nd Street, New York, where ‘bump n’ grind’ dancing and striptease used to be on the bill - tribute music machinima. A must see for all neko’s (and neko lovers) out there:
A lot of the effects used remind me of a - good, opposed to the casino royale - Bond movie intro, and I wonder how she did them… shooting on ‘blue screen’ (do they still use those?) in-world and lot’s of video editing, or shooting against the full bright backgrounds in SL with ‘render glow = TRUE’. Regardless, ‘The Cats Will Play’ is one sexy music video that makes you want to *purrrrr* (and go out and by ears and tails for the ladies that do not own them yet). *hums ‘hang up the chick habit, hang it up, daddy, a girl’s not a tonic or a pill, … I’m telling you it’s not a trick, pay attention, don’t be thick, or you’re liable to get licked…’*
Surrealia Antanine
Another nice music video - if you enjoy the retro sound of SNAP!’s ‘Rhythm is a dancer’ - is Rhythm is a Dancer by Miss Surrealia Anatine (visible here on Koinup).
And not just Second Life machinima for Miss Anatine, a lot of movies shot by Kisai Studio use Sims2 characters. One of her best is ‘Alice’ - which was the bronze winner for the 2008 Online Machinima Festival. It’s a different version of Alice in Wonderland all right, but who says stories should not evolve and adjust to new media? ;) Behold and enjoy:
Whilst singing Krrish Spyker’s praise, I forgot about one of Second Life’s most famous machinimaista’s: Miss Lainy Voom - aka Trace Sanderson - from Voom Machine. Her latest commercial machinima ‘The Making of Second Life’ for New World Notes was received by the community with a whole lot of ‘w00t!s’ and ‘WoW!s’. Lesser known is her ‘The Dumb Man’ machinima.
Miss Voom’s ‘The Dumb Man’ is a darned impressive Second Life machinima interpretation of the story written by Sherwood Anderson. It’s far beyond what we usually see in Second Life - WindLight regardless - and contains some incredible eye candy. My fav part is at 30 seconds, the rotating earth is just amazing. But again, watch ‘The Dumb Man’ for yourself:
Ok, so I’m not an expert on the machinima subject, nor a great machinimaista but ‘The Visitor’ by Krrish Spyker must be one of the most impressive Second Life machinimas I’ve encountered recently. Of course, maybe some other stunning SL machinimas will be submitted for the Machinima Filmfest 2008 (submission deadline September 12th!), but opposed to the general focus and then rotate your camera around the subject that’s dancing scarcely clad on some wacky song style of shooting machinima in Second Life, ‘The Visitor’ is a real treat!
Shot at Valkyrie Manor (Lime) and -EXP- (REC) this CGI animated story by Krissh Spyker… actually contains a story line! Trey (Trey Rammidge) jumps on his motor bike to visit a mansion and find out if it’s actually haunted. He meets a strange guy (Krrish himself) - conversation ’bout pr0n - and a mysterious lady (Ayra Carter). Which he succeeds at seriously pissing off. But go ahead, take some popcorn and watch the movie… . You want to doubleclick this to go to YouTube and then press ‘Watch in high quality’ for the best possible enjoyment!
On the web, not much info on Krrish Spyker and ‘The Visitor’ machinima could be found, except for his facebook profile. And err… am I right? Is this one of the best SL machinima’s released this year? Or did I miss out on some other great ones released in 2008? (which creators we should poke to submit to the Machinima Filmfest 2008 to represent our brave new virtual world? ;)
update: how could I forget about Lainy Voom’s work?! *slaps herself*
Direct and contributory trademark infringement Linden Lab;
direct and contributory trademark dilution by Linden Lab;
trademark infringement by the John Doe defendant known as ‘Victor Vezina’ and others;
trademark dilution by the John Doe defendant known as ‘Victor Vezina’ and others;
tortious interference by Linden Lab;
fraud by Mitch Kapor;
fraud by Philip Rosedale;
and fraud by Linden Lab.
Earlier on, guest writer at ‘Virtually Blind’ and trademark attorney Thayer Preece already concluded that - although the trademark should probably not have been appointed to Richard Minsky in the first place - SL residents are now stuck with that, and ‘are faced with a choice of either losing the use of the word, or opening themselves up to potential lawsuits and account suspensions‘. Benjamin Duranske further notes: ‘Please note that as with any lawsuit, these claims are merely that — claims. They have not been tested, and indeed, none of the defendants have yet formally responded to the Complaint. This site will cover their response when it occurs.’
Although it’s probably more for protecting their own ‘SL + word’ trademark, Linden Lab is siding with the residents on this ‘SLarty’ trademark case:.
An interesting fact is that - according to Richard Minsky’s paperwork - LL asked - as we hoped would happen - Minsky to stop hassling other residents and abandon his trademark as it does not comply with Linden’s ‘SL’ trademark: ‘Ms. Pirri also told Ms. Franklin that Linden wanted me to abandon the SLART mark before the USPTO, to stop approaching other residents regarding their unauthorized use of the mark, and to comply with the terms of use of the SL license.’ And in an reply from Ms Pirri (LL Lawyer): ‘And you did confirm that he’ll abandon the SLArt registration with the USPTO? And that he’ll stop his demands that other Residents not use SLart? Please confirm that. It’s important that he understands that he doesn’t have the right to demand that other Residents not make nominative fair use of SLArt‘.
For a more thought off look on the matter - besides OMFG! Good luck taking on LL’s lawyers! - I refer you to Virtually Blind, but I do wonder:
Is there any chance/rule/whatever that a judge can say ‘Ah, but an error was made giving you the trademark in the first place, so you don’t have any reason to complain, as you do not hold the SLart trademark any more! *declare Minsky’s SLart trademark to be ‘fail’* *stick out tongue*’?
Isn’t it rather crazy to already sue for future violations by people you don’t know? (and holding LL responsible for those, as LL always say the residents are responsible for what they publish, not LL).
If you were ‘an artist, a composer, a musician, a scholar, a curator of exhibitions, an educator, an event organiser, a scholar, and a publisher and internationally recognized as a leader in the field of Book Art’, would you not have anything better to do than writing extremely long boring letters with lots of random facts and considering going to court over this?
Go take a look at the original size!
Beautiful, isn’t it? Innocent but passionate, lovely but a bit macabre, fascinating and bewitching, cute but with a sick twist.. I don’t know how to exactly describe the avatar and matching accessories Four Yip created as a gift for Passions of Crimson Shadow, and named ‘Lune-atic Yipsie’. It’s quite a complete set which contains a skin - based on Eloh Eliot’s skins -, shape, horns with or without candles, astonishing detailed red hair which you can wear with bats and flowers as well as without, a body skinsuit and a scarf made of rats. Accessoires include the table, chair & teddy bear to pose, as well as a backdrop with moon and apple to kneel down for. Lune-atic Yipsie hides under the table and sings, in a state of sleepwalking. Four Yip suggest you rezz her nightmare, so it becomes yours. Mind that this proves that nightmares can be beauty.
This astonishing ensemble of avatar & accessories - as far as you can call a table, chair and moon accessories - is freely available starting October 18th, after the invite-only fashion show, at the Crimson Shadow sim. Update: Instructions how to get to this stunning Freebie on the Rezzable Blog. Passions of Crimson Shadow surely got to Four Yip! ;)
