The Cannery Award Event: 75k L$ to hand out
November 9, 2007 9:23 am75 000 l$ prize money
The SLart at the Cannery exhibition closing party was a fun event. Strangely enough, when Sho and I were talking, most payed attention. Somehow I suspect the 75 000 Linden Dollars of prize money we had to divide amongst the winning photographs did help to that. *grins*
We made that many L$ out of the SLart? No, malheuresement pas, more on that later. But we had Browzmi.com as a sponsor for the prize money.
But I assume you’re curious how it was divided?
65k l$ for the top three voting winners:
Cyber Angel by Mia Olivier - 30 000 l$
Fusion by Nephie Eerie - 8000 l$
Reflexion by Raul Crimson - 8000 l$
Self Portrait by Kean Kelly - 8000 l$
10k l$ for the ‘honorable mentionings’ chosen by Shoshana and me:
A Little Skin by Kaylin Idora - 3000 l$ (Vint)
Royal Pig by Andromega Volare - 1000 l$ (Vint)
Nude V by Corbett Howard - 1000 l$ (Vint)
Heartlight by Melodious Source - 3000 l$ (Shoshana)
Self-portrait by Collin Savon - 1000 l$ (Shoshana)
Theft by Tyffany Flintoff - 1000 l$ (Shoshana)
SLart at the Cannery profits
… were less than expected/hoped. So Rezzable waved it’s part of the revenue in favour of the artists and so did Shoshana Epsilon and I with part of our curator fees. We must admit we did the merchandise wrong - especially as all was not far from timely finished - or at least not good enough.
Keeping the sales figures in mind we are re-thinking the SLart at the Cannery concept a bit - possibly expanding it - , but don’t fear, the shows will stay.
On Rezzable’s Artist Agreement
There was (is?) a lot of discussion going on about Rezzable Production LTD’s Artist Agreement. The new one isn’t finished yet, and although the themes for the next Second Life photography exhibition at the Cannery are known*, Shoshana and I do not accept submission for that one until the remake of the Artist’s Agreement is done.
Cyanide Seelowe says the old artist agreement is an unfair one, especially compared to First Life artist agreements. I disagree, as - something that all should have learned by now - Second Life is not First Life:
- ‘… you should never give full perm textures… blablabla‘ - If we really wanted to steal it, we could just as well have pressed ‘print screen’ on 512×512 textures, no?
- ‘… do not email the work…‘ - Well, then Shoshana could not have made the book.
- ‘... complaining about the 25% the artists receive from the show’s total proceeds…‘ - Real life photographs & stuff sell - in galleries - at USD 100 each at least. Our photographs sold at USD 1.50 each. Yet, the time invested was still enormous. Believe me, nobody is getting rich out of this.
- ‘… it’s unfair that artists who sold less get an even share of the money…‘ - It is fair, if they did not like that idea, they should not have participated. To sell the largest amount of photographs in Second Life: become a virtual pr0n photographer. We wanted to make sure that artists with beautiful yet less commercial - less nude - photographs would get rewarded too.
- ‘… on eligable and distribution of proceeds…‘ - Start complaining about that when you have proof we do not pay. Until then, do something constructive, please.
- ‘Your artworks may be used for any promotional materials regarding the show they are in, and you will not be paid for it.‘ - Duh! Promotional means we’re not selling it. Else it would be merchandise and the artists would get their share. Promotional means to promote the show. Which benefits the sales of artwork and merchandise, which benefits the artists.
- ‘The gallery can use the representation of your works in future promotional materials that have nothing to do with the show that your work is in. You will not be paid for this, either.‘ - Otherwise Rezzable could not even show off posters of the past show without having to repay the artist? Sure you never saw this one appear in real life artist agreements?
I also submitted two pictures under this Rezzable Production LTD Artist Agreement. If any artist feels we took abuse of them, made a lot of money and did not share it with him, etc. I’m willing to listen. But I do have good faith in Rezzable, believe they will not abuse the artists trust. I don’t think they could even afford screwing the artists over with their business plan. Remember?
As far as I’m concerned, number 1 to 4 should stay and 5 should change vocabulary wise. Number 7 could be replaced that the promo material that was used for the show could indeed be re-used without paying the artist although we could discuss attribution and it should not just focus on one work, but clearly be a derivative from the artwork made for the show. And Cyaniode’s remark number six was just useless, so we’ll disregard that.
* The show will be called ‘A Different Light’ and - for starters - themes will be: Shadow Play, Red Dawn, Childhood Dreams and What’s Your Angle?
16 Responses to “The Cannery Award Event: 75k L$ to hand out”
I’m interested in submitting a few pictures for the next one, so please keep me informed…
All very interesting points Vint. Good ones…and some are upset when RightasRain states that “the cannery is not a gallery but a venue” … and as such for me I see it as a “venue” for those to see that there is fantastic art coming from SL and as a jump off point to go and seek out more art …. Galleries… perhaps in the artist statement we would be allowed to mention our own galleries or other places to view Sl ARt.
Not to compete but to enhance ones art experience in sl…especially the new but also the old like myself who knows there is much more to see and experience in the artworld of sl.
As far as experience being a artist who submitted work… as the artist, I felt I was handled very well… not alot of work on my part was required thanks to Shoshana and I’m sure yourself Vint. So for me was a very seamless experience and yes I did get paid my portion.
Looking forward to what else comes from “the cannery” shows.
My blog on the cannery artist agreement was not meant to speak ill of the Cannery itself– the sole purpose of that article was to raise awareness and to encourage artists to read through artist agreements in general, as it is unfortunately not a common practice in Second Life. No where in my blog did I say that I thought the Cannery’s agreement was unfair– it was to “show you what you’ll need to look out for when reading through artist agreements”. The text in red was my assessment of the various points throughout the agreement, not a universal ruling that the Cannery is a crooked organization.
I also notice that you did not take direct quotes from my blog in your points, which I strongly encourage you to do– you make very heavy and inaccurate assumptions of what I was trying to say in my blog by altering the points I was trying to make.
I don’t mind if you disagree with what I have to say in regards– it’s all opinion, and disagreement never hurts anyone. But if you are going to argue the points that I made, please present them with full accuracy. Thank you.
Further clarification of my points can be found on my blog, if anyone cares to read them: http://cyanideseelowe.wordpress.com/2007/11/10/the-cannery-artist-agreement-continued/. I apologize for any confusion that may have been caused by the original post.
Amanda, sure will. Although we posted the ‘call out for pictures’ on the Flickr group, my blog, … some have still missed it last time, it seems. But it will go here again, and on flickr, and I hope the artists tell each other too. Nothing wrong with inviting your friends for a contests to have some good competition… . ;)
Stephen, I agree that it is - and is to become - more a venue then a gallery. As the venue is a larger whole. There are numerous thing we can do with the Cannery that are larger then just a gallery. But the ‘gallery’ function of the Cannery is still a major part of it. Cannery = (a whole lot of stuff + gallery), that’s my point of view. ;)
Mentioning the other stuff is not a bad idea, as to put for instance in the notecard that goes with the art or something, if you want to see more from this artist, ‘go here’. I’ll surely mention to Sho & RaR. Although I think such things should not be mentioned in the artist agreement, but just be part of the ‘general courtesy’.
Glad you overall experienced to be handled well, and the feedback on the places were you can see more from an artist (for instance their own galleries) is a good idea. *wants more feedback* ;)
Neither of us mind getting feedback or doing this discussion ‘out in the open’. I think we can only learn of this. As long as nobody calls this a Rezzable Corporate blog. Anyway, just to clarify, whatever I write here is my opinion, and in that way does not need to be Rezzable’s view on things.
Cyanide, if you wanted to raise awareness, you could have been a bit more fair and looked at multiple artist agreements, not only one.
A fine example of why you should read the fine print was recently brought to my attention by the lovely Sasun Steinbeck…
I read that sentence as ‘there is something seriously wrong with that artist agreement’, and so did numerous others.
Your assessment was a very coloured one, as it assumed Rezzable would do all the abuses possible:
NO NO NO!!! YOU SHOULD NEVER EVER GIVE FULL RIGHTS OF YOUR WORK TO SOMEONE YOU DON’T KNOW! IT IS NEVER NECESSARY! THIS IS HOW WORK GETS STOLEN IN SECOND LIFE!
=> Implying Rezzable would steal stuff.
The other 75% will be pocketed by the owners of the gallery.
=> Forgot to mention that that 75% will also be used to pay for costs, and that this all is not profit?
With the way you formulated it, you did rule it to be a crooked organisation, imho. A slight mention of this being ways of how gallery owners could take advantage of your work, but that - if they respect their artists - are not necessarily going to do so, would have reassured a lot of artists and saved us this whole discussion.
I did not take quotes from your blog, because I linked to your blog, that means that everybody should have gone and read for themselves. In full accuracy, of course, as that is on your blog. That and I saw the caps lock, was to lazy to retype everything in non-caps and found my summaries rather accurate.
I don’t mind if you disagree with what I have to say
Oh, thank you that I’m entitled to have my own opinion on this!* And the main problem was not what you had to say, but how you said it. Scaring the hell out of some artists about what was going to happen with their work. And with your posts, insinuating that Rezzable would do all this ‘bad things’.
* Sorry, this one was to good to pass up on. :D
[…] 2007 - The first SLart at the Cannery exhibition ends and working on my shop at Bruges. To be continued… […]
First of all, big thanks for your work (and Shoshana) at The Cannery, thanks for considering my work and thanks for the prize.
About the “agreement”, i was talking with Sho about it, i think is (of course) totally legal, and you explain it quite well here, anyway you can like it or not, so you will accept it or not, is a personal choice, maybe Cyanide post was a bit scary for a lot of people. Anyway this agreement is not worse or “harder” for artist than other gallery ones, like “Avatrait”.
Some days ago i read a “copy-pasted” conversation including some comments by RightAsRain, that comments can be understood as a contempt for SLphotographers as creators. Personally that’s what made me feel a bit reluctant to show images again at The Cannery, not the Artist Agreement. Anyway, i should ask directly to him, just to have a clearer idea about his opinion.
Raul:
I am not sure what gave you or anyone the idea that we have contempt for SLphotographers as creators. It is certainly not the case and our attempt to build a showcase venue for SLphotographers is a clear (and expensive btw) proof point. Actions speak louder than “copy-pasted” conversations.
Also, when we used the agreement first time around no one made any comments on it. So we were more than a little surprised this time to hear such strong reactions. Some of the points were interesting and we have adjusted accordingly. Some of the comments were also not constructive and really just personal attacks.
We would hope that you would see through all the noise and continue to participate in our shows. We certainly would like to see you work on display there and continue to try to help you make some Lindens on the process.
Jon:
Sorry about two things:
First i forgot to say thanks also to Rezzable and the Rezzable team for the exhibition at The Cannery.
Second, maybe i wasn’t clear enough.
About the agreement i think it is ok, and i’m sure The Cannery team is working on it to make it even better, just wanted to remark someone can accept it or not depending his/her needs or thoughts.
About that “copy-pasted” conversation, RightAsRain said things like: “…we are trying to make this effort self-sustaining so it is not a charity for poor artists, is a commercial venue…” or “…you put out a photo in SL people can immediately take a photo of it…or put it on Flickr…same issue…so there is always risk…there is a trade-off here… (talking about rights over SLphotos)” and some others that CAN be understood as a contempt. Personally i don’t know if “poor artists” means “bad creators” or “miserable artists”, and to doubt about the creator’s rights over SLphotography just because is “easy to copy” to justify the position of Rezzable in the controversial of the Artist Agreement i think is not the best position. And that’s why i said: “Anyway, i should ask directly to him, just to have a clearer idea about his opinion.”.
I’d like to add this is just my opinion, and i’d like nobody understand it as a personal attack.
Maybe i’m misunderstanding what RightAsRain said or just being too “sensitive” about this questions.
Raul, thank you for mentioning we sort of line up with the Avatrait as it comes to the ‘SLartist Agreement’. I really felt ‘attacked’ because of the article, because well… she only did a ‘look out for all this’ breakdown of our Agreement.
As for the “…we are trying to make this effort self-sustaining so it is not a charity for poor artists, is a commercial venue…”, I always understood the poor artists as in ‘poverty + artists’. We don’t want to give them money because nobody else will do so, we want people to realise they have some great work and that the time, effort and skill they put into it is definitely worth the money/Linden dollars.
As for the ‘there is always a risk’, it’s exact the same reply as mine to Cyanides remark that full perms are 3v|L. There will always be a way to steal textures that are provided on the internet. The trade-off is either do not expose your work at all and it will not be stolen as nobody can see/reach it, or expose it, take pride of it and take with that the risk that someone will steal it. It’s not saying that it’s ok that people steal it, just that the risk will always be there, regardless how good your artist agreement is (the thief does not need to be a gallery, it could just as well be a RL TV station as Tobie and the like experienced, or another SL resident, or..). It’s not doubting about the creator’s rights, it doubting if there is a possiblity to completely secure you work without not letting it leave your hard disk.
(But then again, that’s my interpretation of The Book of Jon IV-V =)
Raul..lately not sure if explaining our position makes it clearer to people or just more words to get twisted around. But “contempt” is a very strong word–so I hope our actions speak strongly to show we are doing what we think will help artists promote their work and make some money.
Thanks, Vint and Jon, for the comments.
Sorry if i disturbed you with that word, Jon, my first language is not english and maybe i made a literal translation.
Actually, when you use print-screen to grab textures you aren’t getting the full-rez texture. They are scaled down slightly, and have a beveled border. So if you capture a 512×512 texture you end up with a re-sized 505×505, which you have to crop to 503×503, re-size again to 512×512, and re-compress again on upload.
[…] first exhibition ‘SLart at the Cannery’ has ended: voting awards ceremony has been held, artists have been paid and feedback from both the artists as well as the visitors has been […]
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