construct on Magoo

I think in general when people say "I know," they don't know, they believe. I believe that art is the only form of activity in which man as man shows himself to be a true individual. Only in art is he capable of going beyond the animal state, because art is an outlet toward regions which are not ruled by time and space. To live is to believe; that's my belief, at any rate.

-- Marcel Duchamp, interviewed by James Johnson Sweeney for NBC at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1956 (more)

'construct' by Selavy Oh, is now on Magoo (Teleport)

More on construct by Selavy Oh here

construct discussed on Arahan Claveau's Soup Radio here


video by Mab MacMoragh: rough draft for a final version of Selavy Oh's 'construct variations' to be finished later this year

Opening at Magoo: "There's no bible in here?" Tues. 12 January 2009 2PM SLT

Penumbra Carter and Dekka Raymaker

SLurl (exhibition has ended)

This is a freeform art build. When we were given the homestead at Magoo to produce a piece for it we had no preconceived ideas for it, so we tackled it in a manner that we constructed our Burning Life 2009 collaboration, throw a plywood cube prim down and see where it took us. The resulting madness is what you see.

As the build developed, we wanted to include some avatar interaction, and we wanted the work to come alive around the spectator. We hope that in some way we have achieved that. The build encompasses sound, light and movement. The build is foremost about fun, nothing heavy, no deep meanings, just subconscious energy driving us to complete the build in the first 3 weeks of December (we actually extended into the first week of January too, taking a 8 day break over Christmas week).

While discussing where the build was going we often used words like 'mad', 'scribble', 'no idea', 'sketchbook' and 'wtf are we doing'. There is a visual remark about an upcoming Linden Lab policy to charge L$99 per month for listing 'freebies' on it's Xstreet marketplace (Joke: "when is a freebie not a freebie?" … "when it costs L$99") there seems to be religious overtones too, but there is no bible in here.

Dekka Raymaker

The Temple of the Prim is closing

soror Nishi's spectacular The Temple of the Prim is ending its stay on Soup:Magoo with the turning of the calendar to December- hurry to see it if you haven't! (SLurl)

Mab has not learned to make machinima but offers this spiffy slideshow of images of soror's work in combination with the original music of Mack Gecko (link)

To see these images in higher resolution in a plain slideshow, large on black, look here (link)

The following lovely machinimas were made by kumi kuhr (link)





More on The Temple of the Prim (link) (link) (link)

Friday 13 Nov, 4-6PM SLT (7-9PM ET): You Are Invited: Brooklyn is Watching: Push!

Where doors and walls are made of mirrors, there is no telling outside from in, with all the equivocal illumination.

-- Walter Benjamin The Arcades Project (link)

An Invitation

Who: You

What: Brooklyn is Watching Re-opening Party

When: Friday, 13 November 2009, 4-6 PM SLT (7-9 PM ET Brooklyn Time)

Where: Inworld @Soup:Push SIM, Second Life® (SLurl)

Where else: Jack the Pelican Presents Gallery, Williamsburg, Brooklyn (link)

How: Dance to tunes spun by DJ Nostrum Forder and come prepared for PRIM (Possible Random Improv Mayhem)

6 November 2009: Thanks to the capable efforts and organization of Misprint Thursday, a meeting was held on Push during which many important things were accomplished relating to the move of BiW from its temporary home on University of Kansas:Impermanence to Soup:Push. As you can imagine, coordinating such a meeting is akin to herding cats. Shown are Dekka Raymaker, Mab MacMoragh, Maya Paris, Misprint Thursday, Monet Destiny, Penumbra Carter, Selavy Oh, and Solo Mornington (Short machinima by Penumbra Carter here)


11 November 2009: A screenshot sampling of artwork left on BiW at one frozen moment in time. The work changes continuously and unpredictably in an organically chaotic process and is experienced as it is meant to be experienced by actively participating in it using the Second Life® avatar movement and camera controls. Work shown is by Betty Tureaud, Cheen Pitney, Comet Morigi. Corcosman Voom, DanCoyote Antonelli, Dekka Raymaker, Kat2 Kit, L1Aura Loire, Luka Loorden, Magina Forcella, Marko Seurat, Misprint Thursday, Oberon Onmura, Pol Jarvinen, Rezago Kokorin, Solo Mornington, Sunn Thunders, Suzanne Graves, Werner Kurosawa, and Winry Carver


17 May 2009: Monet Destiny interviewed on Tonight Live with Paisley Beebe (link)

Soup and Lovers Lane Studios have held a warm relationship with Brooklyn is Watching (link) since inception, sharing a respect for artists and their choices and inspirations, as well as sharing a fascination with the frontier potential of the virtual environment and tools available in Second Life®. We both recognize that the challenges of working within evolving technologies and the enforced discipline of their limitations serve both to crystallize inherent forms and to incubate ideas and commentary not possible, not yet realizable, or not served so well in other mediums.

Along with the uncountable and inexpressible meanings that Art is invested with as reason for being, a basic mostly-agreed-upon-but-still-hotly-debated-in-pedantic-circles function is that someone experiences it with someone else as part of the shared human condition and thereby forms a mirrored perspective, a bit of a chance connection, ignition and flow. It is this reflected immersive experience/expression (not necessarily the SAME experience for each but one derived from relationship and time, such as found in intervals in music and not in fragmented notes by themselves) that elevates conceptual multiplicities–avatar created and driven worlds–to the level of fellowship, of engagement beyond proprietary platform. This is hard work. This is compelling. This is Art unfolding.

All of which is to say Soup and Lovers Lane Studios are thrilled to welcome Brooklyn is Watching to Soup:Push!

Brooklyn is Watching: Push SIM (Slurl)

Brooklyn is Watching Blog (link)

Jack the Pelican Presents, Williamsburg, Brooklyn (link)

More information about the genesis of Brooklyn is Watching by Bettina Tizzy at Not Possible IRL (link)

More information about Second Life® (link)

ColeMarie Soleil's vision of soror Nishi's Soup:Magoo

ColeMarie Soleil created this amazing machinima of soror Nishi's The Temple of the Prim on Soup:Magoo, which will be closing 30 November 2009

More on The Temple of the Prim (link)

(slurl)

soror Nishi on Magoo

The Temple of the Prim

Magoo (slurl)

NPIRL Preview 2 October 2009, 12:30 PM SLT

Opening 3 October 2009, 1 PM SLT

From soror Nishi's blog:

Increatum

The Prim is the Prima Materia of Second Life, everything is made of this "stuff", and like alchemy (often called The Art) we can, through diligence, ritual and devotion turn this humble prim into pure gold. "Everything is made by prim and without prim is nothing made that was made." (more)

The Temple of the Prim, Beta v 1.0

The Prim is totally neutral, even more neutral than matter which has imbued feeling depending on whether it is wood, silver, etc. The Prim ONLY manifests its creator's psyche, nothing else.

It is the blankest of blank canvases.

It is, actually, nothing. Matter is actually an illusion too. Atomic physics teaches us that electrons are energy defined by their general relative positions, there's no 'stuff'. Solid is illusion. (more)

Update: See Bettina Tizzy's report on NPIRL (link)

SLon des Refusés 2009

WHAT’S THE TIME?

‘TIS TIME FOR LUNCH ON THE GRASS!

YUMMMMMM!

Crossposted from Brooklyn is Watching via MonCherrie Afterthought:

The beyond casual unofficial committee, of the first annual (Best of Brooklyn is Watching Year 1) SLon des Refusés, is pleased to make this very official exhibition announcement!

(This is where I imagine the horns blowing and red carpets rolling.)

With works by: Ally Aeon, Hollow Prim, Socks Clawtooth, Banrion Constantine, Klink Epsilon, Strawberry Holiday, Man Michinaga, Sowa Mai, Shirley Marquez, Robin Moore, nessuno Myoo, soror Nishi, Tuna Oddfellow, Cinco Pizzicato, Azdel Slade and Elle Mehrmand, Arm Strom, Sunn Thunders, elros Tuominen, Betty Tureaud, Corcosman Voom, Shellina Winkler, Tsui Yamabushi, four Yip, and others!

Location: Magoo
Exhibition Dates: Aug 6-Aug 23, 2009
Opening Reception: Monday, Aug 10, 7PM SLT, with a special performance by Tuna Oddfellow
Closing Reception: Special performances and festivities are currently being arranged. Check the Brooklyn is Watching blog for all SLon event updates!
Additional Performance: Tuna Oddfellow, Sunday Aug 9, 11AM SLT

About: Well there is a rich history of Salon des Refusés, most notably the Salon des Refusés of 1863, so why not in SL? It only seemed fitting to create a platform for twenty-first century brilliant rejects, care of the Brooklyn is Watching Year 1 30 Best jury and voting process.

The SLon des Refusés 2009 is at its heart a celebration of the artistic breeding ground that is Brooklyn is Watching. It is a nod to all of the hybrid SL/RL art that Brooklyn is Watching has showcased and inspired and contained and contended with over its first year; as ephemeral digital artworks left on the sim to be looked at and pondered and combined and chewed up, and as a group conceptual installation of an evolving artistic body of work in its entirety, including more than a year’s worth of ongoing dialogue and documentation. And beholding.

Finally, it is a love letter to Jay Van Buren who has the vision to encourage a real-life community of artists and muses against daunting odds, working hard to give them the gift of freedom to explore the potentials of digital art and at the same time to do what they find beautiful.

SLon: Salon des Refusés

Le déjeuner sur l'herbe by Édouard Manet

In preparation for the Beyond Casual SLon des Refuses being organized by digital curator MonCherrie Afterthought with Mab MacMoragh, to be composed of artists nominated in the wiki for Best of Brooklyn is Watching Year 1 but not voted into 30 Best (link), Soup offers the following explanation for the spirit of the show:

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Salon des Refusés, French for “exhibition of rejects”, is generally an exhibition of works rejected by the jury of the official Paris Salon, but the term is most famously used to refer to the Salon des Refusés of 1863.

It should be taken into account that during this time, Paris was a breeding ground for artist of all forms, poets, artists, sculptors, etc. Paris was the place to be, and the capital of the art world, any artist that wanted to be recognized, at that time, was required to have exhibited in a Salon, or gone to school in France. Being accepted into these Salons was a matter of survival for some artist; reputations and careers could be started or broken, based solely on the acceptance into these exhibits.

As early as the 1830’s, Paris art galleries had mounted small-scale, private exhibitions of works rejected by the Salon jurors. The clamorous event of 1863 was actually sponsored by the French government. In that year, artists protested the Salon jury’s rejection of more than 3,000 works, far more than usual. "Wishing to let the public judge the legitimacy of these complaints," said an official notice, Emperor Napoléon III decreed that the rejected artists could exhibit their works in an annex to the regular Salon. Many critics and the public ridiculed the refusés, which included such now-famous paintings as Édouard Manet's Luncheon on the Grass (Le déjeuner sur l’herbe) and James McNeill Whistler's Girl in White. But the critical attention also legitimized the emerging avant-garde in painting. Encouraged by Manet, the Impressionists successfully exhibited their works outside the Salon beginning in 1874. Subsequent Salons des Refusés were mounted in Paris in 1874, 1875, and 1886, by which time the prestige and influence of the Paris Salon had waned.

Émile Zola incorporated a fictionalized account of the 1863 scandal in his novel L'Oeuvre (The Masterpiece) (1886).

Today by extension, salon des refusés refers to any exhibition of works rejected from a juried art show.

For information as to the progress of the juried show, see the official Brooklyn is Watching blog (link)

Soup: Selavy Oh's Mountains Dance with NPIRL

Selavy Oh's Dancing Mountains and Nested Cubes in Magoo (slurl)

She has managed to breathe life into the landscape in ways heretofore unimaginable. -- Bettina Tizzy on Selavy Oh's Dancing Mountains (read more and view machinima)

Bettina Tizzy of the Not Possible IRL blog (Happy 2nd birthday NPIRL!) showcased Selavy Oh's Dancing Mountains with an atmospheric machinima and thoughtful allusions to land artists Michael Heizer and James Turrell.

Soup is reminded as well of joy in the work of artist Andy Goldsworthy, whose pieces incorporate laws of nature in ways that directly address time and impermanence, inescapable aspects of any environment.



NPIRL (link)

Michael Heizer (link)

James Turrell (link)

Andy Goldsworthy (link)

Soup: Penumbra Carter's Tin Man

Eryri (slurl)

Soup: Dekka Raymaker's Prim Soup (Folly)

Eryri (slurl)

Soup: Selavy Oh's Cloud Chamber

Cloud Chamber by Selavy Oh can be accessed inside the house on Eryri here (slurl)

(For best viewing, set sky to midnight)

Update: Soup Port

A Soup Port has been added to the sidebar (to the top right) with SLurls to suggested destinations on Eryri. I'm trying to develop a teleport system inworld but it takes me a long time to learn things. I'll be adding a temporary notecard to the easel at the landing with a welcome and this information.

Aequitas 2009

CM Pauluh aka Nebulosus Severine Bending Trees (diptych) acrylic and thread on canvas 16 x 10 inches (2009) (link) now on exhibition at Aequitas

Aequitas@Artspace OSA NYC (link) June 1-June 30, 2009
Aequitas Second Life Version@Caerleon Art Collective (link)(slurl) June 26-July 3, 2009
Second Life Reception June 26 6:30-8:30 PM SLT

From Stephen Beveridge's blog sense and defense (link):

Social media has drawn together a group of international artists to New York for Aequitas, an exhibit of art based on childhood experiences.

Artspace OSA in New York City and the virtual community of Second Life will host a joint exhibition of international artists: paintings, digital work, and virtual world installations during the month of June 2009.

Artists can be a solitary lot but with the advent of virtual worlds and web 2.0 they are finding each other and communicating in the way they know best: making and exhibiting art together. This disparate group of artists, having never met face to face, nevertheless finds a common ground in exploring their childhood for art.
Sowa Mai, also known as the artist Stephen Beveridge, conceived and planned this exhibit as an extension of the relationships he had formed in the Second Life virtual world with artist/avatars from different time zones and cultural backgrounds.
The exhibit in Washington Heights, New York City will display paintings and digital work by the human artists. An exhibit in the Second Life virtual world will consist of (art) installations and scripted objects by the human artists’ avatar counterparts. Both exhibits are based around the theme of mining childhood experience for art.

Dekka Raymaker Andrew MacLachlan Penumbra Carter Beth Olds Nebulosus Severine CM Pauluh Sowa Mai Stephen Beveridge David Ferrando Banrion Constantine Robert Garlick Elif Arat

Aequitas
Artspace OSA
June 1 – June 30, 2009
Reception Friday June 19th. 6:30-8:30
178 Bennett Ave @ 189th St, NYC
1 train to 191st Street | A train to 190th Street

Second Life Version
Caerleon Art Collective
June 26 – July 3, 2009
Reception June 26th. 6:30-8:30slpm

(slurl)

Contact:
Stephen Beveridge
212 928 8351
SowaMai@gmail.com

Nebulosus Severine has more information here (link) and a slideshow of images here (link)

gathering ingredients

Dekka Raymaker's Prim Soup (slurl)

Hi all! This is the new blog for Soup, for now. Do you have suggestions on how it could be made to work better for everyone? The previous 2 posts are just random fillers to show how the text will look and visuals. (Although the Art21 video trailer is intriguing- I believe that Second Life® will feature in the next season as example of newMedia!)

I'll tweak the Soup invite along with the landmarks for all the different spaces and post it here so we'll have it as reference and can change the wording as we go along as we see what works and what doesn't, also how much some of that stuff matters or not. It's possible that it might read better in FAQ form, with images.

We need to decide if this blog should be private or public. I do think that outsiders will find it interesting. On the other hand it's possible that we might be using the blog to discuss things that some might not be prepared to take public just yet. Sometimes things lose a sense of spontaneity with outside pressures. What do you think?

As with all Second Life® artmaking, this blog will be a work in progress as well as a record of what we've done. I hope to make plenty of pictures to document the process and will invite experienced machinima artists to make of it what they will. Some time very soon I'll invite the next batch of artists/guests. And then the third batch (or step in the recipe haha) will be to invite reporters/bloggers for public relations, and then finally the public as a result.

Which leads to the next question. Should the sim be public access at this point? I left it public for a day to see what would happen and there were more unknown visitors than I would have thought. There is no visitor tracking since I'm not up on that yet. I directly observed the ones I could see for a good while (probably about 15 minutes). This unscientific experiment makes me think the SIM is "sticky" which most would think a good thing.

Ok, I had more to say but can't remember what it was and I've run out of steam. Hope to see you all soon!

Mab