Westwood in SF!

Greetings from the San Francisco Bay Area! My name is BlueHotRage Blumenthal, but you may call me Blue, or BlueHot. Whatever. I'll probably just assume you're talking to me, anyway. ;)

Anyway, for those of you interested, Vivienne Westwood is having a HUGE costume exhibit at the de Young Museum. And, OMG, it looks awesome!

If you're in SF, or the Bay Area, I highly recommend you see it. After all, this is the woman who designed the Sex Pistols' outfits--and, as a general punk enthusiast, I consider that to be pretty damn awesome. :D

I don't know if the pictures will work here (as I tried uploading one of them from my beloved SF Chronicle), but if not, be sure to check out the link for more info on the gallery showing (times, dates, admission, ect.).

Also, to the adventurous scripters out in SL, I have a challenge (of sorts) for those interested.

Among the pictures in the article I linked to, there should be a photo of the 12-inch purple platforms that not even Naomi Campbell could wear (or something--see above, too, if the link works). Anyone who feels up to it can try their hand at making wearable scripted platforms--and see how close they can make theirs match Vivienne Westwood's.

I'll try to come up with a special prize for whoever gets closest, but really it's just for the purposes of inspiring other artists who feel like making shoes.

*shrug*

The Music Box Project and Other Such Art Candy

written by Cyanide Seelowe



"Pleasant-sounding as music boxes can be, you have to admit they sure are repetitive." says SciFi.com's Peter Pachal in a report on the SoniColumn, a giant programmable music box.

Jin-Yo Mok is a Korean artist who plans to take over the world with his Music Box Project, a line of imaginative gadgets inspired by a conventional concept. Sculptural in appearance, the SoniColumn is consumed in colorful LED lights that program various notes of the viewer's choosing into the music box. A turn of the crank plays your custom-made music, and the column spins lazily while your illuminated notes rotate like a private galaxy.

Other notable pieces that Jin-Yo Mok has worked on include "Imaginary Korean", which is a set of typography that allow Koreans to add F, V, R and Z sounds to their language, which they do not usually have. More widely known is EMAN, a being straight from Mok's imagination with a beautifully compelling and inspiring story of Creation.

Those, among many other projects which are documented on Mok's website, show that he has a wonderfully simple-but-effective method of creating art. His drawings are not masterpieces, but they are thrust forward for public viewing because he understands that process is part of the creation of art, just as the finished product is.

As a whole, Mok's body of work should serve as a great source of inspiration for any working or aspiring artist, or just the average passer-by looking for some unique and original eye-candy :]

Artist Cheen Pitney at Oyster Bay

written by Rezago Kokorin

On the evening of February 23rd, Cheen Piney gave a talk at Oyster Bay about his art. If you’ve spent much time in Second Life you’ve probably seen some of his work.



His sculpture is usually created with a multitude of prims, which he applies in a manner similar to that of a real life sculptor applying pieces of clay.

Cheen creates sculpture in real life and when he came to SL he was totally hooked by the 3D building. He said that he has taken many building classes and that the place which has helped him most is the Ivory Tower of the Prim (a first rate illustrated and self-guided tutorial on building in SL).

He first began selling his work in SL at garage sales, then he entered a few contests and with the money earned from those he rented space in shops. Later he advertised that he would do work on commision which he is doing to this day. During the course of the talk he showed us examples of some of these, along with other sculptures he has created.








“The medium really dictates what I do to a great extent. some of the shapes, especially with the torus, are very fluid and lifelike.”

“…the medium is prims. But the many ways to manipulate them are very exciting and the ability to view the piece from so many angles helps tremendously.”



This was the second in a five-part series of talks being given by Second Life artists at Oyster Bay.

Landmarks:
Peacefools - sculpture, art and , FurNation Vista (216, 143, 25)
Art at Oyster Bay Aquarium, Oyster (38, 173, 82)
The Ivory Tower Library of Prim, Natoma (209, 164, 27)

February 19th is Art Administration’s Birthday...

for Emmett Williams:"Little Fluxus People" Invade the Reuter's Building SL

Official photo

Friends of ICARDI confered in the atrium of Reuters Building (Second Life) on February 19th, 2007 to acknowledge Art Administration’s
Birthday. A little over a month after “Art’s Birthday” (January 17th), just over a million years ago, the object (a sponge in a bucket of water) from the
“Birth of Art” was discovered, labeled artwork, acquistitioned, evaluated, documented, conserved/cared for, placed on exhibit and pedagogically interpreted.

PRESS RELEASE
BL Niven, Director of ICARDI in SL, will confer with members of the art community and the press in the atrium of theReuters SL Building, to designate February 19th as officially 'Art Administration's Birthday'.

ACTION VS OBJECTS - "Art's Birthday" was the action - "the dropping of a dry sponge in a bucket of water" NOT what 'Art Administration's Birthday' celebrates "the sponge in the bucket of water"

While "Art's Birthday" (http://artsbirthday.net/) is remembered by relatively underground artists' events, 'Art Administration's Birthday', although indirectly pointing to the former, is expected to be its own highly promoted and financially supported celebration.

ICARDI is interested in the status of the artist in society.

Report from the event on Wirxli Flimflams blog HERE.

My Photoshop remix snapshot of the event to the left.
Ok, let's try to crack the codes of this mysterious event...
Art's Birthday: 17th January, an annual event first proposed in 1963 by French Fluxus artist Robert Filliou, born 17th of January 1926, died 1987.
ICARDI: International Current Art Research & Developmentnt Institute
Director of ICARDI: BL Nevin aka artist, curator, art administrator Brian L. MacNevin. ICARDI is his idea and vision for the development of the town Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, Canada, where he is from. This website presents his ideas or proposal: click..... from 2004-5.
(Old town Lunenburg has been on UNESCOs World Heritage list since 1995. Take a panographic tour HERE! )
MacNevins proposal in short: Lunenburg hosting an international artist-in-resident program as well as a symposium on the status of the artist.
Brian L. MacNevin says: NSCAD (Nova Scotia Collage of Art and Design) has now set up an "artist in residence" in Lunenburg. ICARDI hasn't exactly "failed" there, it's become something else now... it's move on, it's mobile...

Well, ICARDI and mr. MacNevin has gone virtual, been born into Second Life, and already given us one more occation for having a party: Art Administration's birthday.

And mr. BL Nevin has founded a new SLgroup: Friends of ICARDI. "International Current Art Research & Development Institute (ICARDI) is interested in conferring with artists internationally regarding the status of the artist in society. ICARDI is establishing a presence, an "office", in Second Life to continue this R & D, by way of organizing symposia/conferences, exhibitions & presentations of current art and hosting an artist in residency program all of which focus on the role of the artist in their community."

BL Nevin dedicated the event last monday, 19th of February, to the late Emmett Willams, who died on February 14th. See a post on Jan Hermans blog: Emmet Williams, RIP
Nevins son is named after Emmet Williams. Nevins son is born on February 19th.

Well, we are very much looking forward to see all the wonderful ideas of BL Nevin aka Brian Lee MacNevin come alive in SL!

Written by Plurabelle Posthorn

Vancouver's always been ahead of the rest of the world...,

said Alan Dojoji at the first dorkbot meeting in Second Life which took place yesterday, 18th of february, in Odyssey.
Minutes after the meeting was over a short review of the event showed up at we-make-money-not-art HERE.
Here comes mine: Well, first Maximillian Nakamura, who had invited us to this meeting, held a short introduction to the dorkbot meetings idea: "a nerdy gathering of people doing strange things with electricity, which means also with digital technology, which would not exist without electricity." His blog: http://rhizomatic.wordpress.com/. His SL group: dorkbot SL electronic art meetings. Oh, his review of the meeting HERE.
Then we went to (Landmark:) Ah Sky Lounge, Odyssey (53, 192, 297) where the rest of the meeting took place.

Basically what happened during the meeting was that Wirxli Flimflam and then ian Ah talked about their works and ideas. We got loads of information which I will try to share with you here.
First Wirxli Flimflam:
Wirxli presented himself as Wirxli Flimflam from Second Front. Blogs: www.wirxliflimflam.blogspot.com, www.slfront.blogspot.com. The flesh&blood person behind Wirxli told us he "have been an avatar performance artist since 2001 and a net performance artist since 1996", so we're not talking newbie here. He has used Traveler (www.digitalspace.com/traveler) for a number of collaborations and performances, like the Gates (after Bill Gates). He co-created the very first in-world avatar documentary AVATARA. Then he "experimented in the Moove/Roomancer community as a performance artist". (I copied the chat history during the meeting...) And then he came to Second Life. Well, if you look up his blogprofile you will find a huge list of his other blogs and a summary of his life... Here is Wirxli:


In Second Life he formed the performance group Second Front in november 2006. Directly related to Western Front (http://www.front.bc.ca/), Vancouvers main New Media center, since 1973. Some NE Thing CO was also mentioned as a forerunner to Western Front. That's when Alan Dojoji uttered "Vancouver's always been ahead of the rest of the world"! And we got some links to feed our intermedia-history-knowlegde with: http://www.michaeldecourcy.com/intermedia/, www.greggsimpson.com. Some videos were streamed during his talk, the Gates and some of the Second Front performances, which he also told a litle about. And before he left the stage for ian Ah, he let us know that he is "also in a voIPunk band called The Hotmails that uses Skype and other messenger programs for performance". Review of the dorkbot meeting on Wirxlis blog HERE.

Second ian Ah:
ian Ah, or his flesh&blood, is an artist, not a special kind of artist, but simply artist. Been in the game since 1968 using many media. "I come from a tradition of visual artists who eschew the medium as a defination of our work. I would normally take this opportunity to make a work as "meeting". I have made works as "lecture" , "classroom" etc", said ian Ah, and continued:"The nature of my work is very context driven so when he [Maximillian] suggested it [the talk] be "educational",
my first response was to suggest I give an exam,...." "...In any case I think the topic should be "How can we have a Dorkbot meeting in SL?"" Well, as the meetings in SL usually are the avatars of todays meeting chated away and parallel discussions occurred... Or the discussion split into one about the practicalities of SL meetings, particularly this one, and ian Ah trying to rise a meta discussion about (SL) meetings. "Let me say that I am a very formal artist who sees networks as objects," he said. The meeting as object, this meeting as an object or an art object, the first dorgbot meeting in SL as an art object...?


Chuck Masala had asked Wirxli earlier on: "Is it difficult to "perform" in an environment where really everyone is performing?" With the dorkbot meeting; did it become an art obejct? Are all SL meetings (art) objects?
Now Maximillian introduced one of ian Ahs works: "Keeping on Top of the Top Song" from 1970 (nr 17 HERE). Them ian mentioned things he has worked with since: broadcast weather, soap operas, computer rules, computer games, education as colonialization, remote control. What about SL? "My interest in SL is to see how it predetermines action", he said. Remindes me of the Flack attack project which (also) question the autonomy in a precoded environment (like SL)... Mr Dress up was brought into the light of the meeting..., I've never heard of him before... Then it was time for beer! ian disappeared. I hope he didn't fall asleep in his bathtub!

Plurabelle Posthorn

Crazy Colourful Art

A few days ago I visited jjccc Coronets gallery on Laguna beach where she shows her large, wild, colorfull mostly 2d art but also a few sculptures. It was a truely refreshing experience! I landed in a kind of forecourt, a surrounded part of the beach with excotic trees, sculptures and a large screen streaming MTV... Very short after I had bought a pair of pants which I immediately put on and after strolling the gallery I met jjccc Coronet herself, and she showed me where the texture of my pants came from namely from one of her paintings or that will be one of her drawings.

This snapshot shows us chating in front of this drawing, a colorpensildrawing, so rich it looks like a tapestry. It was so beautiful, I didn't want to leave. Happily I now walk around with her drawing covering my lower and private parts.

She uses a variety of techniques a part from colorpensil, like collage handmade or digital, and motives like bugs, frogs, animalskeletons and so on, but everything crazy and colorful. Well, actually I didn't find it that crazy, I think it's because she obtains almost an "all-over-pattern" composition in her works which gives them some sort of calm.
jjccc Coronet is moving her gallery soon. Anyway it's always a good thing to search on peoples names, look up their profiles and go for their picks. So no SLurl for you here...
But her website and blog are here: http://jjccc.stumbleupon.com/

Plurabelle Posthorn

Artist Sunn Thunders at Oyster Bay

written by Rezago Kokorin

Tonight at Oyster Bay Aquarium and Sculpture Garden, Sunn Thunders gave a talk about his life as an artist and teacher in SL and showed some his newest creations.


In his early days in Second Life he was impressed by the artwork he saw and was surprised at how much sculpture was on display. He wished to create as well and took about every building class that was offered.

Sunn is now a teacher at the Academy of Second Learning where he teaches a creative building class and a class on making hot air balloons, several of which were on display here at Oyster Bay. I've taken his "Rustic, Changing Style" class a couple of times so far and I highly recommend it.


During the course of the talk Sunn gave a demonstration of his sculpting technique, which is to start with a single prim, modify it, modify it some more and follow whatever ideas come to mind.



As the crowd looked on, he created a very interesting, colorful and complex shape directly in front of us, explaining what he was doing and answering questions as he went.








Currently his work can be seen at Oyster Bay and Blekinge Sculpture Park. Sunn likes to hang out at ASL and build as well as teach so you may run into him there.

Landmarks:
Oyster Bay, Oyster (31, 152, 82)
Blekinge Sculpture Park, Blekinge (161, 46, 100)
Academy of Second Learning: ASL , Eson (37, 162, 351)

Link:
Sunn's World

First dorkbot meeting in SL

The first dorkbot meeting in SL will start out at rhizomatic 18th Febr. (2-3 PM PST) says the owner of rhizomatic, Maximillian Nakamura , on his blog here.
More about this event on: we-make-money-not-art, Wirixli Flimflams blog.

Dorkbot, what does that mean? "The motto for the group is people doing strange things with electricity."

Plurabelle Posthorn

Salon du Disruptif- Virtual and Optical Illusions

written by Cyanide Seelowe



Yet another trek for random galleries, artists, and artworks has brought me to the entrancing, devastating, and slightly creepy Salon du Disruptif show in the Heldscalla Gallery in Buttermere. This joint exhibition features the works of residents Nebulosus Severne and Arahan Claveau, both of whose work is far more than what you initially see.




Warning- this show is not for the casual passerby. The works are beautiful to look at, certainly, but anyone who takes them as superficial oddities will be missing out on incredible depth and sensory perception. Give yourself an hour of free time to browse through the gallery and find something that really speaks to you- when you do, explore it. Touch it. Help to breathe life into it. Just remember- most everything there is more than what it seems.

SLurl to the Gallery!

Keeping in Touch with the Art World

written by Cyanide Seelowe

Any artist who is worth their salt knows that keeping a good, rounded knowledge of the art world will only work to better their own art. Observing the techniques, successes and failures of other artists, famous or otherwise, tend to serve as inspiration and continue the rich cultural traditions that art provides for everyone.

As a special aide to my fellow artists, I have sifted through my list of bookmarks to help everyone keep in touch with their community- admittedly, some resources are more interesting and comprehensive than others, but all are worth a quick browse to see if they hold useful information. Enjoy!

Rhizome.org

From the site: "Rhizome.org is an online platform for the global new media art community. Our programs support the creation, presentation, discussion and preservation of contemporary art that uses new technologies in significant ways. We foster innovation and inclusiveness in everything we do."

AbsoluteArts.com

In addition to news about showings in galleries and museums throughout the world, Absolute Arts provides a network of exposure for any artists who join the site and display their work for sale. An excellent opportunity for anyone who want to make a little extra money selling their work.

ArtDaily.com

A great insight to the art world, both of past and contemporary persuasions. Provides a wide range of links and resources, from art schools for the prospective art student, galleries for the novice and the professional, and clever anecdotes to impress your friends with at parties.

TheArtNewspaper.com

Just another art news site, with the exception of providing useful links to art-related jobs and internships throughout the world.

ArtBusinessNews.com

Frome the site: "Art Business News is a must-read, must-have trade publication for the gallery and interior-design retail markets. Each month, its multidimensional editorial team of staff editors, columnists and contributors report on important art trends, art news and art-retailing issues. From profiles on emerging and established artists, to in-depth articles on merchandising and marketing issues, ABN provides its readers with the information needed for advancing their businesses and the art marketplace."

ArtKnowledgeNews.com

This online news magazine is published free to subscribers worldwide and is sponsored by the Art Appreciation Foundation. AKN brings to its readers unbiased information and news about art, the art world, museums, artists, exhibitions, articles reprinted from renowned art publications, art resources, features, photos, commentary, and a vast array of art information found nowhere else in one source.

ArtNet.com

An interesting look into the world of the modern art dealer- check out how to price fine art, and take a look at how current market trends affect the prices of your art.

Hope this helps everyone in their continuing quest for artistic knowledge, or at least provides an interesting article or two for everyone to read :]