@
Feb 26 2009
Location, place, position, @.
The work in this exhibition examines the nature of space, place and the observer, the interplay between the observer and the observed, and the way in which location and “placeness” define or conscribe experience.
The work in “@” occupies three unique vantage points: the material/physical, the digital/virtual, and the hybrid, where physical and virtual overlap or intersect. As a dual exhibition occurring simultaneously in both “real life”—in a physical exhibition space—and the virtual world of Second Life—in a digital but yet no less “real” exhibition space—the very presentation of the work underscores both the advantages and the limitations of these vantage points.
Visitors to the physical space at the Southern California Institute of Architecture will have a “privileged” view that includes both the physical space and the virtual space. Through real-time camera projection, visitors will be able to see the artwork in the virtual space as well as avatar visitors to the virtual gallery, and observe their interactions with the work and with one another but will not be able to interact with avatar visitors or engage with the Second Life-based works, many of which are highly participatory in nature. Yet even the placement of the works in the SL gallery space is constructed as a composition precisely for this privileged view, emphasizing the idea of “real” or “First Life’s” weightier nature vis-a-vis the digital/simulacra.
Meanwhile, avatar visitors to the Second Life space will be able to “see” into the SCI-Arc space but cannot interact with it. The dramatic altering of scale that takes place when moving the physical/material into Second Life makes this representation of the gallery space into a terrarium-like form, emphasizing the ongoing exchange of roles between observer and observed. And while Second Life participants can “see” the RL gallery space, they too are unable to fully experience the work they see there. For them, the “terrarium space” is the simulation, a shell of representation that cannot be fully engaged.
Many of the pieces showcased in “@” touch both spaces. For example, many of the video pieces selected for the exhibition document Second Life experiences, often impossible to replicate in Real Life. Meanwhile, many of the pieces in the Second Life gallery reference, recontextualize or otherwise make use of Real Life experiences, or have Real Life concerns as a conceptual underpinning.
Ultimately, “@” challenges all its viewers in both worlds to examine closely the intricate nature of “place” and the shifting balance of power between observer and observed. It suggests that we are all simultaneously limited and empowered by the spaces we choose to occupy.
Artists:
Ian Trout creates a construction within the space of the gallery that is reminiscent of the fanciful forts and play spaces of youth. He creates a secret private space for the visitor to the gallery space and provides an interesting taunt to the audience trapped on the other side of the window in Second Life.
Douglas Story & Desdemona Enfield create an object that embodies the tension between man made and the natural as an immersive backdrop for the privileged view. The wavelike motion and the path that lead up to it create an invitation to engage that cannot be realized from the gallery space.
Misprint Thursday’s feather field creates a luxurious field of grass to run between the toes of your avatar, the sheer delight of observing the overlapping paterns on someone in the field is only outdone by the joy of moving through it.
Joseph DeLappe’s Ghandi walked through second life for 16 days and has seen so much and been so many places. Here the ‘man’ becomes the art that ‘embodies’ the experiences of this extended performance.
Oberon Onmura creates, destroys, and re-creates a megalithic tower or beacon which hints visually at the works of Donald Judd. The work creates a rythem for the space that is pleasing to watch from afar but possible to participate in from up close.
Micha Cárdenas with code by Bennet Goble recounts the conversation and sense of creation of community within the 15 day durational performance of Becoming Dragon. The work is both intimate and precious where the objects are just the detrious of the performance, yet they embed the memories, conversations and feelings that transpired in the space and place of the original performance.
Mencius Watts and Taggert Alsop’s Flickr Gettr v.5 engages not only the visiting avatar as collaborator but also and interacts with the avatar and the collaborative web by reaching into SL and then back out to Flickr to produce a visual interpretation of the single suggested phrase.
Brad Kligerman & Jamil Mehdaou manage to fold the idea of telepresence into the synthetic world by using a robotic work force on Sizigia Island to collect images and store them in a database which is then recomposed into the visual collage seen both in SL and in the gallery space.
Opening information –>
9:30PM Thursday February 26
Edit: this event is free and open to the public, the show will be open in SCI-arc only through Saturday and is next to the “Lecture Hall”
New Media Caucus Reception: for the Exhibition “@”
Curated by James Morgan, Leslie Raymond, E. Marie Robertson, and Vagner M. Whitehead
with ³Analog Interactivity² curated by xtine burrough, a virtual performance by Second Front
and live cinema by Be Johnny and Potter-Belmar Labs
SCI-Arc is located a short cab ride (3 miles) from the Convention Center, near Little Tokyo.
The exhibits and panels are in the SCI-Arc¹s W.M. Keck Lecture Hall, located near the center of the building.
SCI-Arc is located at 960 East 3rd Street, Los Angeles, CA 90013
The building entrance and parking lot are located at 350 Merrick St, between 4th Street and Traction Avenue
driving instructions
(http://www.sciarc.edu/portal/exhibitions/locations/index.html)
If you cannot join us in Los Angeles, please join us in Second Life at the mirror/concurrent exhibition, by following the link below:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Seventh%20Eye/32/86/48
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@ - Reception at SCI-Arc in Los Angeles
Feb 23 2009
9:30PM Thursday February 26
Edit: this event is free and open to the public, the show will be open in SCI-arc only through Saturday and is next to the “Lecture Hall”
New Media Caucus Reception: for the Exhibition “@”
Curated by James Morgan, Leslie Raymond, E. Marie Robertson, and Vagner M. Whitehead
with ³Analog Interactivity² curated by xtine burrough, a virtual performance by Second Front
and live cinema by Be Johnny and Potter-Belmar Labs
SCI-Arc is located a short cab ride (3 miles) from the Convention Center, near Little Tokyo.
The exhibits and panels are in the SCI-Arc¹s W.M. Keck Lecture Hall, located near the center of the building.
SCI-Arc is located at 960 East 3rd Street, Los Angeles, CA 90013
The building entrance and parking lot are located at 350 Merrick St, between 4th Street and Traction Avenue
driving instructions
(http://www.sciarc.edu/portal/exhibitions/locations/index.html)
If you cannot join us in Los Angeles, please join us in Second Life at the mirror/concurrent exhibition, by following the link below:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Seventh%20Eye/32/86/48
more
“@”
Dec 22 2008
Concurrent with the New Media Caucus panel Space: The New Frontier at the National CAA 2009, “@” is an exhibition that examines space and site.
With simultaneous locations in Los Angeles and Second Life (SL), “@”challenges artists to consider place & placelessness from within the context of networked culture.
The physical gallery space will be replicated within SL, featuring an actual window between the virtual and real worlds to observe and be observed.
The exhibition space will feature a floor-to-ceiling projection and a streaming video camera. This wall will serve as the interface between the Real Life (RL) in the gallery and its replication in Second Life.
The intent for “@” is to exploit the philosophically rich mirroring between RL and SL, as well as the paradoxical condition of being the observer and observed.
CALL FOR WORKS:
Three aspects to the show will be curated separately but are expected to connect conceptually:
1) installation in RL: a heterotopic space - “other space” or “alt space”– that contains the projection from SL and that can be modeled in SL. The artist is not responsible for creating the SL model.
2) video screenings: works concerning space and place vis-à-vis RL and SL. These works will be screened in an adjacent space in RL and streamed in SL
3) works based in SL that may cross RL boundaries. Objects and performances originating in SL that consider and make use of the synergistic interplay of RL/SL localities. Work may exist in either or both spaces.
Exhibition site: Southern California Institute of Architecture, Los Angeles, CA, and Seventh Eye in Second Life.
Installation will take place at the end of February
Formats:
- Works may be in any medium. ( submissions must be web links)
- Physical works MAY be reproduced in the SL space.
- Please consider the exhibition context and propose new and existing works that fit this hybrid space.
- Links to high compression downloadable quicktime are recommended, suggested length is 3-5 minutes.
- The gallery is approximately 20′ x 60′ (detailed diagram available upon request)
Deadline: January 26
Please send proposals or documentation links to:
gallery@arsvirtua.com
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Becoming Dragon
Nov 23 2008
Ars Virtua has the pleasure of playing host to Micha Cárdenas MFA project. Below is Micha’s press release — note that the slurl for Becoming Dragon is right next to Ars Virtua’s main gallery.
Becoming Dragon is a mixed reality, durational performance in Second Life, in CRCA’s Visiting Artist Lab #1613 of the Atkinson Hall building, on the UC San Diego campus. The opening begins at 7pm on December 1st, 2008 and the performance will run for 365 hours. The performance is Micha Cárdenas’ final MFA project.
Becoming Dragon questions the one year requirement of Real Life Experience that transgender people must fulfill in order to receive Gender Confirmation Surgery (Sexual Reassignment Surgery), and asks if this could be replaced by one year of Second Life Experience to lead to Species Reassignment Surgery. For the performance, Micha Cárdenas will live for 365 hours immersed in Second Life with a head mounted display, so that all she will see is Second Life and a motion capture system to map her movements into Second Life. The performance space will be open to the public for the duration, during the hours that the building is open, 9am to 7pm. During the entire duration of the performance Micha will stay in the performance space at CRCA and in Second Life.
Second Life is an online 3D virtual world, where users can create their own avatars in whatever form they like. It is not a goal oriented game, so its users refer to it as a metaverse or a MUVE, Multi User Virtual Environment. There are over 15 million registered users of Second Life. More information is available at http://secondlife.com
The Free Software/Open Source licensing of Second Life also provides a code base for modification, and a number of modifications have been made for Becoming Dragon. Kael Greco has patched the Second Life client to include an updated version of the stereoscopic code from the University of Michigan. For the duration of the performance, Micha Cárdenas will wear a Head Mounted Display (HMD) with stereoscopic display to simulate an actual 3 dimensional experience of Second Life by displaying a different image in each eye.
To further explore becoming as an embodied process and Second Life as a Mixed Reality Performance, Christopher Head has added code to the Second Life viewer to read live motion capture data from the Vicon motion capture system in the performance space. This code, along with scripts in Second Life allow the avatar’s movements to correspond to Micha Cárdenas’ movements. In Second Life, the performance will take place in a to-scale model of the actual performance space, to allow the performer to navigate that space over the duration of the performance.
A number of other modes of Mixed Reality will be included in the performance, including a live video feed from the lab into Second Life and 3D printouts of Second Life objects in the actual performance space. The performance space will also include an HD stereo projection of Second Life which visitors can see and interact with.
The project seeks to explore the shift from subjectivity to becoming, to examine the subject in transition, as opposed to a clearly defined identity. The choice of a dragon for an avatar is related to the history of dragons as magical creatures, able to shapeshift into different forms and teleport through space, well suited to Second Life. Dragons are also part of the large community of non-anthropomorphic avatars in Second Life, which are not easily limited to either male or female binary gender categories. The project seeks to explore the possibility for using mixed reality environments to construct new genders outside of the limitations of the male/female spectrum.
The performance is one stage of an ongoing investigation of the transformative potential of technology, inspired by artists such as Orlan and Stelarc. During the year of research and development of this project, Micha Cárdenas has begun her real life hormone replacement therapy and has been writing poetry and prose about the experience on her blog, http://technotrannyslut.com. This writing will be included in the performance of Becoming Dragon.
Second Life is being used as a networked, mixed reality platform. The massively multi-user nature of Second Life, with over a million users, allows an exploration of online public space, becoming as a process of social feedback and the subject in transition as the subject in transmission.
Becoming Dragon is receiving support from the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts, CalIT2, University of California Institute for Research in the Arts, Ars Virtua, the gallery@calit2, the b.a.n.g. lab and the Embodied Cognition Lab of the cognitive Science Department.
Artist Bios
Micha Cárdenas is an MFA candidate at the University of California San Diego. Micha holds a Master’s degree in Media and Communications with distinction from the European Graduate School and a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Florida International University. She is a researcher at CalIT2 and CRCA and is currently working at inSite on their video archive. Her interests include the interplay of technology, gender, sex, desire and resistance. Micha is a transgender, genderqueer media artist, theorist and trouble maker. Micha is a founding member of a number of art/activism collectives including Sharing Is Sexy, the borderlands Hacklab and the City Heights Free Skool. Micha is the performer and technical and artistic director of Becoming Dragon.
Kael Greco is an M.F.A candidate and researcher at CalIT2 at UCSD. His research focuses on space and its representation through computation; how cities, territories, landforms are processed and understood as datasets. Kael’s work has been exhibited across the country, from gallery shows in NYC (most recently at Apex Art) to technology conferences in Southern CA (a featured exhibitor in the 2007 O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference). His work has also been seen in publications such as Engadget and Glowlab. Kael Greco holds Bachelor Degrees in Computer Science, Mathematics and Art from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Kael has ported the stereoscopic code for Becoming Dragon.
Christopher Head is a software artist and MFA student at the University of California San Diego. Much of his work focuses on the intersection of software design and art practice to produce projects that take a variety of forms including computer visualization, simulation, games, and hardware hacking. Christopher received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from San Jose State University while working in the CADRE Laboratory for New Media. While at SJSU he also participated in the ISEA2006/ZeroOne festival as part of the Montalvo Arts Center visiting artist residency with Antoni Muntadas as well as a series of exhibitions and shows within the SJSU Art Department. Christopher has written the motion capture code for Becoming Dragon.
Benjamin Lotan received his BS in cognitive science from the University of California at San Diego in 2008 specializing in Human Computer Interaction. His past research has been supported by Calit2, CRCA, and the Embodied Cognition Lab. He now works as an interaction designer and documentary filmmaker in San Diego. Benjamin is working on documentation for Becoming Dragon.
Anna Storelli is an Undergraduate in the Visual Arts Department at the University of California San Diego. She studies a broad spectrum from computer technology to film and video to traditional studio art, while exploring the intermixing of traditional mediums with digital media. She worked as a graphic artist for an interactive flash-based website, Earthguide.ucsd.edu, in partnership with Scripps Institute of Oceanography. Now she does production work for Warner Brothers Entertainment Co., DC Comics, assisting all aspects of pre-press preparation for the Wildstorm/CMX comic lines. She plans to finish her degree in Bachelor of Fine Arts by 2010. Anna is working on 3D modeling and 3D printing for Becoming Dragon.
See the performance in Second Life here:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Seventh%20Eye/186/12/35
Read Micha’s live blogging from Second Life during the performance at:
http://secondloop.wordpress.com
Hours and Location:
CRCA, Atkinson Hall, Room 1613
Hours: 11am-7pm, Opening Dec. 1, 2008, 7pm,
Continuing for 365 hours, roughly 3 weeks
First Floor, Atkinson Hall
University of California, San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla, CA 92093
Map & Directions: http://atkinsonhall.calit2.net/directions/
Read more at:
http://secondloop.wordpress.com
http://sharingissexy.org/wiki/Becoming_Dragon
http://technotrannyslut.com/category/becomingdragon/
http://flickr.com/photos/azdelslade
http://flickr.com/photos/lotu5/sets/72157606067246259/
http://delicious.com/lotu5/becomingdragon
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Streaming Museum 2
Oct 1 2008
The streaming museum returns on October 3. Visit in world in our Butler space: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Butler/245/15/72. Below is the press release, enjoy…
International Urban Screens, Streaming Museum and TED Prize Joint Broadcasting Initiative Connects Public Locations In Cities Around the World
Global Viewers Will Connect On Friday October 3 to Sunday October 5, 2008
New York, NY. In a groundbreaking event, cities around the world will simultaneously link up to over 25 outdoor urban screens via the Internet from a main broadcast originating from Melbourne, Australia’s Federation Square as part of Urban Screens Melbourne 08 (USMO8), the first Urban Screen conference and multimedia exhibition to be held in the Asia Pacific region.
The international networking and joint broadcasting on worldwide urban screens has been developed by the USM08 multimedia program team in partnership with the New York-based Streaming Museum. This new hybrid Museum for the 21st Century, launched by Founder and Creative Director Nina Colosi in January 2008, presents real-time exhibitions in cyberspace and public space on seven continents. Streaming Museum’s exhibitions are produced in New York City in collaboration with international curators, artists and cultural institutions.
About the Program:
Over the weekend of Friday, October 3 to Sunday, October 5, USM08, Streaming Museum and the TED Prize, will create a symbolic global connection in a simultaneous broadcast of program content and visual connection. Streaming Museum will open the first of a three part, six month exhibition, “Artists and Innovators for the Environment,” featuring international visionary creators Buckminster Fuller design scientist, James Nachtwey photojournalist, John Cage, Jacob ter Veldhuis, and Emanuel Pimenta composers, Agnes Denes and Anni Rapinoja environmental artists, Cedar Lake Dance, and others, as well as examples of innovative designs for environmental sustainability.
Streaming Museum exhibitions are viewed on demand in cyberspace at www.streamingmuseum.org and Ars Virtua in Second Life, and in public screen locations in the network. Schedule information is available on the Museum’s website.
At launch of USMO8, on October 3, 2008, renowned photojournalist James Nachtwey will reveal an important body of work to the world as part of his 2007 TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Prize wish. Each year, the TED Prize, an initiative of the TED Conference, grants three extraordinary individuals one wish to change the world. Winners are given one hundred thousand dollars in seed money, and individuals within the TED community and the world at large participate in making the wish come true. Nachtwey has spent the last two years documenting an imperative story that needs the recognition of a global audience, and wished for help in breaking the story in a way that demonstrates the power of news photography in the digital age. On October 3, Nachtwey’s work will be simultaneously streamed online, disseminated through numerous media channels, and projected on monuments and public buildings throughout the world.
Partnering screen locations:
Africa: Ubuntu Center, Port Elizabeth, South Africa
Asia: Art Center Nabi, Seoul, Korea and screens throughout Asia
Antarctica: British Antarctic base and Jubany Scientific base of Argentina
Australia: Federation Square, Melbourne, and screens in Sydney, Mildura, Geelong, Bendigo
Europe: BBC screens in Manchester and Liverpool, UK, and screens in Berlin, Germany; CASZuidas in Amsterdam, Netherlands; Yama screen at Marmara Pera Hotel, Istanbul, Turkey
North America: Victory Park, Dallas, Texas, USA; Yonge-Dundas Square,Toronto, Canada
South America: Centro Municipal de Exposiciones Subte, Montevideo, Uruguay
Second Life: Ars Virtua New Media Center
Emerging Global Network
USM08 demonstrates how new urban multimedia infrastructures can build relationships with and between the citizens of a modern and vibrant city and increasingly between cities and citizens around the world.
USM08 is celebrating Federation Square as a modern multimedia precinct, taking its place among an emerging global network of urban screens venues. Together they are creating new opportunities for global community building, multiculturalism, and public education and engagement in the consideration of environmental, cultural and social sustainability.
Urban Screens Melbourne 08 is the third in a series of worldwide Urban Screen events, following Amsterdam 05 and Manchester 07. Melbourne 08 will showcase a wide range of proof-of-concept projects of new forms of urban screen networking and technologies to support public interaction in cultural development, exchange, discourse and creative education. Urban Screens Founder and President is Mirjam Struppek.
www.urbanscreen08.net
www.streamingmuseum.org
www.tedprize.org
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Defense Co-op Meeting Thursday
Jun 22 2008
Red76 and Ars Virtua invite the Second Life Builder and Arts communities to an informal gathering to discuss a new crowd-sourced socially responsible project, “Defense Co-op.”
What is this?
Defense Coop (http://defense-coop.org) is a forum that connects Second Life artists and builders with public defense attorneys throughout the United States to help illustrate scenarios, using 3d graphic movies (machinima), for the defense of indigent clients at trial.
“When a defendant stands trial, it is an agonizing experience. She faces the accusations of the District Attorney, the police, and any independent witnesses the State brings to testify against him. The police are trained how to talk to and persuade juries. They know to come across as affable, good natured people; they know to look at the jury when the speak; they know how to answer the District Attorney’s questions in a way that effectively narrates the events in controversy. They have reports that they wrote just after the events in controversy, which they review prior to testifying. They understand the elements that the District Attorney must establish in order to convict a defendant. Most importantly, they testify all the time - they have lots of experience in the courtroom, and generally feel comfortable there.” — Laura Baldwin (Red76 member, and Portland, Oregon public defense lawyer)
A typical defendant has none of this and is frequently faced with limited resources, compared to those of the state, to make a compelling, memorable, believable case to the jury. This is where Second Life simulation / machinima can be of vital use.
When is it?
June 26 @ 6.30 pacific time (SLT - Second Life Time)
Where?
Liberty Hall (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Seventh%20Eye/245/173/301) in Second Life
We will have a brief presentation by Laura Baldwin to talk about the issues and then a discussion about what we think we can do to help as Second Life builders and artisans, and concerned individuals committed to justice, and legal equality for all peoples regardless of race, class, sexual orientation, or ethnicity.
Who should attend?
Artists, builders, machinimists or just people in Second Life (or from outside) who just want to see these people get a fair chance in court.
How will this be accomplished?
This is really a community based project so very little is decided except the bare bones of the Defense Co-op framework. Defense Co-op, at its core, is a connection point wherein two disparate skills set can meet and work together for the benefit of the under-served within the United States judicial system. One of the possibilities here is to create a library of objects, places, and gestures that make it easy for a lawyer to get a compelling machinima fairly quickly and easily with the assistance of Second Life artisans, and also to consider and construct a flow of the process for making these videos efficiently.
Why?
Because the system is frequently stacked against the defendant in this sort of case, to use machinima and SL for the community and for a social good.
Who chooses the cases? The Defense Co-op discussion board serves as a way-station for the needs of indigent clients. As an example, public defenders may use it to place calls to the community for assistance on trials. Our goal is for the Defense Co-op site to become an open resource, mailable to the needs of those who need our services most.
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Portal Pictures
Jun 7 2008
Here are the portal pictures from thursday night they are cc Michael Lowell
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pookieevans/sets/72157605473728043/
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Play WoW next to Portal
Jun 5 2008
Play WoW Next to the Portal
Have your picture taken with your avatar.
Have fun, play games and get a souvenier from Zero1 San Jose, come down and play World of Warcraft by a genuine 16′ tall 4 ton portal on SJSU campus and to have their picture taken with their Avatar.
This event will be at Eddo Stern’s Portal, Wormhole, Flythrough on Thursday June 5th starting at 8pm.
We will start taking photos at 10 pm. Avatars will be set on the other side of the portal (life size) and the player can then have a photo taken standing along side their favorite character.
The portal is located on SJSU Campus next to the MLK Library and Tower Hall
google map of portal (http://tinyurl.com/5qhbct)
Please bring laptops, lawn furniture (blankets) extention cords and powerstrips. We will supply some power and network. Dress warmly as it has been getting chilly after dark.
http://01sj.org/?p=297
http://arsvirtua.com
This event is sponsored by Ars Virtua and the CADRE Laboratory for New Media.
Portal, Wormhole, Flythrough
Eddo Stern
Portal, Wormhole, Flythrough
Supported by a grant from the James Irvine Foundation for Intersections
01SJ Biennial: Superlight
San Jose State University campus
Summer, 2008
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