Dasha Hara machinima for BAK

     I have been pretty busy lately and strangely have forgotten to mention that I was commissioned to create a music video for a band named BAK which I completed a few months ago.  I enjoyed working with the band as they were pretty hands off for the most part, letting me interpret their music as a narrative.
     My story is based around a girl who drops her scissors onto the grass when startled during a lightning storm.  The scissors land in the soil, one blade piercing it, creating an almost religious symbol or icon which draws forth an Emperor Moth to perch upon it.  From there other insects are slowly drawn to the mysterious artifact and soon  begin to worship the symbol and its moth.  Soon they begin to fight amongst themselves.  The girl looks down upon the tiny world at her feet and is dismayed to see what her scissors have caused.  A seemingly innocent tool taken and then distorted into something quite different.  After seeing how they have changed, she ponders for a while, then eradicates them.  A simple girl transformed into a  Goddess for a little world of insects who come to embrace her soul.  Or ... rather... her sole.

The singularity of Kumiko and Ray Caesar

 There are a few things to talk about for this post.  First is that the Singularity of Kumiko has been open a week now and I am happy with the turn out so far.  It is capped at 15 avatars but still getting upwards of 600 visitors a day which is more than I had expected.  Imogen and the Pigeons was getting thousands a day but there was a higher avatar cap of 30 I believe.  There have been some insightful posts such as http://laskyaclaren.wordpress.com/2014/02/09/the-singularity-of-bryn-oh/ and https://modemworld.wordpress.com/2014/02/14/upon-reaching-a-singularity/ as well as the inevitable complaints.  Generally those are coming from the odd photographer who feel it is too dark or they get killed by Mr Zippers while composing a shot.  My response to them is that I do not make make artwork for pictures.  There are plenty of pretty sims built for that purpose.  It is actually pretty arrogant to assume I would adjust my artwork to fascilitate your hobby, which reminds me of a comment made for Imogen and the Pigeons when it opened last year.  Someone said to me that they "Didn't want to do work in order to see art".  There is this belief, by some, that art should be offered with eyes lowered on a silver platter.  Some are accustomed to overly nice Wallmart greeters or restaurants whose servers are constantly asking how the food is, or should you take a sip of water they are magically at your shoulder refilling your glass with three drops.  I am thinking locally of a restaurant called the Mardarin but I am sure this strategy of overly decadent treatment exists everywhere.  I find it a bit debasing and it makes me uncomfortable, but I understand the intention of the restaurant, Wallmart or whatever to try to make the guest feel like Royalty.  Its a type of fantasy.  Art will, hopefully, never decline to that level.  I spent four months building the Singularity of Kumiko, I charge exactly 0L to see it.  If you can't spend five minutes setting up the windlight then seriously, go away it is not for you.  I have actually only received a handful of complaints like that but still it is annoying.  Rant over.
   I really wish I was still living in Italy at the moment as there is a great show to see.  It is at http://www.dorothycircusgallery.it/ and has the work of Ray Caesar and Anita Kunz.  Anitas work is great and Ray Ceasar is one of my favorites so if you happen to live in either Rome or Torino then have a look and tell me if it was completely awesome and how much his work sells for there! 

Also thank you Hope Leissa for buying  me at auction for 47,000 Linden in support of the Feed a Smile charity.  Very generous of you.

MaPea Auction

      Hey that's me in the picture there!... why didn't anyone tell me I looked so freaking weird?  I am all  white and shit and wtf is that horns on my head?  Look at that old burlap sack I am wearing!  Well at least I don't look like Dax' Anyway,  so I am in an auction as you might have guessed and it is for a great cause.  To feed children.  I think many of us may forget what it is really like to be hungry, and for children to suffer in such a way is heartbreaking.  Children around the world are the same, innocent and pure and really just wanting to feel safe.   To be completely honest, I am a fairly boring person, and should you end up winning me I will prove it to you.  What you are really doing is giving money to feed children with a very small bonus of doing whatever you want with me.  We can hang out and chat, I can help you with machinima or art, grant writing or perhaps even build you something.  Take you on a tour of my new build The Singularity of Kumiko or whatever.  Its up to you.  The SLURL is here        There are some great deals out there.  Ole Etzel for 1000L are you serious?  Naxos Loon for 650L?  Misprint Thursday for 350L?  Cutea Benelli for 1500L?   Below is the official info as supplied by MadPea.

The bidding runs from February 15th 2014 right the way through to February 23rd, where it culminates in a series of live appearances from some of Second Life’s most famous artists, creators, musicians and bloggers, all of whom will be available for anyone and everyone to bid on. There’ll also be entertainment and music provided by popular singers and MC’s, with KatRose Serendipity, Shannon Oherilhy, Noma Falta, Marky Helstein and Kess Crystal being just a few of over a dozen performers scheduled to appear throughout the day!

Each auctionee has personally put together a special selection of treats for their winning bidder that amount to an experience that is truly Once in a Second Lifetime. With big names like Bryn Oh, Bernhard Drax, Queen Pea Kiana Writer and Jaimy Hancroft all going on the block, MadPea hopes to raise over 1,200,000L for Feed A Smile’s projects, ultimately feeding over 400 children for an entire month!

For more information on this amazing event, or to offer yourself up for auction, please contact Kiana Writer, Bobbi Bashir or Fugazi Rubanis in-world. Requests for comment for print or publication from any MadPea staff should be sent to Fugazi Rubanis.

The Singularity of Kumiko

The Singularity of Kumiko

 On February 14th 2014 my new immersive work will open on Immersiva.  There are, as usual, some specific settings which need to be set up for this artwork.  The difference this time being that the settings are essential for the story to work properly.  At the entrance are some fairly simple things to do which should take perhaps five minutes.  I have directions for Singularity viewer and the default SL viewer 3, but the best viewer to use is Firestorm as it has the most effective windlight and shadow settings available.

     This artwork will use some features in a unique way allowing for a quite different experience which, sadly, is fairly demanding on your computer.  I have tested extensively and have found that most are able to run, while experiencing minimal lag, the artwork on mid range computers.  To help keep lag minimized I will cap the avatar limit on Immersiva to 10-15.  As with Imogen and the Pigeons, I am attempting to look at the virtual medium and determine what is unique about it over other mediums such as painting, sculpture and cinema. Then I work towards using those strengths to create an immersive experience that is specific to a multi user environment.  Some things that can help with the immersion is if you are able to turn the lights down low in the room as you explore, as well as turn up the ambient volume.  Essentially you will need a special windlight, shadows enabled and a headlamp. I should also mention that while it is a love story of sorts... it also possesses an element of danger so you will need to be a careful.  The artwork is open ended and you may feel lost at certain points, but that sense of anxiety is essential to the narrative.

I hope you will enjoy it.

New Media Grant... two

     I have a bunch of exciting announcements to make over the next little while but they can wait because I have just received a letter in the mail from the Canadian Government saying that I have been awarded a second grant based off of the artwork which I create here in virtual worlds.  I originally received a grant a few years ago to create the build and machinima for Standby which I will post below.  They have doubled this grant this time and I am super happy.  There were just 16 grants awarded and I am really proud of the OAC for recognizing the value and nature of this frontier form of artwork then supporting it.  Much of the world is unable or unwilling to recognize that virtual art and its artists are currently laying the groundwork for what will eventually be a medium standing equal alongside traditional art forms such as sculpture, painting, cinema and photography.


     This new grant will support, among other things like the study of and incorportation of the Occulus Rift, the creation of a machinima for Imogen and the Pigeons which recently closed on Immersiva.  Much of the application focused on the above previously created machinima for Standby as well as the single room within Imogen and the Pigeons that I filmed called Juniper (below).   I am very happy and over the next little while I will post at least four other big things on the horizon that I am excited about.

Whoopsy daisy

     I got a message the other day from a friend who is also the owner of the sim where my shop is/was located.  His account was locked out as he owed Linden Lab money I expect.  Kind of reminds me of my previous patron named Dusan Writer who gave me Immersiva six years ago.  He was also locked out and one day Immersiva suddenly was gone when I logged in.  That was kind of disturbing as you can imagine.  Was like when my car was towed once and I stood around all confused thinking "I am sure I parked here.."  I knew it wasn't stolen because I leave the door and glove box open so people don't damage my car trying to break into it.  The can just have a quick look to see there is nothing worth stealing.
      Anyway, I digress.  What was kind of shocking when Immersiva disappeared was that a blogger named Hamlet Au suggested I do a crowd funder to see if people would donate to bring Immersiva back.  I was resistant to the idea because it kind of felt like begging to me as well as I had a fear that nobody would donate and it would just be kind of humiliating.  I was once auctioned in high school for charity with the idea that you would be somebodies servant for a day.  Fortunately I worked out ahead of time for a friend to buy me if there were no bids.  Turns out he eventually won the bid and I had to pay him back.  So I bought myself.  I was pretty annoyed with him for raising the bids when he was using my money and could have let someone else win.  Anyway, I set up a crowd funder for Immersiva and set it to last two months to raise a goal of $6,000 US dollars for tier for two years or so.  I was surprised to see the goal reached in a matter of hours on the first day.  That was pretty rewarding. 
     So yesterday I told my group the shop would be closing and lots of people came by and we chatted.  I procrastinated in taking a copy of the shop and well... I never actually got around to it and now the regions are deleted.  What is kind of cool for you though, if you bought things yesterday, is that for some of those works I didn't have a copy of them at all.  I am bad that way sometimes.  So yay you may have some works that are particularly rare now. 

I was robbed!

suspect line up

      I woke up today to a rather ominous message sent to me by Linden Lab.  In it they informed me that my account had been put on hold due to "suspicious behaviour".   The suspicious behaviour was somebody stealing all my money!  Joke was on them though as I had already been robbed numerous times by stores before Christmas.  A word of advice to burglers... rob before Christmas as it is likely much more lucrative.  Seriously though my first thoughts were "how long is this going to take to get resolved?" my second thought was completely unrelated so I wont bother repeating it here.  So I went in to the Linden police station to see if I could identify the culprit by picking them out from a suspect line up behind a one way mirror.  Sadly I lagged bad at that moment and walked through the one way glass and they all saw me.   I didn't recognize any of the shapes but I didn't like the look of the cube.. seemed a bit two faced to me.  I have to say though that Linden Lab fixed it in a matter of hours.  I was pretty impressed and felt a wee bit guilty for my snarky post about them the other day.  Now I have to figure out what this means.  A friend of mine says I have to reformat my entire computer in case they have a keylogger on my computer now.  That would be pretty horrible and tons of work.  Someone else said my nortons program should be sufficient to tell me if I need to be worried.  I am changing all my passwords now but I guess if they have a keylogger that wont do much.  If anyone has any suggestions please let me know in the comments!