An Interview with Nessuno Myoo

Artist interviews: http://www.brynoh.blogspot.ca/2014/07/upcoming-artist-interviews.html

Nessuno Myoo is a graceful, charming artist with a wonderful sense of composition and colour harmony.  His palette is often that of earth tones or as a Brunaille.  In my minds eye his compositions are often characterized by long thin lines and angles.  A master prim artist whose work shows that it is not about using mesh or other tools but rather the ability of the artist which matters most when creating.

Bryn Oh:  Where are you from?  And who are the most renowned artists from your country in your opinion?

Caravaggio

Nessuno Myoo:  I was born in Italy, where I work, and I live with my family. Under the artistic point of view, Italy is a truly amazing country, it is literally 'immersed' in Art. Everywhere you look, it brings the signs of a past that makes us proud. Our artistic culture has influenced much of the occidental artistic culture. I am referring to the Italian Renaissance: to what geniuses such as Leonardo da Vinci or Michelangelo or Raffaello were able to accomplish and before them, Dante Alighieri with his Divine Comedy. It's very difficult, for this reason, to think you have to choose a few names, leaving out others, especially having neither titles nor the knowledge to do so, as in my case. Secondly despite having embarked, for a short period, artistic studies in more 'classic' meaning, my culture has certainly been influenced most by those forms of art that we could define modern, such as cinema or pop-music. I'm thinking about the work of Federico Fellini or that of Vittorio De Sica, to give two examples that everyone can recall to memory, or that of Sergio Leone, but also to that of Roberto Benigni, to the comedy that goes from the 50s until today, to actors such as Anna Magnani, Aldo Fabrizi, Totò, Peppino de Filippo, Vittorio Gassman, Alberto Sordi, Nino Manfredi, filmmakers like Carlo Verdone. In music I loved the poetry of Fabrizio De Andrè, or the genius of Giorgio Gaber, the visionary power of Enzo Jannacci and the purity of Lucio Dalla, the fragility of Mia Martini. Coming back to painting, I love the way that many subjects represented by Caravaggio emerge from the shadows, to be lapped by the light (I remember I talked about this to you), or like at the beginning of last century, Giorgio De Chirico imposed some of the most powerful and evocative images in his metaphysics. I am quite confusing in my considerations, I admit it, but I repeat, it's difficult to choose only a few of them. I live in a country that is synonymous with the art.

Bryn Oh:  Often the average person outside SL  is perplexed with virtual worlds in general.  When people unfamiliar with the virtual ask you what you do how do you explain it?

Nessuno Myoo:  It's true, when someone asks me what is Second Life, and what I am doing all this time, day and night, in front of a computer monitor to play around with mouse and keyboard... not always it's  easy to explain. Maybe they think I have problems of socialization or maybe I'm allergic to sunlight. Who knows? It 's easier to make them understand that this is an enormous game involving tens of thousands of people from all the world. The 'playful' idea of the videogame is more acceptable than that of a 'virtual reality' lived like experience of personal growth, in various fields, but in the collective imagination, unfortunately it still has undefined outlines. This is related to the fact that, up to now, virtual worlds represent a limited and niche reality. So in my country. To go back to your question, I strongly believe that does not exist a better way to explain the virtual reality than to invite people to try it firsthand.

  

Bryn Oh: Who are a few of your favorite artists and why?

 

Nessuno Myoo:  Seven years of activity inside a virtual world, such as Second Life, trying to make a living reason of my sculptures, they are a long period. Very long. In such a long period, you will inevitably meet, learn, and often weave relationships with a multitude of artists. There are some to

Kicca Igaly

whom I am close because I respect and admire their art and for a sincere and deep friendship, as Lion Igaly, Jeb Soderstrom, Solkide Auer, Shellina Winkler, Maryva Mayo, Gleman Jun, Zhora Maynard, Giovanna Cerise, Daco Monday, Aloisio Congrejo, Tani Thor, Nino Vichan and of course Kicca Igaly. Particularly with Kicca, I still work in close contact,  and from her I learned and I continue to learn immensely. In addition to these, there have been, over time, some 'legendary' figures whose encounter radically changed my way of thinking about digital sculpting. In addition to excellent names that have given luster and wonder at the dawn of SL as Starax, Cheen Pitney, Light Waves or Madcow Cosmos, I confess that one of the first and most powerful of these legendary figures, was you Bryn. Years after arriving for the first time and finding Immersiva, heart in my mouth, your works - it comes in 2008 - it seems incredible to me that it is you, today, interviewing me inside your blog. Crazy! The way you create has represented a watershed moment in my sight, between what I had done until then and what I wanted and could do in a completely new way. The discovery of your work was really like having the keys to open the doors that led into terrible and beautiful rooms in which I knew I'd lost. Making an analogy, I could say that I have enjoyed your work with that same joy and the same terror with which years before, in the middle of adolescence, one of my favorite 'fantastic' writers, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, had kept me glued to the by now yellowed pages of his tales and novels. Thank you so much for all of this. Another of the artists that I loved and love you so

much it was and is certainly AM Radio. Both from the point of view of technical and expressive. In my opinion no one ever as he is able to evoke so well some of the most delicate and poignant echo of melancholy around inanimate objects, able to recall memories and images of a sepia-toned past. Looking at his creations you will be enraptured and frequently, around, creating an almost mystical silence. I love his works, and every time I happen to encounter them in SL, I can not do anything else to get close to them on tiptoe. Finally, I want to pay tribute to one of the most amazing artists I've ever met in the last two years, for technical ability and talent in infuse life into his creations, frequently marked by a taste for steampunk and a wealth of details so explosive as to be almost baroque, breathtaking with emotion, I'm talking about Yooma Mayo: I watch to each of his new works with the same joy of a child who has just been given the most beautiful toy! God... if I think the good fortune to have had the opportunity to enjoy all this beauty! But the names that I'd like were followed more carefully by everyone are so many. I'm thinking to Rose Borchosvky, Rebeca Bashley... or Cica Ghost, even to mention only one of the latest and most interesting novelties that has already had the opportunity, on several occasions, to confirm her undoubted and personal talent, in telling her stories. So many names really. Too many to name them all.

Bryn Oh: Whose artwork do you personally dislike the most and why?

  

Nessuno Myoo:  I hate all those jobs, or all those works, or all installations, where the authors do a great use of mannequins, sculpted or mesh. Full-perm artifacts available in the SL marketplace, or imported into SL through free external libraries, which are not the result of their work, of their hard work, of their creativity, of their own construction. They appear to me anonymous and absolutely expressionless. What's really funny is that, at a superficial glance, it might seem that all of these 'artists' have developed the ability to work the same sculpted or mesh. A skill that for some unknown reason, however, is expressed only in the production of identical human figures (...) Over the years we have had the availability of mannequins ever new better in the technical aspect, with added details also of great quality, but absolutely useless for use in a work of art or in an art installation. Besides, I find them terribly ugly. And the ugliness, in Art, assumes very precise value only when it becomes a means to tell something, and not when it's only the clear inability of being able to produce other, because they don't have the tools to do otherwise. I consider Art the highest form of language that man has ever had available in order to evolve. If this language is rich in nuances, dialects, accents, sounds, dissonance, images always new and different, then it has reason to exist and be appreciated. The uniformity instead flattens and impoverishes this language up to humiliate it and make it completely barren.

  

Bryn Oh: Which of your own works are you most proud of?  Do you feel any failed and if so do you now know why?

  

Nessuno Myoo:  Seeking to answer your question, I did a kind of mental journey back through time, trying to find an answer as close as possible to what I feel inside of me today. I'm quite attached and proud of many of my works. For various reasons. Not all of them of course. Besides the series devoted to the world of music and musicians, which I opened in 2008 with the sculpture named 'Trio Jazz' and that includes the last coming in the last year called 'Voices', I am so proud of all those dedicated to some of my favorite horror writers, contained within the anthology presented in 2011 on the Mic island, edited by Mexi Lane (aka Marina Bellini), entitled 'Tales in the Shadow'. I really love also 'Back To Home', because it tells very well the story of a voyage that I feel intimately mine, or 'Until To Touch The Clouds', because it represents an emblematic condition for many, even if really lived by few. Also I love the lyricism and sheer madness of 'The Strange Coincidence', initially

with Kicca Igaly - Image taken by Ziki Questi

inspired by a scene in Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket and then become something else, completely uncontrolled and uncontrollable... so full of details that only a mad could have created: for example, the only toothbrush has almost 300 prims. Also I am affectively and emotionally attached to 'As An Angel In Search Of Colors' which I think is a higher level in many points of view, not just the technical or stylistic. Among the large-scale installations I like to remember the first one I made ​​called 'Life Again' or the one presented in the last project curated by the LEA together with Kicca Igaly named 'DangerInEvolution', last year. So even in this case it is really hard to choose. I love them all as if they were children. But since I do not have children, then I can say I love them as if they were my parents, because they understand me and offer me protection and security. In front of them I do not need to be different from what I am. Regarding the second part of the question, instead, I can tell you to feel myself totally inadequate and I have failed the target more than once, in all those rare occasions when I worked in very large groups. I do not know why it happens and what brings me to fail: the spirit or intent of the group, the purposes for which it is created. Perhaps in those situations I become really a kind of solitary animal.

  

Bryn Oh: Do you have a method when creating? If so how does it often progress?  For example do you sketch or write out ideas first for weeks or do you perhaps just jump directly into the project with little planning and adapt as you go?

  

Nessuno Myoo:  Oh yeah sure, over the years I think I have crystallized a 'modus operandi' that I respect every time in the same way, and that occasionally I modify a little only in very special situations. As the pattern of a serial killer. In SL I've never drawn anything before grounding the first cube of each work. Everything comes, grows and dies in my head. It begins with an image that becomes light in my mind. This image is suggested by anything... by a book you are reading, or a movie, a chat with a friend, a melody that filters through a window left open or a memory that resurfaces after years, held there in the warm under the blanket. It 'a powerful image, if you know what I mean, but not complete. Reflecting on this image, I suggest a possible way to follow: a theme. At this stage I do a bulimic search for information about it, I take, directly from the Web, most of this information, but also by other media that may be the most disparate. Each of us has a kind of 'sieve' within themselves and their own life experience, and uses it as needed to stay afloat just what you need at that moment. When the material is put together enough to start putting on something concrete and that makes sense in my eyes, I start to really build. Going forward, in the project, I add items always new and unexpected, that I would never have dreamed of taking into account only at the stage of just imagining it. I work slowly. Very slowly. Too slowly. Ok, for a careless eye I could actually seem completely immobile. But for me it is essential to work slowly. So long as observe what I do in construction. For a project completed in the time period such as a month, I use at least 3 weeks to observe what I've built. Perhaps adding even one prim, from time to time, or moving of only a few millimeters something that still does not convince me at all. Important: I use only native prims, not sculpted or mesh. Only SL native prims. It is damn tiring and I understand that it is foolish to believe. But I am not able to proceed in a different way. And basically I do not want to proceed in a different way. One aspect that always leaves me incredibly intrigued then, is the fact that at every start the final result is always very different from the original that image that I mentioned above. I think it's a good incentive to go forward: the curiosity to see how it will end every story that you start to write through digital sculpting. And every time I fear that it is the last one. And I am afraid that this beautiful thing that happens all the time unless I can explain it really, can suddenly stop working forever. Do you know that in a couple of occasions I've even found myself thinking that I could stop living? It would be a shame, if for no other reason I would not have had a way to finish the work I was doing, Crazy but true.

  

Bryn Oh: What are you currently reading, listening to or looking at to inspire your work?

  

Nessuno Myoo:  While I am committed to building I can't do more than that. My concentration is totally focused on that. If your question is what I read, watch or listen to inspire me a new idea for a new work to be done in SL, as I said above, it is different from time to time. Every situation can be an inspiration, just that you know how to read between the lines of reality that we have in front of our eyes, not just the physical ones.  

Bryn Oh: Does your work have an overall theme and if so what might that be?  If not please describe how you tend to pick your topics.

    

Nessuno Myoo:  In truth, a kind of thread that ties all my work exists. And in many cases it is sensationally obvious. In other cases it's more hidden, and it's hard task to be able to discover it. I'm talking about that aspect related to what I call 'fragmentation of the human figure'. A constant research devoted to the dismemberment of the figure, which implies a rejection of bodily imperfection, to transfigure into soul. If you like, my rather simple expedient, it also serves to emphasize a dogma, which wants a human being in a constant search for what completes it. Whether it be a person, a passion, a love or an object. The metaphor is always the same. Another aspect, absolutely not secondary, which binds all my work is also tenacious research of the movement, sublimated in volumes, shapes, and lines, although it's completely absent the use of SL-scripts, and other stratagems. 

Bryn Oh:  Have you ever had to deal with negative publicity or a disappointing rejection of your artwork?  How do you deal with it?

  

Nessuno Myoo:  Yes, in one of the most delicate moments of my path, in SL, I received, in more or less direct way, accusations about the lack of originality in expressive language adopted. Initially I suffered a lot of these accusations. I could not comprehend how it was not obvious to everyone the difference between my expressive trait and that of others. The way I work every single prim, I model it, I dress it, and finally I illuminate it, placing it within a composition never boring and always refined. I thought deeply unfair that all this was not recognized me. Then, little by little, they began to appreciate it I think. More and more. And perhaps to understand it. However, I still can not understand  the fact that some of the greatest creators of machinima in SL have, mostly, overlooked or overshadowed many of my best works. What a pity! It could be a great opportunity for me to rediscover them in a whole new look within their sequences. We are able to accept these types of waste and disappointment, and to go ahead anyway, only with a great conviction in what we do. There are no other alternatives. First of all I build for myself. 

Bryn Oh:  Would you like to take a stab at explaining what defines virtual art? 

Nessuno Myoo:  In fact, I strongly believe that the whole Art, in the past, in the present, in the future, can not ignore the condition of being, by its very nature, intimately and inextricably linked to the virtual aspect of all things. After all, if we think about it, who makes art, using the means that history, through technological evolution from time to time supply it with, does nothing more than projecting with the imagination in a virtual space, where to take with enthusiasm, to those fantastic visions that his sensibility then turns into something else, which can be appreciated and enjoyed by all humanity. And this happens all the time. And ever since. In my view, therefore, to speak of Art and Virtual, is to speak about the exact same subject. In addition to being a good escamotage through which you can avoid a stab.

  

Bryn Oh: What would you say makes virtual creations unique over other art forms?

  

Nessuno Myoo:  Every form of art has its own uniqueness given by the means with it is achieved. If I have to look for a "uniqueness" in virtual creations, such as on SL, this consists precisely in the fact that a work remains unique despite its multiplication. In the real world a work of art has a value and its copies have another, on the other hand, on SL the value of the various "copies" of a work does not imply a devaluation of the so-called original, because they are all original and no of them can be degraded to a reproduction of a unique copy. So, back to your question, we can say that, paradoxically, the uniqueness of a virtual work of art is manifested in the abasement of the concept of the uniqueness of the work. I think this is an extremely significant and revolutionary factor of virtual art without thereby diminishing it. Imagine if each of us could enjoy his favorite works comfortably at home, it would surely be not acceptable for the market, but the art would really be shared.

   

Bryn Oh:  Centuries ago there was no such thing as an "artist" just craftsmen, as time progressed superior technical ability and creativity created the elite "Master" artist whose work stood recognized above all others.  In 1917 Marcel Duchamp submitted a work entitled "Fountain" to the Society of Independent artists.    He stated "... He (the artist) CHOSE it. He took an article of life, placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of view – created a new thought for that object"  He wanted to shift the focus away from technical craft to

more of an aesthetic intellectual interpretation.  Some say that because of him almost everything is considered art today.  From an elephant painting with its trunk, a Banksy, a child's drawing to someone vomiting paint onto a canvas.  What is your perspective on this?

  Nessuno Myoo:  The question is not if anything can be considered art or not. It 'difficult to establish the limit beyond which a work of art ends up not to be or vice versa. A work that is an expression of only technique does not attract me as well as a work that is an expression of pure intellectual provocation. I can fully satisfy all the senses only when the two aspects find an equilibrium point, which I admit to be subjective. In the case of purely intellectual works I think it is important to be able to understand the honesty of the artist, of his thought, that really wants to communicate something or not.