tectonics

in a virtual world, several of the usual features of nature do not exist. even though there is wind and sun and even moon in second life, there usually are no earthquakes. tectonics, a kinetic installation at water level, is a reflection on what the creators of the medium chose to implement (such as water), and what was regarded as unimportant or even disturbing the experience. tectonics, created in february 2008, consists of a variable number of hexagons, reminding of crystalline basalt structures, which move up and down randomly. it can still be seen at the museo del metaverso. a site-specific version called tectonics II was created later for brooklyn is watching.

architectural intervention

my second contribution to open odyssey was the architectural intervention, a very simple piece, which is about the question of whether creations in a digital realm are originals, and whether reusing existing elements in a different way can be regarded as work on its own. since the stairs of the museum were copyable, it was possible to make an exact mirror-copy. interestingly, sugar seville, the organizer of the show, first sent the work back not realizing that it was meant as contribution to the show. it was placed directly in front of the original stairs, thereby creating a new space that played with another missing element in sl, the mirror. later, was used by juria yoshikawa and others to place their contributions.

soft structure

in october 2007, sugar seville initiated an uncurated show at the odyssey sim, and i installed two pieces, one of them being the blue curtain. this first version of what i called later soft structure was made out of flexi-prims to move with the virtual wind, and scripted to change color in response to the cloud density. it was my first piece making use of an inbuilt feature of second life, the virtual weather.

the black cube

the black cube was the first project i did in second life apart from giving selavy a face and an appearance. the black cube was a reaction to the disturbing discovery that it is almost impossible to leave traces in a virtual world. traces such as footsteps in mud, fingerprints on a clear window pane.
the black cube was scripted to circumvent the auto-return feature which is installed on almost every sim, and which prevents you to litter the virtual world, but also to leave traces. the cube did not just stay at the location, but very slowly rose upward, with a speed impossible to notice.
the black cube was installed on various sims (the picture shows it at 30 different locations), i took a picture at each location together with a landmark, and then noted when the cube was sent back by the parcel owner. in most cases, i wrote a instant message to the sim owner afterwards to explain why i left the cube. see this set on flickr for more images.

a blog as an archive

it occurred to me on several occasions now that i need a website, which is more than just an entry in one of the social networks. for those sites, see my account at the odyssey ning, or my flickr stream. none of these has a decent possibility to present a list of works together with some comments, descriptions, references to other websites, blog entries, etc. last week, in a conversation with dekka raymaker, i realized that a blog would do the job. and, after all, what could be more appropriate for a net-based artist then choosing the format of a blog as archive?