site-specific installation for the UWA Centenary 3D Art Challenge. the work is completely invisible unless visitor communicate via Second Life chat. then, the typed text will appear as vertical column of letters, each 1m in height, above the speaker. since the main limitation for an entry to the show was the 110-prim limit, "silence, please" generates maximally 110 letters including blanks, which is pretty close to the twitter limit. as soon as the limit is reached, the letters fall down on the visitors and subsequently vanish.
unfortunately, the original version of the work, which affected visitors all over the exhibition, was not accepted and a modification was requested that restricted the range to a radius of 20m. the argument of the organizers was that the work was 'intrusive' and 'unfair to the other artists'.
Hi Selavy :) I was thrilled to have you submit something to the UWA Centenary Challenge. I've admired your work for a long time. Most recently, I was on a neighboring sim at LEA and I had many opportunities to watch and interact with your fascinating installation there.
ReplyDeleteI stand by the judgement that the piece was too intrusive and unfair to the others, as I believe any person in my position would. I have always held the principle that no work could be displayed to the detriment of any other. When we have a piece that is especially large or noisy, I separate it from the others on a platform or parcel so it can be seen without distracting from the other work. I offered to do that for your entry. We will always do whatever we reasonably can to accommodate an entry.
Since you stated to me unequivocally that your intention was to test the boundaries of what a gallery would tolerate, it was an easy decision to reject it. You tested the boundaries and the result is clear. A work will not be accepted at UWA that intentionally interferes with the presentation of other work. This is an appropriate curatorial decision.
In fact I like the piece and I was anxious to find a way to satisfy your point without disrupting what is otherwise a pretty spectacular show. I am very happy that we are able to show your piece. Even though it's limited in its range, I can see that it is still quite effective in generating conversation (which, of course ends up falling on people's heads... ). The object can wander to the edge of the 20m radius and still hear anything in the 20m open chat radius beyond, giving it an effective 80m diameter range. In fact, we received an entry that that generates random comments on the chat channel. (Your piece does not know if the chat text is coming from an avatar or an object.) I found a location for it that was out of range of your piece, but it might have actually been a hilarious interaction to see your entry spelling out all the text from the other... I seriously considered placing it nearby. lol.. Anyway, I'm happy and I hope you are too. I look forward to working with you again :)