Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.64.0901151859420.24121@panix3.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.aol.com>, Wryting-L <WRYTING-L@listserv.wvu.edu>
Subject: Check out installation in Second Life by DC Spensley
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2009 19:01:15 -0500 (EST)
This is really wonderful - I loved the kilometer-high drawing! - alan ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: DC Spensley <spensley@pacbell.net> Bio: DanCoyote Antonelli: The avatar DanCoyote was created as the proxy for David �DC� Spensley in the virtual world of Second Life. The name DanCoyote is derived from Cervantes� Don Quixote and in honor of a coyote that Joseph Beuys lived with for a time at the Ren� Block Gallery in New York during his 1974 action, �I like America and America Likes Me�. DanCoyote�s costume is intended to be simple and low bandwidth, placing the emphasis on work outside of the avatar. Each detail of DanCoyote�s garb, however, has significance. Yellow and black are high visibility colors and also the official colors of the City of San Francisco. The gold bands on his arms and legs symbolize a release from the bonds of gravity and physicality. The wand in the left hand is called a �caduceus�, which refers to the transformational nature of the Greek god Hermes. Caduceus .03 is also a one of a kind virtual tool, custom programmed to project commands to metamorphosize objects and installations from a distance. DC Spensley An alumni of the San Francisco Art Institute, DC Spensley has lived and worked in Northern California since 1986. Spensley wears the hat of writer, director, cinematographer, composer, performance artist and most recently has appeared as the avatar DanCoyote Antonelli in the virtual reality simulation of Second Life. While most people jealously guard their pseudonymity inside this alternate reality, Spensley attempts parity in both worlds and has exhibited internationally at the ZeroOne/ISEA conference in 2006, the Dutch Electronic Arts Festival 2006 and Ars Electronica 2007. About the work on exhibition at ARENA: I call this grouping "Recent Retrospective" because it contains art from different bodies of my work done in the last three years as an artist in residence in the virtual world. Most prominent is the nearly kilometer tall assembly entitled "Drawing". Drawing is neither a drawing or a sculpture, but is rather a conceptual tongue and cheek reference to both kinds of artifact that ironically cannot exist in simulated space. Drawing informs viewers about scale in the virtual world in a way unlike most constructions found in SL by negating the figurative context and pointing out the "avatar powers" of a viewer. This encourages a viewer to become more aware of their configuration options and invites the viewer realize a new level of proficiency in experiencing simulated space. The mute monoliths animate glacially, too slow for the eye to perceive and foreground a sense of the volume of space displaced by the work. Viewers take a chair conveyance available at the "Drawing" sign which carries them up to a vantage point high about the sim. Also on display: "Pixel Board", a binary feedback social sculpture. Viewers click squares on the smaller panel and this input appears as output on the larger display, which is then visible from a great distance. Pixel Board explores the social urge to leave graffiti, but in a one-bit, black and white icon format. "Mutant Hossies". These three weird quasi-horse artworks are remediations of a classic sculptural form and displayed like bronze statues on marble platforms. They are a "mashup", or reworking of an original horse sculpture give away free by Second Life artist Nomasha Syaks. Mutant Hossies have embedded scripting that causes subtle animations to play that support the fanciful variation of horse depicted. "Tomb Maze" Tomb Maze uses embedded reflexive scripting to create a tomb-like maze that people are encouraged to navigate their avatar through. The maze is possible. It does take some patience, so there is always the chance an impatient avatar might become trapped and need to find other means of escape! "Very Silly Militude" is not what it seems. Very Silly Militude characterizes the quality of verissimilitude superficially. But when set to midnight, a viewer walking through will see light cast in unusual ways. The exterior layer of the work is a deliberate misdirection and while it appears to be about the movement of heavy objects in space, it is really about the way light is occluded by them. Thanks for viewing! David "DC" Spensley is DanCoyote in SL 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-�-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 On Jan 15, 2009, at 11:12 AM, Alan Sondheim wrote: > > > - This is amazing - please send me a description and I'll send it out to > various lists etc. I particularly like the drawing which seems unique to me > and the aesthetics are incredible. - thanks, Alan > > > > | Alan Sondheim Mail archive: http://sondheim.rupamsunyata.org/ > | To access the Odyssey exhibition The Accidental Artist: > | http://slurl.com/secondlife/Odyssey/48/12/22 > | Webpage (directory) at http://www.alansondheim.org > | sondheim@panix.com, sondheim@gmail.org, tel US 718-813-3285 >