Bryn Oh's The Singularity of Kumiko, and the Worth of Art in Second Life

[LaskyaClaren]

As many of you may know, Bryn Oh's new installation, The Singularity of Kumiko, opens this coming Friday (14 February).

I got the chance, along with other bloggers, to check out the installation during a preview this weekend. It's pretty fantastic, I think. I blogged about it here:

http://laskyaclaren.wordpress.com/2014/02/09/the-singularity-of-bryn-oh/

And here is Bryn Oh's own trailer for the installation:

Art in Second Life is one of things I love most about virtual worlds, but it can also frequently leave me questioning my engagement with and relationship to this place (i.e., Second Life). That was certainly the case with Oh's new exhibit.

So, out of curiosity, where does "Art" rank in importance for your own Second Life experience, and what does it "do" for you?

(And no, I don't intend to define or delimit "Art." You can do this if you wish.)

[JPG0809]

Art is very important in my SL experience/enjoyment because without art, I wouldn't have purtty visuals.

 

If that's the case, I might as well be in online chat rooms or forums like this one where all there is, is text.

[LaskyaClaren]

Thank you for the response!

I think you're right: without the creativity of the residents of Second Life, and the art (in all of its many forms) that they have produced, this virtual world would be no better than any other social media (and in some ways, worse).

Of course, it's not just about being visual: blogs, forums, and social media have visuals too, like avatars, images, and video. What makes SL different is the 3D format, I suppose? Is that the element of visual culture that makes virtual world art different and appealing?

[Dillon Levenque]

Art doesn't have any more importance (nor any less importance) to me in Second Life than it does in RL. My attraction is exactly the same.

For example, there's a portrait I love above all others,.I first saw it in a book of history in which all the illustrations were monochrome. It was years before I saw it in color—I remember mentioning it to my father and he said, "The one with all the reds". I didn't know what he meant about red so I went to the library. Velazquez's "Innocent X".  I do not have a print of that portrait in my RL house, because it would only be a copy. But the very first thing I did when I built my first little cabin in SL was to upload a texture of that portrait, put it in a prim, and hang it on the wall. And I do mean the FIRST thing. Before the furniture, even. In SL, it can be the original. I even have a somewhat colorful (or is it off-color?) story of exactly now it came into my possessiion.

The thing I like best about art in Second LIfe is that we can be part of it. We can look, but we can also enter. Places like AM Radio's now vanished sims were immersionable art. Also, we can  be part of art literally. I was once part of a group of people captured in an image of the diner in Edward Hopper's 'Nighthawks".

[Madelaine McMasters]

---

Dillon Levenque wrote:

For example, there's a portrait I love above all others,.I first saw it in a book of history in which all the illustrations were monochrome. It was years before I saw it in color—I remember mentioning it to my father and he said, "The one with all the reds". I didn't know what he meant about red so I went to the library. Velazquez's "Innocent X".  I do not have a print of that portrait in my RL house, because it would only be a copy. But the very first thing I did when I built my first little cabin in SL was to upload a texture of that portrait, put it in a prim, and hang it on the wall. And I do mean the FIRST thing. Before the furniture, even. In SL, it can be the original. I even have a somewhat colorful (or is it off-color?) story of exactly now it came into my possessiion.

---

Velazquez's "Snugs on a Good Day" is a favorite of mine as well. I love the story of how it came into my possession...

---

The thing I like best about art in Second LIfe is that we can be part of it. We can look, but we can also enter. Places like AM Radio's now vanished sims were immersionable art. Also, we can  be part of art literally. I was once part of a group of people captured in an image of the diner in Edward Hopper's 'Nighthawks".

---

 

 

The thing I like best about art in Second Life is that we're all afforded the tools to create it, and the proportion of playful people here seems higher than in RL. Everybody who comes to Second Life must partake in the ancient art of storytelling more consciously than we do in RL, where life often just happens to us. Here, everything is elective.

[Madelaine McMasters]

I'm going to take issue with the idea (cribbed from your blog) that...

_____

Forgetting” is important here, for to integrate with the machine the human being must “forget” a great deal, including much that makes us human, makes us, as individuals, singular. As Kumiko insists,

"If we converted a memory into digital 1′s and 0′s or some other form of language then it would only be a matter of time before we began to manipulate it. We would cut our sorrows and manufacture outcomes in order to create a shiny surface to our lives with nothing behind them."
_____

I think this is backwards. Forgetting is both human and humane. The flawless and endless memory of machines is both inhuman and inhumane. Imagine remembering every slight, every insult, every harm done to you over the course of your life with the precision and immediacy of digital recall. I want (and cannot escape) the ability to forget, and to temper my memories to shape my own narrative.

The first pick in my SL profile is "Friendship", which contains the following quote...

“Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person; having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but to pour them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then, with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.”

-- Dinah Maria Mulock Craik (1826-1887)

We manipulate our memories every time we recall them, coloring each retrieval with the light our or current selves before filing them away again... or not. We cut our sorrows, and if we're lucky, we manufacture outcomes in order to create a shiny surface on which to skate into the future, full of hope.

[LaskyaClaren]

That's a wonderful story, Dillon. Thank you for sharing it :-)

(Can I convince you to reveal the "colourful" story of your art acquisition as well?)

There's a famous essay (well, famous among people who read obscure and obtuse German theorists, anyway) from 1936 by Walter Benjamin entitled "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction") which addresses the issue of the "copy" that you describe: he talks about the "aura" that clings to an original, and that becomes increasingly dimmer with each reproduction.

What I find especially fascinating, though, is your suggestion that the copy becomes an "original" in Second Life. I'm not entirely sure I know why, but intuitively that seems right. Because because everything here is a copy and a simulacrum, the rules change?

Bryn Oh, in a blog piece she wrote about her last installation ("Imogen and the Pigeons") talks at great length about the importance of interactivity and immersion in virtual world art:

I have said in the past that I think of my artwork here in virtual worlds almost as paintings you can enter and explore.  The beauty of a painting, the immersion of cinema and then meshed in with a new type of open ended freedom of movement combined with interaction.  There are many new and interesting techniques to experiment with inside the virtual artform.   The one which I brought up at the beginning, that ties into my new build Imogen and the pigeons, is creating immersion within the artistic environment by creating scenarios which challenge the viewer.  I generally don't put out text or arrows to tell the viewer where to go or what to do.  I feel this can break the immersion so I let the viewer discover on their own. 

This seems to me right. I also like the way she talks about the importance of labour on the part of the viewer. It is engaging because we have to work at it?

And I really do want to hear that story, btw. :-)

[LaskyaClaren]

---

Madelaine McMasters wrote:

I'm going to take issue with the idea (cribbed from your blog) that...

_____

Forgetting” is important here, for to integrate with the machine the human being must “forget” a great deal, including much that makes us human, makes us, as individuals, 

singular

. As Kumiko insists,

"If we converted a memory into digital 1′s and 0′s or some other form of language then it would only be a matter of time before we began to manipulate it. We would cut our sorrows and manufacture outcomes in order to create a shiny surface to our lives with nothing behind them."

_____

I think this is backwards. Forgetting is both human and humane. The flawless and endless memory of machines is both inhuman and inhumane. Imagine remembering every slight, every insult, every harm done to you over the course of your life with the precision and immediacy of digital recall. 

I want (and cannot escape) the ability to forget, and to temper my memories to shape my own narrative.

The first pick in my SL profile is "Friendship", which contains the following quote...

“Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person; having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but to pour them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then, with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.”

-- Dinah Maria Mulock Craik (1826-1887)

We manipulate our memories every time we recall them, coloring each retrieval with the light our or current selves before filing them away again... or not. We cut our sorrows, and if we're lucky, we manufacture outcomes in order to create a shiny surface on which to skate into the future, full of hope.

---

This is a really excellent point.

I don't think I was trying to suggest (although I can see that it might sound like it) that forgetting is not a very human quality. In a sense, it is precisely because humans are so very good at forgetting -- and reshaping or reimagining the past -- that we are so very vulnerable to machine memory, because digital archives and databases are so very insistent on objective memory.

To clarify, or rather elaborate in response to your insight, it is precisely the subjectivity of human memory that makes us most human, and that we must not surrender to the unblinking mind of the machine.

Edited to add: I'm sorry, that didn't respond to your question so much as it repeated your point. I can only plead a dinner that was beginning to burning (and that now is in danger of becoming entirely inedible). I'll respond later more fully and intelligently, I hope!

[Storm Clarence]

I'm not so sure how or why 'art' is in the general discussion forum. I think posting the 'work' of an artist in GD leaves that artist vulnerable to, well, lots of stuff.  Do you have Bryn's permission to post this here?  Is she aware that you leaving her open to any criticism that may ensue -- we all don't have the same tastes, ya know. 

So, now that you have opened Bryn to a general discussion I will discuss her and you generally and in the open.

Bryn resigned from her position supporting and advocating the arts in SL because of the recent ToS changes.  Are you now advocating for Bryn's art or the position Bryn took with her resignation?  Either way, I find it distasteful to say the least (I'm sure she would as well.)

PS What bigger insult to the artist if someone decides to post an lolcat as a response! 

 

 

 

 

[LaskyaClaren]

---

Storm Clarence wrote:

I'm not so sure how or why 'art' is in the general discussion forum. I think posting the 'work' of an artist in GD leaves that artist vulnerable to, well, lots of stuff.  Do you have Bryn's permission to post this here?  Is she aware that you leaving her open to any criticism that may ensue -- we all don't have the same tastes, ya know. 

So, now that you have opened Bryn to a general discussion I will discuss her and you generally and in the open.

Bryn resigned from her position supporting and advocating the arts in SL because of the recent ToS changes.  Are you now advocating for Bryn's art or the position Bryn took with her resignation?  Either way, I find it distasteful to say the least (I'm sure she would as well.)

PS What bigger insult to the artist if someone decides to post an lolcat as a response! 

 

 

 

 

---

Artists are, by their nature, public figures. Bryn permitted bloggers (amongst whom was myself) early access to a preview of the exhibit precisely because she wanted it discussed in the public sphere. Are you suggesting that General Discussion board is a particularly toxic venue for such discussions?

In any case, while my blog post is about one particular installation by Bryn (whom I first spoke to in person only about 3 days ago, so I am hardly qualified to speak for her), this post is not particularly about her: it's about art in SL.

I am advocate neither for her art, nor her position. You may hold me responsible for what I have myself said, but as regards any views or opinions held by Bryn, I would suggest you take those up with her.

 

PS. Edited to add:

"I find it distasteful to say the least (I'm sure she would as well.)"

Well, la-di-f*cking-da.

[Dillon Levenque]

---

Madelaine McMasters wrote:

---

---

---

 

I''m rather fond of this version, too. If Francis Bacon (no, not that Francis Bacon) had seen this he probably would have thrown his  hands in the air and gone in a different direction.

[Dillon Levenque]

---

LaskyaClaren wrote:

And I really 

do

want to hear that story, btw. :-)

---

 

Italian jurisprudence being somewhat uncompromising, I cannot get into the details. Suffice it to say tthat the (then) curator of the Galleria Doria Pamphilj (who as it happens was married into a very influential family) had a fascination with t-girls and a rather reckless spriit—he was seemingly oblivous to the fact that cameras could be everywhere.

There was an exchange of pictures, so to speak.

[Storm Clarence]

---

LaskyaClaren wrote:

 

PS. Edited to add:

"

I find it distasteful to say the least (I'm sure she would as well.)"

Well, la-di-f*cking-da.

---

Well who are you to elevate the work of one artist over another.  The next thing we'll see is a tramp or thief  posting for some atrocious Gypsy folk vocals, and telling us how great he is.  It doesn't belong in GD. 

So. la-di-f*cking-da with Bryn's work too, right?

 

 

[LaskyaClaren]

---

Storm Clarence wrote:

---

LaskyaClaren wrote:

 

PS. Edited to add:

"

I find it distasteful to say the least (I'm sure she would as well.)"

Well, la-di-f*cking-da.

---

Well who are you to elevate the work of one artist over another.  The next thing we'll see is a tramp or thief  posting for some atrocious Gypsy folk vocals, and telling us how great he is.  It doesn't belong in GD. 

So. la-di-f*cking-da with Bryn's work too, right?

 

 

---

I'm sorry, Storm, but I can say with the utmost candour and honesty that I have only the vaguest glimmering of what you are trying to get at here. Who has been posting about folk vocals?

If you would care to address my initial post, about the value of art in SL, or perhaps about what I have said on my blog post, I'd be delighted to continue this conversation.

[LaskyaClaren]

---

Dillon Levenque wrote:

---

LaskyaClaren wrote:

And I really 

do

want to hear that story, btw. :-)

---

 

Italian jurisprudence being somewhat uncompromising, I cannot get into the details. Suffice it to say tthat the (then) curator of the Galleria Doria Pamphilj (who as it happens was married into a very influential family) had a fascination with t-girls and a rather reckless spriit—he was seemingly oblivous to the fact that cameras could be everywhere.

There was an exchange of pictures, so to speak.

---

That is really quite wonderful.

I suspect that the curators and art collectors of the Italian High Renaissance often had similar fascinations. Instead of cameras, however, they had to be on the lookout for Giorgio Vasari. ;-)

Edited to correct the spelling of Vasari's name. Because if I'm going to be pedantic, I should at least be competently so.

[LaskyaClaren]

---

Madelaine McMasters wrote:

I'm going to take issue with the idea (cribbed from your blog) that...

_____

Forgetting” is important here, for to integrate with the machine the human being must “forget” a great deal, including much that makes us human, makes us, as individuals, 

singular

. As Kumiko insists,

"If we converted a memory into digital 1′s and 0′s or some other form of language then it would only be a matter of time before we began to manipulate it. We would cut our sorrows and manufacture outcomes in order to create a shiny surface to our lives with nothing behind them."

_____

I think this is backwards. Forgetting is both human and humane. The flawless and endless memory of machines is both inhuman and inhumane. Imagine remembering every slight, every insult, every harm done to you over the course of your life with the precision and immediacy of digital recall. 

I want (and cannot escape) the ability to forget, and to temper my memories to shape my own narrative.

The first pick in my SL profile is "Friendship", which contains the following quote...

“Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person; having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but to pour them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then, with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.”

-- Dinah Maria Mulock Craik (1826-1887)

We manipulate our memories every time we recall them, coloring each retrieval with the light our or current selves before filing them away again... or not. We cut our sorrows, and if we're lucky, we manufacture outcomes in order to create a shiny surface on which to skate into the future, full of hope.

---

Let's try this again.

What I think I would like to say in response to your excellent point is that what makes the digital archive so dangerous in some ways is precisely that it would efface -- force us to to "forget" -- our human subjectivity, which is (paradoxically) the facility to forget, remake, recombine, and re-imagine. I think that is part of what is at least in implied in Kumiko's comment, as well.

[Dillon Levenque]

---

LaskyaClaren wrote:

---

That is really quite wonderful.

I suspect that the curators and art collectors of the Italian High Renaissance often had similar fascinations. Instead of cameras, however, they had to be on the lookout for Georgio Vasari. ;-)

---

 

I went straight to Google, the name being unknown to me. That is and will be the most wonderful thing about this forum and others like it (and one of the wondeiful things about Second Life): the exposure to new people, new ideas, and new ways of seeing thngs.

[LaskyaClaren]

---

Dillon Levenque wrote:

---

LaskyaClaren wrote:

---

That is really quite wonderful.

I suspect that the curators and art collectors of the Italian High Renaissance often had similar fascinations. Instead of cameras, however, they had to be on the lookout for Georgio Vasari. ;-)

---

 

I went straight to Google, the name being unknown to me. That is and will be the most wonderful thing about this forum and others like it (and one of the wondeiful things about Second Life): the exposure to new people, new ideas, and new ways of seeing thngs.

---

I do wish there were a way to "like" posts here. :-)

Yes. Social media platforms can sometimes be a horror.

But they are full of people. And I think that's a pretty cool thing.

[Madelaine McMasters]

---

LaskyaClaren wrote:

---

Dillon Levenque wrote:

---

LaskyaClaren wrote:

---

That is really quite wonderful.

I suspect that the curators and art collectors of the Italian High Renaissance often had similar fascinations. Instead of cameras, however, they had to be on the lookout for Georgio Vasari. ;-)

---

 

I went straight to Google, the name being unknown to me. That is and will be the most wonderful thing about this forum and others like it (and one of the wondeiful things about Second Life): the exposure to new people, new ideas, and

new ways of seeing things

.

---

I do wish there were a way to "like" posts here. :-)

Yes. Social media platforms can sometimes be a horror.

But they are full of people. And I think that's a pretty cool thing.

---

With apologies to Proust...

"A pair of wings, a different respiratory system, which enabled us to travel through space, would in no way help us, for if we visited Mars or Venus while keeping the same senses, they would clothe everything we could see in the same aspect as the things of Earth. The only true voyage, the only bath in the Fountain of Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to see the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to see the hundred universes that each of them sees, that each of them is; and this we can do with an AM Radio, with an Oh, with a Levenque or a Claren; with people like these we do really fly from star to star."

[LaskyaClaren]

---

Madelaine McMasters wrote:

---

LaskyaClaren wrote:

---

Dillon Levenque wrote:

---

LaskyaClaren wrote:

---

That is really quite wonderful.

I suspect that the curators and art collectors of the Italian High Renaissance often had similar fascinations. Instead of cameras, however, they had to be on the lookout for Georgio Vasari. ;-)

---

 

I went straight to Google, the name being unknown to me. That is and will be the most wonderful thing about this forum and others like it (and one of the wondeiful things about Second Life): the exposure to new people, new ideas, and

new ways of seeing things

.

---

I do wish there were a way to "like" posts here. :-)

Yes. Social media platforms can sometimes be a horror.

But they are full of people. And I think that's a pretty cool thing.

---

With apologies to Proust...

"

A pair of wings, a different respiratory system, which enabled us to travel through space, would in no way help us, for if we visited Mars or Venus while keeping the same senses, they would clothe everything we could see in the same aspect as the things of Earth. The only true voyage, the only bath in the Fountain of Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to see the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to see the hundred universes that each of them sees, that each of them is; and this we can do with an AM Radio, with an Oh, with a Levenque or a Claren; with people like these we do really fly from star to star."

---

Well, that's rather beautiful put. :-)

(And no need to apologize to Proust. I spoke to him on Friday, just after my conversation with Bryn, and he's just fine with it.)

[Dillon Levenque]

I  think you need to insert an 'abject' in your apology, especially if you're going to include my name in there.  I quite agree, though. Second LIfe gives me the opportunity to see, experience, and maybe even a little bit understand the mindset and life experience of people I'd have have never met otherewise..

[Madelaine McMasters]

---

LaskyaClaren wrote:

No need to apologize to Proust.

---

 

---

Dillon Levenque wrote:

I think you need to insert an 'abject' in your apology.

---

 

---

Marcel Proust wrote:

 ...to see the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others...

---

 

Perfect.

[Dillon Levenque]

---

Madelaine McMasters wrote:

---

LaskyaClaren wrote:

No need to apologize to Proust.

---

 

---

Dillon Levenque wrote:

I think you need to insert an 'abject' in your apology.

---

 

---

Marcel Proust wrote:

 ...to see the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others...

---

 

Perfect.

---

 

Okay

And yes.