Art in Second Life

[Lawrence Celestalis]

Hello everyone,

I see contemporary art, architecture, design, and nft's flourishing on other metaverse platforms, and feel Second Life is maybe not as new but still has major potential and overall quality for those fields.

But I am not sure I have a complete vision of that, so I ask you, are there still existing sims or cities in Second Life that you consider art?

Thank you in a advance!

 

[Qie Niangao]

5 hours ago, Lawrence Celestalis said:

[…] are there still existing sims or cities in Second Life that you consider art?

All of them.

[Love Zhaoying]

There are still art exhibitions. 

Art is/was a focus in the SL Birthday celebrations, as always.

Hopefully someone will come along who is an artist and give you more specific answers.

Was there any specific type of art you are looking for?  "Art is in the eye of the beholder."

[Bree Giffen]

There is art brought into SL from outside and treated as a virtual version within SL such as paintings and music. There is also recreation of art in SL such as statues and architecture. There is also art that is created entirely in SL not based in real life. Buildings, people and even whole regions are designed carefully by the artists in SL. Photography is often separated from art because it is taking pictures of things which are beautiful but if everything in the photo is crafted then is it also art? Maybe yes or maybe no. I have just confused myself.

[Rowan Amore]

Bryn Oh and Cica Ghost both do regions I consider art.

[diamond Marchant]

6 hours ago, Lawrence Celestalis said:

nft's flourishing on other metaverse platforms

ha ha ha no thanks

https://www.salon.com/2022/02/16/nfts-arent-art--theyre-just-the-of-cryptos-latest-scam/

[Scylla Rhiadra]

2 hours ago, Bree Giffen said:

Photography is often separated from art because it is taking pictures of things which are beautiful but if everything in the photo is crafted then is it also art? Maybe yes or maybe no. I have just confused myself.

I hear this kind of view occasionally. I recently told a guy in SL that I was a photographer here: his response was more or less, "Oh, so you do screen shots of beautiful things other people have made."

Even a photograph that appears to do nothing more than highlight the features or attractiveness of an object or scene crafted by someone else, as for instance a fashion blog post, involves aesthetic and even "artistic" choices with regard to composition, lighting, and form. Fashion photography is really not very different in SL from its approaches and function in RL.

This is a photograph by the much-celebrated American photographer Ansel Adams of a church. Some credit for its power and beauty surely belongs to whoever built the structure -- but this photography is "art" because of the choices the photographer made.

By way of parallel, below is an image in SL that I made. I am not about to insist (or even care) that anyone thinks of it as "art."

Whatevs, really.

But there is more to this composition than can be accounted for by the contributions of Legacy, Nutmeg, and Artemisia Gentileschi (who painted the piece of Mary Magdalene featured on the wall).

Edited September 29, 2022 by Scylla Rhiadra
Clarity

[diamond Marchant]

1 hour ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I recently told a guy in SL that I was a photographer here: his response was more or less, "Oh, so you do screen shots of beautiful things other people have made."

You might be a saint Scylla. I do not suffer fools gladly. This sort of remark has been made ever since Niépce first photographed his view from a window.

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

22 hours ago, Lawrence Celestalis said:

are there still existing sims or cities in Second Life that you consider art?

Are you implying with this question that there used to exist sims or cities in Second Life that I considered art (if you pardon my sudden bout of semantics)?

Also, how good would my answer be if your definition of art is dramatically different from mine?

I have a few simplistic, semi-serious definitions of art. On is:

- If I don't know what it is, it's art.

Another, more pragmatic definition I conjured up myself is:

- If a bored, rich or mentally insane (or both) person thinks it's worth to throw a significant portion of their wealth at it, it's art.

Someone once publicly referred to some of my creations in SL as art. I was actually shocked and confused and a little upset, even. I kinda thought it was an insult to real artists, but I did not protest, because I also realized they were just trying to be friendly and make a compliment.

Also, I think the perception of art has been poisoned by things like crypto and NFTs and that sort of scammy bs, so here's my final take on the original question, for the sake of protecting these sims and cities and any other artefacts in SL:

- No, there's absolutely no art in SL.

Edited September 30, 2022 by Arduenn Schwartzman

[Lawrence Celestalis]

22 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I hear this kind of view occasionally. I recently told a guy in SL that I was a photographer here: his response was more or less, "Oh, so you do screen shots of beautiful things other people have made."

Even a photograph that appears to do nothing more than highlight the features or attractiveness of an object or scene crafted by someone else, as for instance a fashion blog post, involves aesthetic and even "artistic" choices with regard to composition, lighting, and form. Fashion photography is really not very different in SL from its approaches and function in RL.

This is a photograph by the much-celebrated American photographer Ansel Adams of a church. Some credit for its power and beauty surely belongs to whoever built the structure -- but this photography is "art" because of the choices the photographer made.

By way of parallel, below is an image in SL that I made. I am not about to insist (or even care) that anyone thinks of it as "art."

Whatevs, really.

But there is more to this composition than can be accounted for by the contributions of Legacy, Nutmeg, and Artemisia Gentileschi (who painted the piece of Mary Magdalene featured on the wall).

Photography is clearly an art of its own. You shouldn’t mind the occasional person making such comments. 

[Lawrence Celestalis]

7 hours ago, Arduenn Schwartzman said:

Are you implying with this question that there used to exist sims or cities in Second Life that I considered art (if you pardon my sudden bout of semantics)?

Also, how good would my answer be if your definition of art is dramatically different from mine?

I have a few simplistic, semi-serious definitions of art. On is:

- If I don't know what it is, it's art.

Another, more pragmatic definition I conjured up myself is:

- If a bored, rich or mentally insane (or both) person thinks it's worth to throw a significant portion of their wealth at it, it's art.

Someone once publicly referred to some of my creations in SL as art. I was actually shocked and confused and a little upset, even. I kinda thought it was an insult to real artists, but I did not protest, because I also realized they were just trying to be friendly and make a compliment.

Also, I think the perception of art has been poisoned by things like crypto and NFTs and that sort of scammy bs, so here's my final take on the original question, for the sake of protecting these sims and cities and any other artefacts in SL:

- No, there's absolutely no art in SL.

I imply nothing but he fact i used to know many more art sims in the past, that’s why i’m asking here to widen my knowledge. 
 

if your definition of art is dramatically different from mine, that would be a very good thing indeed. Diversity is great. 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

It's rather telling, maybe, that discussions like this one seem inevitably to get bogged down in the "What Is Art???" conundrum.

In the west anyway, we've been arguing about that, vociferously, since at least Plato and Aristotle. I'm pretty sure we aren't going to be producing any new insights here.

Maybe it would be better to lay aside the whole "But is it art???" thing, which too often is about in/validating things we personally like/dislike anyway, and just speak in more inclusive terms about "creativity"?

We actually gain nothing by wandering around SL with sticky labels proclaiming "This is art. And this is art. And this. But NOT this!" I'm far more interested in hearing about the different things people are doing here than on slotting them into arbitrary cultural and political categories.

[Love Zhaoying]

21 minutes ago, Lawrence Celestalis said:

I imply nothing but he fact i used to know many more art sims in the past, that’s why i’m asking here to widen my knowledge. 

Probably we should have all just replied to your initial post, "Yes", and left it at that! 

(Some who replied did exactly that.  Others simply love to discuss things!)

Edited September 30, 2022 by Love Zhaoying

[Lawrence Celestalis]

On 9/29/2022 at 5:59 PM, Rowan Amore said:

Bryn Oh and Cica Ghost both do regions I consider art.

Thank you!

[Lawrence Celestalis]

On 9/30/2022 at 6:34 PM, Love Zhaoying said:

Probably we should have all just replied to your initial post, "Yes", and left it at that! 

(Some who replied did exactly that.  Others simply love to discuss things!)

Ha, point was also to get to know which sims you consider art. Otherwise, like when someone asks you if you know what time it is, you can always simply reply "yes". 

[Robberinthemuseum]

On 9/29/2022 at 7:00 PM, Lawrence Celestalis said:

Hello everyone,

I see contemporary art, architecture, design, and nft's flourishing on other metaverse platforms, and feel Second Life is maybe not as new but still has major potential and overall quality for those fields.

But I am not sure I have a complete vision of that, so I ask you, are there still existing sims or cities in Second Life that you consider art?

Thank you in a advance!

 

I think SL is and online interactive work of art. Even the avatars are art. 

[Ayashe Ninetails]

Cammino & Vivo Capovolto - use the Shared Environment for the best lighting experience.

SLURL

Flickr

 

Shui Mo Art Gallery (walk down the hallway and through the red doors)

SLURL

[Love Zhaoying]

27 minutes ago, Robberinthemuseum said:

I think SL is and online interactive work of art. Even the avatars are art. 

"Just call me Arthur, or Art."

"Artsy for short."

"My name is Fartsy. Artsy Fartsy."

Edited October 1, 2022 by Love Zhaoying

[Robberinthemuseum]

10 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

"Just call me Arthur, or Art."

"Artsy for short."

"My name is Fartsy. Artsy Fartsy."

Who are you calling Fartsy? Lol *let's a silent but deadly stinker slip out*

[Love Zhaoying]

48 minutes ago, Robberinthemuseum said:

Who are you calling Fartsy? Lol *let's a silent but deadly stinker slip out*

I was just doing an artful take on "Bond. James Bond."

[Prokofy Neva]

On 9/29/2022 at 6:00 AM, Lawrence Celestalis said:

Hello everyone,

I see contemporary art, architecture, design, and nft's flourishing on other metaverse platforms, and feel Second Life is maybe not as new but still has major potential and overall quality for those fields.

But I am not sure I have a complete vision of that, so I ask you, are there still existing sims or cities in Second Life that you consider art?

Thank you in a advance!

 

The art scene in SL is actually quite lively and there are very talented people who are also RL artists, but like a lot of things in SL, it's insular, and the artists are vulnerable and sometimes quit SL in frustration or because RL is more productive for them, or they come back and there are dramas, etc. but generally I find it a very good scene that is insufficiently covered, in part, ironically, because there is no good art criticism around SL.

I started collecting SL art a long time ago to put in rentals and cafes but didn't really study it or work at it.  Even before the pandemic and the gatcha ban, I had become less enchanted with the art work of gatchas, as the heroic "story" era of the gatcha world began to decline (I mean such exemplars as "Story-teller's Burrow" by 8f8 or the late keke's Skull, Cross, and Keys or Madpea's interactive "Return of the Light". Make no mistake, I put some of these top skilled creations in the "art" category (see all of anc's works, for example) but the Golden Age of classical works moved into the Industrial Age of zillions of different coloured hair and hallway sets and it has never recovered, especially with the ban even with the new compliant machines.

So I went to the SL Soho when in RL I couldn't go to art galleries and then I began to collect art in earnest, and put it in my rentals. This has had mixed results with my tenants who can range in taste. Just like I do not scorn prims or sculpties, I do not scorn the low-brow of RL or SL. I embrace it, along with appreciating high-brow although I recently drew the line at picking up a fabulously detailed console with two golden fish meeting above it. In SL, you have the curious artifact of the low-brow being highly skilled and the high-brow sometimes hiding its light under a sculpty bushel.

When I put up an abstract painting in every room at Flamingo Court/Motel of Last Resort, every single tenant fled. When I put them up in hallways at B&Bs, one tenant covered them with another kitschier painting. But some are thrilled that the decor includes an original work of art and they keep it.

So the debate about virtual art is whether it is art or craft -- there are many beautiful pieces of furniture that might be in museums as art, and many art pieces that are really decor more than art. Many an SL creator thinks that if they take a reproduction or even their own original painting, and span it across three panels and chop them up, it looks more "arty".

I think that unless you are, say, Fra Angelica working in the 1400s on a triptych, you shouldn't put your art on panels, it looks amateurish. But I've had a lively debate with at least one artist whose work actually did look good on panels.

As with the forums and fashion, if you criticize any aspect of any work or statement, you are likely to get angry hysterics and the reaction that you are "trying to stifle free expression" -- as if free expression depends on everyone's artificial adulation and feigned enthusiasm.

And as you might expect, a lot of SL art is really bad even with entire patches of brilliance. I have been studying it now for about 2 years. Actually, there is more surprisingly good than conceded especially outside of SL. It's funny, few artists use the affordances of SL, where they make what amount to sculptures or installations to tell a story or convey an issue. Yet there are some For example I think of London Junkers of United Artists of SL who has done some spectacular innovative political installations as well as classical works.

I would divide up the art in SL into four categories, and people would disagree but it's not meant to disparage one type over another, I embrace them all. Until you have an artwork (by Tea Gupta) that consists of an SL screenshot showing a Tiny bunny in Victorian dress with a portrait of Queen Victoria, at a celebration of the monarchy, you haven't lived a Second Life.

First, there is the state-approved and state-funded art (there is an SL Endowment of the Arts), the people LL selects to be on the front page repeatedly, such as "The Far Away," an Andrew Wyeth knockoff made by AM Radio, an IBM engineer turned virtual artist, hugely popular and endlessly touted by the Lindens to the point where people don't realize there are many others. Or Bryn Oh, who I felt years ago was a major historical breakthrough utilizing the affordances of virtuality and I still think that but I've revised my opinion somewhat. Then there are artists like Cica Ghost, always featured by the Lindens, although that's more about her incredibly hard work getting up every day and innovating yet another unique installation that does enjoy great popularity, although I personally think her most skillful works are the sad scenes -- there's the Pink Princess, but then there's the pink ground, trampled by many big feet with boots in treads. 

An artist like Cica and others like Ilyra Chardin are too good for Second Life, really, and could be working for Disney or Facebook or something with their skillz-- but they are the kind of people who live the indy life who seem to dissent against the commercial art and design establishment of RL and we are very lucky to have them.

Second, there is the amateur art, that would include me, who managed to flunk not only Calculus but Art in high school (but I got a 710 on the verbal on the SAT). And in SL, you need math to do art, really, at least to upload an image and put it on a prim frame, if nothing else, not to mention something more elaborate like a sim installation, which as you know requires the mail-order PhD in physics that I got from Yakutia. You can imagine it's easy to do, until you have stood on a 4096 with your giant Balderdash tree in one hand and your Skye River pieces in the other, and have realized this is beyond your skill set.

Amateurs in SL include numerous fractal type art, or computer-generated art, or lately, AI art which is of varying quality. I don't scorn fractal art or AI art, although I do think it is exploiting copyrighted works. You do have to be something of an artist to even plug in the right kind of phrases and then tweak it.  This world is represented by Raglan Shire although these categories all cross over.

In this first most amateur category are lots of people's Impressionist imitations or abstract art of the kind your mother made you take down from your room when you were in high school. Occasionally this rises to greatness, but somebody's badly proportioned unicorn painting might look ok in the gallery but in your home it detracts.

Third, there is the category of SL scenes taken as photographs, from snapshots to elaborately staged scenes -- again, this is what SL should be for, and rarely is -- or screenshots of arty sims others have made, and then sometimes works subjected to a lot of post-production editing. Some people think a screenshot of an SL scene is not art, but I do and there is a consensus in the SL art world that these "stand" as art although they usually cost less. With both SL and RL scenes, there are a school of artists who now make everything into a "cold wax" look which seems to be a fad, or they tart it up and make it glare in neon colours like pop art. Occasionally you find some really extraordinary works with real sense and meaning.

It's harder to take a good photograph in SL than it looks.

Fourth, there is the category of really good RL artists who have real shows and maybe even make a living in SL, figures like Patrick Moya who is celebrating an SL anniversary and has some great installations now (he doesn't sell copies of his RL works in SL but makes some freebies available, which is not a practice I endorse). Or like Filthy Fluno who left SL for a time and came back in the pandemic. There is Bump Squeegee, an artist and art teacher, who is among my favourites, who makes prints of intricate collages. These artists all make the art in RL, then bring a high quality copy of it into SL.

There is Harry Cover (impossibleisnotfrench) who makes sculptures for SL only AFAIK that appear as if they are assembled from found objects (but are low prims). There is the team of Pearl Grey and Klaus Bereznyiak who port their art works into SL and also have a chain of cafes all over the Mainland called "The Last Drop" where they have shows of other people's works. Sometimes artists like these will have a mixture of art and a story or text, or music as well. There are the artists of the community formerly called Campbell Coast, now called Corsica South Coast, including those with SL scenes (Owl Dragonash) and RL works (Bijoux Barr). They have just about re-built the galleries they once had in the previous community.

In this category of skilled, professional artists you can see the installation about the environment threats titled "Lost the Last" by manoji yachvili here. 

One entire sim in this category is Grab By the Horns collective (GBTH) which has artists like Rachel Breaker, who does kitschy 1950s sculptures of the kind that take you back to family road trips in the 1950s - along with entire installation like her high school Mars diorama - these works are hyper realistic at times and satirical. You can see Vincent Priestly's installation (sweetvincent) (owner of the furniture store Sources -- where every chair is an art work, really) -- except this sim is temporarily closed, and I hope they will be back. 

I could link you to all my own galleries, particularly Neural Networks where I have works grouped around the theme of cyberspace, outer space, the future, etc. in Sylvia. You can look at the Lindens' category in Destinations but they keep showing the same ones all the time.

I think the absolute best way to get into the art world is to go to Art Korner and subscribe to Art Korner's weekly HUD scripted by Fred Allendale and curated by Frank Atisso who maintains the Artsville sim (new location) and group Art Korner. It has a 6 or 12 gallery openings every week and you can TP around and see them all. There is also the Galleries in SL kiosk which you can find at infohubs. The blogger Inara Pey Living in a Modem World also frequently has articles about art shows.

The BBB's stamp game has many art galleries featured on the Gazette and the list of venues, and there's a HUD for that as well.

Again,  not art criticism -- it's always over-enthusiastic and always involves friends rewarding friends. SL is a terribly small town; it is not an urban world but a village. Still, it has its charms.

NFTs have nothing to do with the SL art world and that's a good thing.  I personally scorn crypto because it's anonymous and unaccountable like griefers in SL. The artists in SL may not always reveal their real names, but they are persistent personas. I have always found artists to get back to me quickly if something goes wrong with their vending system. 

SL art works are usually sold in single copies on transfer, for anywhere from $100-$250-$350  (an SL photograph) to $400-$500-$1000 (for a RL artist or person who just does work for SL but at a quality level. Sculptures can range up to $2500 or $5000 and be thousands of prims. Sadly the Western Australia university that used to display many of these left due to the cost. And this amazing old abandoned gallery in Keuka, which a few of us repeatedly visited and discovered all the artists but one were gone from SL, was finally demolished by the Lindens and the land auctioned.

Art is still an asset, in that you can re-sell it, and even given the ability to deploy copybot  or copy images especially easily, the value holds. But it's an asset that derives its value largely from "social capital" or the social setting of SL which means a constant round of shows, parties, concerts designed to get tier paid, by people who all know each other. So many abandoned parcels and sims going down or changing from public to private. Do you have US $175 per month after paying even as low as 32,000L for an abandoned sim, to sustain a group of artists every month? I wish you did. I don't. I can only make available a few small parcels. 

I don't re-sell the works I have, but occasionally I see people who do and it is therefore an asset. There is an artist here on the forums, Katherine Heartsong, who makes computer generated art, so you can literally say "I need something in a MidJourney green and orange with slashes for this room" -- but each piece is unique and never repeated, so you are buying a unique work of art. Bump Squeegee has limited editions where each is numbered 1-20. I don't see any reason to scorn this. If anything, people should charge more for their art and pay for their art sims, which are always going down.

[Prokofy Neva]

On 9/29/2022 at 1:23 PM, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I hear this kind of view occasionally. I recently told a guy in SL that I was a photographer here: his response was more or less, "Oh, so you do screen shots of beautiful things other people have made."

Even a photograph that appears to do nothing more than highlight the features or attractiveness of an object or scene crafted by someone else, as for instance a fashion blog post, involves aesthetic and even "artistic" choices with regard to composition, lighting, and form. Fashion photography is really not very different in SL from its approaches and function in RL.

This is a photograph by the much-celebrated American photographer Ansel Adams of a church. Some credit for its power and beauty surely belongs to whoever built the structure -- but this photography is "art" because of the choices the photographer made.

By way of parallel, below is an image in SL that I made. I am not about to insist (or even care) that anyone thinks of it as "art."

Whatevs, really.

But there is more to this composition than can be accounted for by the contributions of Legacy, Nutmeg, and Artemisia Gentileschi (who painted the piece of Mary Magdalene featured on the wall).

Yes, I totally agree. You don't consider Diane Arbus less of an artist for taking pictures of freaks and there is of course my favourite these days, Joseph Cornell and his boxes with found objects and cut-out images of ballerinas and frogs and whatnot. In fact I'm working on a Cornell tribute if you want to participate. I don't see the creators of elaborate sims that wind up in Destinations complaining that a photographer has made an art photograph of their sim and charged for it. Ultimately it helps draw people to their sim, or preserves it as they often change or disappear.

That said, I do have a list of things that I would like SL scene photographers to eliminate from their repertoire because they are generating endless bad kitsch:

o broken porcelain dolls 

o unicorns

o pianos in the forest

o circuses and clowns

o beat-up jalopies on Mother Road

o bunnies

o Linden sunsets over Skye cliffs

o any scene with Apple Fall furniture

Did you know that Apple Fall (Apple Pumpkin) makes his *own* RL art and uploads these paintings to SL? Hang those, please, instead.

But even in the "broken doll" space, there are moments of genius. I once improved a well-known artist's installation with a piano in the forest in the rain by adding a Lilith Den creepy porcelain doll to it. SL is great for participatory art.

 

[Robberinthemuseum]

3 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

 

o broken porcelain dolls 

o unicorns

o pianos in the forest

o circuses and clowns

o beat-up jalopies on Mother Road

o bunnies

o Linden sunsets over Skye cliffs

o any scene with Apple Fall furniture

 

Somebody needs to put together a pic including ALL of these things. 🤣

[Rowan Amore]

1 hour ago, Robberinthemuseum said:

Somebody needs to put together a pic including ALL of these things. 🤣

I'm inspired!

[Robberinthemuseum]

17 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

I'm inspired!

Do it!!! It'll be awesome! I have rabbits. Does anyone have this piano? Two birds with one stone and all that.

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/2-Apple-Fall-Dolly-Piano-Retired/20193409