Outsider Art Comes Inworld

The University of Delaware is inviting Second Life artists to submit works for a show and talk on Outsider Art to be held October 23, 2009 11:30 am SLT (2:30 pm ET)

Outsider Art: a term coined by art critic Roger Cardinal in 1972 as an English synonym for art brut, a label created by French artist Jean Dubuffet to describe art created outside the boundaries of official culture  ... Outsider art has emerged as a successful art marketing category (an annual Outsider Art Fair has taken place in New York since 1992).

"Outside the boundaries of official culture."  That surely applies to artists in Second Life.  So I like that phrase.  Also the phrase, "successful art marketing category."

Some excerpts from the show announcement:

"We are looking for in-world, 3D builds of your own creation that are based on the Outsider Art theme or that are interpretive builds inspired by Outsider Art works in real-life (RL).  If you're an Outsider Artist in RL but you do not build in SL, we will consider your work as a texture on a prim.  Better yet, consider teaming up with an SL artist to recreate your piece in 3D in SL....

"Art works should contain no more than 200 prims... walk-in participatory environments are encouraged ...
You are welcome to offer the pieces for sale if you choose to do so....

"Both the show and the talk will be open to the public and will be promoted in various Second Life (SL) outlets.  Works should be submitted for consideration by Oct. 16th.

"Contact Firery Broome in-world for more information. ...”

The Outsider Art Speaker is Lance Winn, Associate Professor, Department of Art at the University of Delaware. 

Examples of Outsider Art

The works for this show are not on exhibit yet, so I went to Studio 33  Gu33enheim Exhibit Hall in RockCliffe University) to get some examples of Outsider Art already on view.

Title:  The Illusion of the Art
Author: Gleman Jun

Title:  Tangram            
Author: Gleman Jun

And be sure to look for art by elros Tuominen
----------------------------------------------------------

How do we turn inworld art into an outfacing presentation?

That is, outfacing to the general public.  Or at least to those in the general public with interests in art.  I have thought about that before. You can get stills, like the ones in this article.  But a lot of inworld art uses movement and change. That tends to call for videos. 

Fortunately, making videos in Second Life is easy and cheap. Here are some videos that suggest ways to present Second Life art as video. 

 Installation Art by Juria Yoshikawa

Visualized Poems

Elros Tuominen

Since it is a multimedia world, I really feel a need for audio along with the video.  Juria Yoshikawa tends to put a lot into the audio that goes along with her builds, so I sometimes (as with Alien Beach) captured that.  In other cases, I put voice commentary along with the view.  You may want to listen to Juria's remarks about Second Life art in the video "Ecstasy in Change."    (I like that title, too.)

The present event is to be a talk about art.  So I wonder how the talk might be handled.  The speaker, Lance Winn, is himself an artist, so he may treat the whole thing as an artistic presentation.  One idea that occurs to me is to treat the it as a cross between a Powerpoint Presentation (boring) and a magic show.

You can do that in Second Life.  You can put any object in a holodeck or other rezzer.  You can then rez it on command, just as you used to with Powerpont slides.   So if you are talking about a particular kind of art, you can rez an illustrative art piece right there in the middle of the audience.  Or with the audience in the middle of the art piece if it is immersive art, 

That could give some strining effects on video, especially with a camera placed to be in the midst of, say, immersive art as it rezzes.

The presentation could be streamed live to the web and so be available to anyone who wants to watch it.  Any art department, for example, could watch it live or later, from an archive.  The talk could allow for questions from the web audience, too.  For example, the show could have a presence on Twitter and follow any art departments intrested in participating.  Any followed department, of course, could send questions to the show.  Someone would monitor and select questions to pass on to the speaker. 

Of course, this is just one idea, and perhaps too complex to be implemented in the available time frame.  But my guess is that people will be doing things like this in Second Life soon.

========================================

Can Google or Twit replace SL notice groups?

Notice groups in Second Life are general purpose SL groups used primarily to send out notices to a group of people interested in knowing about events.  Most commonly, these groups are a fan base for a popular performer.  Occasionly, the groups are people interested in attending classes, lectures, demonstratons or the like.    I consider this the tube-sock model of communication support.  One size fits all, but not very well.

In previous a article, I described how Google Groups served better than SL groups for a collaboration network.  I have not yet found a similar replacement for notice groups.  The closest I have found to a replacement are Hippo and Subscribeomatic.  These are between worlds, with part of the service on a website and another part in Second Life.

Lauren Weyland posts a schedule on her blog and Moulin Rouge uses a blog explicitly to present its schedule.  I did a little testing and determined that I could set up Google Reader and get an RSS feed from such blogs.  So maybe that arrangement would serve in place of notice groups.  An entertainer, venue manager, or agent could post a schedule on a blog with no more effort than it takes to make up a note card and send it out as a notice.  The cost is the same (free). The notice would be available at least as quickly as with a Second Life notice.  And, I think, more reliably.  

Using RSS feeds to distribute a schedule would require some changes.  Lauren has an embedded calendar on her blog site.  That does not get through the RSS feed.  The feed only carries the text of the new blog entry.   If I were doing it, I think I would put the day's schedule as the lead on the blog, followed by any special information.   I could not put landmarks, of course, but I expect I could put working Slurls.  

Twitter would be another alternative.  In that case, I would probably post a tweet for each event.  I will keep exploring methods like this and report on further developments.

==============================================

BTW

Google obviously understands networking.  It seems to be moving quietly in the background to become a major provider and aggregator of communication services for networks.   I set up a Google profile the other day and found that I could include all the information I wanted..  

Don't miss:  Increasing Your SecondLife Audience,  by Lauren