Arts on the Playa: Burning Life 2009

Location: Binding Gulliver

Venturing beyond The Crater, I found an array of fascinating constructs emerging from the baked mud of the Playa like strange and short-lived flowers. From Byrn Oh's "Vessel's Dream," I learned the term "immersiva," which I wish I'd known before. Now I have a phrase for the new artforms I have met, things difficult or impossible in real life.

Olivia and the Crater-crew were dancing, but I told them I could not join in because "I am touring the art." Now that is a new verb for the artworld.

I'll run a slide show as a link, but given how the Koinup shows can lag the Web browser, I'll run stills here instead.

Viewed last night:

"Gulliver's Travel Scene" by Ub Yifu and Copan Falta

Pick up the notecard as you begin to assist the animals in restraining the prim-giant. As the creators say "We could have expect[ed] a wiser civilization built by animal spirits but they are just like humans....Greedy, aggressive and armed."




"Vessel's Dream" by Byrn Oh

At once it's wistful and nightmarish, a mediation upon what we flee when we go into imagined worlds and what we imagine we have lost as we age in the world of flesh. I highly recommend reading the notecards and watching the machinimas linked from certain objects such as:

Angler Girl: "She is one of the benign abandoned robots who has been forced to catch other robots and steal their batteries in order to survive. She does this by luring them with a lightbulb at the end of a long cord, much like the angler fish."

There was something lonely and terrifying about her and other parts of the build. It's a must-see. Get a peek on Blip TV here.



"Towards the Future" by Shellina Winkler ande Solkide Auer

Sound, light, and a fireball to ride. From their notes:

"Move inside the space as you like, you can walk to the top through the light blue path or fly through. . . . Don't miss the fire ball at the top, simply click on it and you will roll down through, sounds, music, colorful shapes. . . Once you get the floor you've got few seconds to stand up or.......... roll down again :) and the view will be always different!"

Bottom Line: Repeat "Gulliver" or "Towards the Future" if "Vessel's Dream" rattles you a bit too much.

Here's a complete slideshow of my journeys at these three sites.