2011: The Year for Virtual Worlds Arts

 
Location: VWER meeting

It was a pleasure, back on December 15, to interview artists Wizard Gynoid, Soror Nishi, and Miso Susanowa for our Roundtable meeting.  The year for the virtual arts ended badly, as Bryn Oh's work at Immersiva became unavailable for reasons still not clear as I publish this post.

In our meeting, we talked about work by our three artists in SL, their moves back and forth from OpenSim, and the nature of art itself in virtual and physical spaces. A full transcript of our chat can be found here, but I'll tip in some highlights.

On the "medium" in VWs:

• Wizzy Gynoid (wizard.gynoid): i belong to a group called NPIRL Not Possible in Real Life. most of what i do is not possible in RL. . . .due to the scale landscaping as an art form is almost impossible in RL.
• Miso Susanowa: but there’s also the exploration of what is native to this environment that is ONLY possible in this environment, like… say… AM Radio’s The Far Away.
•  Wizzy: if someone can see the beauty in a mathematical object, then i have succeeded.

On Second Life and OpenSim 

• soror Nishi: I have a sim in InWorldz, it’s far cheaper, less restrictions on building sizes and better support.
• Wizzy Gynoid (wizard.gynoid): the open sims allow me to build bigger and link bigger stuff.
• Miso Susanowa: also… the chance to build and not be overwhelmed with socializing.
• Wizzy Gynoid (wizard.gynoid): there is no clear driving direction that Linden Lab has. where are they going? 3D prim versions of PacMan?
  

That remains to be seen...as does SL's growth under the Electronic Arts alumni Rod Humble and Will Wright. All three guests believe that 2012 will be a year when more VW-native art becomes tangible, as more galleries recognize the promise of the online spaces and 3D printing matures to enable more items to be exported to physical space.

Happy 2012, all!