Upgrade!

Last friday the 22nd of March I attended a Upgrade! Boston gathering streamed directly to Second Life, hosted by the Emerson College SL, landmark: Emerson College Island, Emerson Island (182, 112, 23), the real life event taking place at real life Emerson College, Boston (I think). See Wirxli Flimflams lively report of the SL event HERE, including a litle criticism about the technical problems we're still facing with these new live broadcasting possiblilies.
There were to speakers: Eric Gordon, "The Digital Possessive: Private Spaces in Public Space", and Show'n Tell about her book "web Affairs", "webAffairs is an artist's documentary of an adult video web community. In this book the artist, Show-n-tell, tells her story of being a voyeur and eventually becoming part of this community through a series of images and actual chat text. She participates in the community both as an observer and a performer. " Fun thing she told at the end of her speach was that she has tried the sex life of Second Life too. You can hear what she said in my litle video from the event:

Now, Upgrade! is new to me so I wanted to find out more about it.
The Upgrade! International organization - International network of gatherings concerning art, technology and culture has about 20 nodes around the world and more coming, also one in Second Life. About Upgrade! International's mission HERE. "Upgrade! is an international, emerging network of autonomous nodes united by art, technology, and a commitment to bridging cultural divides." It's supported by other organizations like Eyebeam, Turbulence.org, New Media Scotland, Art Centre Nabi, The Western Front, The Society for Arts and Technology (SAT), InterSpace, i-camp, DCA, CCA, No-Org.net, Art Interactive, NOMAD/santralistanbul, program angels/lothringer13, Open-Node.com, t-u-b-e, C-M.TV, Lisboa 20, AT. joburg, University of the Witwatersrand, Ars Longa, 911 Media Arts Center, Ars Virtua / BitFactory (Second Life). Links to all these organizations you'll find HERE at the bottom of the page.

25th of March there will be a lecture or a panel discussion moderated by Eric Gordon (aka Boston Borst) at the Museum of Science, Boston, called "The Art of living a Second Life", with with Wagner James Au (aka Hamlet Linden), embedded journalist in Second Life; John Lester (aka Pathfinder Linden), community manager for Linden Lab; John (Craig) Freeman (aka JC Freemont), artist in Second Life (who was our host at Emerson College SL last friday). The lecture is one of the events in the Boston Cyberart festival. It seems this lecture is going to be streamed into Second Life too.

Kristin and Nina going Ohrsk

.. at Klæbu, Norway. The image over shows two ceramic objects made by Kristin Opem, which I bougth from her on my vistit to Klæbu just recently. I also visited her workshop and was allowed to try my abilities at the potter's wheel. To my sorrow I've never realy managed this technique, but with some instructions from Kristin and a litle time for my self at the wheel I did manage better than I ever have done before.
Kristin's great idol is the american potter George Ohr (1857-1918), also called the mad potter from Biloxi.

Ohr's skills exploded when he became an "artist-potter." His claim there were "no two alike" was true. The pinched, folded and twisted clay forms,thinness of the clay wall, fluidity of form, tendril-like handles, and freshness of Ohr's the creations illustrate a technical skill that is still unrivaled. One hundred years later, potters marvel at his skill and cannot rightly say exactly how it was done. Critics of the day praised Ohr's glazes, but as his admiration for pure forms executed in clay increased, he left many pieces unglazed in bisque form. He believed only in this state could the form be clearly perceived. Today we have a legacy of Ohr's bisque pieces that act as a sampler of his pinches, folds, and fabulously thin-walled clay creations.

And I must say I share Kristin's enthusiasm after having poked my nose into the marvellous book about Ohr which lays on her kitchen table.
My poor attempts at the potter's wheel ended up a litle more Ohrsk than I had planned, but then again, the deform and even vulgar seem to come rather easy to me.

My vulgarisms in clay.

The day after, me and Kristin had a session in her pottery: she was making thin vases at the potter's wheel, I was deforming them.... Together we are OHR! (No images of the result yet.)
Links to George Ohr HERE, HERE,HERE, HERE, HERE.
A new Ohr Museum is under construction in Biloxi, Missisippi, USA, drawned by Frank Gehry. It was damaged by the Hurrican Katharina, but is expected to open in 2007.

A new Performance by Eva and Franco Mattes!

Go to Cosmos Island! Find this pile of stones and receive this notecard:

"Eva and Franco Mattes (a.k.a. 0100101110101101.ORG): "Joseph Beuys's 7000 Oaks"

This basalt stones and oaks are part of a performance by Eva and Franco Mattes a.k.a. 0100101110101101.ORG) consisting in the reenactment of Joseph Beuys' work called "7000 Oaks" . Beuys's project begun on March the 16th 1982, at Documenta 7, in Kassel. His plan called for the planting of seven thousand trees, each paired with a columnar basalt stone, throughout the world as part of a global mission to effect environmental and social change.

The Mattes reenactment begun in Second Life's Cosmos Island, where the first virtual tree and stone was planted on March the 16th 2007, exactly 25
years after the original oak got planted. The project will end once 7000 virtual
stones and trees will be placed all around Second Life.

This work is part of Eva and Franco Mattes series of "Synthetic Performances", reenactment of historical performances, by artists like Chris Burden, Vito Acconci and Marina Abramovic, in online Synthetic Worlds such as Second Life.

If you want to be part of this project contact Eva and Franco Mattes in-world (sending an IM to Pei Twang or Pei May), you will be given a Basalt Stone and an Oak tree which you can plant anywhere in SL. Note that the stone and the tree need to be planted in pairs.

For more info check: http://www.0100101110101101.org/"

More about Eva and Franco Mattes syntetic performances (will be available later) HERE.
They are the artist behind "13 most beautiful Avatars".

About the original Beuys project HERE.

I have IMed them to get an oak tree or two... But they have 7000 of them! Get one you too, and be a part of their ongoing performance!

Oh, I just log in again and have received my tree, and I met Pei Twang:

[15:01] Pei Twang gave you 7000 Oaks.
[15:00] Pei Twang: (Saved Tue Mar 20 22:53:13 2007) hi plurabelle! I left the tree and a stone in your inventory. Would be great to have the locations in which you put them to take photo documentation. let me know...ciao Pei/Eva
[15:03] Pei Twang: please pass the tree and stone to anyone you like

I asked Pei (picture to the right) how long she thought it would take before all the trees were planted.

Pei Twang: I think it'll take months
Pei Twang: the original performance went on for 5 years
Me: hm, yes, oh!
Pei Twang: we are not in a hurry :-)
Pei Twang: some peolple already asked to have a tree and stone to plant
Me: Can I copy the tree and stone as many times I like?
Pei Twang: yes!
Pei Twang: please try to make a record of how many you planted and where
Me: ok, so I will give you a message when I plant a new one?
Pei Twang: we are asking everyone to give us an idea of how many they put and where
Pei Twang: and we take photo documentation
Me: so, you will travell around to docoment it yourselves?
Pei Twang: yes we'll take photos of the places in which we are told there are a tree and stone planted
Pei Twang: and we are also making a video documentation
Pei Twang: with several locations
Me: ok, nice!
Me: I'm going to plant it in my two parcels
Pei Twang: let me know when you have it planted and i'll come to document
Me: sure!
Pei Twang: thanks for your contribution
Pei Twang: ciao
Me: fun to be part of it!
Me: ciao

Here's the tree plantet on my parcel at Trollhaugen.

Plurabelle Posthorn

Artisan Galleria Legacy Tower, Second Life, is opening March 24

Jordan Morgenrote has put up her second gallery, an absolutely beautiful building and lovely space for exhibiting art, at Bellatrix. The construction is made by Muzicole Undertone. It's called Artisan Galleria Legacy Tower. She's planning even another tower nearby. The first exhibition at Artisan Galleria Legacy Tower will open this saturday, 24th of March . I will be in teh show, on the 4th floor. There are 6 floors, and 7 artists: Jasmine Digital, Gracie Kendal, Rezago Kokorin, Lasla Mannock, Plurabelle Posthorn, Xzavier Taov and Elros Tuominen.

Here's a sneak peek of my floor...

Landmark: Artisan Galleria at Bellatrix, Bellatrix (218, 217, 26)

Plurabelle Posthorn

the Nordic Council's Literature Prize 2007

"The Nordic Council's Literature Prize is awarded for a work of imaginative literature written in one of the Nordic languages. This can be a novel, a play, a collection of poetry, short stories or essays, or other work. The work must meet high literary and artistic standards."

"The Swedish author Sara Stridsberg has won the Nordic Council’s Literature Prize 2007 for her work 'The Dream Faculty' ('Drömfakulteten')."

"Her [Sara Stridsbergs] second novel ‘The Dream Faculty’ was published in 2006, this time a fictitious story about Valerie Solanas, the woman who will go down in history for writing the ultra-feminist manifesto SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men) in the sixties and who later, after having tried to co-operate with Andy Warhol, shot and seriously injured him.
Sara Stridsberg has also translated the SCUM manifesto into Swedish and written a play about Valerie Solanas. The fictitious story in ‘The Dream Faculty’ is that the author visits Valerie Solanas at the end of her life in a room in the Bristol Hotel in the red-light Tenderloin District of San Fransisco, where Valerie Solanas was living where she died in 1988, kneeling by the bedside, sick and wretched, aged 52."

This is not a Brancusi Sculpture

Written by Plurabelle Posthorn

To day, 10th of March, we are opening a new exhibition, a groupshow, at the Virtual Artist Alliance HQ in Second Life.
I will be showing my "Not a Brancusi Sculpture"-SL snapshot serie along with my wearable "This is not a Brancusi Sculpture" sculpture. People can get the wearable sculpture for free. So that they can walk around being a "This is not a Brancusi sculpture". People are free to change it in whatever way they want.
This blog post will keep track of what happens to the sculpture after it has left it's creator.

Picture below: Me dressed in a pink "This is not a Brancusi Sculpture" at Trollhaugen, my new home. And having opening nerves...!

2nd of April, 2007: Me wearing the sculpture at a humanist field trip and at our weekly humanist discussion. LINK
4th of April, 2007: Raspirit and Plurabelle on Muse Island, VVA HQ, and Motorati underwater disco. LINK
Sunn Thunders in Wicked Witch Woods LINK
Brancusi at Stephen Hilras gallery, dec 2007 LINK

EXHIBIT A at the Odyssey SIM.

This post is also posted at the Virtual Artitst Alliance Blog.
A new gallery opened in the Odyssey SIM to day.
Landmark: Odyssey (38,30,23)



The Odyssey SIM is financed by Dynamis Corporation in the UK, an internet company that dels in business, said one of the curators of the exhibition, Sugar Seville, to the press earlier today. The other curator of the exhibition, Beavis Palowakski and Sugar have been working on the structure - Beavis actually built the gallery, and I must say, they have done a beautiful job with it.
The whole Odyssey SIM, is for art and performance. Some individual artist are already installed, like Ian Ah, Max "dorkbot" (Maximillian Nakamura) and Wixli Flimflams PR-office. Sugar:"Odyssey will be hosting prescence for a number of real life galleries". I asked which ones, but no names were revealed...

The exhibition is a group show. "Most are artists that we met in world," says Sugar. "Some are rl artists." "This big painting is by David Scher (av-name: Nitido Cortes), a NYC artist. It was in the armory show and reportedly sold". The artists are from all over the world, like Italy, Japan, UK, US, Ireland, Korea, Canada. The artists are: Ian Ah, Gazira Babelli, Isra Batra, Nitido Cortes, Alan Dojoji, Fau Ferdinand, Masami Kuramoto, Pavig Lok, Man Michinaga, Koga Nishi, Beavis Palowakski, Sea Ra, Bacon Rolls and Chi5 Shenzhou.
Here the curators, Sugar Seville and Beavis Palowakski:



Can't mention all of the art works here, great works all of them though. You must go and see yourself. But...


Alan Dojoji (rl Alan Sondheim) is showing a video I find really interesting (picture above). This is what his notecard says: "Droste and Berber in rehearsal never before released footage from the original production with new tabla accompaniment especially commissioned by the hairs of Droste and Berber cut off from the bodies of Droste and Berber as well as accompanying avatars created from cloth and wire held in suspension creating a perfect framework for this first time and perhaps only this time a framework where Berber first sadly languished then rose to the occasion of Droste's bizarre accompaniment this silent film direct from the Weimar era salvaged from numerous bunkers of works of tired cinema lay sadly in shadows where reels of film were found presented now almost in their pristine original condition the hairs of Droste and Berber were tangled sadly among the reels where memories of Droste and Berber languished among the clubs of old Berlin http://www.asondheim.org Maud Liardon: dance; Foofwa d'Imobilite: choreographyAlan Sondheim: animation, mise-en-scene, sound 2006-2007" As for that, it's really fascinating to see how the avatars in the video deform, and the mingeling between avatars and rl dancers. What's interesting about our avatar anatomy is how awkward it is... I've seen some "nice" SL-nude photogaphy that (maybe involuntarly) captures this. Like we have some sort of skeletal disease. Also made me think of the SL performance tomorrow at the Office, Production of Architecture: Second Life First Life Dance, which I don't how will be, but am so excited to see it. They are going to mix SL and rl perfomance realtime.
Another work in the exhibition involving deformation: Gazia Babellis "Avatar on canvas".
SPOILERWARNING!!!Don't read further if you don't want to know the end.

The painting, a Francis Bacon appropriation, with a chair you can sit on. Sit there for a short time and you start to deform! Or jump of and walk around while you deform, "thrown back to (Second) life more violently" so to speak. So cool! I like very much that the viewer becomes a part of the art work. That's great! (Picture to the right shows me and Max deforming.)
And this one; Isra Batras "the space". A textured box with this pink colored man with boobs/ woman with large dick figure working very hard (masturbating). Nice humour!

During the opening, I got to know a litle more about Man Michinagas drawing robot from Man himself (rl Patrick Lichty http://www.voyd.com/). The robot is the blue thing in the photo belowe, and he is making more robots: modified sumi-e pens. He shows serveral of his "Zen for Bot" which are "Real Life works created by interacting with a small, semi-autonomous robot for which I developed/hacked the software." "The name "Zen for Bot" comes from the early Fluxus work, "Zen for head" by Nam June Paik, in which he dipped his head in a bucket of ink and dragged it along the paper like a calligraphy pen."

Man explaining me about the robot.

Man Michinaga.

Then we all flocked around Gaziras work to get ourselves mangled...

(Click on images to see them larger.)

The show is up until 8th of April.
The next show is a solo show of Gazira Babelli!

Wixli Flimflams report of the event with a video HERE.

Plurabelle Posthorn

House of Blood

I just bought my first parcel in Second Life. A very strange one at the waterfront in a very steep hill. Here I'm planning to put out some of my own SL art experiments. So it will be some sort of a gallery. Name: Gallery urEN lUREN, after a norwegian folksong about a place in a very steep hill where no one could ever believe anybody could ever live.
In this video I have placed my House of Blood on my land, for a start...