My alter ego created a brilliant post in his blog I will repeat here which justifies Aequitas work with some big names and ideas.

The artist as gardener idea has been recently clarified by Brian Eno in this short talk at Serpentine Gallery.

The concept is a basic difference in the way we see the world. Brought up on the idea of a supreme creator with intelligent design it is difficult to accept the idea of evolution. A simple origin for a complex system is not an obvious transition.

The idea of the hero artist/architect creating fully realized complex masterpieces is one we accept easily elevating the artist to the realm of a god.

The concept of free will allows for us to work within a system in collaboration guiding and riding as the moment dictates. In art this is process oriented work as opposed to product oriented. Eastern philosophy has opened the western mind to notions of staying in the moment and mindful enterprise which dovetails nicely with this view of the artist as gardener rather than architect. Rather than start off with a fully realized plan he enters in to a process of discovery remaining open to shifts and pressures.

Mr Eno wants to experience the work as it develops with the audience and to that end he creates systems of simplicity which generate complexity.

This is the theory behind Field of Voices and the upcoming Field of View. We have created a system to be populated by contributors with very little guidance and a lot of anticipation. We are as surprised as anyone by the result and the hero artist is us all.

After hours of coding and testing the promise has yet to be filled but the quest continues. We are looking forward to the Field of Voices propagating throughout the world and becoming a self supporting virtual artwork. Our hope is that by creating the space and the facility for it to be filled we can monitor each unique instance as it develops in public spaces throughout the world.

A local telephone call, placed automatically, will greet the visitor requesting them to leave a message which will be embedded in the field. Each instance of participation will shape the next, making the Field of Voices an organic growing artwork.

By not guiding or soliciting the contributions we hope to effectively remove the artists hand from the work and solicit a location unique version of the Field in various locations around the world.

The big question is ownership. Is it really your stuff you bought? There is a native american thought that ownership applies only to things you can carry away. Can you carry away your inventory? or does it belong to Linden Labs? Can you really own something virtual?

I am doing research for an art project on this idea and would love to hear from you guys, the VW culture.

This summer I intend to “sell” virtual land in New York City. On the same spot where Manhatttan is believed to have been bought for beads will be an Inwood field of voices much like the one in SL last year using augmented reality to bring the objects and sounds in to rl. I’d like to include some sound bites on land ownership from SL’rs. check out the website for info on how you can participate. http://arsactual.com

In my research its become clear that the Native had far different ideas about land than the european settlers. This same clash can be applied to the current state of affairs between residents and management of sl. Are they gonna march the artists off to reservations and turn the place in to a mall? Only keep the ones who are selling stuff?

is the culture of consumerism binding a yoke around the artists neck? The established gallery system holds out the carrot of exorbitant sales figures luring young starry eyed slackers through a 4 yr program with dreams of celebrity and sloth. Why pay for the Mona Lisa when you can get a reproduction which will look better, last longer, and not jack up your insurance? What are you paying for? A piece of the cross? an artifact of history?

“It is from your peace of mind that a peaceful perception of the world arises.”

This project uses the free Layar application for Android and Iphones. To view, download application, load, search for Aequitas, then fly to Cairo and keep your wits about you. To view the Dove in your own neighborhood initiate an International conflagration and let us know.

Download Layar application

Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input, such as sound or graphics.

You may have seen AR in use to show the lines on the field of a football game or in the terminator movies when the naked terminator is looking for clothing and gets information on the screen about what he is looking at.

• 1024x1024x256 Dancoyote Antonelli
• KOONSBALL! Rod Mandel
• LLifted LLader Misprint Thursday
• Brush Fire In Snow Corcosman Voom
• Regeneration — by Kicca Igaly
• ICE COLD BLUE shellina Winkler
• Great Dodecahedron (large) – Flexi-hedra nand Nerd
• The Giant Deep Red Loop A Tribute To Zoe Keating by nessuno myoo

Hephaestus Platonicator

is a social sculpture by San Francisco artist DC Spensley who is also known as Dancoyote Antonelli in the virtual world of Second Life. Clicking the gold obelisk either deletes existing tetrahedrons or rezzes one above the obelisk. Click any face of the resulting tetrahedron and it will rezz another tetrahedron adjacent to that face. Like all Dancoyote social sculpture the Hephaestus Platonicator can be used individuallly or by a group, cooperatively or competitively. Enjoy!

Hephaestus: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hephaestus Platonic solid: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic_solid dc@dancoyote.com

Special thanks to Nand Nerd who was engineer on the project.

Thanks for visiting Newark is Watching, formlerly Brooklyn is Watching! -DC

Collaborative efforts have in the past been hampered by drug usage, caffeine greed and one guy who insisted on painting without his pants. Frustrated and lonely we turned to the internet which arrived just in time.

Social Media Arts, a combination of Media Arts and Social Networking is phrase coined by Ricardo Peach, program manager for the Australlia Council’s Inter Arts office, to describe the world wide phenomenon of web focused time specific performance and visual art.

“Gutenberg Parenthesis” is a term Tom Pettitt, Associate Professor of English at the University of Southern Denmark, used at an MIT conference on Folk Cultures and Digital Cultures.

Gutenberg Parenthesis describes the reign of print and the powerful grip publishers had on knowledge. A grip now being released by the collaborative network of the Web. A parenthesis because pre Guttenberg everyone was an artist, it was more about the performance than the accuracy of an idea or the supremacy of it’s originator. Plato saw artists as craftsmen capable of the best and worst of human nature. The Gutenberg Parenthesis saw artists as the gatekeepers to high culture. Separating artists from craftspeople and talentless sunday painters by the written word of paid critics.

Modern man has opportunities to collaborate, mix, and reform that were never available before the proliferation of social networking. The lonely painter drawing from his tortured soul while a romantic image for the general public is not such a happy, healthy sustainable existence. Humans are social creatures and as the starving artist myth is slowly being released we can now keep up in Twitter with every little movement of those we choose to spend time with effectively shrinking the vast scary world in to a warm collection of friends, supporters, and collaborators.

The core beliefs which shape my art are grounded in an egalitarian outlook and a learned mistrust of limited perception. I know two heads are better than one. Resolving the difficulties in collaboration is a lifetime goal. Somewhere between assimilation and subjugation there lies not a middle ground but a higher plane, an alchemical effect of collaboration. Stretching my viewpoints is more important to me than the finished piece of work. It is in opening up to a greater vision that art soars past limited ideas to a rarified state of transformation for the artist and the audience. Together we adopt a purpose of discovery, a process-oriented practice with collaboration at its core.

How hard is this to accomplish over a network? It has its challenges. It’s harder to detect sarcasm, boredom or disgust. Does that mean we push on past doubt and visual signals that trip us up in local collaboration? It can mean we dig a hole which is too deep to make our way out of again. People are complicated and with unacknowledged goals and motivations true communication is a spotty affair at best. It helps to have a clear purpose and remain aligned with that purpose. With the collaboration as the goal it’s easier to move past the doubt and suspicion which permeates human affairs. The limitations of networked communication serve to avoid the pitfalls of cleverness and muddiness by limiting the conversation whilst squeezing it through the systems. The strongest ideas seem to bubble to the top and yet the curious whim remains awaiting discovery on closer examination.

The kind of virtual art which results from this process-oriented common-goal driven work is no less than transcendent. It is always greater than the sum of its parts because it is imbued with the spirit of cooperation and understanding. Simply because of the willingness to shift perspective, to being open to seeing things as the collaborators see them, the work has the power to shift perspectives in the audience. It can remain a powerful expression of one idea, while also serving another without loss of intensity or focus.

The collaborative aspect in the creation of the work fosters a collaborative nature in the work itself. The essence of collaborative projects lure the audience into interaction and participation, as that is the very nature of its being. A core belief in the respect for the perspectives of others allows the finished piece to grant access from a myriad of angles and welcomes the participant without coddling or patronizing.

The ability of virtual art to engage people from around the globe provides us with a heretofore unimaginable array of perspectives to engage and evaluate. As much as we would like to take some of the ideas to public spaces such as parks or city squares and learn from that interaction, at this point the logistics and expense is like molasses to the movement of discovery. There is no telling where this journey leads. To determine a point in time or space is to narrow options. Safe in the arms of curious nature, pants on or off, we cannot avoid being stimulated and encouraged by every human interaction and hopefully an audience will be changed by the results. We go where no artists have gone before……..is collaboration in the virtual world the “final frontier” or the tip of the iceberg?

Here are a couple of examples of the resulting artwork.

“No Man is an Island”

January 2009

“No Man is an Island” is aimed at that social creature in SL created by such a creature called an avatar.

The avatar enters and is confronted by a huge tower of white blocks approximately 3 ft square with the word fear written on each one. When the avatar approaches the tower he is given a notecard explaining, not so much, but beginning the journey. Whispers surround the avatar saying free me, love me , respect me, in English and Italian. As the avatar approaches the tower the blocks closest to him change to now say love rather than fear. Proximity affects the message. Text begins to appear in the chat window making statements about the avatar apparently by other avatars nearby. Statements of Love and statements of Fear. There 100′s of drawings and text in each cube activated by touching. If the avatar is curious enough about the line drawings of peoples faces and the statements written next to them he will keep clcking to see more eventually finding the box which opens his way in to the center of the column.

Inside the column is a scroll at the bottom of a ladder. When the avatar clicks the scroll he begins to climb the ladder watching as he rises and the wall of fear becomes a wall of love. The ladder allows you to climb right through the roof which is the only way out of the column and the box which enclosed it in the original exhibition. As you climb there are symbolic figures rising with you as if souls rushing toward heaven.

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee (Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, #17).
– 17th-century English poet John Donne

If people allowed themselves to experience the pain of others — they would not be able to inflict it: no bombs, no murders, no tortures, no attacks of any kind.

If people allowed themselves to remember that the bell of judgment, like Donne’s bell of death, tolls for them, and that their guilt would cause them to pay the price of their vengeance and hatred, of the pettiness of their projections — there would be only peace and no judgment of others.

If people recognized that air, water, and nuclear pollution symbolize caring only for the satisfaction of their greed to the blatant disregard of others, and that such selfishness but hurts them — they would cease to pollute in an instant.

For who would rape minerally rich lands, wresting in righteous wrath treasures that were not theirs, knowing it was their own treasure of love they were losing?

For who would willingly choose the murderous thought system of specialness, inflicting pain and suffering upon another, knowing it was their own death they were plotting?

Finally, which government would willingly choose the murderous thought system of imperialism, inflicting pain and suffering upon others, knowing it was their own riches they were plundering?

– Kenneth Wapnick, Ph.D.

A Journey to One through two.
An awakening from a dream of death.
Please keep arms and legs inside at all times.

There exists
in the wall of fear
A keystone clear

A message spoken
only you can hear

Aequitas thanks:

Carleon
Franz Kafka
Glyph Graves
John Donne
luce Laval
Innula Zenovka

Remnant Ashbourne
Davy Maltz
Neil Young
ArchTx Edo
Roxelo Babenco
Arco Rosca

Aequitas June 2009

Social media has drawn together a group of international artists to New York for Aequitas, an exhibit of art based on childhood experiences.

Artspace OSA in New York City and the virtual community of Second Life hosted a joint exhibition of international artists: paintings, digital work, and virtual world installations during the month of June 2009.

Artists can be a solitary lot but with the advent of virtual worlds and web 2.0 they are finding each other and communicating in the way they know best: making and exhibiting art together. This disparate group of artists, having never met face to face, nevertheless finds a common ground in exploring their childhood for art.

Sowa Mai, also known as the artist Stephen Beveridge, conceived and planned this exhibit as an extension of the relationships he had formed in the Second Life virtual world with artist/avatars from different time zones and cultural backgrounds.

The exhibit in New York City displayed paintings and digital work by the human artists. An exhibit in the Second Life virtual world consisted of (art) installations and scripted objects by the human artists’ avatar counterparts. Both exhibits are based around the theme of mining childhood experience for art.

Dekka Raymaker Andrew MacLachlan Penumbra Carter Beth Olds Nebulosus Severine CM Pauluh Sowa Mai Stephen Beveridge David Ferrando Banrion Constantine Robert Garlick Elif Arat

Aequitas
Artspace OSA, Caerleon Art Collective
June 2009

Field of Voices
April 2010

Networked Collaboration Collaboration for the Caerleon Isle Through the Virtual Looking Glass exhibition.
Slurl, http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caerleon%20Isle/113/85/41

Collaborators Dekka Raymaker, Misprint Thursday, Penumbra Carter, Selavy Oh, and Aequitas have encapsulated the theme of the Real life / Second Life crossover exhibition with their Networked Collaboration, Field of Voices. Special guest artist Oberon Onmura, provided the Ghost columns.

As a result of six months of weekly meetings by the collaborators an idea was was arrived at to illuminate a shift of perception from outside to inside the virtual world paralleling preconceived notions regarding networked collaboration and collaboration in general. An earlier photograph by Selavy Oh of poles which appeared on a scaled down map of the virtual world corresponding to trackers worn by the collaborators as they visited different areas was the visual genesis of the field. Upon arrival at the platform overlooking the field of voices the visitor is presented with a beautiful expanse of white columns not unlike a circuit board or a graveyard. Each column looks exactly the same and they are arranged in a grid suggesting equality. Jumping down in to the field we soon realize that each column, upon approach, shifts in color and emits sound, we are treated to the voices of a diverse group of real people announcing , reading poetry, singing, and declaring obscure sentences. This surprising event is meant to belie the sterile perception of Second Life, and social media in general by reminding us there are people behind the virtual avatar on the screen. The effect is quite touching and before you know it the visitor falls through the floor and is treated to a soothing light show as they walk through the amusing, touching, and clever voices in the poles. Very much like the sticky experience of Second Life, it’s hard to leave.

Aequitas is currently the playground for two U.S. artists whose practice involves equality, and anonymity as a working ideal. Collaborating in separate physical space they have explored themes such as alienation, childhood, perceptions of identity, spirituality, and consumerism with most of the work being first presented in the virtual world of Second Life.

Each piece they work on is an entire journey. It begins as an evolution of an idea that passes through many incarnations before it reaches the final stage. Each piece often has a massive body of work that maps their progress — they spend a lot of time researching, looking for relevant information on the web or in books and papers, seeking out inspiration, conducting interviews and finding references — documenting their finds as well as writing out their own perspectives and views on the material.

The results of this process oriented work have veered between the abstract and illustrative. The key threads are a strong aesthetic with a core spiritual disposition that focuses on non dualism and ideas of equity and balance. There is a sense of the nostalgic and ironic to the more representational work which avoids jokiness and schmaltz. The abstract leans toward iconic minimalist; white cubes or columns enhanced with minimal scripting and the use of single words or symbols. The cartoon-like nature which pervades virtual worlds is offset by simple texture selection and careful lighting.

By working under a singular identity as Aequitas, the intention is to direct focus on the art rather than the individual; to remain outside the cult of personality, to explore alternatives to the more culturally accepted individual creative force. They believe collaboration does not require leadership and can bring better results through decentralization and egalitarianism. It is a working practice that art collaboration should be playful and not taken too seriously.

Collaborators Dekka Raymaker, Misprint Thursday, Penumbra Carter, Selavy Oh, and Aequitas have encapsulated the theme of the Real life / Second Life crossover exhibition with their Networked Collaboration, Field of Voices previously mentioned in New World Notes January 21, 2010. Special guest artist Oberon Onmura, provided the Ghost columns.

The idea was to illuminate the shift of perception from outside to inside the virtual world. The visitor is presented with a beautiful expanse of white columns not unlike a circuit board or a graveyard. Jumping down in to the field we are treated to the voices of a diverse group of real people belaying the sterile perception of Second Life, and social media in general by reminding us there are people behind the virtual avatar on the screen. The effect is quite touching and before you know it the visitor falls through the floor and is treated to a soothing light show as they walk through the amusing, touching, and clever proximity activated voices in the poles.

This is all part of Virtual Art Initiative and the the RL/SL crossover exhibition Through the Virtual Looking Glass opening April 7th in five real world galleries and other spaces in as many countries, specifically, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, and the United States.

Australia will also participate in the April events virtually, while hosting a real world exhibition at a time later this year.

Organizers of the exhibition in each country will choose its content and methods of display which will include interactive artworks from the virtual worlds Second Life and OpenSim, images and machinimas (virtual world videos) shown on plasma screens and digital frames, prints of virtual artworks, physical sculptures and paintings inspired by virtual art, some with embedded electronic components, and literary readings and musical performances occurring in the real world exhibition spaces and streamed live into Second Life and OpenSim.

Through the Virtual Looking Glass is organized and presented by a network of international groups, all of them leaders in the field of virtual art, including the Caerleon Sims/Virtual Art Initiative, Cybernetic Art Research Project/Diablous, Museo del Metaverso/Uqbar, Pirats, the University of Massachusetts, and the University of Western Australia.

It’s never too late to share your voice and participate! more info here. http://arsactual.com

Much thanks to Estelle Parnall of Lost Dreams designs who provided PR and t-shirts for participants in the project  and  to  Remnant Ashbourne for invaluable work as script adviser. A huge thank you for all those that contributed their voices as this project would be nothing without them. And the ultimate thank you to Georg Janick/Gary Zabel for giving us the opportunity to do what we love best.

Participate here Your Voice As Art?

btw recieved the sound modules for the gallery in Boston. way cool they are nice and clear and reactive. I’ll load them with the best voices in each language. You too could be heard in a gallery throughout the world. If anyone wants to sponsor a module they may donate in to my paypal account $15