sabato 30 maggio 2009

Second Pride Festival 2009



Second Pride Festival Museum 2009
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Iridium/149/63/33
Artworks by Zhora Maynard

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Second Pride Festival...

What ?

The Fifth Annual 2009 Second Pride Festival is right around the corner. This inworld Gay Pride Celebration will take place on six connected sims and will include parties, amusement rides, the works of SL greastest artists, builders & scriptors, all the top DJs, amazings builds, shopping, musical & theater revues, information and educational programs, a memorial quilt display created by members of the Second Life community to honor those who have passed from AIDS, information booths, art exhibits and so much more...


What we do ?

For 2009 proceeds of the Second Pride Festival are being donated to the "Amnesty International's OUTfront" movement to support the rights of the LGBT people and community around the globe. There are still many places where people are denied employment, housing, basic human rights & are being tortured or even killed because of their sexual orientation. Amnesty International works to end these autrocities. For more information visit Amnesty International OUTfront

Last year Second Pride donated over $6,500 USD, that's REAL MONEY, to The AIDS Orphanage in Uganda, Africa to help provide a secure environment for children orphaned as a result of AIDS related circumstances. This year we are hoping to double that, and with the help of Second Life's large and strong LGBT community and friends, we will!


When ?

May 23rd to May 30th 2009

There are many events prior to the main festival, such as benefits and promotion parties and fundraisers. be sure to check the Calendar on the Second Pride - 2009 Website at http://www.SecondPride.com so you won't miss anything.



Where ?

The location of the Second Pride Festival 2009 remains Top-Secret as construction of the festival takes place. It is being held on six connected mainland sims provided by Linden Labs™

Visit the Second Pride Headquarters Building where you'll find alot of great information about Second Pride, Amnesty International OUTfront and some other fun and interesting items and freebies. Stop in and check it out

http://www.secondpride.com/press-partners-f8/second-pride-official-information-t117.htm
http://galoh.blogspot.com

venerdì 29 maggio 2009

HAMMERING THE VOID - Gazira Babeli









Gazira Babeli

HAMMERING THE VOID

http://dam-berlin.de/index.php?newlang=english

COME!

COME!

COME!

Friday, 29 May 2009
10-12 AM in Locusolus sim
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Locusolus/170/64/37

7-9 PM in the gallery [DAM]Berlin
(No Landmark... Tucholskystr. 37 Berlin)

TEXTS HERE! -

"Hammering at the Truth" by Patrick Lichty (Man Michinaga)

"HAMMERING THE VOID" by Domenico Quaranta



Gazira Babeli: Hammering at the Truth
The Four Elements of Virtuality

As I write this, Gazira and I were talking about my reflections on Hammering the Void, and in dealing with the moral tropes of Sin, Virtue, and most romantically, Truth, i seemed that my text less resembles an essay and more like a sermon. As this is no more surreal than reflecting on the moral implications of a horde of fourteen proxies wielding cartoon mallets, I'd like to frame this under just such a conceit of a sermon on virtual existence. Let us consider then, my Brothers and Sisters in Virtuality and Hypereality, the implications of unleashing Pandora's Box, of unfurling the Sins and Virtues forth into the Nets, armed with nothing less than Vulcan's Hammer itself; let us consider the effects thereof. I want to say that in setting this forth, the traditional Sins and Virtues give rise to four Principles of experience that remain in virtuality, and those are: Affect, Agency, Volition, and Complicity. It is through these that while after shedding the physical coil, humanity follows us into the Void. Let us meditate upon these in that we may understand the Void.

In the beginning of the Hammering the Void introductory video, Gazira and I (or my Man Michinaga proxy) sit before a screen in Second Life, marveling at an opening of 90's net artists, Vuk Cosic and Alexei Shulgin. We gesticulate excitedly like old heavy metal fans about the “Monsters of net.art”. We agree that she must set the cloud of Gaziric Sins and Virtues upon the world, equipped with large mallets, perhaps as inquisition, perhaps as divine intervention. For the rest of the video, the Gazirae invade virtual social events akin to a host of viral Agents (as per the “Smiths” from Matrix Reloaded) creating avatar mosh pits and hammering the hapless onlookers. All of this would appear as simple farce; but I know Gazira, and we know one thing...

The Truth is out there, we are all complicit in its creation, and Gazira is hammering you over the head with it.

One point that is essential to consider when looking at the gaggle of Gazirae and their accouterments, is that she has provided the hammer in the gallery for you. They aren't inflatable hammers, either. They're probably oak or maple, engraved with the Deadly Sins and Noble Virtues, inviting you to pick them up and play. As a side note, I had considered being more explicit in regards to “play”, but doing so would have been too heavy-handed, which is unnecessary when one is wielding an oak mallet.

As Gazira and I have continued to make works in virtual worlds for years, the question returns to the “why”, which may return us to the Cartesian cogito. However, I would like to remap the Cartesian assertion into a consideration of the increasing retreat into virtual worlds in asking about some of the things that remain in our Pandora's Box of simulation when we remove materiality and embodiment. This leads us back to the fulcrum of our sermon; the median icon of our discussion.

The sign at the center of this discussion is the hammer, the archetypal sign of Vulcan/Hephaestus, the God of Technology and Artisans. In Hammering the Void, perhaps the null-stuff of virtuality is the metal of disembodied existence that the Gazira-Hephaestae forge into an ironic tool for the dragging our own mortal encumbrance into cyberspace. Her traditional Sins and Virtues infest the online worlds, placing all they encounter upon the existential anvil or litmus test of action and reaction. There is little time for reflection, for what is under the hammer nothing less than our human nature. What do you do? From this vantage point, the result is the transmutation of the traditional Sin/Virtue binaries into monads of four human elements of virtual existence. These Monads, as we have transmuted beyond Sin or Virtue, are the principles of Affect, Agency, Volition, and Complicity. which are all complex significations embedded into Gazira's Hammer.

Affect: Identification with the act. One of the most striking images of the Gazirae is that of the fourteen Sins/Virtues rampaging before their puppeteer in a bold thrust, akin to an ideologue ordering their army into action. This encapsulates this writer''s fascination with the evident identification of increasing numbers with virtual worlds, and as of this writing, there were 65,000 people logged into the single online world of Second Life alone, showing the “reality” of virtual reality. This evidence is also embedded within the results of each intervention of the Gazirae, from the amusement of the appearance in the Uqbar region, varying to confusion and even anger in other instances. The paradoxical question of the visceral reaction to virtual events shows that affect is not just for identification for another body, but for an identification with their proxies/avatars as well. Although the avatar version of Burden's Shoot (Kildall or Mattes) is different from the first, both create a “gut reaction”. There is reality in the virtual.

Agency: The act of intervention. If the avatar did not have some sense of real agency, some ability to intervene in affairs, this essay would not exist, as Gazira would have had no effect. Perhaps this is a realization of Baudrillard's primacy of the hyperreal – the object/image that has greater effect than its subject. But this is in agreement with the principle of Agency, as Gazira, and her doppelganger Gazirae, the replicants controlled by a simulacrum, create reaction to her actions. Although this may sound like the erection of a wilderness of mirrors, there are vectors of effect as well as affect when the hammer swings. The effects of the impact (to paraphrase Sanborn) of the virtual mallet are evident in that they set off chains of causality in the physical, even if they are as simple as the fact that she occupies a space in which the hammer is realized in a gallery, asking you to pick it up and swing it yourself. And more specifically, the way she does.

Volition: The will to action. The fact that Gazira sets her plan in motion is a testament to the principle that one has the ability to act through the virtual. The Aktion zur Macht breaks the stasis of virtuality, setting forth the path of agency to the creation of affect. Through the creation of the Sins and Virtues, Gazira has set them upon others, setting up causal chains, however slight, but this prime mover, probably the simplest, is a fundamental factor of intervening.

Complicity: The inseparability from the act, or the impossibility of total abstraction. The double sign of the hammer in the virtual and the physical and their similar functions illustrates our complicity with actions in either world. Through the hammer, argument of separation of subject and object through mere virtuality implodes, as the difference is far more complex. It is no longer the question of the effects of hitting someone with the hammer in the gallery or in the virtual, as both actions hold us complicit with the real issue of violence itself actual or implied, leaving the hammer itself transparent. Violence through cartoon or oak mallet differ little in terms of their being consistent with the same practice, and that is the gesture of the swing, and the effect of the impact. Gazira and her vices/virtues ask you to pick up the hammer and hit your friend over the head with it, but then say, “Funny, that doesn't happen here... Ahahahah....” through this doubling and the resultant difference of effects, Gazira holds us responsible for the violence of signs, the affect of the impact, the effect of the hammer's extancy, the volition of the swing, and the complicity to the hammer and its function.

Before ending my sermon, I would like to talk about the narcissism of the Global Village; of cyberspace. As McLuhan said,

"The global village is a world in which you don't necessarily have harmony. You have extreme concern with everybody else's business and much involvement in everybody else's life. It's a sort of Ann Landers column writ large... huge involvement in everybody else's affairs. So the Global Village is as big as a planet and as small as the village post office."

In many ways, this intense concern is emblematic of the collective dream of pop technoculture less from from Star Trek and more to World of Warcraft. The shift of focus away from the outward vision of Buckminster Fuller 's “Spaceship Earth” to the inwardly looking complicit panopticism of McLuhan's “Global Village” seems to be the object of the swing. Perhaps this inward look is the gaze into the abyss that Gazira is hammering at. Rather than “leaping into the void” a la Klein, is Gazira hammering away at the null-sets of illusion in the void of cyberspace to get at the truths that remain in virtual existence? Is there anything there?

Or is she merely asking you to hit your friend in the face with an oak mallet because that is the most fundamental form of human communication remaining?

In the end, what remains is a communion of reflection; something that is considered an endangered species in the age of constant partial attention deficit. As the Gazirae descend upon us, there is a moment in which we are forced to meditate upon the four elements of human existence in the virtual, and then the offering is put forth.

The Hammer of Gazira. Given for you. May it dispel your illusions.
Now, SWING.

Amen.

Patrick Lichty

May, 2009

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HAMMERING THE VOID
Domenico Quaranta

“The world we actually have does not meet my standards.”
Philip K. Dick

In 1920, at the opening of a Dada exhibition in Köln, Max Ernst made an axe available for the audience. As far as I know, this gesture was never reenacted. That's a shame. An artwork should always come with an axe in attach. This would remind us that art must be loved, or hated. That it deserves more than an idiot gaze. Duchamp took years to make us accept his urinal, yet he's still unable to persuade us to use it in the more logical way: pissing into it. I bet he would be happy of this kind of interaction: turning an artwork into an urinal.

Gazira Babeli never reenacts – she acts. She's worshipped as a marabout, but she hates spells and she does her best to break them. Tell her “aura” and she'll throw an hail of meteoroids onto you. Tell her “virtual” and she'll shoot you into the air at 900 km/h. When, in 2006, she made Come To Heaven, she released the code of the performance through her website: she discovered the painful delights of being beaten up by a computer graphics card, and she wanted to share this feeling with everybody.

Yet, even on a computer screen, people keep on loving the moonlight instead of killing it, and being charmed by everything is introduced to them as “art”. Thus Gazira created the fourteen sisters. They are called Anger Erin, Envy Sixpence, Gluttony Aboma, Greed Petrovic, Lust Placebo, Pride Placebo, Sloth Swansong, Courage Sparta, Faith Radikal, Hope Varnish, Justice Kimono, Love Brandi, Prudence Miami, Temperance Navarita. They are Gazira Babeli, fourteen times. Carrying a wooden sledge-hammer, they move all together, and hit violently. When you, beloved art lover, meet them, feel free to think at the following references, at your pleasure: La Liberté guidant le peuple, The Night Watch, Il quarto stato, an army of models performing Vanessa Beecroft. At your first blow on the head, art will be replaced, in your mind, by castor oil and gas chambers.

This platoon in Wellington boots and suspender belt comes without any notice, and intervenes in social events – mostly exhibition openings – making a hell of a mess. Is this the usual, boring self-referential crap we are used to find in art? What Gazira likes is to intervene in the rituality of the real, and break up its continuity. The world she actually has does not meet her standards, and she hammers it. She works in this direction from the very beginning: just think to her earthquakes, her showers of pop bananas, her Campbell's Soup cans, her pizzas fouling up the gallery with tomato soup. Isn't she arse-hole? If you need, Gazira's hammers are there for you. Use them, against her too. That's what she wants.

Postscript

When they are not swooping down on some crowd trying to smash an artist's head, Gazira's Furies are imprisoned in a claustrophobic office with a view on Windows' standard desktop, jumping around all the time. The office is encaged in a computer. The computer is encaged in a gallery. Gaz' en valise, finally. It looks like a storm in a glass snowball, until you don't open it. And it comes with an hammer, of course.

giovedì 28 maggio 2009

Avatar Puppeteering

Avatar:
Manichini o Marionette?

Doppiamente manovrati dall'ideatore.

Direct Manipulitation of Avatars for Expression and Animation Editing
(a technology developed at Linden Lab using physically-based avatars)
http://avatarpuppeteering.com

Triste destino per gli avatar...
Indipendenza sempre più lontana


mercoledì 27 maggio 2009

martedì 26 maggio 2009

J'aime beaucoup Mayo-tte...


Le village est une zone de vacances, de détentes et loisirs. Découvrez l'ilot de Saziley (romantisme, cuddles, cascade), la Baie des Tortues et son lagon, disco club, bar ..... Pratiquez la plongée sous marine, admirez les fonds marins à dos d'hippocampe et plus encore. Le paradis vous ouvre ses portes, n'hésitez plus à embarquer vers sa destination.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Mayotte%20Island/25/229/23

Zhora vi consiglia un tour sopra e sotto terra...
il mare...un mondo sommerso :)

domenica 24 maggio 2009

Zhora Sun

"Un raggio di sole è sufficiente per spiazzare via molte ombre". (S. Francesco d'Assisi)

giovedì 21 maggio 2009

Cos'è il matrimonio in SL?

"Il "matrimonio" non esiste in sl...o meglio, esiste una cosa chiamata "parnership" che e' equivalente e in pratica fa si che nei rispettivi profili ci sia un collegamento al "partner" con tanto di data di inizio della partnership.

Per far si che venga associato il tuo profilo a quello di un altro devi andare nel suo profilo e cliccare sul tasto "offert partnership", l'altra persona dovra' accettare...si pagano 25L$ e potete vivere felici e contenti (o dopo un po eliminarla al costo di altri 25L$ se ricordo bene...l'equivalente del divorzio).

Questo e' quello che richiede la Linden.. nessuna cosa da firmare o altro". (Paol Oh - http://www.secondlifeitalia.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=408).

E poi...

mercoledì 20 maggio 2009

Fondazione Pangea - WDT Art Gallery

Wonderfull Dream Team
is please to invite you
on may 20th 2009 at 23:00 (CEST/Central European)
in WDT Art Gallery
a favore di Fondazione Pangea

to Grand Opening of l'incognita del mistero by Mistero Hifeng
http://slurl.com/secondlife/WDT%20Planet/240/130/21

http://micalitasl.blogspot.com/2009/05/lincognita-del-mistero-di-mistero.html
http://alicemastroianni.blogspot.com/2009/05/intervista-mistero-hifeng-di-jake66.html

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Possiamo dire che sei riuscito a tirare fuori qualcosa di te che magari non conoscevi?

Con le foto ho iniziato per puro caso, spinto da un amica scultrice in SL, Zhora Maynard, che mi ha portato in una land e mi ha chiesto … “fammi una foto qui!”. Ed ecco che mi sono ritrovato iscritto ad un contest senza saperlo, e da li e' iniziata la fotografia. Più che scoprire cose nuove, ho imparato ad usare Photoshop, e quindi mi sto divertendo a creare anche quello che non vedo su SL … Tipo questa foto che hai davanti, l'ho creata io, cioè la scala e il resto non esistevano …

martedì 19 maggio 2009

lunedì 18 maggio 2009

To Be Mom?!?

Novità.
I babies nel metamondo non nascono sotto i cavoli.
I babies nel metamondo non vengono portati dalle cicogne.
Non pensate a fiori, api, impollinazioni o altro...

Il vostro baby si compra...

ZOOBY's babies
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Skynx/190/111/26

Zhora spera nei saldi di fine stagione...LoL.

domenica 17 maggio 2009

L'immersione

"L'immersione e' la sensazione di essere in un ambiente; l'immersione puo' essere di tipo mentale (uno stato di profondo coinvolgimento, con sospensione dell'incredulita') e/o fisica (la sensazione di essere entrati con il corpo nell'ambiente, grazie agli stimoli sintetici che i nostri sensi ricevono dalla macchina)". (Zyda - DeFanti)

sabato 16 maggio 2009

On the road

Fate che il vostro spirito avventuroso vi porti sempre ad andare avanti per scoprire il mondo che vi circonda con le sue stranezze e le sue meraviglie.
Scoprirlo significherà, per voi, amarlo.
Kahlil Gibran

giovedì 14 maggio 2009

SolidART: Maiko by Zhora Maynard

Maiko by Zhora Maynard
Indossato da Veronik Broome

Questo abito nasce da un sogno di una donna, nella metropoli di Tokio.
Una nuova visione di Maiko: urbana, libera, incisiva...
Interconnessioni tra tradizione e innovazione.

L'abito è una scultura dinamica che ha come texture il quadro di Wassily Kandinsky, Several Circles, 1926.
Inoltre riporta in dettaglio due piccole sculture e una foto dell'autrice.

Questo abito è stato realizzato dalla creatività di Zhora Maynard, un'autrice di "sensazioni méta-versali in prim", scultrice di opere d'arte dinamiche in Second Life.

Zhora Maynard con questo abito desidera offrire una fusione dell'arte di RL e di SL, uno dei tanti progetti, che con ambizione, sta realizzando nel metaverso di Second Life.

Un ringraziamento allo staff di Solid_Art per aver "sfiorato molti cuori con un tocco delicato come seta"...

Zhora Maynard

*****

Come and see...
1pm PDT
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Experience%20Italy%20S/15/224/26

venerdì 8 maggio 2009

MareNostro Opening

Oggi ore 22.30 Inaugurazione mostra: "Il futurismo e il il mare".

Grandi Artisti di SL: Aloisio Congrejo, Gleman Jun, Kicca Igaly, Lion Igaly, Maryva Mayo, nessuno Myoo, shellina Winkler, Solkide Auer, Zhora Maynard hanno portato nel museo di Mare Nostro e sul Pontile di Ostia la loro bellissime opere.
Tutti lavori artistici prodotti in SL.

Il mare ha stimolato la fantasia degli artisti e le sensazioni legate al mare hanno dato vita a opere stupende.Potrete ammirare anche le opere dei grandi futuristi del '900.

Amici di Mare Nostro vi aspettiamo numerosi.
Lo staff di MareNostro&Amici.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Fossil%20Bay/17/200/23

giovedì 7 maggio 2009

Ambient Findability e la Visibilità Digitale

Il web 2.0 ha portato al proliferare di contenuti, ma cosa rende tali contenuti davvero rintracciabili? E’ sufficiente aprire un blog per dire di essere presenti nella rete?

Questi sono alcuni dei temi che affronterà stasera Stex Auer alle ore 22.00, nella conversazione dedicata all’Ambient Findability in cui presenterà il modello di Peter Morville per la Visibilità Digitale.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Imparafacile/192/199/57

mercoledì 6 maggio 2009

Yaia Nishi's Scenes

Artisti della Memoria & Centro Mimir presenta...

Scenography, portraits, illustration, children, theatre by Yaia Nishi.
Scenografia. illustrazione, grafica, immagini, ritratti, bambini, racconti di Yaia Nishi.

Mercoledì 6 maggio 2009 alle 22:00 ora italiana (01:00 ora di SL)
verrà inaugurata la mostra Yaia Nishi's Scenes presso la land Seorakasan

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Seoraksan/7/35/61

Il progetto del secondo piano della mostra è correlato da un video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZpUmhbKErM

martedì 5 maggio 2009

TERREMOTO: UN MESE DOPO

Un mese dopo...

alle ore 22.00 lo psichiatra Marco Longo, aka Mind Clarity, ci aggiornerà sulla situazione attuale dell'Abruzzo dal punto di vista psichiatrico e psicologico in qualità di coordinatore delle situazioni d'emergenza.
Come già fatto ad Adpocalypse con il coordinamento di Giovanna Delphin, Mind Clarity ci porterà la sua esperienza personale informandoci sugli aspetti che non vengono trattati dai media.
In virtù dell'evento SolidART http://museiincomuneroma.wordpress.com/2009/04/28/solidart-i-designer-di-second-life-per-labruzzo/
che si svolgerà ad Experience Italy il 13 e 14 maggio, con una sfilata e relativa asta di abiti unici realizzati da 42 stilisti italiani ed esteri con le texture delle opere dei Grandi Maestri del Novecento, l'incontro con Mind Clarity avverrà nella location che ospiterà la sfilata. L'incasso dell'asta sarà consegnato interamente a Mind Clarity e versato sul conto corrente che in qualità di Fondatore e Direttore di Psychomedia.it ha aperto un conto per la raccolta di fondi per l'Abruzzo (dove sta operando come psichiatra volontario):
PSYCHOMEDIA SOLIDARIETA' - IBAN: IT 36 N 03069 05064 1000 0000 0167
per versamenti dall'estero serve anche il codice BIC: BCI TITMM

La conduzione della serata è affidata a Cecylia Susanti che in streaming dialogherà con il nostro compagno di viaggio in SL Mind Clarity porgendogli ogni domanda che intenderete rivolgergli.
Poiché l'evento è distribuito in 4 sim, che speriamo col cuore di riempire (passate l'invito ai vostri amici!), le domande in voice dovranno essere fatte tramite Skype a Cecylia (cecylia.susanti).

Distribuite questa nota più che potete: la nostra partecipazione sarà un abbraccio che a nome di tutti noi Mind Clarity porterà in Abruzzo.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Experience%20Italy%20S/3/196/26
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Experience%20Italy%20W/140/180/33

lunedì 4 maggio 2009

..:: COME TU TI VUOI ::..

Quante tempo dedicate a perfezionare l'aspetto del vostro avatar?
Impazzite ancora perchè non riuscite ad abbinare camicia e pantaloni?
Shape e skin sono parole senza significato?


Allora venite lunedì 4 maggio alle 22.00 all' incontro "COME TU TI VUOI" all'isola Imparafacile dove l'eterna niubba bacidalucia Oh condividerà con voi i trucchi per gestire al meglio l'aspetto del vostro avatar

Una chiacchierata in compagnia per scoprire assieme come usare l'"appearance" per:
1- costruire shapes
2- modificare l'apparenza del'avatar
3- creare abiti con il programa sl
4- modificare, colorare abiti
5- modificare, colorare e texturizzare prim negli abiti

Inoltre potrete avere gratuitamente skin, shape, hug, AO e vestiti sia da uomo che da donna.

Quando: lunedì 4 maggio alle 22.00
Dove: Welcome area dell'isola imparafacile
LM: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Imparafacile/106/26/22
Info: bacidalucia Oh

domenica 3 maggio 2009

Toc..toc..

Quando viviamo di false speranze,
vediamo spesso molte delusioni che ci bussano la porta...

(M.Boccia)

sabato 2 maggio 2009

About...

Ama.
Ama follemente.
Ama più che puoi.
e se ti dicono che è peccato
ama il tuo peccato
e sarai innocente...
(W. Shakespeare)

venerdì 1 maggio 2009

Fly and Feel - Sun Escapes Arts Center

Do you love art?
I'm Zhora Maynard, I'm author of "metaversal-feelings into prims"...
I happy to invite you to see my creations at Sun Escapes Arts Center.
Opening is Friday - May 1st at 1 Pm PDT

Come and see...
http://slurl.com/secondlife/White%20Rock/20/224/22