DAMMMMMIT!

My laptop has gone on the fritz. I spent enumerable hours commuting to and from and at the Apple Store yesterday. This of course is amazingly shit because I am finishing the script for the Real show. uggg. The show opens in less than a week and I skipped Dore's class yet again because of this damned project.

I bought a removable harddrive and mirrored Eurypides (my laptop) to it. I decided to buy a 15 inch iBook to boot the removable drive. I also decided to subscribe to .mac to backup my critical data...

lamely proceeding,
-hop_along Geek

My application to a show called The Real has been accepted. I will be bi-locating my project Fluoxetine in cyberspace and meatspace. I am building a sculpture in Second Life a MMO in which some of the alumnis of CADRE have started an online new media arts center called Ars Virtua. The opening is April 29, 2006 look for the invites soon.

Here's the call:
Ars Virtua Gallery and New Media Center is looking for works for our
inaugural show. The theme of this show is "The Real" and will be
exhibited on the grounds of Ars Virtua which is located on the border of
Butler and Dowden (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Dowden/41/58/52/) in
Second Life (http://www.secondlife.com)

We are looking for 2D media, video and sculpture (including scripts)
produced within the 3D engine. All representable media will be accepted
for consideration but artists are cautioned to be economical with the
number of prims used in sculpture.

For too long "the virtual" has been supplanted by "the real" in the
realm of communication and entertainment. We recognize that there is no
need for replacement, but for extension. We see that 3D game engines are
creating new environments with new rules that are just as tangible as
the old ones, but on new terms. Education and art have been waking up to
value of simulation as it relates to and does not relate to campus and
museum life. The value of simulation or perhaps the threat of it occurs
when simulation begins to trump that which it is simulating. That is the
purpose of this exhibit, and though it does not make every exhibit in
space-time useless or passé it does attempt to offer a wholly electronic
alternative, an "other" real.

"The Real" will be juried by a group of artists from the CADRE
Laboratory for New Media.

Here's my proposal:
Proposal for 'The Real’:

Fluoxetine is an anti-depressant pharmaceutical. It is a common prescription for conditions related to depression and panic disorder. My work titled Fluoxetine is a soft sculpture of the bio-chemical and is reminiscent of the plush toy transitional objects of childhood. Simultaneously, Fluoxetine is a prim-sculpture in the Second Life cyber-reality. The realspace and the cyber Fluoxetine are fetish objects to be held and cuddled as representations of the anti-depressant. The plush sculpture becomes a visceral realization of the coping mechanism made from the composite of bio-chemical functions and cultural connotation of the represented form.

I am constructing the Second Life sculpture with scripts that encourage the SL avatars to interact personally with the cyber-Fluoxetine as a simulation of the real Fluoxetine sculpture in which the public will be encouraged to publicly interact.

Thomas Asmuth