a /hug update

i am at the school studios late tonight finishing up a resize of one of the /hug vids. we were invited to exhibit the /hug training video: a message from /hug at the Salisbury University Electronic Gallery. the invite describes it as a

"special summer show is an invitational single channel exhibition of artists working outside the video genre, whose work will be featured in video formats."

this may be my all time favorite collab. it brought together so much good stuff. here's a link to the video in the case ya want to watch.

credits

• videographer
  • Liz Solo
• script
  • kidNeutrino
• actors
  • Kyungwha Lee
  • Liz Solo
  • Ali Sajjadi
  • James Morgan
  • kidNeutrino
  • Mez Breeze
• editor
  • Liz Solo

Ars Virtua Closes: Gallery Burns to the Ground Amongst a Hail of Gunfire

Shocking video and stills from last night; apparently virtual terrorists burnt down Ars Virtual New Media Center during the closing ceremonies.



The following images may be disturbing to some viewers. Parental discretion is advised. The following are raw images from the events late last night.

Closing Performance at Ars Virtua Gallery from kid Neutrino on Vimeo.

/hug

/hug |sla sh·həg|
noun [treated as sing. or pl. ]

/hug is the latest interventionist act of Third Faction, a non-factional guild/performance World of Warcraft group. /hug (prounounced: slash hug) is a Non Governemental Organization modeled after Red Cross/Crescent. /hug provides comfort and aid to all entities of the endlessly war torn world of Azeroth regardless of faction, allegiance, species, or creed.

/hug will be presenting a project space at the Laguna Museum of Art for the exhibition named: WOW: Emergent Media Phenomena, June 14 – October 4, 2009. the exhibition space will two parts. First is a theatre showing documentary and training machinima and the second section is a field work station where new recruits can immediately begin humanitarian aid missions in world.

/hug is a wordplay and represents a non-factional communication form that all players of WoW and all of humanity can understand, the hug.

Third Faction is a project-collaboration founded on Valentine's Day 2008 by members of the Ars Virtua, the acclaimed virtual worlds critical practice.

a Temporary Autonomous Zone in World of Warcraft

A few months ago, I approached my colleagues with the idea that we could do a perfomance on the platform World of Warcraft based on the theories of Hakim Bey the anarchistic writer who wrote about the courageous acts of art making and intervention without arrogance or ceremony. The text is a beautiful description of those who take the chance and create for the sheer thrill of being in it.

The ideas behind TAZ is to take charge and be in the moment. Coupled with the critical reflections about the romanticisms of neo-medievalism* inherent in the platform(more..)

Ars Virtua Guild Lives!

last night, the first WoW office hours were instantiated. several Ars Virtua Officers met and were able to establish the Ars Virtua Guild. Here is a shot of our founding members. this is the first step into our further exploration of WoW as a mixed reality and art platform iniatives. here are some more shots from our nList flick group.

for the HORDE!

reflecting on the Borders conference

the conference was an outstanding success. we had decent attendance, we survived with grace during the technical nightmares, and we enjoyed being there. i will not say that we hit every goal we set for ourselves but, when we didn't we learned an amazing amount.

the audience for the session was a great collection of innovative minds associated with Tulane U., SymbioticA, turbulence.org, New Media Consortium, Ogoglio, SecondFront, and countless other affilations.

my session with Michele, Dore, and Eloise was reduced to text chat when we were not able to hack into phone system as we had earlier in the day. The result: four people talking via the chat system of Second Life with an amazing high level of knowledge and insight (well three of four, left a moderator/grad student in the dust at times). 'lite speak be damned! The transcript will be published this week along witht hte rest of the documentation of Borders.


To whet your appetite until then, I have begun to post the images from the sessions at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kidneutrino/collections/72157600157477665/

"out of body" images haven't been posted yet since I am waiting for them from another colleague.

the first day of the borders conference is under our belt. Very amazing it happened the speakers were amazing, and we are worn out because Second Life went off line just before we started, we hit technical difficulties in the audio that couldn't be corrected and we are all worn out from the experience.

My talk is a scant 15 hours from now and I am nervous.
here's my amended statement:

Our discussion today revolves around the concepts of embodiment in the Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO)environment. The MMO is still laden with preconception that these arenas are only distraction; the territory of teenage malcontents and social misfits who just 'need to get a life'. I suggest that there is an attraction to the MMO format for a wider community of people. They are drawn to the MMO as a platform for deep socio-economic, cultural and political pursuits and yet is still labeled with a stigma.

I propose a repurpose of the expression 'Out of Body Experience'(OoBE) as a description for the interaction with these platforms. These spaces represent a boundary space of the entity in-between.

Despite the immediate association with new age spiritualist fringe cultures, Out of Body Experiences are not nearly as much hoodoo or metaphysics as one might associate. The use of the Out of Body Experience as a metaphor is not to be seen as coy or clever attempt to color this discussion. It seems point to a transitional space, a borderland of agency.

These experiences are part of many practices and arenas of social existence. And indeed, they are obviously rooted as religious practices like meditation, prayer, or channeling. Out of Body Experiences appear in other areas such as battle and combat or sexual practice. These triggers can and do invoke the sensory separations from the corporeal. And don't allow us to forget the 'zone' that we hear often about from those in the artistic professions.

Borders, Boundaries & Liminal States

"Borders, Boundaries & Liminal States", a three day conference within the virtual online world Second Life, will explore how borders are delineated and complicated within/between virtual environments. Sponsored by Ars Virtua New Media Center, and CADRE Laboratory for New Media.
Conference program via the link below:

http://arsvirtua.com/bordersprog.php

gearing up for the Borders Conference

spent most of the day reading through sites and composing and recomposing my position statement for the conference. it is approaching fast. the borders conference is a three day academic conference about synthetic worlds/virtual realities/online life. We will be holding the sessions in online environments primarily in our gallery in Second Life (Ars Virtua) but also on World of Warcraft.

i am heading a panel discussion on the subject of out of body. my panelists are critic/historian/artist Dore Bowen (San Jose State), artist/theorist Michele White (Tulane University), and scripter/writer/theorist Eloise Pasteur.

this is my position as it stands this hour:

Despite the immediate association with new age spiritualist fringe cultures, Out of Body Experiences are not nearly as much hoodoo or metaphysics as one might associate. The use of the Out of Body Experience as a metaphor is not to be seen as coy or clever attempt to color this discussion. This seems point to a transitional space, a borderland of agency.

These experiences are part of many practices and arenas of social existence. And indeed, they are obvious deeply rooted as religious practices like meditation, prayer, or channeling. Out of Body Experiences appear in other areas such as battle and combat or sexual practice. These triggers can and do invoke the sensory separations from the corporeal. And don't allow us to forget the 'zone' that we hear often about from those in the artistic professions.


things to consider:

Thinking about the connections between telepresence and Out of Body Experience (OoBE). Are telematics and telepresence a OoBE or simply a seductive simulation?

When are appropriate times and arenas to manifest conciousness outside the body? Why is prayer socially acceptable when participation in immersive media such as SL seems socially deprecated?

Let's consider Baudrillardian Simulacra. Do the terms of simulation/real or virtual/genuine have any currency left? Are they stubborn stains of a pre-Media paradigm?

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