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Imagine This, Imagine That
October 2009 features two important (unrelated) SL® events that use the word IMAGINE
   

THE SECOND LIFE® IMAGINE FESTIVAL
October 9—11, 2009
with
UTSA Art Space
 
click here for a schedule of events


Gamma Infinity created this activated entrance sculpture

The Imagine Festival includes an ambitious program of music, poetry, drama, and interactive experiences. It launches at Four Bridgesa new Imagine build by AuraKyo Insoo. It spans 10 sims, and coincides with the opening of the Imagine Peace Tower commissioned by Yoko Ono. The Tower will be unveiled and officially opened on Imagine Peace Island at 3:30pm SLT, Friday 9 October.

Also featured in this year's festival is a major build offered by UTSA (University of Texas at San Antonio). The UTSA's newly developed Art Space consists of a full-sim exploration of the seasons that incorporates the artistic impressions of a diverse group representing of  artists. Each of these artists have made contributions to one or more of the seasons that speak to the future of weather in a unique way.

Other creative journeys to be found in the Festival are; Africa Live, Tales and Legends of Africa, CHAMBER of our HEART, Undersea Mermaid Poetry, Pentagon of Peace by Netroots Nation, and CARP (Cybernetic Arts Research Project).

According to their Press Release, The Imagine Network works for a better world, with a focus on human rights, as well as social and environmental justice for all. They aim to identify the root causes of the larger toxic global problems facing us in order to help find solutions, and to help people act together in cooperation toward that goal.

ArtWorld Market was given an advance tour of the UTSA installation on October 8 by Gary Kohime, IMAGINE@UTSA Director. There are works by established SL artists like Alizarin Goldflake and Artistide Despres, as well as emerging artists.


Seasonal art from Alizarin Goldflake: a view from inside her activated sculpture "Immersive Art_Halloween Haloes."


Sun's Birth" by Ub Yifu reminds us of the influence of early Starax sculptures.

  THE IMAGINE CHALLENGE
THE FLAGSHIP CHALLENGE
October, 2009—August 2010
University of Western Australia


Competition entries on view at UWA

Jayjay Zifanwe, quadrapop Lane, and the University of Western Australia (UWA) team welcome visitors to the announcement of the September Monthly Winners of the UWA 3D Art & Design Challenge (IMAGINE & FLAGSHIP competitions). This will be held at 5am SLT, October 11, 2009 at the Art & Design Platform on WASP Land. If that's out of your time zone or you are reading this at a later date, keep reading! 

The challenges will run monthly through August 2010. Read on for how to enter the next challenge, or click here to teleport to their Second Life location.

There are 2 competitions running simultaneously, the IMAGINE challenge and the FLAGSHIP challenge. There are monthly prizes available separately for both, and the top 2 each month will go into the pool for the Grand Prize (which will have an expanded judging panel). You can enter as many times as you like or for any month that you choose. For the Imagine challenge there will also be a monthly prize for best non-scripted entry

THE IMAGINE CHALLENGE

In describing virtual worlds, it is often said, 'we are truly limited by only the imagination', and and that is the theme of this art challenge. The limits are the imagination. Create something that will take our breath away. Any form, any shape, any influence, any medium. Of this world, or the next! (size 100 prim)

Prizes will be offered to winners & runners-up every month till the 31st of August 2010. Grand Prize to be awarded at the end. Monthly winners & runners up to be displayed in the Second Life installation of the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, on the grounds of the University of Western Australia (UWA - this island). All winners COULD also be part of a real life (RL) exhibition of digital interactive art at the University of Western Australia in 2010.

IMAGINE PRIZES
Monthly Prize 3,500L (1st) 500L (2nd)
500L (Best non-Scripted entry)
Grand Prize 50,000L (1st) 10,000 (2nd)

THE FLAGSHIP CHALLENGE
Design the UWA Cultural Precinct Flagship Building

Design a building that captures the essence of creative engagement, which could possibly be built.

The University of Western Australia plans to build such a building in real life. It is to be called FUTURElab. FUTURElab will provide insights into the world we are shaping by putting a microscope on the research undertaken across the University. It will provide a showcase for the work of  SymbioticA for the architects and designers from UWA’s Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts who are exploring new possibilities for themselves and their communities and for those working with new and emerging technologies to shape our future. FUTURElab will incorporate a black box performance/screening environment, a science/art gallery and teaching and presentation space for a range of activities across campus. It will also provide a hub for the Creative Industries Innovation Centre (CIIC), of which UWA is a partner.

Prizes offered to winners & runners-up every month till the 31st of August 2010. Grand Prize to be awarded at the end. The winning entry, will be given a permanent location on the grounds of the SL grounds of the University of Western Australia. The winning entry may be considered as a possible baseline design for one of the actual buildings that will be built at the RL location of the expanding Cultural Precinct of the University of Western Australia. The creator of the building will be contacted to consult on how to turn the Second Life design, into reality.

FLAGSHIP PRIZES
Monthly Prize 3,500L (1st) 500L (2nd)
Grand Prize 50,000L (1st) 10,000 (2nd)

If you have missed any of our articles and reviews since December, 2006, many are archived in the Features section
Below are some Editor's Choices.

More Features

5th Annual Colloquium on the Law of Futuristic Persons

The above-titled conference will be held in the Second Life® virtual world on December 10, 2009. It is organized by Terasem Movement, Inc. a not-for-profit organization that also publishes two Terasem Journals. The focus is on the rights of people who will be revived from biostasis—cryogenic preservation of legally (but not irreversibly) dead or near-dead people waiting for a cure, and cyberstasis—people whose consciousness is preserved digitally. 

Does immersion in virtual reality involve similar legal issues? As the technology of personality archiving gets closer, VR citizens may opt to transition from DNA to silicon existence.  The legal/ethical issues they are dealing with might make you think of Arthur C. Clarke or Isaac Asimov, but relevance is relative, in light of current concerns about AI and FMRI

For example, one of the papers in the current issue of The Journal of Personal Cyberconsciousness is "Pros and Cons of Corporate Personhood for Transbemans" by Dr. Martine Rothblatt: "Dr. Rothblatt imposes the legal notions of corporate personhood upon transbemans or futuristic persons, specifically those who transition from flesh-ware to software, and may lack the traditional DNA based biological substrate."

There are over 20 issues of the above journal and their Journal of Geoethical Nanotechnology, with articles by prominent scientists, lawyers, psychologists, etc. in the Terasem online archive

If you would like to submit a paper for the conference, or have further interest in this, get in touch with the editor of the Journals,  Loraine J. Rhodes, either through the Contact link on their website or by IM in SL to Lori Darling.

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Arthole Radio Now Archived at Soundcloud

Arahan Claveau and Nebulosus Severine have a weekly series of radio programs to their Arthole project. In addition two shows by the two Arthole founders,  there is a segment by artist and critic Amy Freelunch, one of our favorite reviewers of art in the Second Life® virtual world 

Arthole Radio's one-hour shows are broadcast on the last Wednesday of every month, beginning at 1pm Second Life time (Pacific time):
Arahan Claveau - 1pm PDT (9pm GMT/4pm EDT)
Nebulosus Severine - 2pm PDT (10pm
GMT/5pm EDT)
Amy Freelunch - 3pm PDT (11pm GMT/6pm EDT)

Copy and paste this URL into your SL media player: http://slan13.ipr365.com:10320

The recordings now appear in the Soundcloud archive the next day.  If you missed the previous programs, many are at that archive.

For more about Arthole
and the current radio schedule, visit the Arthole blog. 

ArtWorld Market ALMANAC
Virtual Art Gallery Growth Flattens


chart courtesy of Sasun Steinbeck, data is updated monthly

The growth rate of art galleries in the Second Life® world has maintained a pattern of long term growth since 2006 that is nearly linear, with a few leveling off periods but no significant decline. The statistics are kept by Sasun Steinbeck, creator of the Art Gallery Owners Group. As the chart above makes graphically clear, the number of confirmed galleries stayed near 400 from the end of 2007 until May, 2008. Growth resumed and crossed the 500 mark in September. After November 1 the trend briefly reversed, but quickly recovered. The summer of 2009 saw a slight decline in the number of galleries, which hovered at about 650.
    Confirmed galleries must display the Art Galleries of Second Life Kiosk, which dispenses the gallery list and HUD that enables gallery goers to visit every gallery in the Group. This is an awesome tool if you have not used it, and is the best way to discover what hundreds of artists are currently doing. It is possible that the gallery growth rate continued during the flatline period, but was not apparent because new gallery owners had not become aware of the Group or had not configured their kiosk properly.

click here for the Art Gallery Map

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Free ArtWorld Market Report Download:
The Art World Market of Second Life
® (PDF)
Paper on the Business of Art in SL
presented at SLCC August 25, 2007
Over 1
8,000 downloads of this paper since then.


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HOW TO PRESERVE LARGE BUILDS

Following the disappearance of Zero Point [read the article], we have been looking into how residents of the Second Life virtual world can protect their assets. click here to read
how to preserve your virtual investment

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Visit the ArtWorld Market Artropolis Outpost

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Join the ArtWorld Market Report group in the Second Life world to receive notices of important developments.

©2009 Richard Minsky 

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