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University of Western Australia

THE IMAGINE CHALLENGE
THE FLAGSHIP CHALLENGE

Continue with monthly competitions in the Second Life® virtual world
through August 2010

IJayjay Zifanwe, quadrapop Lane, and the University of Western Australia (UWA) team welcome submissions to what has become one of the most interesting art competitions in the Second Life® virtual world.

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.

click here to read more about it.

  REVIEW

First Life to Second Life
 by Philip Mallory Jones
(aka SL Jacque Quijote)

We selected the work of Jacque Quijote "In the Sweet Bye & Bye" as a "Pick of the Week" in May, 2007, and featured this work in our 2007 print monograph, The Second Life® Art World. Now Mr. Jones has written an extensive illustrated essay on his development of immersive technology art, beginning with his first Heathkit quartz crystal radio receiver as a youth in the 1950s. It is required reading for anyone interested in the creative process.

The essay, "First Life to Second Life: Notes on the Design and Development of a Synthetic World Installation, In The Sweet Bye & Bye: An Immersive Memoir:" can be read online at the website of Ohio University's Aesthetic Technologies Lab, where Philip Mallory Jones  is Artist in Residence.

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

The Law of Futuristic Persons

The Terasem Movement, Inc. a not-for-profit organization that 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 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.

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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. 

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Visit the ArtWorld Market Artropolis Outpost

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 18,000 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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Join the ArtWorld Market Report group in the Second Life world to receive notices of important developments.

©2010 Richard Minsky 

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