UWA Artists’ Choice ChallengesAn exhibition series of original digital art in a virtual world

AirFreeWee Ling, curator

UWA Studies in Virtual Arts | August 2012 | Volume 1, Number 4

ISSN: 2200-7865 (Print) ISSN: 2200-7873 (Online)

UWA Studies in Virtual ArtsAugust 2012Volume 1, Number 4

ISSN 2200-7865 (Print) ISSN: 2200-7873 (Online) http://uwainsl.blogspot.com/p/uwa-studies-in-virtual-arts.html

Jay Jay Jegathesan (SL pseudonym: JayJay Zifanwe), Project Director, Co-curatorD. A. Newton (SL pseudonym: FreeWee Ling), UWA Honorary Research Fellow, Lead Curator, and General Editor

Copyright © 2012 by D.A. Newton. All rights to the original works depicted are owned by their respective creators, and images thereof are used by their permission. All text and images by D.A. Newton/FreeWee Ling unless otherwise noted.

Contact:Jay Jay JegathesanSchool of PhysicsThe University of Western Australia (M013)35 Stirling HighwayCrawley WA 6009AustraliaEmail: jay.jay@uwa.edu.au

UWA Studies in Virtual Arts comprise exhibition catalogues, special editions, and monographs on the arts in virtual worlds. Focus is especially upon the 3D art competi-tions held at UWA’s virtual campus in Second Life.

CitationContributors retain intellectual property rights to their material and may re-publish it provided that UWA SiVA is acknowledged as the original place of publication. Material in UWA SiVA may be reproduced in whole or in part for non-profit use for the purposes of education research, library reference, or stored and/or distributed as a public service by any networked computer. Any commercial use of this journal in whole or in part by any means is strictly prohibited without written permission. Any use of this journal in whole or in part should include customary bibliographic citation.

“Second Life®”and “Linden Lab®” are trademarks of Linden Research, Inc. The univer-sity of Western Australia and UWA SiVA are not affiliated with or sponsored by Linden Research.

ContentsIntroduction

The Work

2012 is the third year of 3D virtual art challenges at the University of Western Australia’s virtual gallery in Second Life® (SL™). Through these competitions, UWA in SL is recognized worldwide as one of the most imporant ven-ues for the presentation of virtual arts.

This year we feature two separate and non-concurrent art challenges: the UWA 3D Artists’ Choice Challenges, and the UWA Centenary 3D Art Challenge. From January through March and August through December, we will feature monthly sponsored theme challenges, beginning with the January theme of “3D Self Portraits,” followed in February by “Perfume,” March “Music,” and August with “Air” as shown in this issue of UWA SiVA. From April through July we held a single major open com-petition in celebration of the Centenary of UWA, with L$550,000 Lindens (about $2200 USD) in art prizes and L$775,000 ($3,400 USD) for “MachinimUWA V,” a re-lated animated film competition.

For the UWA Artists’ Choice challenges, a different theme is announced each month, but the core theme is personal expression. We want the artists to use this as an opportunity to explore some aspect of their personality, not only as a creative artist, but also as a critical observer.

An essential difference in these shows is the judging. When artists submit an entry they agree to serve also as a judge for the prize awards. Thus the awards are deter-mined by the recipients’ colleagues, making this a unique process of consensus among peers rather than a critical adjudication by an outside panel.

As with most UWA challenges, participation is open to anyone and no qualification is required. There are techni-cal limits to the number of parts contained in an object and to server load. There is no size limit except to the extent that it impedes our ability to show other work or impacts other activities of the university. We accomo-date video and audio media streaming, sound and light

emitters, motion scripting, etc. Often we are confronted with work that presents special difficulties in presenting it properly. But we do whatever we can within reason to work with artsts to support their visions.

For the fourth round of the UWA Artists’ Choice Chal-lenge we turn to the ethereal element called “air.”

The artists were given the following contextual statement:

This begins a series of elemental themes, to continue next month with “water,” and followed by “fire.” The subject of air has inspired works relating to bouyancy, wind, and, more intimately, breath.

We want to acknowledge the generosity of our patrons and sponsors for this year’s projects:

• Jay Jay Jegathesan (JayJay Zifanwe), Prof. Ted Snell, and the University of Western Australia

• Flora Nordenskiold for Nordan om Jorden• Fiona Blaylock and artFiona• Armany Thursday and Dyce Underwood for DNA

Art and Music Fusion• Eliza Wierwight and Patron• Cherry Manga and Anley Piers for Mysterious Wave• Ginger Alsop and Phi Designs• Zachh Cale and projectZ

Introduction

Theme for August: “Air”

That invisible stuff that makes life possible. The stuff you’re breathing. The stuff in your tires. The stuff that lets us fly (in rl) kites and airplanes. The stuff that knocks down trees in a tornado. What has air done for you lately? Make something ineffable!

The Work

There were 21 entries by 19 artists (including 2 collaborations):

Aquaglo and MellyDee Macfanatic ~ Air = Life

Barry Richez ~ Body Fan SECOND PLACE AWARD

PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD

Barry Richez ~ On Air

Brice Bonetto ~ Organized Chaos

Chic Aeon ~ Independence or Anarchy

Corcosman Voom ~ Mountain Air

Dragon Lord ~ Hera’s temple of the Wind

Fae Varriale ~ On the Breath of the Wind FIRST PLACE

Finn Lanzius ~ The Vortex Machine

FreeWee Ling ~ Crosswinds

FreeWee Ling ~ Grasswinds

Gleman Jun ~ The sound of the color

Hypatia Pickens ~ The Missed Room

Hypatia Pickens ~ Learning to Breathe

Jessie Leahy ~ Albertiana Air Plant Flute Garden

Letty Luckstone ~ Like the Air I Breathe

Secret Rage ~ Words in the Air NON-SCRIPTED AWARD

Secret Rage ~ AirFaire

Silene Christen ~ Quantum state of an air particle

Tyrehl Byk and Ultraviolet Alter ~ The Flavor of Things Unseen THIRD PLACE AWARD

Ush Underwood ~ Avatar me

* As in previous challenges, curator FreeWee Ling elected to withdraw from prize consideration, but remains a participant in the exhibitions.

MellyDee MacFanatic & Aquaglo ~ AIR = Life, We must save Momma Earth, She is watching .....

“Mr Dee and I, have been friends / sim partners / and he has been my machima and 3d art mentor now for nearly a year.”

Barry Richez ~ Body FanSECOND PLACE AWARDPEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD

Barry shows us a kinetic tableau of figures dealing with a giant fan. Some are hanging on while others work to disable the machine.

Barry Richez ~ On Air

“On Air” is a deceptively featureless black cylinder from the outside, but quickly shifts paradigms as you enter the space wherein a maelstrom is in full force.

Brice Bonetto ~ Organized Chaos

“I like to do creative stuff. I'm mostly inspired by nature and math, the math in nature that is! I consider Art to be mankind's gift to itself.”

Brice works with meticulously animated textures on sculpted prims to create remarkable geometrical effects.

Chic Aeon ~ Independence or Anarchy

“Where is the dividing line between independence and anarchy? Can we be free and true to ourselves without losing sight of purpose and the needs of society? Perhaps the truest test is how others see us -- and more importantly how we WANT them to see us.”

Corcosman Voom ~ Mountain Air

I’m never quite sure what it is I like about Corcosman’s work. He has a fine sense of line. But there’s more. Always something more than meets the eye. This piece shifts colors in the sun.

~FreeWee Ling

Dragon Lord ~ Hera's temple of the Wind

“Inside the chamber it’s an octahedron shape representing according to Ancient Greeks the element Air, inside this octahedron is the molecular representation of air.”

Fae's evocative piece "On the Breath of the Wind" seemed to perfectly express the idea of the ethereal element of air and received the First Place award. When informed of the result, Fae gasped, "OMG!! Thanks! I never expected that lol. My first mesh :) ...There were some really lovely entries."

Fae Varriale ~ On the Breath of the WindFIRST PLACE AWARD

Finn Lanzius ~ The Vortex Machine

Finn’s machine has no obvious function but to suck the viewer into a whirlwind. But it does so with a certain understated panache.

Crosswinds ~ FreeWee Ling

“I’ve been playing a lot with SL wind lately. Winds are convenient random vector generators. I use them to affect color, rotation, scale -- anything that can use them. I like the idea that there are invisible processes happening around us. Makes it somehow more like real life.”

FreeWee Ling ~ Wind in the Grass

“Among the few things that are actually affected by ambient winds in SL are flexible prims and particle effects. Here I use the wind vectors to script color and lighting, but the motions of the grass and particles are unscripted wind effects.”

Gleman Jun ~ The sound of the color

This is a large set of sphere segments that rotate randomly around a hollow core. The piece sat above the gallery with a transporter to take the viewer inside, where there is a cloud of confetti and waves of eerie humming sounds.

Hypatia Pickens ~ Learning to Breathe

Hypatia Pickens ~ Learning to Breathe

“Learning to Breathe" seemed an appropriate work of art for this exhibit about air. Few stages of our evolution seem more crucial than the earliest life developing lungs and leaving the sea for the land. I'm experimenting with open sculptures made with prims. The water moves with a texture I painted of trees against a sky.”

Hypatia Pickens ~ The Missed Room

“The Missed Room” is both a place of mist and a place where you miss yourself because your thoughts are in the clouds, making structure out of insubstantial things. I’ve textured this room with drawings I’ve made with pencil and watercolor, in which I sought out as many strange figures and creatures I could see in the paint. I relied upon the “errors” of transparency in Second Life, whereby translucent images fight for position in your viewer, giving the visitor shifting patterns as he or she walks by. The turning globe in the center is the substantial eye reading the book with its poem, and the panels are the world of birds and clouds and transformations it takes you to.

Jessie Leahy ~ Albertiana Air Plant Flute Garden (a playable musical instrument)

“The plants in this piece grow without the need of soil and are referred to as air plants. This particular species tends to grow on rocky cliffs and is called Albertiana. In RL it is much smaller than I have created it here (generally around 5 cm). It does grow with the leaves in this configuration...

“Rather than just doing the air plant garden, I added in the flute aspect. It was an instrument I played as a child, so I have a strong connection to its woodwind sounds. Since certain mu-sic makes my spirit soar, I added the animated hover sit to the Garden Floor. I put in the little particle notes to give it just one more element of air. I decided to make it an interactive piece (rather than just have it play a song), so that the viewer has a more personalized experience with it. This way, the viewer can search for their own inner music that makes their spirit soar!”

Letty Luckstone ~ Like the Air I Breathe

Letty gives us a simple but poignant scene of love under a flowering wisteria.

Secret Rage ~ AirFaire

“Walk up the base to the inside of the orb...turn off your ao...touch any flying insect to be auto-seated...then travel freely in the air along with the butterflies and the subtle scent of flowers....”

Secret Rage ~ Words in the AirNON-SCRIPTED AWARD

“Upon pondering the theme "AIR" my mind wandered to all the things involved with AIR, both good and bad ...and how many of them could be followed by the words "in the air". When I started my list of them ...it grew and grew and grew~and I saw them as a project in their own right. Though the ones seen here are a good representation of those words, they are ( by all means ) not all of them. As you read these, I feel sure you will think of many more ...”

Silene Christen ~ Quantum state of an air particle

Silene gives us a scene of randomly swirling windsocks, seemingly ftozen, but with plasma trails excited among them. “I love the conceptual part of the life, so my works try to investigate that part.”

Tyrehl Byk + Ultraviolet Alter ~ The Flavor of Things UnseenTHIRD PLACE AWARD

The Third Place Award went to another wonderful creation by particle master Tyrehl Byk with a subtle but profound aural environment of wind and voices designed by the talented sound artist Utraviolet Alter. This team seems to work beautifully together as previously demonstrated by their joint entry in the recent UWA Centenary Challenge where they took Second Prize overall. The major focus of Tyrehl’s work involves the manipulation of particles into a variety of forms. He has produced performance art pieces, stand alone interactive sculptural pieces, and large scale sim installations. The underlying thread is the engagement of the viewer in a process that assists in the unfolding of the work. By creating a framework within which a viewer can participate, a work can open up to endless variations of ebb and flow.

Ush Underwood ~ Avatar me

Ush gives us a sort of cubist self portrait the the avatar twisted and turned inside out.