As Camille mentioned in the previous post, I’ve been higher than a kite (around 3000m), working on some new paintings for an upcoming show. Now, the very fact that I’m working at all is kind of exciting (at least to me:), since I had been suffering from an acute case of creative block-headedness lately. Suddenly all those blocks broke loose and the river began to flow like the headwaters of the Nile. Damn, I love this job.

What emerged after all those months was a kind of hybrid: I began to work on paintings which I called ‘microcomics’, single panel comics (tempted to say haiku here) which combine the elements of painting and comic book style with text, each of which could stand on its own merits as a singular work of art, or when gathered together as a group form a sort of non-linear narrative – scenes from an imagined world with the same cast of characters – plug and play stories for a world with a short attention span.

Then, while working on new ways to present these images, I came upon an interesting discovery…. having made multiple copies to experiment with, all of which were phantoms*, I was stunned to learn that when you pass two copies of the same image through each other, not only is the integrity of the original image retained from certain angles, but when you walk around it you discover entirely new versions, some nearly abstract in their jagged eruptions. It was a virtual 3D comic book/painting/billboard/sculpture, or something like that. Don’t know what it is, but I like it.

Seen in the very top photo (click to enlarge), from left to right: Soul Vamp; Shadowcaster; a tower built from the comic strip Sun Downer; and in the background, Sleeping Beauty and a wall made from a strip called Matinee Idle. The photo above is a night shot taken from another angle.

*Phantom is a setting which can be applied to any object, converting it into a virtual ghost. That is, although it is still visible it has none of the properties of a solid object; you can walk right through it, for instance, and in this case it can pass through other objects.

OK, this guy walks into an auto repair shop dressed as a woman to check on his twin sales guys who are standing behind the counter waiting to be tested for their rez speed. It just so happens that a friend is hanging around the shop and he asks sarcastically: hey, is your facelight bright enough? Not for me, (she) says; I can’t see a thing. Well, here, he says, I got a better one for you. So he gives (her) a new facelight, which looks like it may have been used to light up the Nurenberg rally for Leni Reifenstahl. Thanks, (she) says;  this oughta scare the papparazzi away. Yeah, they generally don’t do studio work, he says.

This is a (true) story. Bodies have been changed to protect the innocent.

“It’s been a long, long time coming,” as the man once sang, “but change is gonna come.” This particular change has been in the works for a long time here in the Chrome Zone, but now, it would appear, it is on the horizon: noted techno pop artist Manhattan Atlas has joined our growing team of troublemakers. Given the name, you might assume he’s from New York but, alas, you’d be wrong. He’s actually a native of Turkey, where his mother was born, but moved to America as a young man to attend art school. His father was a cabdriver in New York; thus, the colorful first name.

His primary interest is in digital painting from within virtual worlds with the intent of capturing the inner lives of their inhabitants, offering it as a mirror for humanity to catch a glimpse of its own foibles and frivolities. Manhattan has been Chrome’s virtual apprentice for the past year and a half, and now feels he is ready to venture out on his own. He’s begun a series of avatar portraits called Face/Time, and plans to have them ready for exhibition in the near future. Though it might be difficult to resist riding on Chrome’s coattails, he is determined to establish his reputation as an artist in his own right. He might even give Chrome a run for his money.

Photo: Manhattan with one of his new paintings, None of the Above. Click to enlarge.

It’s been nearly three years since I arrived at the immigration reception center in Second Life. By the time I took the shuttle over to Help Island wearing my new avatar getup I felt like I had discovered the New World, a virtual echo of my Irish forebears coming to America. At that moment I had no idea of the adventures awaiting me, and even now I’m amazed at how much of my soul has been poured into this place since then and, conversely, how much I’ve received in return.

Since that day I’ve devoted myself to probing the mysteries of the human/avatar interbeing through art, writing, and most importantly, through the creation of avatars (one of them seen above) – creatures who have evolved into fully-formed adults over time, much the way a child eventually does in First Life. Though I’ve approached this alternate reality from many angles and had innumerable discussions about the “identity issue”, it’s still the mystery of it all which I find most compelling. The virtual experience is tangible in many ways, and that’s enough to satisfy me. But, hey, I’m an artist, not a scientist.

One of the jokes that has been around from Linden Time immemorial is the notion that some day we’ll all be able to upload our brains to a database, link that data to our avatar and, voila! be rendered immortal. Though some may find that a horrifying prospect (Dr. Frankenstein comes to mind), I’ve always kind of liked the idea, perhaps because I’m so comfortable in my skin, even though it is store-bought. Now, it seems, attempts to bring that idea into reality have already begun in the physical world.

In the latest issue of New Scientist, Linda Geddes documents these wide-ranging efforts and brings to light a surprising amount of activity, some with mixed success and all in the most rudimentary stages. Though I’m sure there will be as many opinions of this quest as there are individual human databases, just speaking for myself and my avatar, I’m prepared to dump all my data into that dude even if he only becomes a reasonable facsimile of me; hell, it sure beats those old home movies. Then again, they might just stick me up in the attic as well.

Read Immortal Avatars: Back up your brain, never die, at New Scientist magazine

Above: Camille Topaz; photo by Chrome Underwood, a reasonable facsimile of Mick Brady

The year is 1998. Thom Yorke, lead singer for the rock band Radiohead, sits exhausted in the hallway of a Tokyo hotel. He’s nearing the end of a promotional tour for his new album, OK Computer, and director Grant Gee is recording his every move for the documentary film, Meeting People is Easy. In this scene he’s also being shot by a swarm of Japanese photographers, looking for all the world like a man standing in front of a firing squad. In a sense, he is.

Two of the photos taken at that instant become the basis of a magazine spread. Tracing it from the beginning, this is the journey those images have taken through the maze of media that make up our postmodern lives…

1. The Real Moment occurs.

2. Japanese photographers capture his image in that moment.

3. Grant Gee’s cameramen capture both Thom and the photographers.

4. In the interim, two of the photos become part of a magazine spread.

5. The film containing the magazine spread is shown on the Independent Film Channel.

6. I photograph the televised image of the magazine spread with my iPhone.

7. I upload the photo to my laptop.

8. I then upload the image to the virtual world of Second Life.

9. I place the image on a virtual canvas and hang it on the virtual wall of my virtual studio, then sit back in my virtual Eames chair and listen to OK Computer while reveling in the wonders of modern technology. Happy St. Patrick’s Day.

Just read an exquisite post by Dusan Writer which captures perfectly the power of imagination and the magic of the metaverse, a tribute to the creator in all of us. It brought to mind a moment which occurred recently while working on a panel for my webcomic. I suddenly realized I was living in a virtual world – a world full of serendipity yet layered with meaning, a universe of the imagination – and that it had become completely ‘natural’ to me. I was no longer in a foreign country; it actually felt like home.

That, I suppose, is one of the greatest things about being an artist…. to be able to spend one’s days marveling at the wonders of creation and then to pass a bit of that magic on to someone else. Nice work if you can get it. Thanks for the reminder, Dusan.

Jumped into machinima big time yesterday, not only overcoming my fear of working in three dimensions, but throwing time, space and sound into the mix. Since we’ve been recording our first original tune in real life this week, Botgirl and I have also begun discussing the music video we’ll be using to introduce it to the world. Since  my digital paintings were to be incorporated in some way, I finally realized I’d have to go in there myself and experiment with the medium hands on, in order to get the full sense of how it should look and feel.

I decided, at least for the sake of experimentation, that I’d put together one of my art cubes using my most recent paintings, and set up a brief shoot with Camille on guitar and myself on drums. Then I downloaded several machinima (screen capture) software programs and began to try them out, one by one. The programs were Camtasia, fraps, and jing… in each case, the free – and, I should also add, limited – versions.

Though I wasn’t able to do some of the more important things, like pan, zoom, select and frame – nor did I get around to editing; this is raw footage – I concentrated mainly on the look and feel of the scene, using lighting and atmosphere, much as I would in my paintings; then I shot the film in HD. I also had to settle for streaming audio on my sim since my software skills are limited in this medium, and I didn’t have any editing software (I’m sure you veteran machinamators out there are chuckling at this). One of the clips, if you care to check it out, can be seen on vimeo. Fyi, this particular clip was shot in fraps.