Wow. This is amazing. Chrome actually loosened his grip on this blog site and graciously (though belatedly) allowed me to jot down my own thoughts here. Interesting, because I know for a fact that he was confronted by a very good friend recently about his intellectual and artistic perfectionism, and advised to lighten up a bit, goddam it! and join the neohuman race. Love ya, Mr. Underwood.

That’s a photo of me at the staging platform high above his gallery at Avant Garde, where he’s been assembling some of his new work, which includes 3-dimensional walk-through versions of his comic strips, and a new form he calls ‘microcomics‘, in which he tries to capture an entire mood, idea and even a hint of narrative in a single image.

I happen to appear in many of these new microcomics, for some reason, so I thought I’d stop by and check them out. Hey, I havta tell ya, I could get used to seeing my face the size of a billboard; makes me feel like a movie star. I might even begin angling for an extra five or ten minutes of this fame thing. It sure would be a nice gesture by the new, looser and freer, Chrome Underwood, dontcha think?

The work above is being prepared for the upcoming show at Caerleon, the Ambiguity of Identity, which opens in September. Details to follow.

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.

I had just finished writing this post yesterday…. well, actually, the one I had written yesterday; this one is completely different… and just as I finished, the damn page froze and the whole thing disappeared. Odd indeed, since I hadn’t posted in a while (creative slump ya know); so it felt somehow like the gods were not at all pleased with what I had written.

Too frustrated to start over again, I picked up my Ross MacDonald mystery and went out on the back deck to read. As soon as I opened the book, though, a squadron of gardeners launched a full-out ground assault on my next door neighbor’s greenery – hedge trimmers, lawn mowers, leaf blowers – man, those gods were pissed. So, I put the book away and took my dog for a walk. Fortunately the coyote we ran into just looked at us and walked away. The coast must be clear by now; let’s try this again.

I think the problem might have been that photo up there; they probably thought we were taking over the metaverse, when we were actually just holding one of our many meetings for the upcoming Ambiguity of Identity exhibit at the Caerleon sim. The show is a virtual followup to the rl show held last April at the UMass gallery in Boston, the brainchild of Dr. Gary Zabel aka Georg Janik, and the embodiment of some of the ideas put forth in his upcoming book by the same name. His work has been cited on the blog site of the PBS documentary series, Art21, along with an interview with one of the artists, Artistide Despres.

So, now that all of that confusion about who runs the world has been straightened out, I’ll finish by naming the demigods shown in the photo above and some of the other artists in the exhibit, which will be held in September, details pending. From left to right: Pete Jiminy, freewee Ling, Fuschia Nightfire, Chrome WhatsHisName, Botgirl Questi, Gracie Kendal and Maya Paris. Participating artists also include Alizarin Goldflake, Cat Bocaccio, L1aura Loire, Lollito Larkham, RAG Rant, Sabrinaa Nightfire, Swann Jie, Taralyn Gravois and Wotthe Dickins.

Hey, maybe we do run the world.

“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 old studio was empty. I had arrived at a dead end, creatively speaking, and it was time to move on.

I needed a new base, a new safe house, a new concrete bunker – high in the sky, far from the pain of rl and the frustrations of the virtual world below. After a brief but thorough search, I came upon a straightforward piece of postmodern architecture; dark on the inside, light on the outside, matching the current state of my soul. I rezzed a beat-up old leather couch, hunkered down and began staring at the concrete walls. It felt pretty good. I was safe. I was in a new place, with new possibilities. I soaked in the silence, the solitude, the emptiness. I was getting ready for the next stage of my journey.

I had filled the past few years with a frenzy of activity: creating a pretty decent body of digital paintings; joining forces with several virtual galleries and holding dozens of exhibits; collaborating with other artists on several projects, creating a virtual comic strip series, yada yada yada.. But the part that did me in was the building of a new website to gather all my creative activities under one big tent, including a gallery, the webcomic, this blog and several other sideshows. It felt good, but by the time I was finished, I was finished. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t create. I couldn’t even think. It was time to rest.

Once I was done savoring all those many layers of sweet silence, though, I began to wonder…. if I were to stay here for a while, would I bring anything in to make it feel more like home? An interesting question, since the emptiness seemed so comforting and, after all, what is home but a source of comfort? Since I couldn’t imagine where to begin or whether I even wanted to, I finally decided I would put the question before each of my avatars – my alts – and let them decide whether or what they wanted to hang on the walls or scatter around the floors. What happened next is a fascinating study of the fluidity of the human mind… what I call the liquid self.

to be continued…..

Great post by Hamlet Au on New World Notes about our good friend DB Bailey’s Cleopatra Water Courts project, in both Second Life and, you know… the other one. We’ve been following this for a while, and have even posted on it here at CNS. No doubt about it, DB is a pioneer in the use of virtual technology in the creation of real world architecture, and Hamlet’s post and additional links provide an impressive glimpse into the scope and potential impact of that work. Can’t wait to see the finished product nestled on the banks of the Nile.. the real one, that is. Congrats, DB! (sound of virtual champagne glasses clinking in the background)

Reached another milestone today, and it’s a biggie. Of course, it goes without saying that if it’s a milestone it automatically qualifies as a biggie, but I”ll say it anyway. Said biggie is the launch of my first print from a limited edition of digital paintings – or more accurately, digital collages -at Nash Editions in Los Angeles (that’s in the real world, by the way). The first one to roll off the press will be a copy of Bang (yep, that’s it up there), an ab-ex work from my pre-sl days (2006) and will soon be hanging in the home of a prominent architect in San Francisco, who also happens to be a well-known builder and entrepreneur in Second Life.

Nash editions, founded in the 90s by Graham Nash of Crosby Stills and an occasional Young, is one of the most respected digital giclee houses in the country. I once spent some time babbling away with him about digital imaging at a conference in New York when he was just getting into the business. He’s had a long and serious relationship with photography himself, and was one of the first to catch the vision of the future of digital photography. Suffice it to say that I’m pretty damn excited that they’ll be producing my work in the real world and, hey, this is only the beginning.

I’ve long wanted to launch this series, but have been noodling away at a million other things, like building my web gallery, making art – stuff like that….. and now my good friend Patch has given me a timely nudge. Thanks, man; I needed that.

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.

Lest I lose track of my original intent in all of this, I want to return to the font, the source – the tree of beauty. I am merely an artist, after all, and despite all the razzle-dazzle of technology, it is the song and cry of the human heart that I am striving to capture and express here; without that, I become just another sounding brass or tinkling cymbal. But here we are, like it or not; that song and cry is now being pumped through God’s tinny little speakers, heard ’round the world.

Photo above: Chrome in front of new digital mural, Orbit.