second life dramas

Seems a little childish to me.
If it was in the real world you would be arrested for vandalism.
Create your own playground.


> From: Salvatore Iaconesi <[email protected]>
> Reply-To: Salvatore Iaconesi <[email protected]>
> Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2007 18:57:56 -0400
> To: <[email protected]>
> Subject: RHIZOME_RAW: second life dramas
>
> an ordinary day…
>
> aaaahhhh.. polygons…
>
> sorry for the spelling.. live chat
>
> [13:27] Sugar Seville: (Saved Sat Oct 06 18:42:16 2007) I am banning you from
> this region
> [13:27] Sugar Seville: (Saved Sat Oct 06 18:42:37 2007) and reporting you for
> leaving these objects
> [13:27] Sugar Seville: (Saved Sat Oct 06 22:26:58 2007) your objects were
> crashing the sim
> [13:27] Sugar Seville: (Saved Sat Oct 06 22:27:26 2007) and you covered an
> other artists work in your objects
> [13:27] Sugar Seville: that isn't funny or artistic
> [13:27] Sugar Seville: its childish, selfish, and destructive
> [13:28] xDxD Plante: :)
> [13:28] xDxD Plante: it's your opinion
> [13:28] xDxD Plante: it's not mine
> [13:28] Sugar Seville: your opinion doesnt count - why should i respect you
> if you dont respect me?
> [13:29] xDxD Plante: you see.. art is not like you're the best at doing brush
> strokes.. it's about making statements of some kind
> [13:29] xDxD Plante: that's a thing that's missing in SL
> [13:29] xDxD Plante: i'm sorry for the trouble, believe me, but i'm not sorry
> for the statement
> [13:30] Sugar Seville: if you're trying to make a statement that you want
> people to respond to , try puting some thought into it
> [13:30] xDxD Plante: there's loads of thought behind my squatting your sim :)
> [13:30] xDxD Plante: if you don't see it it's your problem, more than mine
> [13:31] Sugar Seville: loading a sim up with scripted objects that deface
> another artists work and cause the server to malfunction is just simple
> mindless griefing
> [13:31] Sugar Seville: the act of a 12 year old
> [13:32] Sugar Seville: and not of any interest to me, or to anyone else
> [13:32] xDxD Plante: well, i guess, then, that you think the same about
> street art, and about pollock, and about manzoni's shit, etcetera etcetera
> [13:32] xDxD Plante: shows lot of culture on your side.. does it..
> [13:33] Sugar Seville: i wouldn't put yourself in the category of any real
> artists
> [13:33] Sugar Seville: you delude your self
> [13:33] xDxD Plante: :)
> [13:33] xDxD Plante: wow, an art critic
> [13:33] Sugar Seville: but that's your right
> [13:33] xDxD Plante: you know what.. do as you wish, report me
> [13:33] Sugar Seville: to live your own delusion
> [13:33] xDxD Plante: don't bother me
> [13:34] xDxD Plante: i have my statements you have yours
> [13:34] xDxD Plante: let ourselves be
> [13:34] xDxD Plante: if i ever buy an island, i'll invite you to fill it up
> with shit
> [13:35] Sugar Seville: im not interested - the world is already full of shit
> [13:35] xDxD Plante: i think taht all that art (portal apart) is just a
> technical showoff,and that there is no real sense in it
> [13:35] Sugar Seville: that might be because you are senseless?
> [13:35] xDxD Plante: i do lots of things that i don't have to account for..
> you don't have a clue.. get back o your prim artists
> [13:35] xDxD Plante: :)
> [13:36] xDxD Plante: just a curiosity: what do you like in contemporary art?
> [13:36] Sugar Seville: so you think making art has no accountability?
> [13:36] xDxD Plante: if art had accountability, contemporary art from duchamp
> onward wuldn't exist
> [13:37] Sugar Seville: afraid to stand behind the piles of shit that you
> make?
> [13:37] Sugar Seville: i would be - if i were you
> [13:37] xDxD Plante: i didn't get that.. afraid of what?
> [13:37] Sugar Seville: you should be ashamed of yourself
> [13:37] xDxD Plante: i even posted pictures on the odyssey website
> [13:37] Sugar Seville: afraid to be accountable
> [13:38] Sugar Seville: you said you dont feel you have to account for
> [13:38] xDxD Plante: oh come on… take text serously
> [13:39] xDxD Plante: i don't have to do things for people's liking.. that was
> the meaning for my sentence…
> [13:39] xDxD Plante: i have to do things that communicate what i think i have
> to communicat
> [13:39] xDxD Plante: (and BTW sorry for the missing letters.. i'm on a
> vintage computer right now)
> [13:40] xDxD Plante: yu didn't answer my question: what do you like in
> contemporary art?
> [13:41] Sugar Seville: well, the fact is, you interfered with two works :the
> one you defaced, and the live performance piece, by crashing the server
> [13:41] Sugar Seville: I dont have time to answer your questions
> [13:41] xDxD Plante: and hw did i manage to do that :) maybe because his SL
> thing is just crap?
> [13:42] Sugar Seville: you overloaded the server with scripts
> [13:42] xDxD Plante: and that artistic expressions are in most cses boring
> techincal showoffs with no feeling nor sensoriality to them
> [13:42] xDxD Plante: that is my statement
> [13:42] xDxD Plante: :)
> [13:43] Sugar Seville: your a critic, but I wouldnt delude yourself into
> thinking you're an artist
> [13:43] xDxD Plante: some cases apart, art is useless. hyperformalism is 20
> years back from contemporary art.. it's out of time
> [13:44] xDxD Plante: :) i'm no critic … i just say what i think
> [13:44] xDxD Plante: and for the rest … you know. …
> [13:45] xDxD Plante: do you know how pollock's paintings were greeted?
> [13:45] xDxD Plante: or duchmp's?
> [13:45] xDxD Plante: i'm ot saying that i'm either one of them.. i'm asking
> to know if you know about art
> [13:45] Sugar Seville: yes, and i know how Stravinsky's work wsa greeted
> [13:45] Sugar Seville: you are not on the same level little boy
> [13:46] xDxD Plante: why do you keep sayng that? you0re quite unpolite, may i
> point out
> [13:47] xDxD Plante: i'm trying (and i don't know why) a polite nteresting
> discussion nd you keep on sayin stupid stuff
> [13:47] Sugar Seville: i'm not usually unpolite
> [13:47] xDxD Plante: of how you got mad at my little experiment
> [13:47] xDxD Plante: so what? do you think you matter?
> [13:47] xDxD Plante: well, good for you
> [13:47] Sugar Seville: you were unpolite to begin with
> [13:47] xDxD Plante: no you were! :)
> [13:48] xDxD Plante: come on, can you keep this up?
> [13:48] xDxD Plante: do you want me to say i'm sorry
> [13:48] xDxD Plante: i won't
> [13:48] Sugar Seville: you were the one that dumped a pile of junk
> [13:48] xDxD Plante: my pile of junk is an atistic statement
> [13:48] xDxD Plante: if you want i'll explain
> [13:48] xDxD Plante: if you dont wnt an explanation… well.. speaks for
> yoruself
> [13:49] Sugar Seville: you can explain yourself, but what's the poit? You
> failed in your attempt to make art. I t communicated nothing of value to
> anyone
> [13:49] Sugar Seville: except maybe yourself
> [13:50] xDxD Plante: have you spoken with many people about it? did they
> speak to me for explanations?
> [13:50] Sugar Seville: and now I am rewarding you with a response
> [13:50] xDxD Plante: maybe we should have a roundtable
> [13:50] Sugar Seville: which is I guess all you want
> [13:50] xDxD Plante: maybe we should freak out and scream
> [13:50] xDxD Plante: no, i actually have loads of stuff to do.. but if you
> don't get it i'll be happy to explain
> [13:50] Sugar Seville: hope you're satisfied
> [13:51] xDxD Plante: satisfied? yes! i made my statement!
> [13:51] Sugar Seville: as it stands, you are banned from this region. You are
> the first person I have had to ban since the region first opened in december
> [13:52] xDxD Plante: well, isn't it nice you have to start from me.. as i
> said.. there's little art in SL
> [13:52] Sugar Seville: if you wish to make a statement about what you did and
> propose it as a work of art
> [13:52] Sugar Seville: I invite you
> [13:52] Sugar Seville: to send it to me in a notecard
> [13:52] Sugar Seville: with documentaion of your work
> [13:52] Sugar Seville: in photo
> [13:52] Sugar Seville: and I will present it
> [13:52] Sugar Seville: to the group
> [13:52] Sugar Seville: and if they vote to let you back
> [13:53] Sugar Seville: you can come back
> [13:53] xDxD Plante: sorry, dont have notecards in real life… never will i
> in second one… i do similar things in real life, you know…
> [13:53] Sugar Seville: if you dont want to use the system, then dont
> [13:53] xDxD Plante: there's loads of places i do stuff in… i just happened
> to get the announcement of teh gate and decided to drop by
> [13:53] Sugar Seville: you wont be missed
> [13:54] Sugar Seville: i'm giving you the chance to explain yourself
> [13:54] xDxD Plante: oh, well…. i guess i'll just have to live without
> it…
> [13:54] Sugar Seville: thats the best I can do
> [13:55] xDxD Plante: you know what.. ill explain in Real life.. it is more
> significative
> [13:56] xDxD Plante: or, better, i'll make a painting out of the explanation,
> and put it under a bridge, somewhere in europe, and i'll give you the
> coordinates, so that you can teleport there
> [13:56] xDxD Plante: you know.. your etting so mad is really significant for
> my work.. thanks
> [13:56] Sugar Seville: why dont you print out this conversation and pin it to
> your painting as well
> [13:56] Sugar Seville: im not mad
> [13:57] xDxD Plante: mad, angry… how do you say it
> [13:57] Sugar Seville: im not angry
> [13:57] xDxD Plante: bored, pissed off?
> [13:57] Sugar Seville: just responding to what you put out
> [13:57] xDxD Plante: exquisitely interested?
> [13:57] Sugar Seville: not really
> [13:59] xDxD Plante: ok, then.. so the agreement is: i make a painting with
> this chat, explanations on he side, i place it somewhere under a bridge in
> europe, give you coordinates and you teleport.
> [13:59] xDxD Plante: happy?
> [13:59] Sugar Seville: sounds wonderful
> [13:59] Sugar Seville: you probably will fare better in a world you
> understand
> [13:59] xDxD Plante: perfect! best of luck! did you see that movie.. the one
> whre the guy invented teleport.. and a fly got in it, and he transformed….
> whach out!
> [14:00] xDxD Plante: oh, man.. you soud like silvester stallone
> [14:00] xDxD Plante: you're so dramatic
> [14:00] Sugar Seville: : )
> [14:00] xDxD Plante: byebye
> [14:00] Sugar Seville: bye bye
> +
> -> post: [email protected]
> -> questions: [email protected]
> -> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
> +
> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php

Good point….but I guess it would all depend on if Odyssey a free for all
collaboration zone or if its someone's art project in secondlife that they
have dedicated time and effort to produce and now need to spend more time
and effort to fix your alterations. I say do it in real life if you really
want to be avant garde.


> From: salvatore iaconesi <[email protected]>
> Reply-To: <[email protected]>
> Date: Sun, 07 Oct 2007 02:27:40 +0200
> To: Lee Wells <[email protected]>
> Cc: Rhizome <[email protected]>
> Subject: Re: RHIZOME_RAW: second life dramas
>
> Lee Wells ha scritto:
>> Seems a little childish to me.
>> If it was in the real world you would be arrested for vandalism.
>> Create your own playground.
>>
>>
>
> directly from your website:
>
> "My opinion is that new needs need new techniques." - Jackson Pollock

Lets just say I would rather hear you modified the IBM Plaza in SL than
caused trouble within a local creative autonomous zone.

I don't believe Marcel Duchamp ever vandalized other artists works.
What Pierre Pinoncelli did to the urinal last year with the hammer was and
now he is stuck having to deal with over $200,000 in fines.
Will he make the dada history books? Maybe…

All in all its a negative in my opinion.



> From: salvatore iaconesi <[email protected]>
> Reply-To: <[email protected]>
> Date: Sun, 07 Oct 2007 02:56:57 +0200
> To: Lee Wells <[email protected]>
> Cc: Rhizome <[email protected]>
> Subject: Re: RHIZOME_RAW: second life dramas
>
> Lee Wells ha scritto:
>> Good point….but I guess it would all depend on if Odyssey a free for all
>> collaboration zone or if its someone's art project in secondlife that they
>> have dedicated time and effort to produce and now need to spend more time
>> and effort to fix your alterations. I say do it in real life if you really
>> want to be avant garde.
>>
>
>
> and maybe i do. have a doubt?
>
> just a point i need to assess: either you embrace a perspective or you
> don't.
>
> the "immaterial" brings on concepts. It is plain narrow-minded to take
> only the things you like.
> it's like liking water because it quenches your thirst, but closing your
> eyes to the fact that you get wet with it if you spill it.
>
> it's like all the issues on copyright, and on peer2peer, and on netowrk
> neutrality.
> Or, going back to art: artisans vs artists and everything that came back
> after that "stuff" duChamp brought inside the galleries.
>
> technologies+society (don't get me wrong, a paintbrush is a technlogy,
> too) enable ways of thought.
>
> a cute story, which has just a little to do with the "second life drama" :)
>
> maurizio cattelan was once invited to a collector's house to make a
> proposal for a commission. While chatting and discussing he was shown
> into the private exhibit of the collector.
>
> having seen all the paintings and other artworks, as soon as they
> stopped he placed the proposal: "open up your exhibition room's windows.
> Flies will enter it. I will smack them on the paintings with my trusty
> fly-squatter, and that will be the artwork: the flies splatted on the
> canvases"
>
>
> (don't knw if it's true or not. could be just a little legend. but i
> like it in more than one way.)
>

don't think i don't get your point, or the "modded" :) author's point of view.

but, just to make mine a bit more explicit

system limitations:
lag, system crashes, bugs, hardware requirements and limitations are part of second life.
servers crash. too many people/objects don't fit (technically) into a single space. scrips halt. textures get lost into the void….
it's part of tht reality. part of the story.
it's like a zen story: you use the world to explain itself. simply because there isn't much to explain, after all.

ownership:
i know that personal ambition and economic sustainment are important. but a clear question arises on what makes sense.
if your aim is to recreate the mechanisms present in "First Life" (ohmygod, i hate saying that) fine: go on and preserve your rights to ownership.
if you intend to explore the possibilities offered by digital ecosystems, a deep change of attitude is something to deeply take into account.
one example for all: the famous copybot.
the other example: squatting virtual spaces using bugs.
another, a bit more complicated, example: digital media arrives on my computer/mp3player/television/projector/you_name_it. By the fact that they're there, they are truly duplicated on something that's "mine" (they are on my hard disk, in my cache, on my monitor using my computing power, my electricity, my mousekeyboradspekersamplifier).
what do you want from me, author?
new media are made to be copied, messed with, changed, duplicated, hacked.


art:
what's happening in art in second life hs at least a couple of faces.
one of them sees people building huge/small/medium stuff and placing it somewhere, placing a tag beside it and smiling a bit: "hello, i'm the artist"
and it includes people tking objects animating them and making them move, and disappearing and reappearing and changing sizeshapeform. without making any sense.
code aesthetics? yes, print it and hang it on a wall.
just because you can bypass gravity with polygons, and crete virtually huge things and red and blue and green and they change_over_time_and_environment and cars and towers and enormous flowers that blossom when you hit [enter], it doesn't mean they're interesting.
sense. this makes sense.

art, again:
since when was art the process of "being nice to each other"? or "respecting each other", as a matter of fact?
is "new art" about it? i sincerely doubt it. Unless you legitimate those trends in which curators and critics tend to substitute the space that was once occupied by artists.
seems more like mcDonald than art.


and there's quite a few more points, but i'm falling asleep :)
maybe later
byebye

It's unfortunate that this has to be my first post on Rhizome, and probably imprudent to respond to this sort of thing at all, however… now that this conversation is in a public forum (which I am ok with despite the fact that it is a second life terms of service violation for this user to post it outside of SL). I just want to say that by calling mister Laconesi a critic - I meant no disrespect to critics. I also do not believe that art should be censored and have no intention to do so. I was simply acting in the interests of the other users of the Odyssey servers in an issue of management.

Critic should be most criticized.
SL is a sociologists wonderland.
Where is Alice?


> From: Sugar Seville <[email protected]>
> Reply-To: Sugar Seville <[email protected]>
> Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2007 22:13:51 -0400
> To: <[email protected]>
> Subject: RHIZOME_RAW: Re: second life dramas
>
> It's unfortunate that this has to be my first post on Rhizome, and probably
> imprudent to respond to this sort of thing at all, however… now that this
> conversation is in a public forum (which I am ok with despite the fact that it
> is a second life terms of service violation for this user to post it outside
> of SL). I just want to say that by calling mister Laconesi a critic - I meant
> no disrespect to critics. I also do not believe that art should be censored
> and have no intention to do so. I was simply acting in the interests of the
> other users of the Odyssey servers in an issue of management.
> +
> -> post: [email protected]
> -> questions: [email protected]
> -> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
> +
> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php

It's just rude and lacks any respect.

Salvatore's own argument fails. If he did this under a bridge no one would
pay any notice. If he did the same in an gallery, event, (or anywhere public
that isn't his mother's house)…

The Frieze Art Fair is in London next week - I'll pay your entrance to see
you have your teeth kicked in after you try your crazy shit there.



On 7/10/07 02:16, "Lee Wells" <[email protected]> wrote:

> Lets just say I would rather hear you modified the IBM Plaza in SL than
> caused trouble within a local creative autonomous zone.
>
> I don't believe Marcel Duchamp ever vandalized other artists works.
> What Pierre Pinoncelli did to the urinal last year with the hammer was and
> now he is stuck having to deal with over $200,000 in fines.
> Will he make the dada history books? Maybe…
>
> All in all its a negative in my opinion.
>
>
>
>> From: salvatore iaconesi <[email protected]>
>> Reply-To: <[email protected]>
>> Date: Sun, 07 Oct 2007 02:56:57 +0200
>> To: Lee Wells <[email protected]>
>> Cc: Rhizome <[email protected]>
>> Subject: Re: RHIZOME_RAW: second life dramas
>>
>> Lee Wells ha scritto:
>>> Good point….but I guess it would all depend on if Odyssey a free for all
>>> collaboration zone or if its someone's art project in secondlife that they
>>> have dedicated time and effort to produce and now need to spend more time
>>> and effort to fix your alterations. I say do it in real life if you really
>>> want to be avant garde.
>>>
>>
>>
>> and maybe i do. have a doubt?
>>
>> just a point i need to assess: either you embrace a perspective or you
>> don't.
>>
>> the "immaterial" brings on concepts. It is plain narrow-minded to take
>> only the things you like.
>> it's like liking water because it quenches your thirst, but closing your
>> eyes to the fact that you get wet with it if you spill it.
>>
>> it's like all the issues on copyright, and on peer2peer, and on netowrk
>> neutrality.
>> Or, going back to art: artisans vs artists and everything that came back
>> after that "stuff" duChamp brought inside the galleries.
>>
>> technologies+society (don't get me wrong, a paintbrush is a technlogy,
>> too) enable ways of thought.
>>
>> a cute story, which has just a little to do with the "second life drama" :)
>>
>> maurizio cattelan was once invited to a collector's house to make a
>> proposal for a commission. While chatting and discussing he was shown
>> into the private exhibit of the collector.
>>
>> having seen all the paintings and other artworks, as soon as they
>> stopped he placed the proposal: "open up your exhibition room's windows.
>> Flies will enter it. I will smack them on the paintings with my trusty
>> fly-squatter, and that will be the artwork: the flies splatted on the
>> canvases"
>>
>>
>> (don't knw if it's true or not. could be just a little legend. but i
>> like it in more than one way.)
>>
>
>
> +
> -> post: [email protected]
> -> questions: [email protected]
> -> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
> +
> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php
>

hello Sugar!


Sugar Seville ha scritto:
> It's unfortunate that this has to be my first post on Rhizome, and probably imprudent to respond to this sort of thing at all, however… now that this conversation is in a public forum (which I am ok with despite the fact that it is a second life terms of service violation for this user to post it outside of SL). I just want to say that by calling mister Laconesi a critic - I meant no disrespect to critics. I also do not believe that art should be censored and have no intention to do so. I was simply acting in the interests of the other users of the Odyssey servers in an issue of management.
Let me just say i just love your message.

you do understand it is actually pointless banning me or anyone else from you space: second life allows me to get back in with another account and you'll never tell me from the other one.
maybe i'll be exposing in your space with another name and alias next week.
maybe i already am.

you do understand that i even don't care if i get completely thrown out of that software environment, for teh same reasons.
you do, really, understand that a kind of act like mine did have no sense if "agreed on" beforehands.
you do understand that i don't take my act so seriously, because it's in a different context, because "that place" is just another "thing".
you do realize that you're not talking about real installations, and that you can just set back your data and everything gets back ok.

you do understand that second life is another form of social context in which.. well… some real life rules make no sense at all.


you kick me out? i'll be back with another alias another look another identity.

you take my artistic 3d objects :) away? i can duplicate them millions of infinite times.

second life's management trows me away? I bet they will never have a clue when i get back.

your server crashes if i do my tricks? well, it's just part of second life: a set of technological platforms with bugs and hardware limitations.


yet understand your position and i actuall would have thrown out myself but i wouldn't take myself so seriously if i was you.


i once flooded a guys lawn on second life. he had his avatar there watching tv. he insulted me at my email address for like 3 weeks. i found it rather grotesque…

my best!
s

Martin John Callanan ha scritto:
> It's just rude and lacks any respect.
>
> Salvatore's own argument fails. If he did this under a bridge no one would
> pay any notice. If he did the same in an gallery, event, (or anywhere public
> that isn't his mother's house)…
>
> The Frieze Art Fair is in London next week - I'll pay your entrance to see
> you have your teeth kicked in after you try your crazy shit there.
>
>

:)

you people take yourselves oh so seriously.

the fact that you do it on second life related issues is just plain interesting.

It's not what you are doing (after all, we've all fucked around in SL and
even, back-in-the-day, in online chat etc), but the time - during someone's
organised event.

As for damage - someone has to sit there and spent time rebuilding the
server, reorganising the event. That's the only problem I see.

Just consider when and were you do it - and why.




On 7/10/07 11:14, "salvatore iaconesi" <[email protected]> wrote:

>>
>
> :)
>
> you people take yourselves oh so seriously.
>
> the fact that you do it on second life related issues is just plain
> interesting.
>

Patrick Lichty said:

> He's protesting for pro-choice at Planned Parenthood…

wow.. you found out.. the internet is so powerful.

i actually enjoy watching some of you pretending i'm a no-no, and making statements.
some of which i even agree with (as i said, i would have kicked myself out of odyssey, too.. it's part of the game), some of which i don't. but that's (first/second)life isn't it.

> First of all, I feel that it's great that Odyssey has its first troll.

:) just let me get my cave's texture right, and we're set.


and the: getting to the point

> Secondly, I ask what the function of the intervention was. Obviously, it
> has gained some attantion, which is a core principle of tactical media. But
> then, what is the sociocultural function?

raise questions on how real-world schemes transfer to virtuality, on the way that our flesh-and-bones forms of perception and of social interaction try to occupy spaces in which they make no sense, on the way in which the collaborative digital spaces (not only SL, but also blogs, for example) turn out to be spaces for ego, for closed-mutual-recursive interaction.

On how globality is sometimes just another neighborhood, with houses that are just a little farther apart.

And on the possibilities offered by accessible spaces ( but this is an old issue. It sounds like "everyone is a musician, everyone is an artist, everyone is a critic, everyone is a curator, everyone is a journalist… " etcetera, and the obvious arising critique… don't take this one too seriously..).

now: don't jump to conclusions too fast, as my position on these issues 1) doesn't matter that much and 2) it could be very different from what you might guess by inspecting my actions, which are not declarative, but investigative

> In my opinion, bombing Odyssey for perpetuating the banal
> mimetic recreation of boring traditional art is like striking Greenpeace for
> not protecting the environment well enough.

and, about my actions: i did the same things all over second life.
I even posted a couple of them to rhizome, and a couple to odyssey, too!
the fact that i didn't look for coverage (on media, newsletters, whatever) is just another story.
i posted this whole thing here because i thought it was both funny and interesting, at the same time, and because i love rhizome as a platofrm for discussion.
and i am quite enjoying the responses, too. If any of you want, i will post a guy's 3 weeks of offenses he sent me for flooding his lawn on SL: they're interesting, amusing and grotesque, at the same time.

but that's not the point, is it?

the point is being able to discern.

it's a recurring question that doesnt actually have a real answer.

it's, partly, about new media.
sometimes the question transforms into "how do i sell new media art"".
sometimes it transforms itself into "what *is* new media art?".
sometimes it transforms into "who are new media artists? who can say 'i'm a new media artist, and not a programmer?'"
sometimes even into "what do critics and curators want? they want to be artists, too?"
sometimes also in "you infringed my copyright/work/activity/fame/whatever. don't you know?"

and it's, partly, on virtual/digital environments. first part of this question: are they really democratic? second part of the qustion: is the fact that many try to put their analog_life schemes (part of them, at least: studying the various cases is an interesting topic itself) into digital spaces an evolution or a form of exhaust valve for real_life frustrations?

these questions are, in a way, missing a part of the global perspective: digital objects and spaces are different, in terms of immateriality, of free replicability, of ubiquity, of the sources used to create them, of the instruments used to experience them, and a whole lot more.

> If Salvatore wanted to question commercial mimetic practice, he could
> certainly go to the decor art island Artropolis which is marketing itself
> similiarly to a Kinkaide-esque approach for Second Life, or any of the other
> kitsch galleries. That is, aiming at mass marketing art using SL-based
> memetics. Or look at half the artists covered in SLArt blog and have at it.

well.. as a matter of fact, i did already :)

polygonal hugs!
s

<but that's not the point, is it?
the point is being able to discern.>
Hmm -sounds good but then there's a definite muddying
of the waters in all this:
<sometimes also in "you infringed my
copyright/work/activity/fame/whatever. don't you
know?">
There is *such* a *huge difference* between
*appropriating* work & remixing &c to create
derivative ( used without pejorative connotation)
works which of course doesn't involve the destruction
of the original, which I'm all in favour of the widest
rights to, and *vandalizing* the work of another
artist, work which presumably the artist has spent
time and care putting together. The muddying involves
trying to cover up behaviour which could be
characterised at the very least as bad mannered by
covering oneself in the honourable mantle of the
defence of appropriation &c.( or indeed an appeal to
avant-gardism - Duchamp didn't scrawl LHOOQ across the
*actual* Gioconda) The virtuality of it makes no
difference. Neither does the perceived "quality " of
the work or of its location. As Lee & Martin point
out, making work ( real or virtual), re-uploading
files, takes *actual* time. Maybe some people are so
time, money and resource rich that this wouldn't be an
issue but I can't imagine that's the case for most of
us.
The fact of it being in second life alters nothing
-one could easily imagine someone making out a case
for (real) book-burning on the grounds that the
printed signs are merely feeble second order
conventional representations of *real* spoken language
and that, anyway, they could just be reprinted…
There is absolutely nothing in what anyone has said in
defence of this that could not equally be used to
justify vandalizing people's individual sites or real
world exhibitions according to the individual tastes
of the vandal.
Rather than screeds of self justifying attempts to
excuse the inexcusable the decent thing would be a
simple apology.
michael

— Salvatore Iaconesi
<[email protected]> wrote:

> Patrick Lichty said:
>
> > He's protesting for pro-choice at Planned
> Parenthood…
>
> wow.. you found out.. the internet is so powerful.
>
> i actually enjoy watching some of you pretending i'm
> a no-no, and making statements.
> some of which i even agree with (as i said, i would
> have kicked myself out of odyssey, too.. it's part
> of the game), some of which i don't. but that's
> (first/second)life isn't it.
>
> > First of all, I feel that it's great that Odyssey
> has its first troll.
>
> :) just let me get my cave's texture right, and
> we're set.
>
>
> and the: getting to the point
>
> > Secondly, I ask what the function of the
> intervention was. Obviously, it
> > has gained some attantion, which is a core
> principle of tactical media. But
> > then, what is the sociocultural function?
>
> raise questions on how real-world schemes transfer
> to virtuality, on the way that our flesh-and-bones
> forms of perception and of social interaction try to
> occupy spaces in which they make no sense, on the
> way in which the collaborative digital spaces (not
> only SL, but also blogs, for example) turn out to be
> spaces for ego, for closed-mutual-recursive
> interaction.
>
> On how globality is sometimes just another
> neighborhood, with houses that are just a little
> farther apart.
>
> And on the possibilities offered by accessible
> spaces ( but this is an old issue. It sounds like
> "everyone is a musician, everyone is an artist,
> everyone is a critic, everyone is a curator,
> everyone is a journalist… " etcetera, and the
> obvious arising critique… don't take this one too
> seriously..).
>
> now: don't jump to conclusions too fast, as my
> position on these issues 1) doesn't matter that much
> and 2) it could be very different from what you
> might guess by inspecting my actions, which are not
> declarative, but investigative
>
> > In my opinion, bombing Odyssey for perpetuating
> the banal
> > mimetic recreation of boring traditional art is
> like striking Greenpeace for
> > not protecting the environment well enough.
>
> and, about my actions: i did the same things all
> over second life.
> I even posted a couple of them to rhizome, and a
> couple to odyssey, too!
> the fact that i didn't look for coverage (on media,
> newsletters, whatever) is just another story.
> i posted this whole thing here because i thought it
> was both funny and interesting, at the same time,
> and because i love rhizome as a platofrm for
> discussion.
> and i am quite enjoying the responses, too. If any
> of you want, i will post a guy's 3 weeks of offenses
> he sent me for flooding his lawn on SL: they're
> interesting, amusing and grotesque, at the same
> time.
>
> but that's not the point, is it?
>
> the point is being able to discern.
>
> it's a recurring question that doesnt actually have
> a real answer.
>
> it's, partly, about new media.
> sometimes the question transforms into "how do i
> sell new media art"".
> sometimes it transforms itself into "what *is* new
> media art?".
> sometimes it transforms into "who are new media
> artists? who can say 'i'm a new media artist, and
> not a programmer?'"
> sometimes even into "what do critics and curators
> want? they want to be artists, too?"
> sometimes also in "you infringed my
> copyright/work/activity/fame/whatever. don't you
> know?"
>
> and it's, partly, on virtual/digital environments.
> first part of this question: are they really
> democratic? second part of the qustion: is the fact
> that many try to put their analog_life schemes (part
> of them, at least: studying the various cases is an
> interesting topic itself) into digital spaces an
> evolution or a form of exhaust valve for real_life
> frustrations?
>
> these questions are, in a way, missing a part of the
> global perspective: digital objects and spaces are
> different, in terms of immateriality, of free
> replicability, of ubiquity, of the sources used to
> create them, of the instruments used to experience
> them, and a whole lot more.
>
> > If Salvatore wanted to question commercial mimetic
> practice, he could
> > certainly go to the decor art island Artropolis
> which is marketing itself
> > similiarly to a Kinkaide-esque approach for Second
> Life, or any of the other
> > kitsch galleries. That is, aiming at mass
> marketing art using SL-based
> > memetics. Or look at half the artists covered in
> SLArt blog and have at it.
>
> well.. as a matter of fact, i did already :)
>
> polygonal hugs!
> s
> +
> -> post: [email protected]
> -> questions: [email protected]
> -> subscribe/unsubscribe:
> http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
> +
> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set
> out in the
> Membership Agreement available online at
> http://rhizome.org/info/29.php
>

Michael Szpakowski said:

> Hmm -sounds good but then there's a definite muddying
> of the waters in all this:

take many rows of text. select some of them that fit your point. quote those. write your point. trash the rest.
cool.



it's a shame i was addresing the inadequacy of technology (should i say it in more academic terms?) and the misplaced trust put in them, so that you actually believe you have something yours, over there.

and some other things on the side. but .. oh, well… puff.. you're all making me do overtime typing oday.. i've got stuff to do…

as for the supposedly better apology: i'll take the ban, thanks. much more honest and ends up a performance of this kind in a truly perfect way.

cheer up!
s

http://www.secondlifeinsider.com/2006/11/03/who-are-the-griefers/

We should be surprised that SL is any diferent than the FL?
No, no, no.
But some other interesting points include the policing of utopia, and the subsequent dystopian long range consequences police actions have in any community. But policing is accepted in the world, and it's not always an expression of freedom when behaviours are against the grain.
This is a tough call once some time is spent thinking over the long term implications of virtual vandalism and policing.
It's easy to say *banish the outsider* but I'm not sure I like that answer any more than I like the popular reaction to unaccepted behaviour in any venue, FL or SL or elsewhere.
Was art the subject of the attack? Then I might say it can be seen as worthwhile. If the act is just dabbling, and griefing, then I wonder why bother?
But if there is a good subtext, and the interaction becomes creative (through destruction) then maybe it's ok.
Still I think this is shouting at an imaginary threat, seen as a nightmare. If the work is too subtle and delicate to survive then maybe it's being expressed in the wrong eco system. Now I'm sure someone will make the eco statement that griefing is akin to spilling oil in the Straights of Juan de Fuca, but I don't believe that. Real world terrors are of a different ilk.
Tear down my web site and I just re-install a back up, it's a nuisance, but I won't send the police.
But are the new rules of the game about self policing, and are we doing that now by discussing it?

amuses are great with a good dinner

Eric

Salvatore Iaconesi wrote:

> i've got stuff to do…

So had the SL users whose activities were disrupted.

- Rob.

Hi Rhizomers,

being involved in this story in many ways (pretending to be friend to both Salvatore and Sugar, and as co-curator of the Gate event), I posted a comment on it on my blog. Here it is:

http://www.domenicoquaranta.net/blog/2007/10/troubles-in-paradise-how-happened-that.html

Below a text only version

dom

—

Troubles in Paradise. How happened that an artist was banned from the Odyssey Sim

Some days ago (namely on Saturday, October 06, 18:42 Second Life time), an artist was banned from Odyssey. No playing: Odyssey [http://odysseyart.ning.com/], well know in Second Life as the most free, open-minded context for artists and performers, the place where Gazira Babeli set her retrospective and where most of Second Front's performances took place, for the first time seems to set a limit to the freedom of its own residents. Someone ate the forbidden apple, and was expelled from Paradise.
This is, at least, what we could understand reading a current thread [http://rhizome.org/thread.rhiz?thread'350&page=1#50255] on Rhizome. But what really happened that awful day? How can we explain it? Let's start from the beginning.

Salvatore Iaconesi [http://www.artisopensource.net/], alias xdxd, is an Italian new media artist, activist and open source coder who did an impressive amount of work in many fields, ranging from generative art to artificial intelligence, from performance to code poetry to interactive installations. Some months ago, he entered Second Life and he did some un-authorized installations at Ars Virtua and in other places. In many private and public discussions, he never made a mistery of his criticism against Second Life. As most of the best artists inside there, he is conscious to be in a technically limited environment, where most of the things pretending to be “art” are childish efforts, miles and miles away from what we currently call “contemporary art”. But the fact that he kept on working in Second Life demonstrates that he sees in it an interesting socio-cultural context, where he can play with its human (or inhuman) dynamics. Or, in his own words [http://rhizome.org/thread.rhiz?thread'362&page=1#50250]: “I really don't even value Second Life so much. Want to know what i find interesting in it? the social-niche mindfucker that it became, and the way that it has been exploited from mass media, and the mechanisms behind mediocre people using it to gain attention, and a badly-recycled form of human nature struggling to come out over there, too.”
So, he subscribed the Odyssey community and, during the Gate event [http://www.domenicoquaranta.net/blog/2007/09/gate.html], he sent out a robot avatar who talked with other avatars in German, using fragments coming from Franz Kafka's books, and he hacked another's artist work filling it up with jelly polygons. He called this performance I love recursiveness. I was aware of the first performance and I liked it, since it played with SL's “social software” and had a kind of surreal effect that I can't praise more.

As for the second act, it is more debatable, since it was an act of vandalism against another's artist work. I will come back to this issue soon. By now, we have to think about one of its consequences: it made the sim crash. Odyssey crashed during the Gate event, a four days long streaming between Odyssey and the iMAL Art Center in Bruxelles I helped organizing, an open stage for performance and interaction with a real life audience. And this is a problem.

At this point, another actor got in the drama. Sugar Seville is Odyssey's manager. That means that she is responsible in front of the artists and the visitors of what happens on her island - and, in that particular occasion, she was responsible in front of iMAL and its audience. She contacted xdxd and she banned him from Odyssey. Good? Wrong? In my opinion, she did the right thing: that was her role in the drama. She had to protect herself, her place, her audience and her artists, and she did it. Xdxd's work was an act of griefing - no matter if there was an artistic statement behind it.

Now Xdxd is playing the role of the victim on Rhizome: but that's just the last development of a screenplay he wrote down from the very beginning. As he told me in a private conversation, the crash was part of this screenplay: “the crash caused by overload was part of the performance… It's a criticism against the infrastructure (social, technological, perceptive), a criticism which included the server's crash.” And he was happy when he was banned from Odyssey: complete success!

“People take themselves seriously on a platform that don't let you to do it. You ban me from your own space in SL? I can come back whenever I want. How can you take seriously this thing? What does it mean?” This is Xdxd's point. He wanted to demonstrate that, in virtual environments, you are never safe, you can't preserve your own property, you can't apply “the rules of property and commerce” which work well in real life. Did he succeed?

At the beginning I though, as Lee Wells [http://rhizome.org/thread.rhiz?thread'350&page=1#50255] does, that Xdxd simply chose the wrong target, and that his performance is more similar to real vandalism than to graffiti. But Xdxd's words reminded me another similar artist's performance, happened some years ago. In February 1999, 0100101110101101.ORG [http://www.0100101110101101.org/home/copies/story.html] (yes, Eva and Franco Mattes) downloaded all the contents of another artist-run website (Hell.com) and uploaded them on their own website. Hell.com described itself as a “private parallel web”, closed to non invited visitors. Fighting against this kind of use of the web, 0100101110101101.ORG put online an “anticopyright version”, open to everyone. No matter who was right or wrong: two completely different visions of the Net were fighting against each other. Hell.com blamed 0100101110101101.ORG for theft and threatened them with an international lawsuit for copyright violation. This was good in two ways: because they had the right to do it and because, doing this, they successfully completed the drama written down by 0100101110101101.ORG.

Now a similar thing is happening. Two completely different visions of virtual worlds are fighting against each other. The first says that virtual life is completely different from real life, and that you can't import in virtual worlds concepts such as property and business. Who minds if I vandalize an artwork? Com'on, its digital! Who minds if I break down a gallery's window? They are just polygons!
The second claims that there is not so much difference between virtual and real life, maybe because our real life more and more relies on virtual laws; that property is valid also in virtual life, and that a criminal gesture is not less dangerous because it relies on an artistic statement; that things must be taken seriously in virtual worlds, because more and more people are taking them seriously.

Personally, I think that there are no such things as chimeras and truths. A chimera becomes the truth when enough people believe in it: that's good for God, peace and democracy, and even for art: why it can't be good for virtual lives? If most of the people believe that what they are doing in virtual worlds is REAL, it is. If most of the people think that vandalizing an artwork in Odyssey is like doing it in a real gallery, they are right. And Xdxd is wrong.

That said, I love recursiveness is a nice piece of art not because (as Xdxd says) of its relationship with other examples of provocative contemporary art, but because it raised a problem and a discussion. In the same time, Sugar did the right thing banning him from Odyssey, because she made the performance succeed; and she'll do an even better thing readmitting him on Odyssey, as she suggests at the end of the chat. Because irresponsibility is for children and artists, and Xdxd is not a child. Maybe he is a crap artist (I don't think so, indeed), but how many crap artists are in Second Life?


–

Domenico Quaranta

mob. +39 340 2392478
email. [email protected]
home. vicolo San Giorgio 18 - 25122 brescia (BS)
web. http://www.domenicoquaranta.net/