How To Be A Patron of the (Second Life) Arts

Tezcatlipoca Bisiani is the avatar name of Andrew Sempere, a staffer with IBM's Collaborative User Experience division, and the man behind Big Blue's patronage of "The Rabbitcorn", a recently acclaimed Bryn Oh installation. That patronage mostly involved offering free virtual land on IBM's large campus. As he explains on his blog, "First life doesn't adequately support the arts, and there is little to suggest that Second's play economy could do any better, but sim space is the one bit of SL that remains most closely tied to real value. Sims cost real money. Space grants equate to real money."

There are a few exceptions to that observation -- virtual abstract artist Filthy Fluno has had patrons, for instance -- but generally speaking, for the short term at least, I think he's right that support for the arts in SL will largely be limited to free land. That's a painfully tragic thing, because there's a burgeoning art movement in Second Life, dozens of talented figures working on a professional level innovating a new medium. It's yet another reason why growing the Second Life user base, especially Residents who spend L$, is so important: More paying customers in SL means more patrons of the metaverse arts. And until SL gets millions of regular users, all the great Second Life art will remain an obscure secret to the select few who've managed to squeeze past the many technical and financial hurdles to reach it. (Related thoughts by Bisiani on NPIRL after attending SLCC, where I was fortunate to hang awhile with Andrew.)

Comments

[Ann Otoole]

Actually Second Life is teeming with art. Open your eyes. Second Life is like a "lowbrow" art universe. But as with the lowbrow art world had issues getting accepted as art until recently (now they have all the same art world politics) the many thousands of Second Life artists expressing themselves in builds, avatars, and role play are not accepted in the art world simply because there is no way for galleries to make a commission off of it.

But that's OK. We make our own money here without RL galleries and their politics. There are people doing quasi conventional gallery shows. Some of us try to help promote them but most of the time we seldom hear about shows. The whole 25 group limit thing seriously impedes communicatons in Second Life. And going to web sites like thatotherlife.com to post art events seem to be too much of a hassle since it is not in world. The event system is advertising spam and LL will not enforce the rules there so that is useless.

But you have to admit that Tuna Oddfellow has a serious lead in the new arts arena that Second Life represents.

Second Life is art. Just a medium that gets no respect. Yet. Maybe we need to start sending stuff to magazines like Juxtapoz and High Fructose. If they started giving SL some coverage things might pick up.

[Ann Otoole]

Also this: "First life doesn't adequately support the arts, and there is little to suggest that Second's play economy could do any better"

Demonstrates my point that little respect is given to Second Life. Despite the fact the top percentile makes a rather nice real world income, many make decent incomes, and a whole lot of artists pay for those expensive sims by selling their art inside Second Life.

I guess we are bad because we failed to ask permission of the mighty rl gallery people for us to be artists. Pro Tip: We don't care.

[Scarp Godenot]

Ann, I love your suggestion that we clue in Juxtapoz Magazine for an expose on virtual world art. I think they would be open to the idea. Anybody got a contact over there?

[Ann Otoole]

http://www.juxtapoz.com/submission-guidelines

http://www.hifructose.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=140&Itemid=80

Good luck!

[jjccc coronet]

I have been in Second Life 4 or 5 years now and have had few decsent sized galleries to exhibit my art and i have just bought a new place which is the biggest yet to display my art and yes i have sold my art but i have not become rich and famous in real life because of it which kinda sucks. So continuing to pay the tier fee is getting to be hard. I think that linden labs could make more of an effort were artists are concerned as there are many in second life who just want recognition for there art, but to me it seems that second life and real life are missing out on unknown hidden talent that should be picked upon by the artworld any way ill keep paying the god dam tier fee hoping that some patron of the arts happens to wander into my place one day and give me all that i trueley deserve if your intersted in seeing my fantastic place check it out http://slurl.com/secondlife/Egremont/79/52/22

[Account Deleted]

Hey Ann! I completely agree with your comment that second life >is< art. You're right also that neither you nor anyone else needs gallery confirmation to make work - just do it.

At the same time some of us, and particularly those of us involved in the arts in first life, are continually frustrated that SL work is so marginalized. It's a wonderful thing to show for your friends for the love of it, but some SL work is worth sharing outside the walls of our small virtual universe, and for the moment that is just too hard. It's not about permission, it's about celebration and pride in accomplishment.

I think your idea to get external vehicles like magazine coverage is an excellent one - even better if we can that coverage in an arts magazine and not at technical one.