Artist Creates Beautiful Series of Real Life Prints of Second Life Photos -- And Uses Kickstarter to Finance the Printing

What you're looking at above is a real life print created from a Second Life photograph. It's the work of artist Clair LaVaye (Clairwil Oh in SL), and it's one in a series of images she created as illustrations for House of Debauch, a gothic vampire novel she also wrote.

Ms. LaVaye prints them in a complex process which effectively de-evolves the Second Life image into an earlier medium: "I am taking the digital images back in time by transforming them into traditional, vintage art prints," as she puts it. "The images are transformed into cyanotypes and platinum palladium prints using photography techniques used at the dawn of photography."

The prints will be featured in a New York art show, but here's the challenge: printing costs are insanely prohibitive. So Claire's launched a Kickstarter page, to fund the production. (A clever idea for SL projects.) If you pledge more than $25, you get a tour of the Second Life manor where the novel's images were staged; pledge over $150, and you get a signed print. Go here for all the details.

Images courtesy Ms. LaVaye

Comments

[Clairwil Oh]

Thanks for noting my Kickstarter project, New Media! I appreciate it.

I recently published THE HOUSE OF DEBAUCH Gothic novel to both Amazon and Wowio Comics. In about a week it will also be available through Barnes & Noble and the Apple Bookstore.

It is a satisfying, visceral experience to hold an image in my hand of something that I "saw" in a virtual world. Not quite documentary, but deeper than mere illustration...printed images are a concrete record of an ephemeral experience.

To others who might wish to try Kickstart, I suggest that you ask others to help you distribute the information before you start the clock ticking on the project. I started a bit too late to get the word out about the Kickstarter project, so I may not make my funding goal.

But, anyone who is interested in collecting the prints may contact me at any time for prices. Next year, I will offer a weekend class through one of our local art community groups, Laguna Gloria Art, on how to print their digital images using vintage techniques.

Cordially Yours,
Clairwil Oh (Clair LaVaye)
[email protected]

AMAZON: http://www.amazon.com/House-Debauch-Adventures-Struggle-ebook/dp/B0044KM3FM
WOWIO: http://www.wowio.com/users/product.asp?BookId=7122