Live Dance/Music Performance in Minecraft with Users From 3 Countries Simulcast in San Francisco & Vancouver Cafes

There’s lots of virtual art in Second Life, but can Minecraft also be turned into platform for creating new works of online artistry? DC Spensley, a Bay Area-based artist widely known in Second Life for his live SkyDance performances, recently orchestrated a live performance on a Minecraft server. Behold MineOpticon, shown simultaneously in Vancouver and San Francisco:

“[I] figured that when horses came out in Minecraft,” Spensley tells me, “it would be good to respond with something quirky… This illustrates what I mean about being somewhat agnostic about which virtual world I use.”

To pull this show off, Spensley’s collaborators logged into a Minecraft server from literally all over the world, for both the rehearsal and the live show:

“MineOpticon performers were in California, Florida, Vancouver and Manahattan. Like any virtual world they logged on from their location to rehearse for many months before the shows. The technical director Bill Cruikshank (Jesting Rabbit) logged in from Australia and our composer (Yagiz Mungan from Turkey via Purdue University) just happened to be in SF on a job.”

The differences between Second Life and Minecraft as an artist’s plaform? DC Spensley tells me both have their advantages and disadvantages:

”The two platforms have much in common,” as he puts it. “Both are sandbox worlds that that have rich tools for creation. Minecraft is a little simpler and in many ways more elegant because of that simplicity. SL is more full-featured and for the many media layers we use in the SkyDance much more powerful. So I like both platforms equally well and have been privileged to do art in both spaces. SL is definitely more of an artist's medium in its essence and great toolkit, but that does not stop great art being made in Minecraft. Sometimes the limitations inspire artists even more than the options.”

I’d add to his points with this: Minecraft has a far larger active user base than Second Life (easily in the tens of millions), and as such, has a much larger audience to reach. Maybe other SL-based artists should experiment with Minecraft too.

By the way, you can see the whole performance here. (Photo from the show via DC.)

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[yolo]

so nice and keep up the good work.
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