Art Student Needs Help with Thesis

If anyone can help out, please click through to Gracie Kendal’s Weblog, and leave a contribution in her comments.  The entire entry is as follows:

Wanted to run something by you and see if I can get some helpful advice. I am going to be writing my Masters Thesis in Art History, on Art in Second Life. I would love some feedback. Here is a brief explanation of what I am thinking….

This study examines the global online art community of Second Life and discusses the diverse artists and artwork as a motivating force in todays postmodern artworld. This art community shares many similar traits with 1920’s behemian (sic) Paris, where artists converged in collaborative art scene….
Whether Second Life thrives and evolves or has a virtual death, the here and now of these artists is real. They strive to create, to collaborate, to experience, and explore. As Artists have done for centuries, they continue to use the tools that are available, technology that pushed boundaries.

If there is more to offer, please let her know…on her blog, please (though I’ll pass on anything that pops up here).  Thanks much!

Fashion for the Holidays

Let’s face it; I’m a fashionista at heart. In the daytime, I can knock around in a T-shirt and jeans (sometimes supplemented by an “intelligent” Oracle cloak from Avilion Mist). Although I am considering adding in some proper daytime suits (grin). But at night…. Well, let me quote from a story by a writer I’ve found online (with permission):

[F]estive gowns were the largest part of the catalogue. Dannta explained it this way: “Work mostly takes place in the light of day, and is done well and to your best ability, and its clothing reflects that utilitarian time; colors change, but the basics don’t. So it is, to a lesser degree, with other clothing of the day.

“But the night is a time of relaxation, of celebration. The work of the day is done for the most part, and you rejoice in its good completion. Your friends are at hand, and you enjoy their company. There are arts to be patronized, entertainments to see, children to play with, parties to attend, and love to make with your lover. The creativity of the dress reflects that change in mood, for creativity lives in dreams, and dreams live in the night.”

I agree with that philosophy, and I try to uphold it in this place, where such a life is easily possible.

When I see a fantastic new gown, it’s hard to resist buying it right off. (I usually give in [sigh].) So, when I spotted these gowns while tag-surfing through SL fashion blogs and articles, I just had to rush out and snaffle them. They come from several different designers: two not so well known (at least I think they aren’t, but they should be for this work) — and, sadly, one who is not among us anymore. I’m modeling them here in photos I shot in a photosphere park.

Christmas Shopping, Virtually

It’s been a busy Christmas for Grid merchants as well as RL retailers, according to the BBC.  The Venerable Beeb’s presence in world isn’t large or well known yet, unlike Reuters; but their reporter Alison Swersky tells about how several SL merchants (especially fashion, of course) prepared for the holiday season and how they have fared.  The piece is excellent, and recommended reading.

(Thanks to No. 7)

Merry Christmas

May the peace of this season, and the spirit of he whose birth we celebrate, be with us all this day and forever more.

Amen.

Early Christmas Eve

…and the push is just about on us in Real Life. I have eight hours at the retail job I hold down, after which I’ll probably fall asleep in church because I’m sitting still in one place (grin). As for the Christmas environment in world, as noted by No 7, it’s a lot more easy and pleasant — no crowds, no traffic (except foot traffic at popular merchants), no overworked and overstressed shoppers or store employees who have forgotten the spirit of the season in the press of surviving this last day of commercialism.

If you go out in RL for those legendary Last Perfect Gifts, please be careful on the roads; and, before you explode at a store clerk who just can’t seem to understand or find what you’re looking for, please remember how much work they’ve probably see this season, and Who it is that the Christmastime is supposed to be about.

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As I more or less implied in my last post, I haven’t been able to write — or get in world — for the past week or so, prepping for Christmas out here in RL. But I slipped in for a little retail therapy last night before bed. As No 7 also points out, the Grid merchants and Winter Festival participants have been doing a good job of decking the halls. (Click for full size.)  Not the most spectacular job of decorating, but I’m a minimalist when it comes to such things. This is Platinum, part of the women’s side. What have been your favorite places in SL this season?

The Real World Intrudes…

…and so I won’t be doing much writing until after Christmas, sadly, unless something big crops up that seizes me and bangs my head on the ground.  Sorry, folks!

People Must Be Reading Me….

…’cause, besides my stat numbers (which are very nice) — I’m starting to get comment spam.

/me sighs.

QuickTime Patched

News flash:  Residents can breathe (slightly) easier around streaming video frames now.  Apple’s released a new version of QuickTime (Ver. 7.3.1), which should take care of the security flaw announced last week.  Fly, don’t run or walk, to apple.com, and download the appropriate version.

Previously:

• “QuickTime Exploit Found” 

How Many Relationships?

I’ve been checking out my fellow Second Life bloggers since I started this journal; an easy thing to do with the tagging function of WordPress. And I’m becoming convinced that gridbloggers (a new term! a neologism!!) prove something of the exception to Sturgeon’s Law that 90% of everything is crap. I’ve read only a few posts that were bad so far.

I found recently an article on Karasu talking about “Ethical Dilemmas.” In this piece, Kara talks about how she has fallen into a heart-tugging quandary. She has “a good rl including a committed relationship” (sic). She had no plans to get into a commitment on the Grid — and yet has acquired herself a companion for whom she feels deeply. She goes on to ask the questions many another avatar has pondered since the Grid first rezzed into being, and even more questions besides. Should I tell my RL lover? What do I tell my RL lover?? If you have no real physical contact, is it really sex — or even a relationship? And what about if you’re a member of more than one virtual reality world, and have a lover in each of them…? [1]

Cory (Linden) Ondrejka Departs Linden Lab — Updated

I was not really planning on doing so much news coverage as is showing up here, but events are conspiring against me.

Any road, reports are confirmed that Cory Ondrejka, the Chief Tech Officer of Linden Lab, is departing — and apparently under disagreements with Philip Rosedale about the future technical direction Second Life is to take. I have no direct information myself, but the initial reports at Massively are confirmed by New World Notes and Reuters SL feed.

There appear to be some who think that Cory, a.k.a. the Flying Spaghetti Monster of the Grid, was the grounding force that helped Second Life develop to what it is today, and dismiss Rosedale as scattered and a negative influence on LL’s direction. The best I can say as a relative newcomer is: read all you can, analyze carefully, and draw your own conclusions.  I’ll update this as I discover more writing on the issue, and put up a new article when I draw any conclusions of my own.

*****

UPDATE, December 13, 1:12 a.m. local:

I posted the original above early in the news/blog cycle. More reaction to Ondrejka’s departure is starting to trickle in, based on tag searches:

• Dusan Writer’s Metaverse
• Associated Press (via Yahoo News)
• Ambling in Second Life (two-subject article; scroll down for Ondrejka) — a very important post that should be read completely
• Mitch Wagner, Information Week