I am really interested by how Internet contributes to give everyone access to art, being by stimulating new types of artistic creation or new types of artistic presentation.
But virtual worlds are accelerating this democratization at an unprecedented rhythm. Here is a review of the different types of artistic presence in Second Life.
Some artists or galleries just reproduce their exhibition on SL:
- Jen Berkman, who owns a gallery in NYC says that it is far much better than reproducing the paintings on a website.
- It is not at all limited to contemporary art: even the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen of Dresde has opened a virtual museum in SL, reproducing its famous gallery of Old Masters and its architectural environment.
Some other artists use SL to sell online some of their offline pieces of art thanks to scanning:
- Carla Chandrayaan is an amateur painter which sells for about 350 Lindens each piece of her scanned worked (about $1.25). With the boom of real estate in SL, it is not silly to think that the need for decorative art will follow the trend, but it remains hard to charge a high price for just an image.
- The “twins” Ysaline McKay et Kymi Mountain have also created a French art gallery in SL, which renew the concept of “originality”: they sell a unique item of each piece of art, which means that “scarcity marketing” can also be part of SL.
Finally, some artists use SL as a creative place in itself:
- Sasun Steinbeck has created specific SL pieces of art such as polymorphic sculptures: they are randomly generated (you will never see twice the same), with personalization options (music, shape) when you click on them, and have necessitated 8 months of programming in SL script!
- Dancoyote Antonelli (whose real-life name is DC Spensley) pioneered hyperformalism as “an art movement that creates abstract art in the digital world”. His work includes single paintings that can transform into others on command, a variety of giant moving sculptures.
- The Metaverse gallery is a project of University of Texas at Dallas Art and Technology, and I have loved their “glitches”, which are realized from pictures of SL characters (such as the one on the article’s picture). You can see more of them on Dean Terry (leader of the project and professor at UTD) Flickr space here.
I am not a sheer fan of SL (too slow, and I never find what I want), so my opinion is biased, which is why I would like to know:
What do you think of these initiatives? Do you consider those creations as “pieces of art”? Do you think that people will enjoy discovering art by this way? Do you like digital art based not only on digital tools (type of art which is more than common since the creation of Photoshop) but also on virtual communities? Do you think that there is a real benefit for an artist in being present on SL (in terms of visibility and profit he can make)?
Read more about Fidji SIMO here.
[...] have just made a review on Tech IT Easy of the different types of artistic expressions (creation or presentation) that can be found on [...]
Pingback by A Fresh Start (up) » Blog Archive » Will virtual worlds contribute to democratize art? — June 27, 2007 @ 10:04 pm
I am very glad to see initiatives about art on Second Life. The medium (SL) will improve and in some years time we will be able to meet in the (virtual) Louvre hopefully - without leaving our home…
Of course the real Louvre will always be much more interesting and fascinating. But for me it could be a chance to meet you (and discuss art) without travelling far.
Comment by matthiastech — June 29, 2007 @ 2:17 pm
I would love to meet you there too… But as you can see with the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen of Dresde, we are definitely no far from being able to import the Louvres in SL… This about democratizing the ways to access art, but what is even more interesting is that SL also democratizes the ways to create art, as some great programmers are making amazing and synamic sculptures… There is a real ecosystem in development, as some sheer art collectors of SL art are appearing, as well as a sense of originality and uniqueness.
Comment by Fidji SIMO — June 29, 2007 @ 2:38 pm
Art is a funny thing in that it really is two things. The first is educational—it inspires society, it inspires creativity. The second is a financial instrument. And that is based on scarcity, just like diamonds.
So will art ever be democratised? I think it already is, in the educational sense. Most museums are free or cheap, most art is accessible. Will it seize to be a financial instruments? Probably not, some art will always be perceived as more unique (scarce) than others and generate higher (insane) prices.
Incidentally another great example, next to second life, which I have been following is Saatchi’s free gallery. I tried to get my mother, who is an artist, on there for years.
Comment by Vincent van Wylick — June 30, 2007 @ 12:07 pm
(continued from the last comment)
To answer your question though, I personally think Second Life presents a little too much of a barrier to entry to users. It is so much easier for a casual visitor to go to a website, than go install a program, and then find a museum. If you think of network effects, it just seems to me you want to make access as easy as possible for that to happen. From an interview with Meg Whitman, I do know that eBay is interested in moving to the virtual space, so who knows.
Comment by Vincent van Wylick — June 30, 2007 @ 12:08 pm
Some of my comments take a while to appear on this blog, too long I think, but it was about my general feelings on art. I’m sure it will be here soon.
Comment by Vincent van Wylick — June 30, 2007 @ 12:09 pm
Concerning the barriers, you are perfectly right: I spent at least one hour to find all the places mentionned in this article, and I was already registered! But the experience of seing pieces of art in 3D is so much better than on a website that I think that users can probably get pass the hassle of installing the program in the near future, if SL becomes just a little bit quicker.
Concerning eBay, there is no better place than virtual worlds for eBay to be in. eBay’s strenght is the community: on SL, eBay community can really “meet”, with a physical appearance, which can facilitate mutual trust (basis of eBay business). On the other hand, eBay weakness, like all ecommerce websites, is that the products exchanged cannot be seen effectively: with 3D, it would become easier. Besides, it would also be possible to see the product in its original environment (in the virtual house of the seller) which would add to the emotional aspect of every sale on eBay. Even the process of auctions can be finally reproduced like in reality. But it implies to re-think all the purchasing process and to decide wether the virtual worl should be an eBay made, or if eBay should distribute its content on SL, so it won’t be soon, that’s for sure.
Comment by Fidji SIMO — June 30, 2007 @ 1:34 pm
The question is indeed for what types of products a virtual world is suitable. When you look at Word of Warcraft, the virtual economy in virtual goods is booming.
Will non-virtual goods work as well? Unless the internet becomes virtual, as in a one-click solution, I seriously doubt it. I think the disappointing visitor figures for Second Life agree with this statement also.
Comment by Vincent van Wylick — July 2, 2007 @ 3:16 pm
You are probably right on that point and in the state of things, which is why I don’t doubt that eBay will wait a lot to see if commerce in virtual worlds is working before launcing everything. It is always the same dilemma with innovation: if you go for it without any proof of viability you take a risk far too high, if you wait until you have better insights about how sucessful it will be then you are too late and won’t get as much payback as the first ones!
Comment by Fidji SIMO — July 2, 2007 @ 3:58 pm
True, and I don’t see much of a downside for eBay to make a move there. It may or may not be successful, but it will definitely create some marketing.
Comment by Vincent van Wylick — July 3, 2007 @ 10:22 am
For the time being, buzz marketing is all what Second Life is for companies; for eBay, it might be a facilitator to transactions of real objects but can’t generate a huge incremental revenue for the time being.
Anyways, eBay has made it clear that it could use virtual worlds to facilitate transactions of real objects but not to sell virtuals ones: it was a bold move to forbid in Feb.07 the exchange of virtual goods on eBay.com while this market was generating so much buzz!
Comment by Fidji SIMO — July 3, 2007 @ 10:38 am
[...] of art are displayed. I kind of like those initiatives as they are a new way to show art (see my post about art in virtual worlds). I must also mention Kula, the Creative Commons Island, where you can find a lot of free art that [...]
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