Its hard to believe that Brooklyn is Watching, a mixed-reality art project co-developed by Jay Van Buren and Popcha!, has surpassed the ripe old age of one – how exciting! What’s even better is the five finalists from the Best of Year 1 Festival (selected by a panel of five guest judges), have taken over the main room at Jack the Pelican Presents in Brooklyn, NY, as well as also being displayed at Odyssey in Second Life.

I had the chance of attending the kick-off party last week, and let me tell you, the space looks spectacular! The five finalists are each presented on a small LCD; the attached headphones stream BIW podcasters’ commentary and ambient music, really allowing a sense of immersion with the artwork. Guests are strongly encouraged to vote for their favorite piece, as the winner of this tally will win the coveted Golden Eyeball Award!

Another fun part of the evening was taking a group photo of some of the Brooklyn is Watching artists in Second Life; check out the photostream here. It was great to see such an enthusiastic turnout, and I’m glad this emerging, experimental art form is getting the attention it deserves. As a side note, the gallery’s artist-in-residence, Gregory de la Haba, has a spectacular display in the back room.

Don’t fear that you missed the opener, there are some great events coming up:

SATURDAY, 8/15/09, 6:00 — Virtual Artists in Panel Discussion
A group of academics and artists will engage in a panel discussion regarding themes such as design strategies for large virtual spaces in Second Life. Pavig Lok who was responsible in part for the design of Greenies will present his ideas and first hand experiences. Lori Landay from Berklee College of Music will discuss what she considers to be the difference between virtual art and art that is shown in the virtual world. Stacey Fox will talk about her experiences with promoting virtual art in the Department of Visual Art at Kansas University.

SUNDAY, 8/16/09, 7:00 — Lecture with One of the Pioneers of the Metaverse World
Jerry Paffendorf, an artist and entrepreneur who lovingly refers to Brooklyn as Silicon Ghetto, will share personal adventures and new ideas combining virtual worlds, art, business, the web and what’s happening with Crazy Company and the LOVELAND project to collaboratively own land and create a new city on a grid of a million inches in Detroit.

About Brooklyn is Watching:
Brooklyn is Watching, conceived of by Jay Van Buren, executed as a collaboration with Boris Kizelshteyn and the Popcha! development team in February 2008, is a breakthrough relational art project that invites interaction between the two thriving art communities of Second Life and Williamsburg, Brooklyn accentuating the power relations between and among them. It consists of a series of inter-related spaces for artists, audiences, and participants. The primary spaces are a square parcel of land (sim) in Second Life where artists are invited to leave their work for one week (when it is automatically returned), and an alcove in the Williamsburg art gallery–Jack the Pelican Presents where the sim can be viewed on a large monitor and entered via an avatar.

[Brooklyn is Watching]
[Popcha!]

Last Wednesday the 7th, I had the privilege of co-presenting Brooklyn is Watching at the prestigious Technology/Art meetup dorkbot-nyc.

From their website:

“dorkbot-nyc is a monthly meeting of artists (sound/image/movement/whatever), designers, engineers, students, scientists, and other interested parties from the new york area who are involved in the creative use of electricity.”

Artist Jay van Buren, my partner on the Brooklyn is Watching project, and I gave a visual and conceptual tour of the project.

Jay described what Brooklyn is Watching is, and then I riffed on the value of the project to Popcha! as a sponsor. To summarize: Popcha! worked with Jay to realize Brooklyn is Watching in order to illustrate the depth of engagement possible in Virtual Worlds. Given an opportunity to have their creativity appreciated, people will flock to that opportunity. Many SL projects underperformed in the past because they did not put enough emphasis on engaging people in a discourse that genuinely values their contribution, I wanted to be sure that Popcha! had a very visible project that stood out in this regard, one that demonstrated the unique engagement opportunity that exists in Second Life. In the last 10 months we have had over 6k visitors to the sim with an average engagement time of nearly 1.25 hours. Our presentation was very well recieved by the full house in attendance.

We were honored to share the evening with interactive art pioneer Zach Lieberman whose idea of Doing It With Others (DIWO) summarized not just the projects on display that night, but indeed may be the credo of all social media.

Also presenting was Di Mainstone, whose incredible techno couture was the most masterful blending of textile craft and technology that I have seen to date.

I recommend that everyone reading this blog get on the dorkbot mailing list and attend a meeting in your area.

Schrodinger's Cat

“No Matter reflects the tension between the SL virtual economy and real economics by:
(1) commissioning 25 builders and artists to produce 40 imaginary objects in Second Life space;
(2) paying them in Linden dollars at an equivalent scale of $1.50 to $12.00 per object;
(3) extracting the objects from Second Life — a closed system where 3D models cannot be exported;
(4) reconstructing these objects as 3D paper replicas in physical space.”

No Matter website
No Matter in Second Life

Also see: Brooklyn is Watching, a Popcha!-sponsored SL/RL art venture