Gaz of The Desert Screening - In-World Premiere!

Here we all are at the premiere screening of Gaz's film on Odyssey Island. For those who do not know already, Gazira is a co-member of Second Front. I really like the Rhizomatic seating arrangement that Sugar Seville designed :-)

Here is a rear-view behind the seats of the movie screening. You can see the screen peeking through the seats here. Sugar was sitting high up in the nosebleed section - probably to score the best view of the vast Desert :-) Also, if you have a look at the chat-history, you will notice that co-star Beavis Palowakski had made an appearance to support the film's opening...yaaaay! Clap clap clap clap! You can see Beavis underneath the seats...

Hey performance art and in-world movie fans!

I barely made it in time to watch the beginning of Gazira Babeli's in-world premiere of her surrealist mini-epic Gaz of the Desert (2007) but I could not stick around long enough to watch the entire 23 minutes...I am so sorry folks! I just had too much RL to take care of this Sunday afternoon..sigh!

I wish I could have faffed around long enough to have watched my cameo appearance in Gaz's film...sigh! Well, at least I have seen a private screening of this film before so I know it is quite amazing and worth watching! I plan to watch it again when I have some more free time to re-enter SL and check it out :-)

Bodies in Quotes - My panel presentation at Ars Virtua...

The "Bodies in Quotes" panel from left to right: Xerxes Druart (Stuart Bunt) , Wirxli Flimflam (me), Natberg Sternberg (Nathaniel Stern) and The Unknown (Carlos Castellanos - Moderator) .

To hear Wirxli FLimflam's RL biological alt "Jeremy O. Turner" speaking at the panel presentation, click on Miulew Takahe's pocast link.

Here is a quote from Wirxli's RL self after listening to his own voice on the podcast...

"Wow! That is quite the lisp I have there! My avatar persona must be having an affect on my RL biological voice-tone...I sounded like I was more from LindenLand (San Francisco) than from Canada! Maybe I can go for a voice interview with LindenLabs to get a job there? Heheheheheh... I also noticed that I tended to mumble alot! As for content, it was hard to latch onto what I waa trying to say at the panel...I just hope that my avatar distracted people enough from the actual voice coming through! Now I know why so many people rely on text to get their ideas across...at least there can be a realtime editing process...sheesh! Well, at least they could also hear my RL son causing trouble in the background so they knew I had an excuse for sounding spacey!" -Jeremy O. Turner (April, 2007)

Hello performance art, biotech art and body art fans!

Phew! I just wrapped up my panel discussion at the Ampitheater on Learning. The panel's theme "Bodies in Quotes" that Carlos Castellanos moderated. This was part of Ars Virtua's conference series called Borders. This conference was sponsored by the CADRE Laboratory for New Media in San Jose, California.

I had alot of fun being on this panel and I even got a chance to augment my avatar's overall persona and voice chatted with the rest of the gang for quite some time :-)

Since we were quite dependent on voice-chatting as our in-world broadast medium for the masses - I felt the need to at least type a few words out into the open unless it turned out that no one was actually hearing us. "If avatars chat amongst themselves in Ventrilo, does anybody (else) hear?"

Heheheheheh.. That must be a new koan for SL ;-)

So anyway, when it came time for my turn to talk, I first pasted into the chat-history my point form notes about what I was hoping to blather about in order to completely consume the full coveted 10 minutes of air-time... Normally, I would just spend 10 minutes blatantly hyping Second Front but I knew there were some academics nearby so I had to appear "objective". ;-)

Here is an edited version of my pasted notes that were intended for the audio-less to read and imagine exactly what I was elaborating/rambling about...

Here was my grandiose and academic-esque title...

"The Borders between ALT Bodies: Toggling between multiple SL windows and one biological window."

1) Identify Henrik Bennetsen's (SL name = Lys Ware) difference between Augmentation and Immersion.

2) Discuss both Richard Bartle's and Bennetsen's personality archetypes that haunt the virtual/biological bodies...

BARTLE's Archetype list = Achievers, Explorers, Socializers, and Killers.

As a related sidenote, I found it kind of odd and amusing that Richard Bartle once made an appearance as an avatar in SL to declare the Text-MUD's creative supremacy over visually-based virtual worlds such as Second Life itself and others...

BENNETSEN's Archetype list = Creators, Philosphers, Socializers, Businesspeople...

3) mention my different alts and identify which archetype fits best for each alt and how they address performance "art"

4) Mention also the archetypcal borders between the alts (including the biological body in "quotes").

5) emphasize that the most virtual body in SL when it comes to performance art is actually the biological body..it takes simply a figurehead mythological status until one dies.

6) Wirxli's SLebrity body enters and enhances mythological space (mention bodyguards and expanding persona in products).

So as you can see, these were very last-minute notes that I had hastily scrawled onto my off-world notepad application (no, I did not use the in-world "notecard") and only when I found out that voice-chat was going to be the primary broadcasting method, did I realize that I should probably make my notes public... I hope that was a good idea!

I really enjoyed what the other panelists had to say and I hope to hang out with them all in SL again soon... I had so many distractions in RL during this time that I found it very difficult to tune into what my colleagues were saying... To summarize:

1) Xerxes was mentioning how the semi-living biological entires being made in their RL lab were making the public feel uncomfortable, yet ethically responsible...

2) Natberg was bringing up the qualities of living in the grid that caused him some discomfort and intellectual distance..I wish I could summarize his talk better but his audio kept on crashing and also he happened to speak when I had all these essential RL distractions...sigh! I am sure we will be back in touch in SL and he can update me on what he actually said today...I humbly apologize, Natberg! :-)

3) As I said earlier, Carlos was our moderator and was doing a really good job at fielding questions and raising new ones that would engage all three of us panelists....yaaaay!

Other than one fielded forth by Humbert Xingjian, the only quesions we got were from Ars Virtua's curator, Rubaiyat Shatner aka. James Morgan.


One question he wanted to ask seemed to want to put into question the "official" wikipedia definition of Transhumanism. My personal ideas about Transhumanism came from one of the official sources which is more reliable than Wikipedia... Well, I will have a word with Ruby about that later ;-)

In the meantime, here are some other snapshots from my archives for you to peruse on your way down to reading the rest of my blog postings...

Here we all are sitting pretty for the panel...that is all you really need to do in SL...heheheheheh! On the right there, you will see some ad for a Tour-HUD. I knew that in-world HUDs were a dime-a-dozen but had no idea that they would have a special one for touring....KEWL! One of the drawbacks of the design though is that no Superman will request a guided tour. ..heheheheh!

In this pic, you see the front-rows of the audience..I am sure many were hiding in the nosebleed section...heheheheheheheheh! My trusty personal bodyguard, Bear Brooks was keep watch on the audience in case anything theoretically sneaky happened. I told Bear right off the bat to "never trust academics and skeptics"....Heh heh! I think he may have seen a critic or two in the audience as he was reaching inside his coat pocket for his gun :-) But seriously, I not only need critics to prop me and my career up, I also need bodyguards to protect my frail, drugged-up and quoted-up body!


Here is a side-view for you... For some petty and probably narcissistic reason, I really like taking the same situation from different angles. If you recognize yourself and your nametag in the audience and want to ask me additional questions about the panel discussion, please do not hesitate to IM me in-world.


Photo by Miulew Takahe.Special thanks to Miulew Takahe who is my colleague in the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse. He not only took this hi-rez pic, he also recorded the audio so i could have a sneak preview of all the stutters and interruptions I made ;-)

Photo by Miulew Takahe...and here is an additional pic by Miulew. Quite the nice side-profile I have there! :-)

Well, I hope the audio portion of the conference panel is officially posted soon so I can add a hyperlink to this blog! Please scroll down to read more postings...

Bingo's HUD-Help in his hometown!

Here I am with the German Avatar Orchestra Metaverse members, Bingo Onomatopoeia and DeThomas Dibou. I just happened to drop in while they were setting up a mock-up of their hometown, Regensberg. Nice flaming car, eh? Apparently, Bingo placed it there in reference to a car show happening right now in the RL version of Regensberg.

Hey performance art and new music fans!

Last night, I was at Enniv Zarf's place because he invited the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse to play my brand new composition I am working on called "SLippery SLope" (2007). If we play there, it will be on May 19th or so. Even though my new composition-in-progress is site-specific, I will not show you exactly what I was checking out at Enniv's place because that just might spoil the surprise a little bit...

So anyways, I realized that the sample-performance HUD that Maximillian Nakamura helped me create a couple of weeks ago would not be enough to make for an expressive performance to an audience.

Being a performance artist at heart, I was really inspired by the rehearsal of Miulew Takahe's composition "Rue Blanche" (2007) and the interpretive visual-HUD that Bingo built for it. So, I finally got a chance to chat directly with Bingo about the possibilty of making a new visual-HUD for my composition and he is into the idea and so I literally just gave him all the audio-visuals I have at my disposal for my gesamtkunstwerk so far (including Max's very aesthetically pleasing square button mod).

Yaaay! Things are coming along so nicely and I have all these brilliant collaborators to thank for making my wackiest dreams come true!

Here are a few more snapshots for you to kill time with...

Ahhh...here is a nice close-up of me hanging out with Bingo. At this point, we had diverted the topic of our discussion to the much more important theme of hairstyles and jeans. Bingo was mentioning how Regensberg is near Austria and I remarked that we both have genius hair like Beethoven and Mozart. Bingo said though that he grew up listening to the Beatles which would explain his tight black jeans. Maybe he should have called himself Ringo Onomatopoeia...lol! R-I-N-G-O!

Uhhh..forget the mention of "The Pink Zone" in the chat-history of this pic..that is uhhh..classified composition-related information ;-) Noticing that someone might be listening (other than DeThomas), I quickly changed the subject to local restaurants in Regensberg since we were standing outside of a pizzaria... Regensberg looked to "euro" to have pizza-by-the-slice but he offered to show me where his fave pizzaria in town was and that was....

... Da Tino Pizzaria! I said how it looked like an "intimate" setting and he then asked how urban my hometown was...I said that my RL hometown was only slightly bigger than Regensberg but where I live now is considered to be the 3rd biggest city in Canada. So now he understood why his fave pizza joint was "intimate" in its atmosphere...

Interviewed by Alpenluft Laws...

Here I am with the in-world sociology and media communications scholar from Switzerland, Alpenluft Laws...

Hey performance art and identity interrogation fans!

I do not know why, but I was starting to feel a bit nervous just before the interview with Alpenluft Laws was about to begin...I felt like I was about to be psycho-analyzed or something. Fortunately, Laws is Swiss and not Austrian ;-)
I guess I just did not feel comfortable in my own skin..sigh! Or..maybe the kinds of metaphysical questions he was asking did not match my particular performance-artist archetype that as Wirxli, I am so dependent on for success!

Well, the questions got too much for Wirxli so I had to change into someone more comfortable...that is, I changed into my alt to answer the rest of the questions but the identity of my alt is confidential so I will not show you any pix of my other persona who chatted with Alpenluft for the remainder of the 2 hours. Although I will not disclose anything that my alt said to Mr. Laws, I will say that Sherry Turkle would have been proud of me because I was practicing the whole lifestyle of multi-tasking between reality-windows...wooo hoooo!

Since you will not get to see my alt, here are some more superficial snaps of me being interviewed by Mr. Laws...

...even his very first question that was part of a series of "general questions" was extremely intimidating...I think I was about to chew off all my prim-nails right from the start! I mean "how many days do you spend in SL?"...gawd! Kind of a deep and personal question, isn't it? Already I felt my inner-alt waiting to be set free!

Did I mention that even his text-test before the interview was intimidating?

Just to give you some recent historical perspective here, I first met him at my PR office on Odyssey Island. When I first met him, I thought I would just be asked some truly basic questions like, "why are you famous?" ;-) Well, I guess he had some alt-erior motives up his sleeve...sigh!

OSMOSA - opening night for an open source museum...

Here I am at the grand opening of the brand new Open Source Museum of Open Source Art - OSMOSA.
This snapshot was taken right when me and my personal bodyguard met the curator, Deborah Maertens...

To check out the official photos from the OSMOSA opening, click here.

Hey performance art and open source fans!

Phew! The deadly combo of mixing RL (Real Life) with SL (Second Life) has totally worn me out!

I started this blog late last night/early morning and the blogging and other networking/socializing never seem to stop!

I think Deborah Maertens' new museum has a lot of potential to become the sort of next-generation museum that my RL buddy Douglas Davis envisioned in his book Museum of the Third Kind. Roy Ascott also wrote a bit about the potential of such a museum. For this Second Life version, it looks like the concept was developed by the founder of Rhizome, Mark Tribe.

Well, I had a good time meeting a bunch of people at the opening and I am in discussions with my colleagues in Second Front a nd the museum to alter the architecture of the building in a performative and realtime way.

Check out the other snapshots from this event...

...here is a close-up of that same moment when I first met Deborah. And yes, I needed at least one close-up to show off the gleaming bling of my Chanel shades. ;-)

The chat-trialogue in this pic is referencing the fact that when we first arrived to meet Deborah, the space was totally laggy and therefore, just about everyone and everything looked totally gray. At the point this snap was taken, the immediate view around us had finally rezzed. However, there were frequent world-crashes and the continuous re-grayfication of OSMOSA...

...I think from this pic, you can see what I mean...some people look like their usual selves but other people were beginning to look rather gray... Maybe their avatar bodies and SL identities are gradually turning into open-source templates for re-mediation? ;-) Bryan Dix (the reporter from the SL-Newspaper) was there but he was so un-rezzed, he appeared to be invisible or at least obscured by some sort of cloaking device! My friend LillyEliska Kralamoc (who has done some PR services for me in the past)was looking even more gray than the B&W Goth gal she usually is! Sugar Seville had better luck for a little while since in the beginning, she only had grayness on her shirt but later on, she lost all of her hair (baldness not pictured here)... On the more colourful side of virtual life, I met a Dutch in-world photographer named Daedalus Young. You will read more about him in a sec...

My good friend Chi5 Shenzhou arrived to check out this opening. She brought along her GF, Jew Hoorenbeek. The guy with the green hair is an artist from Rome, Italy. His SL name is DannyDarko Raymaker but I do not know who he is in RL. He gave me a link to check out but I have since lost it in my IM history...sigh! I added him as a new friend so maybe I will be blogging about his life soon :-)

This is basically just another "action" shot from the opening. In the chat-history, you will notice that my good friend Lior Humphreys was also at this opening. I will tell you about Deborah's open source painting on the wall in a sec...

First of all, I wanted to show you yet another "action" shot from the museum's main lobby. Now you can see what Lior looks like :-) You will also notice that LillyEliska has finally rezzed her fashionable gothic ensemble... In the chat-history, they are all discussing the open-source Beuys oak developed by the Pei twins...

So in no time flat, I managed to convince Daedalus Young to take a group photo of everyone nearby in front of Deborah's open-source Olympia. To check out Young's hi-rez photo, click here.

Here was what the group photo looked like from behind-the-scenes. Other people in this group photo included: Kenny Hubble (who drove around the museum in his motorcycle after this pic), JinSaeDavis Jun (OSMOSA's other curator) and the performance artist, Koco Furse. I mention Koco's cage performance in more detail in my collaborative blog with my adopted foster daughter, Fwwixli Swindlehurst. Interestingly, there was a critic nearby named Lanne Wise from Milwaulkee...I am actually on the hunt for critics to collaborate with for some future projects...maybe I can track her down again and contact her... I hope so!

The group photo session took a little awhile and that was because I kept on trying to invite additional people for the group-pose. I managed to teleport my Second Front co-performer Man Michinaga for the pic... yaaaay!

For this pic, Daedalus instructed some of us to hover in the air while the rest of us (me included) would line-up underneath. I am not sure if he has published this additional group photo yet...

Wow! Sugar is wearing some awesome purple shoes! They are much easier to notice when she is hovering in the air ;-) As you can see, I took a few pix of this group-pose.

On the subject of Sugar and her snazzy shoes, this happens to be my fave snapshot that I took of the event...I guess the close-ups allow me and my friends to display to the world our complete self-absorption and pan-narcissism, eh? Heheheheheh... I am also quite fond of this pic because it showcases my lovely and coveted Scarlett Johansson/RBK earring.

Ok, here is an aerial view showing you that there were other floors to show in addition to the main lobby where I spent most of my time. I did eventually explore the other floors with my foster daughter. If you wish to read more about my jaunt with Fwwixli at OSMOSA, click here...

Avatar Orchestra Metaverse Rehearsal II...

My rehearsal as an orchestra player for the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse was just about to begin when I took this quick snapshot. This composition is Rue Blanche (2007) by Miulew Takahe. The innovative HUD interface you are seeing is by Bingo Onomatopoeia

To listen to an archived podcast audio recording from our totally live and in-world rehearsal session today, click here.

Hey performance art and new-muzak fans!

I literally just finished rehearsing once again for the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse! Wow, Miulew did a brilliant job of composing for Bingo's triple-HUD performance interface system :-) I hope Miulew and Bingo write more compositions together!

The piece reminds me of Alvin Lucier or some classic sine tone composition by a member of the Cologne school although I guess this composition really belongs more to the Regensburg school...heheheheh!

I hope I can make it to the actual orchestra performance on May 12th!

Yoko Ono and the Great Escape...

ONO! Wirxli Flimflam intends to cut the Ono-esque dress of Second Front co-performer, Great Escape but ends up lunging for GE's delicious purple arm instead! It is likely that those lovely purple curtains are next! ;-)

Here is Wirxli's "Director's Cut"...tee hee!

Hey remediated performance art fans!

As I am sure you would have guessed by now, time (history) goes by really fast in SL. Barely a week ago, Great Escape and myself managed to produce a print series based on Marina Abramovic's "Rest Energy".

Already, we have completed yet another remediated performance from GE's art-history checklist...This time, we were able to re-perform Yoko Ono's "Cut Piece" for the printed archives.

One thing was for certain tonight, GE was dressed to kill...heheheheheheh!

A Brief History of Art Metropole...

Here I am with Art Metropole Board Member, Ian Ah (Ian Murray in RL) outside the entrance to the new Art Metropole property (sim) on Odyssey. This pic was taken approxinately two weeks ago... As you can see, Ian is wearing a construction hat so this snapshot was obviously taken during AM's construction period. Ian is not only a Board Member for AM, he also built the entire Second Life version of Art Metropole entirely by himself :-)


This construction period must have been very stressful for Ian because he took up the nasty habit of smoking cigars during this time...sigh! As you can see, the Art Metropole sim was still for the most part a flattened piece of land. Posing with us with the horns is BL Niven.


Ok, now you can see Ian's grand designs for Art Metropole taking shape... In fact, it appears as if the boardroom he made for AM is literally rezzing into existence! Actually, I am not sure what that console is for but his LED digital clock is Ian's architectural trademark.


So, Ian had not even finished the building when this snap was taken and we were already beta-testing the boardroom while discussing future event plans for Art Metropole. Already, I was thinking that I should historicize the building process for this sim as well as finding ways to quickly educate my in-world audience about what Art Metropole is and exactly how it will enhance and benefit the SLarts community...


Here is a close-up of me typing my own board minutes for my quick convo with Ian as well as looking for convenient data on Ian's computer to copy and paste Art Metropole's RL history for the in-world avatar community...

Hey there performance art fans and art-multiple collectors,

I have decided to post a Brief History about Art Metropole for you this fine evening since their official sim designed by their Board Member Ian Ah has finally been completed and is awaiting its first programmed event (the grand opening, as it were)!

I will blog more about the very first events at the Second Life version of Art Metropole as soon as it takes place.

I am sure that many of the avatars in SL (Second Life) and in RL ("Real" Life) will be reading this blog posting and wondering, "well, what is Art Metropole anyways"?

Since RL has been keeping me very busy, I will have to resort to efficiency ("laziness") tonight and copy and paste for you here the official history and context behind the RL Arts institution in Toronto called Art Metropole....

First, what is Art Metropole?

"Art Metropole specializes in contemporary art in multiple format: artists books, multiples, video, audio, electronic media, and so on. Art Metropole offers artists' products for sale on our premises and through this web site. They also publish, promote, exhibit and distribute artists' products in various formats.

Art Metropole was founded in 1974 by the artists' group General Idea. Art Metropole is a not-for-profit corporation incorporated under the laws of the province of Ontario.

Art Metropole thanks the Canada Council for the Arts, The Ontario Arts Council, The Trillium Foundation, and the City of Toronto through the Toronto Arts Council for their support."

Contact Information:
Art Metropole
788 King Street West
Toronto, Ontario,
Canada M5V 1N6
t 416.703.4400
f 416.703.4404
info@artmetropole.com

Ok, I am guessing you want more from this intro to Art Metropole...

Now you are asking..what is Art Metropole's detailed history?

"Art Metropole was founded by the Canadian artists collective General Idea as a non-profit artist-run archive and distribution agency for artists' publications and other materials.

The three artists of General Idea had been publishing their periodical FILE since 1972. The enormous interest they found internationally led them to found Art Metropole as a means for other artists to access their distribution system. They had also begun to amass a collection of artists books and ephemera, and this they saw as the beginnings of the Art Metropole Collection. In 1974 they opened their doors to the public in an abandoned space over a Greek restaurant in downtown Toronto. The building had originally been built in 1911 for one of Toronto's earliest art galleries, Art Metropole (which closed in the forties), and from this came the name.

In 1975 Peggy Gale joined Art Metropole to initiate their video distribution service, one of the first in the world. In 1987 they discontinued conventional video distribution and began publishing artists' video in low-cost VHS format.

Art Metropole began publishing books in the late 70s. 'Performance by Artists' in 1977 was the first of a series of resource books on new artists' media. The same year they published '3 death stories' by Tom Sherman, the first of a long series of artists books.

Although they hosted video screenings and book launchings, Art Metropole did not undertake an exhibition until 1982, when they toured the seminal exhibition 'Museums by Artists'. In 1984 they presented the first exhibition on our own premises, a ten-year anniversary overview of the Art Metropole Collection. In the late 80s they established a small exhibition/display space and began their regular exhibition program.

In the meantime Art Metropole continued to produce a series of innovative distribution-based projects such as 'Ads by Artists' (1987) and 'Billboards by Artists' (1997). In both cases Art Metropole commissioned artists to produce art works for conventional advertising space, in one case in the advertising section of international art magazines, in the other, on billboards in downtown Toronto.

In 1997 Art Metropole transferred their permanent collection of over 13,000 items to the National Gallery of Canada."


Ok, so that is AM's RL history... Here is my brief recounting of their recent SL history....I will quote my own realtime writings....heheheheheheh....and I quote...

"I met Ian AH in Second Life when he built a squat directly below my PR office on Odyssey Island. His squat quickly evolved into a couple of media lounges for screening movies. I introduced him to Sugar Seville who runs Odyssey and managed to convince her to give Ian free space to expand his ideas on the island without fear of eviction. Ian realized that Odysesey needed legit institutions to float Odyssey's overhead so he managed to convince Art Metropole to set up shop on the island. Next thing you know, Ian has donned a construction hat and has begun to build the whole thing himself. He even created a poodle-esque avatar named 'Invoice Writer' to handle the financial aspects of AM. Within like two weeks, the AM sim's archictural infrastructure was built and ready to go...now all AM needed was some artists to make some collectibles unique to SL. I am glad to see that the former Prez of AM is in-world...That individual's name is 'Jormantic Yifu'. So maybe Jormantic can help out with the programming and everything else. I also offered to help curate some stuff there and maybe even produce some collectible art for the institution...I really think Art Metropole will be the first institution in Second Life to empower those artists whose work is unique to the properties of SL and will allow the fruits of their labour to last within the artworld once SL disappears...I would imagine also that Art Metropole will eventually set a standard for what a next-generation gallery/museum/store should look like in avatar worlds... I am so excited! I mean, I first heard about General Idea when I was literally in diapers in RL and some of my RL artist buddies have their work up for sale in Art Metropole's store...Also, I have heard that Sonic Youth has played some gigs in their RL sim...whoa! I can taste the hipness!" - Wirxli Flimflam

Ok, that was my quickie subjective historial overview of Art Metropole...now for some more photos of the pre-history of the building of AM in SL...

Left to right: Ian Ah, Wirxli Flimflam (me), BL Niven and Great Escape (sitting in his Pac-Man chair).
I swear that this snapshot here documents the minute that the idea of Art Metropole on Odyssey was being discussed. Here we all are having a discussion on Great Escape's property on Stone Pike. I wish I could remember exactly what we were saying...sigh! I think this was taken about 2 months ago(?) I am not totally sure anymore...here are some more photos of this event...


In this pic, Gazira Babeli has joined us with her dress still rezzing...


Ok, I guess this really nothing more than the same thing but at a different angle..I am not sure what aspect about Art Metropole we had discussed at this time but let me tell you that I think with this one meeting alone, we fleshed (hashed) out alot of non-productive theory together....


Hmmm..the only person I recognize here for sure is Marco Manray. Some of the rezzing gals look familiar but I am not positive of their ID...Maybe they will start some Art Metropole copycat sims? heheheheheheh....

Here is a change of scenery for you...This snapshot was taken about 3 weeks after that Stone Pike brainstorming session and this was at the point where Ian had literally flattened the coastline...I really like the palm tree and floral arrangement! If I remember correctly, he had not designed his version of a Baghdadesque fortified Green Zone yet...heheheheheheh! On the left is DorkbotSL and Avatar Orchestra Metaverse founder, Maximillian Nakamura.

...Oh, I must be going senile or something as now I noticed that Ian had in fact built a basic open-plan structure for the Art Metropole sim to allow for some fresh tropical air to blow in....Art institutions could certainly use some more ventilation! Oh wait a sec, I think this pic was taken a few days after that lounging around session with Max...geez! Time accelerates into a singularity in SL or is it just the drugs staying in the system?


This pic was taken about 3-5 days after that and this is when Chi5 Shenzhou (torso featured in this pic) was helping Ian with the actual architectural infrastructure of the Art Metropole sim. I really like these ladders that were built and displayed in this pic...I hope Ian keeps them installed in time for AM's grand opening.


This gives you a better sense of the ladders' relationship to the conference/board-room area...In addition, you get a better sense of what Chi5 looks like :-)


So, at the time this pic was taken, Art Metropole had pretty much been built and was/is more or less ready to go...Here is my good buddy Fau Ferdinand and yours truly beta-testing the board-room chairs...


Left to Right: Jaytri Allen, Wirxli FLimflam (me), Sugar Seville and Ian Ah.
Here we are simulating Art Metropole's first in-world board meeting..I am glad I am not a board member...phew! Even posing for a board-meeting is hard work!

Ok, once again, we have the same event at a slight different angle...why do I blog almost every angle that archive on my hard drive? Sigh! Sometimes, I am a full-on nutbar!


The only difference with this angle is that Cyrus Huffhines joined us for the board-room simulation.


Ok Ok, now THIS is getting more historical! The Guru of Avatar-Worlds and their histories, Digi Weaver (the dude with green hair) joined us for this board-room simulation...now Art Metropole has been written into history for sure :-)


Here is another pic of Fau and myself faffing around in the board-room area.


Ok, I guess this documentation is getting a little tedious now...In this pic, ShaneV Bellman has joined us to watch an in-world screening of Second Front's 'Martyr Sauce' performance video...


Yeah yeah yeah...more humdrum historical stuff for the archives filing cabinet...

Ok people! Stay tuned for more instantly-historical postings about Art Metropole in the near future... I will try to be more selective with what I blog next time, ok?

Enjoy scrolling down the blog to read about other stuff...