Eno's 77 Million Paintings in Second Life...

Here I am at the entrance to one of the many installation spaces where some of Brian Eno's 77 Million Paintings are on virtual display. If you want to see the text description on the wall, you will need to attend this space in person to have a closer look :-)

Hey there Long Nowbies, Eno-oids, Evening Stars and Oblique Strategists,

I just got back from an epic opening tour of Brian Eno's multi-installation sponsored by the Long Now Foundation, BlueAir TV, Ars Virtua, Leeds College of Art and Design (England) and the Art Center in Avignon.

I have to perform very early tomorrow for the Pages exhibition so I will keep this brief (yeah, right...heh heh!)...

Well, I had a great time and met lots of new people. There was lots of chatting and intrigue and we were even sent on a treasure hunt to find free goodies in every hosting gallery...wow, no wonder I faffed around for so long ;-)

Well, I gotta go to bed now but check out the photos below....zzzzzzzzzzzzzz....

The main Lobbyseum (a cross between a lobby and a colosseum - heh heh) was packed full of Eno-oids. The main attractions were Angrybeth Shortbread (artist), Cyrus Huffhines (organizer), Rubaiyat Shatner (Ars Virtua curator), Howard Rheingold (VR Culture Guru) and Xantherus Halberd (Art Center curator and Eno's personal avatar designer). I barely had time to sit down before I was told to find this teleporter with some ambient turquoise glow on one of the top stairs as a way (Cyrus called this way a "contingency") to get my ass over to the next place...sigh!

My buddies from Second Front were also there - Man and Tran. If you'll check out the chat history for sec, you will notice that the enigmatic "Alexander Rose" is signing off...Cyrus says Mr. Rose worked with Brian Eno very closely to emulate the 77 Millions Paintings in Second Life but...someone raised the possibility that Rose is really Eno's alt....might this be possible? Hmmmmm.... I mean, only the artist himself would bail out early, right? ;-) Hmmm..on the subject (tangent), someone in the audience noticed that Brian Eno's profile seemed to not have any payment nor financial transaction information... Well, it makes sense to me...He promises to pay his sponsors back every Thursday Afternoon.

This pic is just showing you another crowd shot...This lobbyseum was packed right up with nosebleed seats...it is small wonder that the Teleporter took so long to take us to the next SLated venue! They were not kidding when they said it was hosted by "The Long Now"....heheheheheh!

Ok ok, this is just yet another gratuitous crowd shot in a hopeless attempt to namedrop using the attending avatars' nametags.... I wish I knew who more of these people were though - they MUST be SOMEBODIES ;-)

I just HAD to show you an example of the chaos leading to the first Teleport to Kula and from there, to the Art Center. Normally, finding the washroom in a place as large and laggy as this is an oblique strategy seriously worth considering but in the 21st century, we are scrambling like zen-less lemmings trying to find Another Green World....well, Another Green Teleporter anyway...er....turquoise is green right? You know what I mean, right? ;-)


Ok, it is true, I am not an in-world purist...I did indeed photoshop this pic after taking a screen capture.
Somehow, I finally figured out how to bask myself in this turquoise delight and teleport all the way to Kula which only appeared to be one floor above the Lobbyseum in Kula... go figure! Hmmmm..I think I saw an Evening Star in the distance while teleporting...naaaa...it was not Sirius enough ;-)


Finally, I am here (still somwehere in "Kula", from what I now understand) although I am not quite sure where "here" is...sigh! I felt like I was on the lot for the set of Music for Films V ;-) Is it me or do I only see 2 paintings here...there must be another 76 Million and counting left to see...I hope they have a fast refresh rate ;-)

I took this pic to make sure I was posing next to Howard Rheingold. It is all about seeing and being seen, right? It is a good thing I had some alone time with him...If I yelled out that Howard Rheingold was in the audience, they all would have smart mobbed him, for sure ;-)

So finally, I made it over to the Art Center to attend the first major video installation remediated by Angrybeth Shortbread who for some reason has managed to temporarily hide her nametag (she is the one standing next to Man Michinaga with the blue kimono). I really liked this room alot and was very grateful for getting ahold of a free exhibition catalogue at the front entrance :-)

Ok, phew! Angrybeth's nametag re-appeared for the sake of this blog posting. This pic also shows a close up of my good buddy and colleague from the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse, Miulew Takahe. Oh geez, that reminds me, I gotta perform with the AOM at 9 AM tomorrow and with my SL daughter Fwwixli Swindlehurst even earlier at 7:30 AM...yikes! I had better hurry up with the typing if I am to get any RL sleep.

Here I am posing with my free copy of Eno's roleplaying classic (well, if you consider the i-Ching to be a form of Ancient D&D roleplaying) titled "Oblique Strategies". Maybe I will create a performance using it? Hmmmm.. I think I will use this tomorrow as a guide for my collaborative performance tomorrow with my daughter, Fwwixli...she could certainly used some more transmitted wisdom from the elders. :-)

I think in this pic I am at Ars Virtua now...it was all one big ambient haze and daze! I was pleased to see that the refresh rate for the paintings was living up to its hype :-)

The opening event ended with a giant party bash at the Collective at Leeds University. Only with an Eno-event would you have a party at a University! Heheheheheheh....