Official Announcement of "Seduction" and "N00sphere Playground"

My 2008 SL interactive sound installation "N00sphere Playground" is being relaunched on the Japanese sim Amatsu as part of a Japanese annual festival between 15 October and 13 November.  In conjunction, a new work titled "Seduction (Seduction of Mermaid)" is also launched on the same sim.

"N00sphere Playground" was commissioned by TaggingArt in Copenhagen as part of Virtual Moves exhibition at the National Gallery of Denmark.  Since then it has been permanently installed on HUMlab sim hosted by Umeå University in Sweden.  Now the work is re-installed on Amatsu for the festival, together with my new work "Seduction."

"N00sphere Playground" is an interactive sound installation in which avatars' own movements trigger various preprogrammed sounds. With its form that imitates and modifies a playground sphere, the work expresses the joy of play through the experience of interactive sounds. Beneath its surface, however, is an underlying notion of noosphere, closely related to Henri Bergson’s concept "Èlan Vital" and its role in evolution. The installation witnesses the unique inter-relation between creativity and play manifested in the dreamscape of Second Life.

"Seduction (Seduction of Mermaid)" is a new SL installation that contains interactive sound objects.  As the visitors interact with them, they leave their traces behind.  As in "N00sphere Playground,"  avatars' interactions with the sound objects create subtle nuances in sound composition, from silence to various volumes, each time different in its polyphonies. 

Seduction is immanent in human experience.  From buying a product to meeting a person in RL, via SL or on social web, we are always being seduced by word, image, sound, material, etc.  We seem to have a permanent need to get seduced.  An artwork is not an exception.  We interact with it, get seduced by it, and live with the experience. An artwork, for me, is not an object.  It is a way of getting to know someone.  It is an intimate way to enter into another's world.  And as such, we artists are bound to have to live with its consequences: fear of opening up oneself to another,  fear of rejection, and fear of death when our seduction fails.  For each work I produce, I have to go through the same experience: stripping, reaching out, and fearing the failure of seducing. Maybe, though in a strange way, we artists can be similar to the Sirens, who with their songs try to lure people to come nearer to the fatal attraction.  And maybe what we fear most is the fate of the Little Mermaid, who one day dissolves into the ocean foam and disappears.  As the second major SL work by my avatar Goodwind Seiling, I wanted to explore a domain beyond the distinction of "virtual/real" where the "virtual" has become already a natural part of me. By linking my avatar persona to my RL personality, "Seduction" is a work that signals that I am entering a new phase in my Second Life practice.

The two works are linked for the festival (from "N00sphere Playground" to "Seduction") but can also be visited separately:

"N00sphere Playground" http://slurl.com/secondlife/Amatsu/89.0/187.0/21.0

"Seduction (Seduction of Mermaid)" http://slurl.com/secondlife/Amatsu/120.0/173.0/21.0

More info on the works can be found here: http://goodwindseiling.blogspot.com/2011/10/relaunching-n00sphere-playground.html

Opening N00sphere Playground + Seduction on Amatsu sim

The festival was opened today and now my works are officially open to the public.  Here are slurls to the works:

N00sphere Playground http://slurl.com/secondlife/Amatsu/89.0/187.0/21.0

Seduction (Seduction of Mermaid) http://slurl.com/secondlife/Amatsu/120.0/173.0/21.0


The works are linked for the festival (from N00sphere Playground to Seduction) but can be visited separately.


Here is more info on both works: http://goodwindseiling.blogspot.com/2011/10/relaunching-n00sphere-playground.html  Not only work descriptions are there but also credits.


Thanks once again to all the people who were involved in making these works.

Virtual Photography II

Some more virtual photographing - 12 October, 2011 - at Amatsu sim

Some Scenes from Amatsu Sim

I will be showing my works "N00sphere Playground" and "Seduction" to the Danish University students tomorrow.  They are studying "Curation Across Virtual and Physical Space" taught by Linnea Jacobsen, who has  written about "N00sphere Playground" in her thesis.  Looking forward to meeting her students :)

Linnea and I met up at Amatsu sim to do some preparation for tomorrow. And while I was already inworld, I took this opportunity to fly around in various parts of Amatsu sim for the first time and took some pictures of "Amatsu sceneries."  (Amatsu hosts both of my works for the Japanese annual SL festival.  More info >> Relaunching "N00sphere Playground" + Launching New Work "Seduction")

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

(detail from the sphere below)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

("kawaii"!!)

(The black cat is "alive."  It moves its ears and closes its eyes.  Comfy in addition)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

dinamite Kidd, the owner of the sim, has previously spent some 10 years in New Zealand and is a guide for outdoor activities.  His love for nature is clearly reflected on this sim. 

I like the sim because of the fact that it is more water than land.  I never understood why people want to have lots of land when you can build anything as sky-boxes up in the air.  Use your imagination - we don't need land to build buildings in SL...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Some more images

(Still some more fundraising for the 3:11 earthquake/tsunami victims)

(Not only beautiful but also interesting picture: a part of it is constantly moving, a little like a small water-fall)

Relaunching "N00sphere Playground" + Launching New Work "Seduction"

Launching new work "Seduction" and Relaunching "N00sphere Playground"

Jazz & Art Festival is an annual Japanese festival involving musicians and artists from various parts of the world.  It is their fourth season this year and has grown to be the largest so far.  It opens on 15 October and continues through 13 November, involving 5 sims, 22 musicians and 7 artists plus a DJ.  The Japanese organisers believe it to be the biggest cultural event in SL, at least amongst SL Japanese communities.  For me this is the first time I ever participate, and I look very much forward to having a great time during the festival period.

"N00sphere Playground" is rebuilt on Amatsu sim and will be a background attraction for the concert with Moshang (Taiwan) and Jana Kyomoon (UK) on 6th November.

It will be shown throughout the event period as an exhibition.  Connected to it, in addition, is a new installation titled "Seduction (Seduction of Mermaid)," which was especially created for this event.  SLURL, etc. will be announced soon.

Below is the info on the works:

--------------------------------------------

N00sphere Playground (2008)

"N00sphere Playground" is an interactive sound installation in which avatars' own movements trigger various preprogrammed sounds. With its form that imitates and modifies a playground sphere, the work expresses the joy of play through the experience of interactive sounds. Beneath its surface, however, is an underlying notion of noosphere, closely related to Henri Bergson’s concept "Èlan Vital" and its role in evolution. The installation witnesses the unique inter-relation between creativity and play manifested in the dreamscape of Second Life.

"N00sphere Playground" was commissioned in 2007 by Tagging Art in Copenhagen with support from The Danish Arts Council for "Virtual Moves" exhibition at the National Gallery of Denmark (Statens Museum for Kunst). For its realisation in Second Life it further received support from Humlab, Umeå University, in Sweden.

Concept, Visual, LSL Scripting, Sound Processing and Sound Composition:

Goodwind Seiling (a.k.a. Sachiko Hayashi)

Original Sounds:

Magnus Alexanderson

Scripting Help and Consultant:

Sophie Zhu (a.k.a. Johan Bichel Lindegaard)

Seth Schlegal (a.k.a. Richard Siegel)

Thanks:

Magnus Alexanderson, James Barrett, Iben  Bentzen, Johan Bichel Lindegaard, Annette Finnsdottir, Anne Holmfred, Ida Grön, Richard Siegel and Patrik Svensson

"N00sphere Playground" is today permanently hosted in Second Life by HUMlab, the University of Umeå, Sweden.  Location >> http://slurl.com/secondlife/HUMlab/162/166/25

"N00sphere Playground" machinima is available here >> http://vimeo.com/18752533



--------------------------------------------

Seduction (Seduction of Mermaid) (2011)

For the last couple of years I have been reassessing the foundation for my art practice, with the outcome that has led me to base my work increasingly on my own self.  It is a result of many months' struggle over understanding the relation between my art and myself, at a level deeper than previously perceived.  "Seduction (Seduction of Mermaid)" is the second work in that process.

Seduction is immanent in human experience.  From buying a product to meeting a person in RL, via SL or on social web, we are always being seduced by word, image, sound, material, etc.  We seem to have a permanent need to get seduced.  

An artwork is not an exception.  We interact with it, get seduced by it, and live with the experience. An artwork, for me, is not an object.  It is a way of getting to know someone.  It is an intimate way to enter into another's world.  And as such, we artists are bound to have to live with its consequences: fear of opening up oneself to another,  fear of rejection, and fear of death when our seduction fails.  For each work I produce, I have to go through the same experience: stripping, reaching out, and fearing the failure of seducing.

Maybe, though in a strange way, we artists can be considered similar to the Sirens, who with their songs try to lure people to come nearer to the fatal attraction.  And maybe what we fear most is the fate of the Little Mermaid, who one day dissolves into the ocean foam and disappears.

"Seduction (Seduction of Mermaid)"  is the second major installation by my avatar Goodwind Seiling in Second Life.  It is also the first work in SL in which I intentionally try to link a clearer tie between my RL personality and the persona of my avatar Goodwind.

The installation contains interactive sound objects. As the visitors interact with them, they leave their own traces.

"Seduction (Seduction of Mermaid)" was conceived site specifically for the Spiral Shell Gallery on Amatsu sim for Jazz and Art Festival 2011. The gallery was specially designed and created for this event by miyuki Alter (a.k.a Miyuki Oomori)  in collaboration with dinamite Kidd (a.k.a Akihiro Iwata) and Toko Loon (a.k.a. Toko Hozumi).

Concept, Visual, LSL Programming, Sound Programming, RL Photography:

Goodwind Seiling (a.k.a Sachiko Hayashi)

Special thanks:  Toko Hozumi, Akihiro Iwata and Miyuki Oomori