After a-month-or-so in SL and after thousands of comments from my non-artist-SL-friends (”You have to get new skin” “You have to get new hair” “You have to get new clothes” “You have to get new shoes” “You have to get new shape” “You have to get new eys” etc etc), I decided to explore a little more about shops and clothes, mostly to shut off those comments and make my SL life easier. Soon I found that many clothes sold in SL butiques for female avatars are often too revealing and/or too sexy; it has been difficult, if not near impossible, to find good clothes for my female avatar that do not accentuate “female-ness”. I’ve seen seen many female avatars on the streets wearing those sexy clothes (which come nearer to no clothes than clothes) but often I suspect those are probably controlled by RL men. (I hope you all are aware of the fact that many men often like to play females in Virtual world – this has been a well-known fact ever since Habitat.) In SL there seems to exist a special type of beauty-concept for female avatars, whose clothes, hair, shoes, etc. are mostly designed by (and often owned and controlled by) men in RL.

Now the other day, a friend of mine gave me Landmark to an exhibition called “‘Sex and the Virtual Landscape’ – Paolo Bade’s tribute to Helmut Newton” at Avatrait Gallery (slurl.com/secondlife/Simuality/37/209/36/ ). (Our friend Sophie Zhu is one of the set designers, I found out later. Good work, Sophie!) This exhibition could be interesting for either of the following two reasons : if you are into avatar photography, you will find the exhibition interesting and well-informing on “how-to” techniques; if you are not, you will find out what that specific genre is so you can make up your own mind about their approach. What struck me most about this show, however, was neither of those tow points : what struck me was the realisation about the continuation of RL objectification of women in SL. Unfortunately Helmut Newton’s works have never interested me and I’ve never studied them. I don’t know if I have misinterpreted his works but they always symbolised to me the worst type of women objectification. Helmut Newton’s women models are very much like many of those SL women avatars controlled by RL men – a specific sets of beauty components that all together make up stereo-typical beauty of women – superficial interpretation of both “beauty” and “women.”

I don’t know if Paolo Bade is aware of this. I don’t know if his exhibition was meant to be ironical. From the show note I read and what I could see at the exhibit (”This is not sexual exploitation. Instead it is a tribute to strong, forceful women. The women confront the viewer with their nudity, using their bodies and facial expressions. They don’t just look real. They are real” text from Pablo Bade’s exhibition.), I definitely didn’t think so. My first thought at the show was “As if Cindy Sherman never happened…”

above photo: a parody of one of the most famous photo of H. Newton by Leonard Nimoy

Odyssey (120, 48, 27) – a public art space dedicated to cutting-edge SL art. Eva and Franco Mattes (a.k.a. 0100101110101101.ORG)’s “Joseph Beuys’s 7000 Oaks” is permanently shown there. Also don’t miss Adam Nash’s (a.k.a. Adam Ramona) “Seventeen Unsung Songs” (East of Odyssey, East of Odyssey (58, 92, 32)). Take your time and explore what SL can offer when it is at its best.

Another place I sincerely recommend is Gazira Babeli’s “ARCHIVE”, Locusolus (134, 98, 40). You can experience fantastic interactive works by this well-known SL artist.

There are some performance and music scenes coming up in SL as well. I myself have joined one of the SL music groups called “Avatar Orchestra Metaverse”. We use huds to play compositions by our member composers (Wirxli FLimFlam, Miulew Takahe, Bingo Onomatopoeia, Maximillian Nakamura, etc.). Huds are made by Bingo Onomatopoeia and have nice visual effects, too.

Sound installations are hot in SL. Another work (”A Rose Heard At Dusk”) by aforementioned Adam Ramona is exhibited at Art at the Cavern Gallery underneath Sydney Opera House (SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE, PONDEROSA, (Ponderosa (144, 58, 32)) and his other works are found at his own space: Ramonia, Marni (220, 200, 23). In Juria Yoshikawa’s installations sound often plays an important role. She recently opened her new sim that hosts her works (Garden of Memespelunk, North Dolores (128, 104, 32)). Her “Liquid Light” is hosted at Princeton (Princeton North (188, 117, 30)) and worth a visit. Another SL artist worth mentioning is nnoiz Papp who seriously works with sound. His works can be experienced at his space: al Schiffbruchbay (177, 85, 22) and al Schiffbruchbay (142, 80, 23).

Hz (http://www.hz-journal.org), which I edit, is going to publish an article about SL art in its upcoming issue. The article is written by Domenico Quaranta and was first published in a shorter version in Italian Flash Art; Hz is going to present its full-version. It is under the process of translation now – I can’t wait to read it.

I’ll keep you posted as I find more good art in SL.

Spread good-will and good-art in SL!