Art I like lately - lots of Second Life stuff and more.

I've been finding a lot of fantastic art these past few weeks.

Earlier this month, I read about artist Adam Makarenko via the website PDN Photo of the Day:

"...Influenced by science and nature, Makarenko creates a vivid tableau vivant through miniatures, which he photographs into poignant visual narratives concerned with human intervention in nature..."

Not only are his miniatures amazingly well-crafted and minutely detailed, the photographs he takes of his work are evocative and haunting. More of his art can be viewed on his website, adam-makarenko.com.


Right around the same time I found Makarenko's miniatures, I came across miniatures by a different artist, this one working in Second Life.

PatriciaAnne Daviau creates tiny villages and scenes, working with the smallest prims (SL's building blocks) imaginable. I was lucky enough to see her miniatures up close. [Those are my legs & feet in the picture; I stood close to this scene to give a sense of scale.]

These builds are so impossibly small that one has to learn how to maneuver SL's camera controls with a bit of skill in order to see any of the details. Check out the slideshow to see more snapshots:

Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure this installation was only temporary, so I don't think there are any current locations to see it in SL. However, Youtube member chenderson33 has made a video dedicated to PatriciaAnne's work:

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AM Radio's The Red and The Wild was another build I was fortunate enough to see for myself in SL, during a preview of the show for members of NPIRL/ImpIRL.

As all of his works are, The Red and The Wild is rich with imagery, detail, and genius loci (spirit of place); it is intensely evocative. AM talks about the build in an excellent interview on the NPIRL blog:

"...I had the courage to say that this abstraction means something, that here is a symbol of something, that we have these abstract parts of ourselves, these fears, these wild things we try to bury, and without them, we don't become who we are..."

Excerpt from A Burst of Conversation: AM Radio's "The Red and The Wild"

Words and mere snapshots cannot adequately do it justice, so if you are in Second Life, do yourself a favor and spend some time immersed in The Red and The Wild, which is now open to the general public. Explore every detail, make sure to read the notecard given to you upon arrival, click on everything, look at everything.

SLurl: http://slurl.com/secondlife/IDIA%20Laboratories/15/154/20

More snapshots from my visit are in this slideshow:

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I've also spent a bit of time exploring Enluminuria, a collection of artists whose work is bright, colorful, and abstract:

Slideshow here:

SLurl: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Saucier/128/128/20

AM Radio on Arthole Radio this Wednesday!

Arthole Radio is pleased to announce that the first ever voice interview with elusive Second Life artist AM Radio will broadcast as part of The Amy Freelunch Hour this Wednesday, November 26th (details below). The interview was recorded after the two met in person last week, over breakfast.

In Amy Freelunch's words:

"I was honored - and shocked, actually - that AM agreed to meet up with me and to record an interview. In person, I found him to be deeply thoughtful and articulate, more than I even expected - and I had pretty high expectations! He has much to contribute to the art community through his ideas and words, all of which makes me very excited to share this conversation with you."

Freelunch is in the process of creating an archive of recorded conversations with Second Life artists; this talk with AM Radio is the first in that series. Next week (December 3rd) her show will feature a conversation with writer Cyrus Huffhines (known in RL as Bryan Campen), who produced the virtual installation for 77 Million Paintings by Brian Eno. Huffhines speaks about a build he is currently working on, recreating his childhood home from which he and his family - including his bi-polar father - were evicted when the artist was an adolescent.

In real life, Amy Freelunch (aka Amy Wilson) is an artist and college professor of art, art history, and critical studies at the School of Visual Arts in NYC. Formally a regular contributor to Brooklyn is Watching, Freelunch joined Arthole Radio shortly after its launch in September 2008. She writes about Second Life art and culture in her blog see-through - amyfreelunch.wordpress.com.

Arahan Claveau: 9.00pm UK/GMT (1.00pm SL/PST)
Amy Freelunch: 10.30pm UK/GMT (2.30pm SL/PST)

-INTERMISSION-

Nebulosus Severine: 9.00pm US/EST (6.00pm SL/PST)
Amy Freelunch: 10.30pm US/EST (7.30pm SL/PST)

To listen to the stream, copy and paste this link into your streaming media player - http://slan13.ipr365.com:10320