Siri Woodget's blog

Siri Woodget was kind enough to write a review of my installation at the Caerleon Art Collective on her blog, My Life in Second Life:

Bittersweet memories -
...Severine built an evocative and typical scene for many children shipped off to summer camp each year, called Summer, 1985; a platform tent in the woods; sleeping bag resting on thin mattress, bag of clothes stuffed damply beneath the rusty springs of the bed, can of repellent rolling across the floor. Visitors are asked to lie on the bed and listen to the radio. Stations quickly change as though someone were spinning the dial looking for a good tune...

(full article here)

Thanks so much, Siri! I'm glad you were able to visit, and I'm glad you enjoyed group show as well.

The dangers of "adult" classification.

Amazon.com has recently adopted a baffling, backwards new policy:

In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude "adult" material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature.
[Source: http://markprobst.livejournal.com]

Just how the hell does that work?

...Basically, any title that Amazon consider "adult" will no longer be included in the "Best Sellers" lists – or ranked at all. These titles will not show up on all searches, even when the exact title of the book is entered. Who decides what books are "adult"? That’s not at all clear. But whoever’s making the choices is casting the net far and wide, and hauling in an awful lot of GLBT books...
[Source: http://www.dailykos.com]

A comment to the article about this issue on the SeattlePi site says:

It's not that the books are no longer listed. If you search for a book by title or author, you will still be able to find it.

Rather, it's that those of us with books that have been deranked no longer have our books in the bestselling book ranks, where they appeared before (and would still appear, as that is based on our sales) nor listing under the subject headings in lists for our subjects/genres.

So, unless someone is coming unto Amazon and looking for our book by title or author, they are unlikely to find it. That's a huge issue for authors -- especially those of us who are marginal in some way to begin with -- as often consumers browse those lists to find our books.

Here is a disturbing example of the results for searching homosexuality on Amazon:

(view full-size)

Who the hell gets to be in charge of defining exactly what is considered to be "Adult," anyway?

It seems that a lot of books with homosexual themes, or authors, are falling into the "Adult" category, even ones that don't contain any explicit sexual content. However, many books featuring graphic heterosexual content still get to keep their sales rank. But that pattern is not consistent; it doesn't follow any apparent logic. Maybe it IS a bias, or maybe it's a faulty automated system.

The L.A. Times blog compares title lists:

Our research shows that these books have lost their ranking: "Running with Scissors" by Augusten Burroughs; "Rubyfruit Jungle" by Rita Mae Brown, "Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic" by Alison Bechdel, "The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1" by Michel Foucault, "Bastard Out of Carolina" by Dorothy Allison (2005 Plume edition), "Little Birds: Erotica" by Anais Nin, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" by Jean-Dominque Bauby (1997 Knopf edition), "Maurice" by E.M. Forster (2005 W.W. Norton edition) and "Becoming a Man" by Paul Monette, which won the 1992 National Book Award.

Books that remain ranked include: "Naked" by David Sedaris; "Tropic of Cancer" by Henry Miller; "American Psycho" by Bret Easton Ellis; "Wifey" by Judy Blume; "The Kiss" by Kathryn Harrison; the photobooks "Playboy: Helmut Newton" and "Playboy: Six Decades of Centerfolds"; "Naked Lunch" by William Burroughs; "Incest: From 'A Journal of Love'" by Anais Nin; "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" by Jean-Dominque Bauby (2007 Vintage International edition), "Maurice" by E.M. Forster (2005 Penguin Classics edition).

Certianly many of the books that are no longer ranked are no more "adult" than many of those that are...
[source: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/]

Here's another reason why this new policy doesn't make any sense:

This sounds like a big old bowl of BS, does it not? Especially when you consider the fact that Amazon has vibrators, clitoral stimulators and anal plugs available in their search system with sales ranks attached. One wonders why these items are allowed to remain in the system with sales ranks while books including gay and lesbian content, themes, and even, as a commenter points out, autobiographies of gay and lesbian authors such as Stephen Fry, are deemed too "adult" for such things.
[Source: http://jezebel.com/]

Regardless of WHAT Amazon is marking as "Adult" -- why the hell does it feel the need to implement a system to "protect" its customers in the first place? It's a thinly-veiled way of censoring certain content or products, and censorship is one of THE worst assaults to human freedom, ever. I'm against the exclusion of ANY book from search or availability, even titles I don't agree with, like Mein Kampf, or BIRTH CONTROL IS SINFUL IN THE CHRISTIAN MARRIAGES and also ROBBING GOD OF PRIESTHOOD CHILDREN!!

One thing's certain; Amazon will definitely be "protecting" itself from lots of its customers' money (including mine).

Are online petitions worth it? Maybe, maybe not. If you are so inclined, there is one you can sign here: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/in-protest-at-amazons-new-adult-policy

Ultimately, the best way to show your dissatisfaction is to boycott. I won't be spending a fucking dime there unless they fully eliminate their policy of censoring content.

Suck a fat one, Amazon.com!

Sources:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/
http://blog.seattlepi.com/amazon/archives/166259.asp
http://markprobst.livejournal.com/15293.html
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/4/12/719278/-Amazons-New-Moralityfor-your-protection
http://jezebel.com/5209088/why-is-amazon-removing-the-sales-rankings-from-gay-lesbian-books
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/in-protest-at-amazons-new-adult-policy

Fuck SL photography

Jay from Brooklyn Is Watching recently discovered a piece I had impulsively thrown together at BIW last week:

Unfortunately, the full meaning of the piece was lost -- there had been another box there, placed by someone else, when I created mine; but it had been either returned, deleted, or taken down.

Jay had this to say on the BIW blog in response to my piece:

Thanks for coming back nebulosis (sic). I would agree with you generally speaking. And I would also say… um… so? There are a hellovalot more of what i call “blah blah blah blah” galleries out there than there are galleries showing anything interesting. ( these are galleries that have their hands over their ears and are saying “blah blah blah, im not listening to you… its still 1865 its still 1865 its still 1865″ — then down the street is another one that is saying “its still 1945, its still 1945″ etc etc. ).

Most of the stuff in the world is crap. always was always will be… what was it that drove you to particularly point this one out? And do you have any awesomely bad examples to point to that we can all enjoy?

To which I responded:

I definitely agree, Jay, that most of the world is crap. But what drove me to rez this particular piece was a box that isn’t there anymore.

Sometime last week I had been strolling through the grounds of BIW and came across a box with a mosaic of generic avatar portraits all over it, with the hover-text “Touch/Click me for invitation to a gallery of SL Photography” — and it just annoyed the shit out of me to see it — so I rezzed the box that you are sitting on in the above picture.

Fortunately, I took a picture of the two side-by-side; I’ve just posted it to Flickr (and I expect it will piss off some people):

Below the pic I added a caption, elaborating a bit further:

The box on the left is something I rezzed at Brooklyn Is Watching last week, in response to the box on the right.

(The box on the right has floating text which reads:
"Touch/Click me for invitation to a gallery of SL Photography"

The box I rezzed also has floating text, which reads: "Touch/click me for no apparent reason -- SL photography is fucking bullshit")

While SL snapshots/photos can be interesting to look at, I don't consider 99.9% of them to be anything more than mere snapshots -- I don't care how much Photoshopping went into it.

There are & have been a rare few individuals who can elevate it to an art form, but SL snapshots do not equal "instant-art" any more than random real-life snapshots do.

Perhaps the thing that irks me the most about SL photography -- and what has put me off about it as a medium altogether -- is the bandwagon mentality. It's trendy; it's a "me-too" hobby; it appeals to the 15-seconds-of-fame seekers. Most people who get into it never before had an artistic urge in their lives; and once they get bored with Second Life, they most likely will never do anything creative again. It's just a passing fascination for them.

ART is not a fucking hobby or a trend or a fad, it's a fucking way of LIFE, it IS life; and if you don't feel that way about your art, then you're NOT a fucking artist, you're a hobbyist at best & a phony at worst, so don't CALL yourself an artist simply because it sounds cool.

And, as I said -- I find many SL snapshots to be interesting to look at, but I don't consider them to be art. I don't take my SL pics seriously, either. They're fun to take, fun to play around with, and a cool way to document what I've been up to in SL, but in no way does come NEAR to calling upon my emotions and efforts in the the ways my REAL artwork does.

These statements & observations might piss you off, but I don't really care. You don't have to agree with me; it's simply my opinion.

So there you have it.

As far as awesomely bad examples — you can’t throw a rock in Second Life and not hit half-ass SL photography. How I wish I could throw it all into a fucking blender and just hit Purée.

Tag search in Flickr for Second Life (plenty of lacquered up tits & ass - *yawn*):

http://flickr.com/search/?s=int&ss=2&ct=6&w=all&q=%22second+Life%22&m=tags

Arahan's new blog

YAY! Arahan Claveau (Steve Millar), my friend and fellow Arthole artist, has created a new personal blog, finally!!

http://arahanclaveau.blogspot.com/

Shop

It is with quite a bit of reluctance that I return to the realm of selling things in Second Life.


I used to have a shop called Numinous, but I closed it in June of 2008 so that I could focus more on creating art. I always felt like I had a bit of an obligation hanging over my head to keep updating and promoting it, which frustrated me to no end -- especially since the commerce world of Second Life has gotten much, much more competitive (and cutthroat).

But I also missed out on MUCH needed funding that helped keep up my artistic pursuits. Arthole has a donation box, but I'm simply not getting enough from that.

So to make a long story short, I recently began setting up a NEW shop; however, this one has an entirely different philosophy.

It's called Night-Ghast, and you can purchase anything I create there by simply making a donation of L$1 or more for the item you want.

So, that if you think a Glowing Tree I made is worth L$50, you can pay the vendor that amount; or, if you like a jewelry set I made but only have a few Lindenbux to spend, you can pay the vendor L$1 and still get it.


Why am I doing it this way?

Two reasons:
-- I feel uncomfortable asking for a certain amount of money; I never know what to charge for things.
-- I want my products to be accessible and affordable. Art/culture/cool stuff shouldn't JUST be for people who have a lot of money.

I will blog more about this soon. In the meantime, if you want to check out what I have set up so far (at the moment, it's winter/holiday/Xmas stuff), here's a SLurl --
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Kress/243/89/149

Burning Life 2008

A lot of people who know I'm an artist have been asking me lately if I'm going to have a build in Burning Life this year. My friends, for the most part, know why I refuse to take part in it.

I left this piece at Brooklyn Is Watching recently and also responded to a post about it on the BIW blog, saying this --

Burning Life — oh, how I used to love the event…

I’m with agreement with Arahan about BL 2005 and 2006. Burning Life 2005 was one of the first major exhibitions of art & building that I’d seen in SL and it blew me away. In 2006, I was overjoyed to have been one of the participants — it was the first time I had a really big plot of land to build whatever I wanted.

The festival was handled FAR more simply then; the land plots were given by lottery. People interested in having a build would submit their names & a couple specifics (whether they wanted PG or Mature land, etc.) to a thread on the official SL forums, and the winners were (supposedly) chosen randomly. The winners were given their plots (which averaged about 1500 prims, I think) and left to build, and that was pretty much it, other than the Burning of the Man event. There wasn’t too much other involvement or interference, other than volunteers and Lindens keeping an eye on stuff that caused too much lag, etc.

In 2007, it all changed, though I am not sure why. BL is usually announced late in the summer, and in 2007 the time was fast approaching with nothing much being said about it, other than rumors on forums that the Lindens weren’t going to bother anymore.

Then announcements went up about it, finally — but this time, a regular resident was in charge. It seemed at the time that he had taken it upon himself to get it going, since the festival might not have gone on otherwise. I was happy at first to hear about it — would have been disappointed if it had just been canceled altogether — but the whole thing quickly turned into a fucking nightmare.

The land grab thing was pretty annoying, for one thing; each plot of land had a little 12-prim kiosk on it that HAD to remain on your plot for the duration of the event. And most plots, other than the large theme camps, were considerably smaller than in years past — most about 200 or 300 prims. These issues were the LEAST of what was wrong with the festival, however.

It quickly became apparent that the resident who took charge of BL — who I will refer to as V_c_r_ L_mb_rt — was on a big power trip and micromanaged everything. To make a long and pathetic story short, people’s builds were being scrutinized constantly, you-can’t-do-this, you-can’t-do-that…. Favoritism, backstabbing, pettiness, ugliness. Oh, and the stupid Porta-Potties. The fucking stupid, 60-prim (I think) Porta-Potties which have no fucking place in a virtual world where people do not have bodily functions to attend to, yet the organizers insisted on their presence.

Then there was the censorship of Cheen Pitney’s statue — one he has rezzed at BIW in the past, as a matter of fact — most of BIW’s regular viewers and readers will recognize it. I don’t even want to go into THAT whole fiasco, so I’ll paste the link to the unofficial Burning Life blog articles on it here:
http://burninglife.com/2007/08/29/censorship-on-the-playa.aspx
and
http://burninglife.com/2007/08/30/nipplegate.aspx

[To DC, if you are reading this: We had a convo sort of recently about P__d M_h_vl_ch, and I mentioned vaguely that I despise her, tho I can't remember if I explained it all -- well, now you know why. I'm not printing her name in full here, either, because she has threatened to sue people in the past -- gimme a fucking break. Anyway -- ]

I ended up quitting BL 2007 in disgust shortly thereafter. I got myself into a bit of controversy on my way out by pasting a picture of V_c_r_ L_mb_rt’s face on a Burning Man model and leaving it on my abandoned plot. —
http://www.sluniverse.com/pics/pic.aspx?id=204521&sort=Pictures.PictureID+desc&Name=Nebulosus+Severine
Within a day or two, I was locked out of SL, although I was never told I was banned for disciplinary purposes. Supposedly, it turned out to be a billing error, but the timing was pretty fucking uncanny. Not to mention that most of the things I had rezzed on my OWN land — not the BL plot, but my home gallery space — vanished without a trace, without explanation. It took me a week to get back into SL, and my missing items never returned.

I was stupid enough to have hopes that maybe, just maybe, BL 2008 would be handled differently, or at the very least, exclude V_c_r_ L_mb_rt and P__d M_h_vl_ch — you’d think Linden Labs would be out of their fucking MINDS to let those two back in after last year’s debacle — but, nope, both of those two still have major roles (though V_c_r_ has mostly a technical role rather than an organizational one, or so I’ve heard). As long as those two have anything to do with Burning Life, I sure as fucking hell will NOT be participating.

So now you know why I say, ‘Fuck your bureaucratic “arts” festival,’ Linden Labs, et al.

Left by nebulosus.severine on September 18th, 2008

So -- now you know why I won't have anything to do with Burning Life, if you didn't already know.

'Chasm' blogged on NPIRL

Two articles in as many days on the Not Possible IRL blog:


The Chasm between loneliness and solitude -
Nebulosus Severine and her sim prompt self-awareness



Go there alone


Wow!

Jewelry I made

'Swan's Tears' set

Okay, this post is really overdue. A few weeks ago I collaborated with Callie Cline & made the jewelry & prim eyes for the dress/ensemble she designed for the Black Swan fashion show.

It's available for purchase here, but only for another day or so (then I'll be moving it):
slurl.com/secondlife/Black%20Swan/128/128/0

Callie's blog has an article about it here:
http://calliecline.blogspot.com/2008/07/swan-song-tears.html

Also, I just found out last night that Callie was featured in a real-life print magazine from Cypress; there are several pictures of her & in one of them she's wearing the Swan Song outfit plus the jewelry I made -- wow! So one of my creations is in print in a real magazine, that's crazy! Callie's blog mentions it here:
http://calliecline.blogspot.com/2008/08/pazar-callies-first-rl-printed-magazine.html

The article doesn't mention my name but that's okay; I'll make it into another magazine article someday, maybe!

Recent blog coverage

You know, I am extremely grateful to my friends and acquaintances for blogging about my work, because I am a slacker and procrastinator and I am terrible at self-promotion.

Here are some of the more recent articles:

Nebulosus Severine and the not-so-perfect.
Posted by Amy Freelunch on Brooklyn Is Watching - June 1st, 2008

Nebulosus Severine at the NPIRL Garden of Delights
Posted by Raul Crimson on A Crimson World - May 30th, 2008

Strolling around the Kunstvlaai Festival 2008
Posted by Ganymedes Costagravas on Gany’s take on (any) Life - May 25, 2008

Kiss the Sky: Tipping Point on the Axis of a Virtual World
Posted by Bettina Tizzy and Bjorlyn Loon on Not Possible IRL - May 23, 2008

Kiss the Sky - a survey of Hyperformalism
Posted by Nazz Lane on Lane's List - May 16, 2008

SLArt (r) Feature: Kiss the Sky
Posted by ArtWorld Market on SLART (r) Magazine - May 2008

Yet more blog coverage for Arthole

[click images for links]

More blog coverage for Arthole

[click images for links]

Arthole is hitting the blogs!

Posted in the last few days:

Arthole on Raul Crimson's blog, A Crimson World



Arthole on Morris Vig's Second Arts blog

HUGE thanks to Raul and Morris!

Lane's List: The Arts in Second Life

I was one of several artists interviewed by Nazz Lane for a blog article called The Arts in Second Life. Here is my portion:

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

Nebulosus Severine - Art & Artist Network

What were some of last year’s key milestones in the SL art world and why were they significant?

In no particular order for chronology or importance, here are several milestones I can think of that had an impact on SL art in 2007:

• The formation of Bettina Tizzy's NPIRL group, which has united some of the most influential and creative artists who use Second Life as a medium;


• The Rezzable SIMs, such as Dark Swan and the Greenies installation, which devote entire SIMs to a particular theme or work;


• The return of Starax Statosky, now known as Light Waves, who is arguably SL's most well-known and best loved artist;


• Brian Eno's '77 million Paintings' installation, probably the most significant example of an SL-RL crossover art event;


• The Second Life 4th Birthday celebration, which gathered together a wide range of artists, builders, and content creators, and was attended by thousands of residents, despite the massive technical problems plaguing the event.


• Burning Life 2007, which was handled completely differently than any other year, causing a huge amount of controversy and drama for many residents involved, including the censoring of a sculpture by Cheen Pitney and resulting outcry as a result.


• Project Open Letter, written to Linden Labs and signed by many residents frustrated with the repeated technical difficulties with Second Life. Many SL artists, some of the most passionate content creators, were among the thousands of residents to add their signature to the letter. http://www.projectopenletter.com/


• The controversial "Keeping Second Life Safe, Together" post in the official Linden blog raised concerns of Free Speech and Free Expression for many SL artists. http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/05/31/keeping-second-life-safe-together/


• Massive inventory losses affected many residents, among them important and highly respected content creators, such as Arcadia Asylum, whose frustration led her to leave Second Life for good.

Looking back to the start of last year, have things evolved the way you thought they would? Why or why not?

I personally did not anticipate the population of Second Life to grow so drastically. As a result, the art world has exploded here. I expected the art world to grow, but not as much as it actually did!

What were the trends that began last year that will have the greatest impact in 2008?

Artists selling "limited editions" of their work. This practice arose a fair amount of controversy, documented in part in ArtWorld Market's SLArt blog: http://slartblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/no-more-phony-limited-editions.html

Immersive sound installations, such as those created by Juria Yoshikawa, Daruma Picnic, and Adam Ramona.

Art SIMs, in which an entire SIM is devoted to a gallery or installation, such as the Rezzable sims or the collaborative 'Dynafleur' project on the Princeton South SIM.

Artist collectives, in which several significant artists with similar styles occupy a shared major gallery space, such as Oyster Bay (mostly sculpture) and The Cannery (featuring Snapshot photography).

Art blogging. Many individual artists and art collectives have blogs now. It's a great way to document events, gatherings and achievments as blogging is often the easiest (and usually free) way of creating a personal webpage. Many artists also have accompanying Flickr accounts to document their work and supplement their blogs.

"Mixed reality" events, SL art galleries or events that have a real life/first life equivalent occurring at the same time.

Live music events. These have been going on for a couple of years, but 2007 was the year that probably saw the greatest influx of new musical acts. I believe that this trend will continue to grow in 2008.

Windlight. While not a "trend," is something that will have a huge impact once it is fully integrated into SL. The atmospheric possibilities are almost endless for artists who are able to control SIM settings, and I imagine many will take the opportunity to incorporate Windlight aspects into their installations. There is also a new option for prims, "Glow," which will give sculptors even more to play with while building.

Have you explored other virtual worlds and has that had any influence on what you've done in SL? If you have, has what you've done there been influenced by what you've done or not done in SL?

Second Life is my first 3D online environment, so I have no outside influences from any other online worlds or MMORPGs.

What can we look forward to in 2008? (Events, openings, influences etc.)

I'm usually too wrapped up in my own projects to know about new events until they are happening! I am definitely looking forward to what Windlight will bring; I hope Linden Labs will be able to release a stable version of it this year. I've also got several personal and collaborative projects in mind for this year but, so far, those are all top secret!

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

Read the rest of the interviews here:

http://laneslist.blogspot.com/2008/01/arts-in-second-life-part-one.html