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

Art I Like Lately - pencils, crystals, bread

Carbon Copies by Nadine Jarvis -

Pencils made from the carbon of human cremains. 240 pencils can be made from an average body of ash - a lifetime supply of pencils for those left behind.

Each pencil is foil stamped with the name of the person. Only one pencil can be removed at a time, it is then sharpened back into the box causing the sharpenings to occupy the space of the used pencils. Over time the pencil box fills with sharpenings - a new ash, transforming it into an urn. The window acts as a timeline, showing you the amount of pencils left as time goes by.

[ Source: http://www.nadinejarvis.com/projects/carbon_copies ]

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Seizure by Roger Hiorns -

...80,000 litres of a copper sulphate solution was poured in from a hole in the ceiling. After a few weeks the temperature of the solution fell and the crystals began to grow...

[ Sources: http://shapeandcolour.wordpress.com/2008/09/11/roger-hiorns-seizure/
http://www.artangel.org.uk/
http://www.corvi-mora.com/rogerhiorns.php ]

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Bread Body Parts by Kittiwat Unarrom -

Since 2006 Thai artist Kittiwat Unarrom (whose family also runs a bakery) has used dough as his medium to sculpt gruesome renditions of hand, feet, heads, torsos and other body parts. The results are unnervingly realistic with eyes, lips and other details constructed out of cashews, raisins and the like. A lack of hair and blood-like glazes make the work all the more creepy. Sold at his family's bakery in Ratchaburi, Thailand, he displays the parts wrapped like food in plastic and hung from meat hooks. Apparently, the art is in fact edible and tastes like regular bread.

[ Source: http://www.coolhunting.com/archives/2008/08/kittiwat_unarro.php ]

Are you kidding?

Got this offline message from a Second Life resident today (name has been omitted):

[11:33] R******** A*****: Hello I'm trying to reach you pleasel eave me am essage thanks
[11:34] R******** A*****: You built a david bowie building and I'm having a massive party in his honor next saturday could I have a copy of this building and or textures?

So, let me get this straight -- you want me to just hand over something I took time and energy to create, not to mention what it cost me in upload fees, so you can take the credit for it when you throw this "massive party"?

Granted, I do give away a lot of my art. But this is a lot different. Maybe if he had asked me to build it for him, and maybe if he had invited me to the party, too? Jesus.

And now for something completely, uh, WTF!

[ Click Here if you can't see the above video ]

Hahahaha, FUCK!!

November in my soul.

November is a particularly nostalgic time for me when it comes to the online world and computers.

I hadn't really used computers much until 1997, when my roommate got her first computer. She introduced me to AOL (ha!) and chat rooms and surfing the web, way back then.

I remember it was November at the time I became consumed with this new hobby; I have some distinct emotional memories of conversations spent in chat that went well into the darkest hours of the night. I remember the cold, rainy gloom of late Autumn just outside my window. Grey skies; dead brown leaves; cold, damp drizzle. I remember a conversation about a dark room lit with only a single blue lightbulb, and white sheer curtains billowing in the breeze. Fragments of memory, but so vivid.

So anyway. About this time every year, once Halloween has passed, I tend to get a little nostalgic for that time of discovery. Just this evening I was looking through some of my old archives, and though I didn't quite find what I was looking for, I did find a random snippet of something I wrote long ago -- a very old Artist's Statement for a simple webpage I had created to showcase a number of my old sketchbook drawings:

-- There came a moment in my life when I realized, 'If I were not an artist, I'd have been a murderer.' My art allows me to channel my emotions into a metaphorical violent act. The subjects of my drawings become my victims, yet are also self-portraits. (Self-infliction?) A catharsis of hue and blood, this collection is only a small sampling of my work. Not for the fragile-minded or for those who cannot tolerate the idea of pain. --

I checked the file properties, and it was dated September 3, 2000; the actual date I wrote it is probably older than that. I can barely remember writing it at all.

Even older is this picture I had drawn in Microsoft Paint -- my first digital art EVER, done in 1998:

And another, from right around the same time:

I used to get a bit sad the day after Halloween -- I dreaded the approach of the Xmas season, the cold, the seasonal depression that grips me almost every winter. I still do, of course, but now, I also get pangs of melancholy nostalgia this time of year.

In November... at night, part of me is eternally wandering through the raw, misty gloom... wandering alone in the darkness, bundled up in sweaters and scarves, trudging through puddles and scattered piles of decomposing leaves. November in my soul.

'Trust No One'

on display now at Brooklyn Is Watching

Not the best work I've ever done, but eh whatever.

SLurl: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Popcha/71/139/22

Quote found on the web today

All Alone Inside Yourself
by MEJC, Oct 21, 2008

In your moments of sadness.

The true horror of life
Is the shocking realisation
That in your most suffocating moments
Of emotional intensity
You're all alone
Inside yourself

(source: http://www.authspot.com/Poetry/All-Alone-Inside-Yourself.306509)

Repost: "I'm Too Sad To Tell You"

(Reposted from my May 1st, 2008 entry.)

"I'm Too Sad To Tell You" by Bas Jan Ader

Some more info:

In a work titled I'm Too Sad To Tell You, Ader filmed himself drinking from a cup of tea, then collapsing into tears of grief. He then made postcards of pictures of himself crying, with the sole inscription "I'm Too Sad To Tell You," and mailed them out for everyone to witness. Even though the performance was a public display and confession through the mail, it remained private, a solitary person's unidentified grief.

(Written by Cindy Loehr; New Art Examiner, March 2000)
Source: http://collectiveexperience.org/cindy/ader.html

IT'S ABOUT FUCKING TIME.

FUCK YEAH!!!

What fucking place do I have in this world, anyway? And I don't just mean Second Life, or just real life. I don't fucking belong here, I don't belong anywhere. I am fucking obsolete. I don't have anything to offer.











-- Locking myself away. Don't bother trying to contact me, I won't respond.

What now?

Maybe I just need a break, or something... but --

I feel burnt-out. Bored. Restless. Blank. Boring. Like I have nothing to fucking say. Nothing to offer.

Thought for today

I believe that everyone else my age is an adult whereas I am merely in disguise.
-- Margaret Atwood

OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!!!!!!!!!

World Of SL readers, click here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyophYBP_w4

Last night, for the first time, I viewed the amazing film known as....

TROLL 2.

My life will never be the same.

Event this Sunday

'In the Hall of the Pumpkin King' event @ Cetus --
Sunday, October 26th, 2008
4 pm SLT/PST

SLurl: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Cetus/171/29/32

Hope to see you there!

RIP, Dolemite!

Rudy Ray Moore
March 17, 1927 – October 19, 2008
"I'm going to let 'em know that Dolemite is my name
and fucking up motherfuckers is my game!"

Art I like lately - William Elliott of 'What Fresh Hell is This?'

Stumbling around on the web tonight, I came across an internet comic strip called What Fresh Hell is This? by William Elliott and Tom Nash.

The humor's a bit inconsistent, but some strips had me cracking the FUCK up (like this one - http://www.nashspace.net/freshhell/jesuschrist.htm).

It's the illustrations, however, that really, really grabbed me -- I read through the entire site in one sitting, and I can't wait to see more.

All the artwork for WFHIT is done by William Elliott, whose style reminds be a bit of Jhonen Vasquez, especially in earlier strips -- not that it's a BAD thing. Just check out the "Doodles" page -- fucking BRILLIANT technique:

Images and work ©2006-2007 Will Elliott and Tom Nash

Tonight I'm going to add a link list to this blog - "Sites I Really Fucking Like."
What Fresh Hell is This? will be the first one I add to it.

Art I like lately - Vincent Castiglia

I found out about Vincent Castiglia while browsing a recent issue of Rue Morgue magazine.

Vincent Castiglia - The Accuser
Artist's blood on paper
22 x 30 in.

A blurb about the artist and his work:

All of Vincent Castiglia's work is created using only his blood, and water, sometimes utilizing pen and ink. Castiglia finds that to connect with his work on this level is obligatory. This is integral to the veracity of each work. For Castiglia, it is as if the force contained within his vital fluid and the space in which he is rendering with it, converge, quickening the image.

Vincent Castiglia lives and works in New York City. His work has been explored by several international art, tattoo, and lifestyle publications.

(source: http://www.tinyfineart.com/artists3/vcas/vcas.htm)

His use of blood as a medium fascinates me, and is also something I identify with a bit, as I have used blood in my art before:

CM Pauluh - Look What You Made Me Do
1995
Ink, colored pencil, and blood on paper
Approx. 8.5 in. X 11 in.

Artist's official site: http://vincentcastigliaart.com/

Highly Sensitive

The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this:

A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive.

To him... a touch is a blow,
a sound is a noise,
a misfortune is a tragedy,
a joy is an ecstasy,
a friend is a lover,
a lover is a god,
and failure is death.

Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create - - - so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating.

-- Pearl S. Buck

Finally, yay! My Halloween 2008 build.

'In The Hall of the Pumpkin King'
Installation by Nebulosus Severine [2008]
Cetus Gallery District

Although Halloween is my favorite holiday, I had some difficulty with this installation for weeks. I scrapped several things I started, and ended up building pretty much everything in one day.

Though I used mostly traditional Halloween imagery (pumpkins, gravestones, etc.), the central shrine was inspired in part by the 'ofrenda,' a traditional altar constructed to honor the dead during Dias De Los Muertos (observed November 1st and 2nd). I have echoed this imagery with the sugar skulls on either side of the Pumpkin King.

The name "Pumpkin King" is not intended to refer to Jack Skellington in 'The Nightmare Before Christmas.' Rather, this Pumpkin King is the Halloween Everyman, the spirit of All Hallow's Eve that resides within all who revel in this holiday.

This installation is rather simple, and is meant to be. It is a celebration of color and light and atmosphere -- intended to be a whimsical and a little bit eerie.

SLurl: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Cetus/171/29/32

Paralyzing

You do not know how paralyzing that staring at a blank canvas is; it says to the painter, You can't do anything.
-- Vincent Van Gogh [Letter #378 (to Theo), October 1884]