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3 min

Mesh Dramatics

One of my most cherished possessions in Second Life is a huge collection of dramatic poses created by Heidi Dahlseveen, which she very generously gave me many years ago. Heidi is a storyteller and her poses are unlike any other that I have ever seen in SL, in that they compress a huge amount expression into that one instance that the pose represents. And when one poses several avatars one ends up getting quite extraordinary mise-en-scenes. Which is something that I have done

1 min

Kokopelli

I love it when a software gives me ideas. And Sculptris does so. While I am playing around with the clay suddenly it looks like something and… So, here we have the trickster god Kokopelli, who had been on my mind before as a figure I might want to look into a bit more. But, I never knew exactly how. I even tried a few things in photoshop last year but they went nowhere. And I know why: I started out with that intention, and that never works for me. I need to go in round abou

1 min

A small stage

I have been making these things. I am collecting them on a tumblr to see what they look like as a group. I am working on them at the same time as I am making the curly stuff, going back and forth between the two. They look quite different (these look more “artsy” so to speak) but to me they are really the same thing. In fact the first one was meant to be a curly thing with the faux-Japanese typography. And this one too, with the script font, although I have not put it on the

2 min

Produsage

There is this, in my view terribly misplaced, myth that while using off the shelf software is an unavoidable evil, everything that gets built inside that software should be made by you. Painstakingly. Path by path. Or writing the code (that particular myth especially). Taking your own photos. Sculpting your own 3D models. Otherwise you are not really the “real thing” as a designer or an artist or whatever. I am not a big proponent of this idea that it is somehow more virtuou

1 min

The Symmetry book

Thinking of things I could do next, I keep coming back to graphic design. I made these pages a year ago for a project that was later published as an insert in a Turkish art magazine. We did not use this set but something else entirely. But, I liked these. More so than what the curator actually decided to go with. So, I sometimes look at them. So, maybe I should do an imaginary picture book? But, no, somehow I do not think I want to do this. Too intellectualized. Too artsy som

1 min

Arcadia’s avatars…

As I wrote before I have used Arcadia Asylum’s prims for many builds. Fool’s Gold, the best sim I think I ever built was made almost entirely out of them, and this new one has quite a few as well. I am a big believer in remediation, in reworking and modifying things to make my own stuff. Not to make everything from scratch but to build upon the foundations that others have set for me. Which is actually called Produsage, and I have even written academic papers on it. That sai

1 min

Midnight Wastes

I have gone back up to the towers that I had started to build a few weeks ago. But, like most of what I do, things did not go quite as planned and I ended up adding things that I had not thought of when I was first thinking about this level. There is a legendary builder in SL called Arcadia Asylum. She built many many different things, from avatars to whole cities. And she had this thing about giving it all away for free – to be used and redistributed as one saw fit. With on

1 min

First trial – building towers

I have started at a sky level. The idea is to build another “city,” but one that is quite different from Blueprint City where the whole idea was to use only cubes, rectangles and cylinders that were covered in textures that distracted from their being nothing but basic geometric prims. With this one I am actually using quite complex elements out of which I construct towers that are combined with flora, specifically trees. What I have carried over from Blueprint City is the “

1 min

But, it isn’t just the gold

I am finding it quite hard to rebuild the island. Nothing seems to work quite how I want it to. And the truth of the matter is that the island that I built 3 years ago is probably the best thing I have ever made in Second Life and it is quite hard to even try to get close to that. Gold or no gold, the place had a mood. And it told a tale. Which is quite a hard thing to pull off – as I am finding out, trying to set up another “mood” now. Which is probably why I put off rebuil

1 min

Too much gold…

When I built alpha.tribe in 2015 I even called the sim “fool’s gold” – there was so much of it. But it isn’t just that one sim. I also went completely overboard when I built “from here on there be dragons” for Dividni Shostakovich a couple of years later. Of course I have been around long enough as a designer to know to combine it with plenty of neutral colors so that it doesn’t get completely out of hand. But nevertheless, I cannot deny the obsession. Also here, for example,

1 min

While transferring the blog…

I encountered myself from years ago. There is even a photo that Lanfranco took in Singapore in 2008 where I look not just 10 years, but 20 years younger than my current age of 65. I could not transfer the blog from wordpress to blogger with an xml file, like one would normally do, but had to bring the posts over one by one. And, I ended up reading a lot of them, of course. For the most part, I cannot believe the naivete. I certainly cannot believe how shut off I seem to have

1 min

Reasons for staying around

Animals are a good reason to stick around. And then I like walking in the streets and sitting in cafes, I guess. Watching the animal-loving population of my city, I really like to do that. Crossing the Bosporus is nice. Buying nice clothes is another good one. Making stuff, that’s probably one of the most important ones. And I guess, that’s it. Those are the reasons to still be sticking around, continuing to live. Other than that – forget it… I would bid my farewells tonight

2 min

There is a definite change

I am noticing it from my favorites on Flickr, which are mostly RL things. And what I put on flickr myself, for that matter. I seem to sort of have shifted from one plane of perception to another. From 3D to 2D. Probably won’t be forever, but right now this is how it is. I prefer to hang around in photoshop. Check out 2D creative authoring platforms online, latest obsession being issuu. Do things with my tumblr blogs. Stuff like that. Also I am writing/reading a lot these day

1 min

Full Circle

So here I am, back where I started. When I look at this blog I notice that it has 3 quite distinct phases. In the beginning there seems to be much optimism and good will towards my Second Life. Which, looking back on it now, is so naive that I want to kick myself. The second part is when I start to get sad and maudlin. And then there are the posts from last year where I become insufferably self-important. So, looking at all of it together it is a rather embarrassing process

5 min

Continued from the other day

I am still wondering here. The previous post, where this bit belongs to as well, is already way too long. So, I am starting a new one. … First, why was I only vaguely aware that Hegel had a gripe with art? Could it be because it is an uncomfortable truth (uttered by Hegel, no less!) which goes against the grain of the prevalent art system? In other words, it is not in the best interest of persons seeking a place within that system, be it as critics, theoreticians, curators or

5 min

"… but the output to RL is very tiny"

This is quoted from an email conversation with a colleague where we were discussing Second Life artistic endeavors. And it is an understatement if ever there was one – when you consider it solely from the vantage point of “objects”, that is. You cannot export objects out of Second Life at the moment. Well, yes, there may be complex, esoteric means of doing so. But the results fall far short of expectations. And what is more, you also cannot import objects into SL. Yes yes, s

3 min

de stijl

I wished to make something starkly, absurdly geometric and see whether it could in fact result in a garment – one that people would actually wear, that is… I was thus hugely gratified when, not so long ago, fellow Turk and SL associate Troy Vogel contacted me and told me what a traffic stopping, knock em dead success he had been wearing this outfit (down to those lovely little prim shoes) to the opening of the Frank Lloyd Wright museum in SL. And a more appropriate place to

5 min

Something

I have been taking photos of the Annex and posting them on Flickr. Venk’s photos have finally shamed me into doing it, which meant spending some time there, of course. The Annex is about death. It may be dark and gloomy below the water but I am realizing that I am looking at death as a good thing. The way I did things over there seems to point at that, although in most cases I did them more or less unawares: The poor old carousel horses who are then finally released as ghost

5 min

I am not an artist!

Stelarc has come into Second Life. Hugely significant, I think. He is a breaker of taboos, a master of the art of pulling the cute little rug of complacency out from under people’s feet. And, from where I am standing, our little world needs some serious breaking of taboos and a thorough dishevelment of complacency. Not the many people who unassumingly pursue their individual paths of playful creativity by taking SL photographs to post on Flickr or building their own personal

1 min

Every once in a while

You get to a point where you realize that there isn’t much of a point to the point to begin with. I have been building for Burning Life. Could be that totally bleak landscape of those sims. It is the first few days and there is hardly another avatar in sight. A few people have rezzed a few things in some of the neighboring plots but basically, for the past few days it was me, by myself, standing on that cracked up desert ground building a tower. How we kid ourselves, thinkin

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