Technique

I am very interested in matter, and have been for years; I have spent many hours thinking about it in fact.
My interest started with my fascination with Alchemy and has continued with my craft work (silversmithing and others) and other artistic productions.
The relationship of matter to prims has then, obviously, pre-occupied me a great deal since I started building in SL where there is no matter although prims are a visual symbol used for matter. [More of that in another post.]

So I was surprised when Selavy told me yesterday that no-one had blogged her recent piece at Primavera. I mistakenly said to Bryn that there were no pieces there (at the show) that I would remember in 10 years time (harsh maybe, but you know me). I hadn’t seen Selavy’s piece at that time, or had the chance to think about it.

For those of you who haven’t seen it... it is a series of three sets of three prims (the numbers are not so important) which have been subjected to “physical” for a second. The resultant movement has been fossilized, captured in time as a recorded event.
This for me is almost the definition of technique. It has the “air” of chicken entrails thrown by soothsayers to forecast the unknowable. It is recorded history as well.

Technique is vital in all production (and in art even more so), in that the technique used in the manufacturing of a product is normally visible and forms an integral part of the piece.
For example; when I fashion a piece of silver using my hands and basic hand tools the resulting piece is unique in that it differs from all machine made pieces, and from all pieces not made by my hands. It shares, however, a similar “look” to all ancient/”primitive” jewellery made using similar techniques. Similarly my prims are different to everyone else’s, because no-one makes prims like I do.

Selavy’s piece is a non material 3D fossil of an “unnecessary” event (random rather than biologically/socially/economically determined), it is "physicality" in a non physical world and, with true artistic integrity, it records SL History in a way that is only possible IN Second Life. That makes it a piece that I will not forget.

:))