Musings about Art Production in Virtual Worlds.

Now it’s natural, because of the ease of trawling the internet for amusing or interesting stuff that we would like virtual worlds to supply us with a constant stream of sims and builds that we can flit to and from, in the same way that we twitter. 140 characters, 140 seconds....show me something new, .....show me something amazing,....entertain me.

The joy of sitting down with a good book and letting the story unfold or the joy of sitting in front of a landscape and letting the light change slowly as time passes... these may be experiences that belong to a past era.

The problem that this causes for the artist is the Rate of Consumption of Art. As increasingly huge quantities of visual data are being consumed it is too easy for the artist to feel that they have to produce an ever larger, faster, quantity of work. Content.

If we work on the supposition that most art work is not finished, it’s just that the artist stops when the flaws are too time consuming to fix, then the tendency will be to leave larger and larger flaws manifest in the work in the rush to meet the deadline.

As the ability to pull inspiration out of thin air is more or less a hit-and-miss affair, it may well follow that in this hunger for content we develop a tendency to use derivative and recycled work rather than wait for new inspirational pieces. This can be seen already, for example, in how many times and on how many items, Andy Warhol’s work has been reused.

...and virtual world's art is such a temporary installation anyway, with the cost of maintaining it so high (in SL at least) this tendency is further enhanced. Artists beware.... you are not a factory production unit.

Another ‘hazard’ lies in that we often have the idea that we need to find The Next Big Thing. Often the development of an artists work is a gentle progression, a general improvement towards a clearer or simpler way of expressing an idea.

While the constant repetition of a technique, say pickling a variety of fish and animals, may not necessarily be seen as a progression, Style is very much a product of Technique.

We may not all have the genius or sponsorship of, say, Du Champs, who never seemed to repeat himself, and while copying others is OK for beginners it becomes negative when someone else’s vision is used to replace your, seemingly, poor ideas. You lose out in the long run. I think it is important to remember, however, that you are fully entitled to copy yourself. Remaking a piece can have very positive results .... work on those flaws... develop your idea one stage further.

...and lastly, but not necessarily leastly, we all need to remember that staring into space, ‘doing nothing’ is a vital part of the creative process. As Maeve says “don’t just do something, stand there”.

Slow cooking is often preferable to the micro-wave.

It’s all about play, and day dreaming....

Enjoy, gently...

:))