View Mother Nature through a kaleidoscopic lens

Join me as I celebrate the re-opening of my New World Gallery tonight at 8:30pm SLT.

Organic Symmetry is an exploration of the shapes and colors provided by Mother Nature, viewed through a distorted digital lens. Undulating colors and self-similar shapes are combined in a variety of ways to create an immersive, full-sensory experience.

The works begin their life as RL digital photos captured in the wild places of the Pacific Northwest. Moss & bark, flowers & leaves, earth and sky. I take these images into Photoshop, exploring the shapes and color combinations that arise as I experiment. I have always been a fan of symmetry and the self-similar shapes found in Nature, and I enjoy creating my own variations on these themes.

I brought these manipulated images into SL for further experimentation. In here I can combine the images in new ways, put them in motion, create interactive pieces that surprise and delight. I never know what this Mashup of tools and ideas will bring about, but I know what I like when I find it.  :) This Organic Symmetry show includes digitally manipulated photos, interactive sculptures, kinetic art, video installations - even a symmetrical space created specifically for this collection.

MoShang Zhao will also be joining us for a live musical performance. His music is a perfect fit for this show.  Energetic yet introspective - a blend of traditional Chinese music, ambient sounds, and hip-hop flavors. He calls it ‘Chinese Chill’. You can learn more about MoShang at his website: http://moshang.net/

I will also be providing some live visuals to accompany MoShang’s music. Pictures, videos, particles, and other colorful eye-candy drawn from the same pool of natural  imagery.

See you at the show!
Vlad Bjornson

Teleport to the Gallery

BTW - The gallery is a bit difficult to find if you are not used to old-style telehubs. After teleporting to the Caledon Highlands you’ll need to fly a bit west to my Highland Cliffs parcel. There you will find an arrow shaped TP system that will take you high up into the sky to the New World Gallery. You can also just ask me for a TP. :)

I <3 four Yip!

I met four Yip last weekend at Barney and flo’s Show & Tell. She was showing some awesome artwork - SL interpretations of some of Magritte’s coolest paintings. What a great freekin idea! She executed the builds with style and grace, too.  Now you can see them, plus a few other original pieces, in an unassuming show at the Yab Yum gallery. Go there now.

Couldn’t resist posting a couple of pics, although I tried not to spoil any of the fun bits. :)

Mashup Your Creative Tools

Last week the New Media Consortium hosted a Symposium on Mashups. They featured all sorts of interesting ways that people are combining digital tools, data, and ideas. Topics included copyright issues, educational uses, Web 2.0 tools, and meditations on the implications of this new ability to sample and combine all sorts of info.

Larry Pixel invited me to host a session that dealt with art in Second Life. My presentation was entitled: Mashup Your Creative Tools: Art in Second Life. I talked about some of the tools that are available in SL and how they’ve combined to create a new artistic media. My session was a bit less technical and more personal than some of the other presentations. I think it was well received and I hope that I offered a bit of inspiration and opened a few doors in peoples minds about what is possible for artists in SL.

The sessions were also simulcast on the Web via the nifty Adobe Connect system. You can see the recording of my session, as well as all of the other presentations that were made at the Symposium. I especially enjoyed the “Confessions of a Mashup Artist” which featured a fantastic audio/video mashup dealing with the ethics and ideas of the mashup. I also like this presentation that featured some amazing live, data-driven maps in SL and also a demonstration of the Info-Fez.

Thanks to Larry Pixel and the NMC for the opportunity to spread the SL art gospel and for bringing all of this great stuff together!

I’m in the process of updating this website, so things may be a bit wonky today. I’m upgrading to the newest version of WordPress, adding a few features , and re-arranging the virtual furniture.

The upgrade to the WordPress 2.5 was super easy and so far seems trouble free. Yay!

Now I am working on adding the new forums. I’m not sure if we have enough visitors for an active forum, but I think it will be a fun experiment. We’re getting about 150 unique visitors a day, so there may be enough of us now to engage in some interesting conversation. I get sick of all the negative attitudes and off-topic chatter on the official LL forums. The forums here will be a friendly place to ask for help and discuss our growing virtual world. No asshats trolls, or whiners allowed :D

I’ve filed my first JIRA bug report. It has to do with some problems with the Auto Align video texture feature in the new WIndlight enabled viewer (1.19.1). It’s not a horrible bug, but it is annoying and also effects the use of videos as sculptmaps - which is a pretty neat effect when it works. If you are interested in this sort of thing and have a few moments, please head over to the JIRA entry and have a look. I spent a  number of hours tracking down this glitch and would love to see it fixed. Even just having my findings confirmed would be nice. :)