Thanks Hotspur!

This last Monday I host a big party at my newly re-opened New World Gallery. Lots of friendly art lovers showed up and we all had a great time. I especially enjoyed collaborating with musician MoShang Zhao, providing live visuals to along with his live concert.

Hotspur O’Toole was in attendance and he took the time to make this awesome video record of the show and party. So glad to have this to commemorate the show. :) The Organic Symmetry show will be on display for a couple of weeks and then I will being a series of shows feature other SL artists. Stay tuned for details.

Special thanks to AutoPilotPatty for directing traffic as people arrived at the Highlands Telehub, Bettina Tizzy for inviting the NPiRL group, MoShang for his amazing live performance, and everyone who made it to the party.

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!

Particle Poetry

Strawberry Holiday has been on a creative binge lately, building one really cool art installation after another. Her latest piece, Playing with Words, is a very cool piece that mixes words and space to spark the imagination. Beautiful curvy word-trees rest in a field of swaying text. The monochromatic textures put the emphasis on the words and also give the space a slightly retro-0dreamy feel. Check it out before the last word falls.