Across the room you see two classic columns, and an angel flying carefree among the clouds between them. You walk closer. Without warning the columns shatter into fragments onto the ground around you. You look up. The angel is now on her knees, weeping, the sky behind her a conflagration. It is Feather Boa’s "Broken Angel", one of the art works you can bid on in the silent benefit auction "Artists Caring for Artists that begins today and runs for two weeks, until September 4, 2009.

The auction has been organized in Second Life by the Caerleon Art Collective, a group of world famous virtual artists who utilize ‘Second Life’ to produce immersive artworks, Artificial Life forms, and digitized representations of RL art pieces. All monies raised from the two week auction will be used to allow established artists to continue their work despite the recent withdrawal of major RL funding.

Sowa Mai’s "Hands"

These pictures don’t do the art justice. Many are dynamic, some changing shape as you approach them and changing back as you walk away, others are in constant motion, such as Sowa Mai’s "Hands". The still picture shown here shows images very much like Second Life’s hand logo, but when you see it in Second Life, it’s a spinning, constantly changing image.

The auction is an opportunity for you to acquire virtual world art by established artists and to at the same time help them to continue their work. Bidding will last for two weeks, beginning August 22, 2009. To place a bid, you click on the sign next to the art you want to buy, and then you make a bid by clicking "Pay" and paying the amount of your bid. If your bid is highest when the auction ends, you get that piece of art. One thing that may be confusing: all bidding is in multiples of L$200 (200 Lindens): L$200, L$400, L$600, etc. Bids that aren’t multiples of L$200 will be rejected. You can see the current highest bid in floating text over the sign.

Some of the art you can bid on

You can read more about the Caerleon Art Collective and its Virtual Art Initiative at its website, and Second Life members can teleport to the blind auction by clicking slurl.com/secondlife/Esterhal/197/222/23.

The activities in Second Life of the New Media Consortium (NMC) are too diverse and too numerous to do justice to by writing about it in a single blog, so over coming weeks, I’ll be highlighting some of its exhibits and features. This educational collaboration between 125 colleges and universities includes over 100 regions in Second Life.

My topic today is the Storm Eye immersive art exhibit, a creation of Desdemona Enfield and Douglas Story (Dennis Schaefer in real life). The exhibit consists of about a thousand primitives, each with a moviing picture texture, and accompanied by very rich sound effects that include thunder, rain, and chirping birds.

 

When you first teleport to Storm Eye, you are almost 500 meters above NMC’s Aho Museum. You are in a deep red world, with a red path winding its way upward to what looks like a blue and white vortex, except that it’s stationary. Before going any further, make certain you’ve followed the instructions to turn up your audio to max and to enable media playback. Without these, it won’t be much of an experience. Also be sure to get one of the free umbrellas if you don’t want your av to get wet! When you’re ready, walk up the path into the vortex, and be ready for an experience.

 

Once inside, you are surrounded by 1,000 prims of video and audio looping in a 4-1/2 minute cycle of rain, lighting and thunder alternating with blue sky and birds singing. If you have headphones, use them. The audio is key to enjoying this exhibit.

When you’re ready to leave, you can’t just walk back out. You have to find the tornado and click on it.. Its location isn’t immediately evident at first, just a semi-transparent image. Once you find it, click on it and you will be immediately teleported back to the red world immediately outside.

If you’re a Second Life member, you can teleport to Storm Eye by clicking slurl.com/secondlife/NMC%20Campus%20West/91/86/501. If you’re not a Second Life member, you can watch a shortened, 1.5 minute version of the experience on the Storm Eye blog.