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Pop Art Lab celebrates its first birthday

Pop Art Lab's first birthday celebration

"Some people say Second Life is just a dollhouse," Mankind Tracer told dancers during a break between songs while performing at Pop Art Lab’s first birthday bash on Saturday. He was quoting cynics who question the seriousness of virtual worlds such as Second Life and say we are doing nothing more than dressing up our avatar dolls and furnishing our virtual dollhouses.

Cynics about cars and telephones a century ago, who viewed these new contraptions as nothing more than toys for dabblers that would never have any serious application, could not see how thoroughly each would change the world. Today’s cynics make the same mistake in dismissing Second Life and other virtual worlds.

The performers at the Pop Art Lab birthday party are one example of the many ways virtual worlds are changing our world. Not long ago, performers starting out in their career were limited to local stages; today, their avatars can perform before global audiences. The performances on Saturday reminded me again of what extraordinary musical performers we have in Second Life. In addition to Mankind Tracer and his Tracerettes, Pop Art Lab party goers were entertained by singers Hazideon Zarco, Avvy Banzrane, Obeloinkment Wigglesworth, and Starflower Orbit performing a combination of classic Sixties songs and their own compositions.

Claus Uriza at Pop Art Lab's first birthday celebration

Pop Art Lab’s founder Claus Uriza

The theme for the party was the psychedelic Sixties. Some guests got totally into the role, such as the woman shown in the picture here, smoking what appeared to be an enormous joint while dancing. Avatars could also recline in flower seats rotating slowly above the dance floor and enjoy 3D art contributed by the Caerleon Art Collective.

These photos and the ones below are all from the Pop Art Lab party.

This was my first visit to Pop Arts Lab. I’d been intending to visit ever since hearing founder Claus Uriza talk about it at the Second Life Community Convention in San Francisco last month (see my coverage of Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, and Day 4), but I was always too busy to take the time. On Saturday, however, I decided to skip other important business I should have been tending to and instead I logged onto Second Life and teleported to the party. I’m glad I did!

The party itself was fun, and the music excellent, but the Pop Art Lab itself was the important discovery. I didn’t get to explore it at the party, but I plan to return. Even apart from what it offers, visually it’s a treat, very imaginatively laid out.

Pop Art Lab consists of themed music domes clustered around a dance circle, with bean bags scattered around for those who don’t want to dance. There are domes devoted to Rock, Pop, Hip Hop R&B, and Electronica, and a stage. There’s more than I have the space or time describe here. It’s not a club, but a place to go hang out, alone or with friends, listening to a variety of music in a wildly imaginative 3D environment. The best way for you to learn more is to pay a visit.

The party may be over, but Pop Art Lab remains a fascinating place to visit. Second Life members can teleport there at slurl.com/secondlife/Pop%20Art%20Lab/85/128/131. If you use Second Life’s in world Search to search for "Pop Art Lab" you’ll find not only the main teleport link, but teleport links for each of the themed music domes.

Visit the famed Hotel Chelsea, now in Second Life

Silent Art Auction to benefit Relay for Life

For over a hundred years, New York‘s Hotel Chelsea has been famed for the many prominent artists, writers, and other creative people of the twentieth century who stayed or lived there. The very long list includes Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Sid Vicious, Leonard Cohen, Dylan Thomas, Arthur C. Clarke (who wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey while staying there), and Jean-Paul Sartre. The Chelsea played a starring role in Andy Warhol‘s film Chelsea Girls about regulars at his "Factory".

Today the Chelsea is embroiled in a bitter battle between supporters of 72 year old Stanley Bard, a member of the family that managed the Chelsea from 1945 until 2007, and David Elder, a descendant of the Chelsea’s original owners and current manager after Bard’s ouster.

The Chelsea now also exists in Second Life, offering virtual world rooms for rent, live events, and sporting "Bring back the Bards" signs. On one recent evening, three hours of scheduled live music was followed by another unscheduled performance.

Nearly every wall, staircase, and even the occasional ceiling is adorned with artwork in Second Life’s Hotel Chelsea. It’s a pleasure just to wander the hallways and climb the stairs. Most of the rooms are rented, but some are still available.

The door to Room 100 is blocked off with yellow police tape. This is the room where in 1978, Sid Vicious’ girl friend Nancy Spungen was found stabbed to death while Sid Vicious wandered the halls crying that he had killed her and couldn’t live without her. He was arrested for the killing but died of a heroin overdose while out on bail. When you enter the room, you see signs of Sid and Nancy’s tumultuous life, hypodermic needles, grimy bathroom with a smashed mirror, and blood from Nancy’s painful death, stabbed by a knife she had given to Sid just hours earlier.

Room 211 is evokes more pleasant memories. Bob Dylan lived in that room, which has become controversial with the hotel’s current management recently gutting the room. You can see photographs of the gutting on the Living with Legends: Hotel Chelsea Blog.

You can learn about up coming performances at Second Life’s Hotel Chelsea by joining the group Hotel Chelsea Manhattan NYC, which is dedicated to "bringing the famous bohemia of the Chelsea Hotel to Second Life." Live events include poetry readings and music. Live music generally is on Wednesday evenings starting at 5pm and Saturday evenings starting at 4pm. Second Life members can teleport to the virtual Hotel Chelsea at slurl.com/secondlife/Lanestris/53/153/99.

Harlem’s 1920s Cotton Club – live in Second Life

I’ve been waiting months to write about Second Life‘s Virtual Harlem, a pair of sims that aim to simulate 1920s Harlem and two of its most historic landmarks, the Cotton Club and the Apollo Theater, Both locations are remembered for their contributions to American and especially African-American music, and to write about either building, even their virtual versions, without the music that brought them to life, would be to write in a vacuum. So I waited, and on Memorial Day weekend, it happened. Trowzer Boa and his Robot Band played the virtual Cotton Club.

Although remembered for its stream of African-American music greats, the Cotton Club was a coldly racist place, as was most of America in the 1920s. Opened in 1923 by gangster Owney Madden, the Cotton Club offered a venue for great African-American musicians including Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Bessie Smith, Cab Calloway, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, and Nat King Cole, and Billie Holiday to perform, but although African-Americans were onstage, they were rarely allowed to be in the audience. The Cotton Club closed in 1940.

Second Life’s Cotton Club is happily not authentic in one way: blatant racism is absent. Unlike the historic Cotton Club, where African-American performers were regarded as exotic savages, in Second Life on Memorial Day weekend, the performer was white (accompanied by AI "robots"!) while African-Americans in the audience danced alongside other races. Playing from his Philadelphia area basement, Trowser Boa and his AI Robot Band were excellent. The music they played wasn’t entirely authentic, some of it having been composed after 1940, including some by Boa himself, but I doubt whether anyone cared. I didn’t. It was good.

Guests were asked to wear "1920s glamor" attire. Most complied. For women, this meant dressing in the styles of the 1920s and while I don’t know enough about style to judge their accuracy – some hairstyles in particular looked distinctly contemporary – the overall effect was one of glamor of a lost age. Men had an easier time dressing for the evening because styles for men on occasions like this haven’t changed much since the 1920s. Most men were suits – I wore a zoot suit – and one wore a sailor’s outfit. The few who didn’t wear suits nonetheless seemed to fit in. This was Second Life, after all, most of the musicians were robots, and the dancers were all avatars. This wasn’t a static museum display. It was the 1920s brought back to life, but in a new century and in a virtual world that no one in the 1920s could have imagined.

Dancing in the Cotton Club

I’m looking forward to future events in the two Virtual Harlem sims and in the third sim in the group, Montmartre. These sims are the only place I know of where you can walk out of Harlem, cross a bridge on foot, and find yourself in France, in an entirely different historic period! I expect I’ll be writing more about all three sims in the future. Candice McMillan, events manager for Virtual Harlem, told me that they are antipating about one event a month at the Cotton Club. Second Life members can be assured of learning about them by joining the Virtual Harlem Events and Activities group in Second Life. On Memorial Day weekend, I went as a reporter taking pictures. The next time, I may leave my reporter role behind and take a date instead of pictures. This is a great place to dance, to enjoy, and to get at least a taste of life eight decades ago in New York’s Harlem, minus the racial discrimination of those days.

You can hear Trowzer Boa and his Robot Band at his Second Life club, Firehouse 59; Second Life members can teleport to it by clicking slurl.com/secondlife/Absentia/197/90/22. If his Cotton Club performance is any indication, you won’t be disappointed.

Second Life members can teleport to the Cotton Club by clicking slurl.com/secondlife/Virtual%20Harlem/124/7.