LEA 14 CONFESSIONS OF AN ARTIST MISPRINT THURSDAY
August 15, 2012 The installation at LEA 14 was sideswiped, hoodwinked, hijacked by the many unknown and vast forces of reality. The photographs reflect all that remained at the end of the Linden Endowment for the Arts grant term for the installation called ISEE by Misprint Thursday. Much thanks to the LEA for their continued efforts to bring quality art to Second Life and to see that artists have sim sized spaces to carry out their work.
Once there was an artist with an idea. Her idea was to combine media in virtual reality with interactivity through chat and phone and stuff. She started to work on it and then the unthinkable happened. Life happened. Her project had to get put to the side and the more she thought about it the more she struggled with not making progress on it. Guilt, procrastination, avoidance, effort, cycled by more procrastination then guilt. In the midst of her efforts or thoughts toward her art some serious transitions in her employment, parenting and home life came about which challenged her ability to focus and grapple with the project at hand as she hoped.
Art, which had once been a comfort, joy and inspiration was a burden at this time. Her vision had originally been so clear of what she wanted to do but she just could not manage to get there, yet. On top of that, her muse split. Gone. Gonzo. MIA. Out of town. Vacation email auto response. Things just went gray, then black, then kind of static through the process of thinking. There was no flipping of the switch from thinking to doing. She was acutely aware that nothing was happening. It sucked. But she tried. She reached out through Rhizome and placed call for entry ads for potential collaborators. She got some responses but nothing really panned out there. She built a framework from which to launch her interactive media empire. But, that was as far as she got.
Here lies the project which did not get off the ground. Here lies every project in both reality and virtual reality which has to take a back seat to higher priorities.
Priorities. Life. Every second. Of life. Breathe in. Breathe out. OK that was dramatic. Anyways. Then later after she realized that the media thing wasn't going to happen and time was quickly passing her by she kept having these pressing thoughts about John Lennon. The Lennon thoughts had been brewing in the background. Maybe, she thought, it could be doable. Just change gears and try to make something happen. Why Lennon? To her, he was someone who was so lucky in many ways to spend his days being totally creative. Her dream. But reality kept smacking her in the face. SMACK! SMACK! She wanted, just for a moment to actually BECOME Lennon. Her vision then shifted to self portraits of BEING Lennon. That was interesting. But that didn't happen either. God, nothing was happening. Not even left over boxes from shopping in virtual reality. I mean, it was BAD.
So, she then mixed a sampling of Lennon songs. The one that moved her the most was Give Peace A Chance. It was rhythmic, hypnotic and soothed her as she tried to work on...something. She listened intently to his lyrics and took notes on interviews he had and started to extract key phrases. She began to upload the phrases into Second Life to incorporate into the piece. She made a video of clouds with an effect of a water ripple as a surface texture and loaded the mix of the Lennon mp3s to her server to play as part of the exhibit. She played it and built. Things seemed to be moving. Kind of. Then she messed with some photos and images of Lennon, imported them, made a shrine like atmosphere that she wanted to have be like an interactive sĂŠance with Lennon. But-that didn't get too far either. What the heck was happening? She was totally not filled with win. Just floundering, flopping, flapping ideas about. Nothing was coming as it should have been in the first idea or the second.
In the end, she gave into the fact that this was all it would become on this sim, at this time and called it: ART.
Give Peace a Chance - John Lennon Ev'rybody's talkin' 'bout Bagism, Shagism, Dragism, Madism, Ragism, Tagism This-ism, that-ism, ism ism ism All we are saying is give peace a chance All we are saying is give peace a chance (C'mon) Ev'rybody's talkin' 'bout Minister, Sinister, Banisters and Canisters, Bishops, Fishops, Rabbis, and Pop Eyes, Bye bye, Bye byes All we are saying is give peace a chance All we are saying is give peace a chance (Let me tell you now) Ev'rybody's talkin' 'bout Revolution, Evolution, Masturbation, Flagellation, Regulation, Integrations, mediations, United Nations, congratulations All we are saying is give peace a chance All we are saying is give peace a chance Ev'rybody's talkin' 'bout John and Yoko, Timmy Leary, Rosemary, Tommy Smothers, Bobby Dylan, Tommy Cooper, Derek Taylor, Norman Mailer, Alan Ginsberg, Hare Krishna Hare Hare Krishna All we are saying is give peace a chance All we are saying is give peace a chance
And she called it art. 2012