Monday, March 02, 2009

@fterglow

I've been avoiding saying it, but I think now I can say it ... "@" was a success, and has miles to go before it sleeps (er, sorry, Robert Frost).

If you're one of the 2.3 regular readers of this blog, you'll know that I spent the last few days at the College Art Association Conference in Los Angeles, and you'll further know that I was one of the curators for @, a show sponsored by the New Media Caucus in conjunction with CAA and the Southern California Institute of Architecture. I and my colleague James Morgan dealt with the Second Life portion of this joint real life/Second Life project. 

This was an enormous undertaking, which became orders of magnitude more complicated simply due to the extensive use of technology and the fact of attempting to curate something in a RL space we'd never seen, that was located a very long way away from any of the curation team (who variously came from Texas, Michigan, and Northern California). I frequently felt less than useful, although according to my co-curator this is not the truth of the matter (and it must be only my impression, as he has asked me to work with him in the future on  other projects). But I have to say I am very happy to have gotten involved.

I have very bad cellphone pictures of the RL exhibit, which I will share with you momentarily. But the show and its concept are such a hit, we are taking it on the road.

Conversations are underway right now with a variety of venues in several locales. We'll keep the SL part in place, but the RL aspects will change with each venue, involving a local artist or group of artists to construct the very important RL installation in each locale. I'd like to see more interaction between the SL artists and the RL audience ... a day of artists' talks, for example, that would involve both the RL and SL artists.

Would you like @ in your space? Let me know. In the meantime, watch this space. Crappy camera-phone pictures coming.

Have I finally found the Holy Grail? Is this what new media is? Er, are? whatever?