The Forgotten Art in SL

I was at the opening of the M Linden Art Exhibit at the Lawrence Wilson Gallery at the University of Western Australia the other day. The UWA campus is a wonderful place to visit there are multiple connected sims allowing you to see a large cross section of Art by many artists. Plus very nice RL renditions of buildings from the Universities campus along with SL inspired builds.

At the opening of the M. Linden Doodle art exhibit, there was a large showing of individuals from the SL art community. White Lebed, Glyph Graves, Miso Susanowa, Ralphaella Nightfire, Mills Frolic, Igor Ballyhoo, Soror Nishi, Chantal Harvey, Larkworthy Antfarm and about 70 other individuals. While on the RL side viewing in on computers from across the globe was Len Zuks the renown Australian artist, who was also the host of the event at the University of Western Australia where he and Jay Jay Zifanwe and many department heads from UWA with guest viewed real life sculptures and SL created renditions of Lens sculptures by Miso Susanowa. The highlight of the show in both worlds was the revealing of M. Lindens (Mark Kingdon CEO of Linden Labs). Doodle art collection that was collected and turned into a show in both worlds by curator White Lebed. The collection can be viewed at the UWA campus in world at the WASP sim, also there are wonderful machinima videos about the art of M. Linden produced by Chantal Harvey,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=War8_f0Ef2I
and By Larkworthy Antfarm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMXka6fuU_c
which can be viewed on line, copy and paste links.

M Linden did a nice job of explaining a little about himself and how art had been a part of his life for a long time. It was a wonderful time and was nice to see we all doodle and have a lot in common.
The M. Linden Doodle Art exhibit can be viewed at:
Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, University of Western Australia (UWA)
http://slurl.com/secondlife/WASP%20Land/239/216/28

After the main event many individuals stayed around and chatted as usual for an event like this. During this part of the evening I brought up the topic of how I personally felt that one of the in-world forms of art is not reported on or really discussed that much in world by individuals or by the dozens of in world magazines that cover the topics of art and in world places to see and experience.
When asked what that was, I stated I was referring to in-world architecture (buildings) and how it is a form of Art to it self. I was surprised by the varied responses I received from that statement, they ran the gambit from the metraverses is only to create and design creations that are not possible in real life to the comment that many architectural events are covered but it was revealed that they where build contest or recreations of famous RL architects and their builds in the real world. Now these comments where from knowledgeable creative and capable designers and builders in world that I have come to know and respect their abilities and creations.
I stated that I really love and respect the architect mentioned Frank Lloyd Wright, my personal favorite and that builds that cannot be created in RL are a great thing for and to do it SL. But SL is an opportunity to design and create any thing you want to, not matter what format or design it follows RL or SL. I made the point that architectural builds in SL either fantasy based or real life based designed are not seen as an Art form in SL and are the step child of Art that's created in SL.

This is demonstrated clearly by the low percentage of artists that participate in the Imagine/Flagship Challenge of the UWA challenge. On average you have 5% of the individuals from the monthly challenge participating in the Flagship side. When I have personally spoken to artists and individuals who have gone to the UWA challenge to view the art and builds most admit they have not seen the Flagship builds and when attending the Challenge party each month it's usually the first time a larger percentage of them have seen the flagship builds for the first time. I know this to be true because I get comments in IM chat telling me I had not seen this before what a great build, also I have spoken to other Flagship builders and its a common thing to them also.

So I guess my question, the point of this article is why are builds of architectural nature a step child to art it self in SL when some of the builds in SL are truly amazing creative and technically challenging forms of art them selves. That apply all the same principals and techniques that are used to create Art forms in SL, texture creations, designs and creating processes, scripting and other SL based creations techniques.

I personally feel that its based on several reasons, the first being there are literally thousands of fair to badly designed and built buildings in SL. So many so that they have become the accepted norm in the metraverse we inhabit. Second when a truly RL based building is come upon its accepted as the way it should be and is not given an other thought. I will state that the art community portion that reports on art and the creative side of it will identify and talk about fantasy based builds occasionally which is a good thing to see and have as recognition of buildings as an art form in SL. But at last RL renditions of any type of build that are not in a competition usually a rendering of a famous build or designer are not addressed or seen as an art form.

Now, I know that the low participation rate in the UWA Flagship is not all based on the reason, individuals do not like or consider building to be an art form. But I do believe that Builders of Building be they RL based or SL based do need to improve their skills and get beyond the prefab mind set of building structures in SL. The release of the free homes by the Lindens to new land owning accounts alone should be awake up call to all prefab builders in SL. There are only so many variations and texture redoes one can apply to the few shoe boxes styles they create that are called creative and stylish homes in SL before it just wont fly any longer. This is not to say all are the same thing over and over type builders but there is a great percentage that are in SL.

And to the Art community as a whole I suggest you embrace the creative design and creation of builds in SL as the true art forms they are, be it a RL or SL based design. For isn't Art the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way to affect the senses or emotions. Which is one of the things that happens when you enter into and experience a truly great building in SL no matter what style or design it is.

Nyx