Ashes to Phoenix: The Second Life Endowment for the Arts Is Announced

As has been widely reported (for example by Inara Pey, so I won't repeat the announcement), Linden Lab approved the foundation of the Second Life Endowment for the Arts (a successor to the Linden Endowment for the Arts) based on a proposal developed by Tansee and Hannington Xeltentat -- and congratulations! A year ago when LEA was collapsing and some people, with Tansee in the lead, began campaigning for some way to save it or modify it, I had some cautionary advice, and it seems one or two of my thoughts were absorbed into the proposal; hopefully my advice will prove foresightful.

Hannington and Tansee will helm SLEA, which is already a good sign. One of LEA's major sources of trouble was that its leadership was composed mostly of artists, which produced conflict out of competing views (not to mention competing personalities) and took a significant number of artists out of the running for LEA sims. Hannington and Tansee, however, have been curating the Hannington Endowment for the Arts. Tansee is also an artist, but any "vanilla" curatorial experience (i.e., without the mishegas of conflicts of interest and the like) counts. Plus the Hannington Endowment for the Arts has a good track record.

At seven sims, SLEA will also be considerably smaller than LEA, thank heavens. LEA frequently approved crap, especially toward the end, because it often received about as many proposals as it had sims. The SLEA residencies range from one to six months, with a few quarter sims, which is an interesting approach that allows (or requires) a lot of turnover; probably that will help lower the stakes for artists who've seldom (if ever) created a large work before.

Vanessa Blaylock, in her own blog post on the announcement, offers two suggestions: (1) have shorter residencies -- no longer than two months -- and thus provide more opportunities to artists; and (2) make the seven sims contiguous as a way to break down the isolation of the works and build artist community. I'm skeptical about both ideas.

Regarding suggestion (1), Vanessa makes a good point: nobody needs a six-month residency, and few need a whole sim. Well, actually Bryn Oh makes all that work, but she's got her own sim. Vanessa's specific suggestion increases the annual opportunities from 40 under SLEA's proposal to 60. However, she doesn't account for a fundamental problem, one which I discussed in my original advice: at least from what have seen in person or announced in notices to the arts groups, unlike ten years ago very few artists focus on 3D builds rather than 2D images. My concern is not that there will be too few opportunities for artists, but that there are too few 3D artists to take the 40 opportunities. Tansee and Hannington have their work cut out for them already. But the length of residencies and the apportionment of the sims is easily modified. I might recommend chopping the six-month residencies down to three months, but that's all for now.

On Vanessa's suggestion (2), community is important, and I've written a couple of posts about it myself. However, making the sims contiguous doesn't (as she assumes) necessarily build community among the artists -- it can also create visual competition. Compare with the SL Birthdays and Burning Life/Burn2 celebrations: complete visual clutter. If those events create community among artists, then great, that's already happening, but I doubt they do. (I wish LL would put all the artists on contiguous regions, actually, because they're the only reason I visit.)

Admittedly, when I was curating Split Screen, most of the time I split the space between two artists -- but I left the decision on coordinating or separating to them. Sometimes they shared the land, once or twice responding to each other's work, but usually they stayed separate and sometimes they split the space vertically as one artist would take the sky (a couple times I wished that they'd chosen that path...). In fact some artists prefer sky builds, such as Cherry Manga (for instance, Danse Macabre). So if someone looks at a neighboring sim and sees empty land, then what? I also had to deal with conflict between artists over windlights, and I wouldn't wish that sort of thing on Hannington and Tansee. To me, allowing the artists to choose seemed to build a little community in the sense of cooperation, and only once did someone demand the whole space (which led that person to get none -- I set the rules).

However, even though Vanessa presents her suggestion as a way to create community among artists, her argument is actually from the perspective of an art enthusiast: make it easier for visitors to see everyone's work. And on that, she's right, sometimes I myself felt frustrated by the isolation.

So overall, my own recommendations to Tansee and Hannington are (1) require a SLEA-provided TP system on every sim to get to the other sims, maybe incorporating a photo of each installation (too bad artists, you have to include it, those are the rules); (2) have open discussions and a flexible approach with the artists on splitting land horizontally or vertically, and even on allocation of prim equivalents (some artists do a lot with a little); (3) have a flexible approach to residency durations as things proceed; (4) keep a bottle of scotch, some weed, or a bottle of Xanax handy, at some point you'll need it; and (5) GET A PUBLICIST! I mean for fuck's sake, LEA was fucking horrible at publicity, which creates more community and happier artists than any other strategy.

LEA ends

It's official: the Linden Endowment for the Arts end is closing. The announcement reads, "Linden Endowment for the Arts in its current form comes to an end on August 31st and the remaining sims will be taken offline by Linden Labs on September 1st." What "in its current form" means is anyone's guess; probably nothing more than "Maybe we'll look at it again in 20 years, but don't hold us to that."

When LEA first opened I had strong reservations, as it seemed likely to undermine the independent curators like me. A whole sim for free -- what builder wouldn't jump at the chance? Not something I could offer. My worries seemed confirmed when someone slated for Split Screen pulled out at the last minute, taking a LEA sim instead and leaving me high and dry. But in the longer term the competition with LEA turned out to be less of an issue than I feared: the more serious problem appeared some years later, with the slow exit of the artists themselves. I closed Split Screen when it became clear that I was on the verge of repeatedly hosting the same half-dozen or so artists that fit my goals.

One major loss is the LEA Sandbox. Once in a while it hosted some amazing stuff. More importantly, with the closure of so many other sites for building and hosting large works, the future of SL art is probably limited to textures on a prim and occasionally smallish sculptures, plus a few stalwarts with their own sims, like Bryn Oh and Cica Ghost. Photos and the like are nice, but they don't explore one iota of SL's capabilities. And that's a great pity.

Thoughts for the People Hoping to Save LEA

To those hoping to rescue LEA:

As you may know, I was the curator of the Split Screen Installation Space (2010-2017), which hosted many of SL's best-known 3D artists and achieved a good reputation during its time. (Often the installations made the SL Destination Guide Editor's Picks, and I was asked to join the LEA Committee, twice I think.) So given my experience with the SL art scene, I thought I should share my own thoughts about whether LEA should be rescued and if so, how it might best serve the SL arts community.

The question needs to be put into some context. Nearly all the major installation spaces SL has ever had are gone or now only display old art, including (in no particular order) PiRats, New Caerleon, the New Media Consortium, IDIA Laboratories, the University of Western Australia, the University of Texas--San Antonio, Odyssey, Art Screamer, IBM's Exhibition Spaces, both the first and the second Nordan Art Galleries, MetaLES, Split Screen, and others. I think that at one point most of these spaces existed at the same time. So there has been a massive loss of opportunities to build large works.

And yet, LEA has had trouble getting quality applications. One reason is that many of the creators of large installations have left SL, or stayed but quit making art. Some people left because of the cost of land, and moved to places like Inworldz and the OpenSims. Others left or stopped for personal reasons. Most importantly, few new artists interested in large installations have taken their place.

These should be big red flags: the problems LEA has faced during the past few years go far beyond LEA, and concern what the SL arts community itself is doing, or rather, not doing. It's not doing large installations.

If the SL art scene has changed so radically, people should think long and hard about whether LEA has any way to serve it. To be honest, I have doubts.

Nevertheless, I can suggest two options. One is to have merely two or three sims (and the sandbox) to support the few artists doing the sort of work that needs that amount of space. If more artists start requesting it, LEA can always ask Linden Lab to add another sim or two.

The other option is to give LEA a specific mission -- in effect, serving a curatorial function. This would make some people mad and raise the usual hackles, but some people get mad no matter what, because they have nothing better to do. It's practically an SL custom. So despite complaints, having a more specific mission might be the right thing to do anyway.

In my view, the mission LEA might best pursue is to programmatically encourage artists to make the kind of work that can exist only in a virtual world, or in any case would be extremely hard to do in the material world. Zero two-dimensional, "texture on a prim" art. Zero re-creations of RL or could-be-RL locations. Challenge artists to exploit SL's many resources, even if they need to get someone to help them (or they could learn how to do it themselves). Think about it: why is Bryn On one of the few people nowadays playing with windlights, projections, physics, raycasting, etc? She wants to squeeze everything she can out of SL, and she gets help for the complex scripts she needs. And then there's anims, media, scripting as art, terraforming, animesh.... Yes, there are certainly some artists who have large visions even if what they do is completely possible in real life (Eliza Wierwight comes to mind), and that's fine, they should have that opportunity if they can make a convincing case. And there are certainly some people trying out features of SL, with or without large spaces. I don't mean to cast aspersions on everyone -- I can see things kicking around on the sandbox. But on the whole, SL art is in a rut. LEA might be able to do something about that. Though clearly with fewer sims -- no more than half, probably no more than a quarter, at least for now -- and slice them into parcels for a while.

If LEA adopts a specific mission (what I suggest or something else), it would be smart not to have any artists on the committee: draw from the curators and maybe a blogger or two. (Not me, I'm working on a major project in RL.) Using curators reduces or eliminates conflicts of interest (real or imagined) and creates more of a network into the SL arts community.

Everything else -- the duration of grants, etc -- is just deck chairs on the Titanic, if you ignore the root of the problem.

Oh, and for pete's sake, get a publicist! LEA's advertising has always been terrible!

Best of luck,

Dividni Shostakovich


PS: In case you don't know what I mean by "exploiting SL's resources," here are some videos that should give an idea of the things people have done, some of them even without high tech (though not all of them are large installations):

Bogon Flux by blotto Epsilon and Cutea Benelli: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tK8Aa-6loJU

Transition Zone by Oberon Onmura: https://vimeo.com/11780611

Forest of Water by Glyph Graves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5rkSbgKRtE

Bagging Area 51 by Maya Paris: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xj2uE7e29ws

Paranormal Frottage by Misprint Thursday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68FxhfKa5P0

The Mask: a synchronicity by Pyewacket Kazyanenko, Jo Ellsmere, and Kai Steamer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz-yTln9BkY

(There are several works I hoped to include but I wasn't able to find a satisfactory video.)

Closing of Berg by Nordan Art

Kate Bergdorf has announced here that her exhibit space, Berg by Nordan Art, will close at the end of the year.  It has consistently presented excellent art, including large installations -- one of the few places for large builds remaining.  It will be sorely missed!

Fest'Avi in FrancoGrid: A Visit to an OpenSim

A friend invited me to go into FrancoGrid (an OpenSim grid) to see a performance called Fest'Avi, created largely by Cherry Manga, who is well known for her surrealistic and often dark installations in Second Life. (She built a piece at Split Screen, part of which is still there now.) Until then the only grid outside SL that I'd been to was InWorldz. OpenSims have technological differences from SL (a bit behind in some ways, ahead of it in others) but they have more flexibility due to their local control and open-source nature, and their cost is decidedly lower. On the other hand, they're also underpopulated. As a result, they're attractive for creating many types of art, but the works can seldom garner a significant audience (Fest'Avi did overcome that). In any case, given what's going on in SL, I went to the performance with somewhat low expectations.

It's a pity that Fest'Avi was a one-time-only event, for the production was extraordinary.

Fest'Avi was fundamentally a dance piece consisting of intense, driving music and rapidly changing scenery and avatars. The sweep of settings and avatars was fascinating, ranging from tiny fairies fluttering on flowers, to mechanical insects, to cyber figures, to demons in hell, to a rumpled elderly couple dancing around the world as tourists, and much more. Both the avatars and the sets were well-designed and executed. It was a particular pleasure to see some of Cherry's work become a stage. My photos scarcely do the performance justice, partly because it was constantly in motion, and so photographing on-the-fly sometimes obscures was happening and of course makes good positioning impossible; also I didn't start photographing until perhaps ten minutes into the show. I took nearly 80 photos, so I can give only a sampling here, but I've tried to indicate how some of the transitions looked. Click the photos to enlarge.

One interesting aspect technically is that other than (I think) Cherry, the performers were not live people, but rather NPCs (nonplayer characters). These are different from bots: the latter need to be run by somebody logged in with a viewer, who must sit the avatars on animating prims and coordinate the timing, whereas NPCs are programmable and operate through the sim without anyone logged in. This is one way in which OpenSims are actually preferable to Second Life. I'm sure Jo Ellsmere, who has to run over a dozen viewers in order to run her performance piece at "Obedience," would have appreciated that alternative (especially when the power went out at her house).

Fest'Avi makes it crystal clear that anyone interested in the arts should pay attention to what happens in the OpenSim grids. Given the cost of land and uploads into Second Life, many artists have moved to the OpenSims, and I think we can expect that to continue. I hope they'll publicize their work through the Second Life arts groups so that they get the audiences they deserve. In the meantime, there is a group called Hypergrid Safari, which people may be interested in joining or at least following. (Regrettably, their expeditions are usually at a time when I'm not free.)

Split Screen Closes (definitely for now, possibly forever)

The last installation at Split Screen, Scottius Polke's The Scribbled Cliffs

After hosting 30 installations across almost two and a half years, I am closing the Split Screen Installation Space. I don't know if this is a permanent closure; I'm keeping half of the land, and after maybe six months I'll decide whether to re-open, close permanently, or continue in a holding pattern. I've installed a number of small works by a few of the artists who have built at Split Screen, creating a sort of sculpture garden or installation park, which everyone is welcome to visit.

The decision was very difficult, but it was neither sudden nor recent: I came to it several months ago. Close friends heard me mulling it over for much longer. Once I made the decision, I kept my promises to the artists who I had already invited to Split Screen, but I scheduled no new ones.

There are three main reasons why I'm closing Split Screen. None of them are financial.

The #1 reason is that I'm exhausted. Curating even a place as small as Split Screen takes a lot more work than I ever imagined, and my one or two efforts to delegate work to someone else didn't bear fruit because I couldn't see any way to delegate the hard parts.

Second, my feelings about the curatorial work changed, which was partly the result of the amount of time involved, and partly the result a few unfortunate incidents (which I may discuss in a later post). I started Split Screen because I wanted there to be more opportunities for artists to create the kind of works that interest me most. And it was a great pleasure to do so -- in fact I was prouder of Split Screen than almost anything I've done in RL. But as time went on, it became less of a joy, and more of a job. I don't want my contributions to the SL art scene to feel like a chore.

Finally, I'd like to blog more. It's been hard for me to blog about SL art partly because with Split Screen going, I have little time for it, and partly because sometimes it feels like a conflict of interest. (If I criticize the work of someone I might want to bring to Split Screen, will they agree to come? If I criticize their work afterwards, will that spoil a good relationship? What would happen if I think an artist's work at Split Screen isn't as good as I hoped -- can I criticize Split Screen shows?) Blogging more will depend on my available time, of course. But with any luck I'll be able to, hopefully with the analytical and critical eye (not just cheerleading) that I tried to bring to it originally.

As I said, none of my reasons are financial. The main thing is that I'm burned out.

In many ways, Split Screen was a "proof of concept" experiment: I wanted to find out if it's possible to have a high-quality installation space within the limits of what I could afford, merely half of a homestead sim. That's a relatively small financial commitment. The prim resources are also small, but I bet on the idea that artists can create major installations with only 900 prims. And indeed, despite the limitations, the quality of the installations artists created for Split Screen was high. OK, a couple of works disappointed me, but that's always a risk when commissioning new art. Of course, the limits of available money and land resources weren't the only potential barriers: so was being a completely unknown person.  Would people trust me to let them work as they pleased?  It turned out that even two years later, some of the artists I invited to Split Screen had never heard of it before, yet gladly agreed to build there anyway, and only one artist ever said that it (or at least I) wasn't good enough for her.

On the whole I think Split Screen succeeded artistically. From that perspective, I accomplished my main goal. I wasn't able to achieve two other goals. One was fairly minor: not many of the builds had the level of interactivity that I hoped for. The other was more frustrating: I wanted to give "emerging artists" opportunities to create large-scale works, but the only time that happened was when the artist got in touch with me, rather than vice versa. (Hint: the easiest way to get to build at Split Screen was to tell me you want to!) My lack of success in this area looks stranger and stranger these days, because LEA has often given full sims to people I'd never heard of. One reason might be that I simply haven't had time to see enough art. Another reason might be that people apply to LEA because it has high visibility, and never think of Split Screen or perhaps don't know about it. Compared to LEA, everything looks little-league (maybe this explains the artist I mentioned who sneered at me). There was also a lesser goal -- I wanted to schedule artists that would make an interesting pair, whose work would rub against each other in intriguing ways. Unfortunately, cancellations and scheduling problems skewered almost all of my attempts in this regard.

Interestingly, one incidental aspect of Split Screen -- the fact that it was located on a residential sim -- became increasingly important to me. Nearly all art in Second Life is safely enclosed, either within a gallery or museum, or on a sim to itself. A few places show art outdoors for essentially decorative purposes. Not many areas mix art and residence, and in Split Screen's case, because the installations were large, the mixing was "in your face" -- certainly for the residents, and for the artists too if they paid attention. For that reason I started describing Split Screen as "art unboxed."

I have a long list of people to thank, if this really is the end of Split Screen. First, the artists (in alphabetical order, except when working as a team): Alizarin Goldflake, Artistide Despres, Betty Tureaud, Blue Tsuki, Bryn Oh, Cherry Manga, Douglas Story & Desdemona Enfield, Eliza Weirwight, Eupalinos Ugajin, Giovanna Cerise, Jo Ellsmere & Pyewacket Kazyanenko, Kolor Fall (Patrick Faith), Maya Paris, Miso Susanowa, Misprint Thursday, Oberon Onmura, oona Eiren, Pinkpink Sorbet, Pixels Sideways, Rose Borchovski, Selavy Oh, Scottius Polke, shellina Winkler, Simotron Aquila, soror Nishi, Trill Zapatero, and Yooma Mayo. Three dear friends helped keep my insanity going: Emma Portilo had the dubious honor of hearing most of my muttering, Kara Trapdoor helped fund Split Screen as it got off the ground and always promoted it in her blog, and Isabelle Mavendorf was the DJ for nearly all of the parties (and an exceptional one too: hire her!). Various other bloggers and magazine writers helped get the word out about installations, and a few people made machinimas there. And I thank all the people who enjoyed coming to Split Screen. I heard many kind words from them.

But my deepest thanks go to someone probably none of you have heard of: Syzygy Merlin. She owns Beleza, the homestead sim where Split Screen is located. Without her support and the support of her partner DFox Spitteler, the Split Screen Installation Space literally would not exist. Not every sim owner would be willing to let half of a residential sim become an art space where a bunch of crazy people created large works (sometimes visible from over a sim away), which sometimes blocked other residents' views and occasionally led to complaints and I suspect a couple of departures. Syzygy has been in many ways Split Screen's greatest supporter. If you ever want a little space to work or a cottage to live in, please rent from her. Nobody in Second Life deserves it more.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (that I made up)

Have you really thought this through? Don't make hasty decisions!

I have. I didn't.

Are you leaving SL?

No. In fact if I blog about SL art, you might wish I did! :-P

Is this permanent? Will Split Screen ever come back?

I have no idea. Maybe yes, maybe no. I'm taking a break, but I'm keeping half of the land so I can delay that decision. If I do re-open Split Screen, I may do it under a different model (perhaps only one artist at a time, or less frequent changes, or more repeats of previous artists, or who knows). Or I may continue the same approach. In the meantime, don't hold your breath.

What are you doing with the land you're keeping?

I've turned it into an installation park or sculpture garden for my personal enjoyment. I won't be advertising it, but it will be open to the public. The SLURL is http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Beleza/3/243/23

Aren't you worried that artists are going to be upset with you?

Not really. Some will be. Some won't be. Probably SaveMe Oh will be delighted: one less curator in the world to interfere with Art! <grins>

You're really doing this because artists are assholes, right?

Actually, most of the artists who've built at Split Screen were wonderful to work with, and it was truly an honor to host them. Some even became good friends. A couple of them lived up to the stereotype about artists, but the majority were great.

Was Split Screen hurt by the LEA sims?

I feared that it would be when the sims were opened. LEA provides enormous opportunities for artists, far beyond what Split Screen could offer. However, Split Screen's small size meant that as long as I could get two artists, I was on my way ... although getting artists to meet their agreements was sometimes a challenge. The LEA sims could have hurt Split Screen by drawing away potential visitors -- for casual art viewers the LEA sims clearly offer more bang for the buck -- but the visitor statistics don't bear that out either, because they have been reasonably steady. (Not that the numbers were ever what I hoped, but I suppose many curators feel that. Except maybe for the curators of the now-closed Art Screamer sim, where the visitor counts passed the tens of thousands.) My concern at this point is that LEA inadvertently led artists to feel no need to seek or talk with independent curators.

Are you thinking of curating a LEA sim?

No, I don't plan to apply for a LEA sim. I can't think of a circumstance in which I'd want to -- the basic issue, after all, is that I'm burned out from curating. I suppose anything is possible so I'm not going to say I never will, but for the time being I doubt it.

Nooooo I was hoping you'd invite me to build at Split Screen!

I hadn't yet invited all the artists I might ever want to bring. But are you saying you're so fantastic and famous that I should have come begging you to work at Split Screen, or that you're not very well known yet but nevertheless I should magically know you exist? The best way to get to build anywhere is to ask. Maybe a quarter of Split Screen's artists got there by asking. I really liked being asked, and to be honest, had more artists asked, I might have kept Split Screen going longer. In a few cases I had to tell someone no (maybe they weren't creating the sort of art I want, or they weren't quite ripe, or whatever). In one case, a year later the artist asked again and I said yes. But usually I said yes right away. That includes one person who was decidedly an emerging artist.

Can you loan me 10 lindens? I'll give it back to you tomorrow!

My, that certainly is a frequently asked question. Sure, just give me your credit card number as security. I'll give it back to you tomorrow.

OK, folks. Maybe Split Screen will return some day, maybe it won't. Meanwhile, everyone is welcome to start their own installation space. I've shown it can be done. And thanks, all of you.

Yet another installation space gone

Apparently I'm way behind the times: I just learned that at the end of October, the Art Screamer sim closed. Its curators Zachh Cale, Chestnut Rau, and Amase Levasseur did a spectacular job, and between their own sim and LEA sims they obtained, they made six major installations possible and reached a huge audience in SL -- there were tens of thousands of visitors to Claudia222 Jewell's "Spirit" alone. The curators cite a lack of resources, which is not surprising when a sim has no commercial or residential activities on it: aside from the occasional tip, tier is all out of pocket, and full sims are far from cheap. Art Screamer's existence was a huge contribution to the Second Life art scene, and after the closure of so many other art spaces (see my posts here, here and here), the loss is especially large. I for one will miss it deeply, and I thank Chestnut, Amase and Zachh for all they did.

Farewell, PiRats

Last January the art gallery PiRats announced that it was going to close. A flurry of efforts, including crowd-funding and the allocation of a LEA sim, kept it going for a while. But a few days ago Merlina Rokocoko, one of its curators, announced the gallery's end, although they hope to continue PiRats with occasional once-off projects.

Flora Nordenskiold, who ran the Norden Art Gallery and left SL entirely for a while, returned to Second Life and now blogs about SL art and other activities, but I haven't heard anything to suggest she'd thinking of re-opening her gallery.

So, the contraction of major independent art spaces continues (see my earlier discussion of the issue).

To LEA or Not to LEA

This post is a belated response to Quan Lavendar's discussion of some controversies regarding the LEA sims. At the time I was too busy to comment, but after Quan and I discussed some of the issues during the opening reception for A Rusted Development at LEA1 (a great installation, by the way, albeit a bit disjointed), I decided to write this post, expanding on some of my original thoughts. And from the start, I'll state that a number of my comments are based on ignorance ... which will be part of my point.

Many people have strong feelings about the LEA sims, sometimes accusing the committee's members of bias or favoritism or corruption or cliquishness. I'd like to pose a contrast that raises some questions. How do the independent curators compare? I don't know how the people who run (for example) Art Screamer, MetaLES, Originalia, and NMC select artists, but at Split Screen only one person has any say: me. I invite whoever I want to invite. Once in a while someone asks to build there; sometimes I say no, and sometimes (actually more often) I say yes. In theory, people could easily charge me with favoritism or whatever else, yet I've never heard that complaint raised against me or any of the other independent curators (not yet, anyway ... I've probably just invited it). So one has to ask, what's the difference between the necessary selectivity exercised by independent curators, and the necessary selectivity exercised by the LEA committee? Imagine the LEA committee didn't manage the sims on behalf of Linden Labs, but instead paid for the sims themselves. Would people's attitudes be different? I suspect they would.

Most likely, the LEA sims raise so much debate because of their "official" character. I know artists who won't even apply for a LEA sim because of their "official" status or their feelings about the LEA committee. Conversely, I'm told that one or two LEA members have been unwelcoming toward some artists, even accusing a few of "hating SL." The situation is a pity, because I bet those artists could do amazing things with a full sim. However, their refusal to apply helps make the point: the sims' "official" character raises hackles. If I'm right about that, then one of the questions artists need to ask themselves is why they have such strong feelings about the LEA sims. Does the intensity derive from the desirability of a full sim? Does "official sponsorship" offer higher status, cachet or clout? Is there a sense of entitlement or a right to LEA land? Will a LEA sim -- and only a LEA sim -- enable you to create better art? What's the difference between a LEA sim and an independent sim?

I don't envy the members of LEA; they have a tough job. That doesn't mean I agree with everything LEA has done. In fact I don't even understand some of their decisions (why 5 months, rather than 3, 4, or 6?). They do a crappy job publicizing work (like most artists). They need to be cautious about what they say to whom, and they sometimes fail. And they face the problem that confronts every sponsor of a new work: you make a bet, and there's a chance you bet wrong. Most of the work LEA has sponsored has been good, some has been amazing, but there have been some duds too. The possibility of disappointment is simply part of commissioning new work.

It is true that Linden Labs benefits from LEA's work -- the company didn't provide the sims (tenuous as they are) out of pure generosity. So? If LEA's work simultaneously helps artists and helps Second Life survive, I don't see the point of faulting them for it. (Some of LL's calls for promotional work are more exploitative.)

However, LEA suffers from a lack of transparency, starting with the committee's composition. I for one have no clue how its members were selected. A couple of them I've never even heard of, let alone observed their interest in SL art. (For what it's worth, none of the members are on my Friends list -- not even Bryn, who had an installation at Split Screen.) The grapevine says that there are major conflicts among personalities and/or priorities, which makes me wonder if the committee's membership needs to be reconsidered. It also suggests that the committee doesn't have a coherent set of goals for the sims. Do they feel it's important to include artists who haven't built on a full sim before? Do they strive to have a mix of (say) highly scripted and unscripted work? Do they place a priority on work with a narrative element? I have no idea -- but if they do have an articulate set of goals for the sims, it would help to set them out publicly. If they don't have clear aims, then the committee really isn't a committee: it's a squabbling reality TV show, and from the outside its decisions can easily look arbitrary or political -- even if they're nothing of the sort.

Which brings me to my major concerns about LEA: whatever the committee thinks or intends, from what I've observed it has given itself the appearance (and maybe reality) of operating in a top-down manner, and fostered competitiveness and jealousy among artists. Competitiveness and jealousy in turn are likely to make the sims more trouble than they're worth to Linden Labs. LEA needs to work toward generating a sense of community. But artists must bear some responsibility for achieving that too -- LEA can't do it alone. (I have other concerns, but these are at the top.)

The heart of community is transparency. I propose a set of forums, in which the LEA committee members explain what they do, hear and respond to concerns (maybe only to issues submitted in writing, in order to avoid heckling and recriminations), and seek ways to resolve shortcomings. I would also like artists to discuss why they respond to LEA the way they do (honesty would be nice, though I'm not sanguine about that). It might be best if LEA didn't directly sponsor the forums: instead, FreeWee Ling's ArtGyro group might provide more neutral auspices, although the forums might be held on a LEA sim (e.g., the theater space). (I haven't talked with Free about this; she's a smart woman, so she'll probably run like hell.)

I'd also encourage LEA to use its blog to explain as much as they can about themselves, their aims, their hurdles, and especially their relationship with Linden Labs ... or from what I hear, lack of relationship, and being upfront about their problems getting responses from LL might nip a lot of problems in the bud.

Meanwhile, to any artist angry about not getting a LEA sim: that's life. LEA is not all there is to SL art, and getting a LEA sim isn't the only chance -- or necessarily the best chance -- to do great work. There are other sims in the virtual sea. So I might not feel sorry for you. I might be celebrating, because now I have a shot at getting you. Maybe you should be looking for people like me. In fact maybe you should flip your perspective -- independent curators have to be far more selective than LEA because we have less land to offer, so maybe we're the plum gigs. Support your local independent curators.

Pirats and the Contraction of Second Life Art Spaces

IBM's Exhibition Spaces. The New Media Consortium. IDIA Laboratories. Caerleon. The University of Western Australia. The University of Texas - San Antonio. Odyssey. Immersiva. Crossworlds Gallery. All of them are major art spaces or supporting organizations that during the past couple of years, have either reduced their presence in Second Life, narrowly been rescued, or closed entirely. I'm sure I've missed several, and others are known to be in danger. True, some of these places pulled back (or out) for non-economic reasons, but contraction in art spaces affects SL art no matter what the reason. Now we may lose Pirats as well.

In the meantime, Linden Labs established a sandbox and self-curating gallery, and more recently opened a couple dozen sims for artists to work on (full sims by application, parcels by land rush), all under the auspices of the Linden Endowment for the Arts. The new sims quantitatively counterbalance at least some of the losses, possibly more so, but for various reasons the trade is not equivalent.

There's a petition going around asking (demanding?) that LL cover Pirats's costs, or maybe give Pirats one of the LEA sims. I certainly sympathize, but I think the idea is a bad one. It's also unlikely to succeed: Bryn Oh, who's worked a lot with the Lindens (e.g., through LEA) and has an international presence that brings attention and respect to SL, didn't get a penny of support (nor, from the sounds of things, even attention) from LL when her sim Immersiva was closed due to the loss of its sponsor.

Actually I think LL was right not to pay for Immersiva. For one thing, they would immediately be hounded by charges of favoritism, which they get often enough anyway. It's not LL's job to choose who gets land free and who doesn't, and I don't want it to become their job. LEA, for all its pros and cons, provides Linden Labs a bit of a firewall. Besides, from LL's perspective, better that charges of favoritism be directed toward LEA (as some have, rightly or wrongly) than at the Lab itself.

For another, there's no such thing as a free lunch. One of my concerns about the LEA sims is that they may foster a sense of entitlement among artists -- as it is, even without LEA, some artists (fortunately a minority) feel entitled to space merely because they're artists. Here's more food for feelings of jealousy and favoritism. There are hints that the LEA sims may already be undermining artists' feelings that they need to maintain relationships with private sim owners, which reflects a larger problem that artists don't really understand what curators do and how it contributes to the development of the arts.

However, unlike Thirza Ember, I don't think the trouble with the LEA sims is that what the Lindens giveth, the Lindens may taketh away: as my list above demonstrates, a sponsor might depart no matter who it is. That said, there's certainly the question of what Linden Labs gets by providing all those sims. I'm not certain I know what it is; but the fact the question leaps to many people's minds reflects their reasonable worries about dependence upon the company.

In other words, all told, I think the SL arts community is best served by independent art patrons.

One thing I do think Linden Labs should do is restore the discounted tier for educational and non-profit organizations. They brought more people and more respectability to Second Life than corporations or anyone else. They also have more reason to explore and exploit SL's capabilities. Of course, such a change won't help private landowners, but it would be a start.

Meanwhile, art sims are now turning to "crowdfunding" (numerous small or even large donations) for their survival. Immersiva was rescued this way -- Bryn obtained a couple of enormous donations and a great number of small donations, and due to her huge following, she reached her goal in a single day. But that experience is atypical.  Crossworlds tried something similar, but last I heard, they didn't make it. Odyssey squeaked through, just barely, by becoming an artist-supported sim. Pirats is now attempting crowdfunding too.

I've heard through the grapevine that a few people think that asking for donations is equivalent to begging, and yes in many ways it is, but so what? Every arts organization in the US has to do fundraising. And in SL, outside of a tiny number of people and organizations who can afford a sim singlehandedly, that's the only remaining option. Well, and leaving SL for other, less expensive grids; but there are drawbacks to that strategy too.

FreeWee Ling has started a group called ArtGyro to discuss the sustainability of SL arts. It hasn't met yet, but hopefully it will prove a venue for further discussion -- and action? -- on these issues.

For now, however, there's an immediate sustainability problem at stake.

Pirats is an important organization. Merlina Rokokoko and Newbab Zsigmond have done extraordinary work -- and it is work -- promoting SL arts and many, many artists. I've become a "passive member" at $50, and if you're reading this blog, click this link to become one too. Or if not Pirats, choose some other independent arts organization. Keep SL arts on its own feet.