Land Art big time
I found the work of this artist by coincidence. By exploring the NMC Sim (NMC Arts Lab, NMC Arts Lab (44, 127, 706)), I flew down from 700m to the ground and found a big scale land installation which intrigued me. After finding more in profile about this artist I have visited all of his works, and I liked very much.
Even if those works are very nostalgic and romanticize abandoned waste areas of middle-west of the USA, I have to admit it strokes me how the artist deals with emptiness and scale in overcrowded world as such Second Life definitely is. His projects should be a landmark in everybody’s inventory, since they are inspiring not only in artistic, but also in technical terms.
When we talk about creativity and art, even in Second Life, the famous 80/20 Pareto principle may be applied. 80% of all contest in Second Life is just junk. Poorly designed, not very thoughtful replicas of the same boring environments as in real life. Tasteless and odd. Based on quick profit idea or just a lack of creative abilities (mostly when only programmers are involved), are the reasons. There are 80% of chances they you will spend your entire Second Life activity bumping into such places. As William Gibson puts it: “it was like (referring to his Second Life experience) a cross between being in some suburban shopping mall on the outskirts of Edmonton in the middle of winter and the worst day you ever spent in high school.” Well, sure, if you spend a couple of hours within Second Life as he did, even a couple of days, it is exactly what happens – it is pure probability.
It is alway an endless discussion what is art either in real and as well in second life. Especially when it comes to virtual worlds, the question is: “is something which is created based on possibilities and rules of virtual world making art per se?”. Are the endless galleries showing kitschy air brush paintings across Second Life dealing with art? In case of artist AM Radio we can talk about SL art. Very intelligent conceptualized and from technical point of view perfectly done, those projects make a huge impact on the observer. Even if I don’t know much about author’s background, except the rumor that he is an IBM programmer, I admire the highest quality, from the overall approach to the smallest detail. This works are involving and enjoyable even with a total lack of interaction, which would be one of the major premises considering the ideal and one of the Second Life’s most important feature. It thematized an issue of being alone in a waste landscape, in a very poetic sense.
If you want to see more images on art by AM Radio, follow this link.