Artists struggle but don’t starve in Second Life
SECOND LIFE, April 13 (Reuters) - The large silver well leaked blue fog from the center of the room. As the avatars whispered their words, each letter floated away, escaping into the sky.
The Letter Well is one of several scripted sculptures created by Second Life artist Annabeth Robinson. Another, titled “You Demand Too Much of Me,” decays when avatars are around and reappears when it is left alone.
Unique works of art like Robinson’s can be found throughout Second Life, which has thousands of artists creating works in the digital realm. Making money by selling art in Second Life isn’t any easier than it is in real life, but in a world without hunger at least there aren’t any starving artists.
“My experience is that 99.9 percent of the artists here are not just out to make a buck. They just enjoy having their art seen and if they sell a piece here and there, it’s icing on the cake,” said Sasun Steinbeck, who maintains a list of art galleries for Second Life. “I know for me I get much more thrill out of watching someone have that ‘oooo aaaah’ moment when they see my sculpture than in the ‘cha ching’ sound of making another sale”
The number of art galleries on Second Life has rapidly grown just in the past year, according to Steinbeck. When she joined the virtual world 15 months ago, they could all fit on one notecard. Now there are more than 220 of them.
Most of those galleries aren’t making a profit, but there are a handful of well-known Second Life artists who are doing well commercially. Dancoyote Antonelli (whose real-life name is DC Spensley) pioneered hyperformalism — an art movement that creates abstract art in the digital world.
His work includes single paintings that can transform into others on command, a variety of giant moving sculptures and a four-part series transforming the New Media Consortium Campus.
Typically, Antonelli’s pieces sell for about 100,000 Lindens (US$375), and he commands even more for his performance art pieces. The money goes back into research, paying scripters, publicists and other Second Life employees.
He estimated he had sold 5 million Lindens (US$18,730) worth of art on Second Life.
“I have been creating digital work for nearly two decades on faith that something like Second Life would appear as a proper forum for the work,” Antonelli said in an interview at his Second Life gallery. “The Web, like TV, makes all things flat, equally null. In SL, it is magically transformed into the fine art it was intended to be.” (Visit Antonelli’s Museum of Hyperformalism.)
Carla Chandrayaan is an amateur painter with several virtual galleries displaying her scanned work, which typically sell for about 350 Lindens each (about $1.25). Although she is primarily seeking exposure, it is difficult for most artists to charge a substantial amount in Second Life.
“You have a lot of people that don’t quite grasp the Lindens to US dollars exchange rate. So they presume that, for example, 1,000 Lindens is a lot of money,” said Chandrayaan, who declined to share her real-life identity.
ART MEETS COMMERCE
Art is difficult enough to sell in real life, but in the digital realm it can be even tougher because people are not used to paying much for content online, according to Cyrus Huffhines (real name Bryan Campen), who has set up Second Life galleries for gallery owners such as Jen Bekman.
“I think the general perspective on art extends into Second Life, and the digital world makes it seem less valuable,” Huffhines said.
Bekman, who owns a New York gallery, is starting to cross over between art in the real world and in virtual worlds. Last October, she had a real life exhibit of Second Life landscape photos by artist James Deavin.
Bekman sees her virtual gallery as a way of showing the pieces to her clients more effectively than on a Web site. It can also hold three times as much art as her small gallery in downtown Manhattan. She also sees some unique advantages to being in Second Life that have nothing to do with her real-world business.
“What I like about Second Life is that it’s a different way of looking at things,” Bekman said. “So (my clients) could visualize how something might look in a room rather than trying to extrapolate from a JPEG on a web page.
Most art in Second Life is sold at a fixed price from galleries. But there are also auctions that can command a higher price from collectors.
Rhiannon Chatnoir (real name Joyce Bettencourt), an artist who has organized many in-world auctions, said silent auctions are usually the most effective method. Collectors are sometimes more generous when participating in charity auctions, which are usually held on private land. Last year, she set one up benefiting the American Cancer Society that raised thousands of U.S. dollars.
“It has a similar feel to a real life art auction where the spirit of the event might allow a buyer to be more optimistic on the value of any one piece. That combined with some friendly competition on becoming the winning buyer allow for higher prices than what a piece may usually go for,” Chatnoir said.
REAL AND VIRTUAL ART WORLDS COLLIDE
Eva and Franco Mattes (Pei Twang and Pei May in Second Life) are at the forefront of those blurring the lines between real and virtual art. They created the “13 Most Beautiful Avatars” exhibit that showcased extreme close-ups of attractive avatars at the Postmasters Gallery in New York.
The show explored issues of self-image in a world where people’s appearances are limited only by their imaginations.
“We like the fact that in a world where you could be anybody and anything most of people end up looking like Barbies and Kens,” Franco Mattes said.
In addition to being artists themselves, the Mattes are art collectors on Second Life. They said they admire how artists use scripts and avatar interactivity to take advantage of the new medium of virtual worlds. If art itself is a reflection of life, then Second Life art is a reflection of a reflection.
One of their favorite pieces is by Second Life artist Gazira Babeli, in which avatars who sit in a yellow chair have their bodies twisted into convoluted shapes that change every 10 seconds.
There’s also a practical reason the Mattes enjoy collecting virtual artwork.
“We have a small house and cannot collect real life art,” Franco Mattes said. “But we have a big hard drive.”
