counterpART Gallery, the first gallery to break through the virtual boundaries of Second Life and materialize in physical space, is pleased to announce that it will celebrate opening its doors to the public at 128 Merrimack Street in Lowell, MA on April 26th, 2008 with its first exhibition counterpart Identities. This exhibition features paintings, drawings, video works, and augmented reality mash-ups created specifically for Second Life by local, national and international artists. Each participating artist utilizes this new form of communication to explore concepts of virtual identity, space, open source collaboration, and the building of online communities over the Internet.
Tyngsboro MA based artist Filthy Fluno
explores ideas surrounding virtual and celebrity identity, and the possibilities inherent in online community building in his series of pastel and charcoal drawings, titled The Adventures of Filthy Fluno. Based on his daily interactions with others within the virtual world of Second Life, Fluno's works abstractly depict characters and events that tell a tale about the human condition and how the Internet and online communities can reshape the way we communicate with each other while allow artists to share their creative views and visions in a democratic nonhierarchical way.
Influenced by the experimental dance and choreography of Merce Cunningham, the chance operations of John Cage, and the colorful, conceptual spectacle of Matthew Barney, Dancoyote Antonellis’ ZeroG SkyDancers, are a new form of networked ensemble performers. They examine a particular quality of networked performance, while employing a variety of non-
narrative and narrative approaches to the traditional medium of dance within Second Life. The ZeroG SkyDancers re-examine the idea of 'the stage' as they fly around "dancing" while triggering audio samples in order to create performances within an ever changing reactive stage
that are a cross between water ballet and aerial acrobatics. The ZeroG SkyDancers will perform live through streaming audio and video technology on April 26th
In Hiding (pictured left) by St. Louis, Missouri artist, Todd Tevlin, as well as other artwork on display by the artist, focuses on the internal struggles that take place under the surface of consciousness. Aspects of yourself that you don't notice, or refuse to acknowledge, until you look inward. By creating this environment within his art, he attempts to bring a more cerebral point of view that is not just eye candy on a wall.
"Disintegration (#5)" by Gillian Frazier pictured to the right. This is a portrait of Frazier's sister who was struggling with depression and addiction issues. She created this portrait when she saw her spiraling to a possible death as a result of her self destructive tendencies.The artwork represented in this show are from a series of charcoals and mixed media experimentations based on relationships and events that personally affected her.
Vessel of a Female by Ekaterina Konovelova, shown on the left, combines a female figure with a vase, expressing the identity issues of woman being objectified in society.
Home Sweet Home: You Can't Live Here Any More by Lisa Anderson-Bisson. Pictured on the right, this encaustic on wood demonstrates the challenges for today's artist to find affordable space to live and make art.
Boogieman
The Boogieman comes out when we are just beginning to learn how to face the unknown world of the night on our own. This piece connects the avatar's fear of the new metaverse and unknown real life identities of avatars to the childhood nightmarish monster of the Boogiman.
Amberly's Room
The first abstract narrative artwork I made that deals with virtual identity. Pictured is a woman trying to stop the turning of the hands on clock by slashing them with a knife. She accidentally slashes her hair off and reveals she is balding from chemotherapy treatments due to her cancer. Other imagery represents measurement tools and a crying baby.
Open Source
Linden Labs, the creators of Second Life made a controversial decision to make the programming language open to the public domain much like HTML for the internet. Shortly after this decision, 1000's of SL'ers gathered in Chicago for the Second Life Community Convention. This drawing symbolizes the public gathering of people who mostly have never met each other. The black and white colors coagulate in the center of the composition as imagery of the foreign Linden scripting language scrolls throughout the bottom of the piece. Strong relationships were created and destroyed at the convention and it showed both the destructive and collaborative powers that the SL community can nurture.
Trash Now
Lipsky's first drawing inspired by a live virtual dj performance of my friend who lives in Portugal. Trash is the name of the club in Second Life where there were over 50 people from around the world dancing and socializing on Halloween. The techno style music and club's industrial visual style is expressed throughout the composition.
Chola
This oil painting (below) expresses the fierceness, power, and carefree attitude of the female mexican gangster otherwise known as "Chola." The composition is split up into smaller sections that call tribute to Haring, Monk, and comic book style text in bubbles. The colors, textures, and lines throughout the piece represent and tribute the chola
attitude, which was brought to my attention by a friend in Second Life.
Also included in the show are new media/video and audio works by Komuso
Tokugawa, Cezary Fish, Holly Hax, Juria Yoshikawa, Spider Mycron,and
paintings and drawings by Calvin Thomas, Dan Rocha, Gillian Frazier,
Ekaterina Konovelova, Elaine Seidel, Emile Cryotank and Lisa Anderson-Bisson.