Burn2 is here again. It is one of my favorite events inside Second Life for many reasons, one, is an art show where anybody can participate, amateurs and professionals, second, is all about freedom, creativity and sharing and third, there is an amazing crown of people in there!

I took some pictures you can see in the slideshow above or in a set in Flickr. The Burn2 team recorded this video so you can have an idea of what’s going on in there:

They define Burn2 this way:

BURN2 is an extension of the Burning Man festival and community into the world of Second Life. It is an officially sanctioned Burning Man regional event, and the only virtual world event out of more than 100 real world Regional groups, and the only Regional to burn the Man!

The BURN2 organization spreads Burning Culture and the Burning Man Ten Principles (http://burn2.org/ten-principles) year round in Second Life, culminating in an annual festival of community, art and fire in the fall – a virtual echo of Burning Man itself…so BURN2.

The thing to do is go and explore, enjoy and connect. You can find information in the Burn2 website like timeline, the events, shows…etc.

Also in Soup Radio we recorded a show during the Press day of Burn2 that has a lot of references and places you might enjoy visiting. Find more information in the Soup Radio blogpost or listen the show in stream or download it as an iTunes podcast.

I have a tiny build in Burn2, but will write another post about it.

Some days ago, while exploring around i saw this installation in IDIA’s sims. Actually found it in the Second Life® Destination Guide, he he he, and i so amazed when i saw it that i had to film it!

It is an installation that connects Flickr, Second Life and even mobile phones, depending on your search the pictures turning around will change. It is just amazing and a cool way to show the possibilities of interconnecting social tools.

If you like it, please, visit it in IDIAA Studios (126,193,8).

Related articles

• The MoM (Month of Machinima) and… where is DaD? (raulcrimson.com)

LEA Theater (Outside view)

The Linden Endowment for the Arts (LEA) organized a big event about machinima, some like a festival, that will run starting today May 4th to December, the Month of Machinima (MoM).

Today in the LEA Theater (SLurl), in the opening of the event the screens were showing the entrants for May competition, a variety of films from the artistic to the humoristic and even the musical. MoM has its own YouTube channel so you can see some of the movies in it, but in order to see all the entrants is better you go to the LEA Theater and enjoy a bunch of really cool movies filmed by some of your fellow residents.

LEA Theater (Inside)

The LEA was created in 2010, actually for some event in SL7B (Second Life 7th Birthday) but for some reason it was sleeping since then. Probably that was caused for all the changes in Linden Lab, but it was a really good initiative and i’m happy it is back.

The LEA Committee are a group of really good and really well known artist who work in SL and it’s really good Linden Lab decides to support Art in Second Life with this, specially after they decided to not support Burning Life anymore.  In the last times the Lab seemed to be more worried about Merchants than about Artists and, under my point of view, both are REALLY important for what Second Life is and will be. Will speak about this last topic in my next show on Soup Radio and probably will also blog about it some time soon, so lets left the topic until i do it.

Now go to the LEA Theater and enjoy the awesome work of a lot of filmmakers of Second Life:

Also, if you want to know some more about the opening event itself (i was late, hehehe) you should read Inara Pey’s post about it, really interesting. Also Courtney Linden blogged about the event in the Linden Blogs.

And also i wonder… will the LEA organize and event called DaD, that would be pretty cool!

Burn2 is almost here and i’m REALLY EXCITED about it!!! Above is the promo video and it shows some of the art camps or events you will find in there from October 16th to 24th.

This is the first time the Burning Man even in Second Life is not Linden Lab supported, they explained it as this:

After six years of Linden Lab support and guidance, both the Lab and Burning Man felt it was time to let the Burning Life event be completely community run and supported. This community of artists, builders, performers, and participants, collectively called “Burners” is a community so diverse, few like it have ever been seen. We ALL are that community! We will take this new beginning for our well-established event, Burning Life, and we will call it BURN2 to signify the freedom and opportunity we now have to recreate it.

Visit their webpage, Burn2.org to find more information about this.

I’m one of the “burners”, i’m working on an installation, or a camp, about water and the environmental problems related to water. It is pretty symbolic, but i hope you enjoy it. I will post more info about my installation is a future post, but now i’ll show a couple of “tease-pics”.

See you in Burn2!!!

Patron (SLurl) in the personal project of Eliza Wierwight, a beautiful place to visit, a mix of an art gallery, a furniture store and something else.

Not only the place is beautiful, moreover it has personality, surely the personality of Eliza. Personally i really like Eliza, she is a really interesting woman, creative, and with a wicked sense of humour (yes, and beautiful).

Some time ago Eliza asked me to participate in a show in Patron, with no special theme, just the pictures i like the best of my own. Since i don’t use to sell my images, except for good reasons, we decided to give 100% of the sales to Amnesty International-E to help them in their projects.

She must be quite proud, since right now Patron is in the SL Showcase (as The Patron in the Arts section). And Patron deserves that for sure.

I wanted to ask Eliza about what’s Patron for her, she said:

Patron is my creative heart and home Inworld after finally settling  into my own design style. It’s the environment I HAD  to create , it’s the build I HAD  to endure as my insatiable desire to express myself in my own time , on my own terms, evolved.   Patron  found it’s own momentum unraveled beautifully before me almost   instinctively.  To keep that momentum over 5 months was exhausting , I don’t regret a  single minute though.

One thing I’ve learned about creation Inworld in the last year thanks to the experience of creating Patron and her surrounding enviroment and contents,  is  to stay true to yourself, your passions.  Patron is Eliza, Eliza is Patron. So many stories, people , friends, lovers , revelations  and histories of mine all united.

If I’ve learned anything of the experience and the joy I’ve had in sharing her and including the Art and creations of the smexy talented people whose creations & Art that   I’m honored also to represent at Patron,  is to never deviate from your own dreams.  Patron continues to evolve, I never want to see her stuck in a time warp of ambivalence. I want her to reflect my personal best as I continue to learn and grow as a Creator. When I find time to sit back, when I see Patron and especially the contributing works of those I respect and adore gracing her, I just kind of resonate with charmingly  smug  happiness and guess what, it’s contagious ~winks~

The end !

Images by Eliza Wierwight published under a Creative Commons license.

Some time ago my friend Arahan Claveau told me about a project he was working on, some like a cross-reality event, about Jazz. Finally he sent me some information about the project… and i think is really interesting! Let me paste some of the info:

The real and the virtual interact as digital artwork on a monumental scale provides a stunning virtual landscape while real-world jazz gigs, broadcast live from a small London club, are injected into the cyberspace. …

… JAZZLIVE at the Crypt presents a short season of jazz concerts celebrating the wealth of talent in the UK jazz scene. The concerts will be broadcast live from the Crypt into a virtual venue in the virtual world Second Life. …

… Those attending the concerts in the Second Life venue will also be exposed to great artwork commissioned especially for the events by some of the virtual world’s most respected artists DanCoyote Antonelli, Oberon Onmura and Juria Yoshikawa. Those attending The Crypt will also experience the art show, as it will be viewable on big screens in the venue. This two-way interaction is an essential element in the project. …

… Also to be screened are excerpts from a forthcoming film about JAZZLIVE by multimedia artist Steve Millar (also known as Arahan Claveau in SL). …

So if you like Jazz and Second Life don’t miss the next fridays at 08:00 PM in London, in The Crypt (RL side) or at noon SLT in Second Life, in the Jazzlive sim (SLurl). Or why not… in both sides at the same time!

Find more information about this project in the “JAZZLIVE in Second Life” webpage.

I was exploring it around, well, is quite big (34 regions) but i took some pictures and videos you can see in the slide-show above. Click in the image you like and you will find an SLurl to arrive to the place directly.

There are some really good installations and sculptures in Burning Life this year, but i’d like to point specially at two of them:

• Among Other Things: AM Radio’s one, a train in a dead railway ready for you to graffiti it! A really good work in interactivity and collective creation. SLurl
• Vessel’s Dream: by Bryn Oh, a trip inside a dream… SLurl
• Fusion: by four Yip, sensuality, music, chocolate melting, all together… fascinating… SLurl

Also i think the stages, Tokyo and Berlin, are specially remarkable and, possibly, some of the best buildings i saw in Second Life. Burning Life is not only about 3D art, is also about music, performance, DJ sessions…

Also this year i find is not so laggy as was last year, maybe i was lucky and i visited it in the “not so rush” hours… who knows.

If you think SL is about creativity this is one place to be, anyway, not all the installations are so good, as you can imagine being a space opened to everyone to participate you can find stuff of diverse quality, but i presume the important is still to be part of it if you think you have something to say and if you thing you can say it right.

Find more information in the Burning Life site. Explore it and tell me what you think. And burn the man!!!

“Vampire The Hunt” Opens Midnight October 23rd 2009

Vampire Vampira Vampiro Vampir Vampier Βαμπίρ Вампир .. anyway you say it,
it brings up images in our mind of stories we’ve read or the movies we’ve seen … or could they be real?

Get ready for … “Vampire … The Hunt”

The whole Island exhibit will be DARK … Dark and Red
… an environment that makes Vamps and their nemesis feel at home

20 Talented Artists … not listed here (but i’m one of them )… so come see who and what they’ve done!

SLurl

Image © 2009 Cienega Soon published with permission

Next Tuesday, September 29th, Orange Island, one of the best community projects supported by a corporation ever made in Second Life will be closing (find more info in their blog).

The team, Fab Outlander, Eric Arkright, Sarn Aska, Nick Rhodes, Yesterday Demain, Natty Fogarty and Jade Lily, did a wonderful work in the last two years in really interesting projects of sharing techniques, promoting creation and in education projects.

I worked with that team in some projects in Orange Island, and i’m really sad about this closing. When most of the corporations only organized marketing projects Orange Island Team brought a lot to the comunity of Second Life Residents. Massively also posted about this closing.

There will be a closing party next Tuesday, September 29th, at 11:00 AM SLT on Orange Island’s Lower Plaza Auditorium, and i hope to see you there.

I’d like to finish this post saying thank you, thanks to this team of people for all the moments, the shows and the experiences i had thanks to their work.

Photography by Ravenelle, published under a Creative Commons license.