Our minds developed over millennia as we strove to survive in a physical world that was mysterious and challenging, which is of course why we developed such a strong desire to create tools and frameworks in the first place–to help us understand and shape the physical world. This is why the new media of virtual worlds is so compelling.
Immersing ourselves perceptually in virtual world environments initially seems like the ultimate detachment from what it means to be human. It seems like a synthetic imitation, without substance yet simulating substance, our identities embodied as avatars walking across the streets of cities that do not exist. Yet, there is a deep resonance in this perception. We understand virtual worlds as we understand the physical world. We understand the idea of people and places within those worlds. Something ancient in our minds silently clicks into place and our minds begin to interpret the virtual world as real. It feels real and we feel real within it.
Virtual worlds exist today most commonly as video games. They also exist as open-ended creative platforms without predefined goals. As a canvas for new media expression, they provide new opportunities for engaging people in perceptually immersive experiences. New languages for storytelling and artistic expression unfold with new affordances. Advances in technology will only make these virtual worlds more perceptually immersive.

We will eventually be able to lose ourselves in environments that fully engage all of our senses. At some future point in time, we will not be able to tell the difference between the virtual experiences and the physical ones. Distinctions between virtual and real will be meaningless.
In this way, the virtual world metaphor will collapse into a new shared reality. As we approach that point, we will be coming full circle: back to fulfilling our basic human desires to explore, understand, and shape the world around us, back to our needs to explore new worlds with other people, back to what makes us most human.

John Lester (AKA Pathfinder)

There seems to be more rumors than facts floating around the grid about the Justice League Unlimited (JLU), a public service organization made up of members who dress up like comic book superheroes. This short piece is to address some of those perceptions and to shed light on how we do things. Though our mission includes education and charity work, this essay will concentrate on what is the most public face of the JLU–peacekeeping.

The Situation in Which We Find Ourselves

There are two documents that are the “law of the land” for conduct in Linden Lab’s virtual world of Second Life: the Community Standards (CS) and the Terms of Service (TOS). Some TOS violations Linden Lab can detect by automated technical means, but most of these are not related to in-world virtual conduct. Linden Labs does not have an in-world police force to patrol the grid looking for TOS and CS violations.

SL Justice League

There is no avatar dubbed, “Officer Linden.” What the Lab has chosen to do is rely on its community of users to spot infractions of the TOS and CS, and file Abuse Reports (AR) that can be investigated by Lindens on the Resident Experience Support Inworld (RESI) team. Linden Lab has, wrongfully or not, put the burden of discovering violations of the rules on the residents of Second Life.

Some are in it for the Lulz

Troll, Goon, Griefer–the topics of articles in Wired Magazine–are the main reason the Abuse Report system exists in the first place. These characters do not have a good day until they upset yours. They will assure you that you are taking Second Life too seriously and that you just need to relax. Their strategies for pointing out this philosophy usually illicit negative emotional reactions; this practice is known as “trolling.” If you react, they “win” and they laugh about it, or in their own terms they “get the lulz.” Within Internet forums, this is usually done through posting art, conversations, or captioned photographs. Within the virtual world of Second Life, more often people resort to a more visceral (yet still virtual) practice known as “griefing.” Griefing, in short, is any action taken to lessen the enjoyment of others by causing grief. In Second Life, this often takes the form of an attack that limits one’s ability to use Second Life by preventing them from moving (“caging”) and from talking (“chat spammers”), hearing in-world sounds (“sound spammers”), or viewing the environment around you (“particle spammers”). Other types of attack can result in filling up a region with so many objects that moving or building becomes impossible (“replicators”), crashing a region and logging everyone out, or crashing clients so that they are forcibly logged out of Second Life. Yet another type of attack combines the above techniques, designed to take up simulator resources and lag the sim so that the use of the region becomes so slow as to be impossible to use in any meaningful manner.

To create these types of attacks, a certain level of technical acumen is required, but, to use such attacks, only the basest of technical skills are required: the knowledge of how to use the Second Life client to move from place to place and to receive objects into and rez them from the inventory window. Griefers have developed networks and groups within Second Life to coordinate attacks and set up “weapon caches” where one could be outfitted with equipment that could be used in Griefing incidents, called “raids.”

Enter the Justice League

Others may historicize the founding of the Justice League Unlimited (JLU). I was not around at that time, but I will tell you the situation we find ourselves in currently. As I said, it is up to Second Life residents to discover and report CS and TOS violations by those whose main interest in logging into Second Life is to break the rules. Who will stand up and do what Linden Lab is not willing or able to do: actively patrol “trouble areas” and report CS and TOS violations in a clear and organized manner?

The JLU are not vigilantes. We have no police powers. We do not act like law enforcement. We do not detain, arrest, or otherwise hinder those breaking the rules. We merely observe and report. We do nothing that any other resident of Second Life cannot do themselves. We have no special powers to ban other avatars and we have no formal arrangement with Linden Lab. We are less vigilantes and more of a neighborhood watch organization.

Given Linden Lab’s articulated model of abuse reporting, I can only guess what they expected. They may have expected griefing to be targeted towards individuals who then would submit abuse reports. In other words, large scale attacks would be seen by many and then reported by many. In practice, this does not seem to happen. Either most residents do not care about reporting abuse or, more likely, most residents do not know how to report abuse. This is where the JLU steps in.

A Day on Patrol

Though patrolling is not our only peacekeeping activity, it is our most visible. Typically we patrol in areas where griefing is likely to happen. A prime griefing area has four elements: first, it has build rights so Griefers may rez; second, scripts can run so the rez can wreak havoc; third, there is open access so that Griefers can actually be there; and, lastly, there must be decent traffic so sufficient people will be affected by the attack. Outside of targeted areas, the most common scene of a griefing attack is a public sandbox, which usually has all four elements and no private estate management. Since it is public land, any response must come from the Lindens, but the Lindens will not know about the attack lest somebody tells them. The JLU, along with others, provides the reporting necessary to alert the RESI team that something needs their attention.

Occasionally a situation can be resolved without filing an abuse report. When the JLU sees something rezzed that violates the CS or TOS (usually something “broadly offensive”), the first part of a response is to contact the owner of the object and make them aware that they are breaking the rules and give them the chance to remove the offense before filing an abuse report. I am reminded of one incident when I was a JLU recruit and came across something broadly offensive. When I contacted the owner about it, he apologized. He had been acting out of actual grief over his close friend who had recently died. He did not know how to direct his anger. A kind word from a concerned stranger was all that was needed to resolve this situation.

Tights? Seriously?

The most misunderstood thing that the JLU does is dress as superheroes, but we have quite a few reasons for this. In Second Life, one can choose every aspect of how one wants to appear in the virtual world. Unlike real life, the way one appears is completely decided by choice. In a world where one can appear as anything, how you appear can be significant in-world, as well as have a strong symbolic context from the real world. The primary reason we dress up like superheroes is to communicate that we are “good guys,” here to serve and help, calling to mind the qualities of classic comic book characters who typically wear spandex.

Wearing bright colors and flashy outfits also makes the JLU natural targets to those who choose to attack. It is in our operating procedure to intentionally draw fire from others, making ourselves targets during attacks to protect victims from those who are trying to cause grief.

Lastly, the JLU wears superhero costumes because it is fun. After all, if we are not enjoying our time in Second Life, why be there at all? We do what we do because we enjoy Second Life. We think everyone that uses the service has the right to that enjoyment and we oppose those that would make Second Life unenjoyable.

Back at the Watchtower…

Hopefully, I have explained a bit more about the JLU peacekeeping process, but keep in mind that is only one part of our overall mission. Not everyone in the League patrols, but we are all committed to making the grid a better place than how we found it. To this end, we also have an education program where we teach seminars and classes. We, as a team, raise awareness and money for charities such as Project Jason, to help the families of missing persons, and the American Cancer Society’s Relay For Life of Second Life. We give service, time, and funds to these and other worthy charities.

The Justice League Unlimited does not solely exist to fight bad guys, nor do we revel in seeing other avatars banned due to what we report. We are here because we genuinely care for the virtual world of Second Life and the residents that use it. Anyone can be a hero, it’s not about what scripted gear you have or what you wear across your chest. It is about the choices you make. I bet someone you know may need a hero in their life. Be that hero for someone today.

By ZenMondo Wormser

New media practitioners are experiencing many miracles today: Cyberspace, dematerialized virtual time-space, and a worldwide webbed society where people surf around at the speed of light. Artists that are not approaching this virtual universe as a challenge and goal do not deserve the distinction, avant garde. ART space Diabolus CARP Team stands, since its founding as experimental art in 2007, as the most contemporary medium of art today and does deserve this distinction. Our goal is to produce technically sophisticated and substantive art that explores all the possibilities of worldwide web virtual media. In one word, we call this: HyperArt.

The first CARP Metaverse Art Book

Since then, CARP creators have developed many innovations in the fields of Virtual Architecture, Metaverse_GUI, Audio Art, Interactive Kinetic Art, Complex Cybernetic Art, Worldwide Collaborative Audiovisual Improvisation, Presentation Technics, Virtual Theatre, Immersive 4D Cinema, Video, Collaborative Creations, and Art-scripting. The CARP Team has published all of these works, creations, and developments in the CARP e-book Series.

All CARP documentation is written because there is human forgetfulness. With us, this is no different. In the beginning, we just documented the projects we did in Diabolus Art Space. Later on, when we founded Cybernetic Art Research Projects (CARP). Our primary goal with founding CARP was to write about the creative methods and achieved events of a rapidly growing group of artists and creators (CARP 1-9). With the Arena MDM Exhibition project, our documentation developed more in the direction of universality (Arena 1-2).

There are four different forms of CARP documentation:

1. Document the works of different artists, creators, and art groups (focusing on detail and singularity).
2. Document trends and developments in the Metaverse Art Scene (focus on the particularity).
3. Document artistic historical and philosophical developments. We try to examine new phenomena from a scientific view as cognitive psychology, sociology, emotions research, media research, etc. We also concentrate on the different forms of expression enabled by technical developments and, above all, new substance. We believe in the power of collective wisdom and consider it very important that artists and creators, as well the art lovers and active or passive participants or viewers can give their feedback freely. At last, we have to acknowledge that, within Metaverse Art, the borders between artists and viewers in the balanced media environment will disappear slowly (focus on universality).
4. Document the historical anchors and development phases of Metaverse Art (avatar history, SL-TLC).

The 60 eBook publications of the Diabolus/CARP are located at:

http://velazquezbonetto.wordpress.com/2011/04/07/the-e-book-publications-of-the-diaboluscarp/

By Velazquez Bonetto

SL’s staff, known collectively as the Lindens, are the “sad dad” in this scenario, ridiculed and demonized by many residents for a whole raft of blunders from promoting the inane doodles of ex-CEO Mark Linden to allegedly appropriating IP rights to banning artist Rose Borchovski’s work The Kiss from last year’s Burning Life art festival because it showed a naked human nipple. Artists pushing boundaries in both creative expression and new ways to sell their work frequently accuse Linden Labs of being prudish, paranoid, and downright deceitful.

CRAFT Artist Wizard Gynoid

Censorship and freedom are the first words most artists use when asked why they have moved to Craft, a small grid that has seen its population swell from a mere handful to over five hundred creatives in just under one year. Artists come here for the freedom to express themselves and to control ownership and distribution of their work.

Life on Craft is a compromise between the almost feral existence of making 3D art in one’s own personal ‘sim on a stick’, adrift in OSgrid or moving to other commercial grids like Inworldz, the ‘SL–Lite’ of virtual worlds. Those concerned about ownership of their deathless masterpieces can simply attach their own regions to the grid and still be part of a real community where people drop by to say hello, always ready with advice and sympathy.

Of course, moving out of the family home to the virtual equivalent of bed-sit-land involves sacrifices. It is lonely being away from one’s virtual siblings back in SL. The art community thrives on gallery openings, gossip, and big events. Seeing and being seen is an essential part of the virtual lifestyle, as is selling art, whether for Linden dollars or the real thing. There is no money to be made or spent in Craft, yet artwork perfected in the privacy of Craft can easily be exported to SL for shows and competitions, and for some, it is nice to get away from the bitchy coteries and just make art  in peace. Of course, you have to do so without your beloved Steampunk accessories, high quality shoes, and live music available at any hour of the night or day. Many, however, see this as a purer experience of the virtual world, an opportunity to flex technical muscles developed in SL and experience what it must have been like in SL’s mythical Golden Age when everyone on the grid knew each other, spoke to each other, and shared their wealth of knowledge.

By Julia Vale (AKA Thirza Ember)

– Barnett Newman, Selected Writings (1953)

Artists entering online virtual environments that offer the ability to create three-dimensional objects in space, such as Linden Lab’s Second Life, encounter a set of materials, forces, and interactions unlike those that they encounter in the physical world. These artists are faced with an immediate dilemma: whether to expand their current material art practice into the virtual realm; or create a new art practice based on the unique characteristics of the new virtual environment. In essence, whether to “keep a foot in the real world” by expanding their artistic vision into the new environment, or to fully embrace an alternative existence in an unfamiliar metaverse and develop a new artistic vision that fully integrates and reflects that existence.

Artists who choose the second alternative, to create a body of artwork that is “native” to the three-dimensional virtual environment, are literally inventing a new visual art paradigm with rigorous disciplinary principles to make it possible. This work, which comprises what could be called a “native” or “vernacular” art practice, is ultimately conceptual rather than material.

Oberon Onmura "Storm Cells"

Artists seeking to create an effective body of work within this context, along with an identifiable visual idiom, are finding ways to encode meaning in the virtual environments’ unique characteristics by consciously exploiting the unique capabilities of those environments, and often by actually integrating those characteristics into the work itself.

American minimalist artist Donald Judd wrote about the new installation work in the 1960s that:

Selavy Oh and DC Spensley at Brooklyn is Watching

In the physical world, artists have many different materials to work with (clay, stone, paint, chalk, fabric, metal, etc.), each material having a set of effective techniques for conversion into art. By contrast, in virtual environments artists have one material to work with–the prim (primitive object)–but almost incalculable ways of manipulating its form and behavior. The multiple components of the art discipline that is developing in 3D virtual environments necessarily derive from that premise.

First and primarily, artists working in virtual environments must be comfortable manipulating, combining, and rotating three-dimensional objects directly within the virtual space (if possible), and using various three-dimensional rendering programs on their computers. Next, any artist intending to use textures must develop some familiarity and skill with image processing programs and image file formats. And, if intending to texture sculpted prims, must be able to map those images onto three-dimensional shapes using UV maps and other tools. In addition, artists seeking the ability to control the behavior of objects, or to make them responsive to various forces and entities within the virtual space must gain some familiarity with scripting, which can in itself become a serious discipline. Other useful skills include audio editing and processing for artists interested in using sound in their work; video and still image capturing and editing to document and exhibit the work outside of the virtual environment; real-time motion capture techniques for artists interested in using avatar animations in their work; and so forth.

I propose that a distinction be maintained between art that is “native” or “vernacular” to 3D virtual environments, and art that is first created in the physical world and then imported into virtual environments for display. Exciting developments in virtual world art making occur only when the art making process–and all the discoveries artists make during that process–manifests fully within the virtual environment itself. Additionally, I feel that the losses experienced in the exchanges between environments are so great that artworks transformed for viewing outside their respective “native” environments sustain damage to the extent that they literally can no longer be seen, and so are not appropriate for critical appraisal or any kind of meaningful discussion.

In drawing such a distinction, like Judd stated in the 1960s, I do not claim that artwork made in online virtual environments constitutes some kind of movement or direction. I would claim, however, that a specificity of differentiated art practice is developing based on a discipline that is unique to and closely correlated with online virtual environment experiences. If we consider those experiences, when embodied fully by participants, as constituting a kind of “post-human” awakening, where we embrace “the [liberating] possibilities for disembodied communication and exploration presented by cyberspace”, then artists will be more prepared ” … to think carefully about how these technologies can be used to enhance human well-being and the fullness and richness of human-being-in-the-world …” as they go about their business of creating new ways to make and exhibit art.If we consider those experiences, when embodied fully by participants, as constituting a kind of “post-human” awakening, where we embrace “the [liberating] possibilities for disembodied communication and exploration presented by cyberspace”, then artists will be more prepared ” … to think carefully about how these technologies can be used to enhance human well-being and the fullness and richness of human-being-in-the-world …” as they go about their business of creating new ways to make and exhibit art.. In these virtual environments, art making becomes at once a discipline wherein agency exists and artists seek to “get clear of these forms” left behind in the physical world they also inhabit. And in the same sense, a new critical practice, solely focused on the unique characteristics of online virtual environments and on the art made there seeking to “get clear of these forms” must arise if meaningful discourse about “native” virtual art is considered imperative to its ongoing development.

By Oberon Onmura

Pyewacket Kazyanenko@TheGateShanghai

Experiencing an artwork as an avatar in a virtual space is different than viewing it on a screen or reading about it after the fact. You kind of have to be there. When one spends time in a simulated environment, the landscape of the mind and the landscape of the machine merge somehow, leading to sensory immersive experiences. In an effort to bridge/blur the space between the real and virtual worlds, many online artists are creating pieces that involve both the virtual and live performance spaces simultaneously–sometimes called “hybrid-reality” or “mixed reality” events.

At the 2010 Odyssey Performance Art Festival, Los Angeles-based Micha Cardenas (Azdel Slade) and Elle Mehrmand (echolalia Azalee) presented Virus.Circus. using wearable electronics, sensors, and audio to bridge virtual and physical spaces. The performers’ heartbeats and voices were monitored and streamed from a local art galleryinto Second Life as they and their avatars performed intimate actions in both places: via soft sensors, the movement of the performers in the gallery space effected the movement of the avatars in virtual space. A large-scale projection in the gallery allowed local audiences to experience the work from both perspectives.

*SecondFront@TheGateShanghai

Dozens of artists around the world present work simultaneously in both physical gallery and virtual Odyssey spaces over a 24 hour period. nora Furlough conceived Zeitgeist for the Muro Gallery in Geneva also using mixed reality as its central concept. She streamed live video from the Muro Gallery into the Second Life space and vice-versa. In another experiment, “Real Virtual Games” –Participatory Mixed Reality Performance by Isabel Valverdeand and Todd Cochrane, dancers in the Muro Gallery improvised choreography in response to the real-time movement of avatars in “Second Life.”

Live streaming was also central to a recent Odyssey presentation of The Gate by Yannick Antoine and Yves Bernard–which ran for six weeks as part of the 8^thShanghai Biennale–creating an intersecting point between Odyssey and China’s Shanghai Art Museum. Scores of gallery goers in Shanghai peered into a window to Odyssey and many online performers took the opportunity to present new work for these new audiences. Some viewers misunderstood the interface and language barriers made it challenging to communicate with them. There were also periods of dead space punctuated only by the appearance of the Shanghai security guard shuffling past the camera on his rounds. Limitations of virtual exhibition space are continuously being exposed by artists pushing the parameters of live performance. The technology is still rife with glitches but crashes, lag, and time delays; all the unknown elements that come from pushing the technology’s potential are part of the nature of the beast.

Odyssey was founded in 2005 by the avatars known as Sugar Seville and Pacino Hercules (Marcus Markou). The pair met in-world and knew that the Second Life interface held great potential for artists and their creative processes. Markou decided to purchase the simulator as an experiment and Seville then became the driving force in establishing Odyssey as an arts community. She curated the first 3 years of exhibits and invited scores of performance artists to present work, building Odyssey into a network of over 600 people. Much beloved, Seville worked tirelessly for Odyssey until her departure in 2008 when she passed the reigns to Helfe Ihnen at an online public meeting of community members. Ihnen went on to deftly maintain and curate the simulator for two years, during which time Seville disappeared from Second Life. Her real life identity remains a mystery to this day. Markou says, “She was a great source of creative spirit. I still don’t know who she is – in real life – and I really like that. She’s like a virtual muse.” For over five years, Odyssey enjoyed financial sponsorship from the UK-based Dynamis Media Group. It was in December 2010 that Markou announced their intention to move on:

“Dynamis got involved because we genuinely wanted to see how virtual worlds would impact on how information is shared. Second Life preceded the craze that was Facebook and Twitter. At the time, I thought Second Life would become an embedded part of everyday life for most people. That never happened, largely because of Facebook.”

Despite this (or perhaps because of it), Second Life remains a viable meeting and workplace for an international community of artists. In January 2011, 16 members of the Odyssey group came forward to pool resources and take over the costs of the simulator. Odyssey has, in essence, evolved into an artist-run virtual space.

In its sixth year of existence–a long time in virtual years–Odyssey, like the Metaverse (another virtual space), is in a continuous state of flux. When developers invest time and energy into a virtual world, building communities upon a social platform, it is healthy to remember that these worlds are transient and changeable, and ultimately controlled by corporations, which use them for advertizing as they use other social networking sites. Every incarnation is a stepping-stone in creating the next virtual world.

New synthetic environments are continuously being introduced via Odyssey and many of these artists are also exploring other virtual spaces, including Open Sim environments (virtual spaces run with Open Source programming on independent servers). The Craft simulators are based on Second Life‘s Open Source Linden Scripting Language (LSL) and Odyssey recently opened a sister island there. Odyssey on Craft is a brand new frontier ripe with possibilities, now slowly being animated with the content of early pioneers.

Artists will continue seeking the boundaries of Odyssey and pushing to go beyond them. The many manifestations of work involving hybridity reflect visions of the not so distant future–when virtual spaces will not be separate from real space, will not be viewed through a screen or special interface, but incorporated into the real world.

SLURLs:

Odyssey

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Odyssey/120/35/25

Rose Borchovski on Odyssey

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Odyssey/215/27/21

Dekka Raymaker on Odyssey

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Odyssey/193/191/25

Links:

Odyssey

http://www.odysseysimulator.blogspot.com

http://www.youtube.com/odyssey

Micha Cardenas/Azdel Slade

http://www.transreal.org

Video of performance by Micha Cardenas and Elle Mehrmand on Odyssey

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHWGPu2d9BI

Muro Gallery/Zeitgeist

http://www.murogallery.com/

http://murogallery.com/modules/expositions/index.php?content_id=73

Shanghai Biennale

http://www.shanghaibiennale.org
Craft

http://www.craft-world.org/

Second Life

http://www.secondlife.com

By Lizsolo Mathilde