Seeing Spots, Being Dots - a late tribute and thanks
Video of the performance:
http://video.google.de/videoplay?docid=7351966094594153124
I’ve come to realize in my short impish career in sl that I need to give credit where it’s due. So in this post I’d like to do that for my latest collaboration with Nnoiz Papp. Seeing Dots, Being Dots was inspired a great deal by the ideas and forms of Dancoyote Antonelli’s (aka in rl DC Spensley) celebrated ZeroG SkyDancers. To be specific, that concept of AVs doing choreographed performances while wearing kinetic art in the sky was surely originated by DanCoyote and I take no credit for this. I was clearly inspired by his work and this piece was a tribute, and a late tribute at that.
I would like to send a very big thank you to DanCoyote for breaking the original ground that inspired this field of work and giving me the step up I needed. My only regret is that I didn’t do this formally before actually staging the performance. I respect the man and the work that came before me.
I’m trying to make the most of every vocabulary that may have existed prior to my arrival, as well as any new language and derivative I might devise from it.
Besides this tribute to DC, I’d like to show my appreciation to other people for making this piece possible…
I’d like to send out my thanks to Olga Wunderlich, the curator of this event, for inviting myself and Nnoiz Papp to to collaborate in this performance and giving us an audience in Berlin.
Also, Velazquez Bonetto deserves the credit for creating the most of the scripts that made this thing actually run. Not to mention his hosting this improv series on his land Diabolus Island. I’d get no where without him.
To Nnoiz Papp for our first and hopefully not last collaboration together I’d like to say it was very cool to work with him and I felt we were really in sync in this work. And I just loved the beautiful music.
For their video documenting, I’d like to express my appreciation and respect to Evo Szuyuan and of course Eifachfilm Vacirca. Will share their videos later on this blog.
I can never forget to say thank you to our favorite connector Bettina Tizzy of Not Possible in Real Life for feeding the word-of-mouth fire and so generously promoting my work. Not to mention giving me lots of sagely advice.
Last and not least, I have to say thanks to all of you who came out on your Friday morning or evening to be a part of this performance. I loved seeing what you would create with this and went beyond my expectations for the haphazard and energetic quality. Thanks you guys!
Video of the performance:
http://video.google.de/videoplay?docid=7351966094594153124
Lance (Juria),
In commercial arts an ethic exists that assumes that nothing is sacred. Indeed this is the essence of the capital system most of us live in. This breaks down to a dog eat dog view of the world where it is OK to pillage another artist’s catalog in order to succeed. In the commercial art world, this is encouraged and even required.
A hard habit to break.
Cultural production or fine arts, and this is just my personal opinion, aspire toward more noble treatment of the viewer, the producer and community. Call this pretense or high falutin’ but this is a choice one makes. In appropriation how closely does the new work come to the original and what makes a thing original in the first place? Where do ethics come in to play in the creative process, honor and community?
Important questions.
When I arrived in Second Life I explored widely. There were roughly a quarter million registered then and while I learned from many important artists (a long list), I also made a commitment to working hard to respect other artists and not make art work that intrudes on their aesthetic direction. In a world of ideas this is of paramount importance. Again this is my choice, and I cannot say what others should or should not do.
I do think you can do better Lance.
While I thank you for your kind words, they does not absolve you from any legal or ethical border crossings during your “short but impish career”. Eventually, even in SL there are consequences to one’s actions. I encourage you to respect your viewer and the artist community by raising the level of quality, conceptual depth and originality of your work.
Best of luck to you.
DC
dc said this on February 16th, 2008 at 12:46 am
I do not agree or condone DC’s words regarding my work and my post attributing aspects of this performance to his work. Because I believe his words may do more harm to his reputation than my own, I am considering taking them off this blog. However, for the sake of free speech, I will leave his comment up until I decide the best thing to do. I’ll suffice it to say that I was disappointed and concerned about the possibility of working freely in an open and thriving art environment in sl. Because of the support from people I respect and trust following this incident, I again feel motivated to pursue my work and collaborate with my fellow artists. I greatly respect DC’s exceptional work and wish him the best in his continuing project.
- Juria Y.
Juria Yoshikawa (Lance Shields) said this on February 17th, 2008 at 4:09 am
Lance,
It is big of you to leave my opinion online. I can see how you might not want to agree however I think it is important to set the record straight for posterity.
It is not my words that do damage to your reputation but your ethical decisions to make your career in SL the lazy way by pillaging the ideas of others. Make up your own language.
It is also an ethical decision for you to remove feedback from your blog. As blog owner you have that right.
If you are looking for absolution from me for your past damage to MY reputation, that is not going to happen. It is important that people know that your campaign of ruthless one-ups-manship has distorted the historical record and regardless of how good a promoter you are, you need work in the area of originality and ethics.
Be thankful that your many SL Terms of Service violations have not resulted in termination of your Second Life account. I have you dead to rights in a number of cases and have legal counsel that assures me you are not untouchable in Japan should it come to a DMCA/IP dispute.
I’m not the only one who knows this Lance. Remember you needed to be reminded by an important blogger to give this attribution. Even that was not your idea. But I think you are moving in the right direction to fess up.
Better to make art that is more original than to have to be embarrassed about knocking off a fellow artist. It’s OK to like other people’s work. But it is not OK to rob your fellow artists and take credit for their original ideas. I applaud your effort to come clean but that does not make what you did acceptable.
Best,
DC
dc said this on February 17th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
DC,
It was never my intention to get caught up in a flame war. I also believe I’ve never harmed you in anyway as you imply above. However, I still have a few things left to say. A whole genre of art such as people dancing, wearing artwork or flying in the sky cannot and should not be owned by any one artist. To think that all innovation stops as soon as one artist makes a brush mark in a particular way denies centuries of artists that stood on the shoulders of their predecessors. There would be no Michaelangelo. He spent 40 years copying past art works before he came up with his own voice. We learn by trying out vocabulary of the past while putting on new twists to create the next genre of art. Picasso also did this with impressionism before moving on to Cubism. As Picasso noted towards the end of his life, “Cézanne was my one and only master.”
While I strongly believe that I didn’t copy SkyDance (especially since I’ve never actually been to the performance), I can say that I stood on your shoulders to some degree since you appear to have been the first person to allow avatars to wear art and perform in the air. I admit, as you point out, that I needed a well-known blogger to remind me to credit this on my blog. This person was right and I took her advice. So how was my conduct? Bad mannered? Maybe. Unethical? Doubtful. “On a campaign of ruthless one-ups-manship”? No way. Why would I want to do that? I like your work and your process and would never want to “distort history”.
Let me give an example of how I believe two artists should behave with one another. Another artist I greatly respect is Elros Tuominen for how prolific he explores virtual art but most for his generosity. We regularly share work with one another and freely borrow ideas. When he uses some idea of mine in his piece I am very flattered and excited that we have developed together. I am quite certain that he feels the same. Because he and I are open in this way, I naturally give him credit for ideas in his work that I was inspired by. And he does the same. But what if he or I claimed to own a certain idea, style, art genre or technology and when the other used it in his work I accused him of stealing intellectual property? Well, I believe we’d stop communicating and growing together. We’d become secretive and avoid sharing our work with each other. Any sort of community would be out of the question.
I’d like to finish by asking two more questions. How is it possible to copyright a whole genre of art which amounts to a performance to music where people wear kinetic sculptures? Aren’t there a wide variety of possibilities that could be attempted in this space? And most importantly, why would one want to copyright something as cool and as big as this? The only answer I can find is to stop people from doing it and inevitably expanding on it to protect one’s own claim for fame. DC, I think your work is terrific and I wish you’d do me the favor of allowing me to do mine in peace.
I now reach out to the sl art community to ask you for your thoughts. How would you feel if you were in a situation where someone denied you the right to create within a genre? Is art in sl and rl really about making art to then guard it from others? How can a young artist thrive in this sort of environment?
Best wishes,
Lance (Juria)
Juria said this on February 18th, 2008 at 5:33 am
hmmm
I hope you accept my english is not as good as yours.
But http://www.kunstnet.ch/doob/displayimage.php?pos=-2342 should I now be the only one to do live video in SL art?
Art for me is about exploring things and inspiring others. Remixing work is a substantial part of art today. I’d be honored if people do things that seem to me similar to what I did. SL was invented by Linden Lab. Are they now the only one who can use it for art??
Make new things DC and don’t care about the past. People do what they feel. I say copyrights suck.
http://www.free-culture.cc/freeculture.pdf
All my stuff has this licence:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/de/deed.en
So DC feel free to pile cubes as many as you want.
http://d-oo-b.cc/444_CH.mov
We must find other way these days copyrigths hinder develpoment of art and your comments seem to me tend to this wrong direction. Free your mind - art will explode once we give up the greed of claiming crativity for ourselfs.
Eifachfilm Vacirca said this on February 18th, 2008 at 6:41 am
I guess maybe I should be asking the question… what’s the difference between, inspiration and mimicking Dan?
The art that you create is yours but the tools you choose to use to create them are open source. (ie.. just like a pen, pencil or paint) Nothing in the art world is really “new” unless it is an innovative copyrightable product. I.e. Elwire, black light ink, LEDs. Flying, attachments, and animations have been used here in Sl by every AV fairy maker in Sl, Far before you created the Skydancers.
Having been to both Juria’s “Dots” and your last performance of “Sky Dancers”, I can honestly say. There was no connection in the esthetic what so ever. Other than tools each was very different, set design, art style, How the animations were used. OR not used, Juria had patrons be the art. Nothing was choreographed. He had no control over their animations at all.
I also use these items in my firework show, my artistic out come looks nothing like your shows.
Now I understand you have a vested 3000L a ticket interest in keeping this medium to yourself. We at carp3 are doing a research project in Virtual jazz, we are not making a profit off any of our hard work, artistic vision and talent.
There are many brilliant artists here in Sl and room for each of our forms of expression.
Progress is progress and we only have a limited amount of tools in this medium there is bound to be some cross over, but that doesn’t mean it is unethical.
Thank you ,
Eden Toll ( Janine Miller-Fritz, Public Artist)
Eden Toll said this on February 18th, 2008 at 8:19 am
I totaly agree with Eden. Vjazz was an idea Velazques got after he saw a sculpture I made. We both developed it further and so Vjazz came. I inspired Velazques and he inspired me again, We both inspire other artists, musicians as well as virtual artists to participate and work on creating from the ideas we have and let them inspire us again. Its what CARP is about. Colaborate and work together, share ideas and work them out. I would be proud when an artist like Juria would be inspired by something I made. Like I am proud that Vjazz was born out of a idea I had for a sculpture. But I dont yell that around and I dont ask money for it. Through the ages artists got always inspired by what other artists did. Look it up in the books, watch paintings all over the world and you see nothing else then artists creating art being inspired by something, and that is very often another artist. Juria wrote in his foreword that he was inspired by Dancyote, and his new project was an hommage. Instead of feeling very honoured, he got this answere of Doncyote. Well Juria go on with what you are doing, get inspired by all what you see and create your art so everybody can enjoy. There is freedom of speach, so is there freedom in creating. Copying is totaly something else!
josina burgess said this on February 18th, 2008 at 10:04 am
Juria graciously acknowledges sources. Dan Coyote ungraciously condemns and states there are legal consequences? Is DC for real? Dan Coyote’s comments are not only ethicially inappropriate, they are the comments of a boor. Get a grip DC.
yvette tzara said this on February 18th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
It seems to me that the idea of copyright in the arts is something that needs to be considered with an open mind and a greater understanding of the complexities involved….. I find the language of DC problematic at best.
I suggest that everyone (as E.V. suggested) take a look at the work of L. Lessig and the Creative Commons movement. This (SL) is a new world - we have to bring a NEW way of thinking about making and SHARING to this community. As someone who teaches your artists and designers in RL….this is a conversation that I am involved in constantly.
These new tools demand a paradigm shift in our thinking….not the continuation of old ways of holding on to culture (impossible).
As Lessig writes in FREE CULTURE:
“Creators here and everywhere are always and at all times building upon the creativity that went before and that surrounds them now. That building is always and everywhere at least partially done without permission and without compensating the original creator. No society, free or controlled, has ever demanded that every use be paid for or that permission for Walt Disney creativity must always be sought. Instead, every society has left a certain bit of its culture free for the taking—free societies more fully than unfree, perhaps, but all societies to some degree.
The hard question is therefore not whether a culture is free. All cultures are free to some degree. The hard question instead is “How free is this culture?” How much, and how broadly, is the culture free for others to take and build upon? Is that freedom limited to party members? To members of the royal family? To the top ten corporations on the New York Stock Exchange? Or is that freedom spread broadly? To artists generally, whether affiliated with the Met or not? To musicians generally, whether white or not? To filmmakers generally, whether affiliated with a studio or not?”
Debate about the issues involved here is welcome and necessary. Petty name calling and territorialism only perpetuates “old school” models of thinking about the issue.
Bravo to both JY and DC for their creative contributions that make our in-world lives richer.
lanne wise said this on February 19th, 2008 at 6:15 am
DC, Sabine and Friends,
It was a hard decision but I decided to delete the last two comments of DC and now Sabine Stonebender because of the abusive nature of their words directed at myself. I have shown them to a lawyer who had the opinion that they could be considered libel (”libel involves the making of defamatory statements in a printed or fixed medium, such as a magazine or newspaper. Defamation is the issuance of a false statement about another person, which causes that person to suffer harm.”) I was further advised by the lawyer to remove the comments from the blog.
I invite both DC and Sabine to continue posting to this blog on the condition that it is in open discussion without malicious remarks to myself or other commenters. Not only is it in poor taste but I feel it hurts the very art culture we all wish to foster.
In addition, to these two people, if you would like to engage in that sort of malicious way, I ask you to look for a different forum for your words.
Best,
Lance (Juria)
Juria said this on February 19th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
I’m sorry you took my comments as malice Juria.
However, I know what we discussed inworld.
There is nothing slanderous in that which was fact.
I had hoped for much better from you.
Sabine Stonebender said this on February 19th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
Hi Sabine,
Good to have you back and I’m sorry if you feel it is unfair to delete your comment. I deleted it because I believe your comment claimed I stole from your work and I think that’s simply untrue.
That said I only wish you the best and am looking forward to what you do in the future. I want you to succeed since you represent a vital part of our art culture in sl. If I try out an idea (not copy) of your’s it is because I liked what you did and this is a compliment. I am not about taking your light. I want you to shine. You’re correct that we met several times and you did show me kindness. I regret that you have been pulled into this and I wish you the best.
Lance (Juria)
Juria said this on February 19th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
I’m sincerely glad this debate is happening, and look forward to jumping in at some point, but I think (per Juria’s suggestion), that it should move to an open forum, without fear of censorship (hopefully this comment won’t also be deleted). Any suggestions as to where that should happen? Virtual Worlds Connect? Looking forward, Keystone
Keystone Bouchard said this on February 20th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
I have to notice how sad it is really that being credited as inspiration or influence is not enough to DC and (if any) others….The two ‘pieces of art’ have very little in common if anything, really.
Now as far as dragging this subject through blogs and saying ‘my lawyer told me..’ is pretty juvenile- though I completely understand DC and why he is feeling uncomfortable (insecure?) about someone else using the same medium.
Sky Dancers was a nice performance but raving about some ‘rights’ to the medium won’t stop it from being further developed and/or bettered by others..and it certainly could use some further development, tbh.
You really cannot copyright an inspiration in art, you can only make sure your original piece is safe and that derivative works credit you…now, if someone makes a derivative work which (despite you are credited) outshines your original, well, sorry, that’s how it goes in life.
You may be able to slap an international lawsuit on someone just to be a c*nt, but that pretty much wraps it up with me as an art collector/lover. I don’t buy/enjoy art from people who would do that as they cannot teach me anything.
TF said this on February 20th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Juria, others have said well what I wish to say… especially what Eden had to say about considering the difference between inspiration and mimicking… not having seen either Dots or Skydancers (I cant afford your performance DC) I cant comment on how similar the works might be but from the videos/stills from the two shows i have seen I would agree with Eden in their assessment of the two pieces.
I love seeing the new works of Juria, DC and Sabine - you all work big, you all create amazing works I can only dream of equalling. Keep up the good work and please stop wasting your energies in bad feeling, put it into some new works for all to experience and learn from.
quadrapop said this on February 20th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Let me tell you some little simple words, I tend tosimplify I don’t know if it’s the best I can do, but, hey, I am as weird as his tho… who does mind really, I love sharing my works as some of you know, we got tools to create and we do… Watercolours, pastels, acrilics… it’s logical finding similar works and beeing influenced by… that’s the way different schools are born, but, even if we are influenced or we try different things or base our works in some other artist’s works, we all give the our own point of view, inherent and different anyway… so if Juria or DanCoyote or Sabine or anyone feels the need of basing one of their works (or more than one
) I feel honoured… why? because I think they are really great sculptors, builders, and the only idea of beeing some kind of influence to them makes me feel proud of myself….. (just in case they find interesting my thingies tho eheheheheh )….. Have a great day, and sorry if I bothered omeone, it was ot my intention 
elros Tuominen said this on February 21st, 2008 at 4:33 am
Hi All.
Thanks for all your great opinions. I feel like I’m in a room full of people talking loudly these days. Sometimes very loudly
Welcome Keystone! I’m a big fan of your Reflexive Architecture http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBtma6YXAis. I’ve especially enjoyed seeing how other artists have taken your open source script to create new works like Douglas Story’s DynaFleur at http://dynafleur.blogspot.com/. I wanted to comment back to your question regarding an alternate forum for this discussion which makes a lot of sense. I am very much interested in sharing differing opinions here or elsewhere. The question of censorship shouldn’t even be an issue if the posts did not turn to accusations and maliciousness. I’d be very willing to take this conversation elsewhere on the condition that it’s a civil discourse.
As Quadrapop has advised, I’d like to get back to focusing on work. That said, I believe this thread has been very meaningful and a good chance for people to consider attribution, ownership of art vs. art influence, etc etc. I’d like to thank DC for acting as a catalyst for this. It’s been a chance to reflect.
Hi TF, thanks for your thoughts. I obviously agree with your opinions but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t name call (even with a “*” that word hurts.) I think you made your point very well without. Thanks a lot!
Elros, always a pleasure, man. Thanks for piping up, especially since your name has already come up by myself and Sabine. You have a gentleness that is hard to find in big city Tokyo where I am.
Other opinions… Violetta LeShelle has taken this discussion over to her blog at http://sldepot.wordpress.com/2008/02/21/seeing-spots-being-dots-2/ She kindly reviews my past show “4″ and this new performance in question Seeing Spots, Being Dots. She has also spent a good deal of time questioning “the new” in sl art or in her words: “I guess my real question is, what is in fact the newness. Is it the genre (a term used by Juria) in total, or do we already have to look at the differences in language (a term used by DC). Whichever one it turns out to be, the fact is that as in RL, artists are also being inspired by other artists. And sl art is, even if to us it feels like a big thing, still a small niche. I for one am really curious to find out how long we will be able to experience newness in sl.” Be sure to check out her full blog post.
Enjoy art.
Lance (Juria)
Juria said this on February 22nd, 2008 at 12:54 am
Dear Lance/Juria (and SL arts community),
Let us make peace.
I was angry about some of the things that have passed between us, but after spending a little time with you recently, I realize it was wrong to lash out.
I would like to publically apologize for my tirade. The passion I have for my art burns very hot and can sometimes get me so wound up I forget my manners AND my sense of humor.
I want bury this grudge, put the negativity behind me and sincerely offer to make peace with you and everyone in the Second Life Art Community.
Kind regards,
DC
dcspensley said this on March 11th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Hi DC,
I can’t tell you how happy I am to read your words. Your offer to put aside your past feelings is a great relief to me. What is done is done and I imagine it wasn’t easy to come forward after all that. I know in my own burning desire to make work, I haven’t always been that sensitive. This is a struggle for me in my real life relationships and something I am always trying to do better. Sorry if I hadn’t taken enough time to acknowledge your work and engage in discussion.
I’m really enjoying your work at the Brooklyn Is Watching show. The bronze sculptie piece is especially striking. Also, the feedback you gave the other day on my work in the show has given me much food for thought.
There’s always the future!
Many thanks,
Juria (Lance)
Juria said this on March 11th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
I like to see this.
Douglas Story said this on March 11th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
Me too! By the way, all you sl artsters, get your butts over to Brooklyn is Watching and put some work up!
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Popcha/72/140/27
http://brooklyniswatching.com/
-J
Juria said this on March 11th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
wow:)) greatness is shown here:) very happy to see this happen.
feels like : PHEW. ok this is behinds us, the air is clear , now we start fresh and can focus on our art again:))
josina burgess said this on March 17th, 2008 at 9:53 am