A new exhibition, The Art of Eric Joyner: “Robots and Donuts” opened yesterday (April 15, 2008) at the Museum of Robots, on Kubrick. According to its mission statement, the Museum of Robots “is dedicated to the appreciation of robots. Its mission is to promote understanding of the place of robots in popular culture, art and science.” The museum has a permanent collection, of interest to both aficionados and those like me who are new to the subject, plus temporary galleries, which is where The Art of Eric Joyner: “Robots and Donuts” is being shown. Eric Joyner is an American artist based in San Francisco. He also collects robots, mid 20th century Japanese tin robots, and some American toys, such as Rock’Em Sock’Em robots, which some of us may remember from childhood (“Knock his block off!”). Earlier in his career Joyner worked in the commercial art field, in illustration and animation, but around 2000 decided to become a gallery artist and paint what he liked: robots. In addition, though, he added donuts into many of his works, because, he said, he wanted something to “not make sense and (to) create a new world”. This subject matter fits right in with the mission of the Museum of Robots, Joyner’s works combining as they do the influences of popular culture and art history. The works themselves are beautiful and richly painted, some with layers of thick and luscious paint, particularly appropriate to the gorgeous and gooey donuts, but also to the background landscapes and the shiny robots. Three of Joyner’s works are on view in an RL exhibition at the San Jose Museum of Art, Robots: Evolution of a Cultural Icon, April 12, 2008 to Oct.19, 2008, so catch that if you can, but make sure to come to The Art of Eric Joyner: “Robots and Donuts” in Second Life. The Museum of Robots is on Kubrick 98, 161, 27.
Posted by Hibiscus Hastings

Why a musician starts an SL career? First of all he has to trust in his music and he must think to share something new with his audience. This is the story of Swina Allen, whose gig I attended last week at the Gold Club. In his music you can find some bluesy roots, but actually it is affected also by some rock influences(Carlos Santana and Weather Report above all) and even some innovative jazz (Joe Zawinul,Waine Shorter e Jaco Pastorius):the result is an original sound, a kind of smooth jazz and chillout.

As soon as Swina started his second life he opened a club, the Italian Mood(yudasin22.99,45), suddenly it became a sort of musical workshop hosting many live musicians gigs of different genres. But Swina felt to be mainly a musician and so he decided to get in the game! He started playing all around in SL gathering a nice crowd of fans.

After the gig I asked some question to the artist, and he kindly answered me:first of all I asked him what he feels in performing in SL and he said “ well,it depends on what do you expect:I guess that the main thing is not not the music in itself, but first of all the feelings you get across, keeping the people with you till the gig ends it’s the strongest emotion and sometimes it’s not necessary to be technically perfect: in sl you may get an immediate feedback and it is well shown by the generous tips of the avatars attending your performance!”

When I asked Swina how does he create his songs he told me that usually he starts with a drums pattern and after he adds some new parts(pads,synths)using only some virtual instruments(VLS);sometimes he edits the tracks with a little of quantization but only for the attack putting together some sampled chorus and voices.

Finallly he adds also keyboards and then he refines the whole with the acoustic guitar. I asked him what does he expect from SL:”The great advantage in SL is that it may put you in contact with many other musicians from all over in the world:you may listen easily to their music and maybe it will be possible starting a collaboration sharing experiences.

Technology seems to be such important for this artist and so I asked him what he thinks of:”Technology may help:today a musician may have his own studio without any huge investments; digital music did this revolution: it helps the autonomy both for creation and production. Of course promotion is not so easy even with web 2.0,social network and web radios. And of course SL itsef are able to spread music all around.
Submitted by Simona Dawes

Announcing Gilberto Gregg’s Hyper-Interactive Modern Art Garden. This Second Life location features more than 75 works of art, sculpture, and streaming music. All paintings in the garden react to a Touch by an avatar. The resultant reactions include movement of prims, sound, and movement of avatars. The scripting and sound in the garden pushes Second Life client’s to the limit of what is possible. Adjacent to the garden are two streaming music areas. One area features jazz rock recordings with a female vocalist. The other streaming music area features jazz rock instrumentals with lots of incredible saxophones. Access the fancy SLURL here: http://newjazz.net/sl Here’s a basic SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Black%20Lion/56/177/106 cheers, Gilberto Gregg box@newjazz.net
Submitted by Gilberto Gregg