NeoCyberCity

NeoCyberCity

"Nothing is ever finished" Peter Robinson

sculptor, painter, teacher and occasional spirit guide

This is my main blog about a cyber build I am fortunate enough to have been invited to co-produce along with Asmita Duranja of Space4Art with thanks to Marian Evanier who is hosting my construction. There are also some related posts (see links at bottom of this article). This blog is mostly to showcase some chosen photo's which are part of the bulk upload on my flikr. 

During construction I was using one SecondLife Viewer settings. Following 'completion' if that is an appropriate term I changed to the Region Viewer settings chosen by Asmita; it totally altered the view and feel of our environment, blending together the black and white of the artists respective components through cyber-ephemeral silver-gray. The atmosphere is potent, brooding; evocative. You can feel the stories of lives being told, hear the sounds of the place echoing from the distance over a silver reflective river, the banks of which host a babel of towers and mystery.

The theme is oriental urban sci-fi.

From my time on this project has come a lot of inspiration, directions for further development; in my painting, my digital 3D and in my writing. Too much to contain in one blog.

I have a lot to thank Asmita Duranja for, in recognizing my potential and taking me on to work with her. She has proved herself to be a master; being an artist herself having awareness of the value of giving people space to develop and the tactful encouragement of gentle positive criticism. 

I also want to thank Jedda Zenovka who when I first arrived in SecondLife a year ago and had got the newbie buzz out of my system, dedicated her patience and time in teaching me the basics of uploading and texturing mesh. Jedda also works with sci-fi and ecological themes, fusing them together to create ecologies possible only because of the interactive digital art form that is virtual reality.

[images to follow]

The following links along with the imagery are to be taken as a trilogy of related writings.

Wabi Sabi - artists statement about my build

Flesh Dream - short story about life in NeoCyberCity

Prajnaparadha - "Crimes Against Wisdom" - short story exploring relation between inner turmoil and civic unrest

Prajnaparadha

I lost the first part of this. It is possible still somewhere in my notes. Also I am unsatisfied with the end. I feel a need to publish it now simply to avoid forgetting about it. It is what it is.

"Prajnaparadha" (noun, Sanskrit) - "Crimes against Wisdom”

"There is a difference between making a written report to the next higher echelons in the system through appropriate channels, about misconduct of the lower echelons which is not being sorted out at that level due to the misconduct; and libel. The lower echelons responsible for the misconduct are in a situation where their response of attacking the whistleblower for making accusations against them is questionable in its appropriateness."

The newsreel complaining about the latest terrorist activity in this zone, more graffiti slogans. Whoever was doing it could somehow bypass the scanner-detectors. It was exciting and terrifying at the same time. The newsreel graciously reported the entire story, causing Sable to wonder about the political ethics of whoever was programming the data. 

The graffiti’s message was broadcast verbally by the soft feminine voice of the auto-computer: "When the state does not serve the people, and yet the people are expected to be subservient to the state; it creates a tension, exploited by state control, martial law; state openly defies that it serves the people by persecuting them. This is called tyranny.” The punishment for this form of terrorism is disappearance, the polite word for termination.

Sable unravels the data scroll which she had found in the bath house and reads it.

"My great grandfather, he built this stream of consciousness with his bare hands, it has been passed down as a family heirloom for several generations. It was made in a time of great social upheaval, from before the chipping began. Experts say that it reveals a form a humor called satire and that if the authorities know we have this they will terminate us for being influenced by dangerous attitude. ”

Tomorrow she will dutifully report it to the police cubical and clear her name of any assumed suspicion of all insidious activities. Then she will attend the shrine of ixa, the symbol for the city, her goddess. She who is the Way.

The haiku randomizer is burbling in the background.

the signs of success
are not making envy
they are happiness

Surreptitiously, Sable writes one of her own and submits it to the database.

no-one is coming for you
you have to go out and take
go out and find (it)

Aware that these are not Haiku proper, given the incorrect number of syllables. Nonconformity to the 575 syllable principle. Very often the randomizer is making bad translations of words, otherwise unassociated. Cheap foreign technology for an alien market, a subtle method of subversion. Program the semi-listeners from the background in the guise of cultural continuity and community integrations. 

Non-conformity. 

The state issues us a challenge, to be true to our instincts or to follow aspirations engineered in us culturally from birth to perpetuate the state. As machine it ensures sustainable civilisation, generation after generation. 

"But it is so boring!" shouts Sable, then clasping her hands both over her mouth as though to double shut herself up, her eyes wide and wishing to take back the unexpected outburst, surprising herself more than any other who might be eavesdropping. Listening in on her activities to report her normality or otherwise suspicious breaks in the routine cycles she has developed as acceptable, non-threatening to social sustenance.

She lets out a deep sigh as she realizes no lazer-droids are coming for her this moment and relaxes back onto the plastic mattress of her sleeping cot.

FleshDream

肉 夢  Flesh Dream

Sable lays back on her plastic padded mattress and stares up at the neon white glow in motion of a haiku randomizer, the rooms ambient lighting. The place is beautiful in its simplicity. Back and white, and where there is age which speaks of history, sepia and gray. Wabi Sabi, the plays on the psychonic, mental radio-beam.

"white is the quest for purity
stained because the tarnished material we use to depict it
a longing
varnish and belonging"

She tunes out by altering her mental focus, gazing through a slatted perspex window at the city below. Her body tremors, she sniffs the clarity. On a low table occupying the center of her room is her payment, half of it cut early into little white lines that match the cities ambience. Wabi Sabi, the process of incompletion.

She remembers some of the dream from several nights ago, a strange world in which creatures of fantasy, faeries, dance and play amidst a vibrantly coloured forest. Her inner-self, a heart free of mind given freedom to flow as pure instinct. Does time function the same in the dreamworlds? Does time function the same in this city, where everybody autonomously robotic in their lifestyles, clattering like reptilian scales, clockwork machine people, ignoring one another to such extent that each other are invisible unless they share the same vibrational pathway that is the tao of whatever digital catalogue existence was chosen. Is it possible to shift tracks?

The limitations and frustrations of existing within a box, a box within a city made of boxes; pre-packaged people, pre-packaged lifestyles which it is an offense to question or seek to step outside the boundaries of. AI droid-cops float down on insect-like wings and with insect-like mechanical faces of sensors and lasers, ensure we step back on track. They lurk in shadows above and around us, hearing all, watching all, a surveillance society. We live in fear as they study us, fear lest we be extinguished for breaking the laws our ancestors set in place and programmed into these machines. Is it any wonder that our only outlet is to dream?

And in dream we discover such places, dragons and mermaids, a freedom of pine scented air, firefly glow passions. We meet others in the dreams, others from other worlds, other times and places. To transfer this visionary into brushwork, art for retail to sustain myself, to pay for the box and the protection of the droid-cops who keep this city quadrant safe and clean. Outside we are told there are others less fortunate than ourselves, the non-consumers, the non-elite. They live in horror which we cannot understand, the rust-world, the grunge, a decay. They live in animal poverty. We do not think of such things. Only the sleek of our black plastic and white neon lifestyles. How many invisibles are there in this city of perpetual night time? We should to question such things. To question leads to contamination, the breakdown of the social slipstreams we are individually provided for. This machine must not fail.

And so it is that I paint my dreams. Apparently the paintings offer hope to others who have not the ability to access the dreams. For them, the painting is the only insight in to the otherworld. But for me it is a real place. Some day I will find a method to make a transference, away from this world and into the dream completely, that I may exist there permanently.

The white powder from a plant grown in the city labs courses through my veins and keeps me away from the dream, away from sleep. I mindlessly paint memories of the last time I was there. Characters, people, and places of heightened colour. Feelings of flow and fluidity, that everything is as ephemeral as the holographic projections advertising media mindwash products. Perhaps to the dream people, it is this world, the city which is a dream. A dark one of simplicity and elegance but a horrific one for such as they. Could such creatures exist here in this realm? Could I become one? I take up my nylon brush and apply plastic ink to the recycled polymer canvas. Different grades of canvas take the ink in different ways. Such are the fabrics of these worlds we are grown from. From flesh to imagination. From imagination to flesh.

WabiSabi

侘寂 wabi sabi - transience, imperfection, incompleteness

Since the 1980s vision of Cyberpunk epitomized by Blade Runner (Sid Mead, Philip K Dick, Ridley Scott); decadent technology creating divergent social castes against a backdrop of grime and decay; Until the 21st century oriental urban architecture of clean, white, humanistic towers, the surface of which is living green from hanging gardens providing fresh air to heal against smog, to create an arboreal environment that is serene and naturalistic to live in. Now when people look to the future the focus is about harmony and peace. This resonates strongly with eastern traditions inspired by Taoism, Buddhism. The western world in its permanently imminent state of financial collapse and totalitarianism has still not caught up with this progress.

We live during the transition.

Urban progress is a constant state of transition. Generation after progressive generation live on the same streets as our ancestors. In time we will become the ancestors. The deprivations of lifestyles ensure our focus is seldom on that and constantly on this moment, the immediate past and the very near future.

These are themes which have inspired my work on this build with thanks to Asmita Duranjaya and Miriam Evanier. While Asmita has concentrated on tradition and the legend of utopia, the heavenly city; I have concentrated on ersatz; seeking of cleanliness amidst grunge, that pursuit of synthetic removes us from nature. These entwined themes become metaphors for one another. What are we within this world where our emotional ranges are shaped by our environment?