"Acquarella" Documentary Machinima now up on Youtube!

"Acquarella" is a machinima documentary about my Second Life (R) immersive art build by the same name. I did the filming, and Cobalt Zeplin/Alfred M. Ajami did the editing and sound remixing.

When I was a child, I kept an aquarium and I would stare into it for hours, mesmerized by it then as I am now by Second Life, a magical weightless world also populated by strange and beautiful creatures. These memories were the inspiration behind the creation of "Acquarella." An aquarium on a cosmic scale, "Acquarella" is filled with swaying, lacey aquatic plants, schools of neon tetras, animated angelfish and goldfish, drifts of diatoms, and huge green lily pads that bob up and down in the invisible current. The build echoes with the songs of whales. Pose balls invite people to swim to their music, and throughout, there are traces of an untold story. A fragment of a submarine that torpedoed itself hints at an apocalyptic destruction that could possibly be a metaphor. Who is hunting whom with those ghostly sonar pings? Why does color sometimes creep into a largely monochrome vision? How to explain the fact that the black and white tetras school, while their rainbow-hued counterparts are solitary? Who is Acquarella? Is she a giantess or are we liliputian?

"Acquarella" employs highly-detailed digital drawings done with Corel Painter software and a Wacom tablet. It uses scripts, animations, and sounds to provide an immersive art experience that is intended to create visual and psychic pleasure for the participant.

The music was remixed with SmartSounds SonicFire Pro software, which lets you map the mood and the tempo, pitch, chording, phrasing and instrumentation to events and other sounds in the video. Doing the sound track this way adds extra power to the visuals, more so than just a straight line remix.

Come visit Acquarella inworld here: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Lie/204/203/333
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Links:
DIGITAL ART: Martha Jane Bradford
Web Site: http://www.marthavista.com/
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/
MJB Blog: http://marthajanebradford.blogspot.com/
VIRTUAL ART: Alizarin Goldflake (Metaverse avatar of Martha Jane Bradford)
Atelier Alizarin (Second Life studio): http://slurl.com/secondlife/Lie/222/189/35
Blog: http://alizaringoldflake.blogspot.com/
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alizaringoldflake/

YOUTUBE VIDEOS:
Acquarella: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-lo6JosN0M
Anza-Borrego Oak: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s_KRMi55v8
Metempsyche's Garden: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfQGuNXWvLo
The Maze: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEa9rtEiINE
Atelier Alizarin Studio Tour: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDjrLmPpopA
The Mysterious Forest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6Xv_pAf0Qc
Museum of Science Project Concept: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93YYMJANpZs

MOCA hosts an Alizarin Goldflake/Martha Jane Bradford Machinima!

The Museum of Computer Art in Brooklyn, New York is now hosting Alizarin Goldflake's "The Mysterious Forest" in the New Media Gallery section of its web site: http://moca.virtual.museum/newmedia/bradford/bradford.htm. There is also a link on MOCA's splash screen, upper right corner: http://moca.virtual.museum/. Visit this site to see all kinds of other interesting computer art as well.

About "The Mysterious Forest:"
The subject of this machinima is a large-scale piece of immersive art that I did as a member of The Caerleon Artists Collective "Interactive Collaboration." The textures are all adapted from my digital drawing "Anza Borrego Oak." Artistide Despres was the project leader, and the Caerleon Sims in SL are hosted by Georg Janick/Gary Zabel, professor of philosophy at UMass, Boston, founder of the Virtual Artists Initiative, and organizer of "Through the Virtual Looking Glass" show (see my previous post). I filmed the footage using Fraps and a Space Navigator mouse and the AV production and SmartSound (R) remix were done by Alfred M. Ajami.

About MOCA:
The Museum of Computer Art is a nonprofit US educational corporation chartered by the NYS Department of Education and part of the University of the State of New York. It is first and foremost an online museum but it is also a physical gallery located in Brooklyn NY.

The MOCA site is host to hundreds of world-class digital artists and thousands of their images. It is one of the most heavily-trafficked, comprehensive, frequently-updated and respected computer art museums on the Web.

MOCA was established in 1993 by computer artists Don Archer and Bob Dodson to promote digital art in its various forms and manifestations, including 3-D rendered art, fractals, enhanced photography, animation, mixed media, computer-painted and -drawn art, etc. In September 2008, MOCA established a brick-and-mortar physical gallery in Brooklyn NY showing advanced digital art in print and on-screen.

Don Archer is MOCA's co-founder, director and administrator. He operates MOCA out of his studio in Brooklyn and Prattsville, NY. He welcomes your comments. Write to: admin@moca.virtual.museum Don is also a digital artist whose work may be viewed on his personal webpage at: http://www.donarcher.com

About Alizarin Goldflake:
Alizarin is Martha Jane Bradford's avatar's name in the virtual worlds of Open Life, Open Sim, Reaction Grid, and, primarily, Second Life (SL). There I specialize in making immersive art, so called because it is meant to be experienced from the inside. Many of my sculpture are 3-D reinterpretations of my digital drawings. I create my work using the 3-D building tools of SL to shape the component objects, called prims; to texture them using images I draw with Corel Painter and/or manipulate with Photoshop; and to animate them with SL programs, called scripts. Most of my builds include sounds that I record myself or download from the internet and then remix using Audacity and also particles, which are phantom, temporary images that I draw with Painter.
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Links:
DIGITAL ART: Martha Jane Bradford
Web Site: http://www.marthavista.com/
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/
MJB Blog: http://marthajanebradford.blogspot.com/

VIRTUAL ART: Alizarin Goldflake
Second Life avatar of Martha Jane Bradford
Atelier Alizarin (Second Life studio): http://slurl.com/secondlife/Lie/222/189/35
Blog: http://alizaringoldflake.blogspot.com/
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alizaringoldflake/

YOUTUBE VIDEOS:
Acquarella: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-lo6JosN0M
Anza-Borrego Oak: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s_KRMi55v8
Metempsyche's Garden: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfQGuNXWvLo
The Maze: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEa9rtEiINE
Atelier Alizarin Studio Tour: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDjrLmPpopA
The Mysterious Forest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6Xv_pAf0Qc
Museum of Science Project Concept: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93YYMJANpZs

Through the Virtual Looking Glass: A Mixed Reality Exhibition of the Art of Virtual Worlds

One of the most unique art events ever in Boston's history is about to happen!!

Through the Virtual Looking Glass: A Mixed Reality Exhibition of the Art of Virtual Worlds opens at the Harbor Gallery, UMass Boston, April 7, 3 pm to 8 pm. The show will run through April 30, 2010. Please visit http://www.umb.edu/harborgallery/ for info and directions to the gallery or visit the show in Second Life at (link to be added).

Hosted by the Virtual Art Initiative on the web and the Caerleon Sims in Second Life and OpenSim, the Boston exhibition is part of an unprecedented international collaboration which will exhibit the work of artists from more than twenty nations simultaneously in real world galleries in six countries: Italy, France, Holland, Germany, Brazil, and the USA. Check out the Virtual Art Initiative at http://www.virtual-art-initiative.org/Virtual_Art_Initiative/Virtual_Art_Initiative.html.

Virtual Worlds are computer generated, immersive, three-dimensional environments that allow people from around the globe to interact with one another through "avatars" (digital bodies) and to shape their environments, both individually and collectively, by using graphical and programming tools.

In process of development since the 1980s, virtual worlds now have more than 12 million participants, and include such venues as Second Life, OpenSim, VastPark, Blue Mars, and World of Warcraft. Virtual worlds are like photography, cinema, video, and electronic music were in their early years in that they provide the opportunity, in the form of a new technology, for radically innovative forms of aesthetic expression.

A "mixed reality" exhibition brings virtual art into real world spaces where it becomes accessible to wide audiences.

The Harbor Gallery exhibition will bridge the gap between the real and virtual worlds through a variety of innovative methods, including digital projection of artworks from the virtual worlds Second Life and OpenSim with interfaces permitting real world audience interaction; images and machinimas (virtual world videos) shown on computer screens and in digital frames; prints of virtual artworks; physical sculptures and paintings inspired by virtual art, some with embedded electronic components; and musical performances occurring in the real world gallery space and streamed live into Second Life where they will be translated into avatar performances.

Please join us for this unique event at one of the most advanced borders between art and technology.

New England Artists participating with real life artwork in the Harbor Gallery show include Martha Jane Bradford (Alizarin Goldflake), Bob Johnson (Thoth Jantzen) , Mary Linley (Feathers Boa), Karina Mitchell (Misprint Thursday), Jason Pramas (Sunseeker Miklos), and Gary Zabel (Georg Janick). Also a New Englander, the real life art of Jeffrey Lipsky (Filthy Fluno) is a painting that will be exhibited in France at MUUSEAV in Nice.

Other VAI artists include Adam Nash (Adam Ramona), Brigit Lichtenegger (Evo Szuyuan), Phillip Mallory Jones (Jacque Quijote), Thorsten Küper (Kueperpunk Korhonen), Dr. Andrew Burrell (Nonnatus Korhonen), Piotr Kopik (Olza Koenkamp), Seogwang Snim (Snim Hanley), Stephen Beveridge (Sowa Mai), and Second Life avatars Artistide Despres, Aurakyo Insoo, Botgirl Questi, Bryn Oh, Four Yip, Fran Benoir, Glyph Graves, luce Laval, marnie Reinard, Pete Jiminy, Pixels Sideways, Sabrinaa Nightfire, Trinity Halberstadt, and Ub Yifu.

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Show Links:
Harbor Gallery: http://www.umb.edu/harborgallery/
Virtual Art Initiative: http://www.virtual-art-initiative.org/Virtual_Art_Initiative/Virtual_Art_Initiative.html.

My Links:
DIGITAL ART: Martha Jane Bradford
Web Site: http://www.marthavista.com/
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/
MJB Blog: http://marthajanebradford.blogspot.com/

VIRTUAL ART: Alizarin Goldflake
Second Life avatar of Martha Jane Bradford
Atelier Alizarin (Second Life studio): http://slurl.com/secondlife/Lie/222/189/35
Blog: http://alizaringoldflake.blogspot.com/
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alizaringoldflake/

YOUTUBE VIDEOS:
Acquarella: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-lo6JosN0M
Anza-Borrego Oak: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s_KRMi55v8
Metempsyche's Garden: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfQGuNXWvLo
The Maze: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEa9rtEiINE
Atelier Alizarin Studio Tour: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDjrLmPpopA
The Mysterious Forest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6Xv_pAf0Qc
Museum of Science Project Concept: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93YYMJANpZs