blown away

if you've read any of my blog, you know that i'm starting grad school next month. i am so incredibly excited about this opportunity that it's almost difficult for me to put it into words. i graduated from college in 1990, but even when I was going to college then, i was never really 'passionate' about what i was doing. i did it because 'eh' it was ok, and i felt like i needed to get a degree in something, so i did.

so, now that i'm actually in a position to pursue something that moves me, something that makes me 'feel', something i can honestly and truly be passionate about, it's.. well. pretty freaking cool, that's what.

anyway, i'll be in the MFA program in new media here at penn state, and my focus is virtual worlds and specifically second life. it's an exciting field and an exciting medium, but i'm already finding some challenges.

in meeting some of the other graduate students on monday, i found myself challenged by how to 'explain' what i do. if you're a painter, or a sculptor, or someone working with ceramics, you're in a very 'tactile' environment and you can touch, and feel and even smell your art. in the virtual world, however, none of these things really 'exist' and so explaining this is a bit challenging.

now that i'm beginning to think about my art in a different way, and how i might best represent my art in a gallery show, for instance, i'm running a million different ideas, expressions and viewpoints through my mind at any given time. my head's starting to hurt a bit from this, but in all pain comes.... somethin. i dunno what. a good idea, maybe.

so one of my original ideas was to create 'immersive' art inside this already, truly, 'immersive' world. so, for instance, if you like the water lily painting by Monet, maybe you can actually walk *through* this painting and find yourself inside the actual landscape there, with water and flowers and even sounds surrounding you. you're experiencing the art in ways you never could have in the 'real' world.

now, add to this that i'm also really into music and performing. music is a big part of who i am and it's important to me. so then i started thinking of ways to include that as well in my art. i thought that perhaps it would be cool to choose songs, or music that inspires me and then create a work of immersive art based on that music.

the one song really hitting home with me right now is a song by Missy Higgins called "They Weren't There". Here are some lyrics:

But they weren't there beneath your stare,
and they weren't stripped 'till they were bare
of any bindings from the world outside that room.
And they weren't taken by the hand and led through fields
of naked land where any pre-conceived ideas were blown away...
so I couldn't say "no".

in thinking about the virtual, this song brings a lot of my thoughts into focus. In the virtual world, you're not bound at all by what's in reality, and perhaps much of what a person might see, or do, or experience inside the virtual would 'blow away' any pre-conceived ideas they might have.

today as i was googling for artist quotes, i ran across this quote and was struck by how much it reminded me of the missy higgins lyrics and what i was already thinking:

We can transform reality to the extent that we influence what happens in consciousness and thus free ourselves from the threats and blandishments of the outside world.(Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi)

the virtual really is a place where these things can happen. i'm starting to think that what we need to do is bring more virtual into our current reality.