This was a temporary piece of collaborative virtual art. A space was dedicated for two weeks and I asked well known Second Life creators to come decorate it with their artworks or to create fashion items wearable by avatars. Instead of a theme the artists were given a set of visual rules, colors and object settings. This was an unconventional approach but one which the artists took on enthusiastically.

This video of the resulting collaborative environment was created by Bryn Oh, a well respected artist who does a lot of work within Second Life, pushing the platform in very unique ways.

The work was then opened to the public. Avatars were invited to come acquire the various fashion and explore the environment or interact with it in their preferred ways (Available for users was a bed with poses, free objects to blur their avatars into the environment, sounds, and moving objects.) People were encouraged to take snapshots of their experience and post them online.

The response was bigger than Melt. There were constant visitors during the time the event was open to the public and many screenshots taken and shared by participants and spectators. Some of these resulting snapshots highlighted the environment itself, some of them focused heavily on the fashion. Others focused more on how their avatars were interacting with the environment, using the space itself as a way to express their own emotional sensations.

There were no restrictions on how visitors should interpret the work. In many cases people took straightforward literal snapshots of their avatars standing in the setting with no manipulation, as a tourist might. In some cases, more artistic people used light settings within the game or manipulated their images in photoshop afterwards.

Click on the images to be redirected to the flickr profiles of the snapshot artists.