You are artist and you are brilliant. The public knows that and as soon as you open a new installation your work is flooded by the masses of visitors. It is laggy, the sim crashes. That is no fun! So read here some simple advices how to avoid visitors. Most of you have already some talents in avoiding public attention, but one always can learn from others. Therefore I collected and listed all tricks I know here:
1. Opening times
Only losers are thinking that reliability is needed in SL .This is not RL. So keep the opening times as short as possible. If you already announced opening dates, postpone them! The more rare your art is to see, the higher the interest and less people an make it to see your art. Some masters of this technique made it to open their works for just a week.
2. Prims
Never care about the prim count while building. You are artist and must not stuck to such earthly issues! And as you usually do not pay for your building platform and your installation because you know that the world in SL is honoured enough with your work that you can leave the monetary side to patrons and gallerists.
Many of you don't sell artworks. You have people who are generously allowed by you to pay for you. You don't need money. And in case you sell some pieces: Make sure that the prim count is as high as possible. As I calculated here, a placed artwork of 250 prims costs 32.000 Linden tier a year. So have in mind, that high prims has less chance to be placed and therefore less chance to be admired by others. At the end you reached your goal that your atwork is known and owned by a very small small circle of people in SL.
2. Patrons and Gallerists
Those poor people have such a boring life that they need to pay for the opportunity to get a bit of your glossy shine as brilliant artist by exhibiting your works. Therefore you do right to treat them as condescended as possible. They love it and they deserve it.They know, how lucky they are to have you as artist. You made an agreement? Ignore and forget it! They asked for deadlines or prim count? Ignore or refuse to exhibit! There was a planned exhibition timeline and it is advertised? Ignore and remove your works whenever you feel it is the right moment!
You take part of a corporate exhibition? Forget applications and make sure to send your work as late as possible. Gallerists love surprises. Don't forget to build with high prim count that the gallery is running out of prims last minute. With a bit of luck there is no space anymore for your work. If you accidentally made it to take part, complain about the setting, placement and the lousy other artists which has been invited. The exhausted curator is grateful for good advises last minute. And if you are honoured in a contest don't forget that only losers appreciate a prize gratefully. You deserved it! The gallerist will be happy to invite you next time again.
4. Press and Bloggers
Never send press releases! Isn't it the job of writers to investigate? So if they are worth to write about your work, they should be able to find out. And if you are testing your work and want some feed back, invite your best friends, your current and future lovers, but never an art writer! Who wants to hear honest critics of people who pretend to know what they are talking about? If you mistakenly invited him, ignore the comments. And it could be seen as if you are in despair of public attention, when you keep press people updated of your creation process.
If your gallerist insits in sending a press release, so give him the desired information as late as possible. Have in mind that the best way to avoid publications is to send press releases or invitations when already half SL has seen the work! For magazines it is easy to reach, because they need several weeks of preparation. Bloggers are harder cases. You can invite them just a couple of hours before the opening. Only the fastest will make it to post if they happen to be online at the press hour. If they made it to post around the opening and are responsible for undesired visitors, complain! They are too stupid to understand your genius work, posted too early or are not able to take good photos of the genious outcomes of your brilliant mind. Very helpful are WL Settings, which only allow dull photos. Most of you are very skilled in it. Since you don't give advice for alternatives as good WL settings for photos, for sure you will find a reason to complain and to avoid that way that bloggers have fun to write about you in future. Don't forget, bloggers are the same class as gallerists. These people spend their free time to do unpaid advertising for you. How poor!
If you made the mistake to agree to an interview, there are several ways to handle it. Have in mind that press has deadlines. Forget and postpone appointments or be too exhausted! You are a Diva and the world should respect and admire that! Ask for the interview on a note card and disappear. If you made the mistake to answer on time you still have the possibility to postpone the opening after publication.
If these tricks did not work and the public found you, try the final visitors killer: Spam all art groups at least on a daily base until everyone mutes you!
5. The Opening and Visitors
You could not avoid the opening and now people are coming, you never have seen before. What do to? First off all, relax.The world can wait for you. Postpone the opening, despite you sent invitations.Make sure to have the opening at a time on a working day that makes it either for Americans or for Europeans impossible to attend. And finish your favourite movie in TV before you appear. Don't say hello to visitors and ask your friends and your special someone to stand close to you that nobody dares to talk to you. Disappear with your special someone as fast as possible and keep the information about your work as lousy as possible. Very successfully tested is by many the the trick of endless note cards in their preferred language instead of English.
And here special tips for French and Italian artists: Your language is like music. Shame on all, who learn English instead! They should rather learn from you. You don't speak English, you don't need to! Let them feel it. If you send notes to the art groups - never in English! At the event voice with your friends and let others admire the beautiful sound of your talking. Ignore the text chat completely until all left!
As builder of course you have a computer with fantastic graphics. And of course you build with highest settings. Under no circumstances check how your work would look with low graphic settings! It is not your fault when the majority joins SL with average graphics and / or bad Internet connections. You should rather complain later about the ugly photos you find in Flickr or Facebook.
6. Other Grids
If artists don't find a patron for their building platform, they usually fast start to complain about the high tier and low prims in Second Life and flee to others grids. And quite a few already open their works there to public.
Let me ask you a personal question: Where do you live? Paris, Chicago, Oxford, Canberra? Why so expensive? I was told that in some villages in Inner Siberia the rent for 10 years is less than you pay for a month! And with garden for free!
It is the the infrastructure that makes the difference! And as well in virtual worlds! I used to travel a lot for many years in RL. I was in metropolises as well as in some of the most rural areas of the world and learned something. You can stay relaxed everywhere as long as you have your most needed stuff around you. I never forget how I felt , when I arrived at Moscow in the middle of the night for a fair next morning without my case. That was at that time, when you could not even have your toothpaste, make up and your nail file in the board case. I felt so dirty and ugly! Luckily I landed in a hotel which provided the most needed things. But you never know before arrival. And still I had to visit a fair with my travel clothes in the city with the most elegant women worldwide.
It is the the infrastructure that makes the difference! And as well in virtual worlds! I used to travel a lot for many years in RL. I was in metropolises as well as in some of the most rural areas of the world and learned something. You can stay relaxed everywhere as long as you have your most needed stuff around you. I never forget how I felt , when I arrived at Moscow in the middle of the night for a fair next morning without my case. That was at that time, when you could not even have your toothpaste, make up and your nail file in the board case. I felt so dirty and ugly! Luckily I landed in a hotel which provided the most needed things. But you never know before arrival. And still I had to visit a fair with my travel clothes in the city with the most elegant women worldwide.
And the same feeling I have, when I am urged to go to other grids. If they even let me in after hundreds of downloads and trials, I look and walk like shit! No search function works; I feel blind and helpless. That is really no fun for me as visitor! No artwork is worth to give up my nice avatar. Sorry! And in a special case I realised later that the grid I visited had only 400 (!) registered users!!! Do you really think I write about it? As good as the work can be. So have in mind, that the lower prices of other grids have some reasons. Use it as building place, learn to build smart with low prims and exhibit in SL! Or use that grid as an efficient way to avoid public attention and visitors.
7. Special tips for gallerists
You invite for a special exhibition in your huge gallery. Don't allow your visitors just to see these particular works. All gallery is brilliant and the world should admire it! Therefore urge all to a fixed landing point and give no help to find. Bloggers under time pressure love to explore.
Your gallery surely is the best in SL! Therefore of course everyone has a group space free for your group notes all three months. Invite them into your tiny group, especially press people are tremendously grateful for this occasion! They are honoured to be invited by you, so why should you have a press list?
P.S.: I hope everyone realised that this text is satire. BUT....nothing is fantasy here. Almost all I experienced myself in the last months, a few I heard from other curators. So if you complain next time about the weak number of visitors, check the list and I am sure you will find some topics. Sorry if this theme does not really fit into the Christmas time, but it needed to be out and maybe it is helpful for some. And feel free to complete the list!
12 comments:
Haha Quan, wonderful! If I was an art blogger (and not just someone writing about the avatars named Apmel something or another) I would surely be pissed.
I THANK AND CHEER THE ARTISTS IN SECONDLIFE FOR THE ENORMOUS AMOUNT OF CREATION. I KNOW IT TAKES LONG NIGHTS AND TECHNICAL FRUSTRATIONS AND HUGE AMOUNT OF LINDENS TO UPLOAD MESHES AND TEXTURES. BUT NEVERTHELESS MANY OF YOU KEEP GOING ON, THROW PARTIES, INVITE AND PAY FOR DJ AND SINGERS AT YOUR OPENINGS. ENDURE THE COMPLAINS OF PPLE THAT YOU USE TO MANY PRIMS FOR YOUR FREE ART.THE ENERGY IT TAKES TO GET SOME VISITORS REALLY LOOKING AT YOUR ART AND NOT ONLY COME FOR THE DJ AND THE SOCIALISING.THE MANY TIMES YOU SHRUG YOUR SHOULDERS, BECAUSE AGAIN A PICTUREMAKER FORGOT TO CREDIT YOUR WORK IN THEIR CELIBRATED IMAGES OR MACHINIMAS.
THIS IS NOT MEANT SATIRICAL. I REALLY FEEL AN ENOURMOUS AMOUNT OF ADMIRATION FOR ALL THE EFFORT AND TIME, WHICH IS PUT IN MAKING THE ARTS IN SL FLORISH.
I WISH YOU ALL WONDERFUL HOLIDAYS, ROSE❤
Yes Rose, agreed And not to forget the free noob care on behalf of LL in case you made it in the editor picks.
Funny post with some valid observations. Though we shouldn’t forget the human side: nobody’s perfect, and recognizing this makes things a lot easier (except for people with a “business philosophy”). Reducing the amount of demand we are to each other is a virtue. So I agree with most of your humorous remarks. Except for the part about other grids, where you run out of humor and only have a weak argument instead.
You compare the other grids to Siberia - no shops, no population. One of your main points against art in other grids is that you don’t have enough stuff there to dress your avatar. Besides the fact that not every artist will care, it gives an irritating impression about your thoughts on creativity in the internet.
If ever there is something like a walled-garden, company-controlled world and economy, a natural thought of any artist would be to step beyond that world. If that world develops in parts to a place of narcissists and posers thoughts about Wanderlust occur even more naturally.
The optimist view of the internet is that anyone can find a place to develop her creativity. It is up to each of us to find that place and start doing stuff. That place may be SL or a grid in the OpenSim world. SL certainly is not the only, and not even the most natural place to make art. Comparing contingent features of the grids does not at all settle the question, in the same way as the comparison between Paris and Siberia fails. David Hume nailed it in the age of enlightenment: “What is the meaning therefore of those general preferences of the town or country life ... when besides the different inclinations of different men, every one's experience may convince him, that each of these kinds of life is agreeable in its turn, and that their variety ...chiefly contributes to the rendering all of them agreeable.”
I have seen some of the best, creative or funny builders in OpenSim, and I have witnessed a good deal of bourgeois, square and immature behavior in SL. It is a mixed bag - everywhere.
So there is nothing left to do than to appreciate the good stuff - regardless of the grid.
Saying that SL has more visitors than OpenSim is one thing, but ridiculing creativity in OpenSim is something more. I don’t think that artists need advice on this. If art is business for you watch out for the glamor and the mindless groupies. If art is still art for you, just make art.
Please don't mix creativity and the presentation of artworks. If it was only about creativity, the the artist can work at his own computer and nobody cares. But if an artist is seeking for public attention as most do, they have to follow some market rules if they want or not. And this article was meant to reveal the mistakes maken by many.
An excellent post, Quan! Artists who want any sort of recognition need to read your advice. To help spread the word, I'm linking to your post from my own blog. The SL art world should thank you!
Artists who want any kind of recognition, should just make their Art. Doesn't mind if they behave badly or good, it is not about their behavior, it is about what they create. Artist are not seeking for public attention, Art is made for public attention - it needs public attention. I thank Quan for her wonderful blog and her continuous travel and seeking for virtual art, but I don't thank her for this post. I hope we can quickly forget it, and artist do not need to read it "to want any sort of recognition". We are no children and many of us are professionals.
Honestly I hope that this post is not quickly forgotten. It is not about professionalism in arts, it is about professionalism in simple marketing rules. And here I have my serious doubts and not only in SL. In RL I once said, many artists have an inbuild success destructor. As soon as they are in danger to become successful they start to act as foolish as possible. I tried to point out the typical mistakes done in SL.
Yes, I understand. And to some degree you are right. But in my view that is not enough to say "avoid other grids". Public attention is a matter (a lot of) artists struggle with. The two imperatives "Make art for art's sake" and "Receive public attention" not always go well with one another. I know you know that. I am just philosophizing. And there is a lot more to say about that.
But the most important thing is to wish you a merry christmas and a wonderful time. Many happy! :-)
Jackson Pollock pissed in Peggy Guggenheim's fireplace at a party held in his honor. The writer and critic of art, in my mind, has a different curiosity of Art that is separate from the maker of Art. I have been schooled both in Studio Art and Art History and sometimes I think it was a mistake to know and read historical criticism as an artist. That being said, I do understand the symbiotic relationship of what is made and what is seen. Your satire is good and to me it establishes you as someone with a perspective, I like that.
Hahaha, brilliant! Just as a side note: I study Chinese Astrology for may years now. Artistic skills can be found in a birth chart by a constellation wich means translated 'Hurting Authority'.
Now that we know you have wit, use it! “Honesty: The best of all the lost arts” Mark Twain.
Post a Comment