Art Galleries of Second Life

Kiosks Back to Normal - Soon

2011-10-24T06:30:00.000-07:00

Good news - I've successfully tested a new web host with the kiosk system and it seems to be working fine. I have not had time to do extensive testing, but the system is on the way to working again. It will take a day or two before the LL servers "catch up" with where the new website is, but they will just start working again... soon.

I decided that waiting on LL to fix this problem was simply too risky. It's been a week already, that's one week too long for the whole system to be down. The solution basically involved a ton of work to evaluate, find, and configure a new web hosting site, which means, it's a new IP address that, luckily, the LL servers don't have a problem communicating with.

Does this mean the same problem won't happen again? I have no idea, since we don't know the cause. Once LL figures this out, I suppose they will fix the problem so it doesn't bite anyone else, or me, again.

It's been a long night, I'm tired. This whole ordeal has fried my brain completely. But I think at this point the light at the end of the tunnel is rapidly approaching... it's just a matter of time before things start working again.

LL Punts Me to JIRA

2011-10-22T15:58:00.001-07:00

Got a reply back from LL support today. They said that I am not the only site affected by this problem, but gave me no details on that (which would have been extremely helpful) and that the solution is to file a JIRA. This is a significant blow and it looks like we are not out of the woods yet. I am disappointed that it took LL 5 days to tell me "file a JIRA". I have no idea how long it will take for them to investigate the new JIRA bug and fix it.

Today I tried one good potentical technical solution today (a fixed IP for you geeks out there) to no avail, that IP address is blocked by LL as well, so that didn't pan out. Plan B is to move to a new web host, which I am in the process of doing. With any luck they won't be blocked and the kiosks will just start working again.

I have created the JIRA bug and hope that all of you can go ~~vote~~ WATCH that bug (LL ignores votes, apparently!) to show that you care about art in Second Life and don't want to see this list and all the hard work I put into it over the years go down in flames. As well as my entire SL business and reason for being here :(

I am also sending out a personal message to everyone that owns one of my kiosks, so you may be receiving that as well, with an explanation and link to the JIRA to encourage everyone affected by this server bug to go vote on the JIRA. By demonstrating that this affects a lot of people I hope we can get this bug the attention it actually deserves. Thank you.

Linden Labs Shuts Me Down

2011-10-21T14:38:00.000-07:00

Four days ago for reasons unknown, all communication between any scripted object anywhere on the grid and the IP address of my web application (that runs the Galleries of SL kiosks) at http://sasun.info stopped working. Testing shows that my web app is functioning perfectly fine and is in fact working for kiosks on the Avination grid. Avination is able to communicate to my web app, no problem. HTTP communication to other domains from the SL grid work fine. The only combination that does not work is http requests from SL to my website's IP address.

The only sensible conclusion is that either LL or my web host are blocking these http requests. A quick call to my web host confirmed that they do not block any IP addresses from their shared hosting IP addresses at all, it is up to their customers to block IP addresses on a doman-by-domain basis. In other words, if someone is trying to hack into http://sasun.info (which in fact just happened yesterday, unrelated to this case), I have to block any such offending IPs in my application myself. So... no blocking going on there.

So the obvious conclusion here is that LL is for some reason blocking all http requests from any and all of their servers (which means, the entire grid) to my web app. It may be possible that there is something in between that is blocking these, or some technical issue on LL's end that's not blocking them on purpose but some bad side-effect of the recent OS upgrades (hint, hint, LL) that's stopping http requests from working to my domain (and possibly many others, I have no idea).

All of this is perfecty understandable, though unfortunate. Software is buggy, problems crop up, upgrades cause problems, gremlins sneak into the wires and make things go crazy. I may be just the unlucky victim of bad luck somewhere between LL and my web host.

Or am I? It turns out I am not the only IP address that has been blocked by LL. One person I talked to had a very similar story and their solution was a lot of work on their part to move to a different IP address. For me, that would involve quite a bit of expense and work but is something I am going to investigate today since there is no way for me, or any of the "regular" support people at LL, to even tell me what the status of my issue is.

So here is the frustrating and critical failing of LL in this whole debacle - their unbelievably bad handling of this problem so far. As soon as I filed the case I jumped onto a chat session and was politely told that they would escalate the issue to from a normal "case ticket" to a "technical assistance" issue, meaning that it goes to the real support people that don't solve the stupid questions. Great! It's obviously critical to me and a bunch of other SL business owners so this should get fixed soon, right?

Days go by and I hear absolutely nothing. Every day I start a chat session to find out what is going on, and every time I tell them how critical this issue is and how vital it is that I get some kind of update or acknowledgement that it's being looked into. It turns out that the front-line chat support people have NO WAY to communicate with the "technical assistance" people working on any particular support case. From today's chat session:

You: It has been 4 days and affects well over 6,000 kiosks across the grid. Is there any way to get an ETA when this issue will be fixed? Every single scripted object (approximately 7,000) across the grid that communicates to my web site has not been working for 4 days. I've been in the dark this whole time.

RebeccaH: I do apologize but I don't have access to the technical support operations information.

You: so you guys are cut off from them, there's no way to update customers on what is going on?

RebeccaH: I'm sorry but that is correct, I don't have access to their information or a way to communicate with them.

Uh, what? Support team A has no way to communicate with support team B? Seriously, really, the live chat support people have no access to support information or any way to communicate with the technical assistance people?

Furthermore I was told that the technical assistance cases are unprioritized - there is no way to prioritize them. So every non-critical issue is in line with every severe "my business is down" case and is prioritized fist come, first serve. This is a disaster! Any support business in the universe needs to prioritize cases and get to the high-impact, "server down" cases first!

I can guarantee you that LL's own internal IT support department, for example, doesn't prioritize strictly by first-come-first-serve basis. So if an LL intern requests a different colored mouse from the IT department, he's ahead of the CEO whose video card died and is stopping him from getting his job done? I seriously doubt it!!

So why in heavens name would they refuse to prioritize customer cases and make the critical cases that are going to have wide-spread negative effects on the success of Second Life (there are products and content creators that falling into this category, obviously) higher priority? In effect what they are saying is that if LL stops your entire business from functioning, we don't consider that more important than anything else, so you'll need to wait a week for us to get around to it. Great!

I can't begin to express how frustrated I am with LL. I have been sweating over this the whole time, and working like crazy to supply customers with some level of functionality for their broken products. I'm obsessively checking to see if things are working again, since it drives me absolutely nuts to have so many customers unhappy and unable to use my products like this.

I have done some work to port my kiosk network to other grids such as avination and inWorldz, which so far as been very successful. This incident has convinced me I need to step up those efforts so that I can help them compete with LL as much as possible. Having a list of art galleries on avination, inWorldz, and other grids would be very cool and help them grow, not to mention put some products up for sale on those grids as well.

Furthermore I'm taking a hard look at my involvement in such things as the Linden Endowment for the Arts, which I put a rediculous amount of work into for no benefit of my own. I am boycotting any such voluteer work for a company that won't even give me the courtesy of a "hi we got your issue and are working on it, sorry about that" response until such time as this issue is fixed. If that is never, so be it. I don't know why I should work so hard to benefit a company that when the rubber hits the road, really doesn't care, and if they do, they have completely failed to show it.

Hot This Month

2011-08-24T18:52:00.000-07:00

One thing I have added to the list just recently is a "Hot This Month" checkbox that shows galleries that are getting a lot of ratings in the past 30 days. It's a nice snapshot of which galleries are movin' and shakin', maybe they had an event recently and garnered a bunch of new ratings, or it's by an artist that's gotten some notoriety lately and is getting visitors, whatever it is, people are visiting and rating. It's experimental but so far I like it - please let me know what you think!

Art Galleries of SL facelift

2011-05-25T01:23:00.000-07:00

I have finally done a full on redesign of the Galleries of SL list. The more you learn the more you realize how much better you could have done something you made in the past so... time for a makeover!

Leave your comments here on this blog. If you'd like all the gory details about the redesign, read on!

The intent of the redesign was to make something much more pleasing to the eye, yet still functional and intuitive to use.

First, the website has a distinct 4-color scheme (a tetrad of some warm and cold colors to contrast) and a simple 4-color bar logo used to present a pattern to the eye. The site is laid out in a simple grid format, and is fluid - if your page gets narrower, the columns resize, then the site will pop into a 2-column format, so it looks good no matter what size browser you use. Try it!

The options are now arranged nicely in 4 boxes on top so it's much easier to see where they are and set them.

For you web types out there, it uses pure CSS, HTML, and jQuery so it loads fast. I converted it from an aspx page and got rid of all the server-side code and replaced it all with javascript and jQuery. It uses ajax to get more galleries to display when you scroll to the bottom, so there is no longer a "page size" setting, you can just scroll forever! It does not use postbacks like the old .aspx page did, it's all ajax, fast and light(er). I'm using a simple fluid column layout for the grid rather than a fixed width.

I am using some modern browser features such as fill gradients, nice rounded corners, and dropshadows, so if you are running an old browser, or IE (god forbid), the experience may not be as nice, so UPGRADE your browser!! So many good websites are taking advantage of HTML5, CSS3, and modern features, you're missing out if you have an old browser. And avoid IE like the plague, it's just NOT compatible with so many modern browser features. Or upgrade to IE9 at least, it's not as horrid, but the gallery list will still not look right, for sure, due to the missing feature support.

The gallery reviews are still there, click on the images to get a popup. I plan on doing some more thinking on the review presentation, possibly redesigning that simple dialog box, but that works pretty well as it is.

I also plan on replacing the "Slurl" line with a simple and familiar orange TP button. I think people don't care what the slurl address text is, they just want to go. Having a TP button will remove some text, which will de-clutter the display a bit more which is a Good Thing.

If I do decide to revamp the rating system (see previous post) the rating stars will be replaced with a simple display of the current "like" count for that gallery, and perhaps a "likes/month" number to help sort them more appropriately (or perhaps some weighted combo of both, not sure yet).

So far I'm very happy with the new site, it looks much better and more pleasing, and much less cluttered to the eye. Less like a spreadsheet and more like a list of Art Galleries :)

Gallery Rating System revamp

2011-05-16T04:08:00.000-07:00

I have been doing some thinking on the current gallery rating "5 star" system and I am seriously thinking of doing a complete overhaul some time soon.

I would like to dispense with the star ratings and instead have a simple Like model, similar to Facebook. The star rating graphic on the kiosks and tour HUDs will be replaced with a simple "Like" button and if people like your gallery, they can click it.

One advantage is that it's very simple and will match the same model that LL uses on the Destination guide.

I will convert all 4 and 5 star ratings to a "Like" in the new system when I make the change and simply delete all 1, 2, and 3 star ratings. On the gallery list page (which is also going through a complete redesign btw) all you will see is the number of Likes, just like facebook does. There will no longer be 1-5 star votes - only likes.

This means that a gallery that does a good job of getting people to Like them on their gallery kiosk will be high on the list, so it's more a simple numbers game than trying to get 5-star votes and no bad votes. The current system is just too problematic in that the vast majority of the votes are 5 star votes, so one 4 star vote can send someone tumbling far down the list. In effect, everyone is giving galleries either 5 stars or nothing already. The big difference in the sorting order is that the raw number of votes will now be very important, and in the current system it is much less important than the average star rating, which is what they are sorted on now. The current system uses a Bayesian rating system which "penalizes" galleries with a low number of ratings so that a single 5-star rating won't plop you at the top of the gallery list.

This will also completely remove any griefing done by people rating galleries 1 star for personal reasons, and there are, for reasons I can't comprehend, a few people that give out nothing but 1 star ratings. Which is just completely pointless and it pollutes the database with garbage. Why go visit galleries if you just hate them all and give them lousy ratings? So this will completely solve that problem too.

The new system is not perfect either, since galleries that are strategically placed in very high traffic areas will probably get more clicks than a gallery that's great but is out of the way. So both systems have their faults but I think the facebook Like model is going to work out better in the long run. I'm still gathering feedback on that idea, so it's not set in stone yet, but that's my thinking. I'd love to hear what you think!

Talk at Palais "Marketing Art and Photography" Symposium

2011-01-20T19:13:00.000-08:00

Earlier this week I did a talk on Running a Successful Art Gallery. I stole a few tidbits from previous talks on the same topic, best practices and such. Hopefully you'll find something useful here!

Big thanks to madison Arnahan who came up with the idea of the talk series and organized the whole thing. I love it!

madison Arnahan: hi all .. what a great turnout ... and I think it underscores the relevance of the topic .. and what our speaker tonight can lend to that topic
madison Arnahan: Sasun has been in the eye of the storm .. on the forefront of the battle .. what other metaphors ?
Sandra Lee (sandralee.palianta): dead center of the cross hairs
GeeJAnn Blackadder: Leading The Parade
Sasun Steinbeck: more like Lead Clown of the Crazy Circus!
Sasun Steinbeck: and I wouldn't want it either way, you creative peeps are the best :)
madison Arnahan: Her drive to elevate art and art galleries in reknown .. Palais SL Magazine is honored to host this event and to have Sasun lead it off .. who else could fill the bill . so please welcome Sasun Steinbeck
Sasun Steinbeck: aw thank you!
Em Larsson: clap clap clap
Skylarian Isachenko: Waves a sparkler
Devilana Nirvana claps and whistles
Lyrilen Moonshadow applause
Sasun Steinbeck: thanks again to madison for putting this whole series together
GeeJAnn Blackadder: Applause!!
Sasun Steinbeck: we've got some other kick-ass speakers for later talks in the series
Sasun Steinbeck: well welcome everyone, I know lots of you are very experienced gallery owners
Sasun Steinbeck: I'm not going to stand her and drone on for 60 minutes, I'd like to get LOTS of comments from all of you
Sasun Steinbeck: since you have a lot of good stuff to share and best practices, I know
Sasun Steinbeck: so chime in with your thoughts or tidbits please!!
Sasun Steinbeck: I'd like to put in a plug for my group as we get things rolling here. I want people to know that help with this topic is available from quite a few sources - your fellow gallery owners are always willing to help, and asking questions of this sort are exactly what the Art Gallery Owner's group is for, so please join and ask about how to build and manage your gallery :)
Sasun Steinbeck: over to my right of the stage are 4 little kiosks, the one on the right will help you join the group if you are interested
Sandra Lee (sandralee.palianta): being an "experienced SL Gallery Owner" is kinda like a homeless person being a proud box owner
Sasun Steinbeck: hehehe :D
Armany Thursday: smiles
Callipygian Christensen waits for someone to say ohh..with only 42 groups I am afraid I don't have room
Em Larsson: he he he
Armany Thursday: lololololol
Sasun Steinbeck: if you are a gallery owner and NOT on my gallery list at http://sasun.info/artgalleriesofSL.aspx, click the 2nd kiosk to the left of that one, t hat will give you a kiosk requester
Sasun Steinbeck: so that's my first tip on being a successful gallery owner
Sasun Steinbeck: get on the list! Get a kiosk, set it up, and you will immediately be added to the list
Skylarian Isachenko: Yep, very helpful
Sasun Steinbeck: once you're on the list, work those gallery ratings to your advantage
Sasun Steinbeck: encourage people that say nice things to you to rate your gallery! that pushes you up the list
Sasun Steinbeck: the galleries on the list are sorted by rating, so it's good to move up the list
Sasun Steinbeck: if someone says your art sucks, don't mention the rating stars! lol
Skylarian Isachenko: Its a great way to spend an after noon also, just clicking through the galleries
Sasun Steinbeck: while I'm talking about the kiosks, I have two more, with some freebies in them, one is my free art resizer, click it to get one, and to the left of that is a little kit you can use to make kiosks to advertise events
Sasun Steinbeck: the latter is open source and free, so look at the scripts to learn a few tricks and pass it along to others
Sasun Steinbeck: so... onto the main topic
Sasun Steinbeck: how to be a successful gallery owner
Sasun Steinbeck: obviously the definition of success here is important
Sasun Steinbeck: For many artists, just the fact that people want to view their work is more than enough. What is important to you? Your personal statement? Cash flow? Maybe both? That's OK, but you should think about what it is so you can set expectations for yourself. If you take the time to nurture and maintain your gallery, it will bring you the satisfaction you desire - you will only get out of it what you put into it.
Skylarian Isachenko: Meeting your personal goals as a gallery or artist is one
Sasun Steinbeck: yes exactly
Sasun Steinbeck: and those are for you to set
Sasun Steinbeck: if you are happy making no sales, and you are tickled pink by talking to people that love your art, you'll be happier than someone trying to earn a lot of money selling art
Sasun Steinbeck: because trust me, you will NOT make a lot of money! If you want money, you're in the wrong business!
Sasun Steinbeck: But if you create art for the love of it, and you pour yourself into it, maybe the money will come. But you need to be in a position where you just don't care if it does or not, since it won't at first, I can guarantee that! Eventually you can work on the marketing aspects and get help from others to do that, and next thing you know you'll be making some money.
Skylarian Isachenko: It can however be very useful as a tool to get people out there looking at your RL art and you can and do make sales there.
Sasun Steinbeck: absolutely true
Sasun Steinbeck: It's a great way to cross-pollinate between your Deviant Art page, or commercial art sales website. Just the other day I was talking to someone that made a RL sale from an SL customer, so it definitely happens. Make sure your customers are aware of the fact that they can buy your art for RL too, and where your website is. Take advantage of the free visitor counter in your Galleries of SL kiosk to give out notecards with your website on it or an email address to contact if they are interested in buying something in RL.
Skylarian Isachenko: I am making quite a few sales of rl calendars for the St Tiggywinkle animal hospital via the Isle of Wyrms
Skylarian Isachenko: created from the avatars of the dragons, doing pretty well actually
Sasun Steinbeck: The Gallery listing also lets you configure a website link with your listing, so people can click it and go to your website, hopefully make a sale or two from the traffic
Sasun Steinbeck: So as a new gallery owner, what are some of the key things you can do to "get plugged in" and start down the path to a happy and successful career as an art gallery owner?
Sasun Steinbeck: I've got a few ideas and would love to hear yours :)
Devilana Nirvana: is that listing solely for art galleries or also for photo studios that have a gallery to the front of their shop?
Skylarian Isachenko: That does bring up a point you might want to make clear to people, because sl has the whole anonomus thing, explain to them if, its true of course that their information cannot be be connected back to their sl selves
Sasun Steinbeck: I would consider a photo studio with a gallery to be an art gallery, sure
Sasun Steinbeck: yes that is a good point
Sasun Steinbeck: if you want to make RL sales, then don't count on staying anonymous, is my advice
Skylarian Isachenko: I have complete transparnece, rl and sl, but customers like to stay hidden
Skylarian Isachenko: so I use a service that sells my work for me
Jewle Rae: Frankly, almost every aspect of SL is "Art"
Skylarian Isachenko: I never see who buys stuff
Sasun Steinbeck: yes absolutely, so that's a real good thing to think about. you know all those annoying "privacy notices" you get in the mail from banks and whatnot
Armany Thursday: so true, Jewle
Lyrilen Moonshadow: I made that point just the other day Jewle
Sasun Steinbeck: it would be great to make a simple one so that people know exactly where the boundaries are when it comes to them puchasing RL art
Em Larsson: What service do you use, Skylarian?
Sasun Steinbeck: yes make it clear that, if you have things set up to where you never see thier RL info if you make a sale, that potential purchasers know that
Sasun Steinbeck: so they will feel safe to buy something
Skylarian Isachenko: Deviant Art Prints, mostly, some Zazzle
Em Larsson: Thanks.
Adair Chauveau: Selling art online by PayPal helps to keep both seller and buyer private.
Sasun Steinbeck: very good point, yes. They will see your paypal email though, I suppose
Sasun Steinbeck: and vice-versa
Adair Chauveau: yes
Skylarian Isachenko: yes, and you get their shipping address too
Sasun Steinbeck: privacy is a very good thing to understand and make clear, one way or another
Sasun Steinbeck: yes
Sasun Steinbeck: even still, there are many people that want to buy from you in RL and will do so
Sasun Steinbeck: so if that's a goal of yours, put some thought into marketing that to potential customers in SL
Skylarian Isachenko: I do get those that buy from me direct because they want my signature, and then its pretty obvious its open informaiton
GeeJAnn Blackadder: Sasun , Have you some advice on how we can have our Gallery better known ?
Sasun Steinbeck: that's a great question
Sasun Steinbeck: there are quite a few good ways
Sasun Steinbeck: I would say probably the traditional, tried-and-true method is via hosting events
Sasun Steinbeck: Events - are the key thing that help promote the gallery and bring more buyers in. If you have a huge friends list, one tactic is to just spin it like a party for friends and invite everyone in your friends list. If you know how to DJ music, or have a DJ friend, that's perfect.
Sasun Steinbeck: Another is to throw an event every time you have a change, such as a new guest artist on display or if you own a multi-gallery area, when a new artist rents a spot as a way of introduction. I would highly recommend you talk to some of the larger gallery owners about throwing events, I'm sure they will have a lot of great tips for you.
Sandra Lee (sandralee.palianta): wine & cheese
Sasun Steinbeck: events are time-consuming, but they can be a lot of fun
Sasun Steinbeck: and doing an event from time to time will keep people coming in
Araminta Kroitschov: and you meet fantastic people
Skylarian Isachenko: Fit the event to your resources too, its not good to have people not able to get there because your venue cannot support enough agents
Sasun Steinbeck: yes absolutely, it is a great way to meet other artists and gallery owners and pump them for info :)
Sasun Steinbeck: Yes thank you Skylarian, good point
FreeWee Ling: I've found that most peope who come to an event are there for the party rather than the art. Good parties though.
Callipygian Christensen: Free - I avoid that by not making a music act the focus
Sasun Steinbeck: There are a lot of details to attend to. Now that I think about it, I don't really know where a checklist of things to do for an event would be
Sasun Steinbeck: I think that would be really great to have
Sandra Lee (sandralee.palianta): indeed
Skylarian Isachenko: Each type of event has its own issues
Sasun Steinbeck: yes
Skylarian Isachenko: as IOW events planner, trust me, I know.. grins
Em Larsson: I agree with Calli though - music call actually distract people from the art.
Sasun Steinbeck: That's an interesting point, the music. I think it's been really effective in most cases to meld a music event of some sort with a visual art event
Sasun Steinbeck: for one that brings in people that may not have come purely for the art
Jewle Rae: There are wonderful classes on conducting events every other Sunday morning in SL
FreeWee Ling: Yes
Skylarian Isachenko: careful choice of music helps
Sasun Steinbeck: oh where is that Jewle?
Araminta Kroitschov: It's great for my space at the Chelsea, it doubles the visitors
Callipygian Christensen: I disagee mostly Sasun, but will be happy to debate that after or another time :)
Sasun Steinbeck: tell us what your experience is Calli, that would be great
Cat Boccaccio: and you can hire people to organize and host the events, also
Sasun Steinbeck: yes Cat VERY good tip, if you're not good at event planning, there are people that are - hire an expert!
Skylarian Isachenko: An art auction is a lovely means of doing things, but the most effective I have seen personally was when it was done for a charity, you get a lot of other people promoting the event for you.
Callipygian Christensen: IME very few of the fans that follow a musical artist take time to look at the art..at your next event see how many can name an image or two from the exhibit once they leave..
Sasun Steinbeck: I have seen events where the music is a bit *too* much the focus... for example having the stage be *away* from the art - well that could make a nice music concert but not help market your art at all :(
Callipygian Christensen: but their presence slows down rez and the chance to etiehr get into the sim or see the art when they are there for those who are there for the art
Jewle Rae: The classes are run by NCI. I have a folder of notes and SURL
Jewle Rae: How to share with everyone is the question I have.
Sasun Steinbeck: Oh yes that is a good point, many of your guests will be members of the performer's group
Callipygian Christensen: so if you want a party, go for it- if you want people focussed on looking at the art, stream your own music..that lets you even talk to those attending too
Skylarian Isachenko: DJ who are also artists are very good for such events
Callipygian Christensen shuts up now lol
Em Larsson: I totally agree CAlli
Skylarian Isachenko: they understand the challenges
FreeWee Ling: One key is to plan events carefully so you develop a reputation for quality. That goes for the art, too, of course. But you want repeat traffic. Devotees
Sasun Steinbeck: yes you can definitely tone down the music, I would say especially if you have a very compelling theme for your exhibition... something that you don't want to detract from... having a "big show" might not be the right thing to do
Dyce Underwood: Yes and a lot of the times People that come out for a music event and see the art, Have a better chance of returning then if there were no art...
Dyce Underwood: No one knows who loves art
Cat Boccaccio: when I had two well-known performers at my Beach Gallery opening, I had a huge turnout, people looked at and bought art, and I got many new group member... Just my experience
Sasun Steinbeck: yes FreeWee, that's true, I know from my own experience that I have certain people that I love to go since I know it will be fun
Armany Thursday: if anybody has a resource list....DJs, performers....streams that are good for openings..would really appreciate if they were willing to share ?
Skylarian Isachenko: Its a delicate balance too as you really cannot run a music event all day, yet you would like to have folk visiting through out the day
Sasun Steinbeck: balance is right, and I think you need to talk to others to get some perspective, then just learn by doing, figure out what works for you for the type of art, the venue, and your style
FreeWee Ling: That's another question. How do you plan the time for an event in a global environment?
Skylarian Isachenko: I can give you a name, Gwen Carillon marvelous DJ that is also an exquisit artist
Sasun Steinbeck: oh very good question. I can tell you that any time you pick is the wrong time.
Armany Thursday: awesome...ty so much Sky ?
Callipygian Christensen: arranging a jint exhibit is a good way to expose nw people to your art - both artists benefit from having the othrs' regulars attend and view
Callipygian Christensen: 'joint'
Sasun Steinbeck: I would say that one possible time when most people are only are approximately 5pm-ish SL time
Sasun Steinbeck: but then that's real late for Europe
Sasun Steinbeck: 10am is not so great for USA, but that's roughly 6pm-ish for Europe
Sasun Steinbeck: really the only solution is to run TWO events
Sasun Steinbeck: one for USA, one for Europe
Skylarian Isachenko: Fishing events can be quite helpful also, believe it or not, you can set art around the fishing sits, and they become captive audience, especially if its sea type art
Sasun Steinbeck: or just stagger your event times
Callipygian Christensen: or try saturday or sunday afternoon
Sasun Steinbeck: yes, just be aware that a lot of art events are usually packed into saturdays and sundays
FreeWee Ling: or Australia.
Callipygian Christensen: 1 PM SL time covers a large poart of the world
Sasun Steinbeck: chances of a collision are higher
FreeWee Ling: UWA is in Perth, which is SLT*15 I thi8nk.
Bobbi Laval: really it's all a double edge sword, you can't be all for everyone, if you do prime time events, then there is also so much more competition from all the other events
FreeWee Ling: +
Bobbi Laval: so sometimes off hour events have a great draw, just from less competition
Skylarian Isachenko: Consider doing a day long event that is mostly audience participation so they come, they are entertained by the exhibit, have some buffet set out and a nice stream running
GeeJAnn Blackadder: Sasun are there other methods to improve the traffic to the Gallery ?
Sasun Steinbeck: yes I was going to talk about advertising
Sasun Steinbeck: there are some key art groups to join and advertise on
Skylarian Isachenko: Hunts can improve traffic but may not make sales
Jewle Rae: According to the experts in the classes I took and the top event promoters and producers I interiewed over this past year most successful attended events start on half hour.
Sasun Steinbeck: the ideal way is to advertise your event well before hand, at least a few days in advance if not more
Lyrilen Moonshadow: but, if you only display, and not sell - do you qualify for hunts, really?
Sasun Steinbeck: then, send out another notice right before the event starts
Sasun Steinbeck: you'll get a lot of drop-ins that way
Skylarian Isachenko: uummmm depends on the hunt rules I suppose
Skylarian Isachenko: each one is different
Skylarian Isachenko: One other quite good point, Multi language notes
Skylarian Isachenko: advertise in many languages
Sasun Steinbeck: so I would recommend joining another group that I help manage, the Art & Artist Network
Sasun Steinbeck: it is invite only to reduce spam
Sasun Steinbeck: and a great place to advertise events
Sasun Steinbeck: also, check out Open This End
Mathilde Vhargon: I have been running hunts every month for several months and got no sales from them, even though they are one of the best hunt organizer's hunts, we give a nice gift, and we get a steady stream of hunters every day.
Dyce Underwood: Sasun may armany and I have an Invite please
Sasun Steinbeck: and another group I joined recently, .:SL Art:.
Em Larsson: I think hunts ecourage people who like freebies. At least that is my experience.
Sasun Steinbeck: yes for the A&AN group I'd be glad to invite you, please IM me and I'll get to you after the talk is done
Dyce Underwood: Thank you
Sasun Steinbeck: so those are some key groups to spam event info
Em Larsson: SL ArT?
Sasun Steinbeck: i would also recommend you take one of my free event kiosk kits
FreeWee Ling: I go on hunts and I always look around the shops. Often buy stuff.
Em Larsson: Is that the name? Or do I need the punctuation?
Sasun Steinbeck: hm maybe you do
Sasun Steinbeck: the punctuation is part of the name
Em Larsson: Thanks
Sasun Steinbeck: the kiosk it is stage right, furthest on the left there
Sasun Steinbeck: it says "Sassy's advertising kiosk sample"
Ginette Pinazzo: Id also mention to think abut groups that may not be art groups per se, but may relate to whatever theme yoru show is about
Adair Chauveau: What about themes and niche art?
Sasun Steinbeck: so use that kit to create a kiosk that gives out yoru event info and LMs, etc.
Sasun Steinbeck: and send that kiosk out when you make an event announcement
Sasun Steinbeck: also give it to your friends to have them help advertise
Sasun Steinbeck: and set it up everywhere you can
Sasun Steinbeck: that will help get word out
Bobbi Laval wishes she had friends
Sandra Lee (sandralee.palianta): my bf would wear it on his head
Sasun Steinbeck: LOL Bobbi
Lyrilen Moonshadow waves at her friend Bobbi
Callipygian Christensen: Bobbi..phhht
Sasun Steinbeck: heheh perfect
Bobbi Laval giggles
Sasun Steinbeck: another general tip - use the Gallery Owner group, the group's purpose is for group chat about things relevant to gallery owners (not event announcements!)
Sasun Steinbeck: so that's a great place to ask for opinions on really anything we've been talking about today
Adair Chauveau: Are people in SL who go to galleries as educated about art as people who go to galleries in RL? Would educational events help that?
Skylarian Isachenko: its the real world, just disquised
Araminta Kroitschov: Educational events always help in RL and SL :)
madison Arnahan grins
Skylarian Isachenko: unless its an erotic gallery.....
Lyrilen Moonshadow: oh - I like that Sky
Armany Thursday: educational events are a huge community service imo
Adair Chauveau: Thanks
madison Arnahan: Like this maybe ?
Sasun Steinbeck: Adair that's a great question, I don't really know, and don't think any studies have been done, but I would have to hazard a guess that there are a lot of "hobbyist" artists and art lovers in SL
Adair Chauveau smiles and nods. This is great!
Skylarian Isachenko: People forget, this is still the same people, we do not transform just because we come here
Sasun Steinbeck: I can tell you that for me, I was never interested in art until my rez day a long time ago
Lyrilen Moonshadow: is there some separation... some labelling or anything between galleries who show RL art in SL and those who show SL art in SL?
Skylarian Isachenko: A nit wit will still be a nitwit
Sasun Steinbeck: hm no Lyrilen, I don't have any kind of categorization like that, but that would be very cool
Skylarian Isachenko: Hmmm I show RL in SL, SL in RL, SL in SL, and mixed in both.
Adair Chauveau: I know some University Art classes in SL but they seem to not know much about groups like this.
Em Larsson: I became an artist in SL.. then a RL artist after that.
FreeWee Ling: Anybody selling SL art in rl?
Skylarian Isachenko: oh my yes
Armany Thursday: wow Em....awesome!!
Sasun Steinbeck: Yeah you know one consistent problem has been that group A doesn't know that there's a group B doing the same darn thing just abouit
Em Larsson: I do
Skylarian Isachenko: my calendars are one example
Mathilde Vhargon: I also became an artist in SL
Em Larsson: Just recently at a local show I had in RL I sold SL art.
Sasun Steinbeck: I think SL is a great place to spread your wings and become an artist
Skylarian Isachenko: in once sense SL is like using Poser and Bryce
FreeWee Ling: Cool. Calendar is a nice idea.
Skylarian Isachenko: the avatars are a lot harder to mange though
Skylarian Isachenko: they have minds of their own
Sasun Steinbeck: I think we have a bajillion ametuer photographers in SL :) which is a good thing
Armany Thursday: lololol Sky
Sasun Steinbeck: separating the junk frojm the good stuff can be challenging
Sasun Steinbeck: that's why I created the gallery ratings
Skylarian Isachenko: that is the case in anything,
Sasun Steinbeck: yeah true :)
Jayjay Zifanwe: there will be a unit called '21st Century Art' at UWA, and one of the lectures will be about art in SL
Skylarian Isachenko: splatter paint on a canvas and call it art
Krishanna Magic: Just like RL, Sasun ;)
Skylarian Isachenko: sigh
Sasun Steinbeck: excellent Jayjay that sounds very interesting
Lyrilen Moonshadow: my Exhibit Hall is for the 80% of the bajillion that don't show anywhere else - just to share the thrill of sharing their photos
Sasun Steinbeck: one thing I would love to see is more RL press about SL art... it happens from time to time, and efforts like Jayjay's at the UWA are doing wonders on that front
Mathilde Vhargon: Do you have any suggestions on how best to get visitors to rate the gallery and maybe leave a review on the kiosk. I get quite a few comments, but none seem to get put on the kiosk thing, and people aren't hitting the stars eigher
Mathilde Vhargon: either
Sasun Steinbeck: but it's been a long tough climb to legitimze virtual art as a real art form with RL critics
Sasun Steinbeck: I have a special rating kiosk I can give you
Sasun Steinbeck: the intent is to put it near the "exit" of your gallery so people see it on the way out
Skylarian Isachenko: yes, well you can blme some of that on the people using the programs to create garbage....
Sasun Steinbeck: and remember to rate the gallery
Sasun Steinbeck: also in your visitor counter, encourage them to click the stars to rate your gallery!
Lyrilen Moonshadow: people don't "leave" galleries in SL though... they port out
Sasun Steinbeck: so Im me and I'd be glad to send you one of those rating kiosks
Mathilde Vhargon: That will help
Em Larsson: I did a simultaneous RL SL event.
Mathilde Vhargon: Mine is at the entrance
Sasun Steinbeck: yeah that is a good point, Lyrilen
Em Larsson: Got an article in the local newspaper about it.
FreeWee Ling: It's all about building a reputation. Once people know what you do and like it, they'll start coming to you for interviews in the mags and blogs. .
Sasun Steinbeck: but having a few rating kiosks around will only help
Armany Thursday: gosh Em...love your story ?
GeeJAnn Blackadder: Sasun, before we end, could you comment on ways we could have the Artist be better known ?
Skylarian Isachenko: if you do not mind me advertising a little I will give you the link to the calendar?
Sasun Steinbeck: stick one in the back so people see it while they are exploring, that sort of thing
Jayjay Zifanwe: there will be more soon
Jayjay Zifanwe: in the Artists Chronicle
Jayjay Zifanwe: which is an RL publication
Skylarian Isachenko: I did do a presentation at an art club and computer club on sl art
Skylarian Isachenko: was rather fun actually
Skylarian Isachenko: http://skiesofchaos.deviantart.com/#/d35zw53
Jayjay Zifanwe: we have the editor Lyn DiCiero as a judge for the art challenge, and she's done one article in the december magazine, and a larger one now that she has immersed heself a liuttle
Skylarian Isachenko: mixed SL< RL
Adair Chauveau: Some arts like pottery and fiber arts some consider just crafts and not art at all. And SL is like technology same fight to be legitimized as real art.
Lyrilen Moonshadow: yes, my point is that you have to think carefully about where to place things like kiosks... because the traffic pattern is different than rl
Skylarian Isachenko: too bad you can not set exit points like you can landing points
Skylarian Isachenko: :)
Sasun Steinbeck: GeeJAnn I think lots of the things we have been talking about will help artists become better known. One thing I didn't touch on was the value of networking - if you're not the social type, I understand it's a chore to chat people up, but really it's SO important to talk to other artists, learn about them - they will remember you. And learn from them.
Sasun Steinbeck: Go to events. Socialize. Meet some gallery owners, find out if they are looking for an artist. Join the Art & Artist Network and look for notices for free or cheap gallery space. Get into more shows. Learn how to market yourself. It's hard, I know!
Skylarian Isachenko: Use FAcebook, Blogs and other media tools also
GeeJAnn Blackadder: Thank you, sound advice
Sasun Steinbeck: You have to stick with it and keep meeting new people. It will result in more invites to big shows, larger galleries, that sort of thing. Yes good point on the social media, leverage facebook, and you REALLY SHOULD have a blog for your gallery
Jayjay Zifanwe: yes
Ginette Pinazzo: yes other online presences are very important..offworld
Jayjay Zifanwe: until it was forced on me
Jayjay Zifanwe: io resisted having a blog
Sasun Steinbeck: if you put your blog's address into your Galleries of SL Kiosk config, I will automatically pick it up for my consolidated gallery feed at http://sasun.info
Jayjay Zifanwe: but its an integral part of the identity now
Sasun Steinbeck: so I'm helping on the blog front! take advantage of it
Bobbi Laval: I find one problem, is there are no common points of contacts for doing press releases in SL, there are so many bloggers and such, but unless you know them personally, if is difficult to send press release to bloggers you don't know are out there
Skylarian Isachenko: there are networked bloggs
Jayjay Zifanwe: Bobbi, what you need to do with bloggers you want
Sasun Steinbeck: Yes Bobbi that's a good point, it kinda come down to knowing which art blogs are the most popular that month. And they do come and go, so it's not easy
Jayjay Zifanwe: is to write to them personally
Jayjay Zifanwe: and talk to them about why what you're doing is interesting/important
Sasun Steinbeck: +1 for Jayjay, he's right
Jayjay Zifanwe: just sending press releases etc won't work too well
Sasun Steinbeck: they appreciate being notified of possible interesting things to write about
Jayjay Zifanwe: needs to be personal follow up
FreeWee Ling: Definitely. The personal encounter is key.
Sasun Steinbeck: just inc ase you do want to go the press release way, check out ow-To do a Press Release: http://www.publicityinsider.com/release.asp
Bobbi Laval: but thats what I mean Jayjay, there are hundreds of ppl out there blogging, and not so easy to find them
Jayjay Zifanwe: if there are hundreds
Jayjay Zifanwe: pick 5
Mathilde Vhargon: I am wondering what percentage of your time you 'successful' gallery owners and artists are spending on promoting and marketing, as opposed to creating and exhibiting the art. It would help to have an idea of proportions that work.
Jayjay Zifanwe: and work with them
Skylarian Isachenko: Chatting up Prim Perfect is a nice way to maybe get an article too
madison Arnahan: Here is one
Ginette Pinazzo: running your owj blog also helps you get into that circle, so to speak
madison Arnahan: http://palaisorleans.blogspot.com/
Adair Chauveau: I'd like to see a RL Gallery and SL Gallery mashup event. with screens of SL at the RL one and screens of the RL one in SL.
Sandra Lee (sandralee.palianta): http://2ndlife5.blogspot.com
Jayjay Zifanwe: chat lag... here is what i said 'If there are hundreds, pick 5 of your favourites and work with them'
madison Arnahan mastering the Art of Shameless Self Promotion
Em Larsson: I wish you had coem to my event Adair
Sasun Steinbeck: Good question Mathilde, I would guess most gallery owners and artists spend very little time promoting, so the people that do can really get ahead
Sandra Lee (sandralee.palianta): shamelessly
Em Larsson: It's not easy though.
Em Larsson: Does anyone use an agent?
madison Arnahan pretend to blush
Sasun Steinbeck: hahah shamelessly is right. Marketing and art do not necessarily go hand in hand. Either learn how or... work with someone that knows how
Em Larsson: Someone who can brag for you?
Skylarian Isachenko: I have in the past but in order to do so, I had to verify them in RL
Skylarian Isachenko: Never, ever trust anyone that will not verify with you in RL
Sasun Steinbeck: I'm getting short on time and I wanted to share this link, a random assortment of resources and tips that may be useful to you
Sasun Steinbeck: https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B0v5Imt1nZ9PYjdhMjcwOWEtODFkOC00NGRjLWE3ZDQtMzQzMTdmYzNkODgy&hl=en
Callipygian Christensen: It goes back to 'what are your goals'..between promoting andd creating it can eaisly beccome a full time job..so youhave to decide for yourself how important the two sides are and allot your time accordingly
Lyrilen Moonshadow: the networking starts with blog and flickr - you "follow" each other or become members of each other's groups
Sasun Steinbeck: Yes, get your art up on flickr, Deviant Art, Moolto, whatever works for you
Devilana Nirvana: I'm sorry I had to step away for a moment so I hope this is not a repeat question, as I try to scroll through what I missed....but is there a list of all the SL magazines other than just randomly finding them?
Sasun Steinbeck: It can be time-consuming to stay up to speed on all the social networking sites, but pick a few and stick with it
Adair Chauveau: Do those SL mags really help promote art?
Mathilde Vhargon: Do some of you have info or links regarding how to protect art that is pictured in a blog or on Marketplace, etc. or elsewhere for sale... to try to keep the image from being copied?
Sasun Steinbeck: hm Devilana, I would love to have such a list. One thing - you might search for this place called The Rack
Sasun Steinbeck: it has tons and tons of magazine kiosks
Sasun Steinbeck: it's the next best thing to a list
Lyrilen Moonshadow: I have the same question as Adair
Skylarian Isachenko: Low rez, its the most effective, and hidden watermarks
Devilana Nirvana: oh thank you, I will check it out.
Skylarian Isachenko: nothing can stop it being copies by screen shot
Sasun Steinbeck: advertising in magazines is something we haven't touched on, and I don't have much experience in myself, but that is a very interesting option
Devilana Nirvana: well designed watermarks help a great deal
Jewle Rae: I stepped away also ~ I highly recommend anyone interested in learning SL events attend those NIC event classes. Resources provided in them are updated for each session and yes, on the magazines, etc.
Sasun Steinbeck: oh thank you Jewle, does anyone have a website or other reference to the NIC classes?
Jewle Rae: You can IM me for the SURL. I'm such a ditz at this.
Adair Chauveau: Do watermarks and like COPY over the piece help with theft?
Mathilde Vhargon: Is there a place I can get info on how to make a good watermark that is effective?
Lyrilen Moonshadow: you can google it
Callipygian Christensen: I thinkit's NCI, new citizens incorporated, if anyone is earching for it
Lyrilen Moonshadow: there are lots of tutorials on watermarks
Skylarian Isachenko: you have to remember in here, is mostly low rez anyway
Callipygian Christensen: or searching..earching might be painful
Devilana Nirvana: there are several articles online that I have researched and found myself regarding watermarks
Sasun Steinbeck: I purposefully avoided the whole topic of IP protection, copyright, etc. etc. since we could easily spend a few hours on that alone :) But that's also a great topic area to research, how to protect your art
Skylarian Isachenko: so there are very few things you can really do if you put it on the net
Devilana Nirvana: I have a small program called Watermark that can watermark videos and pictures
Sasun Steinbeck: unfortuantely I'm out of time and wanted to thank anyone that needs to go
Jewle Rae: My friend who conducts the sessions is Any Gnoid
Skylarian Isachenko: maintaining proper legal records can help
GeeJAnn Blackadder: I think this is great dialog, and as Sasun said, would be well to discuss this in the group chat
Sasun Steinbeck: I will stay here for a bit but thanks for attending!
Jewle Rae: I've got to get to the machinima meet.
Clovis Luik: very good seminar
Araminta Kroitschov: thanks!
Adair Chauveau: Thank you for this class Sasun.
GeeJAnn Blackadder: Very good Sasun
Sasun Steinbeck: I will post the chat log in the ARt Gallery Owners group and on my blog
Mathilde Vhargon: Thank you
Devilana Nirvana: thank you Sasun..this was very helpful
Sasun Steinbeck: so it will be on record
Dyce Underwood: Thank you Sasun very much for the amazing info.
Sasun Steinbeck: thank you everyone I hope you learned a few things! And thanks for those of you that shared your experience
Lyrilen Moonshadow: Thank you Sasun!
FreeWee Ling: Thank you Sasun :)
Skylarian Isachenko: Your talks are always useful
Adair Chauveau: I was wondering about themes and niche art? Like styles trends ethnic? If there is a market for that in SL?
Jayjay Zifanwe: one day we want to hear sasuns voice too in the talks :)
Sasun Steinbeck: my next talk will be for the Art Gallery Owner's group and I'm trying to line up a feedback session with the other memebers of the LEA (Linden Endowment for the Arts) committee
Skylarian Isachenko: must be, there is market for ethnic avs and clothing
Clovis Luik: Niche art works very well for the adult art market
Sasun Steinbeck: the LEA was a bit dead for a while but is back with a new mission and we'd love to get your feedback!
Adair Chauveau: Good point Skylarian. Thanks
Sasun Steinbeck: Lots of cool plans and I hope we can share all that with you at an upcoming meeting
Callipygian Christensen: oh.is the mission posted somwehere?
Ginette Pinazzo: yay LEA!
Sasun Steinbeck: there are old links to the LEA announcement I can dig up, hang on. Our mission is still pretty much the same, just scaled back in a few key areas
Callipygian Christensen: oh, I have the old one somewhere..sorry, I misunderstood there being a new one
Em Larsson: Sasun.. thank you so much for doing this.
Sasun Steinbeck: no, we have not actually made a public announcement since the LEA was revived
Sasun Steinbeck: I expect that to show up on some official LL blog somewhere, so stay tuned
Callipygian Christensen: ah ok, thanks :)
Sasun Steinbeck: you're very welcome, thanks for coming and we can just keep on going for a little bit more unless there's another event we have to leave for, madison?
Bobbi Laval: I was kinda wondering what had happened with that
Sasun Steinbeck: yeah I'm actually very excited about it coming back to life, we are making progress and I know it sucks to be completely in the dark, but progress has been a bit slow
Sasun Steinbeck: it's just crazy difficult to coordinate a dozen people with RL jobs and schedules
Em Larsson: Thanks for all you do on behalf of art
Sasun Steinbeck: but we're doing it
Sasun Steinbeck: well thank you Em ;)
Sasun Steinbeck: I've been so excited to see the art community in SL grow in the last 5 years
Sasun Steinbeck: and mature
Em Larsson: I need to run.. but thanks again Sasun.
Sasun Steinbeck: thanks for coming!
Sasun Steinbeck: I had a great time
Bobbi Laval: take care Em
FreeWee Ling: Me too. Good night all. Thanks Sasun :)
Ginette Pinazzo: thanks Sasun!
madison Arnahan: big hand for Sasun Steinbeck
Mathilde Vhargon: Goodnight. Thanks for the great session!
Kalie Fang: me too, htnak you so much Sasun
madison Arnahan: thanks so much Sasun
Sasun Steinbeck: my great pleasure!
Elbereth Exonar: thank you
Sasun Steinbeck: thank you madison for coordinating this!
Luvi Unplugged-Lichlore (luvi.unplugged): Thank you, Susan
Callipygian Christensen: thanks Sasun, Madison
Sasun Steinbeck: madison when is the next talk?
madison Arnahan: Most welcome .. it is an honor
madison Arnahan: Elizabeth Weinberg will speak tomorrow. She is nicknamed the "Promotion Princess" good reason. She will speak on networking, some basics "effective cattle calls " ..and Event Planning.
Sasun Steinbeck: I'm so there
madison Arnahan: While she was curator here .we were selected as an SL Destination Guide pick ..
Sasun Steinbeck: excellent
madison Arnahan: Everyone would want someone like Elizabeth Weinberg on their team . thanks again to all .. please come again
Sasun Steinbeck: we didn't talk about that, I really don't know what the magic formula is for getting into the LL destination guide, which is another great way to promote your gallery
madison Arnahan: thanks once more Sasun
Luvi Unplugged-Lichlore (luvi.unplugged): Thanks, Madison
Clovis Luik: TY
Sasun Steinbeck: thank you madison!

Art Gallery Owners 6-18-2010

2010-06-21T17:25:00.000-07:00

The following is a chat log from the 6-18-2010 meeting of the Art Gallery Owners group about the Linden Endowment for the Arts (LEA) project. It may look like I'm a bit slow replying and missed a lot of questions but the reality is that there were just a zillion questions and comments flying so fast I could not keep up! It was simply impossible to answer every question, but there is a lot of great feedback here I will be taking back to the committee. Please read and post your comments!

I have not had time to sort through this and post some answers to some of the missed questions, I'll try to get to that soon and post them here as comments.

Sasun Steinbeck: Welcome everyone! Glad you could make it. Before we get started, first a few ground rules. Please keep the conversations civil, polite, and ON TOPIC. I'll be slow to respond if you IM me since I will probably be doing 10 things at once during the hour.
Sasun Steinbeck: Please hold questions for a moment until I open the floor for questions, thanks.
Sasun Steinbeck: This talk will be saved and logged and sent to the entire group. If you say anything, I'm going to assume you are ok with allowing me to log this discussion, distribute it, and post it on my blog.
Sasun Steinbeck: Our agenda today: the Linden Endowment for the Arts (LEA). If you have not seen our first update, please take a quick look at http://blogs.secondlife.com/community/community/blog/2010/06/16/linden-endowment-for-the-arts-update
Sasun Steinbeck: For a list of committee members, see http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Linden_Endowment_for_the_Arts_Committee
Sasun Steinbeck: In the update blog post, 5 high-level goals were listed. The committee will be hard at work turning those goals into specific plans to accomplish them. The purpose of the meeting today is to get your feedback as valuable members of the art community and raise any concerns you may have.
Sasun Steinbeck: I'd like to open the floor to questions and feedback. I will be taking your feedback back to the committee for us to consider as we work up our plans in the near future. Thank you!
Sasun Steinbeck: one piece of feedback that I've heard is that people don't want the LEA projects to "compete" with existing art galleries and art sims in SL
Chloe Mineff: Susposedly they won't according to the blog
Skylarian Isachenko: I am wondering if there will be a way to sell RL art via SL so that we do not have to mess with the fuss of revealing identies for those that are sensitive about it
Sasun Steinbeck: hm interesting question, it may be unavoidable since you are shipping a RL item to a RL address
Lizzo Dreamscape: ok. read the update. Question already: will this affect Burning Life? (I love Burning Life)
Skylarian Isachenko: Unless LL provided a billing system and shipping system we could use, yes.
Sasun Steinbeck: selling RL art is something that we hope comes as a consequence of promiting virtual art in SL but not something we will be working on specifically, I don't think
Petal Fairlock: you could use a po box with your avatar name
Sasun Steinbeck: hm no, this won't change Burning LIfe at all
Skylarian Isachenko: Well, I did not expect it would be, but it was a question.
FreeWee Ling: Doesn't there have to be a feed before there can be feedback? I've feel there's been a real lack of transparency and information about LEA.
Sasun Steinbeck: yes FreeWee I agree, the recent blog post is a start to getting more info out
Sasun Steinbeck: there really isn't a lot to share, we don't have detailed plans to even share yet
FreeWee Ling: I know several people who signed up for at the original request for participation and no one ever heard a thing.
Sasun Steinbeck: Yeah I assume that LL didn't contact everyone that applied, since I've heard that from lots of others
FreeWee Ling: An acknowledgement would have been nice.
Sasun Steinbeck: I can't speak for them so I'm not sure what the policy was on that. Yes I agree, that's a good piece of feedback I'll take back, thank you
Skylarian Isachenko: An endowment sort of means someone spending money for the arts, but I take it we will not see any of that on a personal basis
Soundsmith Kamachi: The defition of art is an intersting question, will this be a very strict or loose one?
Elise Benusconi: Sasun, would it be asking too much to get an overview of the sort of work you have been doing so far with the committee?
Sasun Steinbeck: don't be too sure Skylarian :)
Molly Montale: the list of committee members is as good as anyone could ever hope for (IMHO)
Peoney Feld: Sasun, in general, how will it all work?
Elise Benusconi: I'm just hoping to get some perspective on the committee's focus.
White Hyacinth: It looks like LL is very interested in "The Arts" lately; maybe they see a business opportunity?
Sasun Steinbeck: we have been debating all kinds of ways to help the art community and some type of endowment is in the mix too. Whether that becomes a reality, who knows
Peoney Feld: individual artists?
Maggi Mint: exactly who or what will benefit from the "endowment", RL art organizations? RL aritsits? what are the parameters?
Lizzo Dreamscape: my question too, Peony.
Skylarian Isachenko: Well, I suspect they are looking to gain more large entities entering sl just as they did with education
FreeWee Ling: How was the committee decided? I don;t disagree with the choices, just the process?
Sasun Steinbeck: Elise, so far it's been mostly meetings - we have so many issues to discuss. At this point in time we've finally solidified our high-level goals that you've seen in that post
Sasun Steinbeck: we have a lot of discussion to do to organize the art shows and really figure out what other projects we will be starting up to get those goals accomplished
Eliza Wierwight: In what way , subsidizing tiers ?
Zachh Cale: Thanks Sasun for pointing out this new blogpost - do you know yet how LL specifically plans to not compete with existing galleries? A lot of us have been paying to help present art content for SL, so I believe many of us are wondering how it could not compete, especially since SL owns the servers and the website promotion channels?
Sasun Steinbeck: Maggi that is under discussion, all of the above is being considered
Sasun Steinbeck: and let me clarify
Sasun Steinbeck: it's not specifically "RL" artists - but virtual art is what we are all about
Skylarian Isachenko: I would not mind seeing the linden homes be allowed to be a gallery
Lizzo Dreamscape: cool.
Sasun Steinbeck: Second Life art, specficially :)
Skylarian Isachenko: yes, but we are all real artists I hope
Sasun Steinbeck: which includes the idea that SL is a great place to exhibit and display RL art, too
Sasun Steinbeck: we are not shutting out 2D artists, in other words
Skylarian Isachenko: just because its virtual it should still be Real
Sasun Steinbeck: it's all real to us :)
Sasun Steinbeck: I'm getting behind on questions so bear with me
Skylarian Isachenko: You should be able to buy an RL print of the art for instance
Peoney Feld: people do that already, Sky
Sasun Steinbeck: White, my personal take on the business aspect is that LL sees this as another thing to bring new residents in, having a thriving creative art community is good for LL too
Sasun Steinbeck: but they really haven't given us any specific business reason why they are doing this
Peoney Feld: talk to Filthy Fluno for example, Sky
Peoney Feld: thanks, Sasun
Lizzo Dreamscape: idk why we have more artists. Let's have more artists!
Skylarian Isachenko: I know they do, I do it myself,
Sasun Steinbeck: FreeWee, I don't know what the committee criteria was... I'm hoping that LL gives the existing committee members some part of the process when we inevitably have to replace someone on the committee - not sure how that is going to work at this time
Skylarian Isachenko: but, LL could make it possible to buy a print through xstreet for instance and do the shipping and handling
FreeWee Ling: ty
Sasun Steinbeck: Zachh, regarding the competition issue - that is a common concern
Sasun Steinbeck: One thing that we will be thinking about a lot is how best to help the big art sims already in existance
Sasun Steinbeck: they have been around a lot longer than the LEA! They know "how it's done" and how to be successful
Ally Aeon: that would be nice
Sasun Steinbeck: so we want to support them "where they are" in some way. how we do that hasn't been discussed very much so I don't really know at this point
Sasun Steinbeck: I'd love to hear what you think would be the best way to support those types of big art galleries and art sims
Chloe Mineff: I am curious about having several sims packed with artwork, wouldnt this be a bit overwhelming?
Tia Macbain: well the NEA offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence...they offer support
Skylarian Isachenko: Well if your going to hold large events, and use large sims in a similar manner to LL events, wont the galleries and artists get a bit lost, I mean people can get overwhelmed pretty fast.
Chloe Mineff: ao how are they landscaping/building it out?
Skylarian Isachenko: GM and all that
Maggi Mint: tier allotment, tier grants would be a nice way to support a gallery
Tia Macbain: not neccessarily own a mega gallery
Sasun Steinbeck: The LEA complex is not going to be 70 sims when it opens, contrary to what you may have heard, it will start off with maybe 5-6 sims, so considiering the huge number of existing galleries, it won't be *that* huge an addition to the mix
Lizzo Dreamscape: But the NEA also excercises Censorship.
Peoney Feld: hmkmm
Ally Aeon: I bleieve there is a lot of good in place such as your Gallery Tour system Sasun aslo the artist Guild group and the Gallery Owner gorup I consider to be something that helps a lot. So maybe it could be build on that.
Peoney Feld: yes, what about that?
Peoney Feld: censorship
Tia Macbain: sure lizzo...but if you think we arent censored to any degree now...
Lizzo Dreamscape: Just a comment....
Sasun Steinbeck: Yes Ally I definitely want to leverage what we already have in terms of the gallery list and tour hud
Zachh Cale: Thanks Sasun - I think one way would be to have a similar application process as was explained for artists to the LEA - gallery owners could apply to LL to have their tier waived?
Tia Macbain: and it is just a RL example of what the LEA could branch out to be
Lizzo Dreamscape: I agree with supporting Sasun's system. It ROCKS!
Maggi Mint: tier allotment, tier grants would be a nice way to support a gallery or providing space for artists would help a lot
Sasun Steinbeck: one thing that we all agree on is that there must be a really great, very useful - easy to use nexus where we can send people to YOUR galleries from the LEA complex
Skylarian Isachenko: There are always some limits to what you can display, just as society sets limits on anything
Molly Montale: could there ever be a repeat of the Burning Life "nipplegate" from a couple of years ago?
FreeWee Ling: So if there's an established gallery on a private sim, will there be any support for that? Or will the big guys have a competitive advantage?
Sasun Steinbeck: yes Zachh if we can get something like that approved, we'd definiteyl have some kind of application process
Elise Benusconi: It is hard to see how setting up additional real estate is going to be as effective as supporting the current system. That said, I am sure that an announcement that LL will underwrite "art" sims would result in a new glut of "galleries" suddently opening.
Skylarian Isachenko: WEll, you need a walk through portal that just takes you there without all this map teleport business
Zachh Cale: Sasun, that would be GREAT, because then many of us could easily maintain the cost of events more
Sasun Steinbeck: haha Molly, great question actually. We will be discussing if/how we will support art that may fall into the "adult" category
Tricia Aferdita nods
Doran Forzane: Sensorship of art, will possibly be one of LEA's biggest issues, LL may need to have a Mature or Adult sim as part of LEA
Peoney Feld: There should be anohter category for art....not adult,
Peoney Feld: Artistic freedom and license is essential for
Skylarian Isachenko: Non sexual nudes should not be adult
Skylarian Isachenko: Mature, yes, but not adult
Peoney Feld: real creativity
Lizzo Dreamscape: oooo.. interesting Peony.
Sasun Steinbeck: and I'm *sure* we will be discussing suitability of all the Mature art (artistic nudes, etc.) that will undoubtably show up on the sims
Peoney Feld: sexual nudes should not be adult if it is art
Peoney Feld: my goodness
Sasun Steinbeck: we really really really really do not want to get into the censorship game
Peoney Feld: do museums censor
Carly Frequency: one possibilty would be for LL to treat art groups as nonprofits for tier discounts -- without us having to incorporate in RL - the larger art sims, at least
Peoney Feld: art for children?
Doran Forzane: however in the TOS and standards LL do have a vague clause that could be used to get around their rating policy
Tia Macbain: i think the idea of a mega gallery is a form of competitiveness
Tia Macbain: and not really useful
Ally Aeon: yes I think LL should define where they drwa the line what is mature or adult art
FreeWee Ling: They going to ban megaprims?
Sasun Steinbeck: I agree P eoney, I'm speaking specifically of the LL adult guidelines, not the popular definition
Maggi Mint: any thing considered for a grant should be all original, copyright owned work...not knock offs of other pples art or imports of encyclopedia art
Peoney Feld: yes, but maybe there can be an art category
Skylarian Isachenko: I hae a terrible time with large stores rezing all the images, I can just imagine the night mare of a very large collection of art
Peoney Feld: that embraces everything
Sasun Steinbeck: hm not sure FreeWee, I'll have to ask about that
Maggi Mint: any thing considered for a grant should be all original, copyright owned work...not knock offs of other pples art or imports of encyclopedia ar
Sasun Steinbeck: we are going to be very hard core about copyright, don't worry about that
Lizzo Dreamscape: Good Maggi.
Tricia Aferdita: what would be nice is if it were perhaps a source of annex galleries for existing galleries within SL... a central hub in general that was almost like a walk through version of Sasun's HUD
Ghosty Kips: I think the term we need to focus on, instead of the confusing "adult" or "mature", is "erotic art". This is where I think LL is going to draw a line, and call it what they will
Peoney Feld: I have been looking at nudes in books and in paintings since I was a child...
Peoney Feld: museums, too
Peoney Feld: nude paintings
Sasun Steinbeck: yes Ghosty it will be interesting to see what happens :)
Peoney Feld: how do you think I got to be interesetd in art?
Skylarian Isachenko: your also dealing with an international situation, but US law applies
Peoney Feld: and learned early
Lizzo Dreamscape: hahaha!!
Soundsmith Kamachi: I would fidn it more intersting that such an art sim provides a short presentation of existing galleries, e.g. with tp point, short description
Peoney Feld: got good influences
FreeWee Ling: I think a fundamental question is who much autonomy with the board have? Will they get to decide what's art and whether to allow megaprim? Or is LL going to have final say?
Tia Macbain: I agree Soundsimith
Soundsmith Kamachi: instead of being soemthing taht becoemsa competition
Tia Macbain: now THAT is useful
Peoney Feld: learned anatomy before high school
Lizzo Dreamscape: I am with you, FreeWee.
Carly Frequency: I agree with Soundsmith as well
Sasun Steinbeck: yes Soundsmith that will be something I will push for very hard is some kind of innovative cool way to educate visitors about all the great existing galleries in SL and some easy way for them to launch over to them from the LEA
Carly Frequency: a portal to the art experience in SL
Sasun Steinbeck: we do NOT want to suck people from existing galleries to the LEA, on the contrary, that's where people will go to find out what the heck this art in SL thing is all about and we want to send them out to explore your places too!
Skylarian Isachenko: Well, in my world Peoney, you would likely be in a very bad space by now then, I live in a very conservative area
Sasun Steinbeck: The LEA sims are ideal for a big semi-annual art festival, too
Em Larsson: How will you decide who you send people to?
FreeWee Ling: I think the people in this room trust the board a lot more than they trust LL.
Em Larsson: anyone who wants to receive people, or will you choose?
Sasun Steinbeck: sort of another big art event to add to the mix of existing artistic/creative events like SL7B and BL
Zachh Cale: Does the Destination Guide currently do that on the website? Or are you talking about inworld only?
Peoney Feld: thank goodness I grew up where I did, in a house filled with culture ;)
Sacha Swindlehurst doubts linden has the faintest clue about art
Sasun Steinbeck: good question Em, we need to figure that out
Sasun Steinbeck: we have a good start with my gallery list, but that's certainly not an exhaustive list of every gallery in SL
Skylarian Isachenko: SLB and BL are themed, we do not really have much freedom
Skylarian Isachenko: its a challenge rather than creative freedom
Sasun Steinbeck: yes true Sky, the LEA events will be much more open in that regard
Skylarian Isachenko: nods
Sasun Steinbeck: we may have smaller themed events, who knows
Ghosty Kips: I'd like to see artists put SOME of their art in this central exhibit, with landmarks and so forth to draw people from this big draw to our indivitual galleries. At the same time, we should be able to promote our own entries at this big exhibit, and people can be free to "art walk" around to other artists after arriving
Sasun Steinbeck: all yet to be determined :)
FreeWee Ling: Hopefully more like NPIRL.
Chloe Mineff: SL is an adult place.. children shouldn't be here in the first place. but ther are conservatives who need to be considered.
Maggi Mint: One way to encourage both art and premium accounts ownership might be to alot (2) 512 tier free (a 1024) to anyone who buys a premium account and puts up an at gallery, of original art
Sasun Steinbeck: yes absolutely Ghosty, thanks for that
Skylarian Isachenko: well, we do have the ability to have slide show prims so we can show a lot of art with a few prims
Sasun Steinbeck: hm interesting, I'd love to see something like that Maggi
Nima Benoir: Now that's a great idea Maggi!
Sasun Steinbeck: sorry if I skipped over anyone's question! If you'd like an answer please paste it again for me
Ghosty Kips: and a free 512 on top of tier wouldnt hurt :o)
Skylarian Isachenko: And make them prove it original art too
Sasun Steinbeck: too much chat lol :)
White Hyacinth: I think LL waiving tier in any form is unlikely to happen
Skylarian Isachenko: which means they will have to show who they are in RL
Em Larsson: so the idea is to encourage more art, or more people viewing the art that is here?
Sasun Steinbeck: yes we will be very strict about the original art requirement
Lizzo Dreamscape: I hope machinima will be included.
Sasun Steinbeck: the very last thing we want is stolen art shown at the LEA, omg.
Soundsmith Kamachi: i was curious about the definition of art - veyr tricky one
Em Larsson: indeed!
Sasun Steinbeck: machinima most definitely!
Sasun Steinbeck: we have some well known machinematographers on the LEA
Molly Montale: the live music folks are hoping to be included
Elise Benusconi: Any effort LL would make to underwrite tier costs will open up a whole world of abuse by those who wish to have the land and no interest in supporting the arts. So it is something they are unlikely to undertake.
Eliza Wierwight: I'd be wary of people trying to acquire 'free'tiers using the Gallery premise as a foothold , tricky times , especially if that's intended to lure people Inworld
Sasun Steinbeck: yes definitely Molly, that's part of the plan!
Tia Macbain: you sure this isnt a way to control content and to find a way to control copyrights
Tia Macbain: juss askin.
Sasun Steinbeck: we don't know how that will look, but SL musicians will be part of the mix
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Peoney Feld: no one can control your copyrights in your artwork
Elise Benusconi: I would much rather see LL take a proactive approach to introducing current and new residents to all the art that is already here.
Peoney Feld: unless you sell them or license them
Sasun Steinbeck: yes Elise and Eliza that's good feedbak
Peoney Feld: I agree, Elise
Skylarian Isachenko: Control in here is much less a concern than what they are doing in various legeslatures in rl
Em Larsson: I agree.. bring people to see what exists.. those of us who have been doing it already for a long time out of love.
Elise Benusconi: Perhaps distributing the gallery tour to all residents or at least offering it.
Sasun Steinbeck: we would most likely have some kind of application process so that the committee can evaluate each grant (if that comes to pass) on the merits of the art
White Hyacinth: So the LEA as a pointer to good stuff in-world seems to be the best way to go
Sasun Steinbeck: yes Em good point, and we want to support you guys that have been doing it for Sasun Steinbeck: if you have any ideas on how we can ... let me know :)
the love of it for all this time
Maggi Mint: anybody can figure out a way to abuse any system Elsie, if that is your criteria for determining how to proceed, then you will stop dead in your tracks at every turn
Van Caerndow: I love filling out grant forms
Peoney Feld: you know, you dont want to become so sophisticated as to discourage new artists in SL
Doran Forzane: Peoney, actually, if you dont hold a copyright of your artwork before you bring it into SL. Then LL place a copyright on it
Elise Benusconi: Offering an at tutorial at gateway communities...perhaps offering an "art buddy" to help show a new resident around, or at least offering a strong understanding of how to find and participate in the art world here.
Molly Montale: megaprims?
Lizzo Dreamscape: Good Em.
FreeWee Ling: The artists in SL are pushing what can be done with the technology. LL loves that. It's good PR and they learn what their product can and can't do. That's their motivation. We're all beta tester in technology and running businesses off creative work.
Ghosty Kips: well, i can say that, if LL is hoping to use art as a way to being people back to SL, then it's a good thing. it's where we shoud have been headed a year or two ago
Petal Fairlock: good idea elise!
Skylarian Isachenko: I have over a thousand RL works of original art, But I prefer a more intimate gallery, not that fond of huge builds
Peoney Feld: your original artwork is protected by common law
Peoney Feld: if you register it in DC
Sasun Steinbeck: yes true, part of the plan Peoney is to educate residents all about SL art, so we want to have a really cool experience for someone new to SL that happens to be an artist, how they might get plugged in.
Peoney Feld: that is an additional protection
Peoney Feld: important, for diff readons
Peoney Feld: but no one can taake it from you
Peoney Feld: yes, help them get started
Em Larsson: Are you saying we don't own ourart unless Washington says we do? Does Washington allow foreigners to register it?
Sacha Swindlehurst: elaborate doran?
quadrapop Lane: and the non-artists - new folks love the art sims I send em too - over the real estate and "malls"
Sasun Steinbeck: Skylarian, that's a good point, I know sometimes when I go to a huge art complex I get a bit overwhelmed. I'd love to hear any ideas on how we can have a huge art complex but not just completely overwhelm people with it
Peoney Feld: I have seen the number of artists burgeoning..people get lost in the shuffle
Peoney Feld: no Em
Tia Macbain: dont have huge complex...:)
Skylarian Isachenko: Make wiki with the art on it, thats how
quadrapop Lane: make it searchable
Sasun Steinbeck: yes we need to think about how we can make it fun and easy for someone new
Elise Benusconi: How about some out of world PR on behalf of SL artists?
Peoney Feld: I am saying when you create a drawing, eg., you own the copyrights to it automaticallyl
Skylarian Isachenko: give them Out world access to view the art without the overhead of SL
Sasun Steinbeck: hm interesting idea Elise
Em Larsson: no?
quadrapop Lane: have a really good tp or info system
Em Larsson: oh oh
Em Larsson: I see
Peoney Feld: if you want the protection of the federal coprytight low, then register it
Doran Forzane: There are some terms used in the TOS that I hope LEA are going to suggest with LL that need to be changed
Skylarian Isachenko: I send lots of folk to my web galleries
Sasun Steinbeck: maybe what we could do is pull together some info on copyright protection as it pertains to SL art/artists
Peoney Feld: dont let anyone talk you out of what you own
Sasun Steinbeck: I know that's a super confusing subject
Maggi Mint: registering with washington is just EXTRA protection, you establish a copyright by adding the notice to your work
Em Larsson: no for sure
Nima Benoir: You mean like an online art gallery Elise?
Doran Forzane: Sasun and I have spoken about them, its for another time
Elise Benusconi: I don't wish to seem self-serving, but I am currently setting up an art commerce website, and I am happy to open it to SL artists with RL art to sell...and will happily identify the art by SL names, etc.
Peoney Feld: well, it's more troublesome since many countries do not pay attentin to US copyright laws
Zachh Cale: What about having an application process for existing galleries to reside on SL funded sims? Many are already showing great art....
Elise Benusconi: Yes, Nima..I am starting an online gallery/sales site.
Doran Forzane: you can digimarc your art though and it is retained in SL as long as your image is noless than 256x256
sandhya2 Patel: that is wonderful
Sasun Steinbeck: Doran that's a good suggestion, we are going to get clear permission from everyone showing art at the LEA, nothing will be shown without permission, at least
Ghosty Kips: one ideawould be to separate by types of art. inworld sculpture, rl painting, digital, music, whathave you. instead of having everything in one place, if we have 5-6 sims, lets use those sims for different types of art so artists can focus on the niche markets that like their style or medium of works.
Molly Montale: It would be cool if the LEA sims have their own blog for pictures and news
Skylarian Isachenko: Deviant Art for instance is useful and free resource that you can make a gallery for your work and use in conjuction wiht SL to sell your work
Poid Mahovlich is Offline
Lizzo Dreamscape: From what I have heard so far... why not concentrate first and foremost on a Central Area that expands on what Sasun has done. And we can all participate in creating a Central location that serves as a place for revolving exhibits of all kinds.
Elise Benusconi: Yes, Deviant Art is excellent.
Sasun Steinbeck: yes Ghosty, good idea. we could slice and dice the categories in a lot of different ways
Sasun Steinbeck: Yes Molly we want that too!
Peoney Feld: a good thing for the NEA to work on is finding a way for original art not to be photographed, some kind of tech filter
Ally Aeon: How about LL allows for its residents to show their gallery and art id they are in that field on the SL website
Skylarian Isachenko: Digimarc gets very expensive
Sasun Steinbeck: what if we had a whole web page for the LEA? with a blog and other cool stuff. educational materials, introductory stuff, etc.?
Sasun Steinbeck: a web page on secondlife.com?
Skylarian Isachenko: and links to artists websites
Eliza Wierwight: I'm not keen on that idea of categorisation at all for myself , not a bit
Elise Benusconi: That sounds like a great idea, Sasun! :-)
FreeWee Ling: I don't like categories. Causes segmentation. Separation. Segregation.
quadrapop Lane: what if your art is 3d and sl only? how do you advertise outside of sl?
Peoney Feld: I presume that LL is not going to want a cut of art
Peoney Feld: proceeds
Em Larsson: Sounds good Sasun
Skylarian Isachenko: take a phtoos and put it up like any woark
quadrapop Lane: take photos? doesn't do much of thatr stuff justice
Sasun Steinbeck: yes quad it could be a mine field and there's more than one way to categorize
Skylarian Isachenko: same thinig with a sculpture
Skylarian Isachenko: photo graph it
Elise Benusconi: Video, Quadrapop.
Callipygian Christensen: I'd never assume that Peoney lol
Elise Benusconi: ScreenFlow is a great, free tool you can use.
Peoney Feld: I dont assume it
Peoney Feld: lol
Skylarian Isachenko: short video clips are also a good thought
Maya Paris: web page sounds like a great idea Sasun
Sasun Steinbeck: one thing I wanted to point out and get feedback on is this whole concept of "archiving" art
Peoney Feld: I hope that they are not
Sasun Steinbeck: we want to SAVE all this cool stuff
Ally Aeon: soem of us use the profile we have in sl already to show what we do in sl, and I think it would be super if there woudl be something like that on the SL webside
Sasun Steinbeck: things in SL can be so ephemeral
Sasun Steinbeck: here today, gone tomorrow
Sasun Steinbeck: how can we save a record of all this cool art?
FreeWee Ling: The archive is critical. I think that's the most important job of this plan.
quadrapop Lane: video might but really think odf some of the more immersive and interactive art that can only exist and be experienced in sl - that is the kind of thing that needs to be preserved by LL and LEA is perfect for that
Peoney Feld: well, that needs permission, too
Sasun Steinbeck: the current fuzzy plan is to have a special Linden account (I vote for "Art Linden" LOL)
Zachh Cale: Sasun, I think that's an excellent point - I would love to see your committee working on that first - so many things are disappearing now
Ghosty Kips: i have no issue with their archiving art, so long as our rights and copyrights are protected. we as artists should have FULL control over the content even after it's archived.
Sasun Steinbeck: that can accept donations of art
Peoney Feld: hmmm
Sasun Steinbeck: for archival purposes
Peoney Feld: very interesting Sasun
Sasun Steinbeck: we really haven't discussed it much, so we need ideas
White Hyacinth: Similar to the time capsule?
FreeWee Ling: LIke a museum
Elise Benusconi: Wayback Machine for SL....
Sasun Steinbeck: perhaps Art Linden can whip out some of those exhibits... perhaps even full sims! for future shows maybe
Sasun Steinbeck: yeah a wayback machine :)
Skylarian Isachenko: Is Art LInden still a LInden?
Sasun Steinbeck: they can take a snapshot of an entire sim... like a rollback, right?
Skylarian Isachenko: they lost so many of them
Zachh Cale: I think if that is the main function of the LEA, archival, then SL gets it's own mega gallery, and it doesn't compete with existing galleries
Peoney Feld: well, if LL makes use of archived art for commercial purposes, the artist shoud be compensated
Sasun Steinbeck: was there an Art Linden?
Sasun Steinbeck: haha I don't remember
Zachh Cale: there are TONS of exciting exhibits that many STILL have not seen
Elise Benusconi: Like rezboxes....click and everthing stored falls back into place.
Zachh Cale: and they are disappearing
Sasun Steinbeck: Peoney at this time I believe the current plan is for donations only
Skylarian Isachenko: We lost most of those we have worked with in the past, so I dont know
Sasun Steinbeck: but that's a really good point
Peoney Feld: kk
Skylarian Isachenko: Cost a lot of money to maintain these sims
Lizzo Dreamscape: yes! and private corporations like IBM have sponsored AMAZING things... where do they fit?
Sasun Steinbeck: yeah we don't want those amazing sims you've seen vanish forever
Tia Macbain: not if they are linden sims
Peoney Feld: I just want LL to treat art as the valuable thing it is.....
Maggi Mint: good point peony ----[15:36] Peoney Feld: I presume that LL is not going to want a cut of art --- is this "grant" really going to be jus a way for LL to increase THEIR income, like Xstreet became?
Peoney Feld: and it is worth money
Skylarian Isachenko: A lot of the corporates are going behind firewalls and not doing as much as they used to
Ghosty Kips: well, big companies like IBM can fork up their own sims if they like :)
Sasun Steinbeck: since land is one thing we will have plenty of, one thing I hope we can do is a lot of whole-sim art installations
Lizzo Dreamscape: No, Ghostly. I don't agree. They should be valued too.
Peoney Feld: I think artists should get free space somehow
Zachh Cale: Yes! Archiving so many full sim installations would be a huge service to the sl community
Peoney Feld: if there is so much darned space..
Sasun Steinbeck: Yes Peoney, we will be giving out lots of free space for artists to exhibit on the LEA sims
Peoney Feld: yay
Peoney Feld: lol
Em Larsson: Wow
Sasun Steinbeck: and we will grow beyond the initial 5-6-ish sims if needed
Skylarian Isachenko: Well, each sim is another processor and there is a limit there
Skylarian Isachenko: Archiving entire sims is going to take serious resources
Doran Forzane: big companies like IBM are actually not in aliance with Linden Labs anymore. That went sour
Chloe Mineff: Sasun did anyone address Peopny's comment? [15:36] Peoney Feld: a good thing for the NEA to work on is finding a way for original art not to be photographed, some kind of tech filter
Em Larsson: did it?
Callipygian Christensen: my question too quad,,if SL would let me stay on the grid to ask it lol
Ghosty Kips: that would be excellent, esp for us 2D artists
Sasun Steinbeck: ok that is some great feedback thank you Peoney, I agree that would be great
Chloe Mineff: taht is crucial to thwart stealing.
Skylarian Isachenko: That is pretty much impossible, in order to view it, you can capture it
Em Larsson: I like Peony's idea
Skylarian Isachenko: Nature of the beast
quadrapop Lane: ty sasun
Peoney Feld: I wonder if technicallly, there is some way to do it Sasun
Em Larsson: Even if they could, would it stay with art after it has been sold?
Sasun Steinbeck: technical solutions tend to be the least effective though... for each scheme you come up with, someone cracks it
Peoney Feld: maybe LL could work on it
Elise Benusconi: Why couldn't the ability to photograph be a permission that can be turned on and off by estate management controls?
Doran Forzane: you can do that in the estate convenant, its the only place you can stop the photography of art on a sim
Elise Benusconi: Someone really determined could still do a print-screen, but that wouldn't be most people.
Skylarian Isachenko: you can always screen cap
Zachh Cale: Well you can take screenshots of anything
Skylarian Isachenko: you cannot stop that
quadrapop Lane: cos sl snapshots are screen shots lol
Sasun Steinbeck: so don't hold your breath :) BUT if there is some very good way that could stop the vast majority, that's something we can lean on LL to provide for the art community
Em Larsson: But then, if you sold a work.. and it were displayed somewhere else....
Chloe Mineff: yes liek some web sites like snopes disallow copy and paste
Skylarian Isachenko: you can still cap them,
Sasun Steinbeck: interesting idea, I wonder if there is a jira for that type of snapshot permission already?
Skylarian Isachenko: once its in your video merory you can manipulate it
Maggi Mint: watermark your art if you are afraid someone will photograph it
White Hyacinth: You may have noticed it is impossible to screen capture Windows media player. These things can be enforced (and I hate that ;) )
Sasun Steinbeck: seems like there are some tough challenges to make that work
Peoney Feld: by the way, anything I said about copyright should not be construed as my discouraging anyone from registering in DC
Sasun Steinbeck: like being a sim away and zooming in for a snap :)
Peoney Feld: on the contrary
Skylarian Isachenko: I have never had a problem capturing anything at all on my screen
Doran Forzane: best solution to protect against snapshots is digimarc, you should all be using digimarc for your art
Skylarian Isachenko: Thats fine if you have a lot of money to spend
Peoney Feld: would like to know more about that, Doran
Sasun Steinbeck: hm if there is something we can do on the LEA sims to discourage any kind of theft... be it snaps or whatnot... I'd be all for that
Skylarian Isachenko: it costs to use digimarc
Skylarian Isachenko: commercial service
Dragomir Greenwood: I have watermak strips over the art in my gallery. Doesn't affect the final purchased art
Em Larsson wonders what digimark is.
Sasun Steinbeck: hmmm I'll have eto google that later and educate myself on digimarc
Skylarian Isachenko: electronic signature
Doran Forzane: yes, but it is the only way to truely protect an digital version of any image
Em Larsson: me too
Skylarian Isachenko: embeded in the file
sandhya2 Patel: wonders how to do watermark strip
Sasun Steinbeck: I wonder if something like that coudl be supplied as a service on the LEA sims... or some kind of anti-theft technology if such a thingn exists. as long as it doesn't interfere with the enjoyment of the art...
Skylarian Isachenko: It can however be striped out with the right tools so its not fool proof
Callipygian Christensen: arriving late, did I miss information on how space in the sims is to be assigned?
Dragomir Greenwood: I have a png logo on a prim accross the art
Sasun Steinbeck: Hi Callipygian, haven't really talk about that, we don't really have a detailed plan how that is going to happen
Skylarian Isachenko: in reality the resolution of art in sl is so low its pretty useless for anything but in sl
Sasun Steinbeck: we do know there will be an application process for exhibit space on the LEA sims
Doran Forzane: There is no reason why LL couldnt own digimarc and when someone uploads a texture it applies a digimarc unique to the account uploading
Dragomir Greenwood: Thieves are lazy, the work it would take to remove is not worth their effort
Maya Paris: is copyright really the big issue here? i'd like to hear more about the LEA plans
Sasun Steinbeck: the committee will process those applications and decide yes/no based on the merits of the work
Sasun Steinbeck: other than that we don't know how it will be divided up
Zachh Cale: Sasun, do you know the business reason behind creating an SL mega gallery as opposed to supporting existing galleries ? Have you hear any discussion of that, or is that a new idea?
Doran Forzane: it would be a cost though to LL
Callipygian Christensen: ah,thanks Sasun - I realize those pushing the envelope of tech are vvery attractive to LL, but I hope there is also space for old fashioned 2d pretties too :)
Tia Macbain: good question Zachh
Lizzo Dreamscape: I love it when the artists put their names across their artwork on Xstreet... I use them for quickly made posters for their shows... hehe
Skylarian Isachenko: yes, considering there are hundreds of thousands of textures uploaded every day
Tia Macbain: [15:48] Zachh Cale: Sasun, do you know the business reason behind creating an SL mega gallery as opposed to supporting existing galleries ? Have you hear any discussion of that, or is that a new idea?
Maggi Mint: the resolution of the tiny artworks we have in here is so low as to make it imposible to reproduce in a RL format and that is where the biggest concern for theft would be
Sasun Steinbeck: Zachh we definitely want to do both, we want to support existing art sims/galleries and also have an art nexus, and a good starting point/place for someone interested in art in SL
Sasun Steinbeck: We want to promote art with o ur regular events too
Elise Benusconi: lol Lizzo
Sasun Steinbeck: including music, machinema, live performance art, etc.
Em Larsson: I wonder if you are not in the big gallery, will you just get pushed out?
Ghosty Kips: yes, id like to see the LL mega exhibit used to promote us and out own galleries, not the other way around
Tia Macbain: thats about everything I do on my sim now....guess I better think of somethng new
Doran Forzane: Thats an interesting one EM, something I have thought about
Sasun Steinbeck: Em we want to avoid that for sure, I don't think that 5-6 more sims is going to push anyone out of the arts at this point though
Em Larsson: Well, I wonder why LL is interested in art,
Zachh Cale: Does LL feel that existing galleries do not give new artists a chance? It sounds like LL will have an application process so they will be choosing artists as well....
Sasun Steinbeck: however we will probably grow, and we want to do it in a way that doesn't steal visitors from your galleries too
Em Larsson: OK.. I'm sure that is not YOUR intention. I didn't mean to imply that.
Sasun Steinbeck: as I mentioned we want to push them [visitors] OUT to all the cool places to see
Molly Montale: Desmond Shang raises an interesting point on the blog, that the LEA will create winners and losers from those who want to participate with many more losers than winners creating the possibility of hurt feelings and ill will
Em Larsson: I certainly believe you.
Doran Forzane: I would EM, I would shut Angel down. If it became a cost I couldnt bear anymore
Skylarian Isachenko: Hmmm Screenflow is for Macs.. useless to me., al well
Sasun Steinbeck: Molly that's a good point, but as it was raised by someone else... artists regularly get rejected for art shows, it's just a part of life. They can't expect a "yes" from everyone
Tia Macbain: i would turn tiatopia into a giant sandbox.
Carly Frequency: This is a different tack - but I'd ike to see the group reach out to RL art schools to come view our work as easily- reached galleries of diverse art for them to study - and encourage more artists to come here in that way, too
Sasun Steinbeck: we have lots of artists... some are going to be told no, it's inevitable
Lizzo Dreamscape: GREAT Carly.
Sasun Steinbeck: ooooo Carly. I really like that idea.
FreeWee Ling: Will private art-oriented sims be able to apply to move to an LEA sim? Or to be subsidized?
Sasun Steinbeck: that you very much
Elise Benusconi: Love that idea, Carly!
Sasun Steinbeck: FreeWee I hope we have some details on that soon!
Skylarian Isachenko: One thing we need desperately is an actually usable artists inventory system, one that does not take an entire day to try and sort through the art.
Zachh Cale: Well I don't understand the business reason for competing with existing galleries who pay LL to present content for SL - so why not just have the LEA be a permanent archive for all the wonderful exhibits that are rapidly disappearing from existing galleries and sims? Just an idea, don't mean to put you on the spot Sasun...
Sasun Steinbeck: we are discussing that, most definitely. Do you have any ideas other than a subsidy how we can best support art sims?
Doran Forzane: LEA will need a criteria, it will need a due diligence process like any RL gallery
Sasun Steinbeck: LOL Sky, as a collector myself, I agree
Elise Benusconi: By promoting them, Sasun....if it can't be cash, it should be reach.
Dragomir Greenwood: Give them sample galleries in the sim
Carly Frequency: advertising, Sas
Sasun Steinbeck: no Zachh, please put me on the spot :) that's great feedback
FreeWee Ling: Well, directing traffic helps, but the problem with maintaining a sim is the obscene cost.
Skylarian Isachenko: I happen to know a very large university director of virtual resources, I will speak with her about the idea of the college of art having a presence here in SL
Tricia Aferdita: this would be a good opportunity to show SL as more than a big sex game
Carly Frequency: LEA can have lots of posters and ads for original art - everywhere
Sasun Steinbeck: yes Doran, we'll have a defined process for sure, it won't be haphazard. it's all yet to be worked out though. Any ideas are welcome!
Zachh Cale: LOL Sasun I can't believe you are taking all this feedback - 60 avatars talking at once
Tricia Aferdita: which is probably more why they are doing it than anything
Tia Macbain: ok so the HUB Sasun....how will it work....is it more than the teleport system you supply us with now?
Tricia Aferdita: PR
Lizzo Dreamscape: Nice template for that (making a artist inventory system) is Bones Writers MUSIC sim... you can go to Blues Artists, Classical, individual aritists.....TRAX is the name
Zachh Cale: We need martinis after this for Sasun
Sasun Steinbeck: LOL :)
Em Larsson: I hope you are right Tricia
Skylarian Isachenko: We certainly need something, its insane trying to sort work
Sasun Steinbeck: yes I think it would be *awesome* to reach out to some RL art orgs
Doran Forzane: Zach, thats way you save it and read it back
Doran Forzane: lol
sandhya2 Patel: Can art and sculpture go on sl protected land?
Tia Macbain: because a HUB can be something that is barely visible....or extremely visible
Elise Benusconi: lol Here, here! Cheers to Sasun for letting us ask all the tough questions! :-)
Sasun Steinbeck: I'm putting that one high on my list of things to discuss :)
Lizzo Dreamscape: Poor Sasun! Glad she doesn't own BP too!!
Zachh Cale: :))
Em Larsson: LOL
Zachh Cale: lmao
Carly Frequency: hell - I wish she DID own BP
Sasun Steinbeck: LOL!
Ghosty Kips: well, to be honest, i wouldnt mind a percentage of my art sales going to help suupport a sim or a series of sims that benefit the community. but the community needs to draw equal or benefit from the sims, and not just the artists that are showcased there.
Elise Benusconi: lol
Tia Macbain: so if the idea is for the LEA to build a gallery then to build a hub....why cant it be to build a HUB THEN to build a gallery
Sasun Steinbeck: yes we are all in agreement that art can and will be for sale on the LEA sims
Carly Frequency: yes Tia
Skylarian Isachenko: LL would be using our work to promote their product so it sonly fair they foot the bills
Sasun Steinbeck: we want to support the arts, and that's going to help a lot of artists
sandhya2 Patel: i was asking if sl protected land could be a way of showing off some sculpture and art in sl
White Hyacinth: I think LEA can be wonderful for the arts in SL -- if it can promote art based on its quality; not the highest bidder; not the loudest mouth
Em Larsson: I agree with Skylarian
Eliza Wierwight: ditto
Tia Macbain: IF this is the LEA and an endowment of current programs...then support the current programs first....wouldnt need more than a 1/4 sim to do that
Sasun Steinbeck: yes right White, and as you can see from the list of committee members, we have some very good people in the group
Tia Macbain: tto have ANOTHER gallery that is HUGE isnt going to help us
Sasun Steinbeck: we will be making judgements based on the merits, not political or whatever
Em Larsson: hard to do, Sasun
Elise Benusconi: You know a tremendous opportunity is currently being wasted in the Linden Homes sims....why not have identified SL art on display...show people what is possible...int he little public squares and neighborhood hubs.
Doran Forzane: yes, its a good group, shame its missing one or 2 though.
Sasun Steinbeck: oooo Elise
Sasun Steinbeck: very interesting
Ghosty Kips: this is true, there's tons, literally tons of linden land that nothing is ever done with. i used to live across from four sims that are, and always have been, empty save for a few trees and a path
Tia Macbain: so if the LEA supports first I can see the validity of that
Elise Benusconi: So all public Linden places. Makes sense...they all need life anyway.
Sasun Steinbeck: yeah land is one thing we have plenty of :) it's the other stuff that may be difficult to get
FreeWee Ling: I have a residential sim whose residents support galleries and a music venue and no one makes a dime off it. It's a serious challenge to meet the basic cost of the thing. If we could be considered a not-for-profit artists community, that could go far to ensure its survival.
Tia Macbain: if it builds a mega gallery...sandbox time for me
Skylarian Isachenko: Yes, exactly, as I had mentioned, It would be great if we could put our art in thos homes as galleries instead of wasted spaces
Sasun Steinbeck: we definitely want to provide some real support to those types of sims FreeWee
quadrapop Lane: as LL build an art collection use it to "decorate" as in public art - at events like sl7b, around the LL entry areas etc
Carly Frequency: yes Free Wee that was my point earlier - to be considered as nonprofits for discounted tiers
Em Larsson: yes, like an art bank
FreeWee Ling: Yes. :)
Tia Macbain: and as far as full sim events....there are sims and sim owners that already do that
sandhya2 Patel: yes like statues in cities
quadrapop Lane: and not just texture on a prin and simple rl sculpture analogs but real SL interactive - showcase the best sl art can be
sandhya2 Patel: they are there for all to enjoy
Zachh Cale: Free, that would at least be something in support of existing galleries!
Tia Macbain: so I wonder if there is a way to support and enhance ...rather than compete
Maggi Mint: getting LL could look at getting grants from RL art organizations, like the Mcnight foundaton, to help fund the arts in SL, that way they could, in turn, help defray costs to SL artist (in the form of land tier) and still not hack away at their own bottom line to do it
Skylarian Isachenko: There needs to be a back up system too so when an artist leaves and their account expires all the texturees fo their art do nto go poof too
Sasun Steinbeck: yes true Tia and we don't want to steal any visitors from the already existing sims
Skylarian Isachenko: which they eventually will
Sasun Steinbeck: oh intersting Maggi, I love that idea
Sasun Steinbeck: thank you
Tia Macbain: I think the Hub Sasun is wonderful idea
Elise Benusconi: ALSO...how about requiring all official Gateway communities to offer public spaces that feature single pieces of art...never enough to threaten real galleries...but introduce the idea to residents...LL could donate the land to the Gateway communities.
Tia Macbain: I am not too keen on the mega gallery...as being a first act for the LEA....juss sayin
Molly Montale: Will Moles be involved in developing infrastucture?
Doran Forzane: Skylarian, provided that is the artists wish, the content owners wish must be respected
Sasun Steinbeck: one of my HUGE interests in this project is the art HUB - how do we educate people on the existing places to go, how can we make it super easy to send them, and fun to use?
Tia Macbain: Then that I can support
Em Larsson: I agree with Tia
Tia Macbain: if that is your first priority
Em Larsson: Same here
Ghosty Kips: i like the mega gallery idea - IF its a tool for promoting us and out own galleries, not as an end to itself. the gallery should be a HUB in and of itself, really
Tia Macbain: yes ghosty
Sasun Steinbeck: good question Molly, I just asked that the other day. I don't know. I'll find out soon since I have a real interest in the architecture of the structures on the sims
Em Larsson: As a use of the Hub, I found it very difficult to find galleries.
Tia Macbain: but its all in the idea of the mission statement
Tia Macbain: is it to have a mega gallery or to have a hub
Sasun Steinbeck: yes Em I agree, really haven't seen a hub that I found really useful
Nima Benoir: I'm with Tia on this as well, the lea shouldn't start out as a competitive thing right off the bat
Tia Macbain: and THAT is the question...whoa hamlet reference
Sasun Steinbeck: I'd really like to make something that WORKs well
Zachh Cale: lol
Carly Frequency: perhaps a sample piece of art that contains a teleporter to the gallery - a whole hub of those would be a very cool intro - and a link TO that hub from every entry-point sim for newcomers
Lizzo Dreamscape: Em.. I think that's a good point.. but I would LOVE to see it expanded and made more comprehensive.
Maggi Mint: any kind of mega display would be tacky and overwhleming: art displays need to be done in "intimate", small scale settings
Tia Macbain: well if you want our support Sasun...particularly mine
Tia Macbain: the focus should be about support
Tia Macbain: not promotion
Sasun Steinbeck: good idea Carly thank you
Em Larsson: I agree Lizzo
Nima Benoir: Why not a focus on education about the art and artist of SL first?
Skylarian Isachenko: Dupilcate the art and the links on a website so you can slurl to the galleris from there
Doran Forzane: thats because those in Linden Labs who build dont know how to build....LOL
Doran Forzane: SO all the hubs looks like crap
Tia Macbain: as ppl trust the idea
Skylarian Isachenko: heck of alot faster to view and link to
Tia Macbain: the gallery or mega gallery could be a viable part
Ghosty Kips: well, if we consider deviding the sims up by type of art, wouldnt it make sense to have each sim / art type have it's own HUB/HUD thing?
Sasun Steinbeck: yes Maggi I tend to get overwhelemed when there is just SO much in visible range to absorb, good point
White Hyacinth: LEA might be like the front page of a blog: Small sample of art... [Click here to see the rest of it...]
Zachh Cale: I think the existing destination works amazingly well, would destination still exist for art as well?
quadrapop Lane: the size of the display area depends on the art involved.... come to uwa and see what I deakl with each month... everything from jewellery to mega prim pieces...
Sasun Steinbeck: yes Ghosty maybe that's the best idea... a hub of some kind on every sim?
Tia Macbain: but if it is in direct competition to say what I do for instance....then put on your running shoes....
Tia Macbain: lol
Carly Frequency: right - but the click is a teleport, White Hyacinth
Ghosty Kips: yes, dor the differnt types of art on each sim
Sasun Steinbeck: you mean the Destination Guide, Zachh?
Zachh Cale: yes Sasun :)
Sasun Steinbeck: we do have an art category in there...
Ghosty Kips: a digital hub, a painting hub, a sculpture hub, a music hub etc
Callipygian Christensen: Listeing booths for live musicians of some form would be nice..has that been mentioned?
Zachh Cale: Yes it works amazingly well
Zachh Cale: so many newbies use it
Tia Macbain: BINGO GHosty for the win
Sasun Steinbeck: maybe some type of cool integration with that... but the Guide doesn't try to be comprehensive and list every location known to man...
Ghosty Kips bows
Tia Macbain: maybe with SMALL SAMPLES
Tia Macbain: of artwork
Sasun Steinbeck: thank you Ghosty, good idea :)
Tia Macbain: NOT OMG THIS IS ALL THE ART IN SL
Tia Macbain: right here
sandhya2 Patel: what about art that has interactive components to it
Sasun Steinbeck: hahahahah yes Tia :)
Lizzo Dreamscape: Zachh... I use it to find interesting Artists for my Gallery! You never KNOW what Gem you will find at the next click!!!
sandhya2 Patel: such as walk through sound etc?
Tricia Aferdita: I need to run to another meeting, but thank you for presenting this, Sasun. I look forward to receiving the transcript!
Sasun Steinbeck: I love interactive art :)
quadrapop Lane: and think opf HOPW this is being accessed onm the screen - dont sdee many of you using v2.0 but all the newbies do.... and how do they find their weay around?
Ghosty Kips: right, and each hub promotes the outside galleries in SL, and the artists promote their presense in the hub of their choosing
Nima Benoir: A way to support artists would be to add a catagory of self representing artist on the xstreet marketplace, like they have on ebay
Sasun Steinbeck: oh yes it's 4pm, if anyone needs to go, then thank you for attending and for your feedback! and if you have more - please IM any time!
Tia Macbain: but the minute LL or LEA competes with the ppl that feed its monitary engine....bad idea
Lizzo Dreamscape: YAY SASUN!!! NEXT PRESIDENT OF BP!!
Sasun Steinbeck: I'll be here for a while longer, so keep shouting :)
Sasun Steinbeck: LOL Lizzo :)
Em Larsson: I agree with Tia
Carly Frequency: Ghosty hit on something - if we artists could choose which category we wished to align with - it would not be some committee dictating
Maggi Mint: is there and LEA subscribomatic anywhere, where we could sign up to get inworld updates?
quadrapop Lane: WD sasun :)
Filthy Fluno: omg...what about a website that has slurls to all the galleries!
Elise Benusconi: I do have to run...thank you for all the info, Sasun! And, if anyone wishes to discuss placing their art on my website, please IM me! See you all soon! :-))
quadrapop Lane: lol
Skylarian Isachenko: yes, good diea,
Em Larsson: why they would think there is $$ in art, I have no idea.
Skylarian Isachenko: I mentioned that
Doran Forzane: Sasun, is LEA considering the impacts of irregular sculptured meshies when they are introduced. If your place a lot of art down with those polygons you will lag the sim up big time?
Nima Benoir: I'm with Em and Tia there are so many other ways that LL could support the arts that benefit us all
Sasun Steinbeck: right Carly, I think that is the current thinking too
Sasun Steinbeck: self-categorize
quadrapop Lane: isn't that what sasun's hud used to be?
Tia Macbain: I THINK the LEA needs a clear mission statement
Ghosty Kips: that wold be a great dea, a cental web site, with sections like the hubs inworld, with slurls to different exhibits in each hub/sim
Sasun Steinbeck: good question Doran, I don't know anything about meshes, but I'll bring that up
quadrapop Lane: mesh lag will be local client...
Tia Macbain: I wonder if THAT could be the first order of things
Filthy Fluno: oy vey
Doran Forzane: its one for galleries, its the maths behind how they work
Tia Macbain: so we know that it is a friendly organization and what the intentions are
quadrapop Lane: as with alpha and sculptuies now
Lizzo Dreamscape: Thanks for having me all you cool people! poofing.
Sasun Steinbeck: yes Nima and I'd love to hear your ideas, we're not all about just this big art complex
Ghosty Kips: I have to run too folks. plz make this transcript available somewhere?
Skylarian Isachenko: Maximum optimization to reduce any lag to a min.
Carly Frequency: bye Ghosty
Ghosty Kips: bye everyone, Namaste :)
Nima Benoir: Ciao!
Tia Macbain: Mission statements are the best thing to organize a plan...juss sayin
Katerina Burner: bye bye :)
Scotj Criss: bye everyone!! thanks for coming
Sasun Steinbeck: we have published our list of high-level goals, that's nto quite a mission statement, but you can get the feel for what we are all about from that
Sasun Steinbeck: yes Tia I agree
Tia Macbain: nods
Em Larsson: A mission statement at least sets a direction
Tia Macbain: I would think you would Sasun...but the LEA must...or it will feel like a hostile situation ....again...juss sayin
Sasun Steinbeck: I hope we can have our own website soon so we can have things like our mission/goals in one spot :)
Carly Frequency: Sas - thank you for your work on this - I feel like we are heard by the LEA with you there.
quadrapop Lane: ty :))
Molly Montale: This has been super, Sasun. I am curious had you been designated to present this or have you done this out of your own sense for transparency? :)
Doran Forzane: laughs
Sasun Steinbeck: yes Tia we dont' want to appear competitive, that's the last thing we want.
Sasun Steinbeck: I did it myself :)
Molly Montale: ah :)
Nima Benoir: I guess I'm a afraid that in the end it won't be art unless it's endorsed by the LEA the official organization of the arts now in SL
Tia Macbain: okies I takin mah 2 cents back to mah sim....seeya....thanks Sasun!
Sasun Steinbeck: I think you guys have a lot of good feedback
Scotj Criss: Thank you Sasun for a very informative hour
Doran Forzane: Nima, I wouldnt worry about that
Sasun Steinbeck: and I want to represent the gallery owners so that we don't accidentally trample you under while we do all this work :)
Carly Frequency: We don't trample easily
Sasun Steinbeck: LOL
Em Larsson: I really appreciate your taking the trouble Sasun
Eliza Wierwight: Thanks Sasun this is massive undertaking to wrangle , much appreciated
Sasun Steinbeck: my pleasure, thank you
Em Larsson: And all the work you do on our behalf generally
Sasun Steinbeck: I hope we can do more like this!
Zachh Cale: Thanks Sasun! What is the next step, will we hear back from you, will the committee respond to our feedback?
Em Larsson: I wonder if you have a sense of why LL is interested?
Sasun Steinbeck: One thing I should mention is that I will be gone for two months starting in July
Em Larsson: I understand why you are
Maya Paris: Thanks a lot Sasun:)
Em Larsson: and your group
Sasun Steinbeck: so I'll be taking a bit of haitus from... everything for a while :)
Nima Benoir: Thanks Sasun! At least we trust you!
Em Larsson: but LL? What is the source fo their interest?
Eliza Wierwight: an email from LL that my tiers are covered will suffice ~laughs~
Skylarian Isachenko: I believe it is because they are trying to bring in more large organizations
Sasun Steinbeck: but I'll be back and still in the LEA when I return, don't worry
Zachh Cale: YEAH Eliza!! hehe
Skylarian Isachenko: doing with art what they did with education
White Hyacinth: Yay Sasun
Molly Montale: its the Vulcan pan farr
Katerina Burner: thank you everyone for coming today
White Hyacinth claps
Soundsmith Kamachi: thanks for inviting, Sasun, and all the good info
Sasun Steinbeck: Hm you know they've never really said to anyone exactly why they are doing this
Eliza Wierwight: ~beams~ I'm practical !
Soundsmith Kamachi: bye everyone
Sasun Steinbeck: so all we can do is guess at this point :)
Tia Macbain: Em...we may never find out....but one this is....it must suit them to some degree or they wouldnt BE interested
Doran Forzane: 2 months of bliss
Em Larsson: Why does that worry me?
Sasun Steinbeck: bye and thanks for coming, those of you leaving :)
Em Larsson: How long will we miss you Sasuan?
Zachh Cale: wow Sasun! thanks for sharing that with us
Tia Macbain: okies bye
Sasun Steinbeck: 2 months I'll be gone
Skylarian Isachenko: They need the large level input in order to reinvent their coporate image
Sasun Steinbeck: bicycling around Europe :)
Eliza Wierwight: oh wow
Nima Benoir: Oh Wow! That's wonderful!
Carly Frequency: we'll try to hang on that long!
quadrapop Lane: have a great time in rl sasun :)
Molly Montale: wow :)
Skylarian Isachenko: they made a big mistake with the gamer image
Sasun Steinbeck: haha yeah hang in there, jeez. Don't all fall apart while I'm away :)
Molly Montale: post to flickr :)
Em Larsson: gamer image?
Eliza Wierwight: have a blast, what a fantastic adventure
quadrapop Lane: yeah take lotsa pics for us :)
Doran Forzane: Skylarian, its their bread and butter.
Skylarian Isachenko: Have a grand time Sasun, and may it be a fabulous adventure
Em Larsson: Wow... great treip Sasun
Em Larsson: Do you know when you're returning Sasun?
Skylarian Isachenko: Its not a game, and folk are learning that
Sasun Steinbeck: thanks! yes return date is not set but most likely September or late August
Doran Forzane: SL, is a MMO.... gaming is part of it. Its also a collaboration, its what each resident wants it to be
Maggi Mint: id there an inworld place to subcribe for updates on the LEA???????
Skylarian Isachenko: Hundreds of thousads are empty accounts
Em Larsson: ah, OK.. for the summer.. cool!
Sasun Steinbeck: good question Maggi
Doran Forzane: Its more the issue of how the outside world views SL that is the issue
Em Larsson: yes, how can we learn about what is happening?
Sasun Steinbeck: hm... the LL community blog at this point
Sasun Steinbeck: maybe someday the LEA will have our own web page/blog/feed
Sasun Steinbeck: I'm pushing for that!
Skylarian Isachenko: Actually its a platform where you might have games, but its not a game in itself
Em Larsson: You think the issue is imagine not $$ Forzan?
Molly Montale: yaay
FreeWee Ling: Who is Niko Linden. The Overlord of this project?
Sasun Steinbeck: He is the supreme overlord, yes
Eliza Wierwight: oh my
Sasun Steinbeck: :)
Eliza Wierwight: sounds kinky
Sasun Steinbeck: he's our primary contact with LL for this project
Sasun Steinbeck: we have met with other Lindens, including M
Sasun Steinbeck: they pop in at our regular meetings, but Niko is The Man as far as we are concerned
Molly Montale: LEA will not be effected by the recent Linden restructuring?
Em Larsson: I need to get the transcript so I understand the background and context
Maggi Mint: an inworld notification would be handy...I tend to avoid bloated bloggs
Doran Forzane: actually, Skylarian, technically, it is a game. Havok is a game engine. Its just that it has matured into something more. Its only 7 years old in its SDLC. So its not yet determined what it is
FreeWee Ling: Do you know his position at LL?
Em Larsson: I couldn't be on time, so I am lacking backgroud
Doran Forzane: Thats from a programming perspective
Sasun Steinbeck: I'll post a chat log Em, so you'll have all the stuff you missed
Doran Forzane: I dont even think LL understand what SL is
Skylarian Isachenko: Not going to argue with you. The game paradine does not work
quadrapop Lane: LL is aplatyform to play on - what you play is up to you - soem folks play games others [play business... just like internet
Em Larsson: great.. thanks Sasun.. on the Community Blog?
Sasun Steinbeck: yes, where Niko posted the recent update
Skylarian Isachenko: Lots of free accounts, come in, eat resoruces, then the RP sims die due to lack of support
Em Larsson: ah.. did not see it.. url?
Sasun Steinbeck: yes, the Community blog
Zachh Cale: Thanks so much Sasun and everyone! Hugs to alllll
Skylarian Isachenko: end result, net loss
Em Larsson: thank you!
Inovart Tedeschi is Offline
Em Larsson: Bye Zachh
Sasun Steinbeck: the general community blog is http://blogs.secondlife.com/community/community/blog
Maggi Mint: an inworld notification would be handy...I tend to avoid bloated bloggs
FreeWee Ling: Well this is all very exciting and scary.. heehee
Sasun Steinbeck: haha you're telling me!
Sasun Steinbeck: We have to do all the work!
Sasun Steinbeck: lol :)
Carly Frequency: thank you Sas --- I am going to head out - thank you Scott for hosting us
Sasun Steinbeck: thanks for coming!
Katerina Burner: take care everyone.. and if you like take a stroll and enjoy the exhibits
Em Larsson: Thanks Q
Ally Aeon: thank's Sasun and bye all
FreeWee Ling: Thank you for spearheading this, Sasun. I couldn;t think of a better representative.
Sasun Steinbeck: Please remember if you have any thoughts... notecard them and send them to me
Skylarian Isachenko: Have a grand day, I have a birthday party to attend to, we try to keep our staff stuffed with cake.
Sasun Steinbeck: well thank you, I hope to do a great job for you guys!
White Hyacinth: Thanks Sasun; bye all
Eliza Wierwight: yes thanks also to the Criss for hosting this communal area for us
FreeWee Ling: You always have.
Sasun Steinbeck: I will do my best not to let down my awesome gallery owners :)
Sasun Steinbeck: so don't worry, you will have a voice
Nima Benoir: You won't, don't worry!
Em Larsson: Thanks very much Sasun
Sasun Steinbeck: I've gotten some great ideas, I will comb though the chat log and pluck everything out and make sure the rest of the committee sees it
Sasun Steinbeck: and we can discuss all those ideas too
Nima Benoir: Thanks to Scotj, great meeting!
sandhya2 Patel: thank you
sandhya2 Patel: very good meeting
FreeWee Ling: Thank you all. Gotta get back to SL7B before it turns into a pumpkin...
Sasun Steinbeck: thank you, I hope this helped
Doran Forzane: lol
quadrapop Lane: hugs sasun and TY - you area vove of reason :)
Sasun Steinbeck: I know I don't have a lot of details to share but your feedback will help shape our plans for sure
Maggi Mint: TY for spearheading this Susan
Nima Benoir: oh lol, well he'll get to read my thinks later
quadrapop Lane: voice* even
Sasun Steinbeck: haha yes thanks to Scotj for hosting, I love this seating area
Molly Montale: quest for food. please have a good evening :)
sandhya2 Patel: i clicked on it and crashed
Molly Montale waves
Callipygian Christensen: thanks and good luck Sasun :)
Sasun Steinbeck: hopefully someday the LEA will have our own blog
Sasun Steinbeck: until then, the general community blog there is where to look
sandhya2 Patel: thank you
Sasun Steinbeck: thanks for coming everyone!
Sasun Steinbeck: that was fun
Maggi Mint: TY Susan
quadrapop Lane: wiki - sasun - do a LEA wiki page lol
Nima Benoir: Bye everyone, thanks again Sasun
Tondy Treves: Thank you, Sasun
Dragomir Greenwood: :-)
Eliza Wierwight: right , worky worky time for me , thanks again Sasun and the Criss , wishing everyone well ~Hugs Q ~
Sasun Steinbeck: I wish I wasn't leaving for so long, but oh well. I'm not really worried, the committee has some really smart and experienced artists on it
Sasun Steinbeck: I trust them to carry on while I'm gone :)
quadrapop Lane: I'll keep JJ on track for you :)
barry Richez: ty sasun and bye all
Sasun Steinbeck: hahaha good
barry's translator: ty and bye all Sasun
Sasun Steinbeck: yeah JJ has been great, a real good addition
Sasun Steinbeck: bye bye!
Em Larsson: I would feel better with you there, but life goes on, and this sounds like a fab holiday.
Em Larsson: Bye Sasun
Sasun Steinbeck: bye bye!
Peoney Feld: bye Sasun thank you very much
quadrapop Lane: he's gained alot of experience ina short time and has the rl management background
Sasun Steinbeck: yes a much needed break :)
Sasun Steinbeck: yes exactly!
Sasun Steinbeck: JJ and I agree on everything, so it's been a real pleasure!
Sasun Steinbeck: I need to put that in the LEA committee selection criteria, "all applicants must agree with Sasun on everything"
Peoney Feld: hahah
Peoney Feld: yes, Sasun...
Peoney Feld: yes
Peoney Feld: lol
quadrapop Lane: lol

New quotes this week

2010-03-27T01:52:00.000-07:00

A few articles have come out recently with some quotes and interviews of yours truly. Yay!

http://www.slrevue.com/sl-business/fine-art-as-business-in-second-life-helping-artists-to-promote-themselves

http://slartsparks.blogspot.com/2010/03/crowned-hud-sasun-steinbeck.html

Linden Endowment for the Arts selections begin!

2010-03-17T19:54:00.001-07:00

I received some wonderful news today, I've been selected for the Linden Endowment for the Arts committee! I'm beyond thrilled at this opportunity to help with this project, which is very much in alignment with my goals of helping the SL art community mature and grow as a vital form of "New Media" or Virtual Art - one that is every bit as important and significant as other modes of art. We have a long ways to go.

There are a LOT of questions to be answered and some very good conversations going on about this topic. If you'd like to read some, check out the original announcement and discussion on the Linden Blog, New World Notes, Faerie Fuck, and Sand Castle Studios for some of the best discussions I've seen.

I've been immersing myself in all this feedback and a lot of it has been very helpful and raised some thought-provoking questions that we on the committee are going to need to answer. One thing is for sure, when you have to manage a program with limited resources and a constrained set of results (this is, after all, funded and sponsored by LL), you simply can't make everyone happy. I'm a strong believer in transparency, so I will do my best to push for a policy and attitude of openness about our decisions and not just hand them out like some sort of elite ruling "FIC"-like clique, which seems to be a commonly expressed fear. Trust me that's the last thing I want, as well. I would greatly prefer that we don't operate in a vacuum and regularly get feedback from the community to avoid misalignment with the real needs of the various art communities in SL.

I realize already that the question of what the scope is as far as what types of art will get emphasis is a big one and one we need to tackle. The performing arts, Machinema, and Fashion (wearable art) among others are obviously just as valid in their own right as the various visual arts in SL. I do not know if LL already has any particular direction they want to take in that regard, but it's a humdinger of a discussion that needs to happen.

The question of whether we emphasize art that "attempts to essentialize an important aspect of the human experience in a way that's only feasible in SL, leveraging most or all of Second Life's unique affordances", as Hamlet Au put it, is a vital question and one I look forward to debating with the committee.

The question about what art is is going to be a tricky one. I won't rehash the discussions linked above, but my current 2c (and I reserve the right to change my mind pending forthcoming discussions with the community and other committee members) is that discussing what art is in a New Media/Virtual Art medium such as Second Life is a bit like endlessly discussing why you can't slice wooden eggs in an egg slicer. It looks like an egg, it's shaped like an egg, but for some reason it resists acting like a real egg, darn it! New Media art has in some ways moved outside of the more generally accepted definitions of "art" and become something a little more hard to pin down. We must be careful to apply slightly outmoded definitions to whatever it is that we have in SL. Yes, they are very useful, but let's not get trapped into assuming that art in SL can be completely and accurately described with existing definitions. That being said, we will be forced to apply limited resources (space, prims, corporate policy/TOS, etc.) to the abundance of cool "stuff" there is to highlight and share with residents, and choices will need to be made. Frankly I'm tempted to never call it "SL art" again to stop all the preconceived ideas and assumptions when discussing it.

I hope to be able to share my thoughts and insights here into the project (without getting myself into big trouble lol) as this project rolls on. So stay tuned!

Web Kiosks

2010-03-04T20:33:00.000-08:00

Wow it's been a while. I've been neglecting this blog completely for the past two months. Time to get back into the groove!

The new "Rev 2" Galleries of SL kiosks are out and I couldn't be happier. Part of my goals in terms of my programming skills for the past year has been LSL/web integration, and I've been learning a lot of C# and ASP.net to do just that. I've also been wanting to learn a cool javascript library called jQuery that a lot of web developers are using, and the new web config for the gallery kiosks has been a great excuse to do that.

I've been wanting web-based config for the gallery kiosks for some time but due to some technical details (medium trust for ASP.Net applications running on godaddy.com servers doesn't allow the ports in the URLs for in-world HTTP-in objects, for you tech-heads), I am unable to make HTTP calls directly from an ASP.net page on my website to an SL server. However, I can display a standard .htm form from my web server on your browser, and set it up so that the datda in the form you fill out is submitted directly to your kiosk (since your kiosk is already set up as a simple HTTP web server with the new LSL "HTTP-in" functions). However I just plain didn't know how to do that, and I can't do it in ASP.net (not that it's a limitation of asp.net at all), which is what the entire Sasun.info website that all the gallery kiosks communicate to is written in. So I had to create such a form with pure HTML and javascript, no asp.net. I finally spent some time learning jQuery to make it much easier, and before you know it I had a working form that could send data directly to an in-world kiosk. I was pretty thrilled to see that actually working. I also learned all about a common web technology called AJAX that allows me to easily get data from my website from a pure HTML web page, so I can pull your kiosk data in from the database to populate the fields on the config form or show you a list of your kiosks below the form if it can't find a kiosk on the current parcel.

So far the response has been very positive. I really like the fact that I can validate all the inputs directly on the web form, which means I could remove some code from the server that used to do all the data validation, since it was now being done on the website instead, and free up some valuable memory, which is like gold with big LSL scripts.

The other killer thing about the new web config form is that it allows kiosk owners to migrate their own data to a new kiosk. If you move to a new parcel and rez a new kiosk, the system has no way of knowing that your newly rezzed kiosk is the same one as before on the old parcel, and unless you asked me to migrate all that data to your new kiosk, it would be lost and you'd have to start fresh with no visitor counter data and no ratings. Now, you can click your old kiosk on the config form and all your data is moved to the new kiosk for you, so you don't ever have to lose your visitor/rating data!

The other cool feature is that the visitor counter uses WAY less script resources due to the new parcel keys feature, which is a good thing.

I also decided that I needed a new, updated look, so I built some new kiosks from scratch. The floor stand version was sculpted and textured by me. Yay!

Funny story with the "wall" version of the kiosk (the flat one you can hang on a wall). I did the stand version with the nice sculptie and textured it (which is not so easy when working with sculpties) and then got to work on the "wall" version which is basically the banner, display, and rating prim stuck on the black and white square backboard. So I thought, all I need to do is remove the stand part on the sculptie and leave the square backboard. So I removed the leg, created my sculptie, then had to retexture everything so it looked right. In about 20 min I had a nice... square... box. Yes, I essentially created a freakin' sculptie BOX. Omg. Duhhhh. So I trashed it, rezzed an actual box, made a quick texture, and had it ready in about 5 min. Sigh.

One downside someone pointed out to me about the sculptie version is that from a distance, it looks really weird. The texturing goes a little bonkers and it just looks awful, from far away. If that is an issue for you, I recommend swapping out the standard kiosk for the wall kiosk, it will always look fine from a distance. It's just a thing about sculpties and nothing I can do about it. I know there is some debug setting that keeps sculpties looking detailed from a distance, but with all the viewer uninstalls/reinstalls I've done lately I've lost all my fancy debug settings. Something LOD something, I don't remember.

There was one bug that snuck out that caused some rather odd things to happen, some people got stuck with a "you are missing a texture" error and someone else's texture if you didn't configure your kiosk with a UUID for your texture when you first submitted the form data. I quickly fixed it (well, it took many hours actually) and had to run around and upgrade about 50 kiosks asap while the new config system was shut down for the broken kiosks. Got everything fixed and upgraded that day (unfortunately it took ALL day) but they are working fine now.

Group Gallery Tour next Tuesday, Dec 15th noon

2009-12-10T16:08:00.000-08:00

This should be fun. Some gallery owner friends approached me after hearing me talk about the tour HUD, and my desire to organize some group tours, which the tour HUD supports already. They said we should make it happen, so now it is!

I have a standalone version of the Gallery HUD that I sell commercially that would be perfect for some pre-chosen locations, so we are going to give it an official public test run next tuesday, Dec 15th at noon PST for a 1 (or 2) hour tour. The intent is to raise some awareness of the gallery rating system and get some more ratings for some galleries we'll pick out beforehand. And make sure the group tour mode works! :)

It will be fun! Guided tours are a great way to socialize and explore some new places. Hope to see you there! secondlife://Optimal/35/143/29

How to Build and Manage an Art Gallery in Second Life

2009-12-08T21:56:00.000-08:00

The following is a transcript of a discussion led by myself and Tommy Parrott on "How to Build and Manage an Art Gallery in Second Life". I had a great time and thanks to Glasz DeCuir for the invitation to speak!

Strider Messmer: Welcome to everyone who just arrived
Strider Messmer: I WILL USE CAPS TO HELP IN THE ADMIN NOTICES
Cogito Ultsch: hi :)
Sasun Steinbeck: hi Cogito :)
Strider Messmer: WELCOME EVERYONE TO CANAL PLACE
Strider Messmer: PLEASE BE SEATED
Gracie Kendal: Hi Mari L:)
Strider Messmer: IF YOU WISH I WILL BE USING VOICE AND TYPE CHAT BOTH
Skylarian Isachenko: You are going to be needing more seating
Strider Messmer: I WILL REZZ MORE IN A MOMENT
Gracie Kendal: Heya Apollo :)
Indigo Mertel: Hi
Mariposa Upshaw: hiya ms. gracie :)
JackC Citron: Hi =)
Strider Messmer: OUR FIRST PRESENTER IS THE OWNER OF, PERHAPS, THE LARGEST GALLERY IN SL.
Gracie Kendal: Hi there :)
Sasun Steinbeck claps
Strider Messmer: I MET HIM SEVERAL YEARS AGO AND HAVE BENEFITED FROM HIS ADVICE AND SOME OF HIS PERSONAL CREATIONS.
Indigo Mertel: Applause!!!
Strider Messmer: PLEASE JOIN WITH ME IN WELCOMING TOMMY PARROT!
Tommy Parrott: Thank you for having me ;)
Mars Lake: ? Applause ? Applause ? Applause ?
Indigo Mertel: Applause!!!
Apollo Reinard: welcome Tommy
Tommy Parrott: Thank you all for coming; and hopefully; this will help anyone that needs the guidance ;)
Ernst Maven: hey
Sasun Steinbeck: Welcome everyone!
Davideo Zelnik: hey :)
Skylarian Isachenko: Always open to learning more skills in the arts. and making a living is certain a skill.
Tommy Parrott: I see a lot of new blood here, as well as many seasoned veterans ;)
Sasun Steinbeck: I'd like to put in a plug for my group as we get things rolling here. I want people to know that help with this topic is available from quite a few sources - your fellow gallery owners are always willing to help, and asking questions of this sort are exactly what the Art Gallery Owner's group is for, so please join and ask about how to build and manage your gallery :)
Tommy Parrott: That is a great group for art related information; one cant live without for reaching the masses art wise: )
Sasun Steinbeck: yes the power of SL is community and that means getting out and meeting some fellow gallery owners, and attending things like this where we can all share and help each other be successful
Sasun Steinbeck: so don't be an art recluse too often lol :)
Tommy Parrott: Ok ;) You have come by to get some more understanding of building & maintainging an art gallery ;) There are several factors involved in the process of constructing a gallery ;) A successful gallery comes from lots of hard work, and dedication to the facility ;)
Tommy Parrott: Butilding a gallery can be a tricky task, as when building a gallery, I tend to try to make it very bland, yet appealing at the same time, as to not take way from the art you are displaying ;)
Tommy Parrott: After all; that is what they have come to your gallery for;) The art (well, sometimes the arch. also ;)
Tommy Parrott: So, I suggest keeping yout gallery enclosure to the minimum to keep it looking acceptable ;) If too lavish, people tend to leave quickly, as they are distracted by the gallery itself ;)
Sasun Steinbeck: Yes that's a good point, if you're not a wiz builder you might consider hiring someone to build something unique for you, part of the attraction of any gallery is the building itself!
Tommy Parrott: :)
Skylarian Isachenko: Indeed so, many of the ones I visit for the first time, I do because of the build
Sasun Steinbeck: hehe yes you can go *too* far of course
Skylarian Isachenko: grins
Skylarian Isachenko: Zero Point?
Skylarian Isachenko: though its gorgeous as a work in its own right
Tommy Parrott: Indeed!:) Arch. can make or break a build for sure:) I have seen many galleries that are simply, and very effective; on the other hand, have seen many that are very busy, and confusing :)
Tommy Parrott: If you make it a pleasant environment for them, they will stay and enjoy the surroundings;) So, plan your builds accordingly to your theme, and remember the K.I.S.S rule, as it works well ;)
synergistic Merryman: Kiss rule?
Mariposa Upshaw: keepitsimple
Tommy Parrott: Keep it Simple Stupid ;)
Apollo Reinard: keep it simple. (dummy)
Mariposa Upshaw waves to apollo
Tommy Parrott: (NO OFFENSE to anyone! ;)
Sasun Steinbeck: I'd like to chime in about one pet peeve of mine related to the buildings
Tommy Parrott: lol
Seoreh Voight: lol
Apollo Reinard: hey Mari :)
Sasun Steinbeck: please make sure it's not too cramped inside - that tends to make alt-zoomingn with your camera an extremely frustrating exercise
Sasun Steinbeck: when your camera is bouncing all over and going behind walls as you navigate a cramped gallery - ugh that drives me nuts
Tommy Parrott: Yes; Sasun, you are correct;) Many are too low;)
Davideo Zelnik: low?
Tommy Parrott: I always build mine at a MIN. of 5 meters; as 15 feet for a ceiling is a good minimum ;)
synergistic Merryman: The thing is - keep the art at a nice viewable level
Tommy Parrott: Open space in your design will assure that can happen ;) A well plannned build can do wonders ;)
Sasun Steinbeck: Good point if it's above the default camera level on a huge wall people will miss it
Eli Tauber: I'm trying to not use walls at all, any ideas on that?
synergistic Merryman: Hanging partitions can work well if well designed
Tommy Parrott: That can be quite appealing ;) I did an outdoor venure similar to that:) If creatively placed, why not:) The nice thing about SL is there are no physical boundaries to limit your imagination ;)
Eli Tauber: sort of been messing with using a .50 dia glass tube for that
Elese Faulkes: hanging partitions that are made of perspex maybe, with the back of your paintings/photos made transparent works great
Elise Benusconi: Perspex?
Eli Tauber: plexiglas
Skylarian Isachenko: glass
Skylarian Isachenko: only plastic
Elese Faulkes: its strong plastic..type stuff..lol
Van Caerndow: I like walls....tall walls
Elese Faulkes: I dislike tall walls..lol
Skylarian Isachenko: Remember of course your trying to sell art, so look at things from your clients perspective
Tommy Parrott: That is the great thing about SL; any style can be acheived; as there can be any style of containment :)
Skylarian Isachenko: regarless of what you might or might not like
Eli Tauber: I just want the works to show, not some wall, glowing white behind them
Sasun Steinbeck: yes and since construction costs can be relatively cheap, you can always redo your building if it doesn't work out
Elese Faulkes: yes..it would be boring if all the galerys lookes the same
Saiwun Yoshikawa: turn around time is rather quick:)
Sasun Steinbeck: a pain, but that's a good excuse for a grand re-re-re-re-opening evente :)
Tommy Parrott: But, like I had said, your gallery should not be the focal point;) The art should (unless you wish to be an architect ;)
Eli Tauber: my space is inside a cavern, with natural light open on 2 sides
Van Caerndow: Tall walls are good for tall paintings
Elese Faulkes: yes true Van :)
Saiwun Yoshikawa: and tall people:)LOL
Eli Tauber: the only walls are the exterior cavern walls
Van Caerndow: we are all tall compared to RL
Davideo Zelnik: tall walls become space... volume... more dimension to work in
Skylarian Isachenko: There is also the fact that human avatars are not the only ones out there
Skylarian Isachenko: so you need to build for your community
Cogito Ultsch: we have underwater gallery space
Van Caerndow: I hate spaces where I cannot fit in the doorways
Sasun Steinbeck: good point Sky. Not sure if I've ever seen you as a human avatar :)
Skylarian Isachenko: I dont actually own one
Saiwun Yoshikawa: but u dont need walls in sl:)
Skylarian Isachenko: No point when I am an elder with the IOW
Tommy Parrott: Indeed; it helps to cater to all types; but, as the saying goes; you will not be able to please all of the people all of the time... ;) You simply try to accomodate them the best you can ;)
synergistic Merryman: Excuse me - IOW?
Sasun Steinbeck: I was recently asked "What does a gallery owner have to do in order to be commercially successful?" and I have some thoughts to share. I'd love this to be more of a jumping point to a discussion so please chime in!
Skylarian Isachenko: My main gallery is set up for normal folk, but with room on the roof for dragons
Skylarian Isachenko: Isle of Wyrms, the Dragons of Second Life
Sasun Steinbeck: My first bit of advice is STICK TO IT. I can't emphasize that enough. Too may artists get frustrated by lack of sales. There's a lot of art in SL, which could be seen as a lot of "competition" for the art lover's hard-earned money. It takes time and a lot of work marketing yourself, getting into art shows, getting known, getting to know the movers and shakers in the art scene so you get asked to participate in big events more. And that kind of thing can be very difficult for an artist to enjoy doing, I totally understand.
Elese Faulkes: oh yes..
Sasun Steinbeck: I always advise artists, if you are really here to make money, then ditch art and start building sex toys. It's a sad but true statement, you must admit. If you are after the almighty linden, you'll need to sell your soul and go where the money is. But if you create art for the love of it, and you pour yourself into it, maybe the money will come. But you need to be in a position where you just don't care if it does or not, since it won't at first, I can guarantee that! Eventually you can work on the marketing aspects and get help from others to do that, and next thing you know you'll be making some money.
Saiwun Yoshikawa: im not here to be commercial succesful:)
Tommy Parrott: What Sasun says will hit home ;)
Skylarian Isachenko: Nods, I have been here for 3 years now, and I still do not sell a lot, but I get much interest in my work on Deviant Art from my showings here
Van Caerndow: I think exposure is more important than sales
Davideo Zelnik: well said Sasun!
Sasun Steinbeck: Good point Sky, there's a lot of good places to participate like Deviant Art that help fuel interest in your SL art and vice-versa!
Van Caerndow: the artist needs his work to be seen...just like the musician needs to be heard
Sasun Steinbeck: yes exactly
Eli Tauber: making your personal statement is more important than making money
Elese Faulkes: I simply just love that people wish to view my work, thats enough for me..
Sasun Steinbeck: that there are lots of ways to accomplish that, but it takes some hustle
Saiwun Yoshikawa: or hassle:)LOL
Skylarian Isachenko: If you have the resources to foot the bill for sl thats cool
Sasun Steinbeck: I'd have to agree, I get more personal satisfaction and joy out of people sending me random comments then yet another faceless sale
Skylarian Isachenko: in my case I need to make at least expenses
Sasun Steinbeck: random NICE comments lol
Elese Faulkes: yes..I agree :)
Sasun Steinbeck: Also, ask other successful artists how they did it. Start with Filthy Fluno's advice here: http://www.artcalendar.com/article.asp?ID=193
Skylarian Isachenko: fortunately print sales fro my DA shoppe via my sl gallery have kept up
Tommy Parrott: The FRO himself!
Sasun Steinbeck: Learn from someone that's done it, don't reinvent the wheel. There is no one path to "success" which is something you need to personally define yourself
synergistic Merryman: In our gallery - mine and Elese Faulkes - we have found word of mouth - and how much our work is enjoyed is the main draw to our gallery - we have also been fairly lucky with sales as well - smiles.
Sasun Steinbeck: Yes word of mouth will always be a major factor
Van Caerndow: sometimes sales depend on price...
Saiwun Yoshikawa: getting invites to exhibits is a gr8 help for me:)
Sasun Steinbeck: Pricing is always difficult. If it's priced too high, people will balk. Starting out at 400-500L per piece when you are brand new is a good starting point. If you are successful and making sales, start raising your prices. I see 8000 pieces of art for sale by unknown or new artists all the time and wonder if they have EVER made a single sale.
Sasun Steinbeck: 8000L, I mean
Van Caerndow: we see the same thing in RL...and I wondwer what are they smoking?
Sasun Steinbeck: hahahah :D
Elise Benusconi: Van...could you elaborate on your experience with pricing?
Davideo Zelnik: I have wondered... could there be (is there?) a way for visitors to leave a comment at your gallery? Like a Ghest Book to sign and comment.
Skylarian Isachenko: You often wonder if they are theirs too. :)
Tommy Parrott: I have found the secret to a successful gallery (successful can be defined by others as many different things ;)is dedication to it:) If you take the time to nurture it and maintain it, it will bring you the satisfaction YOU desire; after all; you will only get out of it what you put into it ;)
Van Caerndow: well I agree that 400-800 seems to be customer friendly here in SL
Sasun Steinbeck: Hm Davideo, I don't know off the top of my head but I'd bet there are quite a few guestbook systems you could pick up on XstreetSL
Van Caerndow: in RL m ost people won't even pay that much
Sasun Steinbeck: yes I agree Van
Sasun Steinbeck: that's a good starting point
Davideo Zelnik: I will check that out ...ty
synergistic Merryman: Hummm - about pricing - the average price on the work I offer is arounf $L4000.00 and that price has not seemed to impead sales at all - some go as high as $L7000.00.
Van Caerndow: I think umless something is incredible and never been seen before...it is hard to get over 1000 lindens
Sasun Steinbeck: I should say I'm really talking about your basic 2D imported art
Skylarian Isachenko: I keep mine at 300l but I have a link in each one to my RL print and that is where I make a bit of money
Sasun Steinbeck: Sculpture is another story altogether
Van Caerndow: but I assume you are selling something more complex...I am not familiar with your work
synergistic Merryman: Oh - I might add all our work is our own and original.
Saiwun Yoshikawa: i sell interactive sculpture
Eli Tauber: Sky, do you do your own printing?
Van Caerndow: yes on sculture which is SL only then I think a higher price is fair
Skylarian Isachenko: I use DA prints service, they provide all the resources and handle the credit cards and such for me
Eli Tauber: ok
Tommy Parrott: Syn; you are one out of a handful; congratulations! Not many can sell works for that costs in SL ;) Seems you have a very unique product, or it is themed to a specific genre ;)
synergistic Merryman: I think personally - the time put into the work should dictate the price - some of my work takes months to create.
Sasun Steinbeck: that's a good point
Sasun Steinbeck: One tip on 2D art: take the time to learn about aspect ratios, and figure out the ideal size textures to upload so that they look good. I never buy art that is less than 512x512 resolution otherwise it looks blurry and you can't see any detail. A gallery loaded with 512's is going to be slow to rez, but for art to hang in your home, you want it to look great, not a pixellated blur-fest.
synergistic Merryman: Tommy - we have a broad range of topics - maybe we have just been extremely lucky
Skylarian Isachenko: Having scripted frames that allow you to size the art properly helps too
Tommy Parrott: Luck is being preparred when opportunity knocks;) You sound like you were ready ;)
Davideo Zelnik: any comments on who are the Buyers in SL... and where does the art go?
Skylarian Isachenko: keeps the buyers from screwing your images up.
Sasun Steinbeck: I have a free resizer open-source script I'd be glad to provide anyone that wants one
Sasun Steinbeck: tell you what, I'll send it out again on the Art Gallery Owner's group
Cogito Ultsch: awesome :)
Elese Faulkes: please Sasun..the one I boght is drving menuts
Sasun Steinbeck: it also works for sculpture - link sets
Skylarian Isachenko: Sasun is a heck of a scriptor, just what an artist in sl needs. :)
Seoreh Voight: thank you Sasun :)
Van Caerndow: i find the buyers are a few frinds, a few actual collectors, a few other wandering artists...and some seem to be totally random
synergistic Merryman: Sasun - that is very nice and generous of you - smiles
Sasun Steinbeck: my pleasure :)
Sasun Steinbeck: I've got a few more misc tips to share, I'd love your comments on
Saiwun Yoshikawa: http://www.secondnights.com/cms/index.php?option=com_zoo&view=category&layout=category&Itemid=62
Sasun Steinbeck: Go to events. Socialize. Meet some gallery owners, find out if they are looking for an artist. Join the Art & Artist Network and look for notices for free or cheap gallery space. Get into more shows. Learn how to market yourself. It's hard, I know!
10. Do any artists or galleries in Second Life earn enough of an income to allow them to not have to work in real life, say over $1 million linden a month?
Saiwun Yoshikawa: try this website:)
Sasun Steinbeck: Woops sorry a question got tacked onto the end of that
Saiwun Yoshikawa: its free:)
Apollo Reinard: sasun? I'd like to look at the resizer script, please.
Elese Faulkes: do you all give your work as gifts at weddings and such here?
Skylarian Isachenko: That is quite a question.... :)
Sasun Steinbeck: oh good one Saiwun, yes I recommend getting listed at that website. Iv'e been working with the owner of secondnights.com to share some data :)
Skylarian Isachenko: I hand out pieces for things like Yule now and then
Sasun Steinbeck: here is my answer to that question then :)
synergistic Merryman: OH my - make enough money in SL to live on in RL - my my - a beautiful dream - smiles
Sasun Steinbeck: Q: Do any artists or galleries in Second Life earn enough of an income to allow them to not have to work in real life, say over $1 million linden a month?
A: Good question, I think there are very very few, if any, that have ever made a living solely off SL art sales. The big money is not there like it is for fashion or sexually oriented items and services (cough).
Skylarian Isachenko: Sigh, the god of Hair and Shooes
Elese Faulkes: we always rez it at the party infrot of everyone..the gift tha is, nd we get lots of orders thatway...lol cheeky I know
Skylarian Isachenko: seems to like sl
Sasun Steinbeck: so my answer is really, I dunno :) I have no real data to have a real answer
Skylarian Isachenko: Those that do tend to keep such a close secret
Sasun Steinbeck: I suspect that may be true Sky
Skylarian Isachenko: after all they may have to pay taxes if they are found out
Skylarian Isachenko: :D
Sasun Steinbeck: LOL
Elese Faulkes: lol
Sasun Steinbeck: don't get me started on that, jeez
Van Caerndow: iT SEEMS THERE ARE VERY FEW ARTISTS WHO MAKE A LIVING IN RL LET ALONE SL
Skylarian Isachenko: now that, is a true statement
Van Caerndow: sorry caps lock
Skylarian Isachenko: and honestly I think those that do make a fair bit of money from sl art, are more likely pirates than artists
Davideo Zelnik: Van... amen to that
Skylarian Isachenko: just being honest
Sasun Steinbeck: yes the term "starvin' artist" is applicable just as much in SL as in RL!
Tommy Parrott: That is quite true;) I have to file for US income taxes for the porducts I create here, as with art, I imagine if one were to sell enough...
Van Caerndow: at least here the food is free
Sasun Steinbeck: hehehehe
Skylarian Isachenko: calorie free too
Skylarian Isachenko: :)
Seoreh Voight: lol
Saiwun Yoshikawa: i want a KFC bucket asap:)
synergistic Merryman: For special showings and events that we announce on a large scale - we usually make custom gifts that are practical and yet pieces of art - that most can appreciate - as an example - a silver serving tray with an etching of Else and I announcing the opening -with glasses to match the tray.
synergistic Merryman: *Elese
Sasun Steinbeck: Yes you just have to do it for the love of it, and if any money comes in, that's icing on the cake, though with a little bit of extra work and marketing, you can at least maximize the potential for your art to earn a bit more than if it's hiding away somewhere
Tommy Parrott: Indeed;)
Sasun Steinbeck: good idea syntergistic
Tommy Parrott: Exposure is the key ;)
Davideo Zelnik: Synerg... very ambitious, and very impressive :)
Sasun Steinbeck: I think one of the most powerful things we can do as a community is more collaborative things, and capitalize on the shared marketing and exposure
Elese Faulkes: Erotic art sells VERY well
Sasun Steinbeck: big events - large community gallery showings - etc. etc.
Skylarian Isachenko: And is generally not theirs too
Elese Faulkes: sky is that to me?
Tommy Parrott: Yes; it does; The Erotical Grand Gallery did well until Zindra ;)
synergistic Merryman: Smiles - both Elese and I love doing our art - that is our first priority - and then the sales - as mentioned are indedd icing on the cake.
Saiwun Yoshikawa: the secondnight website will help:)
Skylarian Isachenko: its usually stolen porn, no, not directly, just my experience
Sasun Steinbeck: good attitude, yes
Van Caerndow: thinking of doing a series of nude gunfights...
Skylarian Isachenko: there are some very good erotic artists
Skylarian Isachenko: though usually they get ripped
Van Caerndow: nah...just kidding.
Elese Faulkes: my work is all my wn hun..and it sells very well..thats waht I ws reffereing too :D
Skylarian Isachenko: and then too, where do you draw the line, on being on the adult contient or being able to be on the mainland?
Skylarian Isachenko: thats another bag of wyrms
Tommy Parrott: But, that goes along the lines of what Sasun said earlier; if you want to make money; sex sells.. ;) Just a matter of preference;)
Skylarian Isachenko: indeed, sex drives the net
Skylarian Isachenko: always has
Strider Messmer: Q: is there anything you would NOT sell?
Elese Faulkes: you can show the free hand not too relaistci work that can be shown on private sims..its not portn
synergistic Merryman: Sky - as mentioned before - ALL OUR WORK IS OUR OWN AND ORIGINAL!
Bobby Boelcke: I think It is important to be open also for art of others...many artists are interested only in showing there own stuff and less interested in others...we can not expect others to be interested in our art, if we ourself are not openminded...
Van Caerndow: that is why we all look so good.
Skylarian Isachenko: Syn, dotn be so defensive
synergistic Merryman: Both Elese and I do a fair share of erotic work.
Skylarian Isachenko: this is an open discussion
Elese Faulkes: yes it is.. :D
Eli Tauber: If I decide to start shooting people, I will lay down my camera and pick up a gun
Skylarian Isachenko: I do a lot of photographic nudes, you obviously have not looked at my profile
Skylarian Isachenko: my RL is very open
Sasun Steinbeck: yes these days with so much focus on stolen IP, I have talked to a few very concerned gallery owners that are legitimately representing a RL artist and don't want to be accused of art theft
Van Caerndow: funny I would neveer own a gun or shoot one but there are guns all over my western art
Elese Faulkes: in answer to your question sky, I wouldnt sell porn...or others work that I was passing on as my own.. :D
Strider Messmer: Q: for non-erotic art what is the "best selling" item in your experience?
Skylarian Isachenko: My comment was not aimed at or concerning you folk
Sasun Steinbeck: it's GOOD to have people concerned about that. There is so much stolen Adult schlock around, it's frightening
Elese Faulkes: I was just answer hun :D
Skylarian Isachenko: rather its common esperience from touring over 8000 sims over the years
Elese Faulkes: yes its terrible
Skylarian Isachenko: I do reserach for a university as part of my work here
Van Caerndow: I love all forms of art...from erotic...to 3D to abstract
Skylarian Isachenko: so I get around the grid, a LOT
Van Caerndow: as long as it is original
Eli Tauber: just today on the web, I was researching information on the web about an area in our county of intereste to me. I found a blog where soe guy was using my photographs and claiming he shot them
synergistic Merryman: My best selling item is a photorealistic paint that was created with pressure sensitive tablet called "Love At Sunset" - the theme being love found late in life - smiles
Elese Faulkes: Strider..for me, and from other artists that I know I wold say sci fi
Sasun Steinbeck: Does anyone have any kind of notice/greeter that they use that says something along the lines of "all art here is copyright blah blah and is sold here with the permission of the artist blah blah"?
synergistic Merryman: Took 3 months to create
Sasun Steinbeck: Ugh Eli that is such a horrible feeling to see that
Skylarian Isachenko: Mine have my own copyright on them, but then my rl and my sl are merged
Skylarian Isachenko: I do not separate the two at all
Tommy Parrott: Plagiary is rampant now Eli; sad you had to find out the hard way (about him), but, at least you have and are doing something about it :)
Elese Faulkes: sorry to hear that Eli :(
Eli Tauber: and he's telling peple he is going back to get more soon but he'll haveto ask my permission to cross the land
Van Caerndow: I have found that all 90 of the pieces I am currnetly showing in SL have about equal appeal with sales spread across the range
Strider Messmer: I have tried to have info about each artist that exhibits here at Canal Place. Does anyone else provide artist information and is it useful for sales?
Davideo Zelnik: such a curious thought Sasun the copyright in SL, I realize I am naive about this "ideal" art place called SL
Skylarian Isachenko: I find the whole information about the artist is worth while IF, its their RL bios
Davideo Zelnik: why would there be stealing? why Griefers ? etc
Sasun Steinbeck: I think that's a great thing to do, be up front and informative about where the art in your gallery came from, that helps people feel confident they are supporting a real artist, not some thief
Skylarian Isachenko: its pretty useless to me at least if its only SL
Mars Lake: I find artist info useful in determining I'm buying real work and not stolen
Sasun Steinbeck: Thought I suspect that most people just don't give a damn whether they are buying stolen art or not
Tommy Parrott: Correct:(
synergistic Merryman: Once again protection of the work seems to be an issue - we have transpareent copyrights that cover our work - even to make it so you would not dispaly in your home that way - but not enough to destroy the viewing of the artwork itself
Van Caerndow: I try and get to know the artist before I buy anything
Tommy Parrott: Just like the purchasers of knock-off Gucci bags :(
Davideo Zelnik: So, would you "recommend" putting Copyright Notices in out SL galleries"
Strider Messmer: I was curious about some comments by artists on particular works. Some examples are in the small shop here in Canal Place.
Sasun Steinbeck: I would, Davideo, yes
Davideo Zelnik: wow
Elese Faulkes: yes
Sasun Steinbeck: if something of yours is ever stolen, that will be a powerful piece of evidence on your side
Davideo Zelnik: of course.
Sasun Steinbeck: that you have given out clear notice that all art is copyright, no photographs allowed, etc.
Davideo Zelnik: cool
Sasun Steinbeck: that *may* deter a few casual thieves, to be honest
Mars Lake: Register you works RL, it gives you a lot more legal muscle
Davideo Zelnik: it really just seems reasonable.
Tommy Parrott: Anything created by my for the last year in the desc. line has "Copyright XXXX Tommy Parrott"; at least it might thwart an unscrupulous person ;)
Davideo Zelnik: and...
Sasun Steinbeck: the reality is that unless you are prepared to file somme DMCAs to stop theft of your IP when it happens, there's nothing you can do to stop it
Davideo Zelnik: could be written in a "friendly" way, not negative
Sasun Steinbeck: and/or pursue RL legal means to protect your IP
Sasun Steinbeck: yes definitely Davideo, good point
Sasun Steinbeck: make it a positive spin that they gallery visitor is seeing REAL art from a real artist, not some web ripoff crap
Skylarian Isachenko: Sadly people steal art from DA by the thousands, but we do what we can to at least make it unprofitable for them, filing when we find it and such.
Van Caerndow: but the problem really is if someone wants to use to work and sell it...
Tommy Parrott: Does anyonw have the "naked" textures for IP theft?:) I have many signs across the estate ;)
Eli Tauber: the images I was speaking abut a moment ago were on my mac.com gallery page
Van Caerndow: not if they want to print out a color copy with you standing in front of it for their cubicle wall
Tommy Parrott: If anyone would like the textures of Stroker, Tigerlily, etc (they are NOT naked ;) Lemme know ;)
Van Caerndow: i meant if they are stealing it for commercial reasons.
Elese Faulkes: May I have them #tommy please? :D
Mariposa Upshaw: I am wondering what tips you would give for management of a successful gallery Sasun..using the word "success" in its broadest sense as that word can mean alot of things to alot of people
Skylarian Isachenko: Those are great for public education
Tommy Parrott: They may not do anything, but, they might help; I find them very helpful for conveying the point;)
Mariposa Upshaw: and what galleries or museums you have found to be most successful in the long term
Van Caerndow: how to get more traffic
Sasun Steinbeck: good question, with lots of answers
Strider Messmer: THIS MIGHT BE A GOOD TIME AND PLACE FOR SHARING USEFUL LM'S, URL'S, ETC SO THAT THEY CAN BE LOGGED IN THE CHAT.
Elise Benusconi: Any chance of their being a library set up with all the language, textures, scripts, etc. that gallery owners can share?
Elise Benusconi: there*
Sasun Steinbeck: Elise that has been a very good I've had on my "things to do someday" list for a long time now
Sasun Steinbeck: I think it would be really valuable to have some kind of info repository with all these tips and ideas in it somewhere for the budding gallery owner in SL
Sasun Steinbeck: maybe someday I'll make some time to really do it right :)
Tommy Parrott: Anyone may take a full perm copy of the Naked series in the box, there are about 7 or so different sayings ;)
Sasun Steinbeck: but in the meantime I have some resources for anyone that would like to take on the job!
Sasun Steinbeck: and would be glad to contribute some notes and things :)
Mariposa Upshaw thinks sasun could use an assistant...
Sasun Steinbeck: marposa, I have my personal list of my favorite SL galleries on my blog, that I would consider the most "successful", being loosely and broadly defined. Let me dig out that link
Mariposa Upshaw: great ty Sasun :)
Sasun Steinbeck: hahah yes indeed. I need a staff!
synergistic Merryman: Tommy - if you are talking about the boc on the floor infront of the stage I cannot take a copy
Skylarian Isachenko: Its not set for copy
Skylarian Isachenko: yet
Skylarian Isachenko: :)
Seoreh Voight: I can't either
Skylarian Isachenko: SL is such a pain on setting perms
Strider Messmer: Q: one of my goals is to put art in my stores, attractions. Is there an artist's directory that would show the type of art sold?
Tommy Parrott: It is; SL for ya; will set to 0L$ ;)
Tommy Parrott: All set;)
Tommy Parrott: 0L$ ;)
Sasun Steinbeck: btw if you are a blog reader I have a blog more or less aimed at topics of interest to gallery owners at http://sl-artgalleries.blogspot.com
Sasun Steinbeck: and my "best of the best" galleries list is http://sl-artgalleries.blogspot.com/2009/07/sasuns-best-galleries-of-sl-updated.html
Elese Faulkes: thanks for those Tommy :D
synergistic Merryman: Thank you Tommy - smiles
Tommy Parrott: My pleasure!:)
Skylarian Isachenko: I will make up some more of those focused on art when I have a bit of time
Strider Messmer: Great info!
Seoreh Voight: thank you Tommy
Sasun Steinbeck: Which is probably in need of an update, so hey if you have any suggestions for my top 10 list let me know!
Glasz DeCuir: what about art auctions? Works really for promoting arts?
Sasun Steinbeck: Hm I have never been to an SL art auction
Sasun Steinbeck: No I take that back, been to one, some time ago. Doesn't seem to be very common, that's for sure
Mariposa Upshaw: i have run 4 very successful sl art auctions
Skylarian Isachenko: We have charity auctions, but I have never been to an art auction
Sasun Steinbeck: it was a charitable event so it raised a good bit of money
Mariposa Upshaw: for charity indeed
Van Caerndow: In RL...half my sales are at auctions...of course that money all goes to charity. Would like more auctions where the artist gets half of the proceeds.
Tommy Parrott: Art auctions can be profitable:) All depends on the mood of your bidders!:) Too bad you could snd them some RL wine to perk them up! LOL
Sasun Steinbeck: yes I do see art donated to charity auctions, I guess that counts
synergistic Merryman: Tommy - Sasun - would it be ok to rez an example of how we protect our work - maybe seeing would help?
Sasun Steinbeck: LOL Tommy
Sasun Steinbeck: yes please synergistic
Davideo Zelnik: yes ty
Tommy Parrott: Love to take a look ;)
Skylarian Isachenko: Of course there is one more catagory of art that is usually over looked and taht is the art of avatars, there are some makers whose work is pure art.
Van Caerndow: gotta run....Thank you.
Tommy Parrott: Behind door #!....
Sasun Steinbeck: excellent Mariposa, maybe you could write up a short summary of the experience and what made the auction successful and I can include that in the chat log
Tommy Parrott: LOL!
Elese Faulkes: Sky I have to agree..I havent doe hardly anything like that ever but thoughroughly love veiwing it :)
Tommy Parrott: Nice deep watermark ;)
Skylarian Isachenko: Its what keeps the Isle of Wyrms running, as all expenses are paid from the sale of the avatars.
Elese Faulkes: lol
Mariposa Upshaw: that would be a pleasure Sasun...the last one raised over 350,000 L for two in world charitable sims :)
Sasun Steinbeck: O.O
Sasun Steinbeck: wow! I'd love to share what you learned from that. Excellent work
Skylarian Isachenko: The copyright is on the display piece, and not on the sold piece?
Mariposa Upshaw: ty.. the sims that got the proceeds were VAI, Virtual Abilities Inc. and the Dreams sims
Mars Lake: Such watermarks bug me, personally I don;t support them. But everyone can do as they will.
Sasun Steinbeck: If you want to write up something lengthier I'd post it in my blog
Glasz DeCuir: impressive Mariposa
synergistic Merryman: We have found that protects the work fairly well - smiles
Sasun Steinbeck: the good thing is that it does foil the snapshotters
Cogito Ultsch: but you're not selling it iwht that showing, are you?
Sasun Steinbeck: maybe if it's just as subtle as possible... so you can still view the work, but stop the snapshotters that would be effective
Mariposa Upshaw: all from art.. all donated art.. 2d, sculpture and sl photography :) anyway, i will follow up with you Sasun, back to the regularly schedule program
Tommy Parrott: I presume this is for the display models only? :)
Sasun Steinbeck: great!
synergistic Merryman: We put an uncopyrighted copy in the contents and sell the content.
Sasun Steinbeck: is that overlaid on top or did you watermark it right on the texture? that will stop the texture thieves too
Sasun Steinbeck: if you did the latter
Tommy Parrott: :) So the final product is sans the watermark ;)
Elese Faulkes: its in the textue itslf
Cogito Ultsch: so someone can then still "get" is from the buyer's place
Sasun Steinbeck: great
Elise Benusconi: Thank you for putting together this event, Sasun and Tommy! :-) See you all soon!
synergistic Merryman: I put the watermark right into the texture
Tommy Parrott: TC Elise!
Elese Faulkes: bye Elise :)
Strider Messmer: I'M NOT SURE IF THIS IT THE APPROPRIATE TIME BUT I WANT TO LET AS MANY OF YOU KNOW AS POSSIBLE THAT I OFFER FREE SPACE HERE FOR TEMPORARY DISPLAYS OF YOUR WORK. ALL PROFITS ARE YOURS TO KEEP. NO COMMISSIONS. IF INTERESTED PLEASE CONTACT ME OR GLASZ DECUIR FOR DETAILS
Seoreh Voight: bye Elise
Skylarian Isachenko: In theory you could put a digital watermark in the texture, such as digimark, not sure how it would translate though.
Skylarian Isachenko: cannot search sl with digimark
synergistic Merryman: Will take that up now
Davideo Zelnik: my conflict with auctions is the paradox that those buyers might not buy direct from artists when not auction art
Sasun Steinbeck: Yeah when you upload a texture into SL it is recompressed... I wonder if that woud spoil a digital watermark?
Elese Faulkes: its not our first choice ay of showing our work either Mars...but after having friends have theirwork stolen, we felt we neded to do somethng :
Elese Faulkes: :(
Sasun Steinbeck: I guess you could find out easily enough by upoading then saving your texture back to your HD and see if the digital watermark is still there
synergistic Merryman: WE upload high textures for our work and that way they stay nice when SL compresses them
Mariposa Upshaw: Davideo, I usually solicit art from artists i have already shown as a curator.. i am familiar with them and their work and their work has been seen and set for sale at the galleries/museums where i curate.. its a win win situation.. karma comes full circle
Mars Lake: nods, it's a hard personal choice I wresteld with
Sasun Steinbeck: good idea Mariposa
Tommy Parrott: I have my own watermark, it takes a certain filter in PS to make it stand out, it is not predominate, but, with the righ combination of settings, clearly can bring the mark out ;)
Sandflea Lorefield: i do apologize, but may i ask a question on another topic?
Skylarian Isachenko: All of my art has a note card in it about my work too, so its always there
Davideo Zelnik: excellent reply, Mari... something to think about
Elese Faulkes: how do you achieve that sky?
Sasun Steinbeck: Yes I'm always so surprised to see low quality, low rez textures uploaded and sold in galleries... I have to wonder, did they just not look at the results very carefully, or just not aware of what a texture size even *is*, or what?
Tommy Parrott: LOL ;)
Skylarian Isachenko: Sandflea, its an open converastion
Skylarian Isachenko: ask your question
synergistic Merryman: I would like to hear Sand's question - smiles
Mars Lake: There are plenty that download from web, upload to sl, then sell, with no care for the art or how it looks
Sasun Steinbeck: \o/
Sandflea Lorefield: i don't want to inturrupt if everyone is committed to watermarks and IP. :)
Sasun Steinbeck: yes Mars very true
Skylarian Isachenko: I just place a notecard in the contents of the prim, I use scripted frames
Tommy Parrott: I had to make up an info sheet for new resis, so that they could be shown step by step how to create prim art in SL; saved me a lot of time ;)
Skylarian Isachenko: take out the note and you break the frame
Sasun Steinbeck: very good idea
Elese Faulkes: arrr....simply yet effective :)
synergistic Merryman: Sand - all questions and comments are appreciated I am sure
Sasun Steinbeck: indeed
Sandflea Lorefield: ty.
Sasun Steinbeck: did we miss any questions? Please re-ask if we did
Mars Lake: Mine are no-mod, so the notecard can;t be removed, all artwork sizing etc is scripted
Sandflea Lorefield: well, i was curious about the desirability of frames. does anyone know if they generate more sales?
Sasun Steinbeck: Good question!
Mariposa Upshaw: ty sasun and tommy for your time and sharing your knowledge :)
Sandflea Lorefield: ty
Tommy Parrott: My pleasure;)
Skylarian Isachenko: I like the ones I use, as they control the aspect ratio of the iamge so you cannot distort it
Sasun Steinbeck: 90% of the art I've bought is unframed. I love frames - unless I'm stuck with an ugly one chosen by the seller :\
Sandflea Lorefield: are they commercial Sky?
synergistic Merryman: I think a nicely framed piece of artwork draws more attention myself
Skylarian Isachenko: sales or not I will not sell with out them
synergistic Merryman: But that is a personal opinion
Skylarian Isachenko: they are actually I will send you a link later
Skylarian Isachenko: have to dig it out
Strider Messmer: I would think that framed art is more commercial to most buyers?
Skylarian Isachenko: :D
Sasun Steinbeck: I agree, in this age of sculptie frames you can keep the prim counts way down and still have a nice looking frame
Sandflea Lorefield: the balance for some of us is prims vs. presentation
Sasun Steinbeck: I've seen just a few good ones you can buy for resale. Full perm
Sasun Steinbeck: adding a frame takes it from 1 prim to 2, so not bad at all
Sandflea Lorefield: no, not too bad.
Strider Messmer: Q: has anyone every created their art as part of a performance before an audience?
synergistic Merryman: Ummm - well - one can at the frame to the texture before uploading - but then it is permanent
synergistic Merryman: Stays 1 prim that way
Sandflea Lorefield: yes. looks good tho!
Sasun Steinbeck: hm true
Tommy Parrott: I have my full perm frames for curators/gallery owners; single prim, and they sell fairly well; so, there is a desire for frames for sure; just finding the good ones is the hard part ;) lol
Sandflea Lorefield: yes, and what fits in your gallery may not fit the client's hom, so i sell without frames
Tommy Parrott: Cater to all ;)
Sasun Steinbeck: What about promoting your gallery via events, does anyone have any tips they'd like to share? I admit I don't have anywhere near as much experience with Tommy in this area, so I'd love to hear your thoughts Tommy :) I found it pretty difficult learning the ropes to putting on a decent gallery showing/event
Tommy Parrott: That is a successful gallery ;) Money or not; if you make people happy, and they bring more; then you have done your job;) Cant get them to buy (although, sometime you can ;)
synergistic Merryman: The thing is - if you add a frame to the the texture - and then allow modify - the frame can be expanded out of sight and they can add what ever frame of their own they might like - but that brings up the question of the modify permission and if it is good to allow modify?
Tommy Parrott: It is a necessity to have an event running for your gallery, not a classifed type worder ad, but an event letting people know you have something for them to come and explore ;) Events really help keep The Grand Gallery going ;)
Sasun Steinbeck: syn I insist on having either 1) modify or 2) a resizer script in all art I buy, so I can fit it into the space I have available
Sasun Steinbeck: Yes you do put on a lot of events
Sasun Steinbeck: How do you make an event successful and get good attendance?
synergistic Merryman: Sasun - I agree with your thinking on the modify issue
Sasun Steinbeck: I would of course recommend a gallery owner join the Art & Artist Network that I help moderate to advertise there! And the SL event listings too
synergistic Merryman: About events - the way Elese and I usually organize our events is through invites to friens and make it a party - but then Elese and I were hosts and dancers at clubs for a while and have long lists of friends as a result
Strider Messmer: Is that in SL search? the network?
Tommy Parrott: That is a hard call ;) I ust the event to draw people to come look at new artisans, I may rehash an older artisan, but, generally, our events are just a way of getting art lovers to one place at one time:) We place one event daily for the gallery fairly consistantly:)
Sasun Steinbeck: I'd be glad to add anyone interested, just let me know via an IM please.
Sasun Steinbeck: but yes it is in search
Tommy Parrott: Syn; see, you hanve merged your prior skills together, and made a great match ;)
Tommy Parrott: That is one way of being successful; merging your other skills to make another happen ;) ;)
synergistic Merryman: Well - I have to thank Elese for her common interest in art with me and her desire to display artwork - that gave birth to our gallery in the first place - originally came to SL for fun and socializing!
Elese Faulkes: awww bless you :)
Skylarian Isachenko: :)
Sasun Steinbeck: I've always wondered if advertising a gallery in one of the many SL magazines has ever been successful. Probably very tough to measure unless you keep a close eye on gallery traffic before and after the ad runs...
Skylarian Isachenko: Seems to happen that way a lot, I got dragged into SL by a dear friend,
Sasun Steinbeck: haha excellent Elese :)
Apollo Reinard: cu everyone. nice meeting otheres with similar goals. :))
Tommy Parrott: Yes;) A lot of data to keep track of and hash thru ;)
Sandflea Lorefield: perhaps you could key the ad to a freebie
Davideo Zelnik: say more about SL magazines?
Cogito Ultsch: and ty for the great discussion :)
Skylarian Isachenko: ummmm I can say taht an article about ou hels, but no ide bout an ad
Tommy Parrott: Ok folks, time's about up:) We would like to thank you for coming to this meeting, and hope you will stay for the festivities that follow musically for your sonic pleasure ;)
Sasun Steinbeck: Thank you so much for coming everyone
Skylarian Isachenko: We deeply appricate the opportunity
Sasun Steinbeck: I will make the chat log available on the Art Gallery Owners group
Skylarian Isachenko: was very informative
Sasun Steinbeck: and if you would like a copy just IM me
Davideo Zelnik: its been great! Thank you :)
Elese Faulkes: Thank you both very uch...as always I get so much from meeting evryone and learing new ideas..thanks
synergistic Merryman: I think these meeting can be extremely beneficial for all of us - Tommy and Sasun - thank you ever so much for how you support and offer these events - smiles
Tommy Parrott: :)
Sasun Steinbeck: Thanks for your ideas and thoughts! That will be very helpful to the many people that read the chat log
Strider Messmer: EVERYONE PLEASE JOIN ME IN THANKING TOMMY AND SASUN FOR THEIR GREAT DISCUSSION
Elese Faulkes: Sasun....will you be doing the resize script in the group today?.I am keen to playwith it..lo
Strider Messmer: AND THANK YOURSELF FOR ALL YOUR REALLY USEFUL INPUT
Sasun Steinbeck: my pleasure synergistic, love the art community and am so glad to help keep it alive and growing :)
Sasun Steinbeck: yes I sure will Else!
Elese Faulkes: Goodie..and thanks so much :D
Tommy Parrott: ao on
Elese Faulkes: sky..may I ask you a question?
Sasun Steinbeck: Thanks Strider and Glasz for making this session happen!!
Skylarian Isachenko: sure
Sandflea Lorefield: :)
Ernst Maven: thank you very much!!!!
Seoreh Voight: thank you both Tommy and Sasun. :)
Strider Messmer: AND IF ANYONE IS INTERESTED IN A TEMP EXHIBIT HERE IN CANAL PLACE, PLEASE CONTACT ME FOR DETAILS
Sasun Steinbeck: stay for the music too!
Glasz DeCuir: Thanks all you for comming and participate :)
Elese Faulkes: at the IOW...where is the artwork...I most likely just walked by it knowig me but I didnt see it at all
Skylarian Isachenko: Part of my job is answering questons
Elese Faulkes: I would love to go back and check it out properly
Skylarian Isachenko: generally its the Avatars though we ahve some here and there hanging around
Elese Faulkes: I saw two amaing dragons
Skylarian Isachenko: If,
Elese Faulkes: amazing*
synergistic Merryman: This has been great guys
Skylarian Isachenko: lag allows
Sasun Steinbeck: yes I really enjoyed this!
Ernst Maven: thanks again, goodbye to all!!!!
Tommy Parrott: :)
Sasun Steinbeck: Lots of good ideas
Sasun Steinbeck: thank you all! mwah!
Elese Faulkes: bye bye Ernst :)
synergistic Merryman: Thank you again - ever so much
Seoreh Voight: I learned a lot, ty
Sasun Steinbeck: good good!

Gallery Tour HUD updated!

2009-12-04T00:57:00.000-08:00

I have added a neat feature to the Gallery Tour HUD. There is a new button named "Events" on the HUD menu that gives you two choices: Current event info in progress, or upcoming events on the current sim. Only Arts & Culture events are searched. Also, when someone teleports to a new location, the HUD will automatically look up event information, and if there are any upcoming events in the local sim, they will be shown to the HUD user! That way they will be more aware of any advertised events at your gallery if they land there with the HUD on (or anywhere else on the sim). Give it a go and let me know what you think - you can query the normal events listings for Arts & Culture, find something happening soon, and just teleport to that event and see how the HUD notifies you of that event.

This was pretty tough to implement since there is no official interface to the event listings from an LSL script. Please consider this an experimental feature.

Please be sure to take a moment and stick your upcoming gallery events in the LL event listings when you schedule an event so that they show up for HUD users. Hopefully this will help make people more aware of upcoming gallery events as they travel around with the tour HUD!

Galleries of SL Kiosk Session at the SLACC

2009-12-03T20:31:00.000-08:00

The following is a chat log from a recent session all about the Galleries of SL Kiosk system designed by yours truly. Enjoy and leave comments below please!

I have made some edits to the log below. Anything I added is in [square brackets].

Mar Dwi: Hello everyone, welcome at the SL Art Community Centre
Sasun Steinbeck: Hi Indigo :)
Mar Dwi: we're all gathering here for a lecture and discussion on the galleries of SL kiosk system
Indigo Mertel: Hi Sasun :)
Zotarah Shepherd: Is this in Voice
Mar Dwi: it will be in text chat
Zotarah Shepherd whispers: Thank you
Indigo Mertel: Hi Ali :)
Sasun Steinbeck: That way we can have a record that people can read for many years :)
Alizarin Goldflake: Hi Indigo :)
Cogito Ultsch: are you going to post the chat transcript soewhere in case any of us should crash - not that that is really likely in sl (grin)
Mar Dwi: before we start, I'd like to tell you all about Seba Sideway's plan to perform live in galleries and museums in SL exclusively for the month December.
Sasun Steinbeck: yes Cogito! I'll post it on my blog and send out a link
Mar Dwi: Seba has a huge amount of fans in SL and his tour of galleries in SL is a great way to promote our galleries to a larger audience
Mar Dwi: if you're interested, send me or Seba Sideways an IM
Sasun Steinbeck: Seba is awesome, if you haven't seen him perform. Thumbs up from me.
Mar Dwi accepted your inventory offer.
Cogito Ultsch: ty sasun :)
Mar Dwi: Someone else who is doing a great job at promoting art in SL is Sasun. Ammong other things, she is the designer of the galleries of SL kiosk system and tour HUD.
Mar Dwi: I am very happy that she's here today to talk about this system
Sasun Steinbeck smiles
Indigo Mertel: kudos to Sasun
Mar Dwi: so, plelase turn off your mobile phones and IMs and RL and HUDS and whatever
Sasun Steinbeck: haha :)
Mar Dwi: and welcome Sasun
Whisper Fearne: LOL
Juko Tempel: .-'`'-. APPLAUSE APPLAUSE .-'`'-.
Jaime Poutine: turn off RL.. if only
Indigo Mertel: Applause!!!
Sasun Steinbeck: yes please remove those uber laggy scripted attachments :)
Sasun Steinbeck: thanks Mar! And for making these talks happen and convincing me to get out of bed to be here :)
Sasun Steinbeck: I will be posting the chat log to this event on my blog and sending a link to the Art Gallery Owner's group
Sasun Steinbeck: I also have a subscriber group if you don't want to use a group slot
Sasun Steinbeck: Mar's gallery kiosk is behind me, you can click on the subscribe now button to join the group
Sasun Steinbeck: I'm going to assume that most of you are familiar with the system, but I want you to feel free to ask any questions about it as we go
Sasun Steinbeck: I'll give you a quick rundown of what it is and how it works
Sasun Steinbeck: The goal of the system is fairly specific - to help art lovers find all the amazing art galleries in SL
Sasun Steinbeck: To do that, I wanted to make a list of galleries that wasn't insanely difficult to maintain - it had to be accurate and up to date
Sasun Steinbeck: as it grew, I kept automating more and more of the system
Sasun Steinbeck: so now it is really not much work on my part day-to-day to keep it running
Sasun Steinbeck: gallery owners configure the !User Settings card inside the kiosk and all that information is fed to my website
Sasun Steinbeck: really most of the code in the system is online, doing all the magic behind the list that you see at http://sasun.info/artgalleriesofsl.aspx
Sasun Steinbeck: Some time ago I implemented the gallery rating system as well as the subscriber system, so now I have the ability to message people just like a subscribe-o-matic system does
Sasun Steinbeck: the gallery rating system is something I'd like to get some feedback on from you guys
Sasun Steinbeck: and I'd love to hear your thoughts on what kinds of things I can do to help achieve this goal of getting art lovers more connected with all the galleries in SL
Sasun Steinbeck: really just having a list of locations is just one part of the puzzle
Sasun Steinbeck: If you haven't seen the list online lately, you should take a look
Sasun Steinbeck: it has a whole new look with the thumbnails of all the textures that the gallery owners stick into their kiosks
Sasun Steinbeck: The tour HUD is another way I'm using to get more people into more gallerires
Sasun Steinbeck: the HUD is connected directly to my online database, so it's always up to date and accurate
Sasun Steinbeck: one thing that the HUD supports that I have actually never done is that I could easily lead some group tours
Sasun Steinbeck: so that may be one idea I'd like to explore in the future is doing some group tours
Sasun Steinbeck: maybe we could take a certain category or art style and make a tour out of it
Sasun Steinbeck: I've been making a lot of improvements to the website, just last night I added a new checkbox above the Filter box there
Indigo Mertel: nice idea
Sasun Steinbeck: the filter box is relatively new too, it let's you quickly find a gallery by name, contact name, or sim name
Sasun Steinbeck: and there is a new "View" dropdown to let you choose between the old view and the new thumbnail view
Sasun Steinbeck: the goal is to make the website as usable as possible for people to encourage them to click those slurls and go!
Indigo Mertel: the new thumbnail view looks great, Sasun
Sasun Steinbeck: thank you :)
Sasun Steinbeck: One thing I'd love to get feedback on is the rating system
Juko Tempel: would be nice to have examples next to the Filter box..
Sasun Steinbeck: ah ok for example
Sasun Steinbeck: type in Juko in that box and click Filter
Juko Tempel smiles
Sasun Steinbeck: and you can easily find your gallery
Sasun Steinbeck: or type in Artropolis and you can find all the galleries on that sim
Juko Tempel nods.. not sure everyone would realise what could go in there..
Sasun Steinbeck: If you hover your cursor over that little box it tells you
Sasun Steinbeck: but you are right it's not immediately obvious
Juko Tempel: so it does :-0
Juko Tempel: so more descriptive keywords are a possibility in future?
Sasun Steinbeck: I'm always looking for ways to improve everything - I'm no professional website designer! :)
Sasun Steinbeck: hm that's possible, yes
Cogito Ultsch: you've done a LOT of work on this - i'm very impresses, Sasun
Sasun Steinbeck: I'm not sure what else to search other than gallery name, contact name, and sim name...
Second Renoir: yes me to
Alizarin Goldflake: type of art maybe?
Juko Tempel: art genre?
Cogito Ultsch: so - the style?
Second Renoir: yes
Cogito Ultsch: lol
Cogito Ultsch: yes
Sasun Steinbeck: I am using it as a fun way to learn asp.net and C# programming and I have learned a lot, let me tell you
Indigo Mertel: Sasun did a great job, on the level of a pro developer... I can attest that
Juko Tempel: we would have to supply them in the User Settings?
Sasun Steinbeck: this stuff is not easy lol
Second Renoir: for instance if you look for installations
Sasun Steinbeck: good idea Alizarin, but that's right, that info just isn't available
Sasun Steinbeck: I am really trying to make the kiosk config as simple as possible
Juko Tempel nods
Cogito Ultsch: featured artists maybe?
Juko Tempel: so why are the ratings useful Sasun? are they being gamed?
Mar Dwi: oh that would be so cool, featured artists on the website
Sasun Steinbeck: so adding a new setting for people to configure is something I want to avoid unless there's a really good reason
Sasun Steinbeck: hm interesting idea, if you notice, I have my very first ad banner at the top
Sasun Steinbeck: for Second Nights
Sasun Steinbeck: I could use that space to feature an artist, that's possible
Sasun Steinbeck: make it a rotating ad banner
Sasun Steinbeck: yes let's talk about the ratings for a bit
Sasun Steinbeck: So the goal of the ratings is pretty specific
Sasun Steinbeck: it's nothing more than a popular vote
Sasun Steinbeck: think amazon.com for those of you in the USA
Sasun Steinbeck: you can look up any book and rate it by clicking the gold stars
Sasun Steinbeck: but that's not the same thing as a critical review
Sasun Steinbeck: The ratings does not pretend to be anything like that, and really that's one gap I have not filled
Juko Tempel: comments are the next step..
Sasun Steinbeck: we've got the popular vote, though we need *more* of those, but I don't really have any peer review or critical review
Sasun Steinbeck: oh yes the comments too, I've made those much more visible on the new default view
Juko Tempel nods
Sasun Steinbeck: So just like your amazon.com reviews, those are very helpful too
Sasun Steinbeck: depending on the quality of the comments lol
Indigo Mertel: Sasun, it would be nice if we could add posters to promote the galleries rather than art only as it is now
Sasun Steinbeck: tell me what you mean?
Indigo Mertel: right now you have cycling posters on the kiosks
Sasun Steinbeck: oh yes
Sasun Steinbeck: I get it
Indigo Mertel: only art is displayed
Indigo Mertel: it would be nice if we could have a poster promoting the gallery
Sasun Steinbeck: so right now, if an artist wants to show their art ON the kiosk, they need to supply me with a 512x512 texture, and I drop it into the kiosk server
Sasun Steinbeck: so that puts it on rotation to be shown on the kiosk display
Indigo Mertel: nods
Sasun Steinbeck: the problem I am worried about with doing advertising is that I'm afraid that gallery owners might not want an ad for another gallery in front of their gallerly
Alizarin Goldflake: so Indigo could give you a pic of her gallery instead?
Juko Tempel nods
Cogito Ultsch: good point
Indigo Mertel: nods
Juko Tempel: i agree
Alizarin Goldflake: mmm
Sasun Steinbeck: the original goal was to make the kiosks attractive and beautiful
Second Renoir: me to
Sasun Steinbeck: so I really just want art to display on there
lala Lightfoot: true, but I often put other gallery's posters near my gallery
Sasun Steinbeck: I'm afraid that ads are just not as pleasing to the eye as a beautiful piece of art by a real SL artist
Sasun Steinbeck: yes true lala
Sisi Biedermann: where do you get the art to put on the posters?
Second Renoir: right
Sasun Steinbeck: I want people to go over to the kiosk and click it
Mar Dwi: I wouldn't mind displaying posters of other galleries on the kiosk. But I would want to be able to controll which galleries are promoted here
Sasun Steinbeck: you have to submit a 512x512 texture to me, full perm
Sasun Steinbeck: you can click your kiosk and click Help to get full details
Indigo Mertel: we would expect art galleries to make artistic promotional posters ;)
Sasun Steinbeck: there are some requirements you should read about on the Help card for that texture
Sasun Steinbeck: haha yes Indigo
Alizarin Goldflake: Sasun, am I right that only one kiosk can be rezzed on a gallery's land?
Sasun Steinbeck: yay click click
Sasun Steinbeck: yes the limitation is one kiosk per person, per parcel
Alizarin Goldflake: i have 6 locations and never know where to put the kiosk
[Sasun Steinbeck: the reason is that kiosks are stored in the database by object key. When you pick up a kiosk and re-rez it, it gets a new key, and therefore registers itself as a new kiosk in the database, so you'll now have two kiosks in the database but only one really exists. My system will automatically merge two separate kiosks database entries on the same parcel, on the assumption that one is replacing the other, which means less work for me cleaning up all these "missing" kiosks that have a database entry but no actual kiosk.]
Mary Wickentower: so if you have art in more than one loaction, you can only join for one of those locations?
Alizarin Goldflake: i put it where i THINK gets the most traffic
Sasun Steinbeck: no it's per parcel, per avatar
Sisi Biedermann: I have 3 locations and one kiosk on each one
Sasun Steinbeck: so if you have two people with two kiosks on one parcel, no problem
lala Lightfoot: same here
EdwardIV Beaumont: Susan....about the rating system....has it been getting a sufficent response ....Do vistors take the time to rate a gallery.....does your stats show you it is worth your effort or is it still early days yet....like your group tour idea ....
lala Lightfoot: I have 3 kiosks
lala Lightfoot: (I think :)
Sasun Steinbeck: if you have one kiosk of yours on one parcel and another on another parcel, no problem
Sasun Steinbeck: and if someone needs to have multiple kiosks on one parcel, I can give you one that will work just fine
Alizarin Goldflake: i always forget to rate places, including forgetting to ask people to rate me
Sasun Steinbeck: that is a good point
Sasun Steinbeck: EdwardIV/ Alizarin, I have been thinking about that
Zotarah Shepherd: How do we get a Kiosk?
Sasun Steinbeck: really for the rating system to be useful, we need to have a critical mass of ratings
Sasun Steinbeck: I can give you one or you can look in my picks for a location to go pick one up
Sasun Steinbeck: and for 1L on XstreetSL :)
Alizarin Goldflake: perhaps we should organize a rate-this-gallery tour ? :))
Mary Wickentower: I have art on my own parcel and in shops on other pples parcels, can I put a kiosk in each place, even tho they will be in my name?
Indigo Mertel: hehe :)
Zotarah Shepherd: Thanks
Zotarah Shepherd accepted your inventory offer.
Sasun Steinbeck: yes you sure can
Sasun Steinbeck: since they are separate parcels, no problem
Sasun Steinbeck: as long as you can rez things on their parcel :)
Sasun Steinbeck: the problem I've noticed is that the kiosks are usually placed near the gallery entrance
Sasun Steinbeck: which makes sense because the published URL for that gallery is 2m in front of the kiosk
Sasun Steinbeck: unless you have a fixed landing point
Sasun Steinbeck: so... people come in, they work their way to the rear of the gallery, and leave
Sasun Steinbeck: they don't go back and rate
Sasun Steinbeck: so I've created a super simple remote rating station
Lacosadivina Quintessa: good idea
Sisi Biedermann: :o)
Indigo Mertel snatches one
Stephanie Helstein: :)
Mar Dwi: if you want to rate the SLACC, yo ucan use the other rating station
Sasun Steinbeck: what you can do is set this up anywhere on the SAME parcel that your kiosk is on
Sasun Steinbeck: you can actually rate the SLACC right now with this :)
Juko Tempel: Sasun.. i'm still not sure why the ratings are worth doing?
Mar Dwi: I hope you're not all rating me 1 star
Alizarin Goldflake: how about making a vendor for it?
Sasun Steinbeck: hahaha Mar :)
Sasun Steinbeck: so the concepet here is that you can put these anywhere
Sasun Steinbeck: it's full perm
Alizarin Goldflake: can we put out more than one per parcel?
Sasun Steinbeck: you may edit it, unlink it, delete all the prims except for the one with the stars on it if you want
Sasun Steinbeck: so you can strip it down to 1 prim
Sasun Steinbeck: yes as many as you want
Alizarin Goldflake: woot!!
Sasun Steinbeck: so put one near every "exit" in your gallery
Alizarin Goldflake: that will help Sasun
Indigo Mertel: nice design
Alizarin Goldflake: it will remind people to vote
Sasun Steinbeck: I hope this helps, yes!
Alizarin Goldflake: including me :))
Second Renoir: ok but what good is it
Sasun Steinbeck: One of the best ways to get more traffic from my website, and the tour HUD, is to get yourself as high as possible on the list
Sasun Steinbeck: The FIRST thing you should do is rate your own gallery 5 stars!
Second Renoir: ahh always compitition
Alizarin Goldflake: how do non-artists find out about your web site?
Indigo Mertel: of course :)
Sasun Steinbeck: I'm surprised how many gallery owners don't rate themselves [yes it is in the instructions to do that], even with quite a few reminders I send to owners that have kiosks with no ratings :)
Sasun Steinbeck: I have made a few other changes that I'd like your thoughts on
Sasun Steinbeck: one, the rating sorting order
Alizarin Goldflake: sasun, how do non-artists find out about your web site?
Sasun Steinbeck: I think the primary way is via links from other blogs, and also on the top of all the kiosks is a link directly to the website
Sasun Steinbeck: the primary sort is by the average rating
Sasun Steinbeck: so everyone with a perfect 5.0 bubbles to the top
Tour Spoonhammer: this is a ratingsystem, that About this ratingsystem..what will it tell?
Tour Spoonhammer: couldn't it be missused?
Sasun Steinbeck: the secondary sort has changed recently
Sasun Steinbeck: yes I'll address that
Alizarin Goldflake: how does one put a link to your web site on her blog?
Sasun Steinbeck: the secondary sort is now by NUMBER of votes
Alizarin Goldflake: yes that is a good idea
Indigo Mertel: indeed
Sasun Steinbeck: so the galleries that have the same exact rating as someone else, if you have more votes, you get bumped to the top
Sasun Steinbeck: now realistically this only makes a difference for the big batch of galleries that have a perfect 5.0
Sasun Steinbeck: and there are a lot of them
Sasun Steinbeck: since many of them have only 1 or 2 votes
Luka Dayafter: Can owners of this kiosk's vote for its gallery? And is it limited voting (maybe like 1 vote per day with 1 account?)
Sisi Biedermann: Can I place more that one rater in a gallery?
Sasun Steinbeck: Alizarin, it depends on the blog, I don't have a simple answer, but every blog system around let's you link to other blogs pretty easily or to websites like the gallery list
Sasun Steinbeck: yes you can Sisi
Sisi Biedermann: great
Sasun Steinbeck: so let me address abuse
Sasun Steinbeck: one avatar is only allowed one rating to be given at each gallery
Sasun Steinbeck: you can click the stars as many times as you like, but only your last vote is saved [one avatar is allowed ONE vote, which you can update, per gallery]
Zotarah Shepherd: I would like to have a kiosk at my educational site with Galleries listed by the type of art. Is it possible to have one like that? For now I am just making a Notecard with LMs.
Sasun Steinbeck: this stops abuse by people clicking a thousand times
Second Renoir: but people does they care they just looking around eventually bying some art for their homes
Luka Dayafter: indeed this is good :)
Sasun Steinbeck: Zotarah, I have a special version of the kiosk called the "infohub"
Sasun Steinbeck: it doesn't require any configuration at all, and doesn't add the location to the list - it just gives out the list
Tour Spoonhammer: but nothing stops me to ask any one..even pay them to use the ratesystem..even if they don't even look into the galleryt?
Sasun Steinbeck: so someone can just ask me for the infohub style and I'd be glad to supply it
Zotarah Shepherd: Thank you
Sasun Steinbeck: yes Tour there is potential for abuse like that
Stephanie Helstein: tour, nobody can read the mind of the person voting to see what their motivation is
Sasun Steinbeck: It's hard to tell ilf people are "cheating" the system, the most common thing I notice is alt voting. but then again, that may account for just one or two extra votes
Mary Wickentower: people can add comments in the rating system but not directly on the blog, correct?
[Yes mary, you cannot rate or add comments on the website, it must be done in-world]
Juko Tempel: so some people do like the ratings system? you think it is useful?
Tour Spoonhammer: I know that.. I just se a risk that you cam abuse the system..and then what is the rating good for
Zotarah Shepherd: I would like my students to have that and people who come to the Art part of my sim. The more people understand art the more likely they are to buy it in SL and in RL.
Cogito Ultsch: lol - how do you know whether someone is voting with alts?
[Sometimes it can be very obvious, they have the same first or last name as the gallery owner :) But I just can't make any assumptions and do not delete votes for that reason]
Sasun Steinbeck: I noticed one gallery owner covered up stars 1-4 so you could ONLY click star 5!!
Alizarin Goldflake: hahahaha!
Stephanie Helstein: lol
Doran Forzane: lol
Sasun Steinbeck: all of those ratings were deleted when I found out :)
Sisi Biedermann: good idea - haha
Sasun Steinbeck: yeah that was NOT good lol
Cogito Ultsch: lol
Indigo Mertel: gee...
Sisi Biedermann: lol
Zotarah Shepherd: Is there an Art Publication that gives Critical Reviews in SL?
Sasun Steinbeck: Zotarah great question
Zotarah Shepherd: There should be I think.
Sasun Steinbeck: Art Market was trying to tackle that problem
Alizarin Goldflake: the Artmarket report used to
Sasun Steinbeck: he was publishing a magazine that was filling that gap
Sasun Steinbeck: but sadly it's really still a big hole that I see
Alizarin Goldflake: but nothing new on it lately
Sasun Steinbeck: I got some great feedback from someone that did not like the ratings system
Sasun Steinbeck: good question on whether people like it, I have not really done any kind of survey to find out what gallery visitors think of it
Sasun Steinbeck: the negative feedback I got was related to what I mentioned earlier about this being strictly a popular vote [and not fulfilling the need for critical/peer review]
Tour Spoonhammer: I will not say I don't like the rating and hope that mostly it will be just fine
Sasun Steinbeck: I think there is still a big need for critical review
Sasun Steinbeck: one idea came up that I'm mulling over [suggested by DanCoyote Antonelli]
Mar Dwi: The problem I have with the way the galleries are listed by rating is that a gallery with 1 or 2 five star votes, is listed above a gallery with 20 votes of an average of 4.5 votes
Sasun Steinbeck: yes exactly Mar!
Sasun Steinbeck: and I've been pondering that
Sasun Steinbeck: the idea that came up is interesting - tell me what you think - what if we had a small, specialist team of peer reviewers, going around writing short but good critical peer reviews
Mary Wickentower: if you unlink the rater and relink it to make it smaller, do you damage any scripts or have to make any specific prim the prime prim?
[Yes, you can unlink the special rating kiosk, you really only need the one prim with the stars on it]
Luka Dayafter: there is also a problem... for example I go to every gallery and put 1 point for them to list my gallery on rank of galleries
Sasun Steinbeck: and I could tag them as "trusted" reviewers in my system
Sasun Steinbeck: perhaps make their reviews show up in a different color to really highlight them
Alizarin Goldflake: wow i think that is a good idea!
Juko Tempel nods.. i think that would be more useful than ratings..
Doran Forzane: Sas, that would work. The only comment I would say is that if a gallery owner is a reviewer they cannot review galleries they either own or are associated with
Sasun Steinbeck: that might fulfill that need for something other than a purely popular vote
Xe Namiboo: I think it's a great idea!
Indigo Mertel: like amazon.com
Sasun Steinbeck: exactly
Sasun Steinbeck: they are highlighted as special reviews on amazon
Sasun Steinbeck: I like that idea a lot
Alizarin Goldflake: i could suggest some names
Second Renoir: nice
Sasun Steinbeck: yes definitely, there are some great prospects
Sasun Steinbeck: maybe instead of a small group of roving reviewers, there can be some kind of selection criteria/committee for a "trusted reviewer" status
Mar Dwi: what qualifications should a trusted reviewer have?
Sasun Steinbeck: great question!
Indigo Mertel: erm...
Sisi Biedermann: wow
Second Renoir: Mar could be one
Juko Tempel: or flaming..
Sasun Steinbeck: Luka good point
Sasun Steinbeck: someone *could* be lame and just go around rating everyone 1 star
Luka Dayafter: indeed
Sasun Steinbeck: what I do is once in a while browse through all the ratings
Sasun Steinbeck: looking for crap, or garbage ratings
Sasun Steinbeck: and if someone is doing that, I hope to spot them
[I have recently looked at the average number of stars by all the reviewers, and there are no cases of "1 star" griefing that I could see.]
Sasun Steinbeck: I would delete anything that I can determine to be some kind of abuse like that
Sasun Steinbeck: such as the gallery owner hiding stars 1-4, that's how I spotted that
Sasun Steinbeck: the real problem is that everyone rates galleries 5 stars!
Mary Wickentower: do you have any recourse to remove a rating if you suspect it is another avenue for a griefer?
Sasun Steinbeck: we have a disproportionate number of galleries with all 5 star ratings
Sasun Steinbeck: yes I do Mary
Sasun Steinbeck: and if you suspect something bad is going on please let me know
Sasun Steinbeck: griefing is a possibility
Sasun Steinbeck: one thing I really hope is that once you have a higher number of votes, the occasional bad rating won't make that much of a difference [in the average]
Sasun Steinbeck: not everyone will love your art
Mary Wickentower: I have to close my art group because of griefer attack in the group
Mary Wickentower: *had
Sasun Steinbeck: yeah griefers will always exist
Zotarah Shepherd: The ratings system could be a popularity contest rather than a guide to the best art galleries.
Sasun Steinbeck: so far I have not found many cases of outright abuse at all
Sasun Steinbeck: it is ONLY a popularity contest
Sasun Steinbeck: which is why we need to fill that gap with some alternate information like critical reviews
Sasun Steinbeck: it is not really the *best* guide to the best art, I readily admit
Sasun Steinbeck: it is just which ones are most popular by the visitors
Luka Dayafter: My personal opinion is that you Sasun as creator of this amazing group choose group of people who will value galleries on ranking scale than mix those votes with public opinion
Sasun Steinbeck: and I realized it wouldn't be anything more than that when it was created, and it's still growing, so we need to address those gaps in the future
Doran Forzane: Sasun, I can chat with Unberto to see if BOSL would be happy to facilitate a critical review as part of their magazine
Luka Dayafter: so half experties half public
Zotarah Shepherd: Thank you Sasun this is very interesting. I have another meeting. Please everyone feel free to IM me about my educational Art Grotto on Ralanora.
Sasun Steinbeck: yes Luka I'm definitely considering something like that
Zotarah Shepherd waves
Sasun Steinbeck: thanks Zotarah
Sasun Steinbeck: woops yes it is 2pm already so if you need to scoot to another event, feel free and thanks for coming :)
Sasun Steinbeck: before anyone goes
Alizarin Goldflake: thank YOU sasun!
Sasun Steinbeck: I don't think the one I rezzed was collecting votes for Mar's gallery
Sasun Steinbeck: let's try Mar's
Sasun Steinbeck: this is a test version of the remote voter, remember :)
Sasun Steinbeck: sorry I didn't mention that!
Second Renoir: lol
Sasun Steinbeck: the good news is that it will automatically update you if I make any changes
Sasun Steinbeck: "you" being the owner of the remote voting station
Sasun Steinbeck: ok give it a go, rate the SLACC :)
Juko Tempel: it's 'remote' in the sense of.. elsewhere in the Gallery? not at the front?
Cogito Ultsch: and the location for the main board [Galleries of SL Kiosk] is in your picks?
[Yes correct you can also click the web icon on any gallery kiosk to go to my HQ to pick up a kiosk, or check my picks]
Sasun Steinbeck: note that votes are always private, no one will see what you clicked :)
Doran Forzane: haha... mmm 5 prims..... lol Sasun, thats going to cost me 5x* at Angel
Juko Tempel: no you can strip it Doran [remove all the prims except the main one]
Sasun Steinbeck: remote as in, it must be on the same parcel as a ratings-enabled regular kiosk [but doesn't need to be near the regular kiosk]
Mar Dwi: thank you all
Juko Tempel: but can be inside for visitors after they've seen the art, right?
Sasun Steinbeck: yes absolutely
Sasun Steinbeck: anywhere you want
Mary Wickentower: is there a rater at xstreet too?
Alizarin Goldflake: thank you Sasun!
Sasun Steinbeck: Mary, no, this is a beta version
Sasun Steinbeck: you are the only people that have one now
Sasun Steinbeck: but I will put it up there eventually
Sasun Steinbeck: I may have missed your question, if I didn't answer it, please re-ask
Sasun Steinbeck: sure!
Cogito Ultsch: tyvm :)
Sasun Steinbeck: the kiosk requester will always give you the latest version of the kiosk
SpaceIO Core: ty, Sasun :-)
Sasun Steinbeck: so that's about it! I'll hang out for more questions
Sasun Steinbeck: get those rating stations out there and get more ratings, that's the best way to stay up in a good spot on the list
Mary Wickentower: is the kiosk requester the kiosk?
Sisse Singh: Thank you Sasun, goodbye all
Sasun Steinbeck: yes Mary that's it
Zena Zemlja: Sasun, I know I am late, sorry could not make it earlier, but I do have a questions and suggestion about the ratings
Indigo Mertel: great work... you know I am a fan of your kiosk system :)
Juko Tempel: thanks Sasun.. great work on the kiosks.. and critical reviews is a good development i think..
Sasun Steinbeck: sure Zena please
EdwardIV Beaumont: interesting meeting....thanks Sasun.....will drop you a notecard with feedback soon....bye all...
Sasun Steinbeck: thanks Juko :)
Sasun Steinbeck: oh yes would love your thoughts
Sasun Steinbeck: write them down, send them to me later
Sasun Steinbeck: one thing I didn't mention was a brand new checkbox on the website
Tour Spoonhammer: I have a quetion about this group tours..can anyone manage them...put them together?
Sasun Steinbeck: [the checbox is named] "Needs Review"
Sasun Steinbeck: that shows just the galleries that have 0 or 1 ratings
[that way people interested in helping with the ratings have a great list of galleries that really need ratings]
Sasun Steinbeck: Tour I would love to help you with that
Sasun Steinbeck: yes you could lead a tour of galleries and I have some tools to help you
Sasun Steinbeck: I actually sell a standalone tour HUD
Tour Spoonhammer: okay thanks
Sasun Steinbeck: for custom tours
Juko Tempel: art excursions :-)
Sasun Steinbeck: but if you want to drive a gallery tour/art excursion, let's talk later :)
Mary Wickentower: maybe all we members could all take turns leading a tour once a month, like a coopertive effort
Zena Zemlja: right now there are galleries listed on the website with just one vote of 5 stars on op of list, above those who have 10 or 20 votes of most 5 stars too and maybe 1 or 2 of lesser stars, there is even one gallery with about 250 votes, alsmost all of them 5 stars, maybe just a few lowerd, and it is listed on page 50, this does not seem fair to me
Second Renoir: we could all do a special christmas tour
Second Renoir: with gifts
Sasun Steinbeck: yes Zena, I've been thinking about that a lot
Indigo Mertel: I have to go.... Mar, thank you for hosting this meeting. Thank you for the very informative session, Sasun.
Indigo Mertel: bye!
Mary Wickentower: maybe all we members could all take turns leading a tour once a month, like a coopertive effort
Mar Dwi: thanks for coming Indigo, have a nice day!
Second Renoir: every gallery give something
Sasun Steinbeck: Mar mentioned that earlier, galleries with one 5.0 rating are above galleries with 100 ratings with an average of 4.99 :)
Zena Zemlja: what I would suggest is to rank the galleries in order of who has most points, not average, but counting them, like 5 votes of 4 stars would be 20 points, etc, that woudl be much more fair I think
Cogito Ultsch: ty for the great meeting
Xe Namiboo: I'd be willing to do that
Cogito Ultsch: this was fantastic information :)
Sasun Steinbeck: thanks Cogito!
Luka Dayafter: alright, thanks!
Sasun Steinbeck: Zena I am strongly considering something like that
Luka Dayafter: Yes I will have to do that, thanks :)
Mary Wickentower: just a comment on the "filter" button, it might be less confusing if it was called a "search" button
[This has been changed as suggested]
Sasun Steinbeck: hmmm I like that idea
Mar Dwi: yes. I think Zena's idea is better than my idea of multiplying rates with number of ratings
Zena Zemlja: I hope so, Sasun, it will sure encourage us all to have our customers asked for more votes
Sasun Steinbeck: yes Mar, something need to be done
Sasun Steinbeck: I need to put some more thought into that
Sasun Steinbeck: one thing I should mention
Luka Dayafter: I must go now. Thank you Susan for invitation and thanks for informations. Good job!
Luka Dayafter: Bye everyone!
Sasun Steinbeck: is that the kiosks are integrated with the metaLIFE travel database
Mar Dwi: Bye Luka
Hermit Barber: If you want to change the rating scheme, then assuming that ratings are from 1-5, then assigning galleries as e^(ln(Number of Votes per Rating)*2*(Rating-3)/(5-1)) should establish a significance (number of votes * Rating) factor that would be fair.
Sasun Steinbeck: so anyone that clicks a rating star on my kiosk is automatically forwarded to the metaLIFE database
Sasun Steinbeck: so that means all the galleries are also in the metaLIFE travel database, which is awesome
Sasun Steinbeck: we flooded them with galleries lol
Hermit Barber: The downside is that that would need to be done for each vote for each gallery as new votes are received.
Second Renoir: lol
Doran Forzane: Can your kiosks be linked Sasun to ones metaLIFE account then
Sasun Steinbeck: oh Hermit thank you very much
Sasun Steinbeck: that's exactly what I need to work out, the right forumula
Stephanie Helstein: i have one
Sasun Steinbeck: no, Doran, they can't, it just forwards the parcel ratings
Doran Forzane: k
Zena Zemlja: my Igor gallery was on top long time, all 5 stars, now one lesser vote has downed it to page 28, below about hundreds of galleries with just one vote of 5 stars, which is just silly
Sasun Steinbeck: yes it isn't good the way it works right now
Second Renoir: thanks sasun and mar and all
Tour Spoonhammer: one option would be to reset all ratings every month or every third month..to keep the rating up to date
Sasun Steinbeck: but rest assured I'm going to fix it
Sasun Steinbeck: hm interesting idea
Zena Zemlja: thanks, Sasun
Hermit Barber: Tour: If doing that it would be better to establish a moving average with more significance given to newer votes.
Tour Spoonhammer: Thanks all or aninformative hour
Stephanie Helstein: i think you should explore using a bayesian rating system
Sasun Steinbeck: yes that's an interesting suggestion
Sasun Steinbeck: I'm taking all this down, don't worry :)
Sasun Steinbeck: I will Stephanie, thank you
Hermit Barber: The formula I provided is Bayensian :-P
Sasun Steinbeck: oh good!
Stephanie Helstein: :)
Sasun Steinbeck: I will do some research :)
[I have since implemented a Bayesian rating system and it is "live". The net result is that galleries with a low number of ratings are "pulled" toward the average rating, so they are no longer clogging the upper ranks of the list with single-star ratings]
Skylarian Isachenko: Will there be a log of the event, I hope?
Mary Wickentower: this info meeting is a great idea, I've learned more here than anywhere else about the kiosks, plus it makes the effort that you are putting together seem more like a community now, then an abstact list...hosting these meeting on occasion might be a good way to continue pulling this togehter as a communiyt
Sasun Steinbeck: so hopefully as this system continues to grow, I will make tweaks like this to make it better
Sasun Steinbeck: and if you have any other suggestions please let me know
Sasun Steinbeck: good idea Mary
SpaceIO Core: very nice to see you all.
Sasun Steinbeck: thank you :)
Stephanie Helstein: ty!
Sasun Steinbeck: thanks so much for coming everyone!
Xe Namiboo: ty!
Skylarian Isachenko: And I hope you had a grand thanks giving or appropriate holiday.
SpaceIO Core: thanks for great conversation, Sasun, and mar
Zena Zemlja: thank you Sasun
Sasun Steinbeck: haha and if you sent me an IM I'll get to you shortly :)
Sasun Steinbeck: I sure did thanks Sky :)
Mar Dwi: Thank you Sasun, it's been very informative and thank everyone for your input
Skylarian Isachenko: See you again I am sure.
Sasun Steinbeck: thanks again!
Sasun Steinbeck: thanks Mar for this opportunity :)
Mary Wickentower: TY Susan and MAr
Sasun Steinbeck: awesome, we didn't get bombed with lag
Mar Dwi: yes, oh that reminds me....
Stephanie Helstein: take care, all
Doran Forzane: no even with the sim Time dilation
Mar Dwi: there's a lot of land for sale on this region. The sim owners are very nice and professional and the land isn't expensive. If you're looking for land, I like to have artistic neighbours
Sasun Steinbeck: :)
Mar Dwi: and as you can see. we don't have a lot of lag
Sasun Steinbeck: yeah the sim held up great
Zena Zemlja: ok, I get a call, need to go, be well everyone
Zena Zemlja waves and poofs
Sasun Steinbeck: byeeee
Sasun Steinbeck: that was fun! Thanks again Mar
Doran Forzane: Reason mar your lag is down, is because there is empty parcels. Also you dont allow scritps to run on this parcel which means all that exspensive lag inducing Agent costs reduce
Mar Dwi: Yeah, that does make a diference Doran

Art Gallery Owners of SL Kiosk system discussion and feedback session

2009-11-25T03:47:00.000-08:00

Saturday, 11/28 1pm PST

The Art Gallery Owners of SL Kiosk system was designed to connect art lovers to all the fantastic art galleries in SL. The goal is to make it easy and fun for people to locate and travel to your galleries and bring in more traffic, helping more people see (and buy!) your art.

On Saturday at 1pm I'll be leading a discussion seminar at the Second Life Art Community Center (SLACC) hosted by Mar Dwi to talk about this system with you. I'll give you some insight into how the system works and how you can best take advantage of it to achieve your goals, be that sales or increased visitor traffic. Since this system was designed for YOU, I'd love to get feedback on how I can make this system better for you.

At the session I will be unveiling a beta test version of a new remote voting kiosk that can be used by your gallery visitors to rate your gallery. This is designed to gather more gallery ratings and reviews from your visitors without forcing them to go back to the Art Galleries of SL kiosk to rate your gallery. I am currently beta testing this kiosk and will be giving out test versions at the session if you would like to help test this for me.

See you then!

metaLIFE Partnership Going Strong!

2009-11-19T17:38:00.000-08:00

Dear Art Gallery Owners and Artists:

With the recent announcement by Linden Labs about XstreetSL freebies, I wanted to remind you about our ongoing partnership with metaLIFE and the Art Gallery Owner's group as a great alternative and addition to XstreetSL.

This partnership will help gallery owners and artists like you better connect with your customers by helping art lovers travel to your in-world galleries and making it easy for people to shop for your art from anywhere in Second Life.

The metaLIFE platform is both:

A grid-wide system for easy sales/affiliated sales/shopping
A landmark database of interesting locations across Second Life

My Art Galleries of SL kiosks are already integrated with the metaLIFE travel database, which means when someone rates an art gallery via the art gallery kiosks or tour HUDs, those votes are automatically forwarded to the metaLIFE travel database, making them accessible all across the grid. This is a big win for art in SL, making it easier for shoppers and travelers using the metaLIFE in-world tools and website to find your gallery.

You can get your art for sale directly in the metaLIFE platform yourself and get exposed to more shoppers across Second Life. Joining metaLIFE and listing your items is easy and there are no up front costs or monthly fees!

The metaLIFE platform is growing fast. This is an exciting opportunity for the art gallery community to get in and be a strong presence in the metaLIFE platform as it grows and be a great place to find lots of good art.

Follow these steps to get you started:

Join metaLIFE - Visit the metaLIFE website and set up an account in just two steps. Video tutorial
Add items to sell. Either go to the Sellers Guide, or see this Video tutorial

Your items are now for sale on the metaLIFE website and the in-world network of metaLIFE vendors and metaHUD's.

I have created a special, customized metLIFE vendor for the Art Galleries of SL group and have distributed this to everyone that currently owns one of my art gallery kiosks. If you didn't receive it, please contact me. This is a great way for all of the artists and art gallery owners involved with metaLIFE to work together under a common, recognizable quality brand name to help promote art in SL.

To sell art under the "Art Galleries of SL" Brand:

Go to the Art Galleries of SL metaBrand page and click the JOIN button to join the brand.
Inform Sasun Steinbeck and she will promote you to Seller status. Anyone applying to sell under this brand must be approved personally by Sasun before joining. Only approved art dealers will be allowed in.
Rez the Art Galleries of SL branded metaLIFE vendor from the package you were given where you want to sell items, or go get one at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Vertigo/98/126/29.

When someone buys something from one of your vendors, you will earn 5% commission on everything under the "Art Galleries of SL" brand sold by your vendor!

Once you are promoted to Seller status, your items marked for sale under the "Art Galleries of SL" brand will automatically show up for sale in all branded vendors across the grid. To do this:

Create an Item Group for your art. Simply name it, click create, and Add/Remove items. Video tutorial
Go to the Art Galleries of SL metaBrand page and click Add/Remove items (at the upper right). Select the group of items you want to sell in the branded vendors.

Step Up! Campaign

2009-10-27T21:24:00.001-07:00

I received a note from Tricia Aferdita about some awareness raising going on around art theft. She's helping out with the Step Up! Campaign and helping organize the artists who want to help raise awareness of the problem. I think this is fantastic and if you have been a reader of this blog, you know my stance on art theft and have seen a few of the blatant cases by some of these thieves.

There is a Ning group where some discussions have been going on that is of interest, be sure to take a look. Here is my recent post there.

One thing that I wanted to add to that discussion there. I think one of the most powerful things we as artists and people concerned with art theft in SL can do is to simply confront these thieves and tell them that what they are doing is
WRONG. I strongly believe that the reason they just continue their illegal business is because no one complains to their face.

Now I'm not saying that people need to start making threats about filing abuse reports (or about anything else), which is pointless. The only real recourse is to notify the copyright holder and hope they file a DMCA notice with LL. Just politely inform the thief that what they are doing sucks, that content theft in SL is a serious problem that hurts SL and the art scene, and they should be ashamed of themselves for selling stolen art. Then leave and tell your friends about what is going on. Take them back to show them. Tell them to complain too.

If you are a gallery owner, read this old post about making sure that your artists are not thieves. This is really your responsibility as a gallery owner to make sure you are not helping to sell stolen goods!!

Be careful you don't sling accusations, there are cases where people can license photos or art you may recognize from a service that licenses such things, or they are that artist in RL, and they may indeed have permission to show or sell that piece. So assume goodness! Ask if they have permission politely. The only gotcha is that a real thief will claim "of course" so it's a bit of tricky business trying to sleuth out the truth. If they claim that they are indeed that artist in RL, and something just seems really suspicious, what I have done in the past is this - if you can find the RL artist's website, email them a polite note to confirm that the SL person you found is really that person and that the reason you are asking is that you are very concerned about art theft in SL and want to make sure that the RL artist is not being ripped off. They will thank you.

I'd love to hear your stories, and Tricia Aferdita is collecting them as well, so I'll be happy to forward them on to her. So let me know if you run into any slimy art thieves in SL! If you don't feel comfortable confronting a suspected thief, let me know, I'd be glad to help. To me this is what is means to Step Up!! Complain about it, don't just shake your head and leave!

Art Theft in SL, again

2009-09-26T21:55:00.000-07:00

Someone tipped me off to another person supposedly selling tons of stolen art in SL, Dwayanu Weyland. He's got a gallery selling hundreds and hundreds of pieces of art, the majority of which is probably copyrighted, but I didn't go verify everything. I landed in the M.C. Escher section at his gallery, and that was basically all I needed to see, since I know all that is copyrighted for sure. He's not just displaying it all for educational purposes, no, he's charging money for this art and making a profit off his stolen content. Here's our conversation, for your enjoyment. I'm seeing some of the same justifications these people use to legitimize their theft, which is good since I know what to expect now :)

Sasun Steinbeck: Hi Dwayanu, do you have a moment?
Dwayanu Weyland: What's up ?
Sasun Steinbeck: well it looks like there is a big problem with your art gallery in Leelight
Sasun Steinbeck: Maybe you don't realize that you are selling copyrighted content
Sasun Steinbeck: which is illegal
Dwayanu Weyland: and your ownership of those rights is what??
Sasun Steinbeck: what I have rights to isn't what I'm talking about. I'm talking about what you are doing
Sasun Steinbeck: you can't sell content you don't rights to sell in SL
Sasun Steinbeck: do you have permission from the copyright holders to sell this art?
Dwayanu Weyland: and i suppose you've checked with the 50 or 60 other galleries that sell perhaps Picasso's ??
Sasun Steinbeck: if you can give me landmarks to them, I'd be glad to ask them
Sasun Steinbeck: however, what other galleries do or don't do has no relevance to what you do, nor does it excuse you from selling stolen content
Dwayanu Weyland: SL has a gadget called Search. use the All tab, type in "PIcasso", you'll get lists
Sasun Steinbeck: thank you I will do that
Sasun Steinbeck: maybe you just didn't realize that what you are doing is illegal and unethical
Dwayanu Weyland: I find the american idea that they own the internet amusing and annoying both. I would point out that the typical sale price in my gallery is about 35 pence real, which is below the legal boundary for copyright violations. I also don't see anybody trying to extradite the ill-gotten gains.
Sasun Steinbeck: it's illegal to even display copyrighted images without permission, it doesn't even matter of you make a dime or not. SL is a commercial application that benefits from the display of art in galleries such as yours, but I'd guess that it does look worse if you do make a profit, which you are, even though it isn't much
Dwayanu Weyland: i don't care a lot for your silly laws, tho obviously i'm subject to the Linden's judgements. Last I checked with them, museum reproductions were fine.
Sasun Steinbeck: oh? and where did you see that
Sasun Steinbeck: perhaps I am confused
Dwayanu Weyland: i can also point out that it is the photographed images which are copyrighted, not the paintings.
Dwayanu Weyland: if any of my images have watermarks, then i'm certainly at fault.
Sasun Steinbeck: I think you are wrong on that last point
Sasun Steinbeck: for example the M.C. Esher copyright says "No part of this website and or works by M.C. Escher may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system"
Sasun Steinbeck: so that makes it pretty clear. most copyright notices are similar
Dwayanu Weyland: i can walk in to the National Museum and photograph a painting, and if i escape security ;-) ;) ;-), i'm home free.
Sasun Steinbeck: that doesn't mean you can sell that photograph or even display it without permission, unless it falls under fair use guidelines. which this most certainly does not
Dwayanu Weyland: you obey everything you are told ! good to have sheep in the world.
Sasun Steinbeck: content theft is wrong, no matter what you may think, it is unethical and illegal
Dwayanu Weyland: I realise you represent the hundreds of poor to middling and very rarely good sl artists, who are frustrated at being incapable of selling their work, because nobody will buy it.
Sasun Steinbeck: your opinions do not change the fact that what you are doing is selling stolen art
Dwayanu Weyland: garbage
Sasun Steinbeck: no, that's a fact
Sasun Steinbeck: I can see it for myself
Dwayanu Weyland: you are appying your laws to me. try again.
Sasun Steinbeck: it's not my laws, obviously
Dwayanu Weyland: you don't like it. sorry. to quote (not phillip, but I don't remember which) one of the Lindens, "shit happens"
Sasun Steinbeck: I will be contacting some of the copyright holders of your stolen art and letting them know exactly how to file a DMCA against you
Sasun Steinbeck: if they choose not to pursue, you have nothing to worry about
Dwayanu Weyland: And if they do, I suppose i'll have to ask the Lindens for your real identity, so my lawyer can contact you

You know it's frustrating that I can't just abuse report this sea of absolutely blatant copyright violations to LL and expect them to do something about it. Is this all worth the trouble, and now legal threats? Maybe it would be better to not even talk to art thieves and just go directly to the copyright holders with anonymous info on how to file a DMCA. If they choose to do nothing about it, then that's the end of that. Lately it seems that the art thieves I'm finding know full well exactly what they are doing and just don't care, so talking to them directly to get them to "do the right thing" is completely ineffective. I am really feeling on the side of the content creators that are suing LL over this mess, since I believe LL can and MUST play a more active role in stopping at LEAST the most blatant copyright theft in SL.

Banned from 170 sims

2009-09-22T22:46:00.000-07:00

Today's drama - I was banned from 170 sims. Yep, little 'ol me.

On 9/15 I received unsolicited advertising notecard spam sent directly to me from one angel4sky Shepherd. As it says in my profile, I abuse report spammers. So I AR'd her for spamming and told her I did to hopefully make her stop (I know, fat chance) and spare others the spam.

Her reply made me laugh, rudely, in her face:

[2009/09/16 14:40] angel4sky Shepherd: (Saved Wed Sep 16 10:10:08 2009) i ve reported you because of being a bit strange to report people because of one notecard, much fun in a club where the guests start 100 times the same gesture..^^

English is not her native tongue, but what she seems to mean is that she's justifying spamming lots of people because people in nightclubs spam gestures hundres of times. Hello?!? Earth to angel4sky, come in, we're not reading you!

It turns out she is an Estate Manager for a very large number of sims, and in retaliation against my AR she not only AR'd me back (or claimed to) but banned me from the entire estate of 170+ sims. I found out since I couldn't get to a particular sim where my sculpture is on display. Much confusion and waste of time ensued by me and the two sim owners trying to figure out how in the world I got banned and in getting me un-banned by Bell Joubert, the estate owner (nice guy). After that, I finally remembered who this angel4sky person was and put 2+2 together. I wrote the estate manager a note complaining that his trusted estate manager is abusing her power banning people from the estate for personal reasons. Hopefully he will take the appropriate steps to make sure that kind of abuse never happens again.

I'm glad this got sorted out. Having to recommend that gallery owners never rent or buy from Bell Estates due to some crazy estate manager blocking my access to the kiosks and galleries would not have been my first choice.

Some People... part II

2009-09-22T21:01:00.000-07:00

She's at it again. She's not selling her stolen images, but simply displaying them is copyright theft nonetheless, since Second Life is a commercial application that benefits from the display of art in galleries such as hers. Alexandra Sautereau has her illegal Victor Vasarely images in her Zeroform Sautereau gallery at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Mirandirge/13/30/44 (where I am banned, amusingly enough). What's interesting is that now that I've had a chance to look at these images, inside the frames is a notecard named "zeroform + sautereau authenticity card" which I find highly suspicious, as if there is some scam going on to fool people into thinking that this is not actually a illegal Vasarely image but something that Alexandra created herself. I don't know since I can't read the notecard. But what else could it be if someone other than the creator is giving out supposed certificates of authenticity?

The last time I paid Alexandra a visit, she was selling these items as well as some Mark Ryland images, for profit. When confronted, she quickly took them all down but then refused to admit there was anything wrong with selling art she "found" on the internet, such as Mark's site where his copyright notice is clearly posted.

I've emailed Victor's representative and notified them of the illegal usage of his images, so the ball's in their court if they want to file a DMCA against Alexandra. I'd file an abuse report if it weren't a waste of time, since LL doesn't do anything even against blatant and admitted art theft as in this case unless a DMCA is filed.

RSS feed fixed

2009-09-19T23:42:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Mar Dwi for pointing out that his blog feed was missing from the Art Gallery Consolidated Feed. I tracked it down to some overly-strict XML validation that was silently failing a ton of feeds. I removed some of the restrictions and now everthing is flowing well. Many blogs were being ignored and are now showing up. The feed has a whole new life now! Check it out, and read this post about why it's so important to have a simple blog for your gallery!

Accusations of Starax forgery

2009-09-15T17:21:00.001-07:00

Recently some accusations of Starax sculpture forgeries surfaced surrounding the AngelGate show. I heard these third hand so, take it with a grain of salt. I don't know who, but either way it was a legit concern. So I volunteered to do some investigation on whether it's technically possible to do a perfect clone of an object in SL. The copybot and variants circulating today to NOT allow you to specify an arbitrary creator name/ID and creation date. They ALWAYS show the bot's name and the actual date when the copy was made.

Using the built-in Inspect command on the SL viewer pie menu, one can easily scan a list of every single prim any object is made of, with the prim creation date and name of the prim creator right there. So spotting typical copybot forgeries of anything is rediculously simple, since 99% of the prims will NOT be who you expect it to be and the creation dates will all be wrong (and most likely all very very close to the same time since copybot creates all the prims in the copy linkset very quickly). What a forger would typically do is link in a single legit Starax prim (from one of Starax's full-perm objects that are easy to obtain) as the ROOT of the linkset, and that gives the entire object what appears to be a legit creator name and creation date. But Inspect will always show the real story!

Now in the process of learning C# and Asp.Net lately, which has kept me very busy, I spent a lot of time learning the OpenMetaverse libraries (formerly "libsecondlife" or "libsl") so that I could built my own bot, for the fun of it. So I'm fairly familiar with the basics of building a working bot and what is possible and what is not. So I dug into the OpenMetaverse sources and looked for a way to specify a prim creator ID and date. At first glance it appears that there is away to do that when you create a prim, but it turns out all those properties are ignored when you actually rez a prim using the library calls in a bot. Only the critical prim geometry is used to creat the prim, then the client makes a few more function calls to set other properties.

Currently there is no built-in way in the existing libraries to set the creator ID and creation date on a newly rezzed prim like you can other prim properties. In addition I checked the actual network packet definitions and there IS NO network packet defined for setting those properties.

The possibility always exists that there is a very well hidden exploit that lets you set these properties, but there IS NO way to do that with the OpenMetaverse libs today and not even a network packet type defined for that that someone could use to add additional functionality to the libs to allow that. So my conclusion is that this a VERY VERY tiny possibility that it's at all possible and unless someone can prove that there is such an exploit (and report it asap, omg) then the validity of any theoretical copybot variant that can set arbitrary creator IDs and dates on a prim is just not true.

Therefore, if all the prims in a Starax sculpture were made by him, then it's legit and anyone claiming otherwise needs to show some proof that the above exploit is real and then take immediate action to report it so LL can clost that hole in a hurry.

One last note, I have seen Starax scuptures where some of the prims were not made by him. In particular, his Achilles scupture contains prims created by Jeffrey Gomez. It appears he simply used some of Jeffrey's prims in this particular piece, and the bulk of the prims were created by Starax. This was from a reputable source (my Starax wand) so it's definitely legit.

Consolidated Gallery RSS feed

2009-09-15T05:07:00.000-07:00

Did you know about this RSS feed? If you go to http://sasun.info and click your browser's RSS button, you can subscribe to something very cool. I have created a single, consolidated RSS feed for all of the galleries on my list that have an appropriate RSS feed available. This feed is available at http://sasun.info/RssHandler.ashx?source=galleries.xml.

What this means is that if you have a blog or an RSS feed about your gallery in SL, and if it has been approved by me as "appropriate" for the consolidated RSS feed, it will be included automatically. Now, everyone interested in art in SL can subscribe to this ONE feed to see all the news about all the participating art galleries in SL. Here is what you need to do:

First, if you don't have one, create a blog for your gallery to talk about what's new, upcoming shows, your thoughts about art, whatever you want to blog about that is closely related to art in SL or your specific gallery. I recommend you go check out blogger.com. It's easy! You REALLY should do this - it's free advertising and this consolidated feed will help get lots more eyeballs on your blog!

Then, add your blog's URL to the "webpage" setting in your Galleries of SL Kiosk .User Settings notecard. That's it! If your blog service has an RSS feed provided for you automatically (which you can see by clicking the "view feeds on this page" icon on your favorite web browser), it will automatically be discovered and added to the consolidated feed. For you advanced web-savvy folks, if you don't have an autodiscoverable RSS feed for the URL you specified in your kiosk "webpage" setting, then specify the actual RSS feed in your "RSS" setting in your .User Settings notecard. This is not necessary if your feed is already available on your home page.

Q: What is an "appropriate" feed?
A: It must be about your gallery or art in SL. It cannot be a flicker stream, ning group, xstreetsl.com page, a RL company/gallery, or anything unrelated to art or galleries in SL. If this is the case, I will flag it as inappropriate and it will not be picked up for the consolidated RSS feed. Note that your website will always be available on the list at http://sl-artgalleries.blogspot.com, regardless of whether it's flagged as OK for the consolidated RSS feed.

Q: What the heck is an RSS feed and how does someone read one?
A: See http://www.whatisrss.com. I recommend Google reader at http://www.google.com/reader. It's easy to use, available anywhere you can get to the web, and works great on mobile devices too.

Q: Why should I care?
A: This is an excellent way to keep people interested in your gallery and to get your blog read more widely. By having ONE place for people to go to keep up to date on what is going on with all the galleries in SL, you will increase your readership and your visitor count, which hopefully may even transfer to sales, if that's something that's important to you :) Once you have a blog set up, keep it updated! Post about changes, events at your gallery, interesting things you've seen related to art in SL, etc. This is a great way to advertise and spread the word to a wider audience and be noticed! Other galleries are, so if you're not, you're missing out on some cheap, easy promotion. It's just plain fun, too!

Q: How do I know if my blog/feed is marked as included in the consolidated RSS feed?
A: Go to http://sasun.info/gallery_public.aspx and search for your gallery. Look in the "RSSok" field.

Q: Why does Google reader sometimes have "untitled" for posts on the consolidated feed?
A: This is a Google bug. It has problems reading perfectly fine XML sometimes. I hope they fix it soon.

Q: Hey there's nothing wrong with my blog/feed! Why is it marked 'N'? It should be included!
A: Let me know. I'll be glad to re-evaluate and let you know what I decide.

Q: How did you do this?!?
A: Lots of hard work. I wrote a custom application that goes out and finds your RSS feeds on your webpages, which I get from my gallery database. If you've specified an RSS feed in your kiosk, it uses that instead (after it checks it for being an actual RSS feed - if not, it tries to discover the actual RSS feed). It then creates an OPML file with all the feeds that actually work that I upload to my website. The website takes that opml file and sucks in all the feed posts from all the feeds in it and caches them. It then builds a big honkin' huge single XML feed and caches THAT too, so that when you ask for it, it delivers it fast. It's all very complicated, trust me :)
I hope this latest project of mine increases awareness of all of your wonderful galleries and what is going on inside them to a wider audience. Enjoy!

Sasun's 4th Rezday Beach Bash!

2009-09-11T00:58:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it! 4 years already! Great excuse to party! Bring your fab swimwear, rubber duckies, inner tubes and water toys and come party with us on beautiful Vertigo! We have a very cool spot all set up for the party, with the fantastic DJ Speelo Snook spinning some hot latin dance beats to shake your bod to, some fun water activities like bumper boats, and comfy spots to hang out and watch the festivites and dancing. Yay! Just watch out for the sharks, they bite!
Wed, September 16th at 8:00pm PDT/SLT - lasting all night! So come late if you can't come at 8!

I'd also like to recognize how awesome the last four years have been for the art scene in SL. The growth has been phenomenal and it's been a joy to be part of. If you are an artist or gallery owner, swing by and have some fun with us and say hi!

See you there!

Your hosts, Sasun Steinbeck & Galea Yates
9/16/2008 8:00pm

secondlife://vertigo/110/198/35

sabra Hemingway @ Amicitia Gallery

2009-09-07T23:47:00.000-07:00

The Amicitia Gallery is proud to present sabra Hemingway's brand new "Crossroads 2009" series. Join us at our "Dare Affair" event on Sunday the 13th and noon PDT. We dare you to wear something wild! We have the fantastic Speelo Snook DJ'ing some awesome modern latin dance beats on the upper balcony to dance to after you work your way through the gallery, enjoying sabra's fantastic colors and emotional new work, laid out as a story sequence. See you there!! secondlife://102/106/26

Beginner's guide to Art in the world of Second Life

2009-09-03T14:51:00.000-07:00

I stumbled on this fantastic document aimed at RL artists unfamiliar with SL that want to get their feet wet. This handout was given at the recent Southwest Arts Conference 2009 in a session called CyberSWAC: A World of Possibilities with Second Life.

From the Conference program:
Did you know that artists and arts organizations generate work in Second
Life to earn real-world cash? This session will demonstrate the potential
creative and commercial uses of Second Life, a free 3D virtual world imagined
and created by its residents. From the unique perspectives of an individual
artist, a small Phoenix art and cultural organization and a national
art museum, each presenter will demonstrate and discuss the benefits of
working in Second Life.

Presenters: Apryl Seech, Artist; Patty Barnes, Co-Director, Spirit of the
Senses; Thomas Houlon, Co-Director, Spirit of the Senses; Melissa
Carrillo, New Media and Technology Director, Smithsonian Latino Center,
Smithsonian.

Wow! Does anyone know any of these people, and who specifically authored this document? I want to give them a personal thank you. This is great stuff and a fantastic resource to keep a link to for your artist friends that seem curious once you tell them what you do with all your free time :)

Sigh. Some people just don't get it

2009-09-01T18:04:00.001-07:00

I ran into a gallery named "zeroform sautereau gallery" the other day, owned by one Alexandra Sautereau, selling limited edition stolen prints by Mark Ryden in her gallery for around 150L each. Here is our conversation.

Sasun Steinbeck: are you Mark Ryden in RL?
Alexandra Sautereau: I could be
Sasun Steinbeck: ok so you won't mind if I email Mark to confirm thatyou have rights to sell his art
Alexandra Sautereau: sure
Sasun Steinbeck: so you "could be" Mark Ryden
Alexandra Sautereau: drop an email
Sasun Steinbeck: ok well forgive me a thousand times if you are, I just want to make sure no one is selling stolen art
Alexandra Sautereau: what's stolen about it
Sasun Steinbeck: if you have permission to sell it, all is well
Sasun Steinbeck: do you have permission from Mark to sell that art? If not, it's stolen
Alexandra Sautereau: i don't have written permission to sell Mark Rydens art in real life no
Sasun Steinbeck: you do realize what you are doing is against the law then?
Alexandra Sautereau: 100 lindens is .39 cents in real life and i haven't sold any of his art in SL
Sasun Steinbeck: that isn't relevant
Alexandra Sautereau: if you'd like i can take the art down the exhibit is over on 9/15
Sasun Steinbeck: you have stolen art that you don't have permission to show or sell
Alexandra Sautereau: or just change the value to zero
Alexandra Sautereau: so do a lot of people on SL
Sasun Steinbeck: so if someone else is doing it, then its ok?
Alexandra Sautereau: why not
Sasun Steinbeck: well I'll tell you what, we'll let Mark Ryden and Linden Labs sort it out
Alexandra Sautereau: like i said i haven't sold a single piece of his art
Sasun Steinbeck: that is completely irrelevant
Sasun Steinbeck: are you saying it becomes wrong IF you happen to sell one and only then?
Sasun Steinbeck: unfortunately the law does not agree with you
Alexandra Sautereau: there are people all over SL selling all sorts of things
Sasun Steinbeck: and that makes it ok for you to break the law?
Alexandra Sautereau: like i said i can take the art down
Alexandra Sautereau: it's not that big of a deal
Alexandra Sautereau: if anything it's free advertizing
Sasun Steinbeck: You might want to read up on the new posting guidelines on xstreetSL, which also apply to selling items in SL
Alexandra Sautereau: i don't post on Xstreet
Sasun Steinbeck: LL is cracking down on IP theft and what you are doing is unethical and against the law
Sasun Steinbeck: I'm appalled that an art gallery owner would willingly sell stolen art
Alexandra Sautereau: it's virtually non existent
Sasun Steinbeck: and try to justify it with the Lemming excuse
Sasun Steinbeck: "everyone else is doing it", come on that is a huge cop out
Alexandra Sautereau: it's the truth
Sasun Steinbeck: again, how is that relevant to what YOU are doing
Alexandra Sautereau: i'm exhibiting the art
Alexandra Sautereau: like hundreds of other people on sl
Sasun Steinbeck: people kill other people all the time, do you think for one second that a judge would let me go because "everyone else is doing it"?? be serious
Alexandra Sautereau: if i had it in my personal SL home it would be the same thing
Alexandra Sautereau: what's the problem with it
Sasun Steinbeck: what's the problem with selling stolen art??
Alexandra Sautereau: if i had a reason to kill someone it would be valid
Alexandra Sautereau: it's not stolen
Sasun Steinbeck: omg
Alexandra Sautereau: it's online in a virtual environment
Alexandra Sautereau: which can be removed
Sasun Steinbeck: so youj feel that "everyone else is doing it" is valid justification for killing someone?
Alexandra Sautereau: it doesn't tangibly exist anywhere
Alexandra Sautereau: it's not a physical commodity
Sasun Steinbeck: or for doing whatever the hell you please? regardless of any laws?
Sasun Steinbeck: if you think the law does not apply in SL, you have a lot to learn
Alexandra Sautereau: as i said the art can be removed
Sasun Steinbeck: but dont' take it from me, we'll let LL and Mark sort this out
Sasun Steinbeck: and you will just replace his art with more stolen art that you will sell
Sasun Steinbeck: great
Alexandra Sautereau: it's not that huge of a deal
Alexandra Sautereau: you should have seen the lichtenstein exhibit i had it looked fantastic
Sasun Steinbeck: yes it is. It is a huge deal. This is the kind of thing that puts a black mark on SL.
Alexandra Sautereau: how so?
Alexandra Sautereau: nothing in sl exists tangibly
Sasun Steinbeck: wtf are you that deluded?
Alexandra Sautereau: not music, not art not anything except this conversation
Sasun Steinbeck: you need to read up on the TOS and on IP law
Alexandra Sautereau: can the art in sl be printed out and carried from sl into RL?
Sasun Steinbeck: you can sue someone for stealing your creations in SL and it has been done, and successfully
Alexandra Sautereau: your creations
Alexandra Sautereau: in sl ok
Alexandra Sautereau: like if i made a plane and someone copied it
Alexandra Sautereau: sure
Sasun Steinbeck: you said nothing in SL exists tangibly
Alexandra Sautereau: not in rl it doesn't
Sasun Steinbeck: and that is relevant to copyright law how?
Sasun Steinbeck: it's still IP
Sasun Steinbeck: again, you really realy need to read up on some basic IP law and the TOS
Alexandra Sautereau: as i said i can remove the exhibit
Alexandra Sautereau: it was coming down on 9/15 anyhow

Gallery Ratings - first analysis

2009-08-28T17:21:00.001-07:00

As mentioned in my previous post, I'm collecting some interesting data from the kiosks now - visitor stats, kiosk clicks, and link clicks from the web-based list + the tour HUD, as well as the user ratings from the stars on the kiosks and HUD.

I've been looking at the new link click stats and seeing some interesting things that confirmed what I suspected would happen as a result of the way I'm sorting the gallery list now.

As of some time ago, the gallery list online as well as in the HUD are sorted by gallery RATING. The highest rated galleries are at the top. The reason being, I want people to see the best first, and get hooked. Attention spans being what they are, it doesn't make sense to send someone to some mediocre galleries right off the bat and have them give up on the art scene in SL after a few visits to random galleries.

What this means is that your gallery ratings is very important if you want visitors. I have over 1500 clicks recorded either on SLURLs on the list or maps popped up in the HUDs for about half a month. That's a lot of people using the list and clicking that tour HUD to see galleries. And looking at which ones are being selected, it's extremely clear that there's a strong correlation with the position on the list. The top galleries on the list are getting far more clicks than any other gallery. FAR more.

One potential problem is that new galleries typically have just one rating (the gallery owner's) that pops it right near the top of the list. I do encourage gallery owners to rate themselves 5 stars after setting up their kiosk to get them "into the running" up there near the top. This is perfectly fair since every gallery owner is (or should be!) doing the same exact thing. It makes no sense to start out with zero stars for a rating and plop down at the bottom of the list. So if you haven't rated yourself, you are shooting yourself in the foot - go do it now!

Now I say "near" the top of the list because as a secondary sort, I sort by the order the gallery was added to the list. So for all galleries with a perfect 5.0 rating, the older galleries are sorted higher. Now I'm not too worried about galleries with just one rating being pushed way up to the top, since the system will self-correct - as more visitors arrive and (hopefully) rate the galleries they are visiting, anything other than a 5 star vote with push that new gallery down the list, so all the 5-star galleries (and there are a LOT right now) will eventually sort themselves down in the list as more and more votes are added to the system in general. This is why it's important to keep the votes coming in long-term to keep your gallery as high as possible on the list.

Note that to avoid abuse, one person is allowed one vote, ever, for any particular gallery. You can vote all you want, but only your last vote will be saved. You can change it any time you want, so if your rating isn't that great, think about making some improvements and the better ratings will come.

I plan on publishing the stats once I get some time to make the metrics web page look a bit more professional. Right now it's a pretty rough but functional looking page with all the graphs and metrics on it. So stay tuned!

Updated gallery kiosks coming!

2009-08-28T17:12:00.000-07:00

The updated kiosks are almost out of beta test and I will soon be offering them to all the gallery owners. These new kiosks include a built in visitor counter and item giver that you can customize, so that when guests arrive you can give them a nice welcome message and a notecard about the current exhibit, for example. In addition the new kiosks have a menu item that take you to your custom gallery visitor chart so you can see unique visitors for selectable time periods. I'm very excited about this!

Another cool thing I'm tracking is all the clicks on SLURLs from the list on http://sasun.info as well as all the HUD clicks. So now I can actually show exactly how many people I've sent to all the art galleries on the list. This is important data that I plan to write some more about in my next post, so stay tuned!

Most of the changes to the kiosks have been under the covers, I've completely re-written the basic communication protocol to use the new LSL HTTP-in functions which have made the entire system WAY faster and I can handle a much larger load of kiosks with each Kiosk.Net server. Soon I'll be starting beta test with the servers and get the system out on the market. It will be nice to finally get some income from all this work!

Top Kiosk Clicks of the Month

2009-07-10T18:33:00.000-07:00

Since last November I've been collecting stats on which gallery kiosk is getting clicked the most - which means that gallery is giving out the most copies of the gallery list and HUD. So here are the top three galleries for the past few months helping spread the good word about art in SL - these are my heros of the month - congratulations!!

May:

Museum of Philosophy & Art Gallery - Georgio Monentes
Uninversity of Delaware Art Gallery - Firery Broome
Fotoscope - Korgi Lerwick, Squishypaint Aabye

June:

Museum of Philosophy & Art Gallery - Georgio Monentes
Uninversity of Delaware Art Gallery - Firery Broome
Paris Art - Artichoo Despres

Thank you and congrats!!

Sasun's Best Galleries of SL - updated

2009-07-05T17:22:00.000-07:00

From time to time I'm asked what my favorite art gallery is. Of course I could never narrow it down to just one, but out of the 600+ galleries just on this list, just a handful have made it on to my personal list of favorites, and I'd like to share it with you. This is entirely personal and subjective. I tend to recommend bigger galleries with a lot of diversity, high quality, and tend to prefer 3D scripted art experiences. If you know of a gallery that you believe should be on this best of the best list, please comment! And now the list, in order from first added to most recent at the bottom:

Crescent Moon Museum - Tayzia Abattoir
Artropolis - Filthy Fluno
Museum of Hyperformalism - Dancoyote Antonelli
The Grand Gallery - Tommy Parrott
SL Art Community Center - Mar Dwi
Blackwater Sculpture Art Gallery - Jurin Juran
Tubular Gallery (multiple locations) - elros Tuominen
Cienega Soon Juicy Gallery - Cienega Soon
AG3 Gallery at Angelgate - White Lebed
Art Box - Frankie Rockett
Pirats Art Network Permanent Art Gallery - Newbab Zsigmond
Art Hub - jeanette Burnstein

Gallery text reviews now available!

2009-07-03T20:39:00.000-07:00

I've got a test version of a nice update that allows you to see full text reviews that people have been leaving for art galleries deployed live at http://sasun.info. If you go to the Gallery list from the menu there, then hover over some review stars, with any luck (if that gallery has any full text reviews) they will show in a nice little popup. I love it!

The new kiosks have had the ability for people to leave text reviews by clicking a review star on a kiosk or HUD, then immediately leaving a review on channel 8 (i.e. "/8 this gallery has some great art!"). All those text reviews have been saved and are now available for the first time in the little popups over the rating stars. So get out there and leave some text reviews of some galleries after you rate them!! People will be reading them! This is a great way to find out what other people think of your gallery, or galleries you are thinking of visiting.

Note that you can only have ONE star rating and one text review, per gallery. You can always re-rate/re-review that gallery, which simply updates your last review with the new info.

Let me know what you think!

Promotional Partnership with metaLIFE

2009-07-01T22:03:00.000-07:00

I'd like to announce a new partnership with metaLIFE today. Soon some metaLIFE seller kits will be going out to all the kiosk owners to help them take advantage of this partnership. My hope is that by getting more art for sale in their system, gallery owners' art will get more exposure across the grid. The text below will be going out with the kits. I really hope you can try this out, put a few things for sale in the system, and see how it goes. MetaLIFE is new, so don't expect a lot of sales right off the bat. But it's growing, and if we can get involved as a group, will really be a great way for people to shop for art anywhere on the grid.

Even if you are not an artist/gallery owner, I hope that people interested in promoting art in SL can help by setting up a sales kiosk somewhere and earn some commissions from the sales along the way as well!
_____

Dear Art Gallery Owners:

The Art Gallery Owners group and metaLIFE, a Grid-Wide Marketplace, are announcing a new partnership today. This partnership will help gallery owners like you better connect with your customers by helping art lovers travel to your in-world galleries and making it easy for people to shop for your art from your gallery or any other place all across Second Life.

metaLIFE platform is both :

A grid-wide system for easy sales/affiliated sales/shopping
A landmark database of interesting locations across Second Life

The new Art gallery kiosks are already integrated with the metaLIFE travel database, which means when someone rates an art gallery via the new art gallery kiosks or tour HUDs, those votes are automatically forwarded to the metaLIFE travel database, making them accessible all across the grid. This is a big win for art in SL, making it easier for shoppers and travelers using the metaLIFE in-world tools and website to find your gallery.

Now we'd like to step up the benefit of the metaLIFE platform by informing you of how you can get your art for sale directly in the metaLIFE platform and get exposed to more shoppers across Second Life. Included with this notecard is a metaLIFE kit with everything you need to start selling your art on the metaLIFE platform today. Joining metaLIFE and listing your items is easy and free!

The metaLIFE platform is new and growing fast. This is an exciting opportunity for the art gallery community to get in and be a strong presence in the metaLIFE platform as it grows and be a great place to find art.

Simple steps will get you started!

Join metaLIFE - Visit the metaLIFE website (http://meta-life.net/) and set up an account in just 2 steps. Video tutorial
Add your items to metaLIFE for sale. Video tutorial

That's it :) your items are now for sale all across the grid via metaLIFE platform (on the metaLIFE websiteand the in-world network of metaKIOSK's and metaHUD's)

One powerful service of the metaLIFE platform is metaBRANDS, a next generation for creating affiliated/franchised networks. I have created a metaBRAND called "Art Galleries of SL". This is a way for all of the art gallery owners involved with metaLIFE to work together under a common, recognizable quality brand name to help promote art in SL under the metaLIFE platform.

Join the "Art Galleries of SL" Brand on metaLIFE:

Watch this video tutorial on how to join the "Art Galleries of SL" metaBRAND.

Go to the Art Galleries of SL metaBrand pageand click the JOIN button to join the brand.
Inform Sasun Steinbeck and she will promote you to Seller status. Anyone applying to sell under this brand must be approved personally by Sasun before joining. Only approved art dealers will be allowed in.
Rez a metaKIOSK from the package you were given where you want to sell/resell items.
Set the brand on your kiosk to "Art Galleries of SL" at your kiosks page. When you assign a metaKIOSK to this brand, you will also earn 5% commission on everything under the "Art Galleries of SL" brand sold by your metaKIOSK! This means for example if you sell a piece of art for 1000L$ from your kiosk, you earn extra 50L$!

Once you are promoted to Seller status - you will be able to add your items for sale in "Art Galleries of SL" brand:

Click Add/Remove items while you are in brand and select groups of items you want to sell. Video tutorial
Create Items Groups if you don't have any. Video tutorial

All items will be listed for sale on every metaKIOSK set to this brand!

Additional :

Once you've had a chance to explore the goodies in your package and set up your metaKIOSK, check out the cool metaHUD in featured items. The metaHUD lets you explore places to travel and lets you shop for items in the metaLIFE platform right from Second Life.

List Migration

2009-06-29T03:56:00.001-07:00

Well I must say I'm very happy with the migration of the list from this blog to http://sasun.info/ArtGalleriesOfSL.aspx. I've changed the "new" flag to automatically expire one week after the kiosk is first rezzed. Let me know if you think I should change that. Maybe it should be two weeks, or even more? How long should a new gallery be marked as "new"?

I've made some nice formatting improvements to the site to pretty it up. For you technie types, I've been working hard all day (and then some) learning all about ASP master pages, CSS, and ASP menu controls so that the site can have a more consistent look and feel and be much easier to tweak. Let me know what you think. Web design is hard, but fun :)

Gallery reviews are poring in, we're up to 600 gallery ratings, and there are 267 gallery owners left who have not upgraded to the review-enabled kiosks yet. If you are one of them, be aware that your gallery is sorting to the bottom of the list since you have zero ratings! So get that kiosk updated now :)

Big Changes!

2009-06-22T03:48:00.000-07:00

I've decided with how well the new kiosks are working to migrate the list completely to a new website. There are a few huge advantages of this move. The view on the new website at http://sasun.info/ArtGalleriesOfSL.aspx is completely up to date and very accurate. As soon as your gallery kiosk is rezzed and configured, it will show up there within seconds. Ditto with any changes you make. This means no more waiting a week for changes to appear here on this blog! Everything is completely live there, which saves me some time as well dumping all that data to a spreadsheet to be sorted and converted to HTML and posted here every week.

This blog will definitely continue to exist, but will be just a "normal" blog where I will continue to post news and thoughs about Art and Galleries in SL. I'm excited about this change and hope you will be too.

Next on the improvement agenda is the tour HUD. Today the tour HUD operates from notecards I stick in side it that are updated once a week. I have plans to just have the tour HUD talk directly to the same database that the list operates from, which means that the tour HUD itself will not need to be updated anywhere nearly as often as before (once a week). This is going to be really great - just wear the HUD and the galleries are going to be accurate.

So please go take a look at http://sasun.info/ArtGalleriesOfSL.aspx and let me know what you think!

Adult Content changes and Art Galleries

2009-06-13T05:56:00.000-07:00

I spent some time trying to catch up on all the new Adult rules after chatting about this with Doran Forzane. I searched a ton of chat logs and forum posts and thought I'd collect just the stuff that was real relevant to gallery owners here so if you've not been up to speed on this issue, you can get the important points here to help you decide what, if any, changes you may need to make to your land/gallery/location.

First, read Maturity ratings: an overview.

The following is excerpts from the Followup definitions meeting transcript:

JP: OK, question one from Katriana, "Have we determined yet a way to make sure that legitimate art galleries are not being censored or being asked to censor the artists that they host?"

Marty: Well, we think so. Here's what we're currently planning. The art will be able to be in a Mature Region. We're not going to get too deeply into trying to define what's art.

But what we will say is that if you've tagged the art with words that indicate an adult intent, then we will be filtering for those results. And if the intent with the art is to engage in an adult activity, then it will need to go in anAadult area. But if it's art for art's sake, then it can be in the Region. Does that make sense?

Marty: Yes, it should. Not tagging the parcel that contains the art with the words that would indicate that the parcel has or the user intends to engage in adult activity.

JP: That's the first question. I'm just catching up for the record. The second question coming in is from Lord Sullivan. "Is a word list going to be released for us, or do we need to continue to make it available on our wiki@slapped.me?"

Marty: The word list is not going to be published by us. The words that are on the list will evolve over time and will be tailored to the uses in Second Life. So it will not be a static list, and we will not publish it.

JP: Next question is coming in from Phoenix Wells. "Is the term 'photo-realistic' still going to be used to define adult? Or is photographic now going to be used when combined with nudity to define all adult? I'm asking because photo-realistic is still the term used to define art in skins."

Marty: I don't know where we used that word to define art in skins, but that is not the intent. The intent is pictures. So skins and art will... I mean nude skins and art can be in the mature Region.

The term "photo-realistic" is the problem, is that what you're saying? Well, maybe we'll use a different word. Well, maybe photography would be a better way to say it, but we're trying to make clear our intent is that art and skins -- nudity depicted as art, or art that depicts nudity and a skin -- are not necessarily adult. Although, the word "photo-realistic" probably won't be on the list.

The following are excerpts from Adult Oriented content controls: definitions meeting transcript:

Q: Nudity shouldn’t necessarily be adult, but wouldn’t be allowed in a PG space, right?

A: I agree about the nudity. Nudity shouldn't be allowed on PG. But I think nudity should be allowed on mature, because you can have nude beaches that are not sexual.

Q: But if you are going to turn that nude beach into a sex beach, then it becomes an adult thing. I think that is a pretty good definition of how to handle that…

A: Yes. That is exactly right. I just don't know that we have a very good way of drawing that line yet, so that is why we are still talking about. But you are right. Nudity is not sexual necessarily, but it is mature.

Q: Exactly. So I think that when it comes to talking about the PG section of it, there is no nudity. And I think that includes skins and shape sellers. They need to have bits covered. That is just the way it is. There is no nudity on those places.

Even art. I mean, art is subjective. You can have the exact same two pictures, both naked people, and you put that in a museum, and that is art. You put that in a strip club and it is pornography. So it is subjective.

However, on a PG sim, it is just purely not allowed. I think that definition...I think that PG has already defined itself. Honestly, I am not even going to take my six year old kids to a museum where there is T&A hanging out. They don't need that right now. They are going to get it enough when they are watching TV.

But yeah; exactly. It would be on a mature parcel, but does not have to be on an adult parcel, to my definition of it…

Q: I am interested in assessing the concept of photo realistic nudity as adults. With the number of European Residents we have with very different views on nudity, this could be problematic.

A: So if photo realistic nudity would be...We are trying not to evoke the words of Justice Stewart, "I know when I see it, " but unfortunately in this case that might be the case.

I think if it is a nude picture that is for something involving medical research, then that would be one thing. But if it is a nude picture whose, and I am going sound very lawyerly here, the primary purpose of which is to appeal to ones prurient interest, then that is going to be adult content.

The community standards that will apply to Second Life are probably going to be a blend of what you are considering European and American and Asian. We have people from all over the world using this service.

While US law is the primary law that applies to the company, we're going to try to thread a needle here. And hence the difficulty we're having because we are writing for a world community, and it's hard.

And just to be clear, when we say photo realistic, we don't mean avatars look more realistic than other avatars. We literally mean photos. And the types of nude photos that generally would be filtered out of say, a YouTube of a daily motion. That's more or less in line with European standards and US standards in terms of trying to filter off some of this activity on these types of platforms.

So to respond to some of the chat, "Hustler Magazine," adult. An art gallery that has artists who's work is nude and somewhat sexual, well, again, it's going to depend on what somewhat is. I would say, it could be in a mature Region, unless the somewhat sexual equals provocative gestures or two figures in the same painting doing things that are provocative.

I don't think that we're going to be able to get that granular with it. I think that when you go an art gallery, you expect to see challenging things. That's what art is about. But if you go to see a Maplethorpe show, there's going to be a sign on the wall and an expectation of an adult audience. Because of the bondage component. But yeah, I think that use has a piece of this. When I go to a Maplethorpe show, I expect that I'm not going to see 12 year old kids in there. Right?

Q: I have to absolutely disagree with you. I have seen amazing pictures of women in ropes. That's bondage. And someone with their hands bound in front of their hands, artfully, beautifully done. That's just not adult. That's not sexual. That can be art.

Yes, if you are going show something somewhere, that's going to be adult. But if you are going to just show it, just because they have ropes on them? What is ropes, how is ropes any different than maybe sexy underwear?

A: I think that it has as much to do with intentionality as anything else. We took a little field trip, the adult team, in our alts to a list of places where people were concerned about what their content might be.

The six of us have been thinking about this for a very long time. We don't have all the perfect answer but we thought how hard is this going to be for us to do as a community and as the group that is going to have to deal with where things go?

So to make those choices when we went to look at those places: is this adult or is this not? And actually it was really clear to us, almost unanimously what we felt was adult and what was not. This is a group of people from all over the world and all different roles here at the lab. It was not actually very difficult for us to decide.

It is ultimately true that some of this is going to have to be subjective and I don't think we actually want it not to be subjective. I would like my specialists to be able to come to your Regions and say, oh, you guys are fine. This is great. This is beautiful. It's fantastic. Good job. We love having this here.

And sometimes you might come and say, this is adult content and it's going to have to go in an adult place. What we like to do is get as good a working definition of what we think adult, mature and PG constitute, but there are going to be edge cases. There's no doubt about it.

If you say to me that there is a depiction of sexual adult behavior with whips and chains and ropes, I think that some people would find that challenging and put it in adult. Is it art? Yeah, I think it is. And I don't think that we can make blanket statements like art galleries should be exempt.

I don't think that we can say that actually because I think that that some of that is going to have to be subjective. And it isn't censorship. It's a discussion about how we want the community to encounter things in a predictable way.

So I don't think that we should get too... I don't want us to get too rigid. I don't want to say all art galleries have to be mature. Maybe some art galleries would like to be in the adult area. I would like it to be more about choice and discussion and less about lines.

Q: Absolutely saying anything related is adult is wrong because it doesn't have to be sexual to have ropes laid out, so to speak. So I think that's going to be a huge, gray area for that. and I think usage and how things are used is going to have to be a bigger consideration as to what the actual pictures shows.

A: Some of it is going to be adult. Sometimes it's going to be mature. Just like some sexual behavior is going to be adult and some is going to be mature. I don't think it has to be on one side of the line or the other.

Q: But that's going to dictate... you can have the same two sexual activities, one is in the privacy of your own home and one is in the middle of the floor at some club. That alone defines where it is. Adult Region or mature Region.

A: The intent of an art gallery is to be a public space, right? So that's a little bit different than what you are doing in your home.

Q: But it's still nudity and it's still art, as opposed to having sex right underneath those pictures so you emulate what's going on in the pictures.

A: So I think there's going to be, in the ambiguity between now and when we publish these definitions and start making decisions about what we're calling edge cases, that we're just going to have to live with. We won't really know until we start doing it what content is going to go where.

Because as I said, we have looked at a lot of content as a part of this project but we haven't looked at all of it. It's impossible to do and it changes all the time.

So I apologize for the anxiety that the ambiguity is probably going to cause. We're going to ask for some trust on your part that we are trying to do the right thing.

We hope these Brown Bags are evidence of our intent to try to do the right thing. We're not here to censor people, but Second Life is a service that we run. We're doing the best we can based on our education and experience with a lot of input from you.

And to that point, we're not excluding the content. There are a lot of companies and services whose policy is to exclude adult content, and we're not doing that. I would argue, in fact, we're embracing it by doing this.

Click data - top galleries of the month

2009-05-07T22:58:00.000-07:00

Since last November I've been collecting stats on which gallery kiosk is getting clicked the most - which means that gallery is giving out the most copies of the gallery list and HUD. So here are the top three galleries each month helping spread the good word about art in SL - these are my heros of the month - congratulations!!

November:

Spirit of Imagination
The Pencil Factory
Linden Gallery of Resident Art

December:

RAW ART GALLERY
Linden Gallery of Resident Art
You Are What You Eat

January:

RAW ART GALLERY
Museum of Robots
Whisper's Edge

February:

Blackwater Gallery
RAW ART GALLERY
7 Colinas Art Gallery

March:

RAW ART GALLERY
7 Colinas Art Gallery
Welsh Bay Gallery

April:

Museum of Philosophy & Art Gallery
Blackwater Gallery
The Gallery at Shengri La

A huge congrats to these popular galleries, keep up the good work!!

P.S. you can check out YOUR gallery's data at http://www.sasun.info/clickerReport.aspx?source=galleryclick. There are quite a few places on the calendar control you can click to select different time periods: A specific day, a specific week, and a specific month. Enjoy!

Grim Couture Artist Grant

2009-05-07T17:00:00.000-07:00

In partnership with the Art & Artists Network and the Artist Mentors Group.

The goal of this grant is to aid artists in establishing their place within the SL arts community .
Artists are encouraged to complete the application process which will entail a general application, submission of art work, statement of authenticity and a summary of thier artistic vision with in SL. Applications can be found at http://sasun.info/grantapp.aspx

A grant recipient will be chosen by officers of gRiM cOuTuRe magazine, the Art & Artists Network, and Artist Mentors groups.

The recipient will then be given an option of

1) 30 days tier paid on an approved art space
or
2) Financial support, organization and promotion of an SL art event featuring their work.

Grant recipients will also receive one on one business and artistic mentoring through other SL artists involved with the program. Their artwork will also be showcased in an issue of gRiM cOuTuRe.

Please IM Sasun Steinbeck for more information.

If you are an artist, please consider applying for this grant at http://sasun.info/grantapp.aspx. This will be a great opportunity for you as an artist to get personalized help from some experienced artist mentors in Second Life to jump start your art career, set some goals, and get started on achieving them. We are excited to set up this collaboration between our groups and offer these prizes to help an aspiring artist do what they do best, create art for everyone to enjoy.

What SL bugs are interfering with art in SL?

2009-05-07T15:16:00.000-07:00

Bau Ur sent me a request to broadcast a plea for help with a specific JIRA bug that causes textures to rotate "out of sync" with each other on different prims on the same object. I felt it was definitely a worthy cause, but wondered what other SL bugs fell into the same category; bugs that inhibit or interfere with the growth of the SL art movement. I think it would be great to make a unified list of these bugs and broadcast that widely to raise awareness of the fact that

These bugs exist and are impeding a successful art movement in SL
That anyone and everyone can do something about these bugs by voting on them in the JIRA database at http://jira.secondlife.com.
Collectively we can raise awareness and voice support of these bugs being fixed to further the cause of creativity, design, and art in SL.

So! Please reply to this post with a link to a JIRA bug that you feel should be fixed that in some way interferes directly with the creation and enjoyment of fine art in SL and I will collect a list to be broadcast widely to raise awareness of these important issues that we as an art community would like to be fixed. Please do not submit JIRA bugs that are more general in nature claiming that "it affects art too". And if your bug is not important enough to file in the JIRA database, don't bother posting it here either. Only JIRA links!