They're virtually famous

Second Life has become second nature for three enterprisingAustralian artists, writes Clare Morgan. Imagine an art gallery where you can not only touch the works ondisplay, you can walk over them, sit on them, even fly throughthem. Such actions would doubtless send security staff intoapoplexy, but in Second Life, the world is your oyster. Today three Australian artists unveil their exhibitionBabelswarm in the 3D virtual world of Second Life, aninteractive sculpture based on the mythical Tower of Babel. Forthose who like the old-fashioned gallery experience, there is a"real" show at Lismore Regional Gallery. Christopher Dodds, a visual artist, Adam Nash, a musician and 3Dreal-time artist, and Justin Clemens, a writer, all from Melbourne,were last year awarded a $20,000 artist-in-residence grant from theAustralia Council to create a work for the online social networkingworld - believed to be the largest grant of its type. Advertisement: Story continues below Their real-time 3D work Babelswarm combines swarm theory- the outcomes of collective behaviour - and the story ofhumanity's effort to build a tower to the heavens, only to have itdestroyed as punishment for such arrogance, along with man'sunified language. Residents of Second Life, represented by theircomputer-generated avatars, can speak or type messages into theinstallation; voice-recognition software converts their words intoletters that fall from the sky to create a tower. Lismore Galleryvisitors can take part by speaking into a microphone and watchingtheir contribution to the installation on a wall-sized screen. There is also an essay by Clemens, which will be available inprinted form (only 100 copies) or online. Dodds has been a resident of Second Life for two years, and setup Info Island so that he and Nash could experiment with graphicsculptures Rosetta Stone . Dodds's spiky-haired avatar, Mashup Islander, was approachedlast year by an avatar from the Australia Council who wasresearching Australian artists working in Second Life. "Inside Second Life the user can walk up to these sculptures andinteract with them - get inside them, move around them," Doddssays. "This is the inherent beauty of virtual art - it's possibleto create objects and experiences that aren't possible in the realworld." Nash says another attraction is how work evolves as visitors make their contributions. "We'll be watching it to see what emergesand how it grows," he says of Babelswarm. "There isn't any point when it's finished 133; Part of the enjoyment of working in this medium is the constant joy and surprise of seeing how these things behave when you let them loose in this environment." Nash, a performer and composer, began his virtual career with the group The Men Who Knew Too Much. "We began working shows about 1997 that involved performances invirtual environments," he says. "In those days it was a little lesssophisticated than now. Virtual reality was the buzzword, andpeople talked about living in a 3D fantasy universe." He is full of praise for the Lis more Gallery and its director,Steven Alderton: "It was one of the first to be really interestedin what we were doing and really understood it. It's not common tomeet somebody with a good understanding of the potential." Dodds and Nash are embarking on a new venture, the Australian Centre of Virtual Art, with the aim of curating virtual art. Dodds says: "It will start with an extensive website, interviews with artists and academics before we set up a gallery in Second Life where people can display their art. It will be all the things you would experience in the real world, but the criteria is that itis innovative. We're looking at making art that is not possible inthe real world, taking the medium and pushing it as far as theycan." All the world's a stage for avatars Since it was founded in 2003 by the San Francisco technologycompany Linden Lab, Second Life has exposed performers to aworldwide audience. Musicians, including Duran Duran and Suzanne Vega, haveper formed "in-world", and last year Australia's Internet Industry Association bought an island to showcase independent artists.

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