Sunday, May 31, 2009

Clickability, Part 2


I found out last night from Penumbra, the artist who made the wondrous "So Much Depends" installation I discussed below, that the clickability quotient I so admired was added by the marvelous Mab MacMoragh.  This is her second interactive intervention that I know of, and I suspect there are many more.  What a good thing to be doing--adding pose balls to pieces that bring the avatar INTO the piece, because: why not??  This is one of the things we can do in Second Life, just smash the hell out of the usual don't touch, don't cross the rope, oh damn I set off the sensor again but I was just leaning over to get a better look experience of museums and galleries.  In my spiel to my students when we go to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, I include the caveat: Don't lean against the walls.  Every now and then, there is a sittable piece of furniture with the welcoming tag of Please Sit Here, but of course that is the exception.  

Why wouldn't there be a place in every installation for the avatar?  It raises such interesting possibilities for point of view, and guides the spectator/participant's gaze to what the artist might want to show.  AM Radio is really strong at this, and others experiment with it as well.  Maya Paris is working on some new clickables at her Bluestocking Gallery, and Misprint Thursday's prize-winning gossamer tree (not its actual name) is even better because of her clever poseball.  

So, nice intervention, Mab.  I like that the poseball is called "wonder"--its ambiguity fits with Penumbra's piece and I was happy to hang out there, in wonder and wondering, getting a good look at the sprightly sperms wriggling single-mindedly onward towards their goal over my head.

1 comment:

Mab MacMoragh said...

wow, thanks, i leave poseballs behind like bread crumbs but usually no one knows they're there but me
:D