The New SL Democide Museum

I was not comfortable with the democide gallery I set up near my The Gallery in Reil. It really should have been a museum. Also, there was so little room to show the solution to democide, and give the documented scientific results which prove it to be so. That is all changed now.

I was able to construct a nonprofit SL Democide Museum in the SL Nonprofit Commons. I have two floors, and all the space I need.

A picture of the entrance to the museum is below.



It is at:
SL Democide Museum

New, The Gallery

I have now consolidated my two art galleries in a large anchor space here: x at Fortuna Plaza. Finally, my SL art is in one place. A photo of The Gallery is below.



Also, I am discussing with the Nonprofit Commons transferring the democide The Gallery III to a space with them. The Commons is a grouping of nonprofits concerned with various aspects of human welfare, and the democide gallery certainly fits into that.

New The Gallery III

I have added The Gallery III to the two others. It is here: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Aogashima/107/195/21/. It will show mainly artistic photographs or paintages, while The Gallery I displays digital paintings, and the Gallery II contrasts the beauty shown in these galleries to the worst of the world’s evil.

Below is one of the paintages shown in the new gallery.



It is titled, “What You Looking At?” And I am selling it for L$200.

More On The Terrorist Attack

I have been away from this blog for a couple of weeks. The virus that was part of the terrorist attack on multiplied and caused my computer to eventual freeze. It had to be repaired, which did not work, and now is being repaired again.

Terrorism is the best term for it, since the one who attacked my wife in SL and then probably me belongs to an anarchocommunist “Antifascist” group that has declared war on any fascist and their activity in SL, which must include my anti-democide The Gallery II. See the last blog below.

I reported this to SL, but what has been done about it I don’t know. I received no word back.

The griefer-terrorist problem in SL can be serious, as in our case, but at most all SL seem to do is kick the perpetrator out of SL. However, he can freely assume the identity of another avatar, or two, or three, and come back in. He only loses his inventory, and maybe land(?).

Anyway, enough of this. Will talk about my art and galleries from now on.

Photographs Cause Physical/Electronic Assaults

Trying to inform through photographs and paintings about the extent of genocide and mass murder (democide) in the world is not without costs. The works excite the hatred of communists, fascists, Islamics, and others whose history of heinous murder en masse is thus made clear.

In SL, there is a group that is dedicated to attacking anyone with whom they disagree. It calls itself an antifascist group, and its charter is this:

AFA is committed to physical and ideological opposition to fascism, police, sexism, homophobia, racism, and capitalism. We say no platform for fascists—no meetings, no marches, no paper sales, no leafleting... and no SL occupation — and we mean it, as the fascists know only too well. Our aim is to cause the maximum disruption to fascist activities.

Fight fascism everywhere!

What follows is how they “fight fascism everywhere!” On Sunday, March 16, Diegolas Broek, a member of this group, assaulted my wife PikakeGinger Wylie, from behind in our The Gallery. He caused her to be flung into space, arms and legs askew, then watched her struggle. She, of course, tp'ed home. The bump information under the SL help menu named him as the culprit. She reported the assault to SL.


Then, later in the same day, I was also attacked in our new gallery at Aogashima. I was flung into space as my wife was, but I was stripped, had a box on my head, a bow in my hand, and a gun on my hip. Tp’ing home didn’t help, and so had to go off line. I thus lost the information as to who had done this, but can only assume it was the same person. Also reported this to SL.
Worst of all, the attacker attached a virus to me infected my computer. It was a self-replicating one and eventually took over the computer so that I could not even reinstall the system, or use a repair disk. I have to take it in to Apple for repair. This was also reported to SL.

I warned the artistic community about this, of course.

This is the worst consequence of my democide gallery, although an interview with me about my art was squelched when the manager of the website that was to post it disagree about my genocide gallery.

I am not deterred however.

Change in Pricing System

I am slowly getting my head around the art world in SL. One of the things I had difficulty with is the art pricing system. Initially, I toured the galleries to survey the cost of paintings, which seemed to average about L$200-300, with the highest at 1,000 and the lowest 150. So I priced my art according to this range, which on average was about L$250, or $1.00.

But on thinking about this, at $1.00 I am not about to become rich, and am in effect giving the art away. And I have still encountered resistance to prices above L$500, or about $2.00.

On thinking about this, I had to ask myself why I was selling my art. Was it to make money? No, not possible in SL. Was it to display the art in my gallery? Partly. Was it to have others hang it in their office or home, and share the beauty? Mainly.
Then how best to do this? I could give the paintings away, but then I would receive nothing to help cover the cost of two galleries, the photo/paintings in The Gallery II on democide already all free. So for the main The Gallery, I decided to price all the paintings (all originals) at L$100 each. I hope this will increase the volume, get the paintings in more hands, and help with the rent.

Will let you know how this works out.

More On Traditional Vs. Digitalized Art

This comment by Blue is very good and I want to make a blog of it and respond to it here so that more SL artists will read it. He says:

I too am an artist who has long worked in more traditional mediums and today the computer is my tool of choice. But that is what it is, a tool. I also believe that the end result of an artist's endeavor is the important part but the tools we choose are part of our process and that is also important. I believe that labeling a digital artwork as a traditional medium does injustice to both terms. It seems to me that someone calling a digital creation an oil painting is somehow ashamed of their chosen medium. I would no more call my digital images oil paintings than I would call a Second Life sculpture cast bronze.

We need to be more brave and identify ourselves as creating in a given medium and not be afraid to call it what it is. The sooner we do this the sooner art made on or from the computer will gain more serious acceptance in the art world. The state of digital art today is like the state of photography 100 years ago. Too many people do not recognize it as a legitimate art medium. Stand up for your digital work, call it what it is!

As you say, our digital art programs are tools, as has been all the tools we use in nondigital art. In nondigital art, we do not say we used our thumb to get proportions correct, or a ruler, or a shadow box, or…you name it. We simply say that this is a pastel, or more likely just name the painting. Why then say that the pastel done in Painter, which is virtually indistinguishable from a nondigital pastel, is a Painter product?

We may do so in our description of painting for exhibition, and I do this. But this only reflects the transition period we are in for our art. Eventually, even that will die as digital art becomes the norm, which it will.
I want to repeat one point I made that is not appreciated enough. We do not ask the photographer showing his art to admit to using photoshop to enhance his photo. That is accepted and expected. Then why wish this be done for other forms of art, such as an oil painting?