Proposal

I have applied for a Linden Endowment for the Arts (LEA) Artist in Residence (AIR) Land Grant (LG) for LEA AIR LG Round 11, from 1 July to 31 December 2016. The content of my application is below:

• Applying As: Individual
• Project Category: Educational Project
• Project Name: I Love You Island
• Project Maturity Rating: M – Moderate
• Project Summary: An island of 15,000 prims where 15,000 avatars post “I Love You Selfies”.
• Do You Have Experience with Estate Management: Yes
• Your Resume / CV: My resume is here. My life in selfies is here.
• Current Exhibits / Documentation: Between 2013 & 2015 I helped facilitate 43 works of virtual public art. They are documented here. Between 2009 & 2013 I helped facilitate 50 works of virtual performance art. They are documented here.

Project Description

In Our Time

We live in a unique 2016 moment.

Years ago a small number of people had remarkable experiences in the text-only MUDs of yore. But for many these worlds were a little abstract.

In the future amazing worlds like High Fidelity and Project Sansar will delight visitors with incredible graphics and experiences. Yet those worlds will be 2 class systems: an elite, creative class will have access to expensive & difficult off-world creation tools, everyone else will be just a visitor.

In this 2016 moment Second Life stands as a unique, egalitarian world where everyone can make creations large and small. Like all those NASA Scientists who confess that their first career impulse came when watching Star Trek as a kid, SL today is filled with artists and designers who just rezzed a cube in a sandbox somewhere once upon a time.

It Is Love

SL is not just filled with people who create in ways large and small. It is filled with people who share. They share their work, they share their ideas, they teach classes to help others follow.

Why?

It certainly isn’t the tip jar at the front of the classroom. I doubt that pays for the electricity to run their Geforce card, let alone to pay for a new one when this one fries.

I believe it is love.

We love this world.

We love the avatars that share it with us.

A World of Our Own

Other than Minecraft and Wikipedia, I can’t think of a world built as much on User Generated Creativity as SL. Whether there will ever be a place quite like this again, I don’t know.

What I do know is that I love this world.

I love my friends here.

I love the myriad strangers I’ve encountered here who have given me a flower or played a game.

I Love You Island

My LEA AIR Land Grant Round 11 Proposal is for I Love You Island. It is an SL region. 6.5 hectares of virtual land. 15,000 prims. To be filled with 15,000 SL Resident Selfies with the words “I Love You” on them.

The project is simple:

1. Take a selfie
2. Write “I Love You” on it
3. Rez a prim at I Love You Island
4. Put your selfie on your prim
5. Everyone is welcome

Timeline

As the months pass and we ramp up to our hopeful 15,000 unique avatar selfies, the island will be dedicated to single prims from as many as 15,000 avatars. Along the way the early months will also welcome the many creative souls who inhabit this world.

• Perhaps Scarlett will open a coffee house.
• Newton might invite Sophistrists to a Cafe.
• I can only hope Neeva will drop thousands of physical prims on my head (but not on poor Edie’s)

Join Me

If accepted by the LEA AIR Land Grant Committee, I Love You Island will begin terraforming on 1 July ’16, and be open to all avatars on 1 August ’16. I hope you’ll join us and plant a selfie on the island.

Why?

Because I love you.

Vaneeesa Blaylock

Virtual Performance Artist, retired, turned Virtual Coffee Shop proprietor, now also retired. Pretty much just a pensioner these days.