Moving islands [rafts]: a collective art conglomeration in second life

Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-8384-6.ch008

This chapter will discuss both the artistic processes as well as the background and the related theoretical premises of a collaborative art undertaking that emerged as an evolving combination of creative output which was displayed in Second Life® Fall 2013, and Spring 2014. Despite the idiosyncratic, highly individualized nature of its components, the project nevertheless achieved a remarkable state of cohesion. What may have contributed to this visual unity will be the subject under investigation at the core of this text. Since these constitute the background of the project, the text will commence with a survey of the creative mechanisms and strategies of the metaverse, also bringing in Axel Bruns's term 'produsage' and Brian Eno's notion of the 'unfinished artifact' as strongly related terms; after which a description of the project, its curatorial premises, including the usage of metaverse geography and climate as an agent of visual harmony will also be delivered. The chapter will then conclude with an examination of the collective art process within the context of the 'unfinished artifact' and John Dewey's deliberations on the experiential nature of artwork/art process as a potential framework for metaverse artistic collaborations.