Due to the sudden explosion of activity in the art world of Chrome Underwood, I have decided to put all of my energy into working on his site, Chrome Never Sleeps, for the foreseeable future. Once that settles into some sort of managable groove, I’ll be back at work here reporting on the human side of my two lives here in the local universe. In the meanwhile, try and can keep up with the Chromester, and when I’m back up and running as fast as I can over here, I’ll let you know over there. Thanks, guys.

In preparation for my show at the Austrian Embassy in Berlin in January, I have now created a number of 3D cubes out of my digital paintings, as mentioned in the previous post. The next phase is to do some figure studies in them, and I began by trying to follow the frenetic dance of Juliette when she is possessed by the spirit of transcendent joy found in tribal dance music. There are now hundreds of photos in this growing figure collection; the next task will be to sort through them and try to find the diamonds. This is one of the recent shots of Juliette and the Spirits.

Click image to see full size.

This is a shot of me standing inside a work in progress. I call it the Origami Box, which only makes sense, since it is a large cube created out of multiple copies of one of my digital paintings, Origami. I decided to make a series of these rooms in order to provide a setting for the photographs I will use in my next series of works, focusing on the human figure. An attempt to capture the humanity, if you will, that radiates from the pixelated figures known as avatars in Second Life. The photo shoots have already begun, and the results of those experiments will be appearing here as the project progresses. What is also interesting to me about this project is that I will be recycling my previous works, which consist of recycled imagery gathered by sifting through the ruins of Western culture. Sustainable art?

OK. This is it. Seems innocent enough; simple enough. Yeah, no biggie. But it is important in several ways. One, it is a digital capture of a digital being, subsequently digitally processed with the full intent of capturing the humanity of this fetching sylph, like Toulouse-Lautrec in the Moulin Rouge. Searching for a soul, the ghost in the machine. The avatar is an artwork in itself, remember, brought to virtual life by human hands, then kneaded, molded and tweaked by its resident, its inhabitant soul. This is the life force in its latest evolutionary incarnation. It is artificial, just like reality. It is real only because we believe.

Oh yeah. It’s also the first ’serious’ art work I’ve attempted in three years. I was curious to see where I’d land when I jumped back in, having spent a good part of the last year and a half in Second Life, studying the curious pixelated life forms there. Ironically, though, I find myself back at the beginning. I began as a painter in the Post-Pop era in New York, and had a very simple but powerful graphic style back then. So, I return to my roots, and find that they have become virtual.

Click on image to see enlarged version.

From this day forward, mikimojo will be devoted to the evolution of the art of Chrome Underwood, as he expands his two-dimensional way of thinking into the brave new 3D world of Second Life and other virtual worlds.

Stay tuned to this gallery/salon for further visual developments and thought experiments by Chrome, and since much of what lies ahead will involve collaboration with other virtual artists, you can also expect to find contributions from other members of the Second Life art community.

Btw, the posts which previously existed on this site have migrated over to Chrome Never Sleeps, where you can find them by browsing through the archives. Thanks for your patience during this transition. Progress comes at a price, ya know.