An island of Caledon in a Hyperformalist Sea

Long ago, before I even heard of Caledon, I lived with a small community of artists in a small Irish village named Grainne O'Malley. It was rent free, the only condition was to create art. I soon settled in as the resident CodePoet, providing scripts for the other artists in residence. This was the first time I started having a steady income from scripting in Second Life, and I started learning a lot. Then I met Dancoyote Antonelli, who had a small gallery in Granny, and needed some scripting to be done. A simple teleport system for his Museum in uvvy, (the first of many I think), and something to hand out a landmark and notecard. Simple stuff, I didn't charge him much, but he insisted on writing up a contract and naming our partnership ZenCoyote Ltd. At the time I had done everything by handshake deal, and this felt kind of weird to me, but I did it. Little did I know that these small jobs (which lead to my first build, a scripted 2 prim pop up invitation) was really an audition to see if we would work well together. Best I can reconstruct that was May of 2006. Here we are a year and a quarter later, and our partnership is still going strong. I don't even know how many scripts I have provided for Dancoyote's artwork, and I don't feel like counting. But they have been numerous and varied.

DC has just opened an exhibit called “Full Immersion Hyperformalism” in the sim of Arts and Letters, filling the entire sim with his artwork. http://slurl.com/secondlife/Arts%20and%20Letters/45/133/707/

A brief word about Hyperformalism. I have been living with it, helping DC realize it in my own small way (I am not the artist, just a tool like a brush, or as DC has called me his "sixth finger") I have my own understanding of it, and I probably get it more than most, but if I try to explain I am sure to get something wrong, so I will quote the artist himself on the topic:

"Hyperformalism is formalist abstraction in hyper medium. By turning off rendering of facsimiles of real life, an eerie surreal space for viewing art is created where things no longer conform to the field of view of your avatar and where scale and context are no longer measured against the arbitrary figurative standard. "

In short, the Art that DC exists for the most part could not exist in the real world. Coming to Arts and Letters, you will see nothing that is not hyperformalist -- nothing familiar to the real world -- except, off to one side, a small Victorian cottage.

Dancoyote has decided to honor me and my contribution with a small space that represents me.
It was his idea to populate a small Victorian Cottage with little things and doo-dads to represent Zen, the CodePoet. He knows I strongly identify as Caledonian, so a small Caledonian island in a sea of hyperformalism is the Zen Exhibit. Which can be found at:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Arts%20and%20Letters/203/224/295/

It is a small space that says "me" So its a house by Coyote Momiji, Furniture by Desmond Shang, and little trinkets of mine scattered about of my creations. Such as a Quizaphone (Build by Alfonso Avalanche), A portrait of Ada Lovelace that says a poem when you touch it, A clockwork heart, an Omnilocator Device and an Apple II (all built by Drystan Knight), My Cheshire Cat (built by RyanRabbat Bunyin), and my Music Box (built by ME(!)).

But do come and see the rest of the show as well, there are little pieces of my soul throughout the sim. DC says there are about 4000 scripts running and I figure about 99% of them are mine in his artwork.

All of the stuff I must stress is DC's vision and work. I just write the scripts, I have no say in how he uses them. :) In fact I am often suprised to see my little creations used the way he does. Its a true synergistic relationship, I could not do what he does with my scripts and he could not not do them without my scripts in them. One of the things there though is an item I worked very hard on. The ZenCoyote Pixel Board.



This was actually built mostly by me. Its 200 prims, and 100 scripts are needed to make it work. I hope you will come play and draw on it. I did a lot of work on it, but the vision was DC's. With the pixel board I was realizing the artist's vision. DC has named it a social expression appliance. Basicaly you can draw little pixelated drawings on the small control board which are then seen on the large Display board.

There are many wonders to behold here, I am happy to have done my small part, and that DC has seen fit to honor me so with a small space in his exhibit.