Virtual Worlds and Egalitarian Art

I've been thinking a lot about virtual art over the last week in preparation for Saturday's Meet The Artist interview. As I struggled to write the requisite artist's statement, I noticed how easy it is to fall into a pretentious state of mind:

pre·ten·tious/priˈtenCHəs/Adjective: Attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than is actually possessed.

Once I got over my wee self, I realized that what I value most about Second Life art isn't the high-end work of serious artists, but the everyday artistic expression that pervades the culture. It seems that just about everyone I've met who has been involved in Second Life for more than a few months posts images or machinima to media sharing sites or plays around with building or scripting inworld. It seems to me that the power of virtual identity to facilitate creative expression for the many is much more consequential than its role as a new tool for "real" artists.

I'll leave you today with two artist's statements. The first is a visual artist's statement created under my human identity last October. The second is a spoof video I bumped into yesterday on Feedly.