New Gandhi projects…

Over the past month I have begun to work on a number of projects as both artifacts and documents of the Salt March reenactment. As a 2008 Commissioned Resident Artist here at Eyebeam, part of the residency is a two person show here at Eyebeam that opens on June 21st, 2008. I will be featuring a number of new works in this exhibition, including the creation of a large scale, perhaps 15-20′ tall Gandhi statue created from the 3-D model of my MGandhi avatar as extracted from Second Life. The image above left shows my Gandhi figure after some basic processing in Blender (a great, free, open source 3-D modeling program). We then imported the object file into another program called Pepakura Designer, which is a wonderful software application from Japan (free to play with, $35 to use fully). Pepakura takes any 3-D file and unfolds it to create a flattened version that one prints out and assembles - something between working with paper dolls and building a model airplane. Take a look at their site, particularly the Gallery to see some amazing things made by the users of this program. Also note this link for a gallery page of “papercraft” work.

My plan is to translate the Pepakura information to large sheets of cardboard to assemble a large, monumental papercraft version of my Gandhi avatar. The image above right is my first test with the Gandhi model, printed on standard 8.5X11″ paper and assembled using an x-acto knife and tacky glue.  The final version will have likely double the number of polygons used for this prototype in order to allow for further detail.  This is the tricky part of translating the complex Second Life 3-D model to Pepakura as without first lowering the polygon count of the model we had several thousands of polygons to make the figure.  At this time finding a balance between effectively representing the figure and having the lowest possible number of polygons to allow for the successful physical completion of this piece with the material at hand and in the short time frame before the show.

Very excited about this work and others that I will be creating for my final showing opportunity here at Eyebeam. More details on other works soon.

On joining a “real” march in NYC…

Long delayed in writing about my experience on April 6th, 2008, walking in a march in “real life” sponsored by the NYC based “Satya Graha Forum”. The march was the inaugural event of a month of activities surrounding the production of “The Satyagraha”, the Phillip Glass opera from 1977 that was being revived by The Metropolitan Opera here in New York. The march involved starting at any one of four gathering points, walking a few miles and circling Union Square Park with all four groups converging on the Gandhi statue at the Soutwest corner of the park for a rally and speeches.

Keep in mind this was the day after completing the 240 miles of the reenactment in Second Life and on the treadmill - I was tired! All the same, it was quite an amazing experience to break out of my daily regimen of walking at Eyebeam (indoors), sleeping, getting up the next day and walking again. I made my way to Houston and 2nd avenue to gather with my fellow marchers. I immediately found myself feeling very self-conscious and shy in only the way that gathering with a group of complete strangers can do to me. Oddly, this was the complete opposite of my behavior and demeanor within Second Life during the course of the reenactment where I was completely at ease in approaching others in the online space to chat and invite them to be my “friends” and perhaps join me in walking.

Such irony, I know. After spending the better part of the month chatting away with strangers online and with visitors to Eyebeam, gathering with a group of individuals to walk in real life I found completely terrifying! It was not until we started to walk, about a group of 15 of us, to where I relaxed a bit. Here is a picture of me with my fellow marchers as we made our way down 2nd avenue.

When we arrived at Union Square park I struck up a conversation with an Englishman who, it turns out, was one of the puppeteers working on “The Satyagraha” opera. I told him about my Salt March reenactment online and on the treadmill - we had quite a nice chat and he introduced me to several others on the march who were also involved in the opera production. We all gathered at the Gandhi statue, pictured here:

We listened to a number of short speeches, including one by Phillip Glass and Mark Kurlansky, the author of “Salt: A World History” - a book that had been recommended to me by one of the visitors to my performance at Eyebeam. Here are some of those gathered at the rally holding their signs:

I found the experience of marching in RL after spending my month in virtual space to be an incredibly appropriate way to close out the reenactment. The event provided an ideal setting for my seguey back into my everyday life - it was also an occasion for deep contemplation and another way to seek connections with others. There was something magical in both realms - the interaction and the gathering with others to walk - both similar. It was interesting in both this real world march and over the course of my reenactment, we were asked by passersby “what are you protesting?” - in both contexts, we answered, “we are not protesting anything, we are marching for Gandhi, for peace”. Amazing.

Now one month to the day of the end of the reenactment and this walk on the streets of New York City. I must say, I still feel a great sense of accomplishment and fulfillment that I did not anticipate in conceiving this project. I truly feel as though I made a significant journey on many different levels. Funny too, I really miss my MGandhi avatar…I became quite attached to him over the course of the walk. I’ve had a few pleading emails from friends made in Second Life to not kill Gandhi! I’ve wandered, without the treadmill, a few times over the past month, mostly to revisit and take note of some of the places I have been to online - but I just don’t yet feel comfortable “walking” Gandhi in Second Life without actually, physically walking with him on the treadmill. Perhaps this will change over time.

A blog review of note…

I did a lecture last week at Brown University to Mark Tribe’s students in the Department of Modern Culture & Media. This was my first opportunity to lecture regarding the Gandhi reenactment - these speaking opportunities provide a forum to talk through the ideas and concepts regarding the work. The following is a blog post by ben who attended the talk - he makes some fairly spot on insights regarding the project:

http://newmedia-mcm.blogspot.com/2008/04/putting-work-back-in-artwork.html

200+ Gandhi reenactment screenshots of Flickr

Take a look:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9937611@N06/sets/

These are not in any particular order at this time - watch the slide show - these are virtually all of the manually recorded screenshots I took during the march reenactment.

Two weeks after and two articles about the Gandhi reenactment…

I’ve been very busy with all else in life since completing the reenactment two weeks ago.  I am currently in the process of creating extensive documentation to be located on my website - hope to have all up by Wednesday this week - http://www.delappe.net.    I am also in the process of developing a number of works for exhibition at Eyebeam in June at the end of my residency - these various works will all have been inspired by the Salt Satyagraha Online.  Stay tuned for more info as these works move forward.

Here are links to two stories published online in recent weeks.  The first one is from NYC24  produced by Columbia University - a nicely done piece by Elizabeth Stark who spent quite a bit of time with visiting with me while conducting the reenactment.  Especially of note the short video of me explaining the forward movement controller built into the treadmill: http://nyc24.org/2008/issue4/story4/

Another piece, more of a review, was published in the Brooklyn Rail: Critical Perspectives on Art Politics and Culture based on the writer’s visit to Eyebeam during the rather chaotic opening of the Feedback show:  http://brooklynrail.org/2008/04/artseen/joseph-delappe-gandhis-march-to-dandi

New Video of Gandhi Reenactment…

Two pictures - treadmill and at the monument in Dandi

Pictures of the last day of the march…

MGandhi with some of the group of marchers with him as they arrived at the Dandi memorial on Eyebeam island just after 5pm (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Eyebeam%20Island/128/213/45) - the scheduled end of the march - due to SL being down most of the day, we were actually only 2 miles into the final ten so the walking continued from here. A bit of a chaotic day!

Here we are at quite literally the last step of the march - at that very point on this sim we reached the “end of the world” as these edges to nothingness in Second Life are commonly referred. Cinco and Qyzzql were with me for the last three miles of the walk. It was truly a moment of great excitement and relief - particularly after a very troubling day of system wide outages for SL which lasted for several hours and delayed the start of the final day of the march by four hours.

He we are, looking out into the sea just after reaching the 240 mile mark (I’ve kept track of my mileage, btw, with a bicycle odometer converted for use on the treadmill).

Cinco, MGandhi and Qyxxql.

Just before reaching the end of the march, Cinco took us to a most extraordinary location called “Network Culture”, where there is an interactive recreation of the “Gitmo” interment camp at Guantanomo Bay, Cuba. One is able to take part in a simulated experience of arriving at the camp in a military transport plane, all the while straining to view what is going on through the sim provided black hood. You emerge in a supplicant position inside one of the kennel-like holding areas duplicated from the original layout of this notorious camp. Quite a chilling and sobering experience in an otherwise uplifting day: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Network%20Culture/232/85/25

Gandhi reenacting the famous photograph from Tianamen Square, 1989, this taken outside the “Palestinian Holocaust Museum” which appears to be under construction.

Just prior to this, we visited a fascinating location “Islam dot net”:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/IslamOnline%20dot%20Net/36/63/22

Very well done sim that uses directional arrows to walk one through the steps of a pilgrimage to Mecca.

Gyovanna and her friend joined me for walking some of the last miles - in RL she is in Brazil - she walked with me three or four times during the last two weeks of the reenactment - a great walker - always keeping up with me and referring to my avatar as “Mr. Gandhi” - very pleasant and polite company!

Another dragon! Here I am with LnyLnyLyn aka Lenny Correa, my very capable intern here at Eyebeam - he has been indispensible in helping to facilitate this project! Great to see him pop up in world routinely over the course of the journey.

After our stop at Eyebeam island, we made our way to Paris, arriving, of course, in the subway station.

I believe this is MGandhi jumping off the Eiffel Tower - yes, he is falling, not flying!

One more image of the group posing at the Dandi monument.

The last miles as noted by Qyxxql Merlin and HomerTheBrave

http://qyxxql-merlin.livejournal.com/5627.html

http://weblog.xanga.com/HomerTheBrave/650757583/second-life-satyagraha.html

A recounting of the last day of the march by Qyxxql Merlin and Cinco Pizzicato on their blogs, many good pictures! These are the two hardy avatars pictured with me at the water’s edge in my previous post. Thanks guys!

I will have more for you later - slept in today first time in months! Now off to walk NYC in today’s Gandhi march noted in the previous post.

Thanks Qyxxql Merlin and Cinco Pizzicato - see you again in SL.

April 5th, the end of the March.

After delaying the start of the march until 4:00pm Eastern time, 1:00pm SL time, I was finally able to begin walking the last miles of the reenactment. Second Life was experiencing a major outage over most of the early morning hours well into the afternoon. After an incredibly interesting day of walking, with several very large groups of marchers, three of us completed the 240th mile at 9:26 Eastern time. Above is a picture above looking out on the sea from the exact point where the last mile was ticked off the odometer. More details on an amazing and crazy day will be posted here tomorrow. For now, peace! ps - I will be walking on a Gandhi inspired walk in real life tomorrow here in NYC. Check it out - pure coincidence…http://www.satyagrahanyc.org/home.php I am really looking forward to walking in the real word after walking for nearly a month in a virtual world. More soon…