PRESS RELEASE INFORMATION (from Pixels Sideways)ABOUT CONSUMECONSUME is a multi-artist collaboration that explores various themes of human consumption.
Housed in and around a monolithic department store towering over 1200m tall, CONSUME features an art installation on each floor created by artists responding to, and exploring, a particular aspect of consumption.
The overarching theme of CONSUME ponders the question: When is enough enough? Within this context, the various themes of CONSUME explore our desires and wants, and needs, to consume everything around us.
The challenge for each artist, in addition to creating work in 64sqm vertically aligned cubes, was to take on an area of consumption and find ways to express through art, how and why we consume, what happens when we consume and how does our consumption affect us, the people around us and the world in which we live.
The grounds around the CONSUME department store building set the stage by illustrating the flow of our consumption. On one side, trucks roll endlessly out of large pipes extruding from factories into large pipes embedded in the base of the CONSUME building. Simultaneously on the other side of the CONSUME building, the same "pipeline" leads to the massive amount of garbage continuously piling up as a result of our consumption.
Tucked away on another side is the plight of those who have little or nothing to consume -- and are subsequently disenfranchised, marginalized, harrassed and punished for not being prolific consumers and therefore, not a productive part of the chain of consumption.
Between the creation and disposal of the neverending stream of goods and services we consume, lies the CONSUME department store with its imposing facade rising upward from a nest of buildings bursting out of the ground.
Once inside the CONSUME department store building, visitors gain access to the elevators which will lead them to each floor to experience the artists' interpretations of the following areas of consumption:
Ground Floor: First Impressions - Introduction to Consume (Pixels Sideways)
1st Floor: Media/Entertainment/Pop-culture (Ub Yifu)
2nd Floor: Home / Family / Place (Pixels Sideways)
3rd Floor: Money / Power / Politics (Artistide Despres & Pixels Sideways)
4th Floor: Technology / Digital Divide (The Consume Artists)
5th Floor: Sex / Love / Emotions (luce laval)
6th Floor: Health / Pharama (Lollito Larkham)
7th Floor: Food / Agriculture / GMO (Pixels Sideways)
8th Floor: Energy / Resources (Artist: Poid Mahovlich)
9th Floor: Education / Knowledge (Pixels Sideways)
10th Floor: Materialism (Artistide Despres)
11th Floor: People / Populations / Philanthropy (Pixels Sideways)
12th Floor: Religion / Spirituality (Aequitas - Banrion Constantine & Sowa Mai)
CONSUME also features an ongoing "exquisite corpse" concept installation on one of the floors of the CONSUME department store that addresses Technology and the Digital Divide. This work is created by all the artists participating in CONSUME who will continue to add pieces to this installation -- building upon each others contributions. This collective collaboration will continue to develop and change throughout the run of the CONSUME exhibition.
CONSUME emulates multinational corporations by featuring consistent brand reinforcment by the repetitive use of CONSUME logo designs in obvious and subliminal contexts. Created by Pete Jiminy, the CONSUME brand appears throughout the exhibition. From 3D signs to 2D images on packaging, trucks and computer screens to various textures used on the CONSUME buidling iteself, the CONSUME brand is omnipresent.
In addition to the art installations, CONSUME also incorporates a fun and informative interactive game component. To enter the CONSUME deparment store, you must first obtain from one of two ATM machines a CONSUME Credit Card which you wear on your hud. The CONSUME Credit Card, marvelously scripted by Artistide Despres, keeps track of your consumption as you are presented with essential and non-essential products to consume - each of which has been assigned a specific dollar amount. You can consume only what you need, or as much of what you want of either, or both. The cost affixed to each item is then calculated on your CONSUME Credit Card hud, including compounded interest and appears in text above the card on your hud. When you reach the 13th floor, you will find out how much you have consumed via a scoreboard that notes the total amount of debt you have have acquired and comments on your spending habits. :-).
To further enhance the immersive experience of CONSUME, the floors are accessible via an exhilarating ride in glass enclosed elevators created by Caerleon's resident scripting goddess, Trinity Halberstadt.
Additional amusement park-like features such as the Bailout Bumper Boondoggle and the Magical Stairs to the Sphere of Magnetic Attraction add a fun and whimsical bent to the exhibition.
And of course, what ostentatious skyscraper rising far beyond the clouds would be complete without a surprise at the top?
CONSUME is consuming -- a feast for the eyes, the mind and the spirit. CONSUME is a fun engaging immersive collaborative work with amazing art and scripting by talented visionaries that demonstrates how VR worlds like SL can be used to create interactive art and environments that are culturally and intellectually enriching, stimulating and entertaining.
For additional information, please contact Pixels Sideways via IM or notecard in SL or email at pixsideways@gmail.com
CONSUME EXHIBITION CREDITS:
Artists: Aequitas (Banrion Constantine & Sowa Mai), Artistide Despres, Jeb Soderstrom, Lollito Larkham, luce laval, Pete Jiminy, Pixels Sideways, Poid Mahovlich, Ub Yifu and Trinity Halberstadt.
CONSUME Concept/theme, building and adjacent grounds design, construction & art direction: Pixels Sideways.
CONSUME Elevators: Trinity Haberstadt
CONSUME Credit Card hud, scoreboard & scripting: Artistide Despres (with Jeb Soderstrom's scripting help)
CONSUME trucks rezzer and motion, trash dump rezzer, follow flies, Bailout Bumper Boondoggle rezzers, security scan, Magic Stairs, Sphere of Magnetic Attraction Magnets & Bi-planes particle shooter scripting:: Artistide Despres.
Helpful sound scripts to minimize lag: Nonnatus Korhonen (after visiting Consume, check out Nonn's fascinating A.I. Mellifera project on the sim)
Library Fishies script from Spiral Walcher
Appropriated and incorporated artifacts:
Modified Noobs (Art Laxness)
Modified Victorian House (Poppet McGimsie)
Modified Sculpty humanoids and Hurkeys (Research Project)
Modified Trucks (Acadia Asylum)
GMO Lab equipment and other miscellaneous items in and around consume obtained from various sources throughout SL
Pixels particles created with the Xah particle Maker v1.6.1
Various images, sounds, textures, etc., used under Creative Commons license
Special thanks to all the artists who participated and all the creative peeps in our Caerleon family and elsewhere who lent advice and support.
A VERY BIG THANK YOU to Georg janick for his incredibly generous gift of the Caerleon sims and his passionate support of artists and art and exploring knowledge in VR, SL & FL/RL.
ABOUT CAERLEON
The Caerleon sims are part of the Virtual Art Intiative. The original Caerleon Isle sim was founded by Georg Janick in Feb 2008 and has since grown to five sims: Caerleon Isle, New Caerleon, Caerleon Art Collective, Caerleon Art Collective2 and Caerleon Erato. The five Caerleon sims are home to 31+ artist residents and educators and feature a wide range of art exhibitions, collaborative projects, art classes, lectures and workshops. For additional information on Caerleon & the Virtual Art Initiative, please visit our web site at: http://www.virtual-art-initiative.orgPixels Sideways:
SLURL CONSUME
