Limited Edition Gallery

Since my lovely welcome in Caledon I've been moving progressively farther from JUST reporting the news. I'll still be doing that, of course, but it will probably mostly go to the Naughty News blog.

In the meantime, thanks to the help of several friends, I've manged to get my first few gallery works up. Stop by Steam Sonnet and see the limited edition Luxuria Mystic runs. There are three on display at the moment. I expect to have a fourth named "Lilith" up just as soon as I sell one to pay for uploads.

For a bit more detail, I'll just quote the notecard given out in the store:

About Luxuria Mystic Limited Editions

Every work you see here with a number is an original and for sale. Each piece has a limited run of 10 prints. Each print is signed (or kissed) and numbered. Unnumbered works have already sold out, but they are kept on display with their information where possible.

All works for sale are no mod to prevent accidental damage but Zenmondo Worsmer has kindly provided a size changing script so that you can fit the work to whatever size you need. All works are transferrable. When you buy one, you are buying the original, not the contents or a copy, so you will also need to Take it after your purchase.

On the back of each work is a credits page. Most of the work is mine alone, but some pieces do involve public domain portraits of historical figures or, in the case of Lovelace Athena, Lord Byron's poetry. Where possible, the original artists recieve proper credit.

The bottom of the credits contains the date and time of the work's creation. This is an anti-copying device. You can compare the date and time on the credits to the prim that your artwork is on. If they match and the creator is Magdalena Outlander then you can be confident that your limited edition print is genuine. If you should happen to find a print without this information, or where the prim does not match the credits, you are looking at a counterfeit. Please inform me immediately.

All prints on sale at the gallery start with number 3 of 10. Number 2 is always given as a gift to a particularly inspiring Caledonian. Number 1 is reserved and will be auctioned off either for charity or once all eight of the prints for sale have sold. The inofrmation card on each print will tell you who received print number 2, a landmark to its current location (if known). The same information is provided for the number 1 print if it has sold.

There's a lot more to a limited edition than just uploading a texture. Each one has to be created from a plywood box to produce a different creation time. There is no shift-copy used in these works. Each individual piece requires two custom textures to be uploaded. One for the numbered artwork itself and the other for the credits that denotes both the number and creation time.

In other news, Takashi someone won mayor of Hard Alley. Thanks to everyone who braved the bad air and worse RP to vote for me.

Thoughts on the Steampunk ethic

An odd series of conversations occurred at the Blue Mermaid tonight. Somehow we got to talking about morals, ethics, the growth of communities and Steampunk as asthetic vs Second Lifestyle vs real lifestyle. I didn't have tine to stay for as much of it as I wanted to, but I thought a few things were left unsaid. I'd like to add them here, away from the confusion of multiple conversation threads going by as fast as everyone can type.

Let's start with exactly what Steampunk is. I think the best description I heard was "love the machine, hate the factory". As a society, the Internet has taken us past the knee-jerk distrust of technology from the Cyberpunk age.

Cyberpunk fiction often presented technology as a necessary evil, something you had to compromise your soul for but couldn't get by without. Steampunk recognizes the utility of technology. Whhere it differs from mainstream culture is in the idea of a return to individual craftsmanship. This is a perfect match for Second Life, of course. Things like wholesalers and design by committee are only now in their infancy in SL. By far the vast majority of things in this virtual world were painstaking crafted by a single individual. In the real world this tends to express itself in the famous computers, guitars, clothing and other objects modified by Steampunk designers. You simply can't buy Steampunk in the store. The very definition of the aesthetic says that if its mass produced, its not Steampunk.

To some, real life Steampunk is nothing more than an aesthetic choice. Its playing dress-up. There's certainly a fair degree of truth in that analysis at the moment. The Steampunk ethic is, for right now anyway, primarily expressed through fashion choices and custom mods of commercial products.

This isn't necessarily a permanent situation. Already the move to solar power and eco-friendly urban engineering is beginning to decouple the average American from centralized sources. Internet shopping likewise allows for niche markets to flourish. As the consumer becomes decoupled from centralized control, the craftsman once again has room to ply her trade and reach those consumers who will appreciate (ie pay for) her work. Essentially nanotech/advanced 3-D printing decopules the labor of production from the labor of design. It becomes like the SL merchant's business model. Long hours to design one product that can be reproduced in whatever quantities are needed.

I don't think we'll be seeing Neal Stephenson's neo-Victorians from The Diamond Age until manufacturing also becomes decentralized. However, the budding Steam craftsperson can already make a decent living with their work on ebay. This just demonstrates that there is a market for high quality work done by hand in the Steampunk aesthetic. I don't know how many Steampunk designers actually make a successful living selling the crafts, but if anyone knows one of these people, I'd love to do an interview.

More next time on Steampunk philosophy and ethics, the ideas behind the aesthetic. Reccomended reading - The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson.

Valentine's Day

was exhausting. I'm going back to the lovely club I spent my evening at for a full shoot, so expect to hear all about it soon. In the meantime, have a preview.

I'll say this much, the party started at 7 and was scheduled for two hours. Everyone was having so much fun that the DJ finally packed it in around midnight. Now how many clubs do you know where that's true? I'm used to everyone running the minute money is handed out for "best in".

Fencing and Dancing

Today was the main event of the Caledon Games Fencing tournament at the Caledon Oxbridge arena. Having already taken the bronze in the latebird special, I had to get up early and defend my honor. I've been playing En Garde for a while now. I won't claim to be the best, but I learn something every time I play. Last time I was making a single mistake which cost me the match. The details would be somewhat arcane to non En Garde players, but if anyone really wants to know, I'll explain it.

Jayleden Miles was on hand to oversee everything again. I can't imagine how hectic organizing us must have been. Caledonians herd about as well as cats on the best days. So thank, Jay.

In any case, with honor on the line and good cards in my hand I proceeded to poke people with my trusty Thread of Fate, provided courtesy of Got Leib? Productions. This time I wasn't going to settle on a bronze and managed to come back with the Gold!

Vorwoda Hawksby, but I figured I would get a few shots in, too, before taking my esteemed co-champions Stereo Nacht (silver) and Darlingmonster Ember (bronze) somewhere a little more. . .Mature rated for a shot for this blog.

After that, it was off for drinks at the Green Fairy. Loyal readers will be happy to know that all three of us hit it off swimmingly. You can expect to see these champions working together more in the future. Ms. Nacht has invited the rest of us to practice at Transylvania Polytechnic with her team (but more on that later). She's clearly the intellectual of the three of us but she was a surprisingly good sport when it came time for the obligatory nude shot. I expect the sepia print version will be showing up in back rooms in Caledon and new Babbage soon.

 

We've really got a sort of naked Three Muskateers thing going. This was the real victory, not the medal but two great friends I can cross swords with again.

Just about the time things were wrapping up, I got word of a Queen of Hearts masqued dance over at the Bashful Peacock, where Jay was yet again helping oversee the event. 

Deciding to ride my fifteen minutes of fame I promptly made my way over there to meet the Caledonians. One of the very first people I ren into was Ms. Nacht's boss, one KlausWulfenbach Outlander. He prompty decided I was a long lost cousin and seemed quite eager to have the three champions practicing at his place (TPU - Transylvania Polytechnic University). There was much dancing and flirting to follow, including a reuinion with old friend Ceidru Gothly of Hare Courture.

After making a bit of a spectacle of myself (all part of the fun), I was able to approach no less than the Queen of Hearts herself for a dance. There were quite a few gasps at my forwardness but she delighted me by agreeing and proved a lovely dance partner until the last song.

Live from Caledon, I'm Professor Outlandish, Gold Medal Fencer.

Side note - I would love to post url links to all of the above places and people but Blogspot really hates the SLURL format. An in-world search for capitalized terms should do just fine.

News flash - just as I was finishing up, our oil paintings arrived. Here it is.