Cathy's Art Diary

Strange but fun exhibition at the Photographers’ Gallery looking at the history of virtual worlds. This show was part of an online resource that explores photography's increasingly automated, networked life and a three-year project with the Centre for the Study of the Networked Image at South Bank University. It started by looking at the history of virtual worlds with Second Life being one of the longest running. It then looked at how most fail and why. To show this they had created a game to model a world called “World Imagining Game” which you could play. Built into it was that any economic model you built for it failed. I invented a world for art history geeks!    Closed 24 September 2023

Strange exhibition at Canada House by Skawennati, describes as an “urban mowhawk woman and cyperpunk”. The premise of this show was that the work was all created within the virtual environment, Second Life. She makes movies she calls “machinimas” and photographs “machinimagraphs”. Both of these are made by her avatar. She uses this medium to look at indigenous people and to raise their profile and sees it as a world in which they can have their own voice and not reinvent as ‘normal’.   I loved the wall of portraits from this virtual world but am struggling a bit with whether I think they are fine art. They are however clear, bright, striking images. I’m afraid I didn’t have time to invest in the video presentations. I also liked the series of three doll sculptures, a real Barbie in a customised outfit, a 3D print of that Barbie and a corn husk version. Closes March 2020