Interview: ColeMarie Soleil

I’m incredibly excited to have had the opportunity to interview for this blog the multi-talented ColeMarie Soleil. We met yesterday at her partner’s sim and below is the interview that followed. Photo above by ColeMarie Soleil. 

Flora Nordenskiold: You are active in so many creative realms in Second Life, its hard to know where to begin really. Would you please speak to your music, your blogging (Just Exploring Art blog, World Notes blog and your own blogs), your photography, your clothing line and your machinima, addressing each separately, but also perhaps letting us know how these areas generally overlap and influence one another?

ColeMarie Soleil: Well. I don’t know where to begin on that question, it’s a long question. I’ve recently opened the “Just Art” blog with a long list of contributors. Trying to use that blog to outline creative places to visit, fun things to do, machinima, photography, performance art, unique content creators. Things like that. Also of course there is the New World Notes blog which I do my personal exploring machinima column “Coley’s World” for Wagner. Also started a group on NWN called SLANE (SL Arts and Entertainment)(http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2011/04/second-life-arts-and-entertainment.html)  with Oberon Onmura, Persia Bravin, Bryn Oh, Hybie Mynx, Douglas Story, Groll Greggan, Annough Lykin and Nicolette Marx. Between the two blogs we try to cover things and encourage the community which puts out so much with often very little payback. I also occasionally blog couture for Vitabela. I try and do as much in world as I can with the limited time I have currently. Between researching and exploring and filming and photographing places, interviewing people and helping out where I can it isn’t always easy to find enough time to get everything I would like to done.

When it comes to music I am juggling a lot. Currently bouncing around here and there between ten different producers of all kinds of music. Many which I cannot talk about at the moment, though I would really like to. Currently working on acoustic sketches to get out ideas from my head until I can really spend the time I would like to on a full album for myself. I share them and rotate the songs that are up currently at: http://colemariesoleil.bandcamp.com it varies from week to week what is up. I currently have been collaborating with many different dubstep artists which is fun. There was one song I worked with Obsidia on recently called “Beautiful” which was a recomposition of my old band Soleil’s song “Storytelling.” That is availiable on youtube actually here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyiUgXaCp2U It is pretty cool to see how well received that track has been. I also started an experimental music project about a week ago with my friend Ryan Campos called “Arcade Nylon” which I am enjoying working on. My favorite track that we have done so far is called “Make Me” which you can hear here: http://arcadenylon.bandcamp.com/track/make-me When it comes to music there is a lot juggling and I have a lot of tracks I have done with various people that are just coming out or not out yet or I can’t talk about them yet but I am happy with the stuff I have going on. I still perform acoustically in world from time to time but I tend to not really be a fan of playing clubs and things. I prefer to have more intimate or creative settings to go play in or I just dont feel comfortable doing it.

My photography is more a personally hobby. Virtual visual diary. I don’t really think too much of it one way or another. It’s really just a personal thing I do for fun for my friends and I. I do not take it terribly seriously.

When it comes to clothing my old couture line “Soleil” I closed down within the first two months open just because I really did not like having to deal with the stuff that having a strictly fashion line involved. It stopped being fun very quickly because I had people pressuring me to do this that or the other and it got to be where I did not like to build clothing anymore. I have not made anything new clothing wise since I shut down Soleil back in October it I was I think. Though I am currently working on a new store with my partner Groll Greggan which is more along the lines of fantasy wear not so much strict fashion. Weird eccentric accesories and things. Fantasy avatars that kind of thing.

My machinima I do in world as my main work either for news reporting, art films for myself, or more often than not I am usually working on a film or video project for various clients. I actually recently filmed the SL Machinima side of a RL film called VLogger which was funded by Lars Von Triers company. I actually worked in Berlin for that job. It was a good learning experience plus it was rewarding to be working on a film that used SL. It taught me a lot. Mostly though when can be helped… I prefer to do machinima for myself but now when I have the chance to do one for me it is a luxury I do not get to have much anymore.

How these all affect each other I am not sure. I honestly do not think any of them influence one another. My music is not at all influenced by my films or clothing or photos as none of those are affected by each other either. They are all just aspects of things I like. I think the only thing any of those things have in common is they are different avenues I can use to be creative.

Flora Nordenskiold: Second Life in some ways becomes an extension or a reflection of Real Life. On a more personal note, in terms of your creativity, how does your Real Life influence you Second Life and vice versa?

ColeMarie Soleil: I understand that everyone has different ways of looking at SL in terms of their philosophy of how to use it. Whether to keep SL considered a game or to really take a good look at what it really is. For me I do not think it is an extension or reflection. In my case my SL and my RL are very blurry in terms of lines. I met my best friend here in this case being Bryn Oh. I have adopted family which are like RL family to me whom I plan on meeting in the future, Kriss Lehmann and Shai Delacroix. I might have met them in here but they are like surrogate parents to me. They both met in SL and now are married in RL. Just like my SL partner and I. I flew out to Germany and currently am in the process of getting married to Groll Greggan. We dated here for a long while and decided down the line to have me move out here. So I mean. My partner runs his sci-fi fantasy shop here “Grollwerk” and I have my music and machinima in SL as my job here. SL is our work so as a result is also a large portion of our day. I think the line is a bit hard to draw here for me compared to most people but that is only due to the nature of my personality I suppose. I put my heart into everything I do and I don’t half ass things I care about. I do not really know how to answer that question I guess. I cannot answer a question like how does real life influence my second life. If I did not have a life at all I would not be able to even use an engine like second life. I only have one life that I am aware of.

Flora Nordenskiold: You seem to constantly be on the move and creating in Second Life. What inspires you to create here and what are some of the challenges you have come up against?

ColeMarie Soleil: I think I am on the go and creating in general. SL. RL. As a person. I tend to always have been someone that creates with whatever tools you give me. Even if there are challenges or limitations I will just find some way to go around them. I cannot really name a challenge I have come across to be honest, I think only because I refuse to accept I cannot do something. As far as inspiration I think I am inspired often by personal things in my life. History. People I have emotional connections with or the music that I listen to. I guess I am most affected by the music I hear being so obsessed with music. But. In terms of people in SL I find inspiring. I would say that Bryn Oh still remains one of my main reasons for pushing through things and keep doing what I like even when people in here sometimes frustrate me to the point I tell her stuff like “God damnit Bryn I want to line them up and smack them all really hard” she is always lecturing me on a thousand reasons not to. Also another person I find really wonderful creatively as a builder in here is Claudia222 Jewell. That is one awesome lady. I love her work.

Flora Nordenskiold: I suspect you have several project going on. Can you tell us what some of your future projects are?

ColeMarie Soleil: All of my projects mostly right now are not SL related except machinima clients but in most of those cases I have contracts on those that I cant talk about right now. 90% of my main projects right now are the music ones. When it comes to SL almost all of my inworld time now is dedicated to the blog work. That is a really unexciting answer. Sorry.

Flora Nordenskiold: What is in your opinion the magical quality of Second Life that keeps us coming back?

ColeMarie Soleil: I think everyone has their own reason. That is what makes it interesting.

Flora Nordenskiold: Thank you, ColeMarie.

Interview: Simotron Aquila

It’s such a great pleasure to have the opportunity to interview for this blog Simotron Aquila. She and I live in different corners of the world, but were able to get this interview together without any difficulty. Simotron is currently showing her work at Nordan Art.

Flora Nordenskiold: Your work is fine and delicate, at times almost childlike. I am blown away by it, maybe in particularly by the three insomnia works. Can you tell us more about how these pieces came about and what inspired you to create them?

Simotron Aquila: You are right. This is exactly what I’m looking for: simple, iconic and symbolic figures, with a clear, immediate, shared message but, at the meantime, with an inexpressible character connected to the personal experience of each of us. Regarding “Insomnia,” I’ve developed this series thinking of a tracking shot, zooming from outside to inside, ending on a close detail of the subject. The light and the endless movement are poetic elements but also they introduce the themes represented: suspension, lack and wait. Title is also important for me, it’s the “frame” that collect all the scenes: I’ve chosen “Insomnia” because expresses these concepts connecting them to a very intimate personal experience which is also extremely common.

Flora Nordenskiold: You are fairly new to the Second Life art scene. What are some of the challenges you have come up against?

Simotron Aquila: Everything started because I’m interested to investigate our approach with the virtual dimension. I’ve entered in SL only as a visitor, full of curiosity and for a while I only went around, observing the other people. I saw people change their appearance, go here and there just with a click, build impossible things…so lot of freedom! But, very strange, these new identities needed at the same time to bring back the material and intimate dimension of their daily experience. So, I start to think on it, giving a “body” to my reflections with my sculptures. I had some familiarity with 3D modeling software, so in my mind the image of each sculpture became the sum of cubes, spheres, cylinders… the problem was don’t overload the sculptures with too many elements, this because I work almost entirely using the viewer building tools and also because I want to maintain the image and the message the simplest and clear possible. Now I want to improve my ability with scripts, because I like to introduce some moving elements in my works and sometime it’s hard for me to find the right form of it.

Flora Nordenskiold: Some people hesitate to call most of what is created by artists in Second Life art. What are your thoughts on art and creativity in Second Life?

Simotron Aquila: Hum… I think it’s a bit like the art in RL… not always good, sometimes conformed, obvious and colorless. Lots of people come close to the art in SL, thinking that it’s easier to do something here and find an audience, but this is not true. You must put the same care and depth that are necessary to make art, any context or any tool you choose. Anyway, there are in SL some remarkable artists (in each field) and I love their originality and creativity. I think the best opportunities in SL are for performance, big installations, landscape art and machinima, but maybe in the future this place will become more interesting for all of us if the simulation will be totally immersive.

Flora Nordenskiold: You have been in Second Life since 2009, for about two years now. What are some of the best and some of the worst things about Second Life and how have things changed since you have been here?

Simotron Aquila: I love the possibility to connect and interact with people (it doesn’t matter where they are physically), and to participate to a common project that SL give us.  I dislike limits imposed for prims and people on the lands, but I don’t know if this is a technical matter or a precise commercial choice. I dream one day to be able to upload and exchange files with other people without pay for it, and also to jump directly from SL to an opengrid, maintaining my appearance and my inventory. I’ve seen in these two years some attempts to improve the graphic quality and make the experience more realistic.  From residents’ side, I’ve seen to grow up the desire to make SL a more connected and useful tool to their own real life.

Flora Nordenskiold: Finally, I love Second Life, but I know I also sometimes struggle finding time for it. There are other times when I ask myself why I keep doing it. What is in your opinion the magical quality of Second Life that keeps us coming back?

Simotron Aquila: First, the affection that ties us to our avatar… sometimes I feel Simotron like a my creation, sometime I feel her like a double of me, there are days I’d like to ask her to help me (hihi). Then, obviously, the desire to keep in contact with our friends (and they are really important for me, as much as my RL friends – some of them are become also good RL friends). Third, the connection with our works (they are trapped there!) and finally, the curiosity to explore new spaces and see what the other people do here.

Flora Nordenskold: Thank you, Simotron.

Simotron Aquila: Thanks to you, Flora.