Interview: typote Beck

It is such a great honor for me to interview for this blog typote Beck. His work expresses to me the work of an incredibly creative and poetic individual. typote is showing his work at Nordan Art until November 19, 2011. Please see below for our interview. 

Flora Nordenskiold: I remember when I first went to your Studio Egg and started exploring all the different drawings, paintings and sculptures you have here. I was so drawn in by it and impressed by the playful quality of it all. Please tell us how it all began, when did you start creating in Second Life and what inspired you?

typote Beck: Thanks, Flora, for your interest in my creations. I have created my first avatar in 2007, and I have discovered the world of art in Second Life later. I have had a time of explorations, less now. I first discovered the isle Immersiva, a pleasure for me, to walk into the giant architectured fish, the story telling of Bryn Oh, the chouchou island for meditation, and the sim of Tournicoton of mariaka Nishi ( her sim too is a kind of artistic diary). Then I first made some drawings for Mariaka, and I realized that the possibilities of Second Life were more rich than build and photographs. I have had several small places after, one small box gallery in the sim Tournicoton (I still rent it), and one house I build just behind the ancient sim of the french artist novelist Yann Minh (now he is on the adult continent). His sim with his personal sci fi sado masochistic universe inspired me in the way to possess a sort of more personal place too. My father was painter and I have always dreamt to have a private workshop, even a virtual one. I first dreamt about a place to put drawings in virtual books and the way to present drawings had came because in RL, my job is sometimes close to the multimedia, the way to integrate drawings is a kind of freedom in Second Life, more than on a website. I am sometimes close to sort of underground comics, drawings from the newspapers, pop art collages mind, and graphic design. Characters in repeated cases of comics is a boring things to do in real books, my dream would be to create a coherent universe coming in the total disorder of the builds I make, something like a story making sense small by small. Studio Egg, my place in the mainland, is a way to organize a personal architecture like a personal diary, but with a third dimension, movements, immersion, and sometimes the fourth dimension of interactivity. I have worked in a strange workshop during some years in Real Life, a kind of cave, and I would like to find something like that, a sort of refuge but virtual. It has the aspect of a gallery but I think that with the time it will take several different forms (1800 prims), I don’t make openings, but everyone is welcome.

Flora Nordenskiold: You integrate in your work drawings, sculpture and movement; you have developed a unique style. Your work is immediately recognizable as having been made by you. Tell us a little bit about your creative process and how you put it all together. 

typote Beck: What I like is to mix the 2D and 3D by the presence of drawings in simple builds, and to play with that sorts of film set of cardboard. I make some go backs from my computer to my pencils, and the ideas come slowly, I think first to a situation like a character sleeping on a chair, and I imagine what images are going away from him. The super hero, Theseus, the sleeper, etc., with them I can explore different universes. Integrating drawings on prims is something equivalent for me than to harmonize a photography and a text in an advertising poster in terms of space management. It is also like strange pop collage, thinking to the paintings of Tom Wesselman or the collage of the french poet Jacques Prévert. What I do has something to see with pop art and childhood. The immersion in Second Life to forget the reality was not a so bad thing in some way, a kind of unconscious projection of my own obsessions, I can now take pleasure to do that.

More recently, the UWA challenge has been a good motivation for creations, 100 prims only for a build, finally I like this constraint, to be a low prim artist. I don’t really know what form my future builds will take, more sculpties and mesh in it surely, but very simple, deformal balls, maybe some flabby things, not looking for realism. I like visual poetry, social criticism, graphic design and some part of the contemporary art. What I do is difficult to sell, I hope it can amuse some people or it would be depressive to do that just for myself.

Flora Nordenskiold: I suspect you have many Second Life projects going on. Would you share with us what you are working on and, also, what are some of your future projects?

typote Beck: For November I will participate in the Imagine festival on the Caerleon island. In January there will be the Art and Poetry project on Studio Egg, I have invited friends but I have to prepare something. I must do a build for the Omega sim of Pirats on the half of December. I have some little project, the bigger is in Inworldz on the level of the Babel Tower of Betty Turreaud. I hope to work on it more in January on some drawings shadows inspired by the paintings of Georgio de Chirico. I cook a giant Marriage Cake for the marriage of Rose and SaveMe Oh on LEA. I have a small participation in the VHAC gallery on the exhibition on pop art in October. I have no bigger project, I will continue to make maybe builds for UWA but not each month. Later in the year I will exhibit something on the Mysterious Wave sim of Cherry Manga.

Flora Nordenskiold: The Second Life art community is diverse and vibrant and the creative possibilities appear limitless. What are your thoughts on art and creativity in Second Life? Who are some of the creators that inspire you here?

typote Beck: Watching the efforts of communities and some good news like the sims assigned to Linden Endowment for the Art,  I have hope for the developement of diversity in this new ecological system, so my implication will be stronger.  I like different things, qualities may appear everywhere. Maybe more than people , I remember some places with some of their details. A kind of  “Georges Pérec – Je me souviens” list: The piano on Chouchou island, great because the empty isle is around; Maya Paris red shoes on Veparella; The 2 white bots of Oberon Omura trying to communicate without words; giant bed in Mushroom of Scottius Polke; the last wonderful musical sculpture making “pop !” and “wizz !” like Brigitte Bardot of Artistide Desprès; Gleman June’s sculpted character sit in front of a repetition of photographs with a hand on them. Dekka Raymaker transparent circles light machine architecture, the table outside with a phone on Rose Borchovsky islands in a surreal feeling, walking in the water on Two Fishs. Simoton Aquila’s paper planes, my wrong marriage with Asmo on Aeonia Arts Giant Ants farm. The small house in the country of AM Radio. The box with kind of Octopus full of eyes of Igor Ballyhoo.The faces of the characters of Anna’s Many Murders of Bryn Oh. Soror Nishi ‘s flower planted in my garden on Studio Egg. The big sitting hand of Anley Piers, the giant chess game of Shellina Winkler… Film in the air on the side of a mountain on an ancient sim of Cherry Manga. Of course Bryn Oh is the big priestess, I appreciate her story telling, I would like to tell stories in that way, but it is a lot of work and writer talent. I admire Betty Tureaud, because she is able to take possession of very big spaces, giant or monumental things afraid me for the moment for my personal creations. Cherry Manga coming from the universe of game before is so productive I am very impressed, I will never be so productive. I am not for the dogmas saying that art must be immersive or just in 3D or necessary interactive and all that kind of quotes. Art is Good or Bad, and sometimes it’s difficult to say, sometimes it is art and sometimes it is not, just because of a detail, there are some soul in the work or not. For me Second Life art is not cut from the real art, if you paint on a prim you are obliged to think to what have done Picasso before. So all is open but in continuity. The need is to bring Second Life art to people into Real gallery or other media, if that does’nt come, it will stay dead letters.

Flora Nordenskiold: Finally, you have been in Second Life since 2007, for about four 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?

typote Beck: The worst thing at the beginning was to discover that Second Life and Real Life are the same savage world, with the power of money winning in each. Concerning people, to make friends in Second Life has been a good thing, but are they real friends with a virtual face, it is difficult to say. But Friendship is like a garden, we must cultivate it and I am not a good gardener in Second Life. Second Life is a good way to travel. I have had good discussions in Second Life with some interesting people from all over the world. And it is not surprising, people have the same base of humanity in all the countries.

2007 was the year of money for Second Life, enterprises were there, political parties and so on, now its different, maybe the art will be a sort of alternative for Second Life. I personally appreciate Second Life more now, people I met now are full of passions for art, Second Life is less a showcase where people want to appear. I am less impressed by a 3D performance in Second Life than before, but I can be impressed by the intention of a performance, by a sculpture or a set of colors, something not imitating the real world, but bringing new correspondence or association for me.

Flora Nordenskiold: Thanks, typote.

typote Beck: Flora, thank you for welcoming me.