metaverse art
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second , it had to be interesting for the viewers. The figure MANAX itself was already very interesting, the way his avatar looked was very special, an almost abstract figure and when he moved and posed for the pictures Velazques made the abstractness was even more. Like a Picasso painting. The way he acted however was not very friendly all the time. He had a satanic sense of humor. Liked to play with weapons and evil scripts that did harm to other avatars or lands. His place in SL was build in rough, iron materials, with many traps verywhere, the people that surrounded him got used to fell in pits or being orbited away just as a joke. He made it rain, but the rain was like blood and covered the land you were standing on. He let bombs explode everywhere and enjoyed to surprise you with all kinds of strange buildings and they were never the same. His intelligent way of building and using scripts for his creations were stunning, even the fact that Linden Lab banned him from SL didn’t keep him away from coming back every time with a different figure and every time this avatar was more complicated.
Picture 6: the MANAX theatre (immersion, interaction, colaboration
Velazquez used a part of the collection of pictures he made from MANAX for an installation telling the story in black and white pictures, you could walk through and see how the avatar changed when he posed in different positions. Like drawings, like pieces of Art, no more like an avatar in SL. Later on I used many of these pictures as textures on dresses and named it the MANAX Collection. The MANAX project was started with a poem I wrote, telling the story of Manax, I found an actor from England 5imon Baker who did read the poem and send it to us on MP3, also I asked Cy-
Picture 7: Cypress Rosewood