M is for Myg

I planted a tree and a column of basalt as part of the recreation of Joseph Beuys’ 7000 Oaks project inside Second Life that is being staged by 0100101110101101.org. Here’s what the artist’s have to say about Beuys’s original project and their recreation:

Beuys’s project begun on March the 16th 1982, at Documenta 7, in Kassel. His plan called for the planting of seven thousand trees, each paired with a columnar basalt stone, throughout the world as part of a global mission to effect environmental and social change.

The Mattes reenactment begun in Second Life’s Cosmos Island, where the first virtual tree and stone was planted on March the 16th 2007, exactly 25 years after the original oak got planted. The project will end once 7000 virtual stones and trees will be placed all around Second Life.

This work is part of Eva and Franco Mattes series of “Synthetic Performances”, reenactment of historical performances, by artists like Chris Burden, Vito Acconci and Marina Abramovic, in online Synthetic Worlds such as Second Life.

If you want to be part of this project contact Eva and Franco Mattes in-world (sending an IM to Pei Twang or Pei May), you will be given a Basalt Stone and an Oak tree which you can plant anywhere in SL. Note that the stone and the tree need to be planted in pairs.

There I am above, picking out a stone and a tree on Cosmos Island 193, 118, 24. I should have brought a hand truck. The tree and stone are behind my newest land acquisition in Little Philadelphia, Topgol. (I bought one of Romana’s townhouses off of her so she could purchase another 512k plot to put a road extension through behind the Wei 2008 HQ to the Chicago sim in the region next door. She didn’t want her tier fees to go up and the exchange allowed me to get another contiguous plot. Khyber Pass anyone?) The solid stone form beside the ever-changing tree represents Beuys’s idea that these two natural and opposing forms are complementary and coexist harmoniously. I guess the idea is that if trees and rocks can do it… The tree and basalt will stay up as long as I own property.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 3rd, 2007 at 7:00 pm and is filed under Burgess, Mainline, Second Life.