A Night at the Museo

Our second stop was on the great grid Craft, one of Opensim's oldest grids. We visited the MdM, with owner Rosanna Galvani.
 Rosanna Galvani: The Metaverse Museum (Museo del Metaverso) is a virtual institution that replicates a real museum, featuring exclusive content and collections designed specifically for the Metaverse environment. It combines elements of virtual reality, interactivity and global accessibility, offering virtual exhibitions, art galleries, digital replicas of artworks and cultural objects, learning labs, event spaces and more.

Rosanna Galvani: The Metaverse Museum project was created in Second Life for the enhancement of the artwork present in that virtual world. It was founded on December 5, 2007.

 Over the years the Museo del Metaverso has been quite successful, creating permanent and temporary exhibitions. The Museum has participated in many valuable art/cultural events in the physical world, has helped many students of Fine Arts Academies who were coming to Second Life to make their theses and has collaborated with the Academy of Fine Arts of Macerata, participating in several meetings, with the aim of presenting the project of the Metaverse Museum, which was very innovative for those years.

Rosanna Galvani: Today the main Museum resides in Craft-world (a virtual world based on OpenSimulator) and preserves and exhibits purely digital works, i.e., works made on computers, replicas of works made in the physical world, and most recently also images generated by programs using Artificial Intelligence. It continues to work on different platforms, Second Life, Craft-world and Spatial, organizing exhibitions , lectures and discussions. 

Tosha Tyran: but tell me Rosanna, what was the reason to transfer the Museum to Opensim/Craft?

Dings Digital: opensim rezzes much faster :)

Rosanna Galvani: financial reasons, among others

Tosha Tyran: ok, very understandable

Eva Kraai: It's much easier to build in Craft

Tosha Tyran: true, Eva

Tina Bey3D: I can attest to that.

The enormous rooms in the Museum allow for huge installations 

Rosanna Galvani: and here is Velazquez the designer and builder of the museum as well as Roby Cretan aka Roberto Presiccci cocurator of the Museo

Velazquez Bonetto [hu→en]: Craft world is suitable for building projects that are impossible in the SL environment.  Here you can design on a large scale

Tosha Tyran: you are really an active group around the Museum

Thirza Ember: when you started out did you ever think that the Museum would be still going almost twenty years later, Rox?

Rosanna Galvani: No Thirza , I didn't think it could last this long. There were times when I was inactive inworld, but the Museum sim was still online, I continued to pay for it to stay up., ho avuto periodi in cui ho staccato ma il Museo è stato sempre online

Tosha Tyran: But I know for a while it was rather quiet... and now you have come back with a lot of activity! that is really wonderful

Rosanna Galvani: The Museo houses works by 70 artists

James Atlloud: wow

Petlove Petshop: camming around - so much amazing work here!

Dings Digital: kind of a little encyclopedia

James Atlloud: I enjoy the teleport from level to level - works so well.

Rosanna Galvani: the website gives you a lot more info about everything www.museodelmetaverso.it

Tosha Tyran: I'd like to know how the Museum is run, is everything agreed to by a team or is there one person in charge ?

James Atlloud: Where I work, I try to speak of project curators rather than project owners.

Tosha Tyran: good system

Tina Bey3D: Cherry's work here is brilliant

Roby Cretan: Hello everyone, my name in RL is Roberto Presicci and I'm the co-curator at the MdM this year. This is the hall where you can find the latest Museum project called  "In Between". My aim is to analyse the artworks in terms of the inspiration in cui mi sono occupato di dare alle opere d'arte un'analisi delle opere d'arte dal punto di vista dell'ispirazione behind the pieces of art that are on display, to understand the artists' inspiration. Next to the art you can see  some 'Cultural maps' with yellow spheres, and if you click on the yellow spheres you can directly access the historical analyses of the artists' inspiration. It goes without saying that this was done in collaboration and with permissions from the artists.

Roby Cretan aka Roberto Presicci

Rosanna Galvani: we also have some videos

Roby Cretan: by Bucciarelli and Pellizzola. All the artists on show here -Vito Bucciarelli, Marco Pellizzola, Damiano Errico, Marco Mendeni e Alberto Calleo are known at an international level.

Roby Cretan: I found out about the Museum through friends in SL in particular Stex Auer who had done a number of RL events in Milan. I had experience using interactive technology and I'm a coder so that's what drew me here. In fact the scripts in these maps and in the 'molecule' spheres I'll be using in our next project were made also using lsl, a language specific to Craft and SL. I'm the first co-curator who has done this kind of work here.

Rosanna Galvani: working with Roberto is important to me because it's the first time we've had a rl art expert who has taken this much interest in our virtual museum

James Atlloud: oh interesting

Tosha Tyran: reminds of the song: Its so good to have man around the house...

Preview of the 'art molecules'

Roby Cretan: I'd like to give you a preview of "molecola dell'arte" dedicated to Marco Man Ray, one of the artists featured here in the Museo del Metaverso and also a colleague at my school in Brescia.

 Each ball is clickable, and will take you to one or other cultural reference that Maro Man Ray has used for his art work.

Lorenza Colicigno: For us, the connection between rl and virtual worlds is very important. 

Rosanna Galvani: Roberto is giving you a demonstration of a project that he has been working on for months.

The museum has been home  to any amount of projects and themed collaborations, on themes like domestic violence and social upheaval, so there is immediacy to the art as you absorb the meaningful representations and meditations. This is a place with deep roots in real world situations, not just a confection of otherworldly ideas.

Taarna Welles: Fantastic

Roby Cretan: I found references for each artist. cultural references from art history.

Lorenza Colicigno: interesting project, Roby

We moved on to take a look at a few bits of art around and about the museum, including Bruno Cerboni, Cherry Manga, Tina Bey, who was with us during the visit,  and Christower Dae's portraits of avatars, a project he has been working on in SL for nigh on two decades.

Christower Dae's pictures

Dings Digital: these portrait fotos are good

Dolma Dollinger: Is the museum open to all for a longer visit?

Eva Kraai: Yes it's open 24/7

Beautiful artwork by Tina Bey

Rosanna Galvani: our aim is to take art that was created in virtual worlds and bring it closer to a real world audience, and that's another way in which Roby is a big help since he was literally born into the world of RL art, his father was a painter and teacher. 

Lorenza Colicigno: The most important function of the museum is to conserve rt and innovate at the same time.

Rosanna Galvani: True Lorenzo

Thirza Ember: I think it's wonderful that people who probably never thought that their art would be seen by anybody outside opensim can now reach a global audience in the real world

Tonino Lane: exactly so.

Rosanna led us to another outstanding piece of sculpture, these ladies by Tosha Tyran.

Tosha Tyran: I must admit, I love it

James Atlloud:   I love the colors in the figures.

Tosha Tyran: I just know I love those fat and colorful women

Dolma Dollinger: Very nice... I get the feeling I should spank! Inviting buttocks

Tosha Tyran: it is like a world without men... full of fat and happy women

Roffellos Kisses: which means our world without women would be ...............quiet ...lovely !

Tosha Tyran: rather dead and empty in a jiffy...

Thirza Ember: Are you still actively looking for new artists in Opensim to participate in the museum, Rosanna?

Rosanna Galvani: no, I'm not looking for new artists, but if you have someone to recommend, I'm happy to view their works

Taarna Welles: Thank you for this tour and for all the information.

Rosanna Galvani [it→en]: The museum is always open and therefore you should come and visit it, come back whenever you want, we will be very happy, on the ground floor you will find all the names of the artists with the teleport to their work next to them

Tosha Tyran: Rosanna and Roby, thanks for being so kind and showing us all this great works and the museum itself

fiona saiman: Thank you all for visiting us

James Atlloud: Thank you all MdM people - this is truly wondrous.

Tosha Tyran: and good bye to everybody! I am glad I am back within your company!

Dolma Dollinger: Thanks for the nice tour!

Petlove Petshop: been a great Safari!

Eva Kraai [it→en]: Thanks to each and every one

Sven Ingersoll: beautiful exhibits, thankyou everyone

Rosanna Galvani [it→en]: who ask, the next event is that of the molecules of art, which Roberto has been working on for months, it's a work he did on four artists in the museum, we will present it soon, with notices on the socials.

eva Nova: thanks for the guide.. a great place to repeat visits :)

Tina Bey3D: Thank you Rosanna and Fionna, great work by the Museum

Tonino Lane: grazie a tutte e tutti

Forest Azure: this is such a great place!

Dolma Dollinger: Thanks

Roby Cretan: see you soon