Haiku Sculpting?

 

A Sculpture by any other Name

What’s in a name? Haiku Speedbuild? Haiku Sculpting? What is a “Haiku Speedbuild” anyway? In my proposal for the new event “Machiniminute”
• About Machiniminute

I noted that quick “finger exercises” are really the VAA’s forte. There are many fantastic orgs in virtual space that help promote wonderful creative work, but most focus on longer-term highly polished work. VAA’s singular focus is the chance to dive in, try something, step back, and see what we all came up with in the last hour. It can be a real process of easy experimentation with low pressure that can also produce occasional gems.

Speed

Even though the idea is to be quick and spontaneous, there is a sincerity and a durational quality to any work. A great photograph might be a frozen 1/1000th of a second, but a great photographer might wait many minutes, or more, for just the right 1/1000th of a second to come along. Haiku Speedbuild intends to be quick, breezy, and spontaneous, but it also started at a virtual Zen retreat where they wrote haiku and contemplated, as that form so powerfully does, the truly sublime depths of a moment fully experienced.

Build

And what are we “building” in Haiku Speedbuild? Sclupture? Landscapes? Architecture? For sure I believe our event includes all of these and perhaps even more. Still, I do think the word “build” has a certain tendency to privilege architecture. This isn’t a bad thing, I think the act of building is perhaps the single most defining quality of our world vs the many popular MMORPGs out there. So many “players” from those worlds find SL boring, and for at least some SL peeps, those worlds are less satisfying. We live in a world that we build ourselves. It’s as fundamental a thing as there is in this world.

Still,

Name Change: Haiku Sculpting

I’m not certain that we really want our event to be “Haiku Fast Architecture” when it might be “Haiku Deeply Felt Sculpture.” So I wonder if “Haiku Sculpting” might set a better tone for our event. It is definitely NOT my intention to “ban” any sort of creativity at these events. Every participant should pursue whatever vision and whatever style they choose, but perhaps a name like “Haiku Sculpting” would ever-so-gently nudge participants to think a bit less about a structure that illustrates a text, and just a drop more about a sculpture that experiences a moment.

I’m thinking of changing the name of our VAA event to Haiku Sculpting. I’d love your input on this. Share any thoughts you like in the comment box below!

Thanks everyone!

Xue