iRez Authors Xue Faith, Trilby Minotaur, Vaneeesa Blaylock, Yordie Sands, Strawberry Singh, and Canary Beck stand in front of a tree and pose for the camera. Around them typography presents the names of all 30 iRez authors for 2012 — Photo by Strawberry Singh

Happy Holidays

Our virtual salon had 31 contributing authors in 2012, all the way from Agnes to Yordie, with “K” being the most popular letter, representing Kat, Katie, Krista and Kristine. Erika Mitchell (better known by the pseudonym E. L. James) didn’t contribute to iRez this year, still, her 2011 erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey was well represented by Agnes’ post Fifty Shades of Halloween and Joseph’s post Fifty Shades of Black Ops. From all of us here at iRez, Happy Holidays, have an amazing 2013 filled with wonder and discovery, and of course, “Write On!”

iRez 2012 Authors

[threecol_one]
Agnes Sharple
Botgirl Questi
Canary Beck
Eva Marie
Fuschia Nightfire
George Coghill
Hanna Lee
Ironyca Lee
Jacque Donaldson
Joseph DeLappe
[/threecol_one] [threecol_one]
Kathleen Cool
Katie Vizenor
Krista Hoefle
Kristine Schomaker
Lizzie Gudkov
Lizzy Bowman
Marmaduke Arado
Mirae Rosner
Nathan Shafer
Os Ishmael
Pixel Reanimator
[/threecol_one] [threecol_one_last]
Rafaella Lima
Ravanel Griffon
Sarah Elgart
Strawberry Singh
Tamiko Thiel
Trilby Minotaur
Vaneeesa Blaylock
Vanessa Bartlett
Xue Faith
Yordie Sands
[/threecol_one_last]

Slide Show!

Click on any image to enter Slide Show mode, then use your arrow keys to navigate through the pix!

iRez Authors Xue, Trilby, Vaneeesa, Yordie, Strawberry & Canary standing in front of a tree, and surrounded by the names of the 30 authors who have contributed to iRez in 2012

Photo by Strawberry Singh

Xue, Trilby, Vaneeesa, Yordie, Berry, Becky

Photo of Agnes Sharple with a mustache on in celebration of "movember"

Long-time iRez author Agnes Sharple came back with a vengance celebrating Movember and other notable events.

Image of Botgirl Questi holding up a globe. On the globe it says, "Our Community is their Commodity" and the image is in front of the virtual offices of Second Life provider Linden Lab

Botgirl Questi challenged all our assumptions – even as she carried the virtual world on her shoulders.

Image of four avatars: Mother, Father, Son, Daughter, all seated back-to-back-to-back

Canary Beck explored family and community as well as the racier side of relationships and culture in virtual space.

We did mushrooms with Eva Marie!

Fuschia Nightfire took us to paint murals.

image of a Minecraft dragon with a really long tongue

George Coghill gave us the scoop on the mega-popular building world of Minecraft.

black and white photograph of Hanna Lee looking out

Slam poet Hanna Lee gave us the word on body image and weight shaming.

Jacque Donaldson inside a Yayoi Kusama mirror room in a New York City art gallery.

New York art historian Jacque Donaldson took us on walking tours of new art in New York.

50 Shades of Grey cover image with the text "50 Shades of Black Ops" superimposed on it.

Internet activist Joseph DeLappe gave us a performance of his new work “Fifty Shades of Black Ops”

Photograph of Charlotte Moorman wearng a "TV Bra" and playing the cello.

Kathleen Cool inspired Pixel, Vaneeesa, and so many other to celebrate Charlotte Moorman’s legendary “TV Bra” performance with a new virtual version at Gallery Xue / NYC.

Image of Julian Assange giving a speech from the balcony of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London

Ethnographer Katie Vizenor asked us about Digital Citizenship in the 21st century, and took us to ask Tom Boellstorff about the practice of Digital Ethnography.

image of Krista Hoefle surrounded by movie posters

Artist, feminist, prankster, and troublemaker Krista Hoefle took us on a hacktivist intervention to World of Warcraft’s WoW Wiki

First life painter, second life Identity artist, and all-around Mixed Reality explorer Kristine Schomaker took us on explorations of self and identity.

Naked figure, back to camera, facing into a black void

Our newest author Lizzie Gudkov joined iRez just a dozen days before years end and promises to enliven our world with tales of mystery and wonder.

Photo of Lizzy Bowman on the top of a giant cheerleader pyramid.

Lizzy Bowman gave us on the ground – and atop the pyramid – coverage of the life of virtual cheerleaders in “Cheertopia”

Photo of a virtual art installation featuring text floating through the air.

Marmaduke Arado was our man in the virtual artworld as he crawled to numerous amazing installations and brought back remarkable photos for all us homebodies.

Photo of graffiti writing projected on the side of a building.

Mirae Rosner coordinated virtual graffiti writing on 3 continents!

photo of Nathan Shafer in a large jacket

Nathan Shafer used augmented reality to visualize the temporal evolution of Alaskan ice

a bright green preying mantis perched atop an off-white tile ledge

Os Ishmael brought us images of life in Hong Kong and Asia, including this preying mantis that managed to survive the worst Hong Kong typhoon in a decade

Pixel Reanimator joined Kathleen Cool in a giant analysis and love-fest for all things Charlotte Moorman

photos of Yves Klein's "Zone of Immaterial Sensibility" performance, where he threw gold bars into the River Seine and burned documents

Rafaela Lima ventured north from her Paris home and across the channel to cover the Invisible show at the Hayward Gallery, London for iRez

LOTRO Spice (aka Ravanel Griffon) singlehandedly took us to more different worlds than the entire rest of the iRez authors combined!

One of Sarah Elgart's dancers wearing a yellow dress and carrying an enormous piece of yellow fabric across the large space of an airport terminal concourse.

Choreographer Sarah Elgart explored the body in space at a flight terminal for Los Angeles World Airports.

iRez intrepid photographer Strawberry Singh took us on a journey of visual delights in her many self portraits and other virtual visualizations.

Augmented Reality image of Damien Hirst inserted at the Hayward Gallery, London.

Tamiko Thiel planted a virtual and virtually uninvited Damien Hirst at the Invisible show at the Hayward Gallery, London.

Photo of helicopter moving a large statue at dOCUMENTA(13) in Kassel, Germany

Trilby Minotaur took us to dOCUMENTA(13) in Kassel, Germany, and flew a few helicopters while she was at it!

Scan of Vaneeesa Blaylock's certificate of completion in Kevin Werbach's Gamification course.

Yours Truly took a Gamification class from the amazing Kevin Werbach at the Wharton Business School. Or at least the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton outpost at Coursera online.

Image of Sound Cloud post of a Vanessa Bartlett recording

Curator and author Vanessa Bartlett took to the soundwaves doing presentations on mental health and sonic art.

Portrait of Xue Faith in acid-green cross-processed tones

iRez webmaster Xue Faith got a new portrait taken in acid-tones, presumably as a result of having to sort out Vaneeesa’s mess on the website! 😛

Photo of Yordie Sands pole dancing with flames in the background.

Yordie Sands picked up hitchers and danced on the fire as only she can

8 thoughts on “Happy Holidays!”

*Waves hello* Wishing everyone a Happy Holiday Season! Thank you for welcoming me to your blogging family 🙂

Vaneeesa Blaylock says:

2012/12/21 at 23:30

Yay Lizzie! So excited to have you join us to cap off our big year… or to launch the new one! 🙂

Happy Holidays!

Reply

It was amazing to be here in 2012, so thanks for having me, and -oh- I *love* the SL winter holiday picture. Great shot!

Vaneeesa Blaylock says:

2013/01/11 at 16:59

Aww, thanks for holding up the multiverse for us Ravanel! NOW we have to figure out how to do a multi-world group photo!!

Hmm… how would we do that….

Reply
1. Ravanel Griffon says:
  
  2013/01/12 at 17:26
  
  That would probably involve some blue screens, a VOIP server and a ingenious photographer… nothing that should form any obstacle. 😉
  
  Wait, what’s that voice I’m hearing?
  
  “Ravanel, you think you’re an Elf from Lothlórien… which will it be? The blue or the red pill?”
  
  :O
  
  Reply
  1. Vaneeesa Blaylock says:
    
    2013/01/13 at 06:05
    
    Maybe we should all just take a field trip and meet up with you. Peeps around here LOVE field trips! Does one of your MMO worlds have either a free trial, or a free-2-play version? Let’s set something up!*
    
    *blue screen not included in free trial
    
    Reply
    1. Ravanel Griffon says:
      
      2013/01/13 at 19:57
      
      Both LotRO and SW:TOR are free-to-play, so either of them would work. The choice is ultimately yours. Which world attracts you more? I think that is the key question. (For you I have a feeling you are more of a Star Wars fan – am I correct?) 😀
      
      Reply
      1. Vaneeesa Blaylock says:
        
        2013/01/13 at 20:25
        
        Cool… better yet… how about we all just fly to China and meetup at the WoW theme park!!
        http://irez.uk/2013/01/13/counterfeit-world-of-warcraft-theme-park/
        
        Or, uh, if that doesn’t work out logistically… then your plan sounds good. Unless anybody else chimes in with a preference, I’d say you pick! Maybe plan it for a Saturday in Feb or March? And maybe you could do a little post on how we sign up and meet up?
        
        And importantly — do they have a global user base? Or are there different country / continent servers? So would, for example, EU and US visitors have to do something special to be on the same server? If one is easier in this regard, maybe we should pick that one.
        
        And since many, but hopefully not all, of our tour guests might be coming from that vanity palace called “Second Life,” if one lets peeps mess around with their avatar more… that might be appreciated…
        
        Yay!!!
        
        Reply