What I find more fascinating are cases like this where it appears the puppet is starting to control the puppet-master. Again though, without more real-life information one can really only speculate about what might be going on, and how much of it is conscious/unconscious. For all we know “Kalel” may be consciously orchestrating the whole story as part of some meta-narrative, in which case the joke is on me.

I.e.; Don’t get lost in the novel you are writing. Write it.

Compare, say, Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party with Bouguereau’s Return from the Harvest, painted within a few years of each other. In the latter I get the feeling that Bouguereau has read about an emotion called “happiness”, studied how it has been portrayed in art through the ages, and produced a controlled realisation of that feeling, but in the former I can sense that Renoir has directly experienced that scene, and the representation he has produced is expressing something immediate and genuine on a personal level.

Response to art is a personal thing, and even within the same person it varies from time to time. Sometimes I’m in the mood to go to the Rothko Room, but when that seems to heavy I’ll get out my big book of Botticelli prints and imagine I’m back in Florence. I think a lot has to do with the emotional associations you have with particular works, which will depend on the mood states you have been in when you have encountered them. Analysing how you feel about art can be interesting, but overdoing it takes away some of the enjoyment. Sometimes it’s best just to accept that you like what you like, and leave it at that.

Would it be technically possible to set up a live feed of pictures from SL, updating every few seconds, like a webcam? I guess that would tie up your bot in one place, but you could do it for events like concerts, so people could watch without having to download the SL viewer.