Paper folding and letters in Second Life

The Sim Quarterly is a new artistic endeavour by Electric Monday. This homestead region is intended to offer artists a three month period in which to display their work.

Art and the virtual world, Second Life© are very similar —you are able to both find yourself and immerse yourself (and maybe even lose yourself) in something totally unlike what you already know. The experiences you gain help you grow and form new opinions about the world. That is what I hope this sim can provide over time. I am very excited to bring to you a quarterly art project by way of The Sim Quarterly.

– Electric Monday, describing The Sim Quarterly

For the first installation Electric presents Orizuru (“folded crane” or “paper crane”) by Kaiju Kohime with Electric Monday. With a focus on origami that plays into the use of paper as a writing surface and its use in  artistic expression, this is the story of two people who communicate entirely by letter and in the hope of meeting.

The landing point for the installation is in the sky, where an introduction can be found, together with a teleport down to the installation proper.  Here the story begins at a little pair of houses and an ice cream van, where two figures stand back-to-back, symbolising the story’s protagonists, Elise and Henri. Sheets of paper drop from the hands of the male figure, pointing the way to the water where the first two letters between the couple can be found.

Follow the stepping stones to the nearby island, and further pairs of letters between Elise and Henri can be found, their story unfolding on the written pages. Colours beneath the water tehn lead visitors onwards to more of the story as it unfolds across the installation.

Will Henri and Elise meet? That’s for those who visit to decide.  The landscape, meanwhile, with its folded cranes, origami birds and paper rocks and trees, with paper clouds floating overhead, presents a visually attractive setting in which to follow the story.

Those wishing to keep up-to-date with events at The Sim Quarterly can do so via the website and photographs can be submitted to the region’s Flickr group, which is also hosting a photo contest – details available in-world at the region’s landing zone.

SLurl Details

• The Sim Quarterly (rated: Moderate)