Day: October 19, 2019

Harbor’s Alter Ego at Ribong Gallery in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Artspace 2535, Ribong Gallery – Harbor Galaxy, October 2019

Now open within the Artspace 2535 area of Ribong Gallery, curated by Santoshima, is a collection of images by Harbor Galaxy. entitled Alter Ego, it features some of the artist’s favourite avatar characters, and it offers an intriguing walk through her imagination.

And I do mean “walk” in a literal sense: the arts is set out in s series of rooms the visitor is encouraged to walk through it turn from the landing point. Each offers at least one piece of art and these are – to borrow a phrase from the introduction to the exhibition – monumental in size. They tower over visitors, drawing us into each them, allowing, perhaps for a greater appreciation of the narrative each holds within it.

Artspace 2535, Ribong Gallery – Harbor Galaxy, October 2019

This walk through the rooms also symbolises a part of Harbor’s philosophy on art and creativity, that “the path of creation travels in one direction, then back again.”, although in this case, the walk takes us through the exhibition and then onward to an opportunity to visit the rest of the Ribong gallery spaces.

The art itself is visually striking – not just because of its physical size, but also in framing, content and presentation – so much so that individual descriptions of pieces are perhaps wasted, and viewing first-hand is required, particularly as the setting with its use of light and colour is very much a part of the overall exhibition. That said, I will admit to being particularly drawn to the two Mage images and Toxic Dreams a couple of rooms beyond them. Precisely why these images in particular caught and held my eye isn’t entirely clear to me, although I suspect with the Mage images, a degree of mythology played a part; looking at them, I found myself caught with thoughts of the shaman-like version of Herne the Hunter once popularised in a UK TV series.

Artspace 2535, Ribong Gallery – Harbor Galaxy, October 2019

With a “formal” launch at 14:00 SLT on Saturday, October 19th (having has a “soft” opening on Friday, October 18th), Alter Ego is an engaging, somewhat immersive exhibition.

SLurl Details

Frankenstein returns to Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey

In 2018, Fantasy Faire Radio partnered with Seanchai Library to broadcast a live radio adaptation of Mary Shelley’s classic Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus in celebration of the 200th anniversary of the novel’s original publication.

Now, as we approach Halloween 2019, the adaptation is being re-broadcast as a two-part event over the weekend of Saturday, October 19th and Sunday, October 20th.

Frankenstein is infused with elements of the Gothic novel and the Romantic Movement – and it has been argued it could be considered the first true science fiction novel. This is because a central character determines to follow “modern experiments in the laboratory” to achieve fantastic results, rather than simply achieving those fantastical results through fantastical means. Since its publication. the story has had a considerable influence in literature and popular culture and spawned a complete genre of horror stories, films and plays, as well as itself being turned into the last two, as well as being the focus of television and radio adaptations, musicals and even a ballet production.

The Fantasy Faire Radio broadcast features the voices of Da5id Abbot, Corwyn Allen, Zander Greene, Elrik Merlin, and Caledonia Skytower, with Shandon Loring as Victor Frankenstein’s creation in an adaptation of the original novel by Skytower and Abbot. Those wishing to do so can tune into the broadcasts on Saturday and Sunday as follows (times are SLT):

  • Saturday, October 19th beginning at 14:00.
  • Sunday, October 20th beginning at 11:00.

They can be heard via the web at:  fantasy.radioriel.org, or http://streams.radioriel.org:8070/stream.

However, for those who would like to hear either or both of the broadcasts in-world and in the company of others, two special listening parties will by taking place:

  • CocoaJava Cafe in Babbage Canals, New Babbage, hosted by Ceejay Writer during both the Saturday and Sunday broadcasts. The CocoaJava Cafe is a casual Steampunk/Victorian literary venue. Authors and bookworms are often found lounging on floor pillows by the fireplace or sipping a drink at the café tables. Mind the shop cat though, he’s odd.
  • Seanchai Library’s Ceiliuradh Glen at Holly Kai Park, hosted by Caledonia Skytower  for the Saturday Broadcast, with special Halloween music and dancing playing for an hour after the broadcast concludes (and possibly in the half hour before). Seanchai Library has been promoting stories and literature through live voice presentations since 2008. “The Glen” is one of six venues the Library has established at its home on Holly Kai Park, and pays tribute to Seanchai’s beginnings in the old West of Ireland Charity Estate.

Frankenstein on Fantasy Faire Radio is sponsored by The Ravenheart Museum of Art, Culture, and Curious Things, featuring one of the largest public collections of Alia’s Baroque’s Libertine Eggs by Alia Baroque, and hosting the exhibition A Conspiracy of Ravens (read here for more about both exhibitions).

Additional Links

2019 TPVD meeting week #42

Posted on by Inara Pey
Hotel California – Dancing in the Moonlight, September 2019 – blog post

The following notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on October 18th, 2019. A video of the meeting is embedded below, my thanks as always to Pantera for recording and providing it. This was a relatively short meeting, with a lot of text-based general chat. This being the case, key points are summarised below without the usual time stamps.

SL Viewer News

On Friday, October 18th, 2019:

  • A new Maintenance viewer, version 6.3.3.531784 and code-named Wassail, was released. This viewer is based on the current release viewer and contains some 30 fixes and includes viewer manager 2.0.531000 (used in launching the viewer).
  • The viewer RC viewer was merged with the current release viewer and updated to version 6.3.3.531811.

The remaining viewer pipelines remain as follows:

  • Current Release version 6.3.2.530962, formerly the Vinsanto Maintenance RC viewer, dated September 17, promoted October 15th, 2019 – NEW.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
  • Project viewers:
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.3.2.530836, September 17. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
    • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.530473, September 11.
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16.

The Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906 and Obsolete Platform viewer 3.7.28.300847 (Windows XP / Mac OS X below 10.7), are no longer listed on the Alternate Viewer page, but remain available via direct link.

In Brief

  • Currently, the next viewers in line for possible promotion are the Ordered Shutdown viewer and the Voice Update viewer, although the latter is awaiting either an update or information from Vivox.
  • Texture Loading / Caching viewer: work has resumed on this viewer, but it still remains some way out from appearing as a public release. Rider and Aura Linden are both working on this, although both are also engaged on other viewer projects.
  • Viewer build tools update (Visual Studio 2017 and Xcode 10.3 for OS X): said to be in “good condition” but no commitment as to when it will start to be used for production viewers.
  • As per my CCUG notes, the remaining issues for EEP are largely graphics related, both of the new graphics resources, Ptolemy and Euclid Linden are getting up to speed to be able to work on the project.