Cica Ghost opened her latest installation on Saturday, March 7th 2020 for a month-long run. Entitled Another Fairy Tale, it offers a continuation of ideas first presented in Fairy Tale in 2017 (see: Cica’s Fairy Tale in Second Life), introducing a new family of fantastical creatures scattered across a twilight landscape.
Like Fairy Tale, this installation is introduced with a quote by a writer of tales, with Cica using words from Hans Christian Andersen: Everything you look at can become a fairy tale and you can get a story from everything you touch, and such is the evocative nature of the scene that for anyone who visited Fairy Tale, the intervening years between it and this installation simply vanish, and it is as if we’ve turned a page in Cica’s magical story and arrived at the start of a new chapter.
But while the original featured a somewhat bleak and barren landscape with columns of rock and branches bereft of leaves vied to reach the sky, here we are in a garden setting, where tall flowers point their colourful petals towards the darkening sky, and leafy vines droop their way around rocks even as flowerless shoots also rise towards the clouds scudding overheas, the ground beneath them mottled and covered by verdant, moss-like grass,
Within this setting reside creatures fantastical, some seemingly born of the land, some of the sea and some of the air; some with legs and / or wings, others limbless or with forelegs ans sinuous tails. Many are quadrupeds, some with cloven, hoof-like feet, with or without claws, others with foreleg appendages that appear to be capable of manipulating other objects.
All of them are united in the facial features, which range from the almost bovine (at first glance) of some through to the very anthropomorphic looks, the latter most noticeable in the winged creatures, graced with very a human-esque placement of forward looking eyes above a nose-like snout that in turn sits above a lipped mouth. All are faces suggestive of intelligence and awareness, eyes occasionally focusing on visitors, expressions set in frowns at being disturbed or what might be smiles of greeting.
How and where these creatures evolved is perhaps part of the region’s story. There is a suggestion that while some are now quadrupeds, they mostly share a heritage born of the surrounding waters, and that even now evolution is being witnessed as those with sinuous tails or bodies are adopting to life ashore, growing forelimbs – or they are at least given to being equally at home on land or in the sea. This idea is aided by another creature that rises slowly from the waters just offshore, as if gradually worming its way ashore, while nearby, a second, massive creature (a wonderful combining of mesh elements and the region’s terrain on Cica’s part to give it form and life) raises its bulk and head above the waves to look down on the landscape like a mother watching over her brood at play.
Whether this is a land of our own planet but hidden far, far, away from everyday human affairs (as can be the way of fairy tales) or is perhaps part of another world entirely is something also left to the imaginations of visitors. For those who like the interactive elements of Cica’s builds, be sure to mouse around; sit and dance points are waiting to be found within flowers and close to some of the land creatures, while grabbing a leg of one of the flying chaps will take you on a journey across the region, revealing many of its delights and curiosities – such as the Jaws-like rocks pushing up from the grass their open “mouths” partially lined with “teeth” revealing they are nests and home to as yet flightless version of the airborne creatures.
Imaginative, whimsical, and delightful, Another Fairy Tale is a delightful continuation of a trips through Cica’s worlds of the imagination. Do be sure to at least enable ALM when visiting to appreciate her always considered use of lighting projectors and materials.
SLurl Details
- Another Fairy Tale (Wisdim Isle, rated Moderate)
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 