Month: September 2021

Duna’s Simply Nature in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Janus Gallery II: Duna Gant – Simply Nature

Currently open at the Janus Gallery II at Sinful Retreat, Chuck Clip’s superb arts centre, is Simply Nature by Duna Gant. As the artist notes, this is something of a continuation of an earlier exhibition from around two years ago, entitled Poetic Lines, in that it furthers the minimalist theme started in that exhibition, turning the direction fully onto to nature. Thus, the twelve pieces offered at Janus Gallery II capture the elegant beauty of nature, as reflected in so many ways by creations within Second Life, in a marvellously minimalist style that have woven into them a central thematic thread of the interplay of light and water within nature’s realm.

This interplay is perhaps most directly expressed within the sculpture by Duna that spans the entrance to the gallery, itself called Light and Water. As well as offering an anchor for the surrounding images, this sculpture also personifies Duna’s central inspiration for her Second Life photography.

Given this, it should come as no surprise that several of the pieces offers images of the water and the sky, each of which is lightly rendered, both in terms of palette and touch; naturally drawing the eye to the further details within each piece, or which express the natural beauty waiting to be found within the sky itself or upon the ripples of water.

I have looked for those elements that, isolated from everything superfluous that surrounds them, represent by themselves a concept, a poetic line, that invites the viewer to open a door that leads them to interpret the image for themselves beyond what it represents.

– Duna Gant

Janus Gallery II: Duna Gant – Simply Nature

These are images that are almost haunting in their vacant expanse; they naturally draw the eye into them and invite the mind to frame a narrative around them. From Always with its slowly rising (or setting) Moon, through to Loneliness – to offer a minimal sense of progress around the images from lower floor to upper – there is a palpable sense of life, place and wonder, of emotion and thought, that leads the visitor onward from one image to the next, the story forming and re-forming almost prism-like as each new image is encountered. This sense of story is in some respects enhanced by the gallery itself: the dark walls and hidden entrance leaving the visitor with no distraction from the subtle, soft richness of the images.

Through her use of muted tones, minimal colour and both framing and blurring, Duna presents 12 pieces that speak to the beauty of nature, the way in which it can use the simplest of forms over and again, never repeating but also never really changing, to offer something uniquely beautiful, be it the spread of a tree against the sky or the sea, the roundness of a hill or sand dune, or the sense of escape and freedom evoked by the rolls and curls of clouds – a sense further and quite fabulously embodied by the flock of birds to be found in Get Away.

Janus Gallery II: Duna Gant – Simply Nature

An outstanding exhibition, Simply Nature speaks from and to the heart.

SLurl Details

A trip to The Rock in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Rock, September 2021 – click any image for full size

There are likely very few of us who have not heard of Alcatraz, the sitting within San Francisco Bay, just 2 km from the nearest shore. As well as being the home of the legendary prison of the same name that operated from 1934 through until early 1963, the island also served as the location of a lighthouse marking the island and the rocks around it and a military fort and barracks that also served as a military prison (notably holding Confederate prisoners of war during the US Civil War). It was in this latter capacity that the island received what is still perhaps its most famous landmark: the great prison block that straddles the island’s spine to this day, construction of which started in 1909.

From the start, the strong currents and cold waters of the Bay were seen as the most effective means of keeping those confined to the island on the island, thus leading in part, to the prison’s reputation when it became a federal prison. Intended to house the those prisoners who repeatedly caused problems in other federal prisons, it quickly gained a reputation for unforgiving firmness – the warders being trained purely in matter of security and control, but on in support and rehabilitation – that eventually lead to the expression that is one of the first things modern day visitors to the island – a US National Historic Landmark since 1986 – read on their arrival:

IF YOU BREAK THE RULES, YOU GO TO PRISON. IF YOU BREAK THE PRISON RULES, YOU GO TO ALCATRAZ
The Rock, September 2021

These are also the words Justice Vought uses as a tag for his latest region design, The Rock, which recently opened its gates to visitors in-world, and to which he invited me to pay a visit. And as with all things Justice does with his region designs, it offers mix of reality, art and mystery, whilst being highly photogenic as well as catching much of the spirit of the original.

Like the physical world’s Alcatraz, this La Isla de los Alcatraces (“Island of the gannets”, to use the original name coined by Juan Manuel de Ayala but which is oft given as “The Island of the Pelicans”), this one is reached via a ferry boat ride from the edge of the region as it abuts Justice’s main setting of :Oxygen: – just click on the red block over the water at the wharf landing point, then take a seat on the ferry when it appears.

The Rock, September 2021

Chugging away from the wharf, the ferry curves out and across the waters of the region to arrive at The Rock, coming alongside at Building 64, which originally served as a residential building for the military officers and their families living on the island, following its construction in 1905.

Recreating the entire 22 acres of the island  – or  just the 12-ish acres given over the prison – is not really feasible within a single region of 65,536 square metres total area, But what Justice has produced more than captures the core essence of the island: Building 64, the main prison block (sans mess / dining hall), the parade / exercise area, the lighthouse, the power generation building and its chimney and the water tower that forms one of the three major vertical structures on the island visible from the shore (alongside the aforementioned chimney and lighthouse).

The Rock, September 2021

Both Building 64 and the prison block have interior spaces, the former celebrating the legend of the prison and its cinematic history, the latter containing some of the tiny cells in which inmates were confined for the larger portion of their day, and the stark signage used to remind them that beyond food, clothing, shelter and access to medical attention, they had zero right to anything. The are cells made famous by latter-day day and night tours of the island, with visitors getting a brief opportunity to experience what it was like to be within the cells with the doors shut. Within the Rock, we can experience something of the same – and a little more.

Part of the fable of the prison is that, officially, no-one ever escaped alive – but up to three men may have actually done so (Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin), although their actual fates remain a mystery. However, like them, Justice offers visitors the means to make their own escape; only in this case, the escape route appears to make use of historical remains only discovered in 2019 by means of ground-penetrating radar – a “bombproof” shelter, tunnels and ventilation shafts under the former parade ground / exercise yard. Find the way into these, and route to a boat on the shore (rather than a raft, as with Morris and the Anglins) might be found, giving a way for people to get back to the “mainland” of :Oxygen:. I’ll leave you to find the way into the escape route, however!

The Rock, September 2021

Finished with a sound scape reflective of the physical island, the cry of gulls, the crash of surf on rocks and the plaintive call of a foghorn and caught under a lowering sky, The Rock offers a nicely atmospheric visit, one very different in tone – but no less appreciable – to that of :Oxygen: itself as it sits within its latest iteration.

However, a tour of :Oxygen: is a treat for another day and another article. For now, my thanks to Justice for the invitation and the opportunity to make the visit.

The Rock, September 2021

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Persona: emotions and self in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Kondor Art Centre Main Gallery: Hermes Kondor – Persona

Now open at the Kondor Art Centre Main Gallery is Persona, an intriguing selection of Second Life / Avatar-based images by the art centre’s owner and curator, Hermes Kondor. Intriguing, as that selection of images on display have apparently been selected by Janjii devling – although whether from Hermes’ existing collection of works or from a series of images specifically produced by Hermes with the intent to be used in this exhibition, I have no idea.

The 20+ images are a further tour de force of Hermes’ work as an artist. Each is a rich, digital collage study with an avatar focus. Either presenting a layering of colour or one if monochrome tones, each is a genuinely multi-faceted piece, a glimpse into a life offered through its layered, almost sharded finish, some of which offer a sense of the abstract, others touch upon the surreal, but each one carrying its own narrative. Collectively, these are all exceptionally tactile pieces – they draw out the desire to touch them as much as they call on us to study them and decipher their story.

According to the liner notes accompanying the exhibition, the narrative in each of these images is an intent to explore the idea of persona, the idea that we project facets of our personality depending on circumstance and audience. While this is very true as a theme within the images here, I found it to be somewhat too narrow a view, because while there is a projection of persona in these images, there is a far greater depth of emotion and a capturing of emotional expression.

Kondor Art Centre Main Gallery: Hermes Kondor – Persona

To be fair, this is touched upon within the liner notes, but it is this emotional expressionism that really comes to the fore in viewing the images. In some it is offered directly through the eyes of the subject in the image, or their expression(s), in others it is more subtle – such as the suggestion of music in Persona 091 for example. Of course, emotions and projection  / persona are inter-related, the one tends to give rise to the other; nevertheless so, allowing the mind to explore the former rather than attempting to define the latter – again for me – offered a richer experience.

These are also pieces that, whilst clearly the product of considered experimentation with software, the use of colour or tones, the structured nature of the layering within them, are obviously the result of a cartesian process, both on the part of the software itself (for obvious reasons), and the artist himself. This separates them from what we might regard as “traditional” abstract expressionism in works of art, which tends to be marked by a certain spontaneity, but it also offers a doorway into the medium of digital abstractionism  / abstract expressionism that has a unique richness of its own. Further, and in keeping with the works of Rothko, Newman and Still, these are pieces that carry a strength of symbolism that offers s further narrative avenue awaiting exploration.

Kondor Art Centre Main Gallery: Hermes Kondor – Persona

Evocative, rewarding, challenging and engaging, Personas offers multiple threads of exploration and interpretation. However, when visiting, I would perhaps suggest avoiding reading the posted curator and guest notes that sit on the gallery’s walls along with the images; not because they are in any way “wrong” or anything, but rather because doing so might constrain thinking around, and appreciation of, the images in their own right.

SLURL DETAILS

2021 SUG meeting week #37 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Missing Melody, May 2021 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, September 14th, 2021 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. The meeting was recorded by Pantera Północy, and the video is embedded at the end of this summary. Note this summary focuses on the key points of the meeting; where there is something to report, the video should be referred to should full details of the meeting wish to be reviewed.

Server Deployments

At the time of writing, the server deployment thread had not been published.

  • Tuesday, September 14th: no deployment to the Main SLS channel.
  • Wednesday, September 15th all simhosts should be updated to the same revisions to the new server configuration that was deployed to the Ferrari RC in week #36.

HTTP-Out Proxy

Monty Linden deployed the new HTTP-out proxies in week #36. It wasn’t entirely glitch-free (but not as bad as the August attempt), with issues occurring in a part of the configuration that didn’t allow for immediate correction. Monty hopes that the lessons learnt with make future deployments smoother.

SL Viewer

No updates to the current batch of official viewers to mark the start of the week, leaving the current pipelines as follows:

  • Release viewer: version version 6.4.22.561752, formerly the CEF Update RC viewer, issued July 24 and promoted August 10.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Grappa Maintenance RC, version 6.4.23.563012, dated August 24.
    • Happy Hour Maintenance 2 viewer, version 6.4.23.562602, issued August 23 (dated August 20).
    • Simplified Cache RC viewer, version 6.4.22.561873, dated August 9.
  • Project viewers:
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.4.23.563579, issued September 3.
    • Performance Floater project viewer, version 6.4.23.562625, issued September 2.
    • Mesh Optimizer project viewer, version 6.4.23.562614, issued September 1.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26.
    • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.

In Brief

  • The question was asked on why, when set using llCollisionSound, the sound heard on colliding with an object will revert to the default if the script making the change is removed, rather than being retained as a prim property (like other sounds “scripted into” an object). This is because currently, the sound remains a property of the script, but there are plans to make it consistent with other prim properties.
  • LL are working on “stuff” (Mazidox Linden’s term) to help with more efficient script running within regions. The precise details remained unspecified, although some aspects of the work are already on at least some of the RCs channels, and the hope is to get more grid-wide by the end of the year.
  • The Percentage Script Run metric within the viewer stats (CTRL-SHIFT-1) is not seen by the Lab as a particularly useful metric when compared to something like total scripts run, as the Percentage Run metric can depend on circumstance, rather than being indicative of actual simulator performance.
    • Example: a region running 1000 out of 1000 scripts in a frame will report 100%, whilst a region running 1000 out of 10,000 will report 10% – but both are processing the same number of scripts, and so performing equally in this regard.
    • Monty Linden also pointed out that the Percentage Run metric can easily be warped simply by the behaviour of a single script, and noted he has some new internal metrics he is testing that he hopes might provide a better perspective of script performance within a region.
  • The above points led to an open discussion on script processing as a whole: the use of “fairness” policies to prevent parcels within a region making too heavy a call on simulator / simhost resources (including being swamped by heady script loads on avatars, etc.); allocating script memory size; general ideas on improving script efficiency through the use of things like regular expressions; etc.
    • This conversation included a comment from Rider Linden that LL would be interested in the Firestorm script pre-processor were it to be contributed.
    • The suggestion was made that LL could provide HTTP-out access using the AWS Dynamo DB for those who need bigger KVP databases – and it was pointed out that users can always rent their out Dynamo DB stack.
    • No specifics on what the Lab might or won’t do vis scripts and script management, although Monty Linden revealed he’s been personally speculating on the advantages (or otherwise) of “higher level functionality” in the LSL libraries so that “more could be done with less code” – although he has only general ideas of possible functions in this regard.
    • See the video for more on specifics.

Lana’s seasons in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
LANA, September 2021 – click any image for full size

Valarie (Zalindah) is a region designer whose work I have covered on multiple occasions in this blog; working on her own or with with Jayden Mercury, she has created a series of memorable region designs over the last few years, all of which I have enjoyed visiting So I was delighted to visit her most recent design for 2021, which opened in August within a Homestead region.

A solo design by Valerie, LANA presents a rich, and in places quirky, setting. The name she has chosen for the setting is rich in its potential meanings – loyalty, wool, an alternate form of the names Alana or Helen, the name of a village in the Tyrol region, and so on. Here, Valerie offers her own definition for the word for the name of her design:

To be ‘calm as still waters’ or ‘afloat’, holding on and inhaling what the world has to offer despite experiencing loss. Allowing nature to take over, seasons to tease you and animals to be our friends. 

– LANA, About Land description

LANA, September 2021

It’s an interesting introduction to the region, suggesting as it does this is a place of recuperation from loss, together with the idea of renewal and recovery, of giving space. Almost all of this is present within the region, which offers itself for rest, exploration and enjoyment; but whether drawn to it out of a sense of loss or not is really down to personal circumstance, although there is  more than enough within the setting to allow memories free passage as we explore.

This is also place, as the description notes, that teases visitors with the four seasons, from a tropical summer in the south-east, through warmer summer greens around the middle of the setting that rise to a large northern hilltop rich in the sense of spring. These are balanced to the west by an autumnal setting that surrounds a small pair of roads and their buildings and, north of this, an avenue of trees that carry the darker green of later summer days as they skirt the base of the springtime hill to reach a small winter’s headland.

LANA, September 2021

It is on the western side of the region, sitting in the bay between autumn and winter, that the landing point sits. This has the first quirk in the region, a short spur of rail line that extends into the water to end in a photo backdrop and on which a single railcar sits. The latter blocks the walk to shore and must be waded around, although this is not an inconvenience, as it reveals the first hint of the oriental touches to the setting in the form of lanterns floating in the water.

Further oriental touches can be found across the setting – such as in the winter headland, for example, where torii gates lead the way to to the upper part of a pagoda sits on a rocky outcrop or up on the springtime hilltop, ripe in Sakura blossom that surround a koi house and its little garden. Not that the far east is the only influence here. The route from tropical beach to hilltop spring, for example is marked by ruins that might be considered medieval in looks – but could also be from central or southern Asia (as well as having a slight elven lean to that as they reach up to the Japanese-style bridge that spans the hilltop’s bubbling stream.

LANA, September 2021

The animals mentioned within the About Land description take multiple forms, from the familiar to the fantastical. Most seem to be standing guard or observing what is going on close by. For example, a floating market in the central lake that carries echoes of Indonesia is being watched over by tigers, while, the route between beach and hilltop appears guarded at various points by a black panther (bringing forth thoughts of Bagheera, Mowgli and India) within the ruins, an albino lion along the path leading to the Koi house and between them, on the bridge, a flying (if wingless) dragon.

To the west, in the little urban setting with is overgrown streets and tumble-down buildings, deer away discovery, watched over by the statue of a Chinese dragon sat before a torii gate, whilst overhead, a chinthe-like dragon hovers with lazy wing flaps. Even the path from the landing point is watched over by a red panda – albeit it one of the stuffed toy variety (and a little oversized!). More animals await discovery, but I’ll leave them for you to find.

LANA, September 2021

Throughout all of this are places to sit and relax, some in the open, others at the townside cafes or in the Koi house, and one neatly tucked away under a hill that might be missed by the hasty. Needless to say, there are also numerous opportunities for photography.

Finished with a gentle sound-scape, LANA adds-up to an engaging visit rich in detail without feeling crowded, with room to explore without feeling you’re constantly bumping into others.

LANA, September 2021

SLurl Details

  • LANA (rated Moderate)

Aliens, fairy tales, music and witches in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Seanchai Library

It’s time to highlight another week of storytelling in Voice by the staff and volunteers at the Seanchai Library. As always, all times SLT, and events are held at the Library’s home in Nowhereville, unless otherwise indicated. Note that the schedule below may be subject to change during the week, please refer to the Seanchai Library website for the latest information through the week.

Monday, September 13th 19:00: The Weigher

A world dominated by sentiment big cats where the rule of law is enforced by the Weighers, a combination of judge, peacemaker and accountant through a brutal code of honour and combat. Without their violent intervention in things, all-out war and anarchy would ensue.

When two human explorers – fragile, weak and potentially easy prey – arrive on that world, Slasher, a Weigher of skill and talent in physical combat, finds herself defending them. In doing so, she finds herself a disgraced outcast.

Join Gyro Muggins as he resumes the story by Eric Vinicoff and Marcia Martin.

Tuesday, September 14th

12:00 Noon: Russell Eponym

With music, and poetry in Ceiluradh Glen.

19:00: Nightbird

Twig lives in Sidwell, where people whisper that fairy tales are real. After all, her town is rumoured to hide a monster. And two hundred years ago, a witch placed a curse on Twig’s family that was meant to last forever. But this summer, everything will change when the red moon rises. It’s time to break the spell.

Willow Moonfire read’s Alice Hoffman’s novel.

Wednesday, September 15th, 19:00 TBA

Check the Seanchai Library website for updates.

Thursday, September 16th, 19:00: The Sea and Little Fishes

Caledonia Skytower takes us back to Terry Pratchett’s Discworld for a tidy little tale of allowing someone to prove they are wrong – whether in word or deed or both.

It is time for the annual Lancre Witch Trials, and  Lettice Earwig appoints herself as head of a cadre of witches who decide Granny Weatherwax should not compete on account of her winning every year. Asking her to step aside is anticipated as a possibly unpleasant task – so when she agree with disarming courtesy. Just what could it mean…?

First published in 1998, Pratchett later explained that the title of the story comes from an ancient saying (which he’d made up!): The big sea does not care which way the little fishes swim.