An Underwater World at Le Monde Perdu in Second Life

Luane’s Underwater World, July 2022 – click any image for full size

It might not seem that long since I last wrote about LuaneMeo’s Luane’s World – largely because it isn’t; I covered the spring look to the region just a couple of months back, in May 2022 (see Spring 2022 at Le Monde Perdu in Second Life).

However, I have good reason for returning so quickly to the region of Le Monde Perdu (The Lost World), because Laune, again working with Gorba McMahon, has made the Summer 2022 build a place to be enjoyed by both land lovers and those who enjoy dipping under the waves in either human form or as merfolk, as she presents Luane’s Underwater World.

Laune’s Underwater World, July 2022

With this iteration, the setting presents a south-facing arc of land sitting with its back to the rest of Luane’s estate, which embraces a wide and relatively deep bay within its protective arms. The south-facing arc of the land forms a sweeping curve of sun-bleached sand with many places set across it for people to sit or cuddle as gulls wheel and turn overhead, and waves break gently against the sloping sand.

Behind the beach, the land rises sharply but not precipitously or to great height; just enough to present stepped uplands sliced into from the north by a tight inlet, and whose grassy hills carry a suggestion of this being a Mediterranean setting, courtesy of the Tuscan style villas, houses and outlands scattered across them. Furnished within and showing outward signs of being occupied, these are actually public spaces as well, offering further places to sit and pass the time – and, as with the beach, plenty of opportunities for photos.

Luane’s Underwater World, July 2022

However, do be aware that behind the villa occupying the north-east lowlands, there is a trail and bridge leading into the neighbouring regions of the estate. These regions do have private residences scattered across them, so do please take care to avoid trespassing when wandering in that direction.

Throughout the landscape, there is a gentle sense of peace and of time passing slowly; a vibe that this is a place where nothing seems to happen as the minutes and days tick one to the next. But dive into the waters of the bay, and it becomes apparent something has happened here at some point. Caught in the arms of the land and sheltered under the waves is a world which at one time lay above the waters that now guards it.

Luane’s Underwater World, July 2022

This is a place rich in colour, with corals and anemones bloom, oysters hold great pearls, shark, fish, dolphin and turtle swim – and the ruins of an ancient civilisation stand in silence, the wooden wreck of a once proud sailing ship close to hand.

Exactly what caused this place to drown and when it happened is unclear – and actually unimportant; for who is to say this place was ever once above the waters of that bay? Perhaps the ruins and statues here were not carved by human hand, but by those of the merfolk they appear to celebrate?

Laune’s Underwater World, July 2022

What is clear is that here, among the corals and anemone, watched over by sea creatures great and small, are many more hiding places where lovers can rest in one another’s arms, photographers can find ready to be used within their arts, and those who simply want to sit and pass a little time can find peace. Some of these may well be out in the open and easy to spot, but others are tucked away and may require a little effort to find – but it will be time well spent, and are welcoming to both human and merfolk.

As always, Laune’s World offers much to see and appreciate with this Summer 2022 build, and I recommend that rather than reading my twaddle, you go see for yourselves!

Luane’s Underwater World, July 2022

SLurl Details

Traci’s Formless in Second Life

ArtCare Gallery: Traci Ultsch – Formless

Currently open through to mid-August 2022 at ArtCare Gallery, curated by Carelyna, is Formless, a collection of 24 monochrome collages by Traci Ultsch, built using photographs and paintings, some or all of which might just be unfinished – hence the title: Formless.

Traci is typically self-effacing about the art on show, stating:

This exhibit follows on from the ‘Crash’ and ‘Overdose’ works from 2021 in being concerned with more personal subjects, this one specifically dealing with more recent events … They are not what they are. Or maybe they are, who am I to tell anyone what to think about any of this. Maybe it’s just a self indulgent ego driven attempt at getting attention in some over dramatic way.
ArtCare Gallery: Traci Ultsch – Formless

For those who may not have witnessed either Overdose (reviewed here) or Crash (reviewed here) these were very personal pieces (Overdose dealing with the two faces of addiction, Crash a exploration of the nature of art and its relationship with both the artist and the observer); heady and rich subjects for exploration. Here, the pieces are – on the surface – more esoteric in nature; but they are far from being merely an attempt to gain attention, offering as they do a richness of expression and reflection on the likes of life, love, human nature, age, and relationships.

To start with, let’s take the manner in which they images have been set out; a huge amount of consideration has been given to theme, point and counter-point. Grouped into sets of three, each set with its own collective title. These triplets have then bee set out in pairs, two sets of three per wall, each pairing linked by their respective titles, which offer a mix of counter-point to one another (e.g. Just Like Heaven / Just Like Nothing) or a continuation of a central idea (e.g. Don’t Wake Me Up / I’m Dreaming of You).

ArtCare Gallery: Traci Ultsch – Formless

Within the individual sets of three is a richness of metaphor that helps direct one to thoughts on the ideas of love and life, age, relationships, and so on. Some of these are richly expressive in their simplicity of approach, yet deeply layered in potential meaning.

The left and centre pictures within I Wish You Were Dead, for example, with the twisted shape (shrivelled leaf? slug?) offer both an evocation of the central wish in the most visceral of ways (assuming the object is a slug), and also – with it’s shape mindful of female genitalia – a cruel twist on the wish focused on barrenness / loss of sexuality.

ArtCare Gallery: Traci Ultsch – Formless

However, there is a risk that in saying this much, I an artificially constructing a framework around these pieces outside of the artist’s core intent – which may equally be to offer a series of pieces we can chose to interpret through the lens of our own life experience and the events that have most recently affected us. As such, I’ll close my ramblings here and encourage you to visit formless via the SLurl below.

SLurl Details

A Rain-Washed Soul in Second Life

Rain-Washed Soul, July 2022 – click any image for full size
Rain-Washed Soul is an immersive sound environment nestled into nature, complete with guided meditations, Tibetan singing bowls, and of course the soothing sounds of rain and thunder. Have a cup of tea, meditate, relax and be one with your surroundings while listening to the healing and renewing sounds of rain and thunder.

So states the Destination Guide entry for this little setting, a part of The Nature Collective, designed by Emm (Emmalee Evergarden), and it was more than enough to guide me to Rain-Washed Soul.

Rain-Washed Soul, July 2022

Located on the northern arc of Heterocera, and tucked between Route 6 and the railway (with access directly off of Route 6), this is a parcel-based setting intended – as the description above suggests – to create a little haven of peace and retreat for those who need it.

The landing point for the locations sits on a covered boardwalk that effectively links the two halves to the setting, which overall has an east-west orientation.

Rain-Washed Soul, July 2022

To the west, surrounded by trees and with its back to the neighbouring parcel (reached through a gate in the fence), is an A-frame retreat, reached via a walk through a light tropical shower. It offers a place of meditation for individuals or groups, with a cosy little shelter for two close by. This is a place rich in local sounds, and visitors are encouraged to turn up in-world sounds and try the local bells, etc., to appreciate the local soundscape.

At the eastern end of the boardwalk the land is a little more open, with a stone terrace with a little information kiosk, together with places to sit, waterfalls, and a further immersive soundscape, with everything watched over by the local wildlife.

Rain-Washed Soul, July 2022

As with all locations connected to The Nature Collective, Rain-Washed Soul is participating in TNC’s summer hunt (July 18th through 21st, 2022) – details available from the signs within the setting.

A simple, charming little place to visit, with plenty of opportunities to recharge the batteries and forget worries!

SLurl Details

2022 SUG meetings week #29 summary

The Lost Gardens of Pompeii, June 2022 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, July 19th, 2022 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article for those wishing to review the meeting in full – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.

Server Deployments

No deployment plan notes were available on the forums at this time of writing this update.

  • There was no deployment for the SLS Main channel on Tuesday, July 19th, leaving all servers assigned to the channel on the crash fix deployment of Friday, July 8th (version 573149). However, the simhost servers were restarted.
  • On Wednesday, July 13th, the LeTigre RC simulator version 573176 (joining BlueSteel), intended to help future deploys work better. Simhosts on the remaining RC channels will be restarted without any deployment.
  • This means that BUG-232324 “Add STATUS_DIE_AT_NO_ENTRY Object Status” will now not be deployed until week #30. In the meantime, the functionality will be available for testing on Aditi’s Jigglypuff region “by the end of the week”.

Available Official Viewers

No official viewer updates at the start of the week, leaving the current crop as:

  • Release viewer: version 6.6.1.572458 – formerly the Maintenance M(akgeolli) RC viewer, promoted June 29 – no change.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
    • Nomayo Maintenance RC (Maintenance N) viewer, version 6.6.2.573023, July 11.
    • Maintenance Optimisations RC version 6.6.2.573065, July 7.
  • Project viewers:
    • Performance Floater project viewer, version 6.5.4.571296, May 10.
    • Mesh Optimizer project viewer, version 6.5.2.566858, dated January 5, issued after January 10.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26, 2020.

In Brief

  • There was further discussion on the issue of overflow object return (as opposed to Autoreturn) and locked objects following the filing of Feature Request BUG-232368 “A “Locked” object should resist being returned, and change how objects are returned”, which also involved the return of coalesced objects, handling of No Copy objects in coalesced returns, etc. Please refer to the video below.
  • There there been an uptick in HTTP 499 (timeout) errors between in-world objects and external servers.
  • Please refer to the video below for the full meeting.

Abyssal – the art of Abyss Artful in Second Life

Kondor Art Centre – Into the Future Gallery: Abyss Artful

Abyss Artful is one of Second Life’s foremost avatar photographers, with pieces so highly regarded they have been used in the promotion of events such as SL19B. Her work – available on Flickr – centres on sci-fi /cyberpunk and fantasy, although not necessarily exclusively so, and all of which are rich in narrative.

Given Abyss has been active in Second Life for 13+ years, and has a deserved reputation for her work, it’s perhaps surprising to learn that Abyssal 1, currently on display at the Into The Future gallery at the Kondor Arts Centre, is the first exhibition of her work Abyss has mounted in-world.

Kondor Art Centre – Into the Future Gallery: Abyss Artful
Some 30 pieces are presented across the gallery, from the lower flower through the mezzanine catwalk to the roof. They may not have been produced specifically for this exhibition  – but this does not meant there are any the less for being seen. Rather the reverse, in fact, as the selection offered brings home the sheer richness of expression and story Abyss puts into her work.

These are genuinely pieces that do not require extended exposition on my part; each one marvellously speaks for itself. So, this being the case, I’m going to shut up and encourage you to go see for yourselves!

Kondor Art Centre – Into the Future Gallery: Abyss Artful

SLurl Details

This week with Seanchai Library – July 18th-22nd

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, July 18th, 19:00 Dandelion Wine

The inventor who almost took the pleasure out of life by building a Happiness Machine; the young reporter who fell in love with an alluring lady of ninety; the old gentleman whose last act was listening to the clang of a green trolley car going round a corner, two thousand miles away.

These are just a few of strange and vivid people who entered the secret world of a twelve-year-old boy during one enchanted summer when he discovered the fact that he really was alive…

“The summer of ’28 was a vintage season for a growing boy. A summer of green apple trees, mowed lawns, and new sneakers. Of half-burnt firecrackers, of gathering dandelions, of Grandma’s belly-busting dinner. It was a summer of sorrows and marvels and gold-fuzzed bees. A magical, timeless summer in the life of a twelve-year-old boy named Douglas Spaulding—remembered forever by the incomparable Ray Bradbury.”

With Ktadhn Vesuvino.

Tuesday, July 13th

12:00 Noon: Russell Eponym

With music, and poetry in Ceiluradh Glen.

19:00: The Last Cuentista

There lived a girl named Petra Peña, who wanted nothing more than to be a storyteller, like her abuelita.

But Petra’s world is ending. Earth has been destroyed by a comet, and only a few hundred scientists and their children – among them Petra and her family – have been chosen to journey to a new planet. They are the ones who must carry on the human race.

Hundreds of years later, Petra wakes to this new planet – and the discovery that she is the only person who remembers Earth. A sinister Collective has taken over the ship during its journey, bent on erasing the sins of humanity’s past. They have systematically purged the memories of all aboard – or purged them altogether.

Petra alone now carries the stories of our past, and with them, any hope for our future. Can she make them live again?

Caledonia Skytower read Donna Barba Higuera’s 2021 winner of the  Newbery Medal and Pura Belpré Award.

Wednesday, July 14th, 19:00: Seanchai Flicks

A special for Star Wars month as the Seanchai cinema space plays host to videos and throw popcorn around!

Thursday, July 15th, 19:00: Thursday Night Sci-Fi

With Finn Zeddmore.