Art, AI and Totems in Second Life

Totem

tō′təm – noun

An animal, plant, or natural object serving among certain tribal or traditional peoples as the emblem of a clan or family and sometimes revered as its founder, ancestor, or guardian.

A representation of such an object.

A social group having a common affiliation to such an object.

So reads a typical dictionary definition definition for totem, a word believed to have entered the English language in the 18th century courtesy of the Ojibwe people, indigenous to the Subarctic and north-western woodlands of the North American continent. It is a term which perhaps most readily brings to mind the totem pole, although this is only one form a totem can take. It is also the one given by Lalie Sorbet to her latest exhibition of art, which opened at the Third Eye Gallery curated by Jaz (Jessamine2108) on July 29th, 2023.

Totem offers 16 AI generated, animated pieces representing plant totems intended not as emblems of a specific clan or family or ancestor, but in recognition of Nature itself – the greatest guardian for life and beauty there is on Earth.

Each of the pieces has been generated through the use of the Midjourney AI software, using a phrase or comment by Lalie, to produce images of leaves and flowers in exquisite close-up detail (thus mirroring Lalie’s equally captivating physical world macro photography). These images are then layered onto “blocks”, each with two faces (both facing the observer) each bearing an image, animated via script to move gently in opposition to one another to give the finished piece a sense of three-dimensional depth and life.

These are incredibly beautiful pieces, large in size, caught as if by a light breeze, their colours and brightness shifting in response to SL’s ambient lighting – make sure you are using the Shared Environment when visiting (World → Environment → Use Shared Environment) when visiting. They are rendered (presumably by considered post-processing by Lalie) to offer unique pieces, captivating in their presentation and potentially layered in their possible interpretation.

Take the pieces showing leaves for example. These have generally been rendered to present the lamina in a gossamer lightness, allowing major and minor veins to come to the fore, sometimes in a feather-like beauty, as they flow outwards from midrib to margins, gorgeously emphasising the life flowing through them.

In doing so, they reveal the marvellous complexity and elegance of nature’s design inherent in a leaf which otherwise tends to pass us by unseen. At the same time, the detail brought forth within each of these images echo other life-giving marvels of nature; the veins fanning outwards from the midrib, for example, are like the many outflow channels crossing the delta of a river, turning the wetlands between them into richly diverse living ecosystems.

Similarly, the pieces featuring flowers bloom not only present stunning studies which bring home the beauty and complexity of such blooms petals, stamen, stigma, anther, filament et al, their macro presentation reminds us, perhaps of both the interconnectedness of life on Earth through the simple, yet complex dance of pollination, and that it is also delicate and fragile; that if we do not learn to be better stewards of the world around us, to become better guardians of our planet, then its beauty, its very essence of life, will be all too fleeting.

I would have perhaps liked to have seen the terms Lalie used in initially used to generate each of the images through Midjourney displayed with each piece. However, this is a personal point of view and it does not diminish in any way from what is an engaging exihibition of AI art.

SLurl Details

• Third Eye Gallery (Ravenglass, rated Moderate)