I received an invitation from Bamboo Barnes to visit her SLEA installation The Core – Murky Sphere. Bamboo is, as I’ve frequently noted in these pages one of the most vibrant, evocative, provocative, and emotive artists displaying her work in Second Life; I’ve never failed to be intrigued and fascinated by her exhibitions for multiple reasons.
With The Core – Murky Sphere, Bamboo offers something of an enigmatic installation; there are no notes from the artist supplied to offer thoughts or ideas, just a single poem and a hint of a theme in the accompanying biographical notes. And this is good, as it leaves the mind uncluttered when entering, free to consider the art and the words of the poem and those Bamboo offers following it.
However, before getting into things, do note that this is an installation best viewed under the Shared Environment and on a PBR enabled viewer. Draw Distance does not have to be high (around 64 metres will suffice), and if graphics quality can be pushed up to around High, so much the better.
The arrival point sits with a tunnel, the way ahead marked by a series of avatar studies by Bamboo. Two red spheres sit alongside the arrival point and, when touched, will supply a copy of the poem and Bamboo’s biography. Both should be taken and read. Beyond the tunnel, the installation opens out into the interior of a large cube.
On first viewing, this appears to be chaotic; 2D art and shapes mixing with 3D geometric forms including a cube-within-a-cube (with more elements within) and what what might be a square stage, and seemingly random appearances of the poem. However, this is entirely in keeping with the thread of theme Bamboo offers for the installation in her biographical notes: a visualisation of emotions. Because is not a tumult of emotions we can so often feel – particularly in response to something – the most chaotic of experiences?
This is reason enough to consider the installation: a personal exploration through art of often tumbled nature of our own emotions. But there are perhaps other interpretations lying within it and revealed according to our own outlook on life. For example, one that occurred to me is that the installation seems to also speak to matters identity and alienation, of hatred / anger expressed by some for the somehow-threatening differences they see in others, differences expressed within the installation by the repeated use of images and forms.
This is because the majority of the poem seems to speak of separation, of alienation and isolation, be it by choice or by being a member of a clique in which it is easy to subsume personal doubts and fears by giving vent to anger and the dismissal of others on the basis of their differences, their beliefs or outlook or thoughts. In doing so, it is possible to feel safe, strong – and even “cool” when among those sharing such views. For those encountering these attitudes it can be disturbing, thoughts and emotions on the encounter rising unbidden long after occurred, just as the poem itself appears several times amidst the art of the installation.
The words accompanying the poem, meanwhile, serve as a reminder that the differences we see in others are not failures or weakness or something to be scorned / feared; they are the very things that make all of us unique – and perhaps better and stronger as a whole. Through acceptance of such differences come opportunities to learn, to grow, to find common ground and end the negative separation created by anger, fear and hatred and find more in the way of harmony together. As the final line of the poem itself notes: separation, anger, fear lead a person nowhere – but that doesn’t stop those whom they would shun and reject from caring about them.
But again, that a personal reaction to The Core – Murky Sphere; there are obviously others (another that came to my mind was more in line with the idea of self-reflection, but I’ll say no more on that here). So this being the case, you should take those two paragraphs above with a degree of scepticism and put them aside when visiting The Core – Murky Sphere, and allow it to speak directly to you unencumbered by any preconceptions.
Slurl Details
- The Core – Murky Sphere (SLEA1, rated: Moderate)
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 