Category: Second Life

December brings with it two evocative and personal exhibitions on the subjects of Christmas, the human condition and the world at large. They are presented by artists I greatly admire for their ability to give us pause for thought through their narrative whilst also offering us the opportunity to appreciate them for their pure artistic quality. Given this, and the fact that these exhibitions are being shown in the halls of the main gallery space at the Kondor Art Centre, I’ve opted to write about them in a joint article.

Within Christmas in Ukraine, Hermes Kondor once more offers a series of photo-like images generated via the Midjourney AI programme and the post-processed to provide a collection of digital prints that are rich in emotional content. The best way to describe it is through Hermes’ own words:

Christmas in Ukraine is a personal project created to pay a deep heartfelt tribute to the people of Ukraine who do not have the same right, as we do, to celebrate Christmas. 

– Hermes Kondor

Presented as a collection of 15 pieces in the manner of a photo-journalistic study, there are pieces not celebrating the resistance of the Ukrainian people against their invaders, but offered rather as stories of reunion, love and rejoining, as the men and women, wives and husbands, fathers and daughters, brothers and sisters, lovers and friends, may experience reunions of hope and peace across the their homeland, so rudely torn asunder throughout most of 2022.

Digital productions these may be, there is no denying the humanity they contain. They also stand as a reminder that, no matter what your political stripe, the use of organised military force through acts of war in suppression of others is not something to be celebrated but – in a so-called civilised age – preferably avoided. For while it may well by measured in terms of political (or religious) “success”, it is inevitably a story of human suffering.

Across the square, Scyllia Rhiadra presents God with Us: Essays on Christmas within the lower-floor setting of the 2-storey Main Gallery hall 1.

Utilising avatar-centric photographs posed and captured within Second Life, this is a richly layered collection that juxtaposes her images with quotes primarily from the Gospels concerning the birth of Christ (although some are taken more broadly from the Bible and other religious writers), to produce pieces that both reflect the Biblical presentation of Christ’s birth and offer modern commentary.

Within this structure, Scyllia also seeks to express a measure of her own attitude towards Christmas, encompassing childhood memories – presents under the tree, etc., – with her outlook on matters of faith and the Christmas message and the messages of hope, sacrifice and love it contains. These are aspects that Scyllia beautifully outlines within the artist’s notes available from the board just inside the gallery entrance. As such, and at the risk of putting words into Scyllia’s mouth, I’ll focus here on the broader message these images convey to me.

To me this broader message appears to be a commentary on the realities of the so-called “Christian spirit” as all too often espoused by the organised churches and branches of the Christian faith today and which – I would gamble – Christ himself would oppose were He here. This commentary appears throughout many of the pieces within this exhibition; perhaps most visibly The Innocents; however, I’ll focus my thinking on the neighbouring piece, No Room.

On the one hand, this is a modern-day representation of the plight faced by Joseph and his heavily pregnant wife: forced to make a long, uncomfortable trek from Nazareth to Bethlehem to fulfil political requirements, only to find themselves denied reasonable comfort and rest on their arrival. On the other, with its modern backdrop, it is a reminder that, in an age of mass human displacement, when Charity – the so-called greatest of the three Christian graces (the other being faith and hope – see 1 Corinthians 13:13) – is greatly needed the world over, it is all too often the loudest voices raised in opposition to the idea of any form of charity, large or small, being given, are those all too equally loudly raised in proclamations of their “Christian values”.

This layering of context and meaning can be found throughout God with Us: Essays on Christmas, encompassing elements such as the commercialisation of Christmas and the sheer selfishness that Christmas tends to bring out, and more. All of which marks this as an exhibition fully deserving of considered viewing.

Two superb exhibitions by two gifted artists, both Christmas in Ukraine, and God with Us: Essays on Christmas are appropriate and engaging exhibitions for the time of year, and I have no hesitation in recommending both.

SLurl Details

• Kondor Main Galley complex, Kondor Arts Centre (Waka, rated Moderate)

Update: December 15th: Aneli has announced the exhibitions below will be the last for La Maison d’Aneli

Here I am at the end of my adventure as a gallery owner, of course I will stay on Second Life as a simple artist … I thank all the people who accompanied me …. what a beautiful adventure we have shared, more than twelve years with an exhibition per month, and you always there. Long live creation!

– From a note sent out by Aneli Abeyante

The exhibition below will remain open through to January 14th, 2023. Aneli also notes that the La Maison d’Aneli group will remain open for people to share information on their artistic events and exhibitions.  

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December 14th, 2022 sees the official opening of five new exhibitions to see out the year at La Maison d’Aneli, curated by Aneli Abeyante. Produced and presented by five artists with highly individual skills and outlook, they present an intriguing mix that can engaging, amuse, possibly confuse, and provoke – and all of which are now available for viewing ahead of the formal opening.

Before going into specifics, when visiting all of these exhibitions, do make sure you have Advanced Lighting Model (ALM) enabled in your viewer (Preferences → Graphics → make sure Advanced Lighting Model is checked); although shadows do not have to also be enabled, so you can set the drop-down to No Shadows to reduce the rendering load. Also note also that this piece includes SLurls for teleporting directly to each exhibition.

Yann Gyro (sempiternel) is an artist whose work I do not recall having come across before, so his 3D installation at La Masion d’Aneli came as a new experience for me, being a piece I had difficultly in interpreting. Predominantly greyscale / black-and-white in nature, it appears to comprise multiple elements which at first seem to have no connection: a bridge wit water running over it and a broken egg below; black snow falling from a white sky, a series of heads in various stages of being drawn, a female head gazing upwards through a hail of falling musical notes and with a starscape and astronaut floating within, a map of the world formed by irregular blocks mounted on an irregular grid, and so on. Footsteps on the ground provide a guide to exploring the installation – and should be followed. But how might it be interpreted?

I eventually concluded this is a piece about finding balance. That on the one hand we have been given the gifts of evolution, creativity and the power to shape our own future (symbolised by the evolving heads, the musical notes falling from the sky; the dream of space travel an our quest to understand the cosmos contained within the female head; and the figure rising within the double helix); whilst on the other, those same gifts can result in environmental and physical destruction (the falling black snow; the shattering bridge and broken egg; the flower in the bell jar). Thus comes the suggestion that should we fail to balance these two sides in the manner of a gyroscope, they we will inevitably wobble, falter, and fail to keep to the true path of our potential.

ZackHerrMann, meanwhile, presents a further chapter in the life of his alter-ego Linda Cluster in celebration of art and music, using the virtual immersion of Second Life to recreate his physical world works representing Linda Cluster to give them greater depth and visual appeal.

Vibrant in their use of colour, animations and sue of geometry and symmetry, be aware that some of the surfaces within this installation are media-enabled, so be sure to click the “movie camera” icon in the top right of the viewer window to make sure media is enabled (you do not need to have the audio stream enabled, as this applies to the gallery as a whole (unless to want to).

Drawing is above all my favourite discipline, because everything starts from drawing. It’s the idea, it’s the mood, it’s the choice, and all artistic work begins with a drawing. For me, drawing expresses the gift of self, communicating the sensitivity, character, and sentiment of the individual. 

– Thanos Runner

Using his own words is perhaps the best way to introduce Livlic Ateliers by Thanos Runner. A multi-talented artist who prefers to focus on the human body and produce portraits of those he encounters through the medium of drawing rather than painting or digital composition.

His work is utterly captivating in the manner in which he captures his subjects and brings to the fore the beauty which can be called forth through the use of graphite lines on what paper by the skilled hand. At the same time his offers a richness of dialogue on the human form through his coloured images as they celebrate the human body.

Located in northern Tuscany, the Apuan Alps are renown for their  Carrara marble, the most quarried marble it the world and used since Roman times for monumental sculpture and in architecture, but which today sees much of the 9 million tonnes quarried annually devoted to the production of toothpaste – and in the process is devastating the mountains at an accelerated rate.

As a native of the region, Onceagain (Manoji Yachvili) presents Cave Hominem, a series of photographs of the quarrying operations as a pictorial diary of the destruction being wrought for Second Life users to absorb. Offered in monochrome shading which enhances the rude damage being wrought on a daily basis – damage which she notes has led to visible changes in the look of mountains from her home – and set within an environment reflective of that encountered within the quarries themselves, this is an exhibition encompassing environmental damage we all too willingly inflict on the world around us which rings out as loudly as the roar, clang and bang of the instruments and tools of destruction used to wreck the Apuans and lay claim to their rock.

With As Above, So Below, Traci Ultsch complete the circle of exhibitions by presenting an installation that is left open to interpretation in a manner similar to that of Yann Gyro’s at the top of this article. It is also a piece where, again, having ALM enabled is absolutely essential (otherwise all you’ll see is the inside of a white cube!). Presented in monochrome, eye-pipingly visual (perhaps literally so in the case of the main image?) I am at a loss to describe this work – so I’ll instead urge you to go see it for yourself, together with the other four exhibits herein reviewed.

The official opening for all five exhibitions will take place at 12:30 SLT on Wednesday, December 14th, 2022, with music provided by Traci Ultsch.

SLurl Details

• La Maison d’Aneli (Virtual Holland, rated Moderate)