Category: Second Life

Bamboo Barnes is back a Nitroglobus Roof Gallery for July, with an exhibition occupying the main a hall of Dido’s Haas’ superb arts venue. She comes with a new collection of pieces gathered under the title Colores Primarios (Primary Colours), offering a total of 21 pieces (six of which offer an engaging commentary on the core theme for the exhibition, lined as they are along one wall of the gallery’s space), with a fair number beautifully animated.

Whilst coming a touch over a year since her last exhibition at Nitroglobus, Colores Primarios shares something of a spiritual connection with that last display of her work – Tranquil Droplets -, presenting as it does reflections on the nature of life. However, where that exhibition focused on light and dark as expressions of mood, here Bamboo asks us to consider the colours we use in defining moments and moods and which, ultimately, define who we are.

What colour is the ground you cower on?
What colour is the sigh your breath makes?
What colour is that place where you fall asleep?

What are your basic colours?

– Bamboo Barnes, Colores Primarios

We’re all familiar with the concept of using colour to define our emotional states – red with embarrassment; down and blue; green with envy; a black mood; white with rage; a rosy smile, and so on. We are all likely familiar with the idea of our aura; the supposed spiritual / energy field said to surround all living things (yes, George, we know where you got your idea for the Force from!), which is also expressed in terms of colour: red, green, blue, orange, yellow, white, violet, black.

But what if, rather than standing as simple reflections of mood or state, colours were a genuine outflow of every moment of life; something informed by where we are, what we are feeling, events recently passed, and so on? Colours that, if visible, would literally paint our lives for all to see – what would they show? How would they ebb and flow? Would they further reveal us, giving expression to not only the emotions we are feeling, but the depth of those emotions (Neon Glitch)? Would they be forever flicking and changing, moment to moment (the Assemble 3 series)? Would they offer a reflection of us that is real, or own that is blurred by our own confusion?

How would they define us to both ourselves and those around us? What would we say through them?

I offer no answers here; Colores Primarios deserves to speak directly to all who see it and give pause to consider what it has to say. As always, Bamboo’s work is rich in colour and presentation, primal in look – again, reflection the exhibition’s title – and always absorbing; an exhibition once again supported by Adwehe’s colour spheres.

SLurl Details

• Nitroglobus Roof Gallery (Sunshine Homestead, rated: Moderate)

Currently open at Artspace 3042, a part of the Ribong art hub curated by San (Santoshima), is A Nightingale Sang by Bleu (Bleu Oleander), a visually engaging celebration of the magic of working with prims in Second Life.

The piece takes its title from the British romantic song A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square (lyrics by Eric Maschwitz and music by Manning Sherwin), published in 1940; specifically the opening to lines of what has become the more traditional rendition of the song (Maschwitz actually wrote an initial opening verse that tends to be dropped from the majority of recordings):

That certain night, the night we met
There was magic abroad in the air.

However, rather than referencing the love between two people, the lyrics here are used to underline that moment when human imagination and expression meet the creative promise and digital beauty of the humble prim, a moment when the most magical of relationships can begin.

In this age of external mesh tools, LODs, uploads and the need to familiarise oneself with dozens of workflows and practices in order to create something within the digital void, it is easy to forget just how powerful and rich Second Life’s in-built tools and capabilities are in their ability to give all of us the ability to build and create.

Prims don’t need complex workflows or multiple different applications; everything needed to create something captivating lies right here within the viewer, or, thanks to things like texture and script libraries, just a few clicks of the mouse away. And the skills to bring it all together can be acquired whilst remaining within Second Life, rather than far away within the near-isolation of this or that graphics tool.

From the landing point A Nightingale Sang takes visitors on a journey through a darkened space in which reside the most marvellous sculptures created and animated by Bleu. In both 2D and 3D, all of them are constructed by bringing prims together and then using scripts, textures, and the tools of the viewer – notably, for the visitor, the use of Advanced Lighting Model (Preferences → Graphics → make sure Advanced Lighting Model (ALM) is checked – this will also enable projected lighting without the need to keep Shadows enabled) – to create a richly visual installation.

Equally spaced through out the rising and falling levels of the space, the pieces are perfectly positioned so that each can be appreciated in turn – again, I’d advise using the local environment settings (World → Environment → Use Shared Environment). Also, as you explore, don’t forget to look up as well as around.

These pieces are simple yet complex living demonstrations of how we can use the tools before us to bring life to what might initially look to be little more than simple shapes to create something unique; of how once we have learn to rez and glue, an entire world of potential lies within our grasp, a world we can explore alone or with friends and in which the limits as to how far we go are defined by how far we want to go.

At the top of the installation can be found a little chapel, on the “alter” of which sit those basic shapes available within the Build floater that open the door to universe of creativity. Because, as someone once said: it all starts with a cube.

SLurl Details

• A Nightingale Sang at Ribong Gallery Artspace (Mieum, rated General)