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.
January 10th, 19:00: A World Out of Time
After being cryogenically frozen in the 1970s to await a cure for his (then) incurable cancer, Jaybee Corbell awakes after more than 200 years – to find his own body destroyed and his mind and memories transferred into the “mindwiped” body of a criminal. And this is not all that has changed: the Earth is now overseen by an oppressive, totalitarian global government called “The State”, and Corbell’s existence is to be determined by a “checker”; if he is found wanting, he will be discarded.
However, Peerssa, the checker, recommends Corbell as ideal fodder in The State’s attempts to seek out exoplanets suitable for terraforming. Disgusted by his treatment, Corbell works out a way to take control of his one-person ship on its otherwise one-way mission, and heads toward the galactic core. Entering suspended animation, he is unaware his vessel skims close enough to the super-massive black hole at the centre of the galaxy to experience time dilation.
Emerging from his suspended state, and believing only 150 years have passed, Corbell returns to the solar system to find it vastly changed: more than three million years have passed, and the Sun has become a bloated red giant, and Earth … well, Earth appears to have been relocated to an orbit around Jupiter, whilst humanity itself had endured extensive changes – and Corbell must face an entirely new set of challenges if he is to survive.
Join Gyro Muggins as he reads the 1976 novel (and originally a short story) by Larry Niven.
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation
Updates from the week ending Sunday, January 9th, 2022
This summary is generally published every Monday, and is a list of SL viewer / client releases (official and TPV) made during the previous week. When reading it, please note:
It is based on my Current Viewer Releases Page, a list of all Second Life viewers and clients that are in popular use (and of which I am aware), and which are recognised as adhering to the TPV Policy. This page includes comprehensive links to download pages, blog notes, release notes, etc., as well as links to any / all reviews of specific viewers / clients made within this blog.
By its nature, this summary presented here will always be in arrears, please refer to the Current Viewer Release Page for more up-to-date information.
Note that for purposes of length, TPV test viewers, preview / beta viewers / nightly builds are generally not recorded in these summaries.
Official LL Viewers
Release viewer: version version 6.5.1.566335, formerly the Cache+ 360 Capture viewer, dated December 7, promoted December 15 – No change.
Kondor Art Centre – Into the Future Gallery: Clau Dagger
January 6th 2022 saw the opening of Awakening, an exhibition of art by Clau Dagger, which is being held at the Into The Future Art Gallery, a part of the Kondor Art Centre, operated by Hermes Kondor.
Specialising in avatar studies, Clau is an artist photographer whose work I’ve not previously seen exhibited in-world, but who has – as this exhibition demonstrates – a talent for creating images that not only present her avatar, but offer an entire story within – and beyond – their frame. As someone who always tends to look for a narrative within a picture, this makes her work particularly fascinating to me.
Kondor Art Centre – Into the Future Gallery: Clau Dagger
Comprising over 30 images spread across the three levels of the gallery building, the art within Awakening presents an visually engaging mix of studies that are richly expressive in terms of their colour and presentation, and which offer a range of themes and stories. From “simple” pictures celebrating the seasons, through to those focused on fantasy, horror, science fiction and glamour, with dips into literature and film, this is a collection that will capture the eye and offer a richness of story that extends will beyond the framing of each picture on its own.
While there are many who practice the art of avatar study and in creating single-frame stories with their images; Clau’s work stands apart in the level of detail presented in each piece. From backdrop through props, to angle, framing, focus and pose, everything within each picture is brought together not just the create an image, but to create a world that lives beyond the limits of each image.
Kondor Art Centre – Into the Future Gallery: Clau Dagger
One aspect of this “larger than the frame” story aspect of Clau’s work is her conscious directing of her avatar’s eyes. Rather than looking out of the image towards the camera, Clau frequently directs her avatar’s gaze to a point off-camera, with the rest of her avatar’s pose set to suggest a reaction to something out-of-frame and entirely separate to the camera’s position. This gives these pieces – such as Ritual Night, Holy Gral [sic] and Cabell (as three examples) – a cinematic feel, we are caught in a moment of something wider, that were the camera pan around, we’d see more of the story and the action would resume.
Another factor that brings a number of these pieces to life is their richness of colour. Often with avatar studies, there is a tendency to tone down colour in post-processing an image, to add “natural” haze or “natural” light. While this is true in several of the pieces within this exhibit, there are also pieces here where the colour has either been left untouched or perhaps enhanced (e.g. Supernatural, Under the Holiday Tree, Spring Fae and Metamorphosis) that further intensifies their framing and story.
Kondor Art Centre – Into the Future Gallery: Clau Dagger
All of which makes for an exhibition that is genuinely worth visiting, one that lifts avatar studies to a new dimension of expression.
Hanging Gardens of Babylon, January 2022 – click any image for full size
In this palace he erected very high walks, supported by stone pillars; and by planting what was called a pensile paradise, and replenishing it with all sorts of trees, he rendered the prospect an exact resemblance of a mountainous country. This he did to gratify his queen, because she had been brought up in Media, and was fond of a mountainous situation.
The above words – admittedly quoted almost 300 years after they were said to have been written – are the earliest mention of the fabled Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
Hanging Gardens of Babylon, January 2022
Listed as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World by Hellenic culture, the gardens were said to have been constructed close to the city of Babylon and alongside the grand palace built by the Neo-Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II (642-562 BCE). As the quote from Berossus notes, they were said to have been a remarkable feat of engineering; an ascending series of tiered gardens containing a wide variety of trees, shrubs, and vines resembling a large green mountain constructed of mud bricks, which he ordered built in order to help his queen, Amytis of Media to overcome her homesickness for her native lands.
Hanging Gardens of Babylon, January 2022
Whether or not Berossus was writing literally or figuratively is unclear: a lot is known about Nebuchadnezzar II’s reign and works – and there is no mention of fabulous gardens built for Amytis (or any of his other queens) isn’t listed amongst them, nor do any other ancient Babylonian texts from the times around the period in which the Gardens were said to have existed make any mention of them; further, of all the ancient Seven Wonders, the Hanging Gardens alone are the one for which the location has not been definitively established.
Hanging Gardens of Babylon, January 2022
This has led some scholars to believe that the texts quoting descriptions of the Hanging Gardens are actually describing palace gardens that were known to exist, such those that Assyrian King Sennacherib (704–681 BCE) had built in his capital city of Nineveh (close to the modern city of Mosul in Iraq), and Berossus attributed them to Nebuchadnezzar for purely romantic / political reasons; others lean more the the belief the Hanging Gardens were simply the result of romantic imaginings.
Hanging Gardens of Babylon, January 2022
However, whether real or not, the legend has given rise the many descriptions of the Hanging Gardens, together with a plethora of illustrations and paintings, such that it is possible to (re)create how they may have appeared through 3D modelling – or to use the basic descriptions to offer an interpretation of how the Hanging Gardens may have appeared, complete with personal expressions and twists.
This is precisely what Patch Thibaud has done within Second Life, with his utterly fabulous Hanging Garden of Babylon, a Full region design (utilising the private Full region land capacity bonus), and which is currently highlighted in the Destination Guide. Patch is a long-time Second life resident who has, down the years created some outstanding builds in-world. In fact, I recently wrote (in part) about one of his most famous – The Cathedral – which has become both an outstanding statement of art in its own right and a venue in which art can be presented, courtesy of it being located within Chuck Clip’s Sinful Retreat arts estate (see: A Cathedral and Silent Beauties in Second Life).
Hanging Gardens of Babylon, January 2022
With this build, Patch (with the assistance of Cristabella Loon and Lιlly Hawk (NatalieRives)) brings together a genuinely stunning interpretation of the Hanging Gardens that mixes into it elements that are not from the period in which the Gardens were said to exist but also from periods a lot more recent, including touches that might be seen has echoing the Greco-Romano period in which the legends of the Hanging Gardens began to gain wider circulation within the (then) Known World.
The centrepiece of the design is the great “mountain” of the gardens, here presented as a towering palace, tiered without and with multiple levels within, the structure rises from the waters and surrounding gardens to offer a place of rooms, stairs, walkways, rooms, outlying tiers where trees and shrubs grow as per the classic descriptions of the Gardens. Routes window up through the interior of the building and via outside stairways and ramps connect the various levels and eventually reach the “rooftop” gardens.
Hanging Gardens of Babylon, January 2022
The latter is a formal garden, richly laid out around a water feature, and of a kind that would look at home in the gardens of any grand European home or palace of the 18th or 19th centuries. Surrounded by building elements with the Greco-Roman lean, this “rooftop” garden also sits within rooms that have a distinctly Renaissance styling. Taken on its own, this rooftop area, complete with terraces and infinity pool, would be eye-catching enough, but it is just the jewel in a stunning crown of the design.
However, I’m not going to ramble on about the build here – I hope the photos I’m including here will encourage you to visit – what I will say is that this a genuinely engaging build, from the outlying gardens through the lower levels of the palace to the rooftop gardens. Throughout all there are numerous places to sit, paths to explore and – obviously – multiple opportunities for photography, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon is one of the Seven Wonders of our Digital World. And don’t miss the boat ride around and under the palace!
The following notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, January 7th, 2022.
These meetings are generally held every other week. They are recorded by Pantera Północy, and her video of the meeting is embedded at the end of this report – my thanks to her for allowing me to do so – and it is used with the chat log from the meeting and my own audio recording to produce this summary, which focuses on the core topics discussed.
The Jenever Maintenance RC viewer, version 6.5.2.566860, issued on December 17.
The Koaliang Maintenance 2 RC viewer, version 6.5.2.566879, issued on December 17.
The Tracy Integration RC viewer version 6.4.23.563771 (dated Friday, November 5) issued Tuesday, November 9.
Project viewers:
Performance Improvements project viewer version 6.5.2.566967, dated December 17.
Performance Floater project viewer, version 6.4.23.562625, issued September 2.
Mesh Optimizer project viewer, version 6.4.23.562614, issued September 1.
Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26, 2020.
Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.
General Viewer Notes
The Performance Improvements project viewer is currently going through a round of bug fixing prior to being promoted to RC status. However, no further additions / changes to the existing feature set beyond the fixes are planned.
Depending on how things go, it is possible the Performance Improvements viewer may be the next to be promoted to RC status.
[2:17-2:30] The Legacy Profiles project viewer is awaiting further server-side updates before proceeding.
At the end of 2021, the Lab issued a blog post reviewing the year and offering an overview of some projects planned for release in 2022.
Vir indicated that discussion on those projects mentioned in the post (and others?) is still on-going, and that the Lab is not ready to discuss time frames, etc., for any particular feature or release at this point in time.
In Brief
Mojo Linden arrived after the meeting had ended, and reiterated that:
A focus for the year remains on performance improvements.
A key aspect of work as a whole remains improving the entire New User Experience (NUE).
He also clearly dodged questions on the specifics of the new “avatar expressiveness”.
[3:20-9:50] A general discussion on building the viewer, of interest to viewer devs and self-compilers.
Art Korner Main Gallery: CyberNorm – The art of “Cyber”
Update, June 27th, 2022: Art Korner has Closed.
Recently opened in the Main Gallery at Frank Atisso’s Art Korner is an intriguing exhibition that presents two sides – two personalities, if you will – of a single artist: CyberNorm (aka ndl1971).
As “Norm” the artist – who has had their work displayed in several exhibitions in Düsseldorf, Germany, between 2018 and 2020 – explores art using the brush and canvas, using the medium as a means to explore life and politics in a somewhat playful manner, and explore aspects of gender politics. Meanwhile, as “Cyber”, the artists works with the digital medium, expressing their imagination through structured, mathematical terms – in this case through the use of fractals.
Through both forms of art, the CyberNorm particularly explores the subject of control: the use of political standpoints to exert control over the world as a whole, and the ability of mathematics to present structure and control within the digital domain.
Art Korner Main Gallery: CyberNorm – The art of “Cyber”
At Art Korner, these two sides of the art’s work are displayed across the two floors of the gallery building. The lower level is primarily given over to the art of “Cyber” (with one exception), and the upper level to the work on “Norm”.
The digital art offers a vibrant richness, bringing together the richness of natural forms with those of more abstracted elements to form pieces that are all individually unique and captivating. Some of these offer suggestions of Nature and life, while some capturing the infinite beauty of the Mandelbrot set, while others suggest textile-like pieces that offer their own fascination.
Art Korner Main Gallery: CyberNorm – The art of “Norm”
The display on the gallery’s upper floor offers paintings that demonstrate “Norm’s” approach to political commentary / satire, together with broader pieces that offer food for thought on the topic of what might be seen as commentary on gender, continuing female sexual emancipation and societal freedoms, including how (for some) these might be seen as threatening (as with Dragon and the Firefly, for example).
Taken individually, both halves of this exhibition contain much to hold the attention; together the present a wealth of expression and contrast the play off one another, revealing as they do two very different sides of the artist’s nature. For those interested, it will remain open through until February 2nd, 2022.
Art Korner Main Gallery: CyberNorm – The art of “Norm”
After being cryogenically frozen in the 1970s to await a cure for his (then) incurable cancer, Jaybee Corbell awakes after more than 200 years – to find his own body destroyed and his mind and memories transferred into the “mindwiped” body of a criminal. And this is not all that has changed: the Earth is now overseen by an oppressive, totalitarian global government called “The State”, and Corbell’s existence is to be determined by a “checker”; if he is found wanting, he will be discarded.
