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, 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.
Monday, August 3rd, 19:00: Voyage to the City of the Dead
Gyro Muggins reads the 11th volume in Alan Dean Foster’s Humanx Commonwealth series, first published in 1984.
The Humanx Commonwealth is an interstellar ethical/political entity created and administered by the two major sentient species within it – humans and the insectoid Thranx. It spans multiple star systems, allowing both species to work together not just in a beneficial manner, but also symbiotic.
Within the Commonwealth are many inhabited worlds, but one of the most unique is Horseye, being the home of three alien cultures and having the most spectacular river valley anywhere in the known galaxy. It is both the cultures and the river that draw scientists Eitienne and Lyra Redowl to Horseye, and after months spent in quarantine, they are now ready to embark on a voyage to the source of the 12,000 long River Skar, and study it and the peoples living on its banks.
Veterans of exploration and discovery, the Redowls believed they were ready to face anything. But how can you prepare for things like treachery, lies and greed? For a local legend would have it that at the source of the Skar lie a great treasure – and the locals who appear to be willing to help the Redowls in fact plan on finding it for themselves.
Assuming, that is, the treasure is in fact something at can be regarded as offering wealth…
Tuesday, August 4th:
12:00 Noon: Russell Eponym, Live in the Glen
Music, poetry, and stories in a popular weekly session at Ceiluradh Glen.
Caledonia Skytower reads Alan Armstrong’s 2006 Newbery-Honor winning tale.
Whittington is a roughneck tom cat who arrives one day at a barn full of rescued animals and asks for a place there. Present at the barn is a menagerie of animals and young Ben and Abby, whose grandfather owns the barn and does the rescuing.
To earn his place, Whittington tells the tale of his famous ancestor, the nameless cat who brought Dick Whittington to the heights of wealth and power in 16th-century England. In telling his story of how his ancestors saved and elevated Whittington, this tom-with-a-chip, elevates another little boy above his fear of learning to read.
Thursday, August 6th, 1900: Philip Marlowe’s The Finger Man
With Shandon Loring. Also in Kitely – from the main Seanchai World grid.kitely.com:8002:SEANCHAI.
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation
Updates for the week ending Sunday, August 2nd
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
Current release viewer version 6.4.4.543157, dated June 11th, promoted June 23rd, formerly the CEF RC viewer – ROLL BACK..
Uses new viewer build tool chain, but does not include any user-facing updates outside of bug fixes.
Release channel cohorts:
Tools Update 2 RC viewer updated to version 6.4.6.545699 on July 29th.
Mesh uploader RC viewer, version 6.4.5.544027, issued July 27th.
Mareea Farrasco is a Second Life photographer whose work covers a broad range, from avatar studies to landscapes – the latter oft processed to resemble paintings – and the literal to the metaphorical, producing images that can contain within them a rich narrative or which offer the confluence of shape and form to present a simple statement or comment.
Many of these elements are presented to us through her exhibition at Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, curated by Dido Haas, with the exception of examples of her landscape work – for reasons that will become clear. Entitled Claustrophobia, the exhibition takes as its theme the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, but from an angle that perhaps has not gained the attention it deserves.
When asked to define “claustrophobia”, most people are liable to go with its more well-known meaning: an abnormal dread of being in closed or narrow spaces. However, the word has another meaning, one not so often considered and that is a feeling of discomfort or discontent caused by being in a limiting or restrictive situation or environment, and it is this second definition that Mareea focuses upon.
We live, these days, in a confined, pandemic universe of our own, and we are all more or less “claustrophobic”, even without suffering from this disorder in our normal, healthy lives. This exhibition is my metaphoric way to express those feelings, trying to rationalise them, in order to make them endurable.
– Mareea Farrasco, introducing Claustrophobia
Now to confess, on first seeing the 14 images presented for the exhibition, I fell into the trap of looking at them through the lens of that more popular definition of “claustrophobia”, and while there are one or two that contain elements that most certainly do convey a sense of physically restricted space and / or a sensation of the walls closing in (notably Claustrophobia (6) and Claustrophobia (7)), I initially felt the exhibit, focused as it is on studies of an individual avatar, could just as easily be called “solitude”, without any need to reference the pandemic.
It was only when I broadened my consideration to that second definition foe “claustrophobia” that I was struck by the manner in which Mareea has perfectly encompassed it through each of the pieces offered in this exhibit, and seamlessly linked them to offer expressions of how we have been forced into am artificial sense of “claustrophobic distancing” because of the pandemic. It doesn’t matter if we’re home alone or with family, we have been forced to artificially limit our environment and interactions to an extent that expressions of solitude are all we actually have left; circumstance demanding that as constrained as we are, we turn our thoughts inwards.
Seen it this light, all of the pieces here are subtle and evocative explorations of thoughts and feelings that reflect our desire – our longing – for more normal times. At the same time, there is perhaps a deeper aspect to be considered. Whilst physical distancing from friends, colleagues, neighbours and all might well be a requirement for all of us, many of us do at least have family with who we can at least find some release from that sense of isolation – but what of those who live alone? For them, the routine of isolation has potentially been amplified by the pandemic; through Mareea’s images, we perhaps catch a glimpse of all they face.
I’m totally up to my ears in a variety of things at the moment, which has had something of an impact on my ability to blog with the usual frequency. Hopefully, I’ll be all caught up over the next couple of days, but I didn’t want to mission the opportunity to write a few words about Swan, the Homestead region held by Keely Mistwood as her personal space, but which she has opened to the public to visit.
The landscaping for the region is by Tab Tatham, whose design work is always worth seeing as she has an considered eye for creating natural environments – as can instantly be seen with Swan.
Swan, July 2020
The region is largely given over to a mountainous off-sim surround that joins with the island to present a low-lying tongue of land extending out into the waters of a bay, several other peaked islands rising from the waters to suggest a coastal archipelago, while the the trees of the lowlands suggest this is somewhere in the northern latitudes.
Rocky in nature and split by a stream that issues from one of the landscape’s rocky faces, the landscape is rich in fir and oak and climbs back to a high table close to the mountain backdrop, a finger of rock connecting the two, a screen of trees helping to curtain the join between region landscape and surround.
Swan, July 2020
This high bluff has prevented the sea complete separating the headland from the mountain, and thus turning it into an island. To one side is a channel that has eaten its way between headland and mountains; on the other is a sheltered arc of beach reached by wooden steps that descend from the flat top of the rock and watched over by a wooden deck.
The top of the plateau is largely given over to Keely’s house, which like the rest of the region, is open to the public. It has a delightfully bohemian feel to it, the indoor spaces open and breezy, seamlessly with the decks around it, and a cool looking rocky pool alongside in place of a more traditional swimming pool.
Swan, July 2020
Packed with detail, the house looks down on a further curved bay, this one with shingle rather than sand, this one arcing to another, lower table of rock, home to a more traditional swimming pool. It can be reached via the wooden steps leading up to the house from the landing point or via one of two zip lines.
The second zip line descends to the north-east and the tip of the headline, where an old cabin, now converted into a hidden summer house – although be warned that the trip down the line will take you through the local fir trees, so you could end up getting a few slaps from the boughs!
Swan, July 2020
Between the cabin / summer house and the landing point, the land is again rich in detail beneath the canopy of trees. Here might be found an open-air theatre, old terraces, open walks, decks and more, all making for a richly photogenic setting – although you’ll need you own pose HUD for avatar photography, as Keely hasn’t opened rezzing the region to avoid littering.
Superbly made, packed with opportunities to wander and / or relax (including the little island off-shore, although you’ll have to fly to it), Swan is a perfect destination for the SL traveller. I’m not sure if Keely intends to keep it open to visitors or if it may be a limited time opportunity to make a visit; so if you’re interested, hopping over sooner rather than later might be the way to avoid disappointment.
The Indiana Convention Centre reproduced in Second Life as a part of the VRazeTheBar Gen Con Experience
Thursday, July 30th saw the opening of the VRazeTheBar Gen Con Experience presented by VRazeTheBar, a four-day in-world event packed with activities being run as a part of Gen Con Online 2020 – and there is still time for Second Life gamers interested in table-top, computer, role-play and other games to sign-up and join in.
Gen Con is the largest tabletop-game convention in North America, by both attendance and number of events. In 2019, almost 70,000 people attended the event, held annually in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Due to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, Gen Con has moved its activities on-line for 2020 across a range of platforms.
So that attendees can enjoy some of the same atmosphere of gathering together, attending social events, participating in games, etc., solution provider VRazeTheBar, with the support of Linden Lab, has created a 4-region, multi-level event environment within Second Life: the VRazeTheBar Gen Con Experience.
Discover the history of Gen Con in the Gen Con Museum within VRazeTheBar Gen Con Experience
Gen Con is a very special experience, that’s what keeps people coming back. It was important for us to recreate, as much as possible, the magic that happens when 70,000 gamers take over down-town Indianapolis every year. So, we have built some of their favourite haunts, including Union Station, around the Convention Centre as a starting point that Gen Con veterans will immediately recognize. From there we take off and have created completely new virtual worlds where the imagination can soar.
– VRazeTheBar Cofounder and Creative Director Alesia Clardy (AlesiaPM in Second Life)
A table-top game within the Science Fiction gaming zone of VRazeTheBar Gen Con Experience
In VRazeTheBar’s virtual Gen Con experience, users will find many of the details that fans love: food trucks and the traditional Saturday night dance as well as a free official Gen Con virtual t-shirt. But more than anything else, it’s really about the games. The game masters have embraced the virtual platform to make some awesomely rich, detailed environments for interactive game play.
– VRazeTheBar Gen Con Experience Press Release
The event kicked-off at 09:00 SLT on Thursday, July 30th, and will run through until Sunday, August 2nd – the same dates as Gen Con Online 2020, allowing Gen Con regulars to attend events both in-world and those Gen Con is hosting on other on-line platforms. The opening event featured Patch Linden, Linden Lab’s Vice President of Product Operations as a special guest to not Linden Lab’s assistance in making the event possible.
The activities planned for Gen Con in Second Life as are as varied as those found at the convention in the physical world, and to help attendees feel more at home, part of the event space features a recreation of down-town Indianapolis, where the Indiana Convention Centre, the focal point for Gen Con in the physical world, has been recreated, together with the Union Station, used for social gathering – as it will be in-world, and locations such as Georgia Street, with its lines of food wagons and street restaurants frequented by attendees.
Patch Linden And RCArchitect (VRazeTheBar’s Ron Clifton) at the opening event
The four levels for the event are:
Ground level: presentation area and historical.
500m: modern / present day down-town Indianapolis.
1000m: apocalyptic level – the ruins of down-town Indianapolis for Zombie hunting.
1500m: game play environments.
We are hosting a large variety of table-top games and we also are offering periods where people can roam around on their own or with friends, to explore on foot, horseback, or flying. We even have virtual dragon rides. In addition, we will also have some live presentations and panel discussions with industry gaming experts.
– VRazeTheBar Cofounder and Creative Director Alesia Clardy (AlesiaPM in Second Life)
A full list of in-world activities can be found on the event website. In addition, for those registered for Gen Can who cannot get in-world, events at the VRazeTheBar Gen Con Experience will be live streamed courtesy of event partner isiLive.
As I’ve previously noted in covering VRazeTheBar Gen Con Experience (see Gen Con: sneaking a peek in Second Life) gaming activities will taken place across a 4-region group of settings located at 1,500m above ground level and feature a mix of table-top, role-play and other gaming activities.
If you’d like to join Gen Con in Second Life – and there is still room in a number of the events – registration is free. You’ll need to do so via the official Gen Con website. As I noted in my Sneak Peek article, access to the game areas will be controlled to prevent them becoming overloaded, but otherwise attendees are free to wander, sign-up for activities and even organise their own on-the-fly games.
Gen Con Online is very much an experiment for Gen Con – as shifting to on-line mediums is proving to be for a lot of events around the world. However, for VRazeTheBar Gen Con Experience it is something more: a proof of concept that virtual world spaces can be used as a part of a physical world event’s activities. As a proof-of-concept, there have been a couple of minor hiccups – sadly, Gen Con exhibitors have been unable to join the in-world event this year, but otherwise everything is ready to receive attendees.
It was important for us to have a stable reliable on-line platform to create this virtual Gen Con experience. This year is basically a small-scale proof-of-concept experience, but the Linden Lab infrastructure we have chosen will allow us to scale up quickly as demand unfolds.
– VRazeTheBar Cofounder and Solution Architect, Ron Clifton
Georgia Street and the Convention Centre in-world
To find out more about about VRazeTheBar Gen Con Experience and Gen Con Online, please follow the links below. And when you get in-world, don’t forget to accept the event experience and receive / obtain the teleport HUD for direct access to the various in-world regions (there are also bicycle, horse and dragon ride rezzers available on the different levels (bikes on down town level, horses on the gaming level, dragons awaiting discovery!). You can also find out more by visiting the links below – including the in-world public Welcome Centre for the event.
Now open at the Hoot Suite Gallery, the boutique gallery in Bellisseria curated by Owl Dragonash, is an exhibition that reminds us that while getting out and about to enjoy the beauty of summer may not be easy because of a certain pandemic, better times will return for all of us to have the freedom to visit our favourite corner of a beach or wander through grassy meadows.
Painting the Summer is a charming exhibition of gently post-processed images by Mareea Farrasco that carries us away to that summer beach and those summer grasslands, and to coastal walks and more. views out over rolling surf to sail boats lying off the coast and geese waddling over course grass. Often framing her avatar in relaxed poses.
Hoot Suite Gallery: Mareea Farrasco
These are elegant images in their presentation and in the lightness of touch with post-processing tools, while Owl’s Hoot Suite offers the perfect cosy venue for their presentation. The exhibition will run through until August 23rd, 2020.
Gyro Muggins reads the 11th volume in Alan Dean Foster’s Humanx Commonwealth series, first published in 1984.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 