Open as of June 14th, 2020 at The Sim Quarterly is Le Déraciné (The Uprooted), an installation by JadeYu Fhang.
Described as being a study about “How to transform the pain of uprooting into a poetic vision”, it’s a typically layered and semi-interactive piece by JadeYu; one that invites interpretation more than it offers one for itself. Also, and in keeping with YadeYu’s viewpoint, it is a piece that perhaps blurs the line between the physical and virtual dimensions, being present in one whilst created from the other, whilst also standing as a dream linking both.
The landing point sits above the main installation, a board presenting the required graphics settings needed to best appreciate the installation, while local sounds should also be enabled for the fullest experience. Once visitors are set, an Anywhere Door teleporter offer the way down to ground level and the installation proper.
The Sim Quarterly: Le Déraciné
Here the setting is made up of multiple parts: a central hill form which grows an enormous tree; a great vale of flowers that extends out into the water; and a village in the air, set as if floating upon wafer-thin clouds. The tree at first appears to be denuded, but slivers of green flow over the branches and wrap around the trunk, which is in part carved into a female form, while more green floats around the branches as orbs. A second figure lies in the shallows below, legs entangled into a network of roots. As well as the green on and around the tree, paths of light glimmer as they rise from the lowlands to pass over the tangle of roots that form the hill’s crown, offering a way up to the tree as then converge upon it, whilst a single path rises to the cloud village.
Throughout the setting, the motif of roots is clear: but what of the idea of being “uprooted”? Perhaps it is in relation to physical relocation: there is the village in the air and the one at the landing point – are these then symbolic of the pain of moving home? Or is the meaning more bound in matters of ecology or in the erosion of cultural identity due to the demands of an increasingly homogeneous modern world, perhaps invoked through the dancing figures?
The Sim Quarterly: Le Déraciné
As noted above, interpretation is down to the observer. What is apparent is JadeYu’s rooting in surrealism, edged with a sense of spirituality.
Open through a period of three months, Le Déraciné offers plenty of time for you to visit and consider it for yourself.
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation
Updates for the week ending Sunday, June 14th
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 6.4.3.542964,, dated May 29th, promoted June 2nd, formerly the FMOD Studio RC viewer – No Change.
Release channel cohorts:
CEF RC viewer, version updated to version 6.4.3.543157, June 11th.
Project viewers:
Mesh uploader project viewer updated to version 6.4.4.543141, June 11th.
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.
Anyone who murdered Colonel Protheroe,’ declared the parson, brandishing a carving knife above a joint of roast beef, ‘would be doing the world at large a favour!’ It was a careless remark for a man of the cloth. And one which was to come back and haunt the clergyman just a few hours later – when the colonel was found shot dead in the clergyman’s study. But as Miss Marple soon discovers, the whole village seems to have had a motive to kill Colonel Protheroe.
Tea-Time with Miss Marple
Seanchai Library continues a 6-week run featuring Agatha Christie’s Miss Jane Marple, starting with The Murder at the Vicarage, which marked her first appearance in print.
So please join Aoife Lorefield, Da5id Abbot, Caledonia Skytower, Corwyn Allen, Gloriana Maertens, Kayden Oconnell, Willow Moonfire in a little corner of St. Mary Mead, in Second Life.
Monday, June 15th, 19:00: Spock’s World
Gyro Muggins reads Diane Duane’s take on a classic figure from science fiction.
In the 23rd Century…
On the planet Vulcan, a crisis of unprecedented proportion has caused the convocation of the planet’s ruling council, and led to Starfleet ordering the U.S.S. Enterprise to the planet in the hope that its first officer, and Vulcan’s most famous son, can help overcome the issues the planet faces.
As Commander Spock, his father, Sarek, and Captain James T. Kirk struggle to preserve Vulcan’s future, the planet’s innermost secrets are laid open, as is its people’s long climb to rise above their savage pre-history, merciless tribal warfare, medieval-like court intrigue to develop and adhere to o’thia, the ruling ethic of logic, and to reach out into space.
For Spock, the situation means he is torn between his duty to Starfleet and the unbreakable ties that bind him to Vulcan. Confronted by his own internal conflicts, he must quell them and prevent his world – and possibly the entire United Federation of Planets – from being ripped apart.
Tuesday, June 16th
12:00 Noon: Russell Eponym, Live in the Glen
Music, poetry, and stories in a popular weekly session at Ceiluradh Glen.
19:00: The Bridge of San Luis Rey
With Willow Moonfire.
On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travellers into the gulf below.
Thus begins Thorton Wilder’s second, and 1928 Pulitzer Prize winning novel. Influenced in part by Wilder’s own conversations with his deeply religious father, and inspired by Prosper Mérimée’s one-act act play, Le Carrosse du Saint-Sacrement, Thorton described the novel as a means to pose the question, “Is there a direction and meaning in lives beyond the individual’s own will?”
The bridge of the novel’s title and opening is a fictional Inca rope bridge, and its collapse is witnessed by a Franciscan friar, himself about to cross over it. A deeply pious man, Brother Juniper finds his faith challenged by the tragedy, and as a result embarks upon a “mission” to prove that it was divine will rather than chance that led to the deaths of those who fell with the bridge.
Over the course of six years, he compiles a huge book on the lives of those who perished, much of it obtained through interviews with those who knew them, in an attempt to to show that the beginning and end of the lives of those lost in the tragedy might be a a window into the will of God, and that the beginning and end of every life is in accordance with God’s plan for the individual.
Thus, within his book, he records the lives of those killed, as presented in succeeding chapters of the novel, mapping all that led them to their fate. The novel itself weaves a story through time, from the opening tragedy, then back to the lives of those who perished, then forward to the book’s reception by the church, then back once more to the events that immediately followed the tragedy and before Brother Juniper embarked on his quest.
Through this, we not only witness the lives of those lost, but also Brother Juniper’s own fate as a result of his efforts – a fate itself foretold within his book, and which again leaves one pondering the question Wilder set in writing the novel: is there indeed direction in our lives beyond our own will – and if so, is it rooted in the divine, or humanity’s own attitudes of a given time?
Wednesday, June 17th, 19:00: The Phryne Fisher Mysteries
Corwyn Allen brings us stories about Kerry Greenwood’s Australian heroine of the 1920s, possibly made popular to a globe audience through the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s series, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries.
Phryne Fisher is rich, aristocratic and far too intelligent to be content as a flapper in the Jazz Age. She collects men, fast cars and designer dresses. she flies, dances, shoots and has a strong bohemian outlook on life. But no matter how delicious the distractions, Phryne never takes her eyes off her main goal in life: bringing down villains.
Thursday, June 18th
19:00: Quotients: Tasty Morsels of Fantastic Fiction
With Shandon Loring reads Tad William’s short story. Also in Kitely – grid.kitely.com:8002:SEANCHAI).
21:00: Seanchai Late Night
Contemporary Sci-Fi-Fantasy featuring stories from Escape Pod, Light Speed, and Clarkesworld Magazines as well as other source. with Finn Zeddmore.
Currently open at Focus Magazine is The Truth About Trees, another thought provoking exhibition by Milena Carbone. It offers something of a multi-media installation, combining images and text (accessed via links to web pages), bound together by themes of life, ecology, harmony, and nature, and carries a vein of religious metaphor.
There is a path through the exhibition that starts to the right of the entrance beyond the window with a text element, and then proceeds counter-clockwise around the walls to the exit. The opening text is that of a dialogue Milena had with a friend in Australia who witnessed the 2019 brushfire there first-hand. It serves not just as a reminder of those events, but also that the Australian brush is a part of nature; a living environment in which we either share or seek – for better or more often for worse – try to dominate.
From here the story unfolds as pairings of image and a link to a story element, each to be taken in turn. It’s a story that mixes fable, the story of creation, the balance of nature. Folded into this are cosmic themes such as our place in the universe, raised through a story around ʻOumuamua, the first known interstellar object to have been detected passing through our solar system.
The Truth About Trees
It’s a story that enfolds the images presented in the exhibition and reaches beyond them to pictures also found in the web pages of individual stories. In part it follows themes those who know Milena’s work will find as being familiar: questions about God, he nature of God’s existence the aforementioned issues of ecology, nature and harmony. However, these themes are not just presented through the stories – or perhaps mythology might be a better term – but also through the setting of the exhibition itself.
The latter appears as a walled garden with a central apple tree surrounded by police crime scene tape. The metaphor here is clear: the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Knowledge, the transgression against God’s will in the taking of the Apple and the fall of human kind from grace.
But here as well the metaphor in deeper than may first appear: were we really created in God’s image? If so, then were we not as flawed as God from the outset? If so, then was the crime committed by Adam and Eve not so much the eating of the apple against God’s orders, but rather God’s own failure in not making us better than just imbuing us with “his” own frailties; frailties that have prevented us living in the kind of natural harmony that has marked the rest of his creation?
The Truth About Trees
Involved, rich in detail, theme and substance, The Truth About Trees will remain open through the rest of the month.
Jambo! A Voyage to Africa is a homestead region design by Camila Runo that offers visitors – as its name suggests – a taste of Africa – most likely East Africa, given the use of Swahili; possibly Kenya or Tanzania given the coastal aspects (although admittedly, the setting could be somewhere on the coast of Lake Victoria.
A mix of savannah, woods and wetland forest, the region is rich in wildlife – monkeys, elephants, giraffe, water buffalo, gazelle, ostrich, meerkat, crocodile, lion, and hyena, together with vultures an eagle circles overhead.
Jambo! A Voyage to Africa, May 2020 – click any image for full size
The region is set to to give a good feeling of space, with a number of buildings to be found throughout. These start with what might be a Victorian era safari camp, featuring as it does a proper bed, a large dresser and even a gramophone player, sitting alongside the landing point. Just up the trail from this is a small village – albeit suggestive of one set out for the tourist trade rather than being a working place of habitation.
Jambo! A Voyage to Africa, May 2020
A broad river cuts the region in two. It is spanned by a pair of bridges to the south, while a pier with a rowing boat rezzer close to the village offers the means to cross there or explore the location by water.
It is across the the river that majority of the wildlife can be found, together with a private home – clearly fenced of to help prevent trespass. Follow the land south on this side of the region and it will eventually lead to a large, solid building, bearing a sign that fans of American ’60s TV series might find familiar – although there was no cross-eyed lion to be found within; just another big cat undergoing treatment.
Jambo! A Voyage to Africa, May 2020
Exploring the region on foot or – if you have one – a wearable horse – is an easy, pleasant journey, while the animals offer multiple opportunities for photography. Thus time passes easily in the region whilst seeking out opportunities for photography, although the hint of tourism in the village and the presence of the bygone era camp site give a subtle depth to the region, a reminder of Africa’s past exploitation. Fortunately, the only hunting that can be carried out here is with the camera.
Jambo! A Voyage to Africa is a place that speaks for itself; the default environment catches it towards the end of the day, and the local sound scape supports this time of day. For the keen-eyed, there are a couple of minor anachronisms: a north American bald eagle substitutes for an African fish eagle, while a jaguar similarly substitutes for a leopard in the veterinary centre – but these are more down to the availability of wildlife in-world or on the Marketplace than anything else, and they don’t look glaringly out-of-place.
Jambo! A Voyage to Africa, May 2020
So, if wildlife photography is something you fancy or you just want a walk over the savannah, then make a point to hop over and explore – I’ll just say asante, kwaheri! (at least for now!).
Lemon Bay, May 2020 – click any image for full size
The following notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, June 12th, 2020. These meetings are generally held every other week, unless otherwise noted in any given summary. The embedded video is provided to Pantera – my thanks to her for recording and providing it. Time stamps are included with the notes will open the video at the point(s) where a specific topic is discussed.
The CEF Update RC viewer updated to version 6.4.3.543157 on June 11th.
The remainder of the official views currently in progress are as follows:
Current Release viewer version 6.4.3.542964, dated May 29th, promoted June 2nd, formerly the FMOD Studio RC viewer – No Change.
Release channel cohorts:
Tools Update RC viewer, version 6.4.4.543148, June 5 – this viewer is built using VS 2017 / a recent version of Xcode, and Boost.Fiber. It contains no user-facing changes.
Love Me Render RC viewer, version 6.4.4.543142, June 3.
Project viewers:
Mesh uploader project viewer, version 6.4.3.542535, June 3.
Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, December 9, 2019.
Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, November 22, 2019.
Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.3.2.530836, September 17, 2019. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16, 2019.
General Viewer Notes
The Love Me Render (LMR) viewer is the next in line to be promoted. This may include a number of high-priority EEP fixes as well, which means the promotion is currently being held until these fixes can be merged into the viewer.
These EEP fixes do not appear to include BUG-225784 “[EEP] BUG-225446 regression – HUDs are again affected by environment setting” is also awaiting the Lab.
It’s currently not clear what viewer is liable to be promoted after LMR.
A further Maintenance RC is in preparation.
Both the Mesh uploader and Copy / Paste project viewers may be in a position to be promoted to RC status in their next updates.
The Legacy Profile project viewer still awaits a back-end web change.
In Brief
[11:49-20:42], including text chat] A further bug on the EEP list is BUG-226772 “[EEP] Full bright objects are not affected by fog”.
This was an issue common to the official viewer pre-EEP although Firestorm had a fix that is regressed by EEP.
As an alternative to a rendering fix, a request has been made to implements a viewer-side option to disable full bright should a user encounter the issue. No statement from LL on implementing this idea – or not.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 