Category: Art in Second Life

Wintertime in the northern hemisphere is when thoughts turn to snow and holidays, and within Second Life, this is no exception. Many regions take on a winter look and feel, the ground, trees and buildings caught under white blankets or dusted with snow, even as more often falls from the sky. For many in the physical world, despite the cold, it is a time of joy and for treks through virgin drifts of snow or – in the case of the younger at heart snow fairies, snowmen and sledges and sleighs.

Celebrating this time of year is not new; people have always found enjoyment with winter and the changes it brings to the world, and right now we can witness this for ourselves at a recently opened exhibition of art at The Vordun Museum and Gallery, created and curated by Jake Vordun.

Entitled Frost: Visions of Winter, it offers selected reproductions of classical pieces of art spanning 500 years, celebrating winter in all its glory, as the introductory notes explain:

In this exhibition, you will see twenty painting, drawings, prints and manuscripts depicting different aspects of the season. Be it landscapes, winter costumes or feasts by the fire, these pieces will show you glimpses of winter from the  15th century to the 20th.

The Vordun has a reputation – thoroughly deserved – for bringing high-quality reproductions of physical world art, properly licensed, into Second Life. This exhibition, located in the gallery’s rearmost hall, is no exception. Including paintings and drawings by the likes of Francesc Masriera i Manovens, Jacob van Ruisdael, Sebastiaan Vrancx, Claude Monet,  Jean-Baptiste Pater, Francis Wheatley and Hendrick Avercamp, this might at first be considered a wholly European view of winter – but not so; America is represented via James Abbott McNeill Whistler, as is China through the ink on paper Winter Forest in Flying Snow by Wen Zhengming, with Scandinavian artists also being present among the images.

I really cannot stress the quality of these pieces, which together with the environment in which they are set. As I noted when it first opened in July 2016, The Vordun beautifully recreates the experience of visiting a physical world art gallery – so much so that it one of the those select Second Life experiences that leaves me regretting we cannot have fully immersive virtual reality in Second Life. Certainly, for those building in Sansar, it is perhaps the model of how to plan and build a virtual gallery space.

This is not only because of the look and feel of The Vordun, but in the way Jake has developed a visit as a Second Life experience in the technical sense of the word, presenting visitors with the opportunity to view the works in the main hall exhibition of European Masters: 300 Years of Painting as immersively as possible, via scripted camera control and the use of both voice and text to impart information on each piece on display.

Sadly, this aspect of The Vordun doesn’t extend into Frost: Visions of Winter, but that is not to say the latter is lessened in any way; rather the reverse. Frost stands as a captivating exhibition in its own right, while for those who haven’t visited The Vordun before, the presentation of European Masters: 300 Years of Painting, makes a visit to the gallery doubly worthwhile – and also gives the opportunity to appreciate two other long-running exhibitions there: Pictures of the Floating World and Dutch Proverbs (both of which you can read about here), which are as equally stunning as Frost and European Masters, and sample Postcrossing, a celebration of the website of the same name and the use of postcards to bring half a million people around the world a little closer together.

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• The Vordun Museum and Gallery (Rated: Moderate)

It’s been nigh on a year since my last review of an exhibition at Blue Orange gallery, the music and arts venue in Second Life curated by Ini (In Inaka). Part of the reason for this was that the last exhibition at gallery I covered seemed to be drawn out over an extended period, and then the gallery was reported as being closed for re-building. However, I hopped over recently out of curiosity to find it once again open for business – and the rebuild has left a visit feeling less like a trip to a gallery and more of an adventure of discovery.

The familiar subway landing point is still present – but now with a second platform on the far side of the track, the first indication of changes as ghostly trains roar between the tunnels at either end of the station. The familiar music venue lies at the end of the tiled hall leading away from the platform, a hall displaying images by various photographers taken whilst visiting Blue Orange.

From here – or earlier, if you opt to walk along the platform to the doors labelled Art Corner – the adventure begins, as the Art Corner can be accessed via a hole in the wall of the club. This route leads visitors first to the Library. Inspired by The Colour of Pomegranates, a 1969  Soviet arts film directed by Sergei Parajanov, this is a surreal place with unfinished walls, against which books are pinned, with more floating in the air. Each book offers a web link to a writer or poet’s website where the given story or poem can be enjoyed.

Beyond this lies an assortment of halls, some connected directly to one another, others reached via doors or through connecting passages (including the second platform), still others reached via stairs and ladders or by actively jumping down well-like holes. Within each of these spaces art can be found.

At the time of my visit, this included 2D photography and art by Grady Echegaray, Harbor (Harbor Galaxy), Natalia Seranade, Gitu Aura, Thea Maiman, Daze Landar (DaisyDaze), and Ina herself.  3D work by Kimeu Korg (Kimeu) and Bryn Oh (the latter reached via the stairs behind the club’s DJ area) is also to be found, while Wakizashi Yoshikawa and Aïcha (Tubal Amiot) present a mix of 2D and 3D art.

Finding your way around the art spaces is, as noted, something of an adventure; confusing in places (are you supposed to go through the blue door and then drop down to a space apparently between the exhibition halls?), but definitely worth the time taken to explore and discover.

I’m not sure if the gallery will feature a changing roster artists, or whether some of the halls are intended to offer permanent spaces in which artists-in-residence will offer different exhibitions of their work – Bryn Oh’s space, for example, now appears to be a permanent fixture within Blue Orange.

However, such questions are secondary to the time spent in explorations here: the art is rich and diverse, and the nature of the gallery’s halls means that each corner or stair can lead to a pleasing discovery for any lover of art in Second Life. However, when visiting do make sure you have enabled Advanced Lighting Model (ALM) on your viewer (Preferences > Graphics), in order to ensure you see all of the art as intended.

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• Blue Orange (Empire State Island, rated: Adult)

Currently open to visitors at the University of Texas, San Antonio ArtSpace gallery in Second Life is Behind the Avatar, an exhibition of the photography of Paola Mills. To be honest, it’s an exhibition I almost completely missed, the notification having escaped my attention back in September – so my apologies to Paola.

This is a small, but emotive display of work, focused on avatar studies, and which – as the title of the exhibition suggests – offers a glimpse of the person behind the camera and the avatar.

Hello I’m Angela Paola and in pixel version I’m Paola Mills. 

I signed up to Second life in 2007, after hearing a lot of Linden Lab in the media, I did not like the name Second Life, but its potential as a platform to use, because I am passionate about video games since I was a girl. Reading an article in the American Journal, I realised that Second Life was something else, it is a place used to pleasure doing business, others see it as financial speculation, for other people it’s just a 3D chat. But soon it became a niche for lovers of creativity.

– Paola Mills, introducing Behind the Avatar

Paola notes that while she isn’t a professional photographer, she always carries a small camera with her when out and about in the physical world, taking pictures of the people and things that capture her attention. In entering Second Life, she found a way to expand her photographic creativity, using the viewer’s snapshot capability to capture moods, as well as moments, and give lasting expression to the emotions she might feel at any given time.

It is precisely this emotional amplification of mood and emotion that is represented in the 12 images offered at the ArtSpace Gallery. All 12 are deeply expressive and / or representative of a mood – contemplation, reflection, hurt, fascination, and more, with the nature of the form used – human or robotic – used to present the mood and, with at least some of the images, offer up an additional narrative.

Paola notes that unlike many SL photographers, she makes minimal use of post-process editing. while she states this is more down to an inability to use such applications (when it comes to PhotoShop, I know exactly how she feels!), rather than a conscious decision. However, rather than detracting from her work, I would actually say this adds to it, drawing the audience into each of the images as they are: moments (and emotions) caught in that instant of time, without later embellishment or alteration.

I’m not sure when this exhibition ends, so I would recommend seeing it sooner rather than later, just in case.

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• UTSA ArtSpace (Tejano Tech, rated: Moderate)

Currently open at the Lyric Art Gallery is an exhibition featuring some 40+ artists, entitled Visual Feast – Vintage. Participating artists were asked to submit an image representing a period between 1920 and 1959, and which could be said to be a vintage representation of the specific period the artists selected to reflect.

Ruby Lane notes that “an item described as ‘vintage’ should speak of the era in which it was produced. Vintage can mean an item is of a certain period of time, as in “vintage 1950’s” but it can also mean (and probably always should) that the item exhibits the best of a certain quality, or qualities, associated with or belonging to that specific era. In other words, for the term vintage to accurately apply to it, an item should be somewhat representational and recognizable as belonging to the era in which it was made.”

– From the exhibition liner notes.

The result is an interesting – and somewhat curious selection of images captured from within Second Life and offered as both paintings and photographs. Some opt for what might be called a traditional look at the period they’ve opted to represent: a flapper arriving outside of a club in the 1920’s, fashionable (for the time) cigarette holder in hand, hair cut short; or another young woman in a 50s dress celebrating ownership of a new Fiat Nuova 500; or a girl on the beach in a typical 40s/50s beach costume.

Others have gone for a quirkier approach to their selected  period – such as a pop band standing on another world, in space suits, their classic rocket ship standing as part of the backdrop, all recalling the 1950s heyday of pulp science-fiction. Some are more esoteric, in places suggesting periods somewhat older than the preferred decades through the style of clothing being worn; or which offer a modern take on vintage elements from the intended decades, such as a young woman in what might be taken as contemporary clothing watching a classic steam train speeding by.

Such is the volume of art in the exhibition, naming all of the artists isn’t practical without a post like this reading like a shopping list; nor is it particularly easy to single pieces out. However, in the latter regard, Natalie Montagne’s Music And Lights is for me a stand-out piece, and possibly the jewel in the exhibition. It is a quite sublime piece: a fabulous portrait of Ol’ Blue Eyes Himself, Frank Sinatra, perhaps the embodiment of America and American music in the 1950s.

Details on individual pieces and the artists responsible for them can be obtained by clicking on each piece and accepting the offered note card.

A broad exhibition with an interesting theme, Visual Feast – Vintage opened on November 3rd. Those visiting the exhibition are also invited to tour the wider Sea Island Modern Fantasy Roleplay region, if they so wish.

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• Lyric Art Gallery (Sea, rated: Moderate)