Category: Art in Second Life

Currently open on the mezzanine floor of Club LA and Gallery, curated by Fuyuko ‘冬子’ Amano (Wintergeist), is an exhibition of art based on Second Life photographs, by artist La Baroque.

Hailing from Italy, La Baroque entered Second Life in August 2007. Already keenly interested in photography, she quickly found Second Life photography as engaging as that of the physical world. However, what makes her work particularly fascinating is not only the subject matter of her images, but the manner in which she uses post-processing techniques to make her images look – and feel – as much like paintings as possible, often with an other-worldly feel.

All of this is very much in evidence in the exhibition at Club LA and Gallery. Placed within a beach-like setting, complete with sand and camp fire, are nineteen pieces from La Baroque’s portfolio, all richly diverse in subject, framing, composition and finish. Some are suggestive of watercolour landscapes and settings, others suggest they are oil paintings, rich in colour and texture to the point where it’s easy to imagine reaching out and feeling the uneven surface of the paint on canvas. At least one – Chairs – offers a suggestion of the abstract, while that feeling of other-worldliness is also to be found throughout many of the pieces on display.

In terms of subject matter, the images offer very personal takes on Second Life landscapes, some of which might be familiar to Second Life travellers, such as Orcadi Island (which you can read about here) and Sarawak (which I wrote about here). Others are composed avatar studies offering a narrative flow – such as with Nothing on the Horizon and Breathe the Scent of the Sea, two pieces I found particularly strong in story within this series of narrative images.

Another piece I found particularly evocative – although singling out pieces within this selection really isn’t fair – is Memories of a Dragon, which is perhaps the most powerfully expressive of La Baroque’s ability to create an expression of a parallel world.

As well as producing 2D art, La Baroque also produces 3D art, but notes she doesn’t do it too often as she claims she is “much too lazy” and lacks the patience to build. Given the depth of creativity and care  shown within the pieces on display at Club LA and Gallery, I beg to differ with La Baroque’s assessment; she is far from “lazy” and her patience with the creative process is abundantly clear.

SL Details

• Club LA and Gallery (Amano rated: Moderate)

At the end of February 2018, Bryn Oh opened Tilt-aWhirl, the third in a series of single-scene poems  she has been putting together whilst also working on a new immersive installation to succeed Hand (reviewed here). It joins Lady Carmagnolle and 26 Tines (both of which I wrote about here) on a darkened Immersiva. However, in difference to the first two pieces, Tilt-a-Whirl has something of a personal foundation for Bryn.

“It is pretty much a nostalgic memory of being young at a fairground or carnival,” Bryn says of the piece – albeit it a carnival with fantasy overtones. Two rides form the piece, the titular tilt-a-whirl ride, with flashing lights and regular-looking cars, and a carousel with a quite unusual set of animals on which to ride: a dragon, ball-balancing unicorn, a butterfly, and a mechanical octopus, seahorse and horseshoe crab …

These are not a random selection of creatures for the ride, however. In her notes accompanying the piece, Bryn notes how some of the creatures have a personal link to her – notably the dragon and the octopus – a creature she’s clearly fascinated by, and with good reason.

There seems to be a further personal element contained within this piece, a reflection of another childhood memory revealed by the accompanying 3-stanza poem, which opens:

I dreamt of my youth
when I met a girl
and kissed her by the
Tilt-a-Whirl

Glance under the front of the Tilt-a-Whirl, and this memory is revealed through two figures – Flutter and Juniper – cautiously leaning towards one another, one shrouded by a blanket, hands reaching for one another, heads tilting. It’s a poignant moment caught in time; an echo of a childhood event made manifest once more through art and expression. Click on them, and you can view the video accompanying the scene, and which I’ve taken the liberty of embedding below (the video, and those for Lady Carmagnolle and 26 Tines can also be video by clicking the images on the floor of the arrival point).

Like Lady Carmagnolle and 26 Tines, Tilt-a-Whirl is haunting in theme, but it is also perhaps warmer in tone and feel. All three make for a striking visit.

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• Immersiva (Immersiva, rated: Moderate)

There are many galleries across Second Life. Some specialise in exhibiting photography and art created within Second Life; others focus on exhibiting the physical world work of artists who have come to Second Life for both social activities and as a means to reach a broader audience for their art. Indeed, such is the number of galleries, that reporting on all of them is a difficult task – but I enjoy hopping around SL looking for the smaller art spaces and discovering the work of artists between new to me and familiar.

One such gallery space, offering ensemble and mixed exhibits is the Art Garden Gallery operated by Fanny FooFoo Miklos (Sloane Cerise) and her partner Thorne Miklos. Located in the sky over the mainland, the gallery is – as its name suggests – presented as a garden environment; in this case a walled garden under a night-time sky.  The landing point is towards the centre of the garden space, with the art displayed on the outer stone walls.

At the time of my visit, most of the art on display represented physical world pieces by a broad range of artists, including Kaly Iali, Persia Silverblade, Toysoldier Thor, SaraMarie Paul, Shmoo Snook, JudiLynn India, Asmita Duranjaya, Dulcis Taurig, to name a handful. Given such a broad cross-section of artists, it should come as no surprise the art itself was broad in terms of content, style and approach. Some offered studies of flowers, others present landscapes or representations of landscapes, and others are far more abstract in nature. Thus, the gallery offers an eclectic and attractive mix of art for the visitor’s enjoyment.

If I have a complaint at all, is the lack of artist information outside of plaques bearing the name of each piece and the artist’s name. Given that there are so many artists in Second Life, and the ease with which information givers can be set-up, it would be nice to see settings like this do a little more to help inform visitors about the artists behind the works on display; doing so can add further depth to an exhibition.

At the western end of the gallery space is the Miklos Centre, a smaller space for what appears to be more themed art displays. Again, at the time of my visit, this smaller, enclosed area was home to a display of art and poetry entitled Telephone Walkers. On offer are seven pieces of art and seven poems on the subject of telephone poles. Four of the pictures were produced within Second Life, with the remaining three – by photographer Nils Urqhart and artist David E. Weiner – are of physical world locations. All feature telephone pole – or overhead power lines – either as something of a focal point – as with Ziki Questi’s Bonne Chance 3 and Furillen 1, in orders they are part of the overall image framing, as with In Every Life by Wintergeist and Old Stone Wall by Nordica Torok, while for the rest the poles are almost incidental.

The poems offer a broad range of perspectives on telephone poles,  and combined with the seven images – the numbers are more for balance than any attempt at pairing of specific images with poems – poems and pictures back for a very effective exhibition. I admit to finding Telephone Walkers more engaging than the main gallery space exhibition, partly because it is more contained and focused (and includes work by artists I greatly admire), but also because the poetry draws the visitor into each of the pieces, offering each multiple narratives to be enjoyed.

I’m not certain how frequently exhibitions change at the rt Garden Gallery, but for those who enjoy visits to smaller, more boutique style galleries which can offer ensemble exhibitions, I recommend a visit.

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• Art Garden Gallery (Dogoog, rated: Moderate)

From the Worlds to the World is a new installation by Giovanna Cerise at the R&D Gallery, Diotima, in Second Life. Occupying the entire gallery space, this is a complex installation to unravel, incorporating as it does elements of post-modernism, philosophy, logical progression, nature, geometry – whilst also, perhaps, promoting a discussion on what is the role of past and present in influencing the future.

Produced entirely in black-and-white, this is perhaps a stark piece, but there is a natural symmetry to it. Set against a black surround, the white forms within the installation are made up of geometric elements denoted by fine black lines – geometry being both a basic expression of both nature and intelligence. In all, the installation comprises three parts, perhaps analogous to the concepts of past, present and future, and which represent the evolution of intelligence.

“The first part of the installation can be seen as an archetype of nature, now incorporated and reduced to its geometries,” Giovanna states in introducing the work. Given the overall framework of the installation, I’d venture the opinion that in this instance archetype is being used to reference Jungian archetypes – universal, archaic patterns and images from the collective unconscious which form inherited potentials, which are transformed once they enter consciousness and are given particular expression by individuals and their cultures – and the idea that as universal patterns within the collective unconscious, they exist as a kind of primordial suspension, without individual structure and form.

Thus, in this first second of the installation, we are confronted with a chaotic form, uneven, broken, but with its geometry holding the promise of potential, of becoming individually / culturally and collectivity more.

From this the installation progresses through and initial shape and patterns in which human forms can be seen – a reference, it would seem to the rise of intelligence and self. A time when we shape and drive the world around us, while being both apart from it (humanity over nature?), yet wholly constrained by it – as evidenced by the shapes rising and folding out of, so to speak, the same geometric forms as seen in the initial part of the installation.

Beyond these lies the future: a place where individually no longer exists per se, and the identical reigns. A point at which intelligence has homogenised, There is no need for bodies nor the baser needs of humanity. Life has again become unified, archetypes woven together through their universality. A time has been reached where individuality or culture are no longer required. Nor is there need for dialectical discussion or reasoning; all that is required is uniformity and experiential growth and perfection of the whole.

As a representation discussion of the evolution of intelligence, From the Worlds to the World (“worlds” and “world” perhaps again a reference from separate cultural environments and attitudes to the single, homogeneous “whole”) is – as noted – a complex piece. While it may well point to a time where dialectical discourse is no longer required, it nevertheless encourages it, just as it also promotes more philosophical consideration of our own development and growth. Are we really to rise from the “primordial” homogeneity of initial instinctual intelligence to a point where the potential of the individual (be it person or cultural) is to be only a span of time before we are once again absorbed into a single whole once again, uniform of thought and goal?

These latter elements: the opportunity for considered thought and discussion make  – for those willing to dwell on interpreting the installation – From the Worlds to the World an ideal opportunity for a shared visit.

• From the Worlds to the World (Gigli Waves, rated: Moderate)