Category: Art in Second Life

Now open at the art region of MetaLES, is Moya’s Memory, featuring some of the work of French artist Patrick Moya, aka Moya Janus in Second Life.

For those unfamiliar with either name, Patrick Moya is a part of the Nice contemporary art movement, centred on the École de Nice, and he has had a long association with integrating / leveraging technology with and for his art.  Within SL his is perhaps best known for Moya Land, his four-region estate dedicated to his work and to “brand Moya”.

 

The installation at MetaLES is a celebration of Moya’s work, featuring several of his iconic pieces, including a plethora of his cartoon alter-ego.  Central to the piece is a large logic circuit, complete with resistors, transistors,  DIMM modules and so on, within an around which can be found elements of his art – his aforementioned cartoon alter-ego (as well as his superhero identity) and characters from a number of his pieces and drawings while bespectacled orbs carry the likeness of his face and his name can be encountered again and again.

Given its title, this is an installation that appears to work on several levels. First, and perhaps most obviously, it might be seen as something of a personal retrospective by the artist. Secondly, the use of the circuit board stands an an echo of the manner in which moya embraces the use of technology in his art. Thirdly, the circuit board is itself suggestive of memory – and by extension, the mind – further suggesting that the growth of free artistic expression can oft arise from the ordered (dare I say logical) workings of the human mind.

There’s also, perhaps a small comment on the how the identity of the artist is invested in his or her work; the motifs seen throughout this pieces – particularly the frequent use of his name and the self images or the frequent appearance of Dolly the Sheep, be they taken from the physical world or embodied in the use of Moya’s alter-egos – are far less any form of ego-driven statement, and more a commentary on how the artist is himself perhaps defined by his work.

The motif of mind and art being bound through memory and brain is also repeated elsewhere through the installation, such as in the inclusion of a model of Moya’s physical house, or the model of his cartoon alter-ego, from the head of which bursts forth a fountain of the artist’s drawings.

Moya is a prolific artist, whose work covers multiple mediums and formats; as such, there is perhaps another aspect to any interpretation of this installation: that it is itself a small reflection – an aide memoire, as it were – to the vast catalogue of his work, physical and virtual. The latter aspects can, following a visit to MetaLES be enjoyed through a hop over to Moya Land. In the meantime, Moya’s Memory will be open through until at least the end of February, I believe – so enjoy!

Related links

• Moya’s Memory, MetaLES (Rated: Moderate)

 

 

 

Resilience is that ineffable quality that allow some people to be knocked down by life and to come back stronger than ever. Rather than letting failure overcome them and drain their resolve, they find a way to rise from the ashes.

Resilience. The capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused especially by compressive stress.

With these two dictionary definitions, one is welcome to ReZilience, the latest quarterly exhibition at Kate Bergdorf’s cosy Berg gallery, located overhead of her home region, Nordan om Jorden.

Both of these definitions can be applied to those of us who use Second Life; the first being applicable when Things Go Wrong for often inexplicable reasons, while the second is more directly applicable to our avatars. While the days of teleporting from A to B and finding shoes, hair, and other attachment trailing from our posteriors as a bizarre tail have long passed, for those who wear mesh, life can be full of random bodily and clothing malfunctions which we stalwartly accept because “it’s Second Life”. And thus the theme of the exhibition is set.

ReZilience is a wonderfully tongue-in-cheek look at what can unexpectedly happen when we log-in to SL, only to find our mesh body rotated 90 degrees and lying horizontally through our (alpha wearing) form, or when we teleport somewhere, only to appear to others as if our heads and bodies are going through a trial separation from one another, and so on.

Tutsy Navarathna, perhaps best know for his marvellous award-winning machinima, is the artist behind the pieces on display,  and he presents a series of pieces combining images captured in-world with paintings and drawing to offers a series of delightful shots celebrating bodily mishaps in Second Life, each with its own delightful caption edged with a wicked sense of humour and, in places, underlined with what might a a subtle social comment on matters of identity – such as appears to be the case with Elle n’a jamais cache utiliser la chirurgie esthetique pour conserver une plastique de reve

With just twelve pieces on display, this is not an extensive exhibit, but it doesn’t have to be; the wry humour is more than adequately presented, and the intimate space provided by Kate’s little gallery space is the ideal environment in which to present the pieces. Rezilience will remain open to visitors through until March 31st, 2015.

Related Links

• Berg Gallery SLurl (Rated: Moderate)

Shadow Play: Tales of Urbanization of China is a project by a collective entity known as Lily & Honglei (in fact three artists – Xiying Yang, Honglei Li and He Li, based in Beijing and New York). It spans three distinct mediums – the physical world, the virtual world and augmented reality – and combines modern technology with the ancient art of shadow puppetry to present a unique perspective on the changes people in China have, and are, facing.

“Over the past few decades, China has been undergoing urbanization at an astounding pace. In 2013, the newly inaugurated national leadership raised the process to a new gear when it unveiled its plan of converting 70 percent of the population to a city-oriented lifestyle by 2025,” the Artists note in their introduction to the work.

“Such a significant change would undoubtedly transform the character of a country that has been largely agrarian throughout its millennia of history. One may wonder how, and to what extent, the landscape, culture, and daily being of the nation’s people may be altered. As artists, we are compelled to explore and reflect upon the various phases of this historic undertaking.”

Commissioned by New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc., and sponsored by funding from the Jerome Foundation, the  virtual reality element of Shadow Play: Tales of Urbanization of China take the form of a 4-chapter story located on land provided by the University of Massachusetts, Boston.

The four chapters, The Land: Death of the Village Head, The Ruins: Lost Children, The City: Into the Void and The Maze: No Exit, unfold across a series of ornate panels designed to evoke the nature and characteristics of shadow play, and mix traditional Chinese artistry with modern photography and drawings to tell an unfolding story. Each chapter is intended illuminate genuine situation that have arisen in China as a result of China’s shifting (and often enforced) face from those of an agrarian society to a highly urbanised society: clashes during land evictions, child abductions, the rise in suicides among migrant workers, and the impact of cultural and environmental degradation.

To best understand the story, I’m recommend a visit to the Shadow Play website, and in particular to the cast of characters. (this page also provides an overview of the augmented reality element of the work, which can be experienced on iPhones, iPads and Android devices under defined circumstances and using the Layar application).

Once you’ve got a handle on the characters involved, the individual elements of the story are easy to trace.  Each of the panels is quite extraordinary in execution, with some powerful motifs – most noticeably with the faceless forces of the police (who I suspect are representative of the large faceless and remorseless bureaucratic  machine).

The final chapter of the story is in two parts, one on the ground, and the other in the air. The former includes a model of the Great Wall of China in flames. Originally a part of a 2010 installation by the artists called Celebrate, the burning wall stood in that pieces as a statement against the Chinese government’s rigorous enforcement of Internet censorship and filtering. While that message still fits with the narrative presented here, it also further reinforces the narrative of cultural upheaval and separation from past ways of living for so many of China’s population.

The airborne element of the chapter is equally striking: a single lit candle surrounded by faceless police, high-rise buildings and with blood-red tanks printed on the ground around it, offer a very clear symbolism of its own.

Shadow Play: Tales of Urbanization of China in SL is  a quite striking work; although I can’t help but feel one that is not presented here to its best advantage, and would benefit greatly were it to be displayed within its own dedicated skybox. Also, I cannot help but feel that it doesn’t fully utilise the uniqueness of a 3D environment such as Second Life, and that more interactive elements would greatly enhance its power and appeal. However, these asides don’t detract for the artistry evidence in the pieces, particularly the panels representing the first two chapters. which are beautifully striking.

Related Links

• Shadow Play: Tales of Urbanization of China SLurl (Rated: General)
• Shadow Play: Tales of Urbanization of China website

The End of Time estate, comprising a total of seven regions, is a beautiful haven open to the public which offers plenty to see and do. In particular, the estate offers two main venues for art, as well as featuring art displays through the paths and trails that wind through the estate.

The Museum of Second Life Art at The End of Time is a gallery space feature the work from both the virtual and the physical world by a number of artists with in a rotunda style building which, for me, seems to carry echoes of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Currently on display across the two floors of the gallery are pieces by Consuela Caldwell, Orsini Tarantal (RL: Javier Escudero Cuervas-Mons), JudiLynn India, Kynne Llewellyn and Max Bobair. All represent a rich variety of styles and -as noted – mix images captured in the virtual realm with pieces created in the physical realm, thus offering a highly individual gallery space  / exhibition displayed around a central free-form sculpture by Patty entitled Nude Describing a Staircase.

Meanwhile, the Subway Gallery offers  a very different ambience, with the façade of a run-down quarter of a town somewhere, complete with the backdrop of industrial noises. The Subway’s latest exhibition opens at 14:00 SLT Wednesday, January 14th, features an extraordinary retrospective exhibition of poster art by Dana Pinkerton, and which celebrates the tenth anniversary of her rezday.

On display are some 30-ish posters Dana has created over the years, each featuring other avatars in what is a striking and very individual approach to portraiture. Many of the images on display feature SL DJs (Dana herself is a DJ as well as an artist and club owner), and may be familiar to some from the profile pictures of the subjects. The exhibit space itself has the feeling of being divided into two halves: the first room features posters with a high level of ambient lighting and more muted, natural colours, while those in the back room of the gallery are far more vibrant in colour and have something of an 80’s movie poster look about them.

During the opening event, a limited number of selected works, signed by the artist, will be available for sale, and there is an open invitation for those so interested to attend.

Wander the estate, and you’ll find other art on display – such as the “trash-art” sculptures by ZTAR Magic , a member of the LastPlak Collective. The estate also usually features Feather Boa’s remarkable “Butterflies” exhibit as well, displayed along an open-air walk, but is currently on loan to Art Forest through until the end of January 2015.

I’ll have more on End of time and my return blogging visit under a separate title; in the meantime, I’ll leave you with the relevant SLurls.

Related Links

• End of Time main arrival point (Rated Moderate)
• Museum of Second Life Art (Rated:  Moderate)
• Subway Gallery (Rated: Moderate)