During my wanderings through the SL10B Community Celebration regions in June 2013, I came across Evan Moonshine’s Lepidoptera Museum. It was both a lovely build, and the subject matter within it fascinating; my only regret being that the cards describing all of the lepidoptera on display were to small to the read, and the subjects were themselves a little on the small side to be fully appreciated.
Now, in an exhibit at the Ode’s Arts & Culture Community running through until November 15th, 2014, DecemberGrey has brought some of her own images of lepidoptera and beetles to Seceond Life, combining them with some of her fabulous waterscapes of well-known SL regions. Called Waterscapes & Flying Things, it adds up to a fascinating display of artistic talent well deserving of a visit.
The images of moths and beetles occupy the ground floor of the OACC’s converted watermill gallery. At first glance, these might appear to be reproductions of drawings of the subject matter painstakingly created in the physical world by some 19th century botanist. Not so. These are images painstakingly created by the artist as a result of getting unexpectedly sidetracked at university, as DecemberGrey explains:
While in my second year of a BSc in botany (some fair while ago), I looked into the microscope on the lab bench while the lecturer was talking about angiosperm reproduction…. And from that point on, was captivated by the world seen only through a magnifying lens. I forgot the lecture, became lost. Today, all I remember is the brilliance that captivated me. It changed my life.
…My macro work started manually, my fingers moving the focus ring on the camera – millimetre by millimetre – to create a number of images of the same body which would then be compiled into a single image. Now it is a process somewhat automated. Technology is impressive, and allows an entirely different method of working. It gives me time to dabble in color and light. And to imagine. To transform. To create.
The results are simply amazing, with each of her subjects beautifully presented (and all of them available for purchase).
For DecemberGrey’s waterscapes, climb the stairs all the way up to the mill’s attic, where you’ll find them displayed perfectly on the whitewashed walls.
Featuring famous locations such as Roche, Hazardous, The Colder Water, Nagare and Frisland, and arts locations such as Imagin@rium and Immersiva, these pictures are as beautifully composed as the real-life images on the ground floor; in fact I’d say without a shadow of a doubt that they are among the finest images I’ve seen captured from within SL. To call them exquisite would not be over-emphasising them at all.
Spettatori malinconici di felicita’ impossibili – Mistero Hifeng (click images for full size)
I’ve been coming across the work of SL artist Mistero Hifeng a lot of late; his pieces have appeared in a number of regions I’ve dropped into recently, and he has an entry in the UWA’s Transcending Borders challenge. So when artist and friend Sniper Siemens invited me to pay a visit to Mistero’s gallery and store, I was only too delighted to hop along.
Volare – Mistero Hifeng
While some may not be familiar with his name, I would endeavour to suggest many are familiar with his work, his sculptures being instantly recognisable when encountered, many of them presenting a subtle blending for realities: very human figures often in very extraordinary – you might say surreal – situations, driven from deep within the imagination. Little wonder, then, that Mistero takes a Tom Watts quote for his profile description:
Mostly I straddle reality and the imagination. My reality needs imagination like a bulb needs a socket. My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane.
E’ soltanto un ricordo – Mistero Hifeng
Mistero presents his work to visitors in an open air gallery space occupying one half of a homestead region. The design is minimalist, little more than a beach, partially flooded by the (presumably) incoming tide and a handful of off-sim islands, one of which is volcanic in nature, all overlooked by a marbled sky of white and black (do make sure you accept the parcel windlight on arrival). But while minimalist, it is also highly effective, the sand and water naturally acting to isolate each of the pieces on display, giving a sense that they each occupy a space that is independent of the others, no matter how relatively close some may be to one another.
The windlight setting also serves to complement the subdued colours used within each piece, allowing them to stand out on their own, an effect which certainly encouraged me to keep to the default rather than fiddling with alternatives.
Bella – Mistero Hifeng
The pieces on display are large – all the better to see the detailing within them; so much so, that I doubt my efforts here really do them justice – they really must be seen first-hand.
While there is a line of flat stones laid across the sand to form a footpath through the gallery space, linking two teleport points with one another, there is no need to keep to this when viewing the displayed works, the open space makes for relaxed wandering, and the park benches and pianos which can be found at various points encourage meandering – and sitting.
As well as connecting one to the other, allowing people to hop between the two ends of the gallery space, the two teleporters also provide access to Mistero’s skyborne store. Here one can purchase versions of the items displayed in the gallery, or images of them as captured by Mistero, as well as images of works not currently on display.
Mysterio’s store
If you’ve not visited Mistero’s gallery before, I have no hesitation in recommending it to you. His work is an exquisite blending of ideas, images and emotions, presented through a skilled layering of the real with the surreal to produce pieces which are marvellous evocative and compelling.
Over the years, AIR has presented artists with the opportunity of using a full sim region and offering SL residents immersive environments they can enjoy. Over the years, this has led to some fascinating and quite amazing installations which might otherwise never have seen the light of day. Other times, it has to be said, the results have been less than satisfying.
As life has been keeping me a tad busy of late, I decided to combine recent visits to three of the current LEA Artist In Residence (AIR) installations into a single article. Into which of the above two categories they might fall is a matter of individual choice.
Travel Narratives into Trees
Uan Ceriaptrix uses Travel Narratives into Trees to offer visitors insight into the things that please him: natural environments unfettered by the imprint of human intervention, coloured by the natural flora and fauna within it, how these define reality for us, and the responses they evoke within us.
Or at least, that’s the intent. On an island which itself has a distinctly organic shape, perhaps a creature swimming in the sea. From this rise a series of leafless trees, almost claw-like in their appearance. Eye-like buds grow from the trees, while your path along the island creature is marked by giant ants, flowers and the skeletal forms of what might be dogs. The path leads to a smaller island, guarded by crocodiles (complete with a pose, if you fancy being their next meal) and on which can be found a teleporter leading you up to the second part of the installation.
Here sits a desert-like landscape, albeit one with plenty of trees and shrubs, in the midst of which sits a gigantic hollow tree which appears to be part study, part laboratory. Stairs and platforms wind their way upwards inside and around it, leading the visitor to various scenes of labour.
Metaphor is strong here, with clues provided by the artist’s biography and the notes accompanying the build. Whether the metaphor measures up to the visitor’s eye, however, is perhaps questionable.
Cultural Hysteria
Mario Zecca’s Cultural Hysteria is designed to be a piece that grows of the months of its existence. Starting with the build at ground / water level, successive platforms will be added over time, with the installation as a whole used as a venue for music, dance and poetry events.
Mario says of the installation, “the textures in the 3D prims, were derived from a process of automatic drawing. I used color or scribbles to create a texture or area and then allowed the images to arise. These are images that I have “drawn” from my imagination, the feedback from a lifetime of studying while I enjoyed cartoons, comic books, illustration and academic drawing. While building the installation here I had my avi walk around to get the walking point of view and perspective. My goal is to share and convey, in the form of an immersive visual environment, the unknown, undocumented and unmeasured language of art.”
The result is certainly colourful, and does require a fair amount of camming around to see. The region is filled with prims, some flexi, some static, some of which display static images, others moving images, some of which have glow applied, and so on. In terms of potential appeal, however, I’m really not sure how this installation will strike people. Perhaps we’ll only be able to really make a determination once all the levels have been added and, as Mario promises, the title of the piece becomes evident as they arrive.
Ovis Aries
So to Sheep – or to use the Latin as creator Sowa Mai (aka artist Stephen Beveridge) does, Ovis Aries. From the start, this piece is somewhat unusual and hard to define. Take the description, for example:
Sowa Mai has once again sidestepped his original idea and brought us a complete bastardization of the whole Second Life art ouvre. With this pile of shit he has left on our doorstep it is safe to say this will be the last time he is invited to participate. Don’t miss it.
Well, errm. Yes. Interesting reading. Taking the proverbial pee? And if so, at whom? The artist himself, or the “whole Second Life art ouvre”? It would be easy to conclude the latter, but let’s not be so hasty.
Your arrival is marked by a trio of sheep, one of whom can be chatty. If you’re on your own, it will initially discard with any pleasantries with a curt, “Go get a friend and we’ll talk…”. However, wait long enough, or have someone else present, and the sheep will engage in some ostentatious art babble – a poke, perhaps, at the world of art critics?
The sheep stand on a barren landscape enclosing, quarry-like, a body of water and shrouded in an evocative, misty windlight. A single stone tower rises from this landscape, while four transparent prims located to one side of the land offer a sound scape of crowd noises. At the top of the tower, celestially spotlighted sits … a turd, while down just above the water (and below it, for those who look) are images of the artist’s real-life abstract art.
Again, metaphor runs strong here, right down to the title of the piece. For those looking for a clue as to intent of this piece, a note card from the artist available at the landing point might hold a clue or two, dwelling as it does on issues of judgement. There is also a hint of questioning identity as well, found both within the note card and perhaps in the way the images of the artist’s work are presented.
Given that judgement does play a role in the artist’s definition of the work, I’ll leave it to you to form your own opinion of this installation – exactly as he intended.
Transcending Borders, the UWA’s combined Art and Machinima Challenge which offers a combined prize pool of over L$1,000,000 to entrants, plus L$240,000 in audience participation prizes, is reaching the final couple of weeks before the deadline for submissions is reached on October 31st.
The challenge presented by Transcending Borders is for entrants to interpret the title of the competition in any fashion they deem applicable, and produce an artwork or film based on their interpretation. For example, it might refer to transcending borders between space and time, or the past and present or the present and future; or it might refer to the divisions between dimensions, real and virtual; or it might be used to explore the borders separating nations or cultures or languages; or it might involve any or all of these ideas, and more – such as the many borders we encounter as we navigate our physical and virtual lives.
Jipe Loon’s Baculum Murder, a piece the artist suggests has many interpretations: physcial transcendence; spiritual transcendence; genetic transcendence, and more – you determine what it may mean to you (click for full size)
Art pieces submitted to the competition should not exceed 150 Land Impact, and should preferably by submitted with COPY permissions, and art entries are limited to one per entrant, while machinima entries should preferably be no more than 4 minutes and 30 seconds in length, although this is not a “hard” rule, and there is no limit to the number of items an entrant can submit.
The first prize in each category is L$100,000, with a number of runner-up and prize category prizes as well, as detailed in the original UWA blog post on the challenge. Winners will be determined by an invited jury of academics, SL business people, journalists, bloggers, artists and writers.
Tutsy Navarathna’s “MetaPhore – Transcending Borders” – one of the machinima entries in this year’s Transcending Borders UWA Art and Machinima challenge
And if that is not enough, there are also audience participation prizes available as a well (a total of L$135,000 for participating in the art section and a total of L$105,000 in the machinima section). All you have to do is list your personal Top Ten entries in either the art or the machinima sections of the challenge (or both!). Prizes will be awarded to audience members whose top 10 lists most closely align to the final juried top 10. Keep your eyes on the UWA blog for details on how to enter.
Ama Avro’s “Utopia” focuses on communications (click for full size)
Art entries can be viewed now at the UWA’s gallery space, while machinima entries can be viewed on the Transcending Borders page at SL Artist.com. Please remember that submissions will continue to be added to both locations through until the closing date for entries on October 31st, 2014.
(Spiral Silverstar’s “Transcending (Surreal) Borders” – one of the machinima entries in this year’s Transcending Borders UWA Art and Machinima challenge
Note: the images and machinima included in this item should not be taken as any indication of my personal preferences as a member of the Transcending Borders jury. They are included purely for the purposes of illustrating this article.
Holtwaye ArtSpace is fast becoming a regular destination for me. Since its launch in June by WayneNZ and Holter Rez, it has been the home of a series of eye-catching exhibits both in the main gallery space – beautifully designed by Waynenz – at ground level, and more recently in the air over it.
Joining How’s the Water? by Eupalinos Ugajin, which appeared above the gallery in September, is a new skyborne installation by Waynenz. Entitled Art in a Box. It’s a couple of wonderfully whimsical pieces which reflect the artist’s playful side; both are, as the name implies, pieces of art created in two giant cardboard boxes.
The first features a woodland scene, called Playful Dweller. This comprises woodland images covering the inside surfaces of a box, together with a 3D element of shrubs and ferns, with rabbits playing around a fallen branch. Two trees grow from boxes placed on either side of the main scene, while the picture at the back of the box features Waynez himself, blowing bubbles, which form a further 3D element in the scene as they float overhead. Touch some of these, and you’ll find yourself posed within them, becoming part of the piece. Or if you prefer, you can sit at the little tea-table, bedecked with flowers and ferns, and around which butterflies circle and fireflies drift.
The second piece is Boxed Clouds and features a painted sky scene through which flies a Godlike Waynenz. Floating within the confines of the box are a number of cubic clouds, rotating slowly and blending perfectly with the 2D cube clouds floating beneath the image of Waynenz to create a feeling of depth to the piece. This item is also interactive – touch the cubes and you’ll find yourself floating among them.
Art in a Box opened on October 4th with tea party, the remnants of which form a third display as Wild Things playing cards fall from another giant box, each one featuring an image of an avatar (friends of Waynenz and Holter, I presume), with a house of cards standing before it, the checkerboard floor under them forming the perfect transitional element between Boxed Clouds and Playful Dweller.
From now through until Friday, November 7th, the Avatar Repertory Theatre is holding a very special auction, the proceeds of which will go towards meeting the company’s running costs.
As one of the oldest theatre companies within Second Life, the Avatar Repertory Theatre (ART) operates from their theatre in Cookie, and has been at the forefront of bringing diverse, live theatre to a widening audience through virtual performances.
Productions have included first-time realisations of works by living playwrights, through to major immersive productions such as their own adaptations of the classic Greek Drama Oedipus Rex and the works of Lewis Carroll via Alice in WonderSLand and Through the Looking Glass. In addition, the company’s theatre has played host to many and varied events and performances, including Seanchai Library’s The War of the Worlds, which I reviewed during its initial run in 2011).
However, while operating a theatre company in a virtual world is a lot more cost-effective than doing so in the physical world, it is by no means free. Tier and other costs need to be continuously met. The Shakespeare By Request Auction offers Second Life residents the opportunity to bid for a member of the Avatar Repertory Theatre company to perform a selection from the works of William Shakespeare, with all money raised through the winning bids going directly into meeting ART’s ongoing costs. Bidders can be specific or as general as they like in their choice of the piece to be performed, by:
Simply indicating the play they want, and let the actor find something from it, or
Choosing a specific scene from a specific play, or
Requesting a favourite monologue that they’ve always wanted to hear their chosen actor perform.
Winning bidders will have a week to finalise their choice following the ending of the bidding period on Friday, November 7th, 2014, and will be invited to attend the performances at the Company’s popular Plays Around event scheduled for Friday, November 21st at 17:00 SLT, at the company’s theatre.
To place a bid, visit the patio area outside of the theatre building, where you’ll find bidding panels for the actors participating in Shakespeare By Request. Simply touch the board for the actor of your choice and make your bid. If you’d like to sample the company’s work before you place a bid, you can do so by attending one of the company’s Plays Around performances scheduled for Friday, October 21st and Friday, November 7th, both at 17:00 SLT.
place your bids for Shakespeare By Request
ART is a programme run by New Media Arts, Inc, a registered 501 (c) (3) tax exempt non-profit organization in the United States, which has recently released its first Go Fund Me Video in support of their mission to develop graphical, theatrical, literary, educational, library and other fine and practical arts on the internet, in 3D graphical user interfaces, multimedia, new generation computing devices, and other electronic and digital communication media.
further information on ART can be found at the Avatar Repertory Theatre company’s website and via Facebook and Google+.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 