Category: Art in Second Life

Obscured by Clouds is one of the more uncommon (and perhaps underrated) of Pink Floyd’s studio albums. Released in 1972, it features much shorter individual tracks than found on other albums – particularly Dark Side of the Moon, the recording of which was paused in order to make way for Obscured by Clouds – with the lyrics focused on life and love. It was written and produced as the soundtrack for the 1972 French film La Vallee (also known as Obscured by Clouds), the story of an accidental voyage of self-discovery embarked upon by a young woman.

I mention this because it might help illuminate why Mareea Farrasco selected the title Obscured by Clouds for her latest collection of art. This opened to visitors on January 11th, 2024 within the Art Square at the Kondor Art Centre, operated and curated by Hermes Kondor. Like the film, Mareea’s exhibition is something of a voyage of introspection, each image a short refrain  – or perhaps stanza or verse might be a better description – on life in modern times.

As Mareea herself notes, we are living in a world of confusion; a place where the norms of social discourse are being torn asunder; where people’s right to think for themselves, to hold views of their own is disintegrating under the demands to conform in some manner – be it religious or a simple matter of skin colour, or something else; a place in which decency, humanity, caring and concern for social equality is more and more sneered upon and disparagingly labelled whilst coarseness, violence are lauded. It is a world of distorted realities, where it is all too easy to lose sight of simple truths – and even of oneself  -, at a loss as to who we are and where we are trying to go.

All of this is hauntingly and beautifully reflected in Mareea’s images. Each one forms a single-frame statement on these confusions and distortions and our need to if not confront them, at least have the wherewithal to move through and beyond them and try to regain what has become obscured before we lose it entirely.

Collectively, the use of post-process clouding and misting effects adds a depth of feeling to them, evoking that idea of trying to pierce the confusion and find reality – and provocative in their message. These are each images which deserve not so much to be seen but to be contemplated; viewed both through the lens of the world today, and as a lens through which we might better see that same world and understand how we might both escape it and – more importantly – seek to rebalance it; to rediscover the really important things in life and discover who we are as individuals and – perhaps – as a race.

An intense and rewarding visual essay.

SLurl Details

• Kondor Art Square, Kondor Art Centre (Royal Tea, rated Adult)

There is something oddly serendipitous (or at least, curiously reflective) in receiving and invitation from Mareea Farrasco to attend a new exhibition of art by Scylla Rhiadra, which opened on January 5th, 2024 at her IMAGOLand Art Galleries. I say this because Containers in some ways encapsulates a subject of which I’ve been very much focused upon in my physical world for the last few months as a project to completely refurbish the house insides and out continues: the Ying / Yang relationship between who we are in life, and the spaces we inhabit.

As Scylla notes in her introduction to the exhibition, the spaces we occupy, be they at home or at work or somewhere between, whether public or private, can both help organise and protect us as individuals whilst also giving us the freedom to fully express who we are, whilst at the same time they can also inform, contain, and constrain us in how we reveal ourselves to the world at large – and perhaps actually to ourselves as well.

At a metaphysical level, no-one is truly an “individual”; we are all (and here, having raised the subject of metaphysics, I’m going to horribly mangle perdurantism and endurantism, simply because the “truth” likely encompasses elements of both even though they are treated as rivals) all collections of experiences and reactions, and of growth and change through time and events.

Perhaps the easiest way to explain this is to take an obvious set of examples: how we project ourselves at work is not how we project ourselves at home; how we face the world when attending a religious service is not the same as when we are joining with like-minded supporters at a sporting event; how we behave within a crowd is generally not the same as when socialising with a smaller, closer group of friends. Of course, how we project ourselves in each of these circumstances is in part the result of accepted social frameworks – when at work, it is expected that we are “professional”; when attending a place of worship, we are expected to exhibit some degree of piety; and so on.

However, it cannot be denied that how we slip between these different personas is also driven by the spaces we have created in order to engage in these activities. For example, a building of worship both naturally constrains our behaviour even before we have entered it; the structure itself demands a more pious behaviour as we approach it; similarly, entering a place of work requires we become “professional” in outlook and attitude. Even at home, the spaces we build so easily inform us as much as we have sought to inform them through the choices we have made in terms of our choices in their décor, the placement of furniture within them, and the “rules” society has placed around them.

This is where Containers stuck that serendipitous / reflective cord within me. For the last few months I’ve been very engaged in a complete re-vamp of the place where I both live and work within the physical world; the work is far from over (and in places hasn’t entirely gone as planned!) but it encompasses everything from general room redecoration through the complete refurbishment of entire rooms – including the remove of walls, the shifting of doorways, the use of lighting, and much more.

Throughout all of it, I’ve become increasingly aware of that Ying/Ying nature in how we express ourselves at home through the décor we chose for the rooms, etc., and how the rooms actually shape – and go as far as to confine our thinking in terms of how we can / should express ourselves through them. That awareness has actually done a lot to alter thinking on how some of the rooms in the house should actually be refurbished such that their use need not be so constrained by convention or how it impacts upon thinking.

Within Containers, and with a lot more subtlety that I’ve used here, Scylla explores the idea of how rooms both express and constrain, not only using images but – as is becoming her trademark – through the use of considered quotes (which also, perhaps, reveal more about her – they certainly further encourage a sense of kinship I hold towards her (and which itself is rooted in multiple facets of her personality she has expressed both through SL and other mediums we share). Together, each image and its accompanying text offer a rich, contemplative exploration of our relationship with the spaces / structures we create (an exploration in which doorways and windows play as much a role as the rooms themselves, offering as they do both suggestions of escape and (as I noted somewhat differently above) the coming constrains a space might try to impose.

Whether drawing us together or as a means to provide separation (be it “personal space” or in some other form), the rooms and spaces  – the containers – we create have a power to be an extension of who we are, both in terms of the freedoms of expression they allow and the constraints they demand.

SLurl Details

• IMAGOLand Art Galleries (Rising Phoenix, rated Moderate)

Currently open through the end of 2023 within Akiko Kinoshi’s (A Kiko) Akijima events region are three exhibitions of art I have absolutely no hesitation in recommending to readers of this blog. All three are located within the same sky platform, and thus between them make for an excellent joint visit, whilst between them presenting very different selections of art.

Sisi Biederman is someone who really needs no introduction to established patrons of art in Second Life; she is one of the most accomplished and engaging digital mixed-media artists in SL, as well as a skilled artist working in more “traditional” mediums such as photography and acrylics. Her work is utterly unique and completely captivating, offering a richness of imagination, style and colour. Her subject matter tends to be wide-ranging, covering everything from the natural world through in-world settings to the fantastical and even touching on the abstract and the near-surreal.

For this exhibition she presents some of her favourite pieces produced in 2023, bringing together a mix of images visitors can literally trace by month / season, and which although primarily digital in form, wrap themselves around genres such as abstractionism, watercolour and expressionism. With a strong focus on floral scenes, also folded into the collection is at least one memory of a place Sisi appears to have visited (and which is among my personal list of favourite places around the global I’ve been fortunate enough to visit and witness), and perhaps hints of others as well. Vibrant and fairly pulsing with a sense of vitality, this is a superb selection with which to whet one’s appetite for witnessing more of Sisi’s work.

Another physical world artist who has established a deserved reputation of producing some of the most visually expressive art in Second Life is Milly Sharple, who is the second of the three artists at Akijima.

For those unfamiliar with Milly, she is a successful artist and photographer in the physical world whose work has not only sold on a global basis, but has also been used as book and CD cover art, within promotional pieces including posters for theatrical productions and has even be used on bank cards. In 2020 she was invited to do a collaboration representing the COVID pandemic with Salvador Dali’s protégé, Louis Markoya.

Within Second Life, Milly probably initially became recognised for her fractal art – being one of the first artists to introduce this particular art-form to Second Life audiences. For several years she was also responsible for the Timamoon Arts Community, which in its day, hosted over 40 resident artists and was regarded as one of the most successful and popular art communities on the grid.

Here Milly presents a glimpse of the breadth and depth of her digital work, only touching lightly on her SL fractal art “roots” (if I might use that term). To attempt to describe these pieces would serve no purpose; as the images accompanying this article hopefully show, Milly’s work transcends mere written description and should be seen first-hand

I first witnessed the work of Guille (Antoronta) whilst visiting the Annexe of the Limoncello gallery in 2021, which at the time was hosting his exhibition Unseen Beauty (see here). He is in fact the virtual incarnation of Antonio Guillén, a noted doctor in Biology and professor of Natural Sciences whose research projects have spanned the environment, microbiology and astrobiology.

And when I say “noted”, I mean precisely that; his work has been exhibited in such august centres as the National Museum of Natural Sciences, Madrid, and has garnered awards such as Spain’s National Prize for Scientific Photography and the Giner de los Ríos Prize, the country’s most prestigious educational award, whilst his project The Hidden Life of Water received the first world award at a Google Science Fair in 2012.

Within Second Life, Guille has sought to bring the incredible beauty and diversity of the microscopic world which inhabits all of us as much as we inhabit the visible world, through such exhibitions as Unseen Beauty and his 2022 exhibition Invisible Beauty (see here) and – whilst it has now apparently closed – through his former in-world education centre El Universo en una Gota de Agua – the universe in a drop of water.

At Akijima, Guille once again allows us to dive into this unseen universe of tiny life forms through a collection of images captured via CCD and microscope, allowing is to witness this unite world of algae, ciliates, amoebae and other micro-organisms in all their glory and (at times almost geometric) forms. Offered as a set of individual slideshow focused on a specific aspect of the microscopic, these are fabulous glimpses into a universe we otherwise rarely get to see; my only small regret being that unlike Guille’s past exhibitions, this one (for whatever reason) is sans any accompanying text for the pieces (which should not be taken as a critique of the exhibition or the artist, but as a purely personal observation).

None of the art presented by the Artists is offered for sale; this is a trio of exhibitions purely for the eye and mind to appreciate. However, if you are looking for art to hang in your Second Life home, the fourth building on the platform may also be worthy of a visit. This is home to the Second Free Museum, where are from numerous artists is available free-of-charge to anyone wishing to obtain copies.

SLurl Details

• Akijima Sky Galleries (Akijima, rated Moderate)

Winter 2023 see the Best of Second Life (BOSL), operated by Regin Congrejo and Jamee Thomson (Jamee Sandalwood), host two art exhibitions within its home region, both of which I was able to visit a little earlier in the month.

The first is an ensemble exhibition, which is being held within BOSL’s main gallery. Entitled Hello Winter, it opened on December 2nd and runs through until January 13th, 2024. It features art and photography from 11 Second Life residents, some of whom are more than likely familiar names to SL arts patrons, and others may not be so familiar. They comprise: Sheba (Sheba Blitz), Dante Helios (Dantelios), Kylie (KylieQuinn), Elan (Ineffable Mote), Brion Ravens (Brian Ravenhurst), Evie Ravens (Evelyn Irelund), Hannah Starlight, Jennifer Steele (JenniferSteele Wilder), Lizzy (Lizzy Swordthain), Matt Thomson (MTH63), and Jamee Thomson (Jamee Sandalwood).

The majority have selected Second Life as their subject for their winter-themed images, although Jennifer Steele and Elan both present paintings from the physical world, and Matt Thomson straddles digital worlds with pieces that appear to have been produced world and pieces of digital abstract art which has been something of a hallmark of his.

It’s a very easy-going selection of art and images, each with its own appeal and sense of the season, be it traditional in for or more expressionist in content (if not necessarily in genre).

Down at the Waterfront Café, which can be seen if you stand on tippy-toe and look over the wall on the far side of the main gallery’s car park (and also reached vey a downhill walk commencing at the left-hand end of the wall as you look at it), is a further exhibition of Jamee Thomson’s work.

Running through until January 20th, 2024, this is actually Jamee’s first solo exhibition in something like a year, offering 11 pictures, 10 of which have been captured from within Second Life and the 11th appears to be a digital creation. Jamee’s Second Life landscapes are  instantly recognisable wherever they are seen, thanks to a combination of her use of colour and her ability to breath both depth and life into her work – and the landscapes offered within the Waterfront Café are ample proof of this.

Both exhibitions make for pleasing visits, and their proximity to one another make them an enjoyable joint visit – if you don’t fancy the walk between the two galleries (which is in itself a pleasant meander), the region’s teleport boards make hopping between the two locations easy.

SLurl Details

BOSL Innovation Pavilion is rated Moderate

• BOSL Main Gallery
• Waterfront Café

Fragments, the latest collection of digital art by Traci Ultsch now on display (into the early New Year, I believe) at Inspire Space Park / Art Planet, is a slightly unusual exhibition. Not because it is out-of-the-ordinary when placed alongside Traci’s overall portfolio – far from it; Fragments is as visually layered and abstracted as much of Traci’s other work. No, what makes it unusual – or perhaps curious might be a better term – is that it has not one, but three introductions, allowing visitors to take their pick as to which they find resonates the most.

Two of the three might be taken as reflections on life – or more particularly, how life is not something we can plan or necessarily control; at least, not beyond the most basic needs and routines. Rather, when all is said and done, it is really a fragmentary passage of time and events; actions and reactions within the greater planning which can so often become confused and oddly juxtaposed one to the next as we look back and try to recall  cause and effect.

Thus, within this exhibition – which must be viewed with Advanced Lighting Model (ALM) enabled via Preferences → Graphics for those using a non-PBR enabled viewer, Traci offers a series of panoramic (in terms of their image ratio) pictures, each one carrying within it the sense of a theme – buildings, nature, walls, plants. However, each image is fragmented into a series of elements, often presenting a different view of the same central object, each element within the complete picture carrying a beat of not-quite repetition which is almost musical in form.

Words flow through each image collage, words which Traci declares them as extracted lines from songs; however, they have about them a similar beat, one suggestive of thoughts of the past and half-reminded reflections, so matching the manner in which the images suggest juxtaposed remembrances a a half-forgotten memory. Also present within each canvas are what might been seen as reflections of other images, small and distant – or might they be reflections of the same image?  – further enhancing the idea of fragmented memories (or desires, perhaps?), confused and overlaying one another.

So it is that -perhaps –  within these images we might see personified the idea that far from being a cohesive set of steps, life really is a string of interconnected events of happenstance; some of which might well appear to be repeated (and thus give rise to our desire to understand there is a purpose to it all), when in truth there is nothing of the kind; no preordination; just random collisions of planned and unplanned events which push us onwards whilst leaving us to look back and reflect and try to make sense of it all.Or, perhaps as Traci disarmingly suggests in her third introduction to Fragments, these are images reflective of a random desire to create, trapped between hangovers and called into being by a lucid turn behind the camera lens and when hand and eye work in unison to tweak pixels on a screen. But even if the latter is true (which I somehow doubt); does this actually negate the underpinning theme offered through the first two introductions?

SLurl Details

• Fragments at Inspire Space Park / Art Planet (Shinda, rated General)