Running through until January 2015 at the Paris Metro Art Gallery is an exhibition of SL landscapes by Olympes Rhodes, featuring a collection of pictures captured from around Second Life which reflect the theme of winter in one way or another.
Some twenty-one pictures are on display, arranged on two levels within the gallery space, which has been transformed into something of an ice palace for the exhibition; the floor and walls covered in panelling covered in a ice-like effect and which are semi-transparent, so the world outside can just bee seen through the gallery’s actual windows, while the mezzanine floor of the upper level and the grand staircase leading up to it have a ghostly, translucent finish to them suggestive of them having been cut from ice.
“My job was to create an environment in the gallery that supports the works,” curator Quan Lavender says of the interior design, “And fits to the wonderful Winter scene with ice pond in front of the building.” I’d say she’s succeeded, the interior fittings rounded-off with a series of ice carvings and other accessories Quan found at the Xmas Expo, and which fit the theme perfectly.
Not all of the pictures on display may appear to be winter scenes; they don’t all have snow and frost featured within them, for example. But the theme is there to be found in each and every one, even if the presentation is subtle – such as with the pictures taken at Chouchou, which suggest feelings of winter and ice through the backdrop of the Memento Mori cathedral. In another, a little group of penguins standing on the beach provide the necessary connection.
All of the pieces have their own beauty and delicacy about them, and each one offers a unique interpretation of some very famous regions in Second Life. Their names are not given, which encourages the visitor to spend time examining each picture in greater detail to see if the location can be identified. Or at least, that was the case with this visitor!
When visiting, and if you are so minded, don’t forget that gallery owner Rose (rfb Morpork) has created a gown to match the theme of the exhibition, which can be obtained from the gift giver outside the gallery.
On Tuesday, December 16th, 2014 the Linden Endowment for the Arts announced the successful applicants for the 8th round of the LEA’s Artist-in-Residence (AIR) programme.
Qualia: The Sentience of Being – Frankx Lefavre, December 2014
The LEA received over 40 applications, and those selected were viewed as presenting “truly outstanding proposals that represent a diverse range of virtual art.”
The successful applicants will each be allocated a full region within the LEA for a 6-month period. They have up to four months to prepare their projects, which range from full-sim immersions, to innovative builds geared specifically for multimedia works such as sound and machinima. Each installation must be open for a minimum of two months of the 6-month allocation, and it is expected that some will be open in advance of the four-month build deadline. All exhibits must be open to the public by the end of April 2015 at the latest.
On Sunday, December 14th, 2014, the Grand Finale of the University Of Western Australia’s (UWA) Transcending Borders was held at the impressive UWA-BOSL Grand Amphitheatre. During the event, over L$1,000,000 was awarded in prizes to artists, machinima makers and those who took part in the audience participation competition. With some last-minute additions to the prize pools, and some additional special awards, the event was a very special celebration of artistic expression in Second Life.
Transcending Borders challenged entrants to interpret the title of the competition in any fashion they deem applicable, and produce a 3D artwork (in no more than 150 prims) or short film based on their interpretation, be it on transcending borders of space and time, love and loss, nationally or culture or language, or the real and the virtual, and so on. The result was a glittering array of 67 artworks and 38 machinima, representing a broad diversity of interpretations of the theme.
The Grand Finale was hosted by the UWA’s Jayjay Zifanwe, with the UWA’s art curator, FreeWee Ling also on hand to announce the special Curator’s awards in both the art and machinima categories.
In the first part of this report, I covered the awards for the Transcending Borders 3D Art Challenge. Here, I review the winners in the the MachinimUWA VII Transcending Borders Challenge, in which machinima makers could submit as many films on the them as they wish, as long as each entry had been specifically filmed for the Challenge, and should preferably run for around 4 minutes 30 seconds (although this latter point was not a “hard” rule.
Audience Participation Prizes
Alongside the “main” challenges focused on artists and machinima makers, Transcending Borders included two audience participation competitions. Anyone who was not on the official judging panel was invited to provide what they thought the top 10 would be as decided by the actual panel, and those with lists which most closely matched the final list of prize winners as determined by the judges, would receive a special prize.
And the winners were:
5th place winner (L$5,000): Elle Thorkveld
4th place winner (L$7,500): Chic Aeon
3rd place winner (L$10,000): Karima Hosian
2nd place winner (L$15,000): Lalie Sorbet
1st place winner (L$20,000): Dyzo.
Commenting on the machinima audience participation competition, Jayjay said, “No tall order to attempt to participate in this challenge, as one had to watch all the machinima [38 entries].
Quite amazing, as all the top 3 correctly predicted 8 of the top 10 [as determined by the judge’s votes].” He went on to note that of these five individuals, three had been in the top five of the last art Grand Challenge, perhaps showing that there was something of a science in how the winners make their selections.
For Chic Aeon, the audience participation prize was the start of a remarkable part of the evening, something she shared with Haveit Neox.
Machinima Prizes
Note that SLurls are given with the titles of all winning pieces, and all the entries into the MachinimUMA VII Transcending Borders challenge can be seen on the SL Artist website.
The 10th through 6th places winners, who each received L$25,000 are:
As there was a tie for 4th place, there was no individual 5th place prize winner. Instead, the top four prizes in the MachinimUWA VII Transcending Borders challenge were awarded as follows:
Grand prize winner: Metaphore, by Tutsy Navrathna (India)
Jayjay had contacted Tutsy ahead of the event to inform him he had won a prize, but due to Internet issues, Tutsy could not remain connected to Second Life for the event. Instead, a short speech he had prepared ahead of time was read out by his friend, Yoon.
I would like to express a warm welcome to all participants and visitors for attending this grand finale. Also I would like to express a big thank you to UWA, Jayjay and all the organizers of this contest for offering the opportunity to many people, to discover or establish themselves as creators in 3D or Machinimas.
Transcending borders in and with a movie is less tough than transcending the borders of a contest itself. A work of NicoleX was refused because it conflicted with the UWA borders. I do regret the work has been refused, it shows the limits we have to deal with sometimes. Yet we also cannot be deaf and blind for using our freedom of expression with a sense of awareness for the consequences. When input and output become disproportionate, other solutions are needed.
Therefore again, many thanks to both UWA and all people that participated with their movies and opinions. And I am secretly proud as well a tiny little bit, thank you all!
Special Awards
In addition to the top ten awards, the Grand Finale included a number of special awards, both from the MachinimaUWA VII Transcending Borders challenge and also from the 2014 Project SciFi, which the UWA partners.
MachinimUWA VII Transcending Borders Special Prizes
Honourable Mention Prize for message within a film (L$15,000): Unseen Transcended Borders, by Eric Takkar & Arcane Marenwolf (USA and Australia)
Honourable Mention Prize for artistry within a film (L$15,000): The Embryo, by Ultraviolet Alter (France)
UWA Special Prize (L$25,000), awarded by the UWA representatives on the judging panel to the film that interweaves a number of locations from the UWA campus in it: The Ghost in the Machine, by Chic Aeon (USA) – Chic’s third win of the evening, and the second for her entry
Curators Choice Award (L$25,000) for the film, selected by UWA’s curator FreeWee Ling, that weaves one or few of the artworks in the challenge into it: Reading Primchords, by Haveit Neox (USA) – Haveit’s third individual win in the Finale with both the film and Primchords, the artwork which inspired it. Haveit also shared a prize with Lilia Artia and Mouehane for Sharing Unknown Roads
Commenting on her choice, FreeWee said:
For the machinima curator’s prize there were several entries that included artwork from current or past UWA shows. Some were focused specifically on a single piece or two, some incorporated art as a background to their narratives, and some had only a brief sighting of a work. I was looking for machinimas that most effectively used the artwork to tell the story of the film. The films that did that best seemed to be those by the 3D artists themselves. Among those, there was one film I thought was most engaging with the 3D art being essential in telling a story.
Project Sci-Fi Awards
Mention was also made of the two SL-based machinima which had also received prizes inthe 2014 Project Sci-Fi competition. This event was judged by a jury entirely separate to that of Transcending Borders.
2014 Project SciFi Challenge Honourable Mention (AU$200): About Face, by Avajean Westland (USA)
As with the first part of this report, I would again like to extend my personal thanks to both Jayjay and FreeWee for the incredible amount of work they do in the promotion of virtual world art and the potential of virtual worlds. Transcending Borders is not only a fitting theme for a UWA Grand Challenge, reminds us that both Jayjay and FreeWee help artists, educators, students and virtual worlds enthusiasts transcend the borders between the virtual and the physical each and every day.
The UWA-BOSL Ampitheatre: scene of the Transcending Borders Grand Finale
On Sunday, December 14th, 2014, the Grand Finale of the University Of Western Australia’s (UWA) Transcending Borders was held at the impressive UWA-BOSL Grand Amphitheatre. During the event, over L$1,000,000 was awarded in prizes to artists, machinima makers and those who took part in the audience participation competitions. With some last-minute additions to the prize pools, and some additional special awards, the event was a very special celebration of artistic expression in Second Life.
Transcending Borders challenged entrants to interpret the title of the competition in any fashion they deem applicable, and produce a 3D artwork (in no more than 150 prims) or short film based on their interpretation, be it on transcending borders of space and time, love and loss, nationally or culture or language, or the real and the virtual, and so on. The result was a glittering array of 67 artworks and 38 machinima, representing a broad diversity of interpretations of the theme.
The Grand Finale was hosted by the UWA’s Jayjay Zifanwe, with the UWA’s art curator, FreeWee Ling also on hand to announce the special Curator’s awards in both the art and machinima categories.
JayJay Zifanwe
Opening the event, Jayjay said:
It’s been an absolute pleasure for me to work with all of you over the course of these challenges, and especially to those who went above and beyond the call of duty to make all of this a success. Thank you FreeWee Ling, curator of art at UWA & RL Honorary Fellow at UWA. Thank you LaPiscean Liberty, co-host for MachinimUWA VII, champion of machinima of Second Life. Also much thanks to those who have provided support and sponsorship which sees the overall prize pool standing at more than L$1,000,000 across both art and machinima. Special mention needs to be made of all who have been such strong supporters.
These challenges are sponsored by Tom Papas and SciFi Film Festival, LaPiscean Liberty and SL Artist, AviewTV, Arrehn Oberlander and MetaHarpers, Kip Yellowjacket and Virtlantis, Taralyn Gravois and Arts Castle Gallery, TheDoveRhode and Peace is a Choice and S&S Gallery of Fine SL Art, Barbie Alchemi of Creations for Parkinsons, Jon Stubbs and UWA Student Services, as well as The UWA Virtual Worlds Project.
I want to thank all of you for being here today, bringing the world together. The UWA Art, Architectural & Machinima Challenges, the teaching & research have seen people from all corners of the globe involved with students, artists, builders and machinimatographers hailing from Lithuania, Singapore, Costa Rica, the Philippines, Finland, Greece, India, Colombia, Poland, Norway, South Africa, Sweden, Ukraine, Taiwan, Hungary, Latvia, Russia, Venezuela, Belgium, Mexico, Wales, Canada, the USA, the UK, Uruguay, Scotland, England, Spain, Switzerland, Italy, France, the French Caribbean, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Denmark, Holland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Portugal, Austria, Cuba, Serbia, Tunisia, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Australia and parts unknown. More than 45 nations with 6 of the 7 continents of the world represented.
The following is a run-down of the winners of the 3D Art challenge. The MachinimUWA VII: Transcending Borders awards are presented in a further article in these pages.
Audience Participation Prizes
Alongside the “main” challenges focused on artists and machinima makers, Transcending Borders included two audience participation competitions. Anyone who was not on the official judging panel was invited to provide what they thought the top 10 would be as decided by the actual panel, and those with lists which most closely matched the final list of prize winners as determined by the judges, would receive a special prize.
In all, there were two groups of audience participation prizes for the 3D art challenge. As an entire art degree class from York University entered the competition, and the overall prize pool had been increased from L$57,500 to L$62,500, the audience participation prizes were altered, with 3 awards specifically for York University students, and four for members of the public. These prizes were awarded as follows:
Joint second in the York University student prize: Vickar Tran and Stefano Onorati (L$2,500 each)
Overall winner, York University student prize: Abisola Okiwole (L$5,000)
Overall winner, audience participation: Temi Sirbu (L$20,000 and a place on the official jury for the next grand art challenge
All of the winners will additionally receive a physical prize from the UWA.
Art Awards
Note that SLurls are given with the titles of all winning pieces, and all the entries into the Transcending Borders 3D art challenge can still be viewed at the UWA art gallery.
In an unprecedented result, there were no fewer than five 10th places winners, all tied on a total of 21 points from the judge’s selections. The five winners each receive a L$5,000 prize and are:
This article was updated on Sunday, December 8th to reflect the fact the Château d’Ember display has been taken down, having been a special opening event.
Depth Perception is a new exhibition of the work of artist Molly Bloom, which was initially previewed at the Château d’Ember, on the Adult-rated, Gorean-themed region of Asperiche Island on Saturday, December 6th, 2014, with the main exhibition opening at midday SLT on Sunday, December 7th at the Rose Art Gallery, Angel Manor.
As the title suggests, Depth Perception offers the observer with a series of images which play with our perception of depth, and does so in a most eye-catching manner.
Depth Perception -“Throwing in the Cards” and “The Electrical Bouquet”, as displayed at Chateau d’Ember
All of the pieces on display, be they individual images, pairs of images or triptych pieces, have elements of the work extending beyond the picture frame, either as a part of the picture itself (such as the shadow of a boot which itself appears to be resting on the frame containing it), or as a 3D element in its own right (such as an extended hand holding a copy of the Bible). Some even include 3D elements that sit entirely outside of the picture itself, but which are nevertheless part of it. These can be as obvious as a television set placed before a picture, and which is clearly the subject of attention of those within the picture, or as subtle as a bird sitting on a picture frame.
However it is presented, each image is beautifully composed, and many, particularly those in pairs or in a triptych, have a narrative to them; sometimes obvious, sometimes a little more subtle (and there are stories to be found in the individual pieces as well).
The installation at the Rose offers forms the main exhibition, and presents the works on display highly effectively; the installation is really eye-catching, the grey / black of the gallery space helping to draw the eye deeply into each picture in turn.
Depth Perception – “The Queen is NOT Amused”, as displayed at Chateau d’Ember
In November, I wrote about Giovanna Cerise’s latest full region installation, Chaos, Kosmos, currently open on LEA21 as a part of the 7th round of LEA artist In Residence grants.
the initial installation has been extended with three airborne platforms offering pieces by three artists Giovanna invited to participate in her work. Together, all three are referred to as “Project Algorithm”, and each appears to be designed to carry forward something of the original theme of Chaos. Kosmos – examining the relationship between two seemingly opposite elements which may actually be two sides of the same coin. In the case of the original piece, this involves examining the relationship between the ordered cosmos and its chaotic origins (which it still, despite its own order, also echoes).
The three new pieces on offer are reached via the spherical teleport at the Chaos, Kosmos landing point. As they are all independent works, the order in which they are visited doesn’t appear to be important. As such, I’m tackling them here on the basis of height above ground – from the lowest to the highest.
So the first piece is Live and Die, by Pol Jarvinan, which appears to examine the relationship between life and death; neither of which can exist without the other, and yet both are opposed to one another. The relationship is presented, to my eyes at least, on a number of levels.
The major part of the piece, when cammed around, can give an impression of a graveyard, the black and white shapes frequently forming crosses as the camera moves – the field of death. In the centre of this is a small region of colour – life. Yet even this colour exhibits something of an ebb and flow: the word LIVE is green / healthy; the word DIE is pale / sickly. between them lie a series of geometric shapes in a rusted hue; suggestive of ageing. Throughout the piece are black-and-white circles which, as the camera moves, can appear to be individual or overlapping, perhaps again symbolic of the relationship the exists between being and not being.
Project Algorithm: “observatorim” by Nino Vichon
Nino Vichon opts to examine the algorithm – or relationship – between fantasy and prediction through his piece, Observatorium. Here, he sets out the view while appearing separate, fantasy and prediction are perhaps intertwined. Neither requires linear steps in understanding, and both can be based upon creative or intuitive leaps of the imagination as much as anything else. As such, they are not mutually exclusive in application; rather they are complimentary. He illustrates this through the examples of chemistry and its relationship with alchemy (from which it grew), and astronomy and its relationship with astrology (ditto).
The uppermost platform is home to Daco Monday’s Chaos, perhaps the most involved and perplexing of the three pieces. It is defined as “the Algorithm of history”, although quite how it should be interpreted is difficult to discern.
There is a quote within the piece, “la luce diurna e razionalista della storia moderna si va spegnendo il suo astro declina avanza il crepuscolo e ci avviciniamo alla notte” – which, I think is a reference to Novoe srednevekov’e (“The End of Our Time”, also known as “The New Middle Ages”) by the religious and political philosopher / Christian universalist Nikolai Berdyaev.
Project Algorithm: Chaos by Daco Monday
As I have no idea if I’m barking up the wrong philosophical tree here or not, I’m loathe to plumb this piece further in writing (although I’ve been mentally scratching my head over it during the course of the last 24 hours…). Therefore, should you wish yo know more, I can only suggest you go take a peek for yourself.
Project Algorithm will remain open, along with Chaos, Kosmos, until the end of December 2014.
Related Links
Chaos, Kosmos SLurl (Rated: General) – use the teleport sphere at the landing point to reach the platforms.
