The University of Western Australia in partnership with AviewTV, Cutting Edge Concerts, Open This End and the Summerland Estates announced MachinimUWA IV : Art of the Artists – a machinima competition offering a prize pool totalling L$300,000.
Submissions are open through to the 10th November, and the competition lists an impressive and distinguished list of judges:
Professor Ted Snell (RL) – Director, Cultural Precinct, The University of Western Australia
Jay Jay Jegathesan (RL) / Jayjay Zifanwe (SL) – Manager School of Physics/ Lead of UWA Virtual World Projects
Yesikita Coppola (SL) – Official Machinimatographer for UWA 2011
FreeWee Ling (SL) – Curator, UWA 3D Open Art Challenge
Pia Klaar (SL) – Machinimatographer and Winner of MachinimUWA III Viewer Event
LaPiscean Liberty (SL) – CEO AviewTV and UWA Virtual World Technical Media Advisor
Persia Bravin (SL) – Journalist, SL Media Producer and TV host
Mal Burns (SL), Metaverse News Aggregator and Broadcaster
Editorial Clarity (SL) – Metaverse Journalist and Senior Writer, BOSL Blog & BOSL Magazine
Rowan Derryth (SL) – Art & Design Historian; Writer for Prim Perfect Publications
Dousa Dragonash (SL) – COO Metaverse Television
Dr. Phylis Johnson (RL) – Media Professor, Southern Illinois University & author
Thirza Ember (SL) – Art Blog Writer
Phaylen Fairchild (SL) – Award Winning Writer, Director, Comedian
Flimsey Freenote – CEO of Metamix TV (Mixed Reality Television)
Cristina García-Lasuén (RL) / Aino Baar (SL) International Curator, Art Writer, Founder & Owner of Open This End group
Nazz Lane (SL) – Journalist and Author
Chestnut Rau (SL) – Journalist
Suzy Yue (SL) – Artistic Director, Running Lady Studios
The Challenge
The challenge for those participating in MACHINIMUWA IV is to, “Create a machinima that features some (or one) of the artworks submitted to the UWA 3D Open Art Challenge. You can choose to film as many (or as few) as you like, and you may submit any number of entries. There is no enforced time limit, however a recommended time limit would be between 3 – 6 minutes”. As to theme, the judges simply state, “Create something that will take our breath away”.
Completed videos can be uploaded anywhere, although the competition hints at a preference for either YouTube or Vimeo, with the link and details passed to Jayjay Zifanwe & LaPiscean Liberty prior to the closing date. Artworks appearing in the machinima should be acknowledged. Entries will be displayed on the UWA Second Life blog.
For full details on the competition, including details of the art series and location, filming the works either in situ or elsewhere, please refer to the MACHINIMUWA IV: Art of the Artists post on the UWA SL blog.
With thanks to Jayjay Zifanwe for the information & UWA for the use of the competition graphic
The Linden Endowment of the Arts (LEA) have announced they have secured 20 sims from Linden Lab to promote the arts in Second Life.
The LEA Land Grant will make the sims available to the LEA for a 12 month period. These sims will be used as follows:
Two sims will be allocated via a Land Rush
Four sims will be reserved for exhibitions curated from LEA sandbox builds
Fourteen sims to be allocated on the basis of an application process, which closes on November 1st 2011.
The fourteen sims to be allocated on the basis of an application process will be made available to successful applicants for periods of five months before being transferred to the next set of awardees. Details on how the Land Rush and 4 “sandbox promotion” sims are to be allocated and for how long, have yet to be mad public by the LEA.
Separate
This deal, it would appear, is entirely separate from Mark Kingdon’s announcement, made in 2009, that some 70 sims would be made available within Second Life as a part of an effort to support the arts. At that time, given the amount of private effort – with absolutely no subsidy from Linden Lab – that goes into supporting art and creativity in Second Life, Mark Kingdon’s announcement caused a fair amount of concern as to what such a grant would do to such privately funded efforts in support of the arts.
At risk: privately funded art support?
While this announcement from the LEA is smaller, it is likely that it will give rise to similar concerns, particularly given the superb work performed by the likes of Art Screamers in their promotion of sim-sized installations such as Through the Lens of Dreams, and other exhibits which are met entirely out of the sim owners’ own pockets.
Weakens?
Which is not to say the LEA do not provide stunning installations themselves – again as witnessed by Rebeca Bashly’s brilliant and immersive Inferno equally demonstrates. Even so, arrangements such as this – as well-meaning as they might be – do create an imbalance in the SL art community, which is still very much a limited pool of talent. If that talent is fully engaged in LEA efforts, then there is a risk that those who privately fund art activities may well be faced with no other option that to consider shutting down. This in turn potentially weakens art in SL on two fronts:
It reduces the number of venues available in which those not selected for such grants can display their work and talent
It runs the risk of what constitutes “art” for wider consumption within Second Life being defined by a small, closed group within SL – again leading to potentially fractious accusations of the infamous “feted inner circle” variety rumbling across the community.
The flip side to this is that it might be said that many aspiring artists within Second Life might be presented with a chance to gain an audience through their participation in the Grant. A chance that might otherwise elude them if they had to rely on other means of promotion.
For those wishing to participate in the LEA Land Grant, the application requirements are available on their website via the link above. All applicants must be familiar with, and agree to abide by, the SL Terms of Service, Community Standards and the LEA Code of Conduct in order to participate in the programme.
Through the Lens of Dreams is a new art presentation opening on Sunday October 9th at Art Screamer. It is a magnificent full-sim piece that springs into colourful, vibrant, aural life from the imaginations of Madcow Cosmos and Lorin Tone.
And it is quite possibly one of the most delightful art installations I’ve yet visited in Second Life – and equally, one of the hardest to describe. If you take the imaginations of Lewis Carroll and Terry Gilliam and whisk them together with a splash of Oliver Postgate and a dash of Doctor Seuss, then you might come close to understanding how surrealistically wonderful Through the Lens of Dreams is.
Through the lens of a camera: Art Screamer and “Through the Lens of Dreams”
It has simply everything: weird and wonderful creatures scurrying around on the ground, weird and wonderful birds perched on lamp posts, shrubs with appealing faces (and which may or may not be as innocent as they appear), grumpy grubs stalking away from their underground homes, gnarled trees with wizened faces, rainbow bridges and bizarre bicycles with gardens for panniers. All this and so much more: houses honking their way through powder-puff and cream pie clouds, gigantic Clanger-like creatures rising into the air to devour not soup, but multi-hued floating flowers; entire city blocks huddled together on carrot-like foundations and held aloft by umbrellas…
Down the Rabbit Hole
Using the exhibit’s teleport SLurl, you arrive floating serenely on a cloud, the sun setting as a glorious ball, the sky overhead darkening with the onset of dusk. It’s best to leave the region environment settings as they are when you arrive, as they are as much a part of the installation as anything else.
From here, the sim is spread out beneath you, surrounded by an azure sea – but how to get down? You could easily fly – flying is encouraged to see all of the exhibit in full. However, I recommend that you see the piece at ground level first – and follow Alice’s example to get there by jumping down the rabbit hole – or in this case, the hole in the cloud; the sabre-toothed bird guarding it is perfectly safe!
Once on the ground, your choice of routes is down to you – there is no set way or fixed order in which to enjoy the exhibits; like the whimsies around you, you’re free to set out as you please and let whatever takes your fancy be your guide. There are some footpaths of rounded stones set into the grass, but again, whether you follow them or not is up to you; as Madcow Cosmos states:
“Walk, fly, hop, or shimmy as to your preference. Click things, poke them, dance naked around them, or sit on them. Feel free to photograph, make machinima, exactly copy my work by painstakingly reproducing it, or loudly decry it as an assault against good taste, you have the artist’s permission!”
I look up to the bike, but down to the garden…
So many things combine in this work that it needs time to be experienced; not that giving it time is hard – anyone in touch with their childhood imagination or with a love of the light fantastic (albeit touched with an edge of darkness!) is going to be at home here. Colour, light, shape, shade, sound and scale all play a role in each of the oddities and delights you come across as you wander the glades, hills and vales of Art Screamer – like the giant wooden bikes that lead you over a rainbow bridge, each complete with a pannier bearing a tiny garden.
Oi! I got my eye on you!
Take a good look at everything you encounter; some are static, others are enhanced by sounds and music selected, composed and recorded by Lorin Tone. Thus, the installation is very much an aural as well as visual experience. In fact, discovering which elements have sound and what it might be is very much a part of the fun when exploring Through the Lens… – especially when flying among the floating houses, of which more anon.
Creatures and objects of all shapes and sizes are in abundance – some, like the wooden bikes, act a little like guides, directing you to or along a route you might opt to follow as you walk the sim. Depending on the direction you do take, others appear to be marching resolutely the other way, like the little green fellow above, and his friends, whom I encountered mid-way through my journey.
Of Gilliam, Carroll, Kubrick, Oh My!
A little Lewis Carroll…
It is hard not to draw comparisons between the installation and the works of Lewis Carroll (author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) and Terry Gilliam; many of the pieces around the sim resonate strongly where both are concerned. But it would be a mistake to simply write this off as some form of imitation; there is so much more here – and the creators’ own passions are in subtle evidence around the sim.
Lorin Tone, for example, is a huge Stanley Kubrick fan, and there is at least one item (I may have missed others!) that reflects this, as no less a voice than that of HAL 9000 (and that of the actor Douglas Rains) whispers to you at one point in your explorations. I’ll leave it to you to discover where; all I will say is that HAL’s voice is entirely fitting, given where it is heard.
Oh – and don’t miss out on the free gifts that are scattered around – you can even make yourself a mobile part of the exhibit by donning a “ball boy” avatar!
Gilliam-esque landscapes – and skiesSlurp – I hover over a giant clanger-like creature
Menace
When you’ve wandered the island, it’s time to take to the skies – this is very much an immersive and three-dimensional that failure to take to the air is to miss a good portion of it.
Here you’ll find more to delight and tease, as you fly through flocks of butterflies and around house-laden clouds and witness giant yellow Clanger-like creatures rising into the air in pursuit of pretty flowers which in turn look so much like hot air balloons floating peacefully over the landscape.
I’m not entirely sure how friendly these Clanger-esque beings really are; there is something faintly menacing in their eyes as they form from rising blobs puffed out of the smoke stack of a factory. And there is a faint whiff of malevolence edging the way the leader is slurping-up a flower balloon…
It is here that the darker side of dreams is hinted at: the suggestion that the “Clanger” creatures may not be as cuddly as they first appear; the mysterious pipework visible around the island that leads to the red brick factory which is itself at odds with the brightly hued land in which it sits. It’s as if there is something more disturbing laying just under the surface.
Just like our own comfortable dreams can form a thin blanket over our darker nightmares, so to do elements of the installation hint at darker things lying beneath the vibrant colours and gaiety around us. It brings a certain edge to the piece that dares one to poke at it, as we all sometimes poke at our own fears, real or imagined.
Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but be drawn to the “Clangers”, the coldness of their eyes notwithstanding. They look so much like the creatures I remember from re-runs of Oliver Postgate’s masterpiece on the BBC, I even found myself hoping that if I touched one, I might hear, “Oh, sod it! The bloody thing’s stuck again!” mischievously whistled back at me!
City in the sky
Also up in the sky you’ll find the floating tower blocks, each held aloft by a striped umbrella and standing on a carrot-like base. Commuting to and from the ground isn’t easy though – the ladders are long and exposed; not that the “ball boy” locals seem to mind, judging by the giggles. Perhaps they bounce if they fall, or is the giggling more manic than playful? You will have to decide that for yourself…
Toot! toot! Awwoooga! Flying a house in busy skies, one needs a good horn – or four!
Photogenic
If there is one problem with this exhibit, it is that it is simply too photogenic: it is so easy to take & publish so many pictures, it risks spoiling the impact for others when they visit the installation. But then, pictures only tell a part of the story – whatever you choose the story to be – and relying on them to reveal the sim’s richness would be a mistake. With the depth and breath and scale of the pieces, together with the carefully concocted sounds, this is something that has to be experienced and should be experienced in all its richness; the way it touches the subconscious and memories is likely to be unique for each of us – and I wonder if any two visits will provoke the same reactions.
I think I’ll be popping back to find out!
Through the Lens of Dreams will be open to the public from 12:00 SLT on Sunday 9th October, when there will be a Grand Opening Party, and will run for approximately one month thereafter.
If you take photos of the exhibit yourself, why not join the Art Screamer Flickr Group and upload them there?
About the Artists
Madcow Cosmos describes himself as a “Complete amateur”, who came to SL from a cooking background in order to try his hand at some 3D digital art. He provides the visuals for the piece.
Lorin Tone describes himself as, “A real life noise maker and a tasty beverage”. He provided the sounds and music found through the piece, including an original composition of his own.
Madcow (left) and Lorin, each in suitable form for the exhibit
With thanks to Chestnut Rau for the opportunity to preview this event, to Madcow and Lorin for creating it, and the folks at Art Screamers for hosting / curating it.
This month sees the launch of the Linden Endowment of the Arts (LEA) Full Sim Arts Series. The first exhibit in the series is by Rebeca Bashly, a stunning interpretation of Inferno, the first part of Dante’s 14th Century epic Divine Comedy which opens the Series in a truly grand style.
You arrive in darkness – the ambient lighting is intentional, so it is best to leave your settings thus. Beside you is a notecard giver; if you are not familiar with the Divinia Commedia, the card, graciously provided by Flora Nordenskiold, is a good place to start.
Allegorical Vision
The poem comprises three parts, Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso, and represents the medieval view of the afterlife, as developed by the Western Church of the time. As a purely linguistic note, it also helped to establish the Tuscan dialect – Dante was born in Florence, and wrote his poem in Tuscan – as the standardised Italian.
Inferno itself deals with Dante’s passage through hell guided by the Roman poet Virgil (Dante himself claims in Inferno XV, 76 that his family is of ancient Roman descent). As the poem opens, Dante is lost in a dark wood, unable to escape a lion, a leopard and a she-wolf, which prevent him finding the “right way” to salvation. Driven deeper into the woods, he is at last rescued by Virgil, and the two of them begin their journey to the underworld. And it is with Virgil, as he stands patiently just a few metres from the arrival point, that our own journey begins.
Virgil: our guide – and the path through the forest
Nine Circles
Virgil leads us first to the Gate of Hell, which bears the famous inscription, “Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate” – “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here”, and through which we must pass and enter the “vestibule”. This is where the Uncommitted, souls who did neither good nor evil in life and who are neither in hell or out of it, reside on the banks of the River Archeron. And it is here that Charon awaits aboard his ferry, waiting to carry the damned across the river and into hell itself. For those visiting the exhibit, the way is a little easier: touch Virgil as he awaits beside Charon, and be teleported to the First Circle.
Charon and Virgil await for the journey to the First Circle
Limbo
Limbo is reserved for those who, while not sinful, did not accept Christ into their lives. It is sometimes described as a “deficient form of Heaven”, because without baptism, the soul cannot hope for anything greater. It is here, wandering green fields with the seven-gated castle (representing the seven virtues) close to hand, that Dante encounters the souls of Eclid, Ovid, Aristotle, Julius Caesar, Saladin, and many others. For us, and across an lawn of silent souls, Socrates and Homer wait at the entrance to the castle keep.
Homer and Socrates – two of many souls held in limbo
Within the castle, we encounter other souls as we climb the stairs – perhaps Electra and Camilla, both referred to in Dante’s poem – before meeting Virgil once more on the roof, and our journey continues to the Second Circle.
Lust
Turning in the winds of a violent storm for all eternity, are those who gave themselves over to the sin of lust. Here Dante witnessed Dido, Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, Achilles, Paris, Tristan and many others blown about needlessly and helplessly by the winds of hell that represent the aimless power of lust.
Gluttony
The third circle, illustrated by Stradanus
Cerberus stands guard over the gluttons, who lie sightless and heedless of those around them in a vile slush produced by an unending, icy and foul rain falling from a leaden sky.
The victims’ lack of awareness symbolises the cold, selfish, and empty sensuality of their lives. The slush itself represents the true nature of sensuality: overindulgence in food and drink and other forms of addiction.
In Dante’s poem, Virgil secures their onward journey by filling Cerberus’ three mouths with mud. The visitor faces no such risk with the beast – although we must navigate through the horde of silent, grasping bodies to reach Virgil, patiently waiting for us to touch him, so he can transport us to the penultimate of the five circles of self-indulgent sin.
Greed
In the Fourth Circle we encounter those who gave their lives over to greed, either through hoarding (the avaricious) or through squander (the prodigal), locked in a never-ending battle with one another pushing great weights as weapons against one another, which Dante describes as a form of jousting.
Greed: perpetual battle
Anger
The fifth circle, illustrated by Stradanus
From Greed we fall to Anger, and a bitter, violent battle between the wrathful, fought in the swamp-like waters of the river Styx, where those so confined bite and rip the flesh from one another or withdraw beneath the brackish surface, “Into a black sulkiness which can find no joy in God or man or the universe”.
Here Dante and Virgil encounter Phlegyas, who reluctantly carries them across the Styx aboard his skiff while they observe the wailing and fighting all around them.
In crossing the Styx, Dante and Virgil journey from the first Five Circles, representing the self-indulgent sins, towards the walls of Dis, wherein lie the more active sins that are both violent (the Sixth and Seventh Circles) and malicious (the Eighth and Ninth Circles).
We have no Phlegyas, however, and so must walk among the eternally angry to reach Virgil id we are to reach Dis.
Heresy
Entering the City of Dis, one must pass the three furies, blood-covered guardians of those who eternally burn in their tombs of fire for their heresy. Here, as with Dante, we encounter Farinata degli Uberti and Cavalcante de’ Cavalcanti – although unlike Dante, we cannot converse with them.
The furies at the entrance to Dis
From here we descend to the Seventh Circle – Violence – itself divided into three rings.
Violence
The seventh circle is guarded by a mighty minotaur and contains both centaurs and harpies. It is divided into three rings, depicting different forms of violence, and different punishments for those condemned therein.
The outer ring contains those who were violent towards people and property during their lives. They are immersed in a river of boiling blood – Phlegethon – to a level according to the severity of their sins, while centaurs patrol the banks of the river, using arrows to shoot any who attempt to rise higher in the river than their sins allow
The middle ring contains those who were violent against themselves, who have been transformed into gnarled bushes and trees and who are fed upon by harpies
The inner ring is reserved for those who have acted in violence against God (blasphemers) or nature (sodomites and usurers). They reside in a desert of flaming sand, under a sky raining flakes of fire; the blasphemers condemned to lie on the sand, the usurers to sit upon it and the sodomites to wander across it.
Fraud
Fraud covers a multitude of sins – so many, in fact that Dante envisioned no fewer than ten stone ditches, or Bolgie, to represent the various forms of punishment for fraud. These ditches in turn contain: seducers, flatterers, those committing simony, false prophets, corrupt politicians, hypocrites, thieves, fraudulent advisers, sowers of discord and various kinds of falsifiers.
Wisely, Rebeca hasn’t attempted to reproduce all ten Bolgie, but has selected a number to represent our journey through hell – but I will leave it to you to visit the exhibit and discover which they are!
Both Fraud and the Ninth Circle are reached by way of a Geryon, a creature comprising human, bestial and reptilian parts, said to represent the image of fraud: the face of an honest man, the body of wyvern and a snake-like tail with a nasty sting. Sadly, we must rely on Virgil to move us through the Bolgie and onwards to the Ninth Circle.
Treachery
The final circle of hell is reserved for those guilty of treachery, each entombed in the ice of lake Cocytus according to the degree of their sin. In all there are four “rounds” of treachery in which those found guilty are entombed to ever greater degree. Some are frozen up to their faces, others completely sealed by ice, their bodies distorted by the freezing walls of the prison that holds them.
The Ninth Circle
In the very centre of hell lies a three-faced Satan, trapped from the waist down in ice. All three faces weep in anguish, while the three mouths chew on those Dante considered the most treacherous of all – Brutus, Cassius and Judas Iscariot. Forever trapped, Satan’s six wings forever beat against the grip of the ice in a vain attempt to escape its grip.
Dante and Virgil escaped the Ninth Circle by climbing Satan’s back to reach another hemisphere, which Dante described in Purgatorio. For those of us visiting Rebeca’s work, however, the teleport offers a safer means of escape.
Opinion
This is a massive installation that is a great opening to the LEA Full Sim Art run – and I recommend you take time out to visit it. It is a tremendous visual interpretation of Dante’s work, and you should allow time for your visit as there is much to see; the attention to detail is wonderful. It is worth trying to keep to the ambient lighting throughout – but there are times when you need to add a little more light to scenes in order to appreciate them fully – as I had to do, in order to capture the wonderful minotaur seen in this piece.
Should you opt to change time-of-day settings, I really recommend you only use sunrise or sunset as alternatives, and then only for the particular element of the exhibit you are in – go back to midnight before you teleport on.
It is with regard to the teleports that I have my only complaint: some were a little less than smooth – one even threw me completely out of the installation when I ended up trapped in flying mode, unable to control where I was going!
This aside, however, and as stated, this is a piece really worth visiting. Kudos to Rebeca for an amazing interpretation of Dante’s work.
Rebeca Bashly’s Infernowill be open to visitors until the end of the month, and will be replaced in November by ~(Not-A-Knot) by Tyrehl Byk and Forgiving by The Pink Tutu Ballet Group, said to be a piece inspired by Desmond Tutu!
With oodles of thanks to Spikeheel Starr for the title of this piece.
The Linden Endowment of the Arts has announced four 3-month long art shows that will see out 2011 and herald in 2012. The shows will each open in mid-October, and feature a range of themes and some of SL’s top artists.
The Survey of the Hyperformalists
Where: LEA1
Curated by: DC Spensley (aka DanCoyote)
Opening: October 15th, 2011
The Museum of Hyperformalism was founded in 2006 to “Promote the unique genre of metasculptural abstraction in simulated space”. The display at LEA1 will comprise work by Josina Burgess, Oberon Onmura, Ray FX, Sabine Stonebender, Selavy Oh, Suzanne Graves and Velasquez Bonetto.
Sneak peek: the impressive building that will house the Survey of the Hyperformalists 2011 (a work-in-progress at the time this picture was taken)
The Path
Where: LEA2
Curated by: Bryn Oh
Opening: October 14th, 2011
Based on the Surrealists’ exquisite corpse concept, each artist was randomly given a scene to compose. A narrative begins with the first scene, and then progresses scene-by-scene until the eighth scene – and the conculsion of the narative – is reached. Artists participating in this piece are (in scene order): Bryn Oh, Colin Fizgig, Marcus Inkpen, Desdemona Enfield / Douglas Story, Maya Paris, Claudia222 Jewell, Scottius Polke and Rose Borchovski.
A look across a small part of The Path
FAST ART: Competitive Build Improvisation In The Virtual World
Where LEA3
Hosted by: Solo Mornington
Opening: October 15th, 2011
A series of twice-weekly speed build competitions that will each run until the sim is full. details in full have yet to be announced, but the events will be scheduled to allow artists from all time zones to participate.
Interact!
Where: LEA4
Curated by: curated by L1Aura Loire/Lori Landay
Opening: October 15th, 2011
One of the great qualities of virtual art is that it can encourage – even demand – interaction on the part of the observer. Interact! encourages participating artists to make art out of interactions between data, objects, actions and people both within and beyond the virtual world.
Installations in this exhibit are by: AM Radio, Glyph Graves, Lorin Tone, Maya Paris, Misprint Thursday, PinkPink Sorbet and Selavy Oh.
A peek at a part of Interact!, also a work-in-progress at the time the picture was taken
There will also be an interactive environment for audience participation, and interactive mixed reality cross-cultural performances by: Butler2 Evelyn / Senses Places. The sim will also include Mesh by Sage Duncan, Machinima Mutoscope Viewers by FreeWee Ling, Twitter Garden by Frans Charming, and the Inner Tube Ride of Your Life by UzzU Artful.
I very much look forward to previewing these shows in full later in the month, and covering each in turn in these pages.
Second Life has always offered a unique and immersive medium for art. Photography, machinima, painting, sculpture, performance art – these are just some of the uses to which it has been put. Most recently, the ability to import mesh objects has been added; and while many of us are looking at it in purely practical terms for content creation,others are already using as means of extending their artistry expression through a new medium.
Claudia222 Jewell
One such person in the latter category is Claudia222 Jewell. For her, mesh has presented itself as a new avenue of expression that can be combined with the platform’s other tools to create truly unique and evocative experiences.
Such is the unique scope and dept of Claudia’s art that it has been used by Linden Lab to demonstrate the capabilities of mesh in-world, with Charlar Linden using images of her work in his recent presentation at SLCC2011. More recently, she has been deservedly selected as an Invited Artist at BURN2, and is participating in an upcoming LEA event starting in mid-October.
I’ve been enchanted by Claudia’s work ever since I first encountered it in a wonderful video by Rockerfaerie; so I was very excited when she agreed to meet and talk about it with me. We did so at one of the test sandboxes on the Main grid as she took a break from working on a part of her display for BURN2. I started by asking her about her background – was she an artist by profession or training?
“Not exactly,” she replied with a smile, “I’ve worked in advertising graphic design, but my art – drawing and painting – is self-taught. I’ve spent most of my life finding ways to make a living through the process of creativity; I’ve always known where my qualities lie, and so I’ve focused on visual arts.” She went on to explain that what particularly fascinated her was the use of light and shade in images to create a 3D effect. “I always tried to create a 3 dimensional aspect to my art and over time I became aware that I wanted to learn more about 3D art.”
Curiosity
Nibbling a flower
So was it the 3D element of Second Life that attracted her to the platform? Surprisingly, no it wasn’t – it was simple curiosity!
“I came to have a look, but didn’t stay long. I didn’t know you could build then – and I didn’t have a good computer then for rendering.” She sounded a little shy as she added, “And I’m not much of a chatterer, I think, so I left.”
In fact, it was two years before Claudia returned to Second Life; by then – in 2010 – she had a more powerful computer and one of her friends had told her about the opportunities for creative self-expression in Second Life – and sandboxes.
“I still feel attached to sandboxes,” she stated, indicating the sim around us. “I can’t leave them – the freedom to rez, maybe! They’re great places to learn [about] creativity. I love [the fact] that anyone can learn in here and experiment a little.”
Once back SL, she started experimenting with sculpties, seeing how they could be used to create items of art. Even so, her initial experiences weren’t always pleasant.
“I was copybotted,” she explained without any of the anger one might expect from someone having suffered so. “My work was handed out full-perm to new members of a styling group.”
Did she take any action?
“No, the person responsible was already banned by the time I found out; but I must say, it was kinda good for me in the end. I left for the Beta grid and learned about mesh.”
It’s a philosophical point of view to take where copybotting is concerned, and not something everyone might agree with. Claudia, however, is also pragmatic. “I think we need to understand that some will always be happier to find ways to steal than to learn how to make things in the first place. I hope I can help some people understand that creating something for yourself gives a better feeling than stealing from others.”
Discovery
Once on the Beta grid she discovered mesh, “It was very exciting for me. At first I thought all of the uploads were made by people in SL; I remember I was terribly impressed – until I asked around and found out a lot of it was online material that people had found for free or bought! But some were doing their own thing – and I knew that perhaps this was the freedom I was maybe missing by working with sculpties.”
I asked her about how she feels about the way in which Linden Lab have implemented mesh support on the grid.
“I was a little shocked about the fact that size matters for mesh,” she immediately replied. “Prim Equivalency. I was very upset at first; not so much for the plain PE; just that size matters so much. I did various tests to try to understand it and noticed some weird behaviour, that PE would jump when resizing an object. I was sure that it would be calculated on the geometric values, but it isn’t that straightforward. But it has encouraged me to work harder to find ways to keep the geometrics down. I hope we will all learn more about mesh and the ways it’s calculated.”
Mesh robin
And learn Claudia certainly has. Her works are some of the most unique sculptures I’ve come across in Second Life, and I’m not alone in thinking this.
Using both mesh and sculpties, she creates wonderful visual collages that combine fantasy with a touch of the surreal, bringing both together in evocative experience for the observer. Each of her pieces is alive with detail and subtlety. Little wonder, then that she has been selected to display at BURN2 and is part of a group of artists who will have their work displayed as a part of The Path, a Linden Endowment of the Arts event commencing on the 14th of October.
Enchanted World
Entering one of Claudia’s landscapes is like entering an enchanted world where dragons, naga and other exotic creatures mingle among fantastic plants and surreal backdrops. At Mesh Mellows, her works hover in the air, some on islands, some in the belly of a gigantic, human-faced fly – something you only realise when you zoom out to see. All of them are exquisite in their execution and the imagery throughout is eye-catching and impactful.
However, other than when looking at the huge fly and locating the other islands around it, I recommend you set your time of day to midnight. Claudia has retained her love of light and shadow, using the former to accentuate her work beautifully; something that can only truly be appreciated against the backdrop of night.
The University of Western Australia in partnership with AviewTV, Cutting Edge Concerts, Open This End and the Summerland Estates announced MachinimUWA IV : Art of the Artists – a machinima competition offering a prize pool totalling L$300,000.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 