Category: Art in Second Life

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.

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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?

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

Currently open (for a while longer at least, having formally opened in mid-November!) at the ground level gallery NovaOwl, operated and curated by ULi Jansma, Ceakay Ballyhoo & Owl Dragonash, is a small exhibition of Second Life photographic art by Lisa Dartmouth entitled See Through My Eyes.

The collection presents a baker’s dozen of images Lisa has put together, representing twelve of the places she has visited during her journeys through Second Life. For those – like myself – who are fellow travellers / explorers, these are places instantly recognisable by name, being some of the most enduring and photogenic spots in-world, popular for both their appearance and the fact that those responsible for them remain every willing to re-invent them and provide new visions and imaginings to be explored and appreciated, or for bring the beauty of the physical world to SL.

Thus, among this selection we can find Panjin with it brilliant “ref beach” growths of Suaeda salsa (see here for more), Whimberley, Grauland, Bella’s Lullaby, 80 Days (in its Wild West iteration, Wind River) and Elvion (featured twice in the exhibition), all of which have appeared in these pages multiple times over the years, thus imbuing for me, a real sense of attachment / recognition with Lisa’s  work.

The displayed images are beautifully framed and cropped, with a lightness of post-processing to allow the natural beauty of the regions they represent to show through. Each one is also gently personalised by Lisa through the appearance of her avatar making her way through each location, generally (but not exclusively) on horseback. Further depth of touch is given to several of the images through the inclusion of 3D elements which help extend their presence into the gallery: a grass-tufted dune with feeding Avocets flowing outwards from the sandy expanse of Arum; a growth of yellow nanohana watched over by a scarecrow drawing the eye to the fields of rapeseed at Whimberley; a tall lighthouse sitting between coastal shots of Bella’s Lullaby and Fall @ Florence, and so on.

All of which makes See Through My Eyes both a personal personal retrospective by the artists and a veritable catalogue of reasons why exploring Second life can be so rewarding for the virtual traveller.

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• Lisa Dartmouth at NovaOwl (Novatron, rated General)

Currently mid-way through its November / December 2023 run at the Kondor Art Garden, a part of the Kondor Art Centre operated and curated by Hermes Kondor, is Carousels, a collection of animated art pieces by photographer-artist Lalie Sorbet.

The exhibition comprises some 20 animated mobiles, each one richly organic in form, and all of them floating serenely along the gravel paths circling the gardens. Each piece is formed from two elements, each bearing an image which has been set to rotate gently, one element moving clockwise and the other counter-clockwise.

Some have their parts rotating more-or-less at the same speed, others have their parts rotating at different speeds to one another; thus the sense of life and vitality is deftly imbued. But no liner notes from the artist are provided, so how we might interpret them is a matter between the eyes and the imagination of the beholder. Might they be exotic plants caught on a cushion of air? Otherworldly life-forms drifting through the gardens on an examination of their own? Objects from the sea-s depths brought forth upon the land? Something else? That is entirely for you to decide as you visit.

What is evident within all of the pieces is the manner in which each of them appears both tactile and delicate. On the one hand, they seem to dare us to reach out and feel the touch of what might be a veined leaf or a ripple of hair-like fibres or a gossamer-thin sphere of silk as it slides across finger tips. On the other, there is a countering sense as to what just the lightest of caresses might do to these exquisite forms of light and colour were we to try and touch them; would they respond open and positively responsive to our fingertips, or might they recoil, contract and deny us further revelations as to their form and nature?

I also found myself wondering as to their creation; were they the result of a digital freestyle approach by the artist, or might they be a continuation of her explorations in using AI software to create their component forms prior to being brought together by eye and script to gain life? This is perhaps not important in the overall scheme of things – Carousel stands “as is” as an engaging and visual collection of pieces – but having recently witnessed Lalie’s work with AI tools (see: Art, AI and Totems in Second Life), I cannot help but wonder if if Carousels is a further aspect of her use of AI as a means to extend her natural artistry.

Vital, rich in colour, subtle in form  – and perhaps carrying a hint of the hypnotic through the motion mere still images cannot convey – Carousels is a relaxing and engaging exhibition of animated art, with pieces available for purchase by those who would like to have a piece at home – floating in the garden, perhaps, as a peregrine visitor to their own garden.

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• Kondor Art Garden (Royal Tea, rated Adult)