Kondor Art Centre – Into the Future Gallery: Abyss Artful
Abyss Artful is one of Second Life’s foremost avatar photographers, with pieces so highly regarded they have been used in the promotion of events such as SL19B. Her work – available on Flickr – centres on sci-fi /cyberpunk and fantasy, although not necessarily exclusively so, and all of which are rich in narrative.
Given Abyss has been active in Second Life for 13+ years, and has a deserved reputation for her work, it’s perhaps surprising to learn that Abyssal 1, currently on display at the Into The Future gallery at the Kondor Arts Centre, is the first exhibition of her work Abyss has mounted in-world.
Kondor Art Centre – Into the Future Gallery: Abyss ArtfulSome 30 pieces are presented across the gallery, from the lower flower through the mezzanine catwalk to the roof. They may not have been produced specifically for this exhibition – but this does not meant there are any the less for being seen. Rather the reverse, in fact, as the selection offered brings home the sheer richness of expression and story Abyss puts into her work.
These are genuinely pieces that do not require extended exposition on my part; each one marvellously speaks for itself. So, this being the case, I’m going to shut up and encourage you to go see for yourselves!
Kondor Art Centre – Into the Future Gallery: Abyss Artful
WillowWood, July 2022 – click any image for full size
WillowWood is the name given to a Full private region leveraging the additional Land Capacity bonus which is held by Doc Battitude. Largely open to the public, it features landscaping by Dandy Warhlol (Terry Fotherington) and at the time of my writing this, it was a feature location in the Editor’s Picks section of the Second Life Destination Guide.
The About Land description for the region sits slightly at odds with the design of the land – describing this region which is mindful of a wild coastal region somewhere in the temperate regions of the northern hemisphere as, “a once thriving town reduced to ruins and secluded happy places”. However, while there is little sign of any former conurbation within the region, there is absolutely no doubting its beauty and restfulness.
WillowWood, July 2022
The landing point sits toward the south-west of the region, and sits before a table of rock on the west coast which is home to a mansion-like private residence with oceans views directly to the south and west. Accessed via a single drive guarded by walls and gates that are clearly marked as Private Property, the mansion is the only no-go area with the setting; the rest is otherwise fully open to explorations, including the little café sitting a short walk from the landing point.
The rest of the land is cut through by little streams and creeks. These break it up such that the easiest way to find your way around its to follow the trails and paths to the little bridges that span the water, with the land as a whole given over to a rugged set of low undulations rich in trees and wild grass.
WillowWood, July 2022 – “Tunnel Vision”
Scattered throughout this landscape are signs of civilisation – but nothing that would denote anything like a town being close to hand anywhere. Instead, the coastal areas offer signs that the locals make a living fishing, with a slightly run-down wharf looking west from a southern headland, and little fishing cabins and a boathouse lying further around the southern coast, while away to the north lies the wreck of a coaster that came too close the region’s sandy shallows.
A sense of age is added to the setting thanks to the inclusion of a pair of ruins – the Ruined Chapel by Markus Inkpen (a personal favourite structure that naturally lends itself to modding), and the Studio Skye Temple Ruins by Alex Bader (which have tempted me a few times, although I have yet to purchase and fiddle with it). These sit across the region from one another, the latter overlooking the north-side beach, and together they give the region a sense that it once held significant religious meaning.
Throughout the setting are numerous places to sit and / or spend time awaiting discovery. These range of wooden gazebos located above streams and water holes, to benches sitting alongside the paths and trails, to places to relax on the beachy headland and along the waterways. In addition, there are multiple places to enjoy a dance or two, including within the chapel ruins and at a small outdoor events area tucked into the north-east corner of the region.
The overall lay of the land helps given the region a feeling of being much bigger than the usual 256 metres on a side, the paths meandering up and down the hills and between them, often leading to more little surprises and touches that bring the setting further to life. These range from dry stone walls to pieces of sculpture, and even a hint of what might once have been a World War fortification.
WillowWood, July 2022
Given this is a design by Dandy, you might expect my usual warning about performance (mesh + textures), but with WillowWood, I didn’t encounter any significant issues; even with Shadows enabled, my FPS remained in the mid-teens rather than dropping to single digits, whilst for general flycaming around with Shadows disabled, FPS was generally around the mid-to-upper 20s (I’m currently using Firestorm without any auto-tuning enabled, and (obviously) without the Lab’s own performance improvements), giving me a reasonably comfortable experience. Even so, you may find you need to make some adjustments to your viewer, as is oft the way with SL builds.
Finished with a subtle soundscape, perhaps with default environment settings a little on the dark side for some (I varied between it and using my “default” avatar-attached EEP settings for photos) WillowWood is an engaging, picturesque region design.
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, July 2022: Wicked Eiren – Body Language/The Invisible Woman
I’m going to open this piece with an apology to Dido Haas and – especially – to Wicked Eiren for coming to Body Language/The Invisible Woman relatively late in the day, the exhibition having opened at the end of June 2022.
Located in Dido’s Space within Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, this is a tremendously powerful selection of black-and-white art in the personal message it contains – although the images themselves, as can be seen by the banner image for this article – should be considered NSFW.
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, July 2022: Wicked Eiren – Body Language/The Invisible Woman
In the physical world, Wicked suffers from Complex Chronic Disease, also known as Central Sensitivity Syndromes (CSS), a health condition that combines a wide range of symptoms and conditions from a number of recognised illnesses including (but certainly not limited to) Fibromyalgia (FM) and Myalgic encephalomyelitis, and which can be complicated by chronic viral conditions such as the vicious Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) and bacterial infections such as Mycoplasma pneumoniae, each of which can give rise to multiple health conditions.
Such are the complexities and symptoms involved – physical, mental and psychological – CCD / CSS conditions are extremely hard to recognise or even correctly diagnose as they manifest in so many ways, individually and collectively. A further complication with the conditions is that they are further exacerbated by the central nervous system repeatedly misfiring, amplifying the sensory symptoms and leading to CCD / CSS being referred to as “pain without cause”.
This latter point does not mean that for the sufferer, the pain and related fatigue and mental anguish do not exist; the symptoms are very real and very physical, and require a complex approach to diagnose and care.
Unfortunately, the fact that the symptoms do seem to be without underpinning, easy-to-understand causes can result in those who have not experienced the conditions to dismiss both symptoms and sufferer (“oh you look fine!” or whispered “X has this mental thing” or “it’s just attention-seeking”, and so on) . This in turn can lead to a highly negative internalising of the conditions and the symptoms on the part of the sufferer, causing further withdrawal from the world.
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, July 2022: Wicked Eiren – Body Language/The Invisible Woman
Body Language/The Invisible Woman is a subtle but exceptionally powerful statement on Wicked’s life with CCD / CSS, with the pieces presented speaking to both reality and desire. The desire to be seen, to be able to look at oneself free from the tyranny of discomfort, pain, fatigue and mental sluggishness – to be seen – in Wicked’s case – as a woman – beautiful, free, whole, and desirable; the reality in the ever-present company of those symptoms that force her to stand aside or hide, exemplified by both the poses used (note the use of light and show, the placement of hand, the crook of finger or thumb, urn of head, direction of look – all intended to hide as much as reveal) and the subtle rash-like lines of her body.
In this, the use of nude images should not be mistaken as being simply gratuitous or for the sake of titillation. The conditions associated with CCD / CSS are not something those experiencing can merely weather and “get over” through time and medication; rather, they defined the person experiencing them – however unwillingly – as keenly as their skin, that is as ever-present and familiar as the shape and lines of their own face. As such, the use of nude images serves to emphasise all of this, underlining the manner in which CCD / CCS is as much a constant to life as is flesh itself.
Similarly, the use of black-and-white images is evocative of the manner in which life might appear to feel: washed of colour and vitality; a plain mix of light and dark that personifies the wish to retreat, to hide. It also most effectively underscores the central tenet to the exhibition, as does the intentional monochrome lighting and overall presentation of the hall itself a monochromatic finish of its own: that those who experience CCD / CSS so often encounter a two-dimensional response from others: they are seen, but not who they are, because their pain causes them to be denied true expression and/or to be cosseted, be it out of lack of understanding (the aforementioned “it’s all in her head”) or over-protective response (“you shouldn’t be doing that! Let ME take care of it!”) that can be as equally denying and born of a lack of understanding.
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, July 2022: Wicked Eiren – Body Language/The Invisible Woman
Remarkable and powerful, Body Language/The Invisible Woman is so deeply layer, there is much more I could say about it – but really, it is a collection of images that should be seen and allowed to speak for themselves, so I urge you to pay a visit before the exhibition closes, and let the pieces there speak to you directly – and be sure to taken the introductory note card from the board within the hall to learn more about Wicked and CCD.
MarDayLine Pylons, July 2022 – click any image for full size
Back in June time, Shawn Shakespeare passed me a landmark for a curious and engaging parcel called MarDayLine Pylons, home to a design by a group of individuals out of Japan led by 奈芙缇丝 (Subsequnce). Despite its small size – less than an eighth of a Full region (one with the private region LI bonus) – this is both a public / private environment, with the introductory notes (available on a sign board at the landing point) stating:
Welcome to Mardayline Pylons. We wish yo a pleasant stay here. The café, sofa fountain bar and onsen are at your convenience. Mardayline Pylons is a private community that is casual and friendly … Part of this area is residential for rent. Please do not enter or leave other people’s houses without permission.
MarDayLine Pylons, July 2022
With a north-south orientation, with cloud-faced cliffs forming an eastern curtain and uplands bordering the southern end of the parcel, this is a place very much defined by water. It tumbles from the highlands in sheer or stepped falls, one of which has its waterflow directed down a covered nullah, to where a flooded street sits.
Quite what has happened – natural disaster or the result of global warming – is up to visitors to decide; however, the tumbledown state of the southern end of the parcel beneath the waterfalls suggests a sudden catastrophe having befallen a part of the town-like setting.
MarDayLine Pylons, July 2022
It is along the flooded street, and sitting between it and the equally flooded tram tracks which run around two sides of the parcel, that the rental properties appear to sit, together with the local café. The onsen, sofa bar and other eateries meanwhile, all sit top the uplands, the route to them offered by way of an elevator rather than stepped climbs.
Small in size the parcel might be, but there are plenty of small details waiting to be found that help present it as a place idea for photography, and Subsequence notes that the parcel is open to rezzing for props etc., – but please make sure you clean up behind you should you make use of the opportunity.
MarDayLine Pylons, July 2022
A simple, engaging setting that makes for an easy-going and please visit.
Two immersive exhibitions are awaiting discovery at the Love&Love Factory Art Gallery that are well worth visiting by anyone who appreciates art with a message and a story in Second Life, produced as they are by two artists skilled in the art of narrative presentation.
Before getting into details, these are two installations that should be experienced with the following enabled in the viewer:
Advanced Lighting Model (ALM) – Preferences → Graphics → make sure Advanced Lighting Model enabled. Note that you do not need to have Shadows enabled (should ALM activate them) – while projectors are used, it is sufficient to just have ALM enabled to see them in action, so Shadows can be safely disabled via the drop-down to improve performance.
Shared Environment should be used for best viewing of both installations (World → Environment → make sure Use Shared Environment is checked.
Lovr&Love Factory Art Gallery: London Junkers – The Melt
The first of the pairing – and I use that term loosely, as these are very much individual installations is The Melt by London Junkers.
This is a single, magnificent sculpture, framed by a poem – also called The Melt – set within an environment suggestive of the sea and under a night sky, both of which evoke a sense of age. The centrepiece might be an iceberg or the face of a glacier; cold and blue, it seems timeless – but pieces have clearly broken away and are caught mid-fall, hinting at the actual state of things – the vast piece is in fact melting and breaking, caught in a continuous state of flux.
It is a state of flux mirrored by the poem itself. Outside of the skeleton of the long-dead great whale, details might not be immediately apparent – but look closely and you might start to make out features: the suggestion of a broken nose here, the outside of an eye, the drop of icy tears.
Lovr&Love Factory Art Gallery: London Junkers – The Melt
What do we make of this? To me, The Melt sits as a commentary on the existential threat of global warming; of all we stand to lose if the required actions needed to curb our own massive contribution to the increasing rate of climate change are not taken: that the loss of the glaciers and ice caps is but the precursor to the loss of all life itself, as symbolised by the whale skeleton and the bones of human at the foot of the sculpture.
Meanwhile, Selen Minotaur presents H, a multi-media immersive piece offering its own statement of life – both physical and virtual. Within it, we follow the story of “H”; a neutral character whose very initial suggests either male “H(im)” and female “H(er)”, and their travel through life, told in part through local chat and through our following the path through a “maze” which eventually leads to a series of rooms – or rather, boxes.
Once upon a time…H. Since H was born, H loved boxes. H started to build some as soon as H was able to. So H was sleeping in a box, H was eating in a box, H was working in a box, H was shopping in different boxes. When H wanted to have fun, H was visiting dedicated boxes: one to meet friends, one to dance, one to listen to music, one to watch a show, and so on. Even after death, H planned to be laid down and locked in a box. Isn’t this weird?…
Lovr&Love Factory Art Gallery: Selen Minotaur – H
Again, the core theme is clear; through the maze, we follow H as they try to make sense of life; then through the various rooms (be sure to accept the Experience when prompted at the end of the maze by walking into the sign, and then walk into the additional signs to be auto-TP’d between rooms).
Within these rooms we witness the places and activities H users to define their life – be sure to sit on objects, click walls to activate media, etc). However, this is not intended to be purely a means to put us on the strange journey of someone called “H”; rather it is a reflection how we all increasingly live our lives; reliant as we increasingly are on the role of “boxes” – devices, electronics, apps (including Second Life, where we spend all our time in “boxes” – regions), and so on for our sense of connection and engagement. That despite all the so-called promise of a “connected world” offered by the Internet, the web, and – as the hype would have it – “the metaverse”, we are perhaps becoming more an more insular in our search for “meaning” (or at least engagement) in life.
Lovr&Love Factory Art Gallery: Selen Minotaur – H
Both H and The Melt are marvellously expressive and deeply layered in the potential for interpretation and consideration.
A while ago, I was invited to display a selection of my blog images of the places I’ve written about at the NovaOwl gallery. For various reasons, I couldn’t make the dates initially offered, so things were re-scheduled for July 2022.
The exhibition – which I opted to call Fifty Shades of Pey in an entirely tongue-in-cheek moment – had a “soft” opening on July 3rd within the ground-level exhibition space at the gallery, and at 12:00 noon on Wednesday, July 13th the exhibition will have a more “formal” opening with music by Dj Uli, and I’d like to invite you to come along if you happen to be free, while the exhibition will be open through to July 29th.
I’d also like to thank Owl, Ceakay and Uli for the invitation to some my work, and for Owl for her promotion and support of Fifty Shades, as well as he continued and unstinting work in supporting art and music across Second Life.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 