Santoshima recently extended a personal invitation to me to view the latest exhibition at her Ribong Gallery. Entitled The Overwhelm, the installation is by Meiló Minotaur, and it presents a layered, animated piece that marks – for me, anyway – the first art installation to use Animesh within its presentation.
This is actually a difficult piece to quantify. In part this is due to the minimalism involved – a series of blocked-out spaces intended to represent a house; it’s also because viewing it, one perhaps gravitates away from the provided description towards an alternative possible interpretation.
The Overwhelm is both a house and a stage, where private life presents itself in its slow, disturbing anguish. This animated installation is about family, and about the overbearing weight of being responsible for a new life, about disconnection, excruciating loneliness, and the shared commonness of this experience.
– CapCat Ragu, explaining the Overwhelm on behalf of Mieló Minotaur
Ribong Gallery: The Overwhelm
The term “new life” suggests this is a piece about the anxiety surrounding a forthcoming birth; the setting suggests something else: the anxiety felt when a child has failed to return home as expected. This interpretation fits the later comment in the description, which defines the colours and tone of the setting as,”distressing mood, with an implication of imminent violence”.
But for me, there is a third interpretation: a couple who have in fact lost their child and are both surrounded by memories of that child in the form of the haunting wall images, and trapped within the simmering tension of loss, blame and recrimination. All of which, wrapped within that sense of grief, is waiting to explode outwards in anger and violence toward whichever of them gives cause through a wrong action or word.
Ribong Gallery: The Overwhelm
The Animesh models give a physical dimension to the atmosphere of anxiety, looming anger, anguish and hurt through their pacing, head movements, and through their shape. The exaggerated points of the male figure’s shoulders convey a sense of hunch-shouldered annoyance as he strides in his place, for example.
Curious, involved, oddly attractive, The Overwhelm is open through to November 2019.
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The Overwhelm, Ribong Gallery (Mieum, rated General)
The Island That Is Not There, September 2019 – click and image for full size
We were drawn to The Island That Is Not There simply because of the region’s name. A Homestead designed by Franz Markstein, it presents a rugged island setting with a mix of influences that give the region a strangely eclectic, but flowing look and feel.
Second star to the right and straight on till morning, this is the way to the island that is not there.
– Franz Markstein, describing The Island That Is Not There
The Island That Is Not There, September 2019
It is a place without obvious paths and no roads, but with a definite east-west orientation, the eastern side a high table of rock, backed in part by a natural curtain wall. The ruins of a once great chapel sit here, and before them, a mix of shop, houses and cabins sitting on the first rocky steps that descend down to the western beaches.
More houses are scattered around, most with a Mediterranean slant, although the setting doesn’t have the usual trappings of a Mediterranean location, but projects something of a feel for a rugged Scottish isle. A bubbling brook splashes down from the eastern uplands to the western coast. It rises without warning at the head of a gully – presumably there is a underground wellspring – and bounces and splashes its way between rocks and over rapids, gurgling as it goes, until it passes under a hump-backed bridge to drop to the sea alongside a small beach.
The Island That Is Not There, September 2019
Boats sit offshore, mainly of the sailing or rowing varieties. Some of the latter offer places to sit and pose, while the former – surprisingly – are also open for people to sit and stand aboard, offering unusual (for a public setting) opportunities for photographs – as does the biplane passing overhead.
One of the rowing boats is not merely for posing in, however. It forms a rezzer and a way to reach the outlying islands. One of these offering a little summerhouse / getaway, with seating, art and a distressed piano that can also be found within the walls of the ruined chapel (amidst other bric-a-brac). The second island is set aside of events, with a DJ station and grassy dance area which, during my return visit for photos, was hosting a set. Sadly, there are no rezzrs for a return row to the main island, so flying is the order of the day.
The Island That Is Not There, September 2019
Building on so rugged a setting can cause one or two issues. While mesh can easily be moulded into uneven rocky forms, it’s not so easy to shape when it comes to grasses and flowers. This can result in expanses of grass appearing to float in the air when the rock in which it was placed drops away. It also means that buildings without deep footings can end up with gaps between them and the ground beneath them. Some of this is evident here; one or two of the buildings and walls could perhaps do with settling a little more, or have “foundations” set beneath them.
There are also one or two elements of the landscape – notably along the western beach and the waterfalls of the brook – that perhaps need tidying up and gaps eliminated, but really none of these issues spoil exploration or photography. For the latter, adjusting the sun position or changing your local windlight can overcome the odd awkward gap or strangely-placed shadow. This is fortunate, because there really is much to appreciate about the overall design.
The Island That Is Not There, September 2019
Finished with a rich sound scape, and with plenty to see, The Island That Is Not There makes for a pleasing visit. Should people wish to tarry, there are enough places to sit without feeling crowded. Ideal under a range of windlight settings, it also offers plenty of opportunities for landscape and avatar photography.
SL Through My Eyes – Jamee Sandalwood; Windlight Gallery, September 2019
SL Through My Eyes is an extensive exhibition of Second Life photography by Jamee Sandalwood that is currently open at the Windlight Gallery, curated by John and Eleseren Brianna. As the title of the exhibition – located on the upper floor of the gallery – implies, this is something of a personal look at Second Life, with Jamee introducing it thus:
This has been three years of inspiration in the making, and I am so proud to share it with you all. I hope you will find something that is special and reminds you of why you are part of this virtual world. SL has so many things to offer with so many talented and amazing people sharing their talents in ways that inspire. Each of these photos was taken as I was inspired by the beauty and creativity of someone who took the time to build something that was beautiful to me.
SL Through My Eyes – Jamee Sandalwood; Windlight Gallery, September 2019
Jamee’s work covers fashion photography, avatar studies, abstracts and – obviously – landscapes. And while the focus of SL Through My Eyes is on the latter, it also touches on her other areas of artistic interest as well. A number of the pieces include self-portraits that also have a slant towards fashion, for example, while a study of a lion’s head is rendered as a painting that, while not abstract in style, has a wonderful sense of abstraction about it which suggests it could have been sculpted and that were one to reach out and touch it, fingers would be able to trace their way over the lines and creases that appear to give form to the fur and mane.
It is this richness of life and presence in Jamee’s work that I find so attractive. Her landscapes in particular always strike me as not just capturing the memory of a location, but its very breath as well.
SL Through My Eyes – Jamee Sandalwood; Windlight Gallery, September 2019
Whereas others tend to post-process to the point that while they have produced a work of art in its own right, they have in doing so perhaps lost the core essence of the place their works features. In her work, Jamee offers a lighter touch, one that still results in expressing her artistic muse and creativity, but which also retains the essence of the place in which the original image was taken.
A further attractiveness with this exhibition is the dressing Jamee has given the gallery space around her work: fantasy settings fronted by night flowers that seem to offer a way into the images; the accoutrements of a beach location accompanying her coastal and water images; ivy hanging from walls to bring together images of ruins and horses to form a vignette of their own. Among these elements are a series of small photos of Jamee and her SL companion, Matt Thomson; these add a further personal dimension to the exhibition that is delightful to see.
SL Through My Eyes – Jamee Sandalwood; Windlight Gallery, September 2019
SL Through My Eyes is an engaging and evocative exhibition of art by an exceptionally talented photographer and artist. I believe it will be open through until the end of September, and a visit is thoroughly recommended.
I make no apologies for returning to Hotel California, the homestead region held by Schmexysbuddy just a month after my last visit (see: A touch of HollyWeird in Second Life); the designs he creates each month are amongst the most imaginative and eye-catching within Second Life, consistently offering environments that straddle the line between landscape and art.
For September, Schmexysbuddy present Dancing in the Moonlight, which is – for me – captivating in the rich juxtaposition of ideas and content, bringing together as it does art, sci-fi, a sense of dark humour, fantasy, dream and nightmare, all with what might be a very subtle underscore of an ecological warning. It is born out of suggestions from his partner, Racey, that served as the fertile ground on which the design grew. It’s also a place in which you can actually become a part of the setting and art.
This is a place that is genuinely hard to describe and which my images fail to do justice. Caught under a sky heavy with cloud that appears to form a roiling inverted sea-scape as it rolls overhead, the land is a uniform grey and pockmarked with impact craters, many of which are scudded and partially filled with wind-blown dust. Together they present the first enigma of the setting: are we on a Earth or on the Moon?
Hotel California – Dancing in the Moonlight, September 2019
This quandry is added to by the bay that cuts into the land, the foamed see passing under a great wrought iron bridge under which a submarine is passing, its twin grounded on the shores of the bay close by. This suggests a place on Earth – or at least a world with air and water. Yet, space suited figures can be seen near the shoreline of the bay. A further enigma comes in the form of a metal galleon drifting overhead, sails unfurled and stubby wings extended from its hull…
And that’s just the start of things. To the east of the region sits the brooding bulk of some form of structure that looks like it would be perfectly at home on the Moon or crouched on an asteroid (even with the advertising boards rising from its roof). It sets something of a tone in keeping with the space-suited figures and more such figures, these in red suits – albeit without their support back packs gathered close by.
Hotel California – Dancing in the Moonlight, September 2019
Also close by is a network of pipe-like corridors snake over the ground and into the air, some fully enclosing the walkways within, others are open to the environment. All can be explored as they twist and turn, while further elements hang suspended in the sky or partially buried below. In this, the network offers something of a faint and static echo of A Petrovsky Flux (long since sadly gone of SL, but which you can read about here and here (2014) and here (2016)). However, it is not the most obvious nod towards artistic expression in the region.
This comes in the form of the many sculptures by Mistero Hifeng that are scattered across and over the landscape. These are hard to miss, a fair number of them having been greatly scaled up. The manner in which these sculptures are mixed with the rest of the setting gives Dancing in the Moonlight something of a dream-like feeling. By this, I mean not so much that it is a dream (although it might well be), but rather it is a tapestry of imagines that are left at the edges of consciousness upon waking from a sleep marked by dreams; the kind of mental flashes we get when trying to recall the dreams. And if you are seeking the dreamer of these dreams, perhaps a look up at the flying galleon might yield a clue…
Hotel California – Dancing in the Moonlight, September 2019
But the dreams are perhaps not all pleasant; there is a hint of nightmare here as well. When examined, the NASA astronauts are revealed to be dead; their helmet visors smashed and their skulls devoid of flesh, tissue or muscle. Their cosmonaut colleagues across the bay are no better off, and the nightmare’s edge is increased with them by the presence something loosely resembling the space jockey from the Alien franchise – except where its chest should lie burst open, it instead offers a bed…
It is with the astronaut figures that the ecological message might creep into the setting. This is a place with an atmosphere, with all the familiarities of Earth So why would the people here be confined to space suits? Could it be the dream formed a warning of what could come of humanity’s excesses, with the statues standing as monuments to humanity’s lost creativity? I leave that to visitors to ruminate.
Hotel California – Dancing in the Moonlight, September 2019
What is without doubt is the sheer striking uniqueness of Dancing in the Moonlight, a place that is gloriously imagined, marvellously photogenic and quit mystifying in its presentation. It is absolutely not something to be missed. Oh, and that being a part of the scene I mentioned? Just accept the request to animate your avatar on arrival – and make sure your AO is turned off (you can move around while the animations play).
Angelika Corral and SheldonBR, curators of DaphneArts, have something of an affinity with the work of Edgar Allen Poe. In 2017 they hosted an exhibition of art marking 208th anniversary of his birth, and they have also produced works of their own focused on Poe, notably Dream Within A Dream, based on Poe’s poem A Dream Within A Dream, and a static installation modelled on Fall of the House of Usher.
Dream Within A Dream formed the leaping-off point for a series of immersive installations they have produced (and which has most recently encompassed the works of John Donne – see No man is an island). Now, and with an official public opening on September 2nd, 2019, they have returned once more to Poe, with a new immersive installation Annabel Lee, based on Poe’s poem of the same name.
Annabel Lee was the last poem Poe composed; it explores the themes of death, love and the hereafter – all common these for Poe – wrapped within a “ballad” about the death of a beautiful woman. Within it, the narrator recounts his love for the woman – Annabel Lee – which began many years ago in a “kingdom by the sea”. He believes their love was so intense, the angels themselves became envious to the extent they caused her death. Nevertheless, he believes that the love they shared was so deep, neither angels nor the grave can constrain it, and that their souls remain entwined. And so it is, each night he dreams of her, as he lies beside her tomb.
DaphneArts: Annabel Lee
Like so many of Poe’s poems, Annabel Lee is complex as much as it is dark. There is something of an autobiographical element to it, another facet oft present in Poe’s work. He himself fell in love with his cousin, Virginia Clemm, and in the words of the poem – “she was a child” – being just thirteen when Poe married her, and she died just two years prior to the poem being written. Thus there is an element that in writing about the loss of “Annabel Lee”, Poe is perhaps drawing on personal experience.
In keeping with these immersive environments designed by Sheldon and Angelika, a visit commences in a sky box, where visitors are given an interactive HUD as a temporary attachment, and which should be accepted (it will be automatically be attached, and should detach on leaving – if not, just click the Stop button, when displayed). The skybox also includes instructions on setting your viewer’s environment (if you are using Firestorm, then the local windlight should apply via that viewer’s parcel windlight support). Once the viewer is set in accordance with the recommendations, visitors are free to take the teleport board to the ground level and the installation itself.
DaphneArts: Annabel Lee
The ground level presents the poem through what Sheldon and Angelika call “Magical Realism” – the use of sounds, visuals and the spoken word (in this case, Angelika reading the poem) – to evoke a sense that the visitor is immersed within its unfolding story. It’s a technique that might also be described as “immersive literary allegory”: a visual setting that both directly frames the telling of the poem’s story (the “kingdom by the sea”) and the passing of Annabel Lee (shown through the presence of her tomb), whilst also offering cues to the deep story of love and loss.
This latter aspect is shown through the use of elements such as the candles (a clear symbol associated with death) and the path they mark (representing the path we follow through life to its eventual end, which is in turn symbolised by the tomb), and by the house. The latter (perhaps best explored after hearing the poem throughout), shows signs of past habitation with rooms and furniture slowly mouldering. However, these are themselves more broadly representative of the memories of love and life shared but which have come to an end; the memories we fight to hold on to after the passing of a loved one, but which inevitably age and fade with the passing of time.
DaphneArts: Annabel Lee
So it is that this is a deeply atmospheric and evocative setting; one that should be experienced rather than described. It sets Annabel Lee, the poem, almost as fairytale without in any way destroying or distorting the emotional span of the original.
Summerland, August 2019 – click any image for full size
Late in August we visited – on the recommendation of Miro Collas – Iniquity Constantine’s Homestead region of Summerland. At the time of our visit, Ini described the region as “an idyllic garden where the spirit may rest and rejuvenate,” offering a mix of “pagan, ritual, mythology, mythic … magic, runes, druid, nature, elemental, [and] familiars” in its elements.
These elements are apparent as soon as visitors arrive in the region: the landing point sits within a barn converted into a Wiccan / pagan centre where psychic readings are on offer, and the trappings of Wiccan and magical supplies and symbols are much in evidence.
Summerland, August 2019
Outside, a deck extends over coastal waters under a late summer sky as seagulls wheel around in search of a fishy meal. The deck offers place to sit and appreciate the view across the rest of the region and the surrounding (off-sim) hills. This view reveals that the region forms a semi-circle of small islands that form a horseshoe around what is – given the foaming waters – a shallow bay sitting over a broad shelf of rock.
One its western end, this horseshoe bay is watched over by the tall red finger of a lighthouse; at its eastern extent, it is mirrored by a set of horseshoe waterfalls that tumble from the cliffs of the highest island in the curved chain. It is these falls, visible through the haze that draw visitors around the side of the landing point barn to where a wooden bridge offers the way to the next island in the series.
Summerland, August 2019
Here lie the first ruins with pagan / druid elements: ancient statues, a broken henge of shaped stones around a hewn alter and reach via a stone arch. Beyond it, a second bridge connects to the tall island, the exploration of which can be split into two parts. Just across the bridge, a set of stone steps climb up the grassy shoulder of the island, while just to the left, through a gap in a broken wooden fence, a ladder offers the first part of a way down to where a shingle beach sits at the base of the island, presenting a path to a little beach house sitting on another deck built out over the waters.
At the top of the stone steps, the upper plateau of the island presents a hazy mix of the pastoral and the pagan / ancient. Horses graze on the long grass, shaded by the island’s woodlands, trees that help hide and disguise the ruins scattered beneath their boughs. These take several forms, including those of a chapel and a much more recent glass-and-metal pavilion that has been turned into a place of meditation.
Summerland, August 2019
A path winds across the grassy table of the island, offering a means to see most of the sights whilst pointing the way to where a rocky route drops down to another bridge and also an almost-cave or cavern. As well as providing a means to reach the last two islands in the chain, the low-lying grassy headland provides the means to reach a modern and comfortable orangery – a further place for visitors to sit and rest during a visit to the region.
The two remaining islands offer a further mix of trees, ruins and places to sit and rest or in meditation, all within the region’s sound scape that is, perhaps a little too dominated by the thunder of waterfalls. There is also a little roughness to some of the landscaping with floating bushes and candles here and there, together with some slight alpha issues (sadly common and often unavoidable when combining foliage and off-sim elements), but nothing that excessively gets in the way of appreciating the beauty of the setting, and which certainly don’t interfere with opportunities for photography. Images captured may be shared through the region’s Flickr group.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 