Cica Ghost opened her new installation 50 Cats early in February 2018. Following on from Bird People, which presented something of a conundrum (see here for more), this is an altogether more light-hearted piece, offering a little tongue-in-cheek fun.
As a strap-line, the installation uses a quote by novelist and short story writer Bobbie Ann Mason, One day I was counting the cats and I absent-mindedly counted myself. It’s from her first published novel from 1982, Shiloh and Other Stories, although beyond the reference to counting cats, this doesn’t appear to have a deeper meaning for the installation – or at least, not one I could fathom.
A visit begins in the south-west corner of a sandy island. Almost entirely devoid of trees, this little island has a ring of houses, tall and thin with pitched roofs, surrounding its lone hill. It is atop the hill, with its wooden fence crown, that the cats can be found. And there really are fifty of them.
They are standing, sitting, lying down, rolling on the ground, chasing butterflies, watching one another, washing – doing all the things cats do. Some look happy, many look a little nervous, some have a look of pathos in their eyes, as if asking to be taken home and shown a little love. None of them show the slightest interest ion the two trees in their garden nor the dustbins occupying a corner, despite the latter oft being associated with stray cats. For human visitors however, a click on the lid of one of the bins might generate interest and raise a chuckle.
In a similar nature to the dustbins, there are a number of “bunny cars” – some of which can be touched for animations as well. These are also fun to play with, and grab the attention. Also to be found on the fence and on some of the buildings are Cica’s little cartoon stick people. And do keep an eye out for the mice; they are as captivating as the cats.
50 Cats is a wonderfully light-hearted build offers fun and smiles. For those who love cats, and wish to respond to the heartfelt looks of wanting to be taken home an loved, each one is available for sale. Just right-click to buy a copy; all can be resized to suit personal needs.
We were first made aware of Kisaragi Town early in January 2018, when Shakespeare (SkinnyNilla) dropped a landmark over to me. Various things prevented a visit at the time, so it wasn’t until the start of February that we finally got to go and see it – and I’m glad we did.
Covering a half region, the build has been designed by xLinzerTortex, who from his profile appears to be a relative newcomer to Second Life. While profile age is no guarantee of overall time in SL, if he has only been in-world a year and a half then additional kudos to him for presenting such a carefully designed, richly detailed location for people to enjoy.
A visit begins on a main road running west-to-east through the town, with tunnels at either end linking Kisaragi Town with the two neighbouring parcels / region (the town sits within a series of Japanese themed private regions). Along this road are assorted businesses: a post office, movie theatre, garage, coffee shop, metro store, eatery and so on. Cars are scattered along the streets or sit parked in assigned bays; traffic lights blink, and advertising hoardings hang from buildings, with posters wrapped around lamp posts and sign poles.
From the style of the buildings, this would appear to be an older part of town; many of the structures are flat, cement-sided blocks, colour provided in splashes by small tiled areas of walls or by the advertising boards or the simple contrast of wood against cement. The exceptions to this are the movie theatre, located towards the eastern end of the street with its painted façade and tiling, and the metro store and gacha standing either side of a small shopping arcade – or alley, if you prefer – running southwards from the eastern end of the street.
This little precinct, protected from the elements by a discoloured glass roof, again suggesting it has some age to it, has little boutique stores on either side and offers a route to a back street where the snow is falling a little harder. A small temple is huddled into a corner, banners offering greeting, the shrine subject to occasional rattling as cantilevered train cars rumble by on the elevated track behind it. A house and flat-roofed apartment buildings also occupy this southern side of the town, again subject to the passage of trains on the elevated track. A little row of market stalls sits beneath the wall supporting the rails, perhaps serving the locals living in the apartments.
Small it might be, but the design of Kisaragi Town is such that when walking the streets, it is easy to get a feel you are exploring a corner of a much larger setting. To the north, forming a natural border along one edge of the parcel, rise as series of more modern apartment blocks. These serve to both contain the town and suggest that if we were to travel beyond them, we’d find yet more of this town to explore. Similarly, to the east and west are raised lines of trees which again provide a natural border for the town and break-up the rooftops of the regions beyond, further adding to the sense that Kisaragi Town is part of something bigger, even though it is not in any way thematically connected to its surroundings.
What we liked most about this build is the sheer attention to detail that bring it to life. There’s the vending machines and bicycles racked up under the lee of a building at one end of the street; the parking ticket machines and sign board outlining the use of the car park at the other; the waste bags at the side of a street awaiting collection; the just-delivered bundles of the morning’s papers outside a store; the care taken in selecting the cars on the streets; the overhead power distribution system… it all adds up. Climb a set of steps up from one end of the main road and you’ll find a little rooftop area where people can practice their baseball batting – so typical of the use of space seen in places like Japan, where land can come at a premium price.
I also liked the way that the western end of the parcel has a small undeveloped “buffer zone” beyond the road tunnel. This not only offers a break between Kisaragi Town and its immediate neighbours (currently undeveloped at ground level), but also potentially offers room for expansion.
Kisaragi Town is a treat to visit. Small, finely detailed, and offering a compact opportunity for exploring and discovering. Should you visit and enjoy the setting, please consider a donation towards its upkeep at the temple in the south-east corner.
Kimmy LittleBoots is a highly regarded second Life photographer whose work graces many Flickr groups – and is often selected as a banner image for those groups. Specialising in avatar studies, she works in both colour and black-and-white, covering a broad spectrum of moods and settings, from the seemingly every day through to the sensual, to emotive self-studies.
Throughout February 2018, a small sampling of Kimmy’s work can be viewed at Artful Expressions gallery, curated by Sorcha Tyles. Simply entitled An Exhibition in Black and White, it features seven studies, each one of which embodies a specific feeling or condition in a beautifully evocative manner – a mouseover or right-click for Edit will reveal the title of each.
Each of the pieces on display is worth an essay in its own right; there is a richness of expression and depth of sentiment in each which is captivating. So much so that I found myself repeatedly drawn back to each image time and again, repeatedly drawn into its story.
In this, the use of black and white photographs is a masterful stroke. Being monochrome, the images are from the outset more easily seen as a whole statement. Yes, we are obviously drawn to the central figure in each, but as there are no strong colours either in the background or off to one side or the other, so we are not distracted into focusing on them. Instead, we are encouraged to see each picture as a whole, to appreciate the balance between figure and setting more evenly, taking in everything as a single expression of mood, thought, or condition. Thus, each image is brought to life far more effectively than had each been rendered in colour, drawing us ever more deeply into each one.
Exhibition in Black and White really does speaks for itself, although I’d perhaps suggest a title plaque for each would be of benefit, given how closely image and title are linked. For those with an interest in avatar studies and SL photography, it is an exhibition not to be missed, and I strongly encourage a visit to Artful Expressions to witness it. And while there, do take time to explore the gallery’s garden, which now features a cosy little beach side café offering a quiet corner in which to relax.
DiXmiX Gallery, curated by Dixmix Source, currently featured three exhibitions of art respectively by Titus Palmira, Gaus (Cicciuzzo Gausman) and Burk Bode. While all three are entirely individual in nature, two of them might also be seen as overlapping a little, if not in theme, then in broad approach.
The longest running of the three – and potentially due to end soon – is Dark Underbelly by Titus Palmira. Occupying the upper White Gallery level, it presents some twelve self-studies designed to convey very focused feelings, as indicated by their respective titles. As might be suspected from the exhibition’s title, some of these feelings sway towards the darker side of our personality: self disapproval, inner demons, anger, with confusion and uncertainty sitting more to the edge of such darker emotions. Others within the selected images express something of the darker side of life – voyeurism, staking and hiding behind masks.
Most of the images are presented in monochrome; this makes the conveyance of their emotion more effective than had they been in colour. Conversely,where colour is present, our emotional response is also deepened by the strong contrast the colour presents to the surrounding monochrome images. So with Ugly On The Inside, for example, there is a sense of recoiling away from the image, a reaction which may not have been felt were it one among many colour images or, conversely, presented in monochrome alongside the rest. Similarly, the use of colour in Confusion (a Default State), evokes a greater sense of identification with a confused state of mind.
Humour also pays a part here as well – as seen in Before My Morning Coffee. But the truth is that all of the twelve images are so perfectly framed and presented, each one carries more than a spark of identification for the observer; I’ve little doubt anyone looking upon many of these images will fail to feel a tingling of subjective recognition, and inner nod of, “Yes, I’ve felt this…” Whilst elsewhere, we can objectively appreciate the mood and feeling each image expresses. For me, both subject response and objective appreciation come together in Don’t Tell Me the Moon is Shining (above) – a fabulous piece evoking something we have perhaps all felt: that moment of calm before our anger explodes in a destructive burst of temper.
We’re all likely familiar with the expression “the eyes are the windows of the soul”. Where it originates from is unimportant, but it perhaps has its roots in an observation by Marcus Tullius Cicero, Imago animi Vultus est, indices oculi eius intentio (literally, “the countenance (face) is the portrait of the soul, and the eyes mark its intentions”) – and it is this more rounded expression which I would suggest applies to the second of the exhibitions reviewed here: Le regard de l’âme (literally, “the soul’s gaze”), by Gaus, and displayed in the ground floor Black Gallery.
On the one hand – and most simply – the faces of our avatars are their most expressive element – just as our faces are in the physical world. Through the care we put into crafting them, shaping mouth, chin, nose, ears, and eyes, we imbue our avatars with an identity – perhaps the closest things they have to a “soul”. Thus, on the one hand, Le regard de l’âme offers an opportunity to reflect upon the sixteen head-and-shoulder portraits presented within it, and what they say about the avatars presented.
But I would also argue that there is something deeper here. The very care we put into crafting our avatars, and particularly their faces, become reflective of who we, the people behind them, are. This may be wholly conscious: a desire to give our avatar a look mirroring our own, or to express an aspect of our personality; but even when creating visually divorced from who we are, making it a representation of who we would like to be, still reflects some of who we in fact are. Thus, the faces of our avatars become something deeper: a portrait of ourselves; and it is this essence of self which is perhaps captured within this images.
With Shameless, presented across the ground floor and mezzanine levels of the Grey Gallery, Burk Bode offers an exhibition of black-and-white images which steps well clear of the ideas of identity present within Dark Underbelly and Le regard de l’âme. Instead, he offers a series of images best noted as being NSFW, given their depiction of sexual acts.
This is a very in-your-face exhibition (literally, given it occupies the gallery space adjacent to the main entrance) in which the observer is clearly cast into the role of voyeur. Indeed, given the subtitle of the exhibition, They are watching us, there is a suggestion that our very presence may have triggered at least some of the acts portrayed; in others, the lean is perhaps more towards exhibitionism and the thrill / risk of performing sexual acts in public.
Sex is at best a difficult topic for discussions, as reactions to it tend to be far more subjective and perhaps shaped by preconceptions. As such, I’ll leave it to readers to visit Shameless to form their own impressions.
Meraki Islands, on the homestead region of Felicitie Isle, is a group build by Nïc H Bour (NicBor) and Busta (BadboyHi). It is currently home to Etnia, the store operated by Mika Whitesong-Holloway (Mika Whitesong), and offers visitors a perfectly landscaped environment to explore and appreciate.
It was actually Busta’s involvement in the design which encouraged me to visit. He was responsible for the enchanting Yasminia, which Caitlyn and I visited in 2016 and 2017, so I was keen to discover what Meraki Islands had to offer.
Predominantly flat, the landscape has a wonderful wetland feel to it, water cutting channels through the northern side of the region, seemingly at random, trees and bushes offering shade. A single table of rock rises from the south-east corner of the region, a crown of silver birch trees on its top surrounding the walls of Etnia, reached by a single stepped footpath winding up the side of the platform.
A broad strip of land runs west from this, separating the wetlands on the north side of the region from the open waters south of it, before turning north to where a farmhouse sits slightly elevated above a flagged courtyard with a pair of houses on one side. Unfurnished, those look out across the wetlands, in the middle of which sits an out warehouse building, re-purposed as a simply furnished cosy spot.
The warehouse and houses aren’t the only structures; there is a second farmhouse on the south finger of land, while scattered around the water channels are old walls, a disused greenhouse, a folly and bridges offering routes over the water and between the many fingers of land between the narrow channels. One of these bridge leads eastwards to the neighbouring region, which at the time of my visit was still being designed – again by Busta, suggesting a reason to return for a future visit.
If this all sounds simple in design, it’s because it is – and in being so, it is also elegant and highly photogenic. There is a sense of serenity about the region which not only encourages exploration, but gives people plenty of reasons to stay. Scattered over the waters are rowing boats offering gently rocking places to sit and appreciate the setting, while the coastal and inland paths offer further places for couples to sit.
A further charm with the region is that it looks out over its neighbours to the west and north. This gives Meraki Islands a sense of place in the world – although be aware that the neighbouring regions are private homes and not open to the general public. There are other points of attraction as well such as the avenue of trees bent over the channel running around the foot of the south-eastern plateau.
In all, this is a veritable tour de force of region design. Simple yet elegant, subtle in touch. The measure of care taken with the build is exquisite, the presentation wholly natural from the cut of the waterways in the wetlands through the selection of the trees – particularly the weeping willows – to the dressing of things such as the steps up to the store.
Now available on the ground level at Club LA and Gallery, curated by Fuyuko ‘冬子’ Amano (Wintergeist), are two small exhibitions of art and photography available for public appreciation, and which together demonstrate the broad canvas of art in Second Life. To one side of this boutique-style gallery with its own garden space behind it, is an exhibition of Second Life photography by Liz Winterstorm (TinLiz); on the other are reproductions of physical world art by Vangogh Rembranch.
Officially opening at 12:00 noon on Saturday, February 3rd 2018, the exhibition by Liz Winterstorm presents six avatar studies taken from around Second Life. Set within a display area modelled to enhance the pieces with props, this is something of an autobiographical exhibition, with Liz noting that (like many) when she came into SL, she went through the usual round of shopping, spending time with friends, trying new looks, having fun, but without any real sense of purpose to her in-world time. At least until she discovered photography.
As her creativity evolved and her confidence grew, so did her connection with her avatar. “She depicts a part of me that I’ve never really shown anyone,” Liz notes. “In the world of Second Life, when a person can be anyone they want to be, it’s given me the freedom to be the truest form of myself. And I’m very thankful to have this creative outlet, it’s made me look at myself differently and with that has come knowledge and strength. ”
And so it is that while small in number, the images she offers at Club LA and Gallery offer a rich insight into a person who embraces her creativity and who enjoys natural settings, finding them to be perhaps reflective of her moods and thoughts. Each brings together colour, tone, framing, perspective and proportion both naturally and perfectly; which in each there is a suggestion of someone who, while not lonely or afraid of company, enjoys the freedom of being on her own, and the opportunities for private expression it brings. Similarly, the props offered in the exhibition space reflects more of Liz’s creativity; framing the pieces at they do, they heighten appreciation of the images by suggesting not so much viewing photographs, but that we are new friends, invited to share a few quiet and personal moments with Liz.
Italian artist Vangogh Rembranch, by contrast, presents nine reproductions of his physical world art, the majority of which are presented in strong, bold colours, and within an open display area bereft of furnishings or set design which serves to emphasise their boldness. Self-taught, and as his name might suggest, Vangogh is strongly influenced by the art of Vincent Van Gogh, and this is marvellously reflected in the pieces exhibited at Club LA and Gallery. He is also known for his skill in reproducing works by some of the great Impressionists.
Eight of the painting presented here appear to be originals by Vangogh, representing – I believe – scenes from around the Apulia (Puglia) region of Italy – which many might know as being popularly referred to as the “heel” of Italy’s boot. These are all strikingly evocative of Vincent Van Gogh’s art without being derivative. The use of colour, the style and composition all echo Van Gogh, while the subject matter is unique and individual. Among these is one in particular that caught my eye: Vento di luna (“Moon Wind”); with its cold blue tones, to the sky, the white dots of leaves and the shape of the trees are all reminiscent of The Starry Night.
The last image in the series demonstrates Vangogh’s ability to reproduce the work of Impressionist painters. It is a representation of Rue de Paris, Temps de Pluie (“Paris Street; Rainy Day”) by Gustave Caillebotte. Originally painted in oil in 1877, it is Caillebotte’s most famous work, and Vangogh reproduces it here in detail; but again, rather than being a direct copy, Vangogh offers something of an interpretive approach to his version, which he calls Giorno di Pioggia a Parigi (“Rainy Day in Paris”).
Together these two exhibits offer and interesting pairing. One, as noted, presents in-world photography and the other, physical world painting uploaded to Second Life. They are both strongly contrasting in art, presentation and style, whilst also being complementary – one naturally draws visitor to the other, and encourages consideration of both.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 