Quite by chance I stumbled across Classical and Surreal Sculpture, an open-air exhibition of works of surrealism taken from famous exponents of the genre and rendered as 3D models by MADD (maddomxc Umino). It’s a small place, and the setting a simple parcel field covering just 3072 square metres.
Within this space, MADD has reproduced surrealist works of art by some of the more famous exponents of the genre, including Constantin Brâncuși (1876-1957), Umberto Boccioni (1882-1916), Max Ernst (1891-1976), René Magritte (1898-1967),Walter Mac Mazzieri (1947-), and Masaru Shichinohe (1959-), together with assorted reproductions of a number of sculptures,- most notably perhaps Prométhée (Prometheus) by Nicolas-Sébastien Adam (1705-1778).
Some of the more famous pieces by these artists are offered: Magritte’s The Lovers, for example, or Ernst’s L’Ange du Foyer (Angel of the Hearth) and Surrealism and Painting. Despite the small space, all of the pieces on display are set out such that the field doesn’t feel at all crowded, and a couple are presented with copies of the original 2D art on which they have been based. In the case of Surrealism and Painting, this has been done quite humorously – the sculpture is painting the image upon which it is based (rather than the piece the original is painting).
All of the pieces on display are offered for sale – a point that did admittedly leave me a little twitchy around issues of copyright, notably – but not exclusively – around the pieces based on Mazzieri and Shichicohe’s work. However, and particularly in the case of the reproductions of the 2D art pieces, these are very well executed pieces, and while I’m not exactly a huge lover of surrealism (although I do admire Magritte’s work), this little corner of Second Life makes for an interesting visit.
In Middle Earth, Eriador lies between the Blue Mountains (Ered Luin – or Erid Lindon) to the west and the Misty Mountains (Ered Hithui or Hithaeglir) to the east. It is the land within which – among other places – the Grey Havens, The Shire and Rivendell (Imladris) might be found.
Within Second Life Eri-Ador lies with mountains to the west and to the east (and also, admittedly, to the north and south). While carrying certain echoes of Tolkien’s mythical realm of Middle Earth – within it you will find elven halls and tree houses, Ents and Orcs and even the Dark Tower itself, surmounted by the Eye – it is not intended to be a facsimile of the world made famous through the likes of The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings. Rather, it is a region that draws a degree of inspiration from Tolkien and from Second Life itself to present a place edged in mysticism and with a rich artistic vein.
The work of Tom Mcgregor (mastersinn) and his SL partner Misty Mcgregor (MistieDream), Eri-Ador is difficult to really quantify; it is a place which has to be experienced, rather than described. There is so much to see and appreciate.
In the broadest terms, the region is split into two – the west side largely sitting on shallow water, the east a rugged, snow-dusted stretch of land. A visit beings on the western edge of the region, within a gazebo of distinctly elven design. From here, and lying under the guarding branches of arched trees, a grassy avenue sits on the water, pointing the way east to the rise of dry land.
To the right and left of this avenue, the waters offer the setting for a garden of sculptures from the likes of Mistero Hifeng, Sharni Lubomir (Sharni Azalee), Groll (Groll Greggan), Kadaj Yoshikawa, Shepherd (BF2 Shepherd), Paco Pooley and CioTToLiNa Xue to name just some. These are displayed either side of the east-pointing avenue, those to the south caught beneath a torrential downpour, about which a line of street lamps guarding a south-pointing board walk can do little: the umbrellas that hold aloft little more than handles and spines…
Travel south through the rains and you’ll eventually come to the elven hall. Imladris it may not be, but it sits, Rivendell like within the shadows of mountains, echoing the Last Homely House and carrying inside it, its own sense of mystery and magic – or perhaps modern elven science …
The board walk also branches to the east before reaching the elven hall and, like the grass path under the arched trees pointing eastwards from the landing point, eventually makes landfall. Here, sitting atop a low snow-covered shoulder of rock sits Barad-dûr, a dark finger of a tower, its nail the burning all-seeing eye. Before the tower floats a gaunt wraith, hands cupping fireballs – one of the Nine, perhaps?
Like the watery half of the region, there is much to discover on the rocky landscape either side of the Dark Tower, making careful exploration a must. There is, for example, a harpsichord and harp to be found with a small music stage close by; while elsewhere a balloon-suspended bridge connects a pointed escarpment to a platform floating upon clouds, while a stone stairway climbs even higher into the heavens, its passage marked by more of Mistro’s figures.
All this still only touches on the richness to be found within Eri Ador – from the aforementioned Ents in their confrontation with an Orc through touches of whimsy with bearded dwarves. For those wishing to sit and admire the art and the setting, their are numerous places to sit – and even to participate in the music of the setting. And al of that is without mentioning the two further points of exploration: Heaven and riding area.
The latter are both located overhead, and reached via the teleport disc at the landing point. The riding area in particular offers a very different environment than found at ground level, giving visitors a touch of the Old Western frontier. This is also not without its sense of sitting outside of time: it’s not every day you travel through a frontier town with saloon, stagecoach and gun slinger to arrive at a farm with a pick-up truck and tractor … I will confess, neither Caitlyn or I were entirely clear on the “riding” aspect of this level; neither of us were successful in finding any kind of horse rezzer – which didn’t stop us from exploring!
All-in-all, Eri-Ador is a fascinating and unique region; very different from those of recent visits, and definitely a place to visit and explore. I would note that the use of mesh rain and similar effects can have an impact on viewer performance, so some tweaking of viewer preferences might be in order – but this shouldn’t be used as a reason not to make a visit.
DiXmiX Gallery, curated by Dixmix Source is once more hosting three exhibitions by three very different talents – although one of the exhibitions draws to a close during this current week. All three present some very unique art that tends to generate very mixed – in a positive sense – reactions on encountering individual pieces, making all three engrossing as individual displays of art.
Within the Grey Gallery, just inside the gallery’s main entrance, A. DeLauren – (AlessaMendoza) presents Colour Experiments, a display of 12 images split between the lower and mezzanine levels of the hall. As the title indicates, these are pieces where colour, perhaps more than subject, takes centre stage. The various ways in which colour and tone is quite extraordinary, from the violet wash of Rush Heat, suggestive of everything from erotic dancing, through to club lighting to the stunning and subtle use of blue tones – ocean, teal, cerulean, Arctic, peacock and more – found in Wild Back.
Several of the pieces do draw attention to the central subject – as with Wild Back, and Dots Space; others border on a more surreal approach. Heat Wave 1, Triangles, Blue, and Butterflies Garden, for example, project feelings of motion within them or of looking into 3D anaglyph images without the aid of the required red / blue glasses. Thus we are offered a most sui generis set of images to appreciate.
“Don’t burn your mind thinking about the meaning of this or that in my works; but if you think there are symbols and hidden messages, feel free to imagine. Go any way the wind blows!” So says Kimeu Korg of hi work, presented at DiXmiX under the title of Osmosis De Un Sueno.
This largest of the three exhibitions, occupying the lower floor Black Gallery halls and for me, the most delightful and engrossing of the three. There is something about Kimeu’s art which so often offers us a unique perspective on Second Life, well removed from “the usual”. There is also in some of his work a wonderful blending of physical art with images and settings from Second Life which again gives cause to exercise the word “unique” in its most positive of connotations. Further, there is also – frankly – a depth of whimsy in so many of the pieces, that when viewing them, it’s hard not to feel as if we’re in Kimeu’s company, sharing a nod and a wink with him.
The sheer richness of narrative on offer in these images – be it simple whimsy coupled with a little dark humour, or the melding of physical world art into SL scenes – is extraordinary. The whimsy can be found in the likes of Wind Serenade and Dickens’s The Drunk and, with the dark humour in Curiosity… and …Killed he Cat, which are a delightful pair of themselves, but in this exhibition sit almost as a triptych with Amanece, que no es poco (Sunrise, Which Is No Small Thing).
In contrast, Is This The End Of The World? not only sits as example of how Kimeu combines art from the physical world – in this case part of Michelangelo’s famous fresco The Creation of Adam – with a scene from Second Life to create something which is eye-catching and also rich in motif. Note the ghostly astronaut to the left of the scene, perhaps representing humanity’s pride in technological achievement (and pride, as we know, is said to come before a fall), the presence of an eagle with its Biblical connotations, matched by the presence of a serpent coiled in the lower left corner of the picture.
I could wax lyrical about all of the images in Osomsis De Un Sueno – I’ve not even touched on the sheer evocative power of First Flight or the richness of expression any lover of musical will recognise in Under A Hat Is Always Music. However, suffice it to say that if you miss this exhibition, you are missing an absolute delight. I just wish I could be sure of the provenance of the painting at the centre of the marvellously surreal El Cerco (The Fence); I’m fairly convinced the vessel is HMS Victory (often painted flying the red ensign), but I cannot put my finger on where I’ve seen this particular image before…
Rounding out – albeit also coming to an end this week – this trio of exhibitions is Grit by Kato Salyut, which occupies the Mezzanine level White Gallery at DiXmiX.
“I photograph avatars and make them more exciting, more real and very special,” Kato says of his work, and the 14 images presented within Grit certainly offer some unique – surreal, even, in some cases – perspectives on their avatar subjects.
Presented in monochrome, these images both contract strongly with the colours used in the other two exhibitions above, whilst the tone and approach of several of the pieces offered also complement the surreal and experimental aspects present in some of the works to be found in both Colour Experiments and Osmosis De Un Sueno. They also present a very different perspective on avatar studies often found with other artists.
Due to come to a close on the weekend of the 16th / 17th June, this is another visually powerful exhibition, and one which – if you haven’t already seen – should be given time to appreciate in-world before it closes.
Eclipse Tiny Place – click any image for full size
Update: Eclipse Tiny Place has closed. SLurls have therefore been removed from this article.
It’s the kind of place brought to mind when visiting Eclipse Tiny Place, a superbly designed 1/6 of a full region offered for public consumption by Lagoa. Despite its size – under 11,000 square metres, this is a parcel that offers almost something of everything for people to enjoy.
Occupying the north-east corner of the region on which it sits, the parcel is open to the sea on two sides, looking over a broad ribbon of sand arcing around the parcel and onto open waters. The remaining two sides of the land are backed by high cliffs which help create the feeling that this is a location isolated from the rest of the world. Water tumbles from the corner meeting-point of these two rocky walls, cascading in steps into a pool of clear blue water, a broad swathe of which runs north to slip under a rocky arc to the sea.
Eclipse Tiny Place
Two islands sit within this channel, each ringed by hedgerows. One is circular and home to an orangery, the other an oval on which sits a tree house – in the most literal sense of the word, the front door being in the trunk of the tree itself. Bridges link these islands one to another and with the rest of the parcel, providing a means for explorers to reach all parts of the parcel that may interest them.
Set out across the rest of the land are as series of garden areas laid out around a house. Paths segregate the various parts of the gardens and offer routes to a pavilion sitting at the southern end of the parcel, separated from the beach by tiered walls of floors.
Eclipse Tiny Place
To try to describe this parcel in all its beauty would be an understatement so much has been packed into it – and not just haphazardly; the design and placement of gardens, trees, seating areas, event spaces, buildings, has all been carried out almost flawlessly, making Eclipse Tiny Place the kind of place where visitors genuinely want to spend time. To help with this, throughout the parcel there are many places to sit and enjoy the setting.
Art is also very much in evidence here, from the water-like garden of the tree house to the ruler-straight hedgerows separating the gardens from the sands of the northern beach or the dragons guarding the pavilion mentioned earlier.
Eclipse Tiny Place
There are one or two little incongruities to be found: there is no direct path to the beach; instead, visitors have to scramble through hedgerows or climb over walls to reach the sand and the places people might as sit scattered along it. The local waterfowl are also perhaps on the large size 🙂 . A little more depth might also be added through the addition of an ambient sound scape. However, these are minor points.
Even without ambient sounds, there is a depth to Eclipse Tiny Place that really is astonishing. It is another tour de force of what can be done within a relatively small space (although admittedly, the full region on which Eclipse Tiny Place sits does make use of the full 30K LI available to private regions). As such, a visit and spending time exploring is highly recommended.
Eclipse Tiny Place
When visiting, don’t miss the little island floating overhead and the hot air balloon sitting offshore. And should you appreciate your time spent within the parcel, do please consider making a donation towards its upkeep and availability through one of the donation points somewhat cleverly described as food within the gardens and buildings. And, for those who take photos of their visit, there is also the opportunity to share them via the Eclipse Tiny Place Flickr group.
SLurl Details
Eclipse Tiny Place (Lombard Park, rated: Moderate)
“It is the artist’s business to create sunshine when the sun fails.” So wrote Romain Rolland in La Foire sur la place (1908), the fifth book in his 10-volume novel Jean-Christophe (written between 1904 and 1912). It is the story of the life of a great German musician forced by circumstance to live in exile and it’s also the quote Cica Ghost has selected to place with her installation Sunny Day, which opened on June 9th, 2018.
“I liked the quote,” Cica says of Rolland’s words – and indeed they suit the installation admirably. This is a place that is bound to bring the sunshine of a smile to visitor’s lips and have them warmed by its whimsy and delight. But the quote also – by chance it would seem – might also reflect the broader of the theme of Jean-Christophe.
From the landing point, visitors are invited along a series of offshore blocks and over a wooden walkway – beware of the great fish that seem ready to gobble the unwary should they stand on the walkway too long. On the landward side, a gateway bordered either side by flowers bids visitors to enter a little town of a most unusual kind.
This is a place where finger-like houses rise alongside lollypop trees, and the locals add their own splashes of colour as they stand outside homes or carry out duties such as tending goats, picking flowers or simply having fun. A pancake car, its shape reminiscent of a Volkswagen Beetle rolls around the single road surrounding the town while fish atop unicycle like poles rolls back and forth on large tyres. It is, in a word, a fanciful place.
The whimsy continues up in the sky, where two suns pulsate with happy smiles on their faces, while towards the back of the town a giraffe awaits those who would ride upon its back, and a sea monster keeps an eye on all who come and go from the waters to the south-east.
While Cica might not always be present in person, what might be her double – albeit without her usual black dress – can be found outside the Cat Shop to the north-east. With a basset hound on a leash beside her, she invites people into the open-sided store, where Cica’s delightful cats (introduced with 50 Cats – see here for more) can be found and purchased.
As noted, this is a setting that reflects the literal meaning of the Rolland quote: it is nigh-on impossible to pass through Sunny Day without feeling warmed by its light and sense of fun. As with all of Cica’s builds, be sure to mouse around, as there are several ways in which you can become a part of the setting. But how might it also reflect themes from Jean-Christophe, however accidentally?
Well, simply this: look closely at the characters scattered around the setting. There is a character with pointed ears, another is a neko. others are quite “ordinary” looking, while a white angel is easy to spot. All of them might be thought of as reflecting we, the denizens of Second Life. And Second Life is a country – of sorts – in which circumstance encourages us to spend time, just as circumstance (albeit it of a different flavour) forced Rolland’s protagonist, Jean-Christophe Krafft, to live his life in countries other than his own.
A tenuous reflection? Perhaps – and I leave it to you to determine whether you find it valid (I’m of course overlooking Rolland’s re-examination of Beethoven’s life through Jean-Christophe) – but if you do nothing else, do make sure you visit Sunny Day and enjoy the its warmth and light.
Heights of Haven is a newly opened boutique gallery operated by Maggie Blessing (Margaret Moleno) and Seiko Blessing (softandred) and (currently), featuring a small display of art by Seiko and family member Micki Blessing (michellecallum) – although this might be “for the most part”, as some images are unsigned, so I’m not entirely sure on their provenance.
The images are a mix of landscapes and avatar studies on a variety of subjects, but with a degree of similarity between them; a similarity which extends to the stories they tell. This is not a criticism; taken together, the images have a familial feel to them that reflects the environment in which they are displayed.
As an exhibition space of personal art, none of the pieces on display are directly offered for sale. In an interesting touch, visitors are asked to vote on their favourite pieces. This is done by donating a minimum of L$10 via the candle burning under each picture. As the signs at the gallery explain, the five images receiving the most votes will remain on display for the following month.
This is an interesting way of raising funds to help keep the gallery active – and to help cover some of the costs involved in Seiko and Maggie’s other venture: the performing arts theatre next door to the gallery. They intend to use this to produce various shows, the début piece being Shall We Dance (opening date TBA). However, those wishing to buy any of the images displayed in the gallery can do so for a fee of L$200 per picture and by contacting either Maggie or Seiko.
Small it might be, but Heights of Haven is a nicely done “familial” style of gallery, and it’ll be interesting to see how the performing art theatre proceeds – and I’ll be pointing dance connoisseur Crap Mariner towards it :).
