Category: Reviews

A Split Screen double in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
EveryWhere and NoWhere – JadeYu Fhang

Now open for viewing at the new temporary home for Dividni Shostakovich’s Split Screen, is a pair if installations by JadeYu Fhang and Krystali Rabeni, which can each be reached from the main landing point, or via one another from their respective landing points.

EveryWhere and NoWhere, by JadeYu, forms a ground level installation, and is the more extensive of the two. It offers a complex environment of scenes and platforms, forming a unique world of geometric shapes and inhabited by strange, female forms.

In the first – which acts as the landing point – the figures are enmeshed in a delicate framework somewhat resembling a bird’s nest. Ladders rise from the platform at various angles, each offering a number of poses for visitors. Beyond this lie processions of doorway-like boxes march and undulate through the sky, or rise vertically upwards, apparently tended by beings with dragonfly like wings as streams of light pulse and roll around them. Two structures sit within the rising tower of squares, each a miniature tableau in its own right.

EveryWhere and NoWhere – JadeYu Fhang

Other platforms float close by, occupied by more beings, while the ground below flows in curlicues, some of which rise to surround two central figures. Further away, on two sides of the region, the land rises, patterned geometry tattooing its surface. More shapes, almost origami-like in form, hover delicate in the sky over the slopes of the landscape.

An intricate landscape, the setting is a reflection of its title. Fascinating, complex, with a range of facets and potential interpretations,  EveryWhere and NoWhere should be visited with local sounds enabled in order to hear the accompanying sound scape. This, with its metronomic chimes and plaintive voice, gives the entire space added depth.

Games We Play – Krystali Rabeni

The Games We Play offers visitors a games of chess of a most unusual kind. Far from being the traditional chequered board, this playing surface is uneven, individual squares set at different levels relative to their neighbours – and then extend up the walls surround the space before closing overhead. Pieces in gold and silver are ranged across the horizontal area of play, and occupy the some of the wall spaces as well.

The pieces themselves further reveal the unusual nature of this game – or games: the gold pieces comprise more than the normal single queen or pair of knights, for example. Meanwhile, winged pawns fly overhead, imbued with a power not to be found in a normal game of chess. It’s a complex setting the nature of the game suggesting that – like life – there is more to this game than meets the eye.

Games We Play – Krystali Rabeni

Neither artist offers an explanation for their respective works, preferring to leave interpretations to visitors. However, each piece offers enough clues – including their titles, for opinions, ideas and narratives to be formed. As such, both offer an intriguing and interesting visit, and will remain in place until the end of September 2017.

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An August return to Yasminia in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey

Yasminia, Yasminia; Inara Pey, August 2017, on Flickr Yasminia – click any image for full size

It’s been almost a year since Caitlyn and I first visited Yasminia, the homestead region designed by Busta (BadboyHi). At the time, he’d opened the region to the public for a limited time and was planning to close it once more. However, such has been the response from visitors, he decided to leave it available to public access and continue to offer people a chance to visit – and I’m happy to report it remains open to all.

Beack then Yasminia was a very pastoral setting with open fields and horses grazing, offering visitors a photogenic delight. Today’s Yasminia is very different look – albeit one no less photogenic. The largely pastoral setting has given way to one that is more mixed – still rural, but with the corner of a small town poking into it, suggesting a place where the countryside meets a more urban setting.

Yasminia, Yasminia; Inara Pey, August 2017, on Flickr Yasminia

Where you begin a visit is entirely up to you, as no landing point is set. Opting for the default central arrival point on the region will deliver you to the edge of the little town. Rather than use that, however, the SLurl I’m using here will drop you off towards the north-west corner of the region, on a track running southwards above a ribbon of beach.  This can be reached via a set of stone steps descending the slope between track and sand, while across the track sit houses and outbuildings arranged around a courtyard and fronted by a paved garden with fountain and water feature. The courtyard, with its outdoor table set out with soup pots, wine and bread, makes for the ideal place to return to following a walk through the rest of the region.

The track winds its way down through the timberline towards the little town, running south and then west, offering a relaxing walk down to where the paved road running through this corner of civilisation starts. Those wishing a shorter route can walk through the gardens fronting the houses,  then take another set of stairs down to the north-eastern edge of the town, where just a few steps will bring you to the road and its companion footpath.

Yasminia, Yasminia; Inara Pey, August 2017, on Flickr Yasminia

Careworn buildings line either side of the road – this is perhaps not the most prosperous place nestled within the surrounding peaks. A small chapel sits alongside the road, the tall tower of what might be a granary rising beyond it and standing sentinel between two small bays which cut their way into the land. One of these, overlooked by a broad, paved terrace set as an outdoor café, offers mooring for boats and a scenic look out over the broader bay separating Yasminia from the surrounding mountains.

The buildings backing onto the cafe terrace may all once have been thriving businesses; now however, they are run-down, deserted and empty, their windows shuttered or with blinds drawn, life having apparently moved on. Only the gas station / auto shop appears to still be doing business, perhaps the last hanger-on, even as the dirt of the tracks either end of the street encroach on its paved surface.

Yasminia, Yasminia; Inara Pey, August 2017, on Flickr Yasminia

If the apparent desertion of the town is a little too much, follow the road and track north and then east as it curls around the base of the uplands on which the houses sit. It will lead you back to the beach. Here can be found signs of life aplenty: surfboards upended in the sand, chairs and seating ranged under canvas awnings, a beach side disco with dancing on the sand, fire pits, and sun loungers pairing their way down the longer ribbon of west-facing beach, presenting couples with plenty of room to relax under the sun.

Today, as noted, Yasminia presents a very different face to the world than a year ago – but one which has its own unique beauty, with places to relax and that three-sided courtyard ready to greet visitors with wine and food and the chance for friendly conversation.

Yasminia, Yasminia; Inara Pey, August 2017, on Flickr Yasminia

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Dathúil: Welcome to My Brain

Posted on by Inara Pey
Welcome to My Brain, Isa Messioptra – Dathúil Gallery

“Ever wanted to take a journey through the human brain? No, not really? Eew? Well too bad because I am going to make you!” Isa Messioptra says of her new exhibition at Dathúil Gallery, which opened on August 6th, 2017. She describes Welcome to My Brain as being unlike anything else she has worked on before – and it is certainly quite unlike any previous exhibition held at Dathúil.

For it, the usual gallery space has been converted into a series of rooms across two levels, all of which need to be explored. However, before doing so, visitors are asked to ensure their viewer is correctly set. Information on requirements are provided in the foyer space, just inside the gallery entrance – albeit for Firestorm / Phototools only. If you’re not using Firestorm, ensure you have Advanced Lighting Model enabled (via Preferences > Graphics), local lighting is enabled and you have windlight set to Phototools – No Light (if installed) or a similar very dark environment. Once you’ve set your environment, proceed through the entrance to the exhibition proper.

Welcome to My Brain, Isa Messioptra – Dathúil Gallery

“[This] but is intended to be an immersive experience,” Isa says of the installation. “As you walk through the exhibit you travel through different chambers of the subconscious each completely different from the next much like a Fun House. In this exhibit I use light projection, reflective surfaces, mesh builds, photography, video, physics, animated textures…”

The result is a fascinating jumble of images, lyrics, scenes and lighting which offers an extraordinary trip through the subconscious – or a dream state where the mind is trying to re-order events and experiences – complete with a political comment.

Welcome to My Brain, Isa Messioptra – Dathúil Gallery

Passage through the various rooms is via stair, door and teleport; the dark windlight setting can made finding your way difficult, the journey is worthwhile. Commenting on the various scenes is not that easy, representative as they are of the subconscious; the best way to appreciate them is via a visit and tour through the rooms, and seeing how they speak and or reflect your own subconscious.

That said, this is a skilfully executed exhibition richly demonstrates what can be done with Second Life lighting, reflections, materials, and more – and the hall presenting images apparently behind walls of water or liquid really should be seen to be appreciated. All told, it’s a beautifully immersive installation.

Welcome to My Brain, Isa Messioptra – Dathúil Gallery

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Cica’s Future in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Cica Ghost – Future

“It’s all prims except the dragon and the birds,” Cica Ghost says of her newest installation, which opened on Sunday, August 6th. Given that the majority might be seen as “retro” in using prims, the title – Future – might seem a little odd. But there is more to this build than may at first appear to be the case.

The core of the build is a series of windowed, concrete-like towers rising from a huge metal base. These are connected by metal “wires” which runs up out of the base, from walls and rooftops – and even support a number of these blocks as they stand above the base platform. Resistor-like elements in them suggest the wires might be some kind of electrical circuit.

Cica Ghost – Future

More of the wires arc over the build, and spheres slowly ride some of these, just as some of the “resistors” run back and forth along some of the horizontal segments. The idea that these wires conduct electrical current is further heightened by the way they appear to be insulated where they join with the tower structures, and by flickering lightning-like arcs zapping between some of the roof-top “resistors”.

It’s a strange, industrial landscape, largely grey in nature, set under a grey sky and surrounded by grey water where, rather incongruously, the mesh dragon raises its head, Nessie-like. A checker board landscape also rises hump-backed from the waters in places, and offers a dry path from the landing point to the installation, as well as places from which more of the wires rise into the sky. But what does it all mean?

Cica Ghost – Future

That’s the open question, and I’d venture to suggest that the answer lies in the quote Cica gives for the installation: If you don’t imagine, nothing ever happens at all. It comes from Paper Towns by John Green, and on one level it sits as an invitation for use to imagine for ourselves what Future might represent.  But there is also more to it, particularly when considered along with the other essential element of the installation: the audio stream.

Featuring much of the extended soundtrack from Blade Runner, the audio is something which must be listened to when touring the installation. Cica selected the sound track because she likes it, rather than it having a specific relationship with the build, or meaning within it. However, it naturally completes the build, adding a further sense of depth to it, and presence within it.

Cica Ghost – Future

What is interesting here – to me at least – is that Green’s quote from Paper Towns is essentially about identity and discovery; Blade Runner is strongly focused on the same issues – identity and discovery (the Replicants and who / what they are and have been / might be). Thus, when combined, they offer us even more of an invitation to examine, explore and consider Future and what it might mean to us.

Cica has a gift for making whimsical, evocative and thought-provoking installations. Future definitely sits within the latter category, and could well have you visiting and pondering for longer than you might have expected!

SLurl Details

  • Future (Seth Island, rated Moderate)

A return to Whimberly in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey

Whimberly, Whimberly; Inara Pey, August 2017, on Flickr Whimberly – click any image for full size

Caitlyn and I first visited Whimberly, the Homestead region designed by Staubi (Engelsstaub) in January of 2017. Back then, both of us were struck by the elegance and serenity of the region. So seeing it back in the Destination Guide with an updated image suggesting a make-over, had us hopping back at the start of August for another look; and it was well worth it.

The landing point to the north-east of the region places visitors outside a flat-roofed summer-house surrounded on three sides by an ornate wall while the fourth sports a wooden deck build out over the water. Cosily and elegantly furnished, the house suggests a summer getaway or a lover’s tryst.

Whimberly, Whimberly; Inara Pey, August 2017, on Flickr Whimberly

An old fountain sits alongside this summer-house, birds chirping happily (or perhaps in a demand for food!) while hopping along the retaining wall, while beyond the fountain, a stone arch provides access to one of several seating areas suitable for individual visitors or couples, all of which are scattered far enough apart from one another to offer a sense of seclusion.

A stream, crossed by three bridges, dissects the land into two halves of unequal size. The northern part with the landing point, offers a walk east and south, passing both the seating spot mentioned above and then another, further to the east, before the smallest of the three bridges provide a means to rejoin the larger part of the land. Westwards, past a wooden jetty were one can rez a little motor boat to putter along the stream, the land turns hilly.

Whimberly, Whimberly; Inara Pey, August 2017, on Flickr Whimberly

A grassy path climbs the gentle slopes of the hill, revealing an old barn looking to the north-west and overlooking a tiny islet where a picnic awaits on the far side of the little rope bridge. The grassy trail then continues southwards between the shoulder of the hill and the water to where another bridge – this one crafted from the interlocked trunks of two trees –  crosses the stream and offers access to a grand house.

With a paved courtyard, terrace to the rear, the house presents an idyllic place to live, the full height conservatory to the rear offering a magnificent view. Board walks point the way to where a deck extends out over the waters of a bay which cuts deeply into the land. A humpbacked finger of land points back to the north-eat from the house, and visitors can follow the grassy walk along the flank of its slope above the stream, or walk along its ridged back to where another cosy snuggle point sits within the ruins of an old tower, and stone step present a route up to the highest point on the island.

Whimberly, Whimberly; Inara Pey, August 2017, on Flickr Whimberly

A stylish barn conversion sit at the top of the hill, offering a view to the south and west, back towards the big house. Shaded by fir trees and with the peak of the hill just behind it, it sits as a cosy café where a break from exploring can be enjoyed. For the adventurous, a zip line offers a rapid descent to the little farmstead in the south-eastern corner of the land,  located not far from where another summer-style house is built out over the waters surrounding the island.

Set within the confines of surrounding hills, Whimberly sits as an island on a lake somewhere – I’d say at least – deep in Europe. A place to while away the summer days and unwind from the demands of everyday life; where nothing really matters other than the presence of nature around you.

Whimberly, Whimberly; Inara Pey, August 2017, on Flickr Whimberly

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Ballet of the Little Liars in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Ballet of the Little Liars

Now open at the Black label Exhibition Corner is Ballet of the Little Liars by Storie’s Helendale (GlitterPrincess Destiny), with the support of Terrygold, who designed and built the installation. This is an interactive art exhibition with a story attached to it – and something of a mystery to solve.

Core information on the installation – including viewer settings – are provided at the landing point. In short, once in the main exhibition spaces, left-click / Touch the images and images your find on the walls and around you. Some will provide feedback in local chat. Environment-wise, the most important setting at to have the local windlight active – or set your viewer to midnight – and to have Advanced Lighting Model enabled (Preferences > Graphics) in order to benefit from the projected lights of the installation.

Ballet of the Little Liars

On reaching the main installation via the teleport sphere, look for the newspaper close by, which references a report of a kidnapped ballerina. Your task – in part – is to follow the clues (again by touching images and objects) and find your way to a letter, which reveals the story of what has happened as seen by the artist. You can then offer your own story or feedback to Stories via note card.

The chat extracts providing by touching objects and images  – remember that not all respond, so you’ll need to take your time – don’t necessarily offer the story in a linear fashion (or at least, didn’t seem to for Caitlyn and I), so again, this may encourage you to build a different narrative around events. I also found the lighting to be a little problematic: the default environment setting was far too dark to navigate by, so I switched over to using midnight – and Caitlyn confirmed doing the same.

Ballet of the Little Liars

What is beyond a doubt is the art from Stories which is, as usual quite extraordinary. The text / poems accompanying those pieces set to be interactive add to their depth even further and quite independently of the wider story.  Once you have completed the first level (the route indicated by a combination of arrows and knives on the floor), take the stairs up to “ground level” to complete your tour through woodland scattered with bunkers containing more images, and a trip up inside a lighthouse. Again, keep touching things as you go, and be aware that there are some red herrings along the way (there’s more than one letter and more than one trunk to be found, for example).

An immersive installation, Ballet of the Little Liars is an interesting exhibit which piques the curiosity as one visits and explores, although patience is recommended. As noted, piecing things together can take time, as can finding your way around; as well as the lower level perhaps being too dark on the recommended settings, a clearer set of in-world directions on proceeding around the woodland / lighthouse might help some visitors. Those wishing to level a story or feedback can do so via the post box to be found to one side of the woods.

Ballet of the Little Liars

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