Kondor Arts Centre: Bamboo Barnes – Unusual, May 2023
There are two exhibitions I recently visited in turn at the Kondor Art Centre, curated by Hermes Kondor. Both are by artists I greatly admire, and there is what might be seen as a thread of connection between them. However, given that such a thread is by no means certain, I’ll be looking at them over the course of a couple of articles, tackling them in the reverse order to how I viewed them, but rather in chronological order in terms of when they opened.
The first is that of Unusual, the latest selection of art-in-reflection-of-thought by Bamboo Barnes, which opened on April 20th, 2023 within the Kondor Art Centre’s Main Gallery.
Bamboo is, as I’ve often noted in these pages, one of the most vibrant and evocative digital artists displaying her work in Second Life. And I mean this not just in terms of her use of colour or form or subject – but in the way she layers her work both physically and narratively, such that it offers a depth of emotion and sense of being, it draws the observer into it, dominating both the space the work occupies and to the eye and mind.
Kondor Arts Centre: Bamboo Barnes – Unusual, May 2023
A major theme within Bamboo’s art is that of identity; who we actually are in life in the face of an ever-changing world, when society, ego, id, work, friends, politics, and more continually impinge on us. Sometimes these pressure encourage us to flow and change and reach beyond who we are; at others they demand we conform; confine ourselves to ideas and dreams others see as being what (or all) we can achieve, thus preventing “disappointment”; or that we “stay in our lane” (always a pejorative outlook often born from a mistaken idea of self-privilege by those voicing it), and so on.
Unusual takes the latter point – that we must conform and limit ourselves without crossing the lines others have drawn for us – and asks what happens when we decided to step beyond them, much as Bamboo has done, particularly the mix of joy and wonder an excitement (and the sometimes chaotic results of doing so). These disparate elements can be seen – to my eyes, at least – in a variety of ways. Take, for example, the use of geometry in some images, with its suggestions of limits or boundaries.
Kondor Arts Centre: Bamboo Barnes – Unusual, May 2023
Elsewhere, the use of repetition within some images might be seen as a dichotomy in its statement; on the one hand, it might appear to say “we are free to express ourselves, but only so far; we should still conform”; hence the repeated poses, limited used of colour palette within them – as with Kagerou A, as an example. At the same time, the very title (which might be translated as “heat shimmer” (or “haze”) or “mirage”) suggests how we are all so much more than we appear to be, the mirrored nature of the piece adding to the notion that we have more than one side to our nature, despite those aforementioned constraints others would place on us.
Then there is the use of colour in some of the pieces; vibrant hues which seem to have a life of their own, echoes perhaps that sense of excitement, wonder and chaos as we step beyond the constraints to which we have been subjected. All of this perhaps comes together most of all within the 3D piece Little Girl Blue, with its constant movement and shifting images suggesting the true fluidity and changing nature of life.
Kondor Arts Centre: Bamboo Barnes – Unusual, May 2023
However, in this I’ve said enough with which to colour your thoughts; as such, I invite you to hop over to the Kondor Art Centre and view Unusual for yourself.
Cover Second Life front-end web properties (Marketplace, secondlife.com, the sign-up pages, the Lab’s corporate pages, etc.).
They are not intended for the discussion of Governance issues, land fees / issues, content creation & tools, viewer or simulator development / projects. Please refer to the SL calendar for information on available meetings for these topics.
A video of the meeting, courtesy of Pantera, can be found embedded at the end of this article (my thanks to her as always!), and subject timestamps to the relevant points in the video are provided. Again, the following is a summary of key topics / discussions, not a full transcript of everything mentioned.
Marketplace
Mentioned towards the end of a blog post made on April 7th relating to (then) recent updates, the change to allow best selling to now index each merchant’s store individually instead of just the top 50k items is now being actively worked on.
When complete, it will allow customers to sort the listings within a store by those which have been the top selling over a certain period of time (exact period still TBD at the time of writing).
In addition, Sntax Linden is interested in taking feedback from merchants on idea they may have for best selling items indexing / lists.
Also raised at the April meeting was the subject of a Marketplace “Spring Clean” (last performed in 2019).
This will see the unlisting of products and/or disabling of merchant stores if they meet specific criteria (as defined in the blog posted linked-to above).
Note that products / stores can be re-activated by the Merchant logging-in and re-activating and re-listed.
The “Spring Cleaning” discussion included a number of suggestions / comments, including providing listings with an indicator to show if the merchant had logged in to MP in the last X number of days, so that customers might have some idea as to how active the merchant is, should support be required (privacy concerns were raised over this idea).
In Brief
Please refer to the video for these topics.
The Spring Cleaning topic led to a broader discussion on preserving content which might be regarded as “historic” (with the creator’s approval) when the creator departs Second Life.
This is not necessarily something restricted to saving within the Marketplace.
There is already the Second Life Region Preservation Society which can take entire regions into LL’s stewardship when certain criteria can be met).
However preserving individual products / product lines raises issues of IP which could be more complicated than with the preservations of a region, and with issues of continued support (or the expectation thereof) should the product(s) also continue to be in use within SL.
Questions were asked about shopping practices and how often people use the MP shopping cart to store-up items for later purchase, rather than proceeding to the checkout with a cart when they’ve finished their current round of shopping.
Responses to this were many and varied (e.g. “because I don’t want to make any MP purchases until I’m in-world to receive / unpack / sort them”), through to comments about lack of wishlist functionality (e.g. they remain cumbersome to use / load slowly / the link to add items to a wishlist is not obvious, etc.).
In terms of wishlists, the option for multiple / custom wishlists was again raised, and noted that it is on the MP roadmap, but currently under the heading of “someday”, rather than something that is actively being worked on or considered for implementation at this point in time.
A general discussion on how merchants promote new products – via Groups, Twitter, Discord, word-of-mouth, etc.
One suggestion was to allow customers the ability to “follow” their favourite stores (see feature request
BUG-233138 “Social/Creator Focused Marketplace Feed”), allowing them to receive / view information on new releases from those stores when visiting the MP.
Whilst reactive rather than proactive, it was also pointed out that the above could be done when a customer goes to their Favourite Stores listing on the MP and then order by Age: Newest First.
Sorting Favourite Stores on the MP to show latest releases from each store. Credit: Alexa Linden
The above led to the suggestion that people could have their own personalised MP home page, listing favourite stores, providing updates on the releases etc.
Dates for listings – date listed, date last updated, last date the item sold, for example – have been requested in the past and were requested again, together with indications on whether products are using the latest / more recent SL capabilities, if relevant (e.g. Bento, PBR (once in general use), etc). However, trying to cover everything likely become overly complicated.
The idea of “verified” creators was also raised: although exactly what the criteria for this should be might be seen as subjective, or the process itself might be seen as a barrier to entry )were it, for example, involve LL requesting personal information beyond that already requested).
Plrease refer to the second half of the video for these and other general discussions.
Next Meeting
Wednesday, July 5th, 2023 (according to the public calendar – check for changes). Venue and time per top of this summary.
Ethereal City Estate – Ethereal City Noir, May 2023 – click any image for full size
Note: all images in this article taken using my personal EEP settings rather than the region defaults.
Ethereal City is an estate of (at the time of writing!) four regions in Second Life, comprising (from north to south-east as one looks at the map) two Full private regions leveraging the Land Capacity bonus (Ethereal City Noir and Ethereal City), a Full region (Ethereal City Legacy) and a Homestead (Ethereal City Beauty). The entire estate is held by Noon Jaxxon, who is also – along with Dandy Warhlol (terry Fotherington) – is principally responsible for the overall design and construction of the estate.
It was an invitation from Noon (received together with suggestions from several others (including MorganaCarter and Shawn Shakespeare, both of whom fired over LMs to me) to drop in and wandering through Ethereal City Noir, which I gather is the latest addition to the estate. However, such is the nature of the estate. I set out on a much more extensive ramble through streets and long trails and old railway lines.
Ethereal City Estate – Ethereal City Legacy, May 2023
Together, the four regions offer an interesting fusion of ideas which flow seamlessly one to the next, despite the influences that helped form them originating in places hundred and thousands of kilometres apart in the physical world. For example – and to take the regions in reverse order to that given above – take Ethereal City Beauty. Sitting within the south-east of the estate, it presents as a coastal region which could reside almost anywhere in the world. For me, it held a sense of perhaps being borrowed from the smaller islands just of the Scottish coast or perhaps those scattered along the Danish and German Baltic coasts.
Being a gathering of little islands, the region offers the opportunity to take the water on little motorboats and putter around, or – for those finding their way to the bar at the extreme eastern tip of the largest island in the group – the chance to go swimming. There are also multiple places it sit and relax and / or enjoy a little romance and dancing; however, do keep in mind the two islands in the north-east corner of the region, one of which carries a large house on its back, are both part of a private residence, and so while the small cove before it is open to boats and swimmers, do please respect privacy.
Ethereal City Estate – Ethereal City Beauty, May 2023
A single point of contact for traveller links Ethereal City Beauty with Ethereal City Legacy. It takes the form of an iron girder bridge of the kind many might well associate with the railroads of North America. Tracks still sit on the bridge, but on the far side from the islands they vanish, leaving only a broad expanse of gravel forming a path through the region and to hint at where the line may once have run.
Keeping up the sense of open countryside that could have been lifted from almost anywhere in the world (or at least the northern hemisphere!), Ethereal City Legacy is a mixed public / private rentals setting so again, discretion is required to avoid trespass into private homes. Fortunately, most of the houses are clearly denoted as private by the presence of gated access as the various paths and trails lead to them, making accidental trespass harder, providing one keeps to the footpaths.
Ethereal City Estate – Ethereal City Beauty, May 2023
Richly wooded and rugged, the region offers a good sense of privacy for each of the rentals properties, with the landscaping richly capturing a sense of the wild outdoors. More bridges span gorges and water whilst wood hewn from trees has been used to help retain other paths at they climb slopes in steps, reducing the risk of them being washed away in heavy rains, and a network of lamps to light the way at night.
All of the trails – assuming you’ve come from Ethereal City Beauty in following this articles – lead eventually to the northern coast of the region (passing by way of various scenic / romantic spots in the process). Here sits a waterfront parade of shops, the local rental office (also the landing point for the region) and the local railways station. Fronting the rental office is a broad terrace and wide span of a stone bridge reaching across the channel to connect with Ethereal City.
Ethereal City Estate – Ethereal City Legacy, May 2023
The entryway to Ethereal City takes the form of a modest square sitting under the arch of an old city gate. This also forms the main landing point for the city, and so offers a good place to start general explorations. To help with the latter, the Information Centre offers a series of quick teleports to various points of interest around the city for those content to hop around.
The city is a curious fusion of European and Sino-Japanese sensibilities throughout, and is marked by multiple public spaces and buildings interspersed with private (and commercial?) rentals. Like urban centres the world over, the city has older elements bumping up against more modern, whilst a narrow-gauge train chugs its way around street-level tracks, available for people to hop on and off at will. The public spaces offered at the Information Centre sit both at the ground level and up on or within some of the taller buildings, the latter offering views over which is a very mixed urban setting.
Ethereal City Estate – Ethereal City, May 2023
A Sino-French connection is to be found within Ethereal City Noir, which connects to Ethereal City via a road-topped causeway. Largely put together by Dandy Warhlol (terry Fotherington) on Noon’s behalf, this is intended to offer a fusion of Paris and the Shanghai French Concession. This was one of a number of colonial concessions negotiated / forced on the Chinese empire by European powers whereby ports, sections of cities and parts of regions were forced into control by said countries.
In the case of France, the Chinese conceded certain territory around the city of Shanghai in 1849, leaving it under French administrative control through until 1943 when the Vichy government surrendered it to Japanese control before it reverted to Chinese ownership following the end of World War 2. Throughout that period, it was established and remained one of the major centres of Catholicism in China.
Ethereal City Estate – Ethereal City Noir, May 2023
During its time, the Concession went through multiple changes and expansions, some of the more popular sections becoming heavily influenced by French architectural and road design, with broad avenues (such as Avenue Joffre), apartment houses and large houses set within walled gardens. Today, several examples of these influences remain, and the former Concession residential districts are among the most affluent in modern Shanghai.
Ethereal City Noir captures some of this whilst also mixing it with elements suggestive of the banks of Seine and the cobbles streets south of the Champs-Élysées, albeit on a much smaller scale and perhaps a little more whimsically. This is a place where area seem to blend together, with touches of the 1930s, 1950s and more recent times mixes easily with the architecture of earlier periods – there’s even a suggestion of France’s medieval history, while overhead a hint of the Montgolfier brothers drifts on the wind.
Ethereal City Estate – Ethereal City, May 2023
As with Ethereal City, Noir offers much to see and explore, and together then make a contrasting pair of settings for photography when paired with the more open countryside of Legacy and Beauty. When taken as a whole the estate offers a richly rewarding visit.
The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, May 2nd Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article for those wishing to review the meeting in full – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.
Server Deployments
On Tuesday, May 2nd, the SLS Main channel servers were restarted without any deployment, leaving them on simulator release 579248.
On Wednesday, May 3rd, the maintenance release made to the Bluesteel RC channel in week #17 will be deployed to the rest of the RC channels.
One of the updates in this release is designed to fix issues “in the vicinity of” BUG-232037 “Avatar Online / Offline Status Not Correctly Updating”. At the time of the week #17 deployment, it was noted that all instances of the issue may not have been fixed, and the time the release has been on BlueSteel proves this to be the case.
Similarly, while this update helps fix an issue with avatars colliding with their vehicles on region crossings, it does not fix all region crossing issues; more will be addressed is an upcoming simulator update which should be “heading for RC soon”.
Viewer Updates
No official viewer updates at the start of the week, leaving the pipelines as:
Release viewer: Performance Floater / Auto FPS RC viewer, version 6.6.11.579629, promoted April 25.
PBR Materials project viewer, version 7.0.0.579766, April 25.
Maintenance T RC viewer, version 6.6.11.579154, April 6th.
Maintenance S RC viewer, version 6.6.11.579153, March 31st.
Project viewers:
Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.8.576972, December 8, 2022.
PBR Materials
With the promotion of the PBR Viewer to Release Candidate status, the plan remains to deploy the server-side code to a Release Candidate channel on the main grid “real soon now”. The code will initially go to the Preflight RC channel with a limited number of regions. Should it prove stable there, it will be expanded to the Snack RC prior to gaining promotion to one (or more) of the “major” RC channels.
In Brief
A discussion on region crossings and also an apparent uptick in teleport failures. Again, there is a lot of anecdotal evidence here that might be causing incorrect conclusions to be drawn:
Those doing a lot of consecutive region crossings in relatively short order (e.g. through flying, boating, driving) believe issues are “increasing”, and thus drawing the conclusion failures are widespread / endemic, and that those who are not seeing the same issues elsewhere is simply down to those other regions being routinely restarted.
Those making region crossings / TPs on a more extended basis (e.g. interspersed with some amounts of time with each region, rather than just passing through / hopping one to the next) are not seeing the same issues, even within regions subject to heavy use (as with Fantasy Faire), and therefore questioning whether there is any real increase in issues.
(Which is not to say region crossings are not problematic; just that they can be subject to subjective responses rather than objective measurement.)
BUG-233784 “Add sensor type LOW_SCRIPTED as an option” sparked a debate on whether it should be a feature request or BUG report. This has been raised because the existing SCRIPTED sensor flag only locates objects that have used a substantial amount of CPU time recently, rather than ALL objects with any script in them set to “running”, as someone might reasonably expect when using it; so it is essentially a request for a new flag.
BUG-233829 “llSetEnvironment() in neighbouring regions can cause issues with the viewer” – it has been noted that if llSetEnvironment() (EEP) is set within an adjoining region to one where it is currently being set (and the avatar attempting to set it is registered as a child agent within the ormer region), this can impact attempts within the latter region to change its settings through the EEP options. Whether this means the simulator should be updated so as local environment settings are not sent to child agents, or the viewer should be updated so it does not ask for neighbouring region EEP settings has yet to be determined – as has the time frame for either change to be made.
There is a further discussion on llMessageLinked, and the idea of an llMessageListLinked function towards the end of the meeting and script sleep cycles used in llRezObject and llCreateLink. Please refer to the video below for specifics.
† The header images included in these summaries are not intended to represent anything discussed at the meetings; they are simply here to avoid a repeated image of a rooftop of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation
Updates from the week through to Sunday, April 30th, 2023
This summary is generally published every Monday, and is a list of SL viewer / client releases (official and TPV) made during the previous week. When reading it, please note:
It is based on my Current Viewer Releases Page, a list of all Second Life viewers and clients that are in popular use (and of which I am aware), and which are recognised as adhering to the TPV Policy. This page includes comprehensive links to download pages, blog notes, release notes, etc., as well as links to any / all reviews of specific viewers / clients made within this blog.
By its nature, this summary presented here will always be in arrears, please refer to the Current Viewer Release Page for more up-to-date information.
Note that for purposes of length, TPV test viewers, preview / beta viewers / nightly builds are generally not recorded in these summaries.
Official LL Viewers
Release viewer: Performance Floater / Auto FPS RC viewer, version 6.6.11.579629, promoted April 25 – NEW.
Natthimmel – Göbekli Tepe. May 2023; click any image for full size
Potbelly Hill – otherwise known as Göbekli Tepe in Turkish or Girê Mirazan or Xirabreşkê in Kurdish – is home to the world’s oldest known megaliths, dating back to approximately 9500 and 8000 BCE and the Pre-Pottery Neolithic era of the Fertile Crescent. This was the period, commencing at the end of the last Ice Age, which marked the switch from the more nomadic forms of life in within the region towards the establishment of village life, producing some of the earliest evidence for permanent human settlements in the world.
Occupying some 8 hectares of land, Göbekli Tepe is one of the earliest examples of this move to settlement living, occupying as it does a tell, an artificial hill created from the accumulation of the debris from successive generations of people living in the same location, their detritus mixed with natural sedimentation.
Natthimmel – Göbekli Tepe. May 2023
Sitting in the foothills of the Taurus Mountains, many of the megaliths at Göbekli Tepe are richly decorated with figurative anthropomorphic details, clothing, and reliefs of wild animals, providing archaeologists rare insights into prehistoric religion and the particular iconography of the period. The tell also includes many smaller buildings, quarries, and stone-cut cisterns from the Neolithic, as well as some traces of activity from later periods.
First noted as site of historical significance in the 1960s, the tell has been subject to continued study since then, and in 2018 it was awarded UNESCO World Heritage Status in recognition of its universal value as “one of the first manifestations of human-made monumental architecture”. Yet despite almost 60 years of continuous study and excavation, it is estimated that only around some 5% of the site as been exposed for investigation.
Natthimmel – Göbekli Tepe. May 2023
However, you don’t have to travel to the Anatolia region of Turkey in order to witness Göbekli Tepe; it has been brought – at least in spirit and part – to Second Life by Konrad (Kaiju Kohime). It is located within the Homestead region of Natthimmel, held by Konrad’s SL partner, Saskia Rieko, a region with its own little story: Natthimmel being Swedish for Night Sky (Saskia herself being Nordic) as a creative open space and photogenic spot for people to enjoy.
In bringing Göbekli Tepe to Second Life, Konrad has shown extraordinary dedication, having built many of the elements used within the setting himself, whilst he and Saskia have shown further creativity in using the natural presence of Linden Water in-world within their interpretation rather than trying to hide or ignore it, given the inland nature of the physical Göbekli Tepe. This gives the setting a unique appearance, the stones of the ancient monument mixing equally with natural rock formations as both dip their toes into the waters meandering across the setting.
Natthimmel – Göbekli Tepe. May 2023
As with the original, the landscape here is crossed by boardwalks which prevent unwary feet from damaging the exposed stonework and former structures as they have been exposed through excavation, whilst a further element of individuality is offered by in the way the megaliths have been made to look like they have naturally extruded from the ground and grown naturally, rather than being the result of the hands of ancient humans.
A further echo of the original comes in the form of the carved reliefs of animals on the ground, which are in turn nicely balanced by the presence of foxes wandering through the site, whilst cormorants and heron again help link the landscape the surrounding waters, again linking the two together into a single whole.
Natthimmel – Göbekli Tepe. May 2023
Carrying with it a slight sense of the alien in its broader appearance – something itself not unbecoming of an interpretation of a site of antiquity, for would not our own world appear alien were it to be seen through the eyes of those who once lived at Göbekli Tepe? – the build offered by Konrad and Saskia is both highly picturesque and engaging. It awakens the curiosity about its physical world namesake – a curiosity which might be fed / further prodded by the inclusion of some historical notes at the landing point (which make a recommended read).
I’ve no idea if this is to be the first of a series of region designs at Natthhimmel, or whether it is intended to remain as-is; what I will say is if – like me – you are interested in seeing locations from the physical world in a manner that is more immersive than relying on images and film, I strongly recommend a visit to the region to se Göbekli Tepe, just in case it is to be replaced by another idea springing from the imaginations of Saskia and Konrad.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 