A new exhibit opened at Veekay Navarathna’s Art India recently. Facesis a collection of paintings by Canadian artist Liana Russwurm (Lilianna Clarity in SL), curated by Quan Lavender.
The pieces are reproductions of Liana’s real-life paintings, and as the name of the exhibition suggests, largely focuses on paintings of people’s faces. However, these are by no means “simple” portraits. The subjects are often masked, either physically or with make-up / paint; some are apparently playful, others innocently happy. All of them, however, tell a story, a story which reaches out to us through the facade of the mask, make-up, face paint or playfulness.
Born into an artistic family, Liana draws from contemporary media and culture such as reality television, fashion magazines and billboards, as well as her own experiences. Her biography reveals the approach taken to the works on display at Art India, which are themselves drawn from a real life exhibition of her pieces called Façade:
Through the use of staged photo shoots, props, costumes and make-up, she aims to strip away the layers of the individual, invoking a fragmented yet authentic portrait of her subject. She is most interested in “the figure”, and capturing the essence of the model.
Several of the pieces stand in strong contrast to one another, and it is worth taking the time to work your way around the paintings on the outer walls of the exhibit space in “order” – starting with the two young girls facing you from across the room, as your arrive at the teleport point. Both have the genuine innocence of childhood about them . Follow the pieces around the walls, however, and the different stories come into their own, giving us a unique window into the thoughts – perhaps the very souls – of the models,
This is an intriguing exhibit, which runs through until January 21st. For those drawn particularly strongly to any particular piece(s) – and I confess, a couple did catch my eye – they are available at L$700 each.
It isn’t every day that one enters an art installation comes with a health warning. Yet that’s exactly what you get with Thoth Jantzen’s Mediamorphosis, the notecard for which opens:
WARNING!! Seriously, If you suffer from epilepsy or are otherwise adversely affected by flashing lights and colours, do NOT play media here. You won’t get the proper experience, but you may just survive!
“My God, it’s full of stars!” – a Bowman-like start to Mediamorphosis
This is a fully immersive multimedia presentation which features a mix of music, particle effects, set-pieces, art and a touch of interaction. There’s an extensive backstory to the piece, which forms a narrative and helps points the way towards explorations, but as Thoth points out, there are many ways through the piece (and several points where you can sit back and enjoy the show). Equally, while there is a certain depth and purpose to the piece, it’s not intended to be meaning-of-life deep.
The key thing with this piece is to make sure you have streaming media on and set to play all (if using a media filter) and use the local windlight (or set your viewer to midnight) and – explore.
When you arrive, you’ll find yourself in a white room with a single exit – the wormhole. Walk through – you’ll find the 2001 motifs clear – and the teleport to the exhibit proper in the form of one of the set pieces, the Hopper Cafe. Read the notecard offered and then follow the road. Along the way you’ll find pods you can jump into and enjoy a trippy little ride or two mixing particle effects, art and the various set-pieces, into an immersive show.
You can also spend time inside the Hopper Cafe and witness some of the show projected onto the windows, or you teleport to the other builds which make up the installation, where there are additional opportunities to sit and watch the light / image show. Just be aware that wherever you go – you have yourself become a part of the show for anyone else watching!
Metamorphosis is a piece which is hard to quantify. As the artist himself says in explanation of it, “Huh? What..?” … It is a piece which should, by its nature, be experienced rather than described – although it’s certainly not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. Or coffee, for that matter.
Ican only say enjoyed my time exploring and trying out the first-person pods and seats in which you hand over control of your camera to the scripts controlling the exhibit itself, leaving you with nothing to do but just enjoy (and the show is great with the lights out in the room!). Everything is looped, so “rides” take only a few minutes, although it is worth running through things a couple of times to enjoy the complete magical mystery tour.
If I have any complaint at all, it is that there should perhaps be more choice in the music – a loop of just three tracks which can be heard throughout one’s visit to the installation can start to get one’s teeth grinding by the time the fourth or fifth loop is reached…
However, this is just a niggle. Overall, Mediamorphosis is immersive, engaging, unusual and, well, trippy.
Melusina Parkin has a passion for Art Deco. Since entering Second Life in late 2008, she has kept herself extremely busy, becoming CEO of MEB Fashion at the start of 2009, and also launching Melu Decos supplying Art Deco furnishings to SL users, with stores featured in many historical and retro regions such as 1920 Berlin, Seraph City, Paris 1900, Roaring 20 Chicago, and so on.
She is also a talented photographer and has had exhibitions at Galerie des Machines (Paris 1900), Schloss Museum (1920 Berlin), Café des Artistes (Paris 1900), R&D Diotima Gallery, Musee de la Duché de Coeur (Languedo Coeur), among others.
Opening at 14:00 SLT on Saturday 2nd February, Melusina now brings her passion for Art Deco design and art and her talents as an SL designer and an artist together in an elegant exhibition which will run through until (approximately) the end of March 2013.
Located at the Art India Gallery on Shekhawati, the exhibition is being kindly hosted by Veekay Navarathna and curated by Quan Lavender.
Quan graciously offered me the chance to preview the exhibit prior to the formal opening, which will be marked by a 20’s style Flapper Party, with invitations to all – and if you can attend appropriately costumed (while not required), so much the better!
The exhibition is located in a purpose-built space Melusina has designed herself and which forms an integral part of the show, incorporating a clearly Deco style which appears at first sight simple, but which is in fact exceptionally elegant and beautifully balanced.
Both the art and the furnishings and accessories are offered for sale, providing a unique combination of art exhibit and a demonstration of Melusina’s well-crafted, low-impact mesh designs for furnishings and lighting accessories which stunningly reproduce the Art Deco style in-world. I particularly liked the 1-prim, free-standing fan-lights which, for some reason, cast me back into the world of ITV’s Poirot, leaving me half expecting the (suitably padded and brilliant) David Suchet to waddle up…
The pictures themselves are typical of the Art Deco era both in style and presentation, and there are a couple which certainly caught my eye. The furnishings included in the exhibit are also typical of the era and demonstrate clean, strong lines which perfectly complement both the paintings and the design of the gallery itself. All of the items are mesh and had a land impact of 1 each, making them a cost-effective means of decorating a house in-world.
For anyone interested in Art Deco art, design and architecture, this is a must-see exhibition.
Art Deco opens at 14:00 SLT on February 2nd, 2013 and will run for approximately 2 months.
As an art object creator, Melusina Parkin has been the best voted in the Virtual Museum of Architecture (VMA) Contest of Art Deco Clocks. She has presented two talks at the VMA; the first, in December 2010 was on Art Deco, and was reprinted in the SL Retropolitan Magazine. The second talk, in March 2012, was on the subject of London’s famous Battersea Power Station.
As a builder, Melusina has been responsible for a number of notable builds in SL, including the MEB main store at Klio, the Look Elite Model agency lobby and academy, and the Cotton Club set for the Look Elite agency graduation show of 2012. As a writer, she covers cinema, fashion and SL destinations and collaborates on a number of in-world publications. She speaks English, Spanish and Italian (her native language), understands French, a little bit of German and Portuguese. Her passion for Art Deco in SL is reflected in her Flickr photostream, where she has over 500 images of in-world places and buildings.
I recently took the opportunity to participate in Jabba,Jabba,Jabba, the latest show offered by New Synthetic Theatre, a UK-based group lead by Alan Hudson, intending to “Exploit, explore and demonstrate the features offered by environments such as Second Life in order to create a new performance medium and to show that this can be financially viable,” with the aim of being recognised as, “a new form of commercial media, available to the entertainment industry and to education, enabling immersive , highly engaging experiences to be created.”
Think of it, perhaps, as a pop video, play or opera, in which you are both audience and cast.
The group’s first show, Ninety-Nine Percent opened in 2012. It is based on the world-wide Occupy movement and stands as the first demonstration of the application of a time-based Second Life ticketed theatrical show of this type. The show is still available at the NST’s main theatre complex in Second Life. It lasts for around 7 minutes.
Jabba, Jabba, Jabba is the second show from the NST, and is currently being featured in the SL Destination Guide as well as on the official viewer’s MOTD. It is described as, “A totally immersive experience unlike anything else in Second Life. You take part in the action, you fish for the moon, discover Xanadu or slay the manxome Jabberwocky.”
The show is based on three poems: The Wise Men of Gotham by Thomas Love Peacock, Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s marvellous Kubla Khan, and Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky. The aim is to entertain audiences who already love the poems, by making them a part of the story told in each of them. As such, the show can be enjoyed either individually, or as a part of a group.
NST shows are somewhat unique in that they are time-based: you purchase a ticket (L$75 from the ticket office on the ground) for a given performance period (in the case of Jabba, Jabba, Jabba, shows are run every 15 minutes from the top of the hour), and the ticket then acts as a means of both delivering you to the theatre in time for the start of the performance and as the object used to animate your avatar and make you a part of the various scenes being acted-out.
On arrival at the theatre area, there are additional information boards and an audio track which provides you with further information – you’ll obviously need sound enabled on your viewer and Allow the media stream if you are using a viewer equipped with the Media Filter (and have it enabled), but you’ll need the stream on anyway in order to hear the poems as they are recited. Any AO you have should also be turned off to prevent it interfering with the show’s own animations.
This is an immersive, rather than interactive show, so once in the theatre, there is little for you to do other than to focus your camera on yourself and then wait for the show to start – you may need to do some additional adjustment to the camera using the camera floater, but you’ll have no need to control your avatar unless you happen to be facing the wrong way at any point, in which case use the cursor keys to rotate your avatar. Don’t forget to use ESC if you find your camera ends up on the wrong side of things if you fo move it around.
The sets for the poems comprise a mix of physical builds (notably The Wise Men of Gotham), particle effects, projections and phantom objects. The poems are narrated byCatherine Barrett, accompanied by suitable soundtracks and offer an interesting interpretation of the poems which fits will with the acts which go with them. These see your avatar fish for the Moon, stand in awe at the sight of Xanadu and then hunt down the Jabberwocky.
If I’m honest, the show left me with mixed feelings. Both Jabberwocky and Kubla Khan are poems I much enjoy, and it was interesting to be made a part of each of them; however, in some respects I felt the show was perhaps a little dry and left me a little too detached from things. Truth be told, I found myself listening more to Catherine Barrett’s reading of the pieces than paying attention to what was going on in-world, particularly with these two pieces. Being unfamiliar with The Wise Men of Gotham I rather conversely found myself more focused on what was going on in the boat than on paying attention to the poem itself.
Nevertheless, this is an interesting concept, and I have a feeling that when I can, I’ll be popping into Ninety Nine Percent.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 