Tag: Art 2021

Currently open at the Janus I Gallery at Chuck Clip’s Sinful Retreat is a truly magnificent exhibition of the art of Kraven Klees which is an truly must-see event.

Working in the digital medium, Kraven specialises in the creation of pieces encompassing a range of techniques –  art, photography, mixed media – whilst also embracing a spectrum of approaches and styles including fractals, abstraction and photo layering, to create pieces that explore the boundaries of what we might consider art to be, and what it means to us personally.

As a result, his pieces are both highly esoteric and instantly captivating. There is both a richness of presentation and melding – conscious or otherwise, given the artist notes he deliberately embraces an aleatoric approach to his work such that the final appears of each is a mix of predetermination on his part and circumstance encountered in the creative process – that gives them immediate visual appeal while can be immediately experienced and enjoyed, whilst also calling the eye and mind to look again, and more deeply.

This approach to mixing concious decision with the passage of chance taken by the artist means that while many of these pieces many be linked by a core theme – portraiture, living study, the very richness of colour palette – each and every piece is genuinely unique content, form, colour, style, and expression. This adds enormously to multi-faceted appeal of the exhibition as a whole whilst giving each piece a sense of individual beauty and depth that sets it apart from its neighbours.

But there is more here as well; even within those that may appear to be “straightforward” portraits, there are elements that can trigger our emotions and alter our perception. Neural Network, for example, initially appears to offer commentary on the nature of intelligence and our growing reliance on  technology. But a closer examination offers other potentials for interpretation – the potential for, and form of, artificial life; questions on the nature of life  – are we simply little more than the filaments of the brain and the neurons that fires across them? and more.

Alongside of it, Bamboo Man sits as an intriguing study on the human form: flesh, sinews, bone; but at the same time, the entire image in form and colour opens the door to discomfiting thoughts of evisceration and / or hints of Geiger-esque horrors. There is also a certain psychedelic aspect to many of the pieces that comes to us through both the stylised  use of expressive colours and fragmented, fractalised form that heightens our response to them. Like the effects of a drug, they seem to expand our consciousness, reflecting the artist’s desire to increase the dynamic between audience and art / artist.

All of this makes The Art of Kraven Klees an exhibition a rich exploration of art, ideas, emotions and outlook. Whether you are drawn into the deeper layering of individual pieces or chose to admire them for their natural beauty and styling, this is a collection that will attract and beguile. As such, this is very much an exhibition that should not be missed, and it will remain available through until the end of the month.

SLurl Details

• The Janus Gallery (Sinful Retreat, rated Adult)

An entry in the Destination Guide drew me to the HAUS Museum of Art, an impressive undertaking in celebration of physical and virtual arts led by Cyraphir. And when I say “impressive”, I mean just that.

Having opened in January 2021, this is an expanse facility. Utilising the Omega XL prefab by GullyRivers. with a 100 x 64 metre footprint, the museum presents around 6,400 sq metres of display area across two floors. That’s a lot of space in which to display art, and I’m happy to say that it is space that is well utilised.

From the entrance lobby, the gallery is broadly divided into six areas, five covering individual facets of art: classical (covering the period 1500-1900), couture, modern art, music, and gaming art, with the sixth devoted to literature and the spoken word.

The largest section, located on the main floor, is that of classical art. It is devoted to “some of the most well-known artists in art history”. Displays within it include pieces by Hieronymus Bosch, da Vinci, Michelangelo (including two superb reproductions of both David and Pietà rendered by Cyraphir), Tiziano Vecelli (Titian), Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Itō Jakuchū, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Katsushika Hokusai, Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Sir Frederic William Burton, Théodore Chassériau, Gustave Doré, John William Waterhouse, Van Gogh, Utagawa Hiroshige, Gustav Klimit, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali.

There is no discernible  ordering as to how individual artists have been placed within the section, which means that Dali rubs shoulders with da Vinci and Picasso, whilst Klimt faces Bosch. Such juxtapositions might jar with the ordered mind used to dealing with so broad a spectrum of art being presented chronologically, but it actually makes for interesting contrasts / comparisons. Take for example the three approaches towards the representation of objects and the human form seen with da Vinci (realism), Picasso (cubism) and Dali (surrealism).

Other artists such as Van Gogh and Michelangelo have there own display space in which their work can be duly appreciated, whilst others might be more closely associated in terms of time frame (Bouguereau and Burton, Itō Jakuchū and Katsushika Hokusai, for example – with the latter two located with Utagawa Hiroshige, noting their mutual country of birth). In all it is a rich and varied selection, and one in which I was pleased to see the likes of Itō Jakuchū, and some of what might be the lesser-known, but still captivating, pieces by the likes of Van Gogh.

However, I must admit to a tinge of disappointment: outside of a single piece by by Sophie Anderson, female painters are conspicuously absent. Where are the likes of les trois grandes dames of the French impressionist  movement: Marie Bracquemond,  Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt, or the works of Élisabeth Le Brun, Angelika Kauffmann, Clara Peeters and Marie-Denise Villers, to name but a handful? I hope they will yet be seen in a future exhibit.

On the opposite side of the ground floor area is a hall that, at the time of my visit, featured avatar studies by Kouralee, together with three spaces devoted to a celebration of both physical and digital couture, one of which – the Sketchbook – was still under construction. Between these is a further exhibition of avatar-centric art by Jasmin Kyong.

The upper floor of the galley is home to a mix of displays encompassing anime art, video games, music and literature.

The first of these comes in images taken from Nagabe’s Totsukuni no Shoujo, published in the web-based Online Magazine Comic Blade. Alongside of and opposite this exhibit are celebrations of art, music and literature, the first being the museum’s reading room.  Located next to the Nagabe display, it plays host to live reading events, while across the hall is a section devoted to the late Leonard Cohen.

The latter reminds us of the breadth and depth of Cohen’s of talent and insight into the human condition as a singer-songwriter, poet, novelist and occasional drawer of cartoons. With a brief biography (with a link to his wikipedia page), a discography and quotes from his songs and books, it’s an effective celebration of Cohen’s life.

Reached via a lounge devoted to live music events, the remainder of the upper level of the gallery hosts a display to Taiwanese-American contemporary visual artist James Jean, whose paintings and drawings have drawn world-wide acclaim. Across a further hallway from it is a homage to video game art that features a look at Valve’s puzzle-platform game, Portal, which contains an interactive element and is somewhat eclectic in its appearance here.

Overall, HAUS offers and engaging selection of exhibitions, some (or all?) of which I believe I’m correct in saying will change on a quarterly basis. As a gallery, it works well; as a museum, I’d perhaps perhaps like to see more in the way of interactive links to things like wikipedia pages to allow visitors to find out more about a subject and / or artist (and in the case of Sl artists, perhaps the opportunity to obtain their biography). Details on upcoming events can be found in the Info hall behind the entrance lobby, as can an application to be considered as an exhibiting artist.

All-in-all and impressive and engaging project well worth visiting.

SLurl Details

• HAUS Museum of Art (Blacksticks, rated Moderate)

 

 

CELLS is a new region-wide animated installation created by Moki Yuitza that is now open at Electric Monday’s The Sim Quarterly. As is common with exhibits in this Homestead Region – and as indicated by the region’s name – the installation will remain open for a period of three months, allowing people plenty of time to visit and re-visit.

Moki’s work embraces many subjects – the art of creativity, the relationships between sound and colour, perception, the inner workings of the mind, the interpretation of dreams, explorations of abstraction, geometry  and more. Several of these aspects are combined within CELLS to present a unique environment that is both frustrating and fascinating at the same time.

Before visiting the installation, you should make sure your viewer is correctly set-up:

• Enable Advanced Lighting Model (ALM) – Preferences → Graphics → ensure Advanced Lighting Model is checked. Note there is no need to have Shadows enabled as well.
• Set your Draw Distance to greater than the width of a region – I would suggest 300m.
• Ensure your viewer is set to Use Shared Environment – menus → World → Environment → make sure Use Shared Environment is checked.
• Consider using the region’s audio stream  as it adds a certain aural depth to the installation.

Teleporting will initially deliver you to a sky platform over the main installation where a note card on the installation will be offered. Be aware that the avatar mover at the landing point can be a little aggressive – it planted me in a wall with sufficient force to leave me stuck and in need of a teleport offer from Caitlyn to get free.

Once safely on the platform, touch the blue glowing sphere in the opposite corner to the landing point to be transferred to ground level and the installation itself, which Moki describes as an attempt to look inside the brain of an artificial intelligence to determine how it works, and what we might see as a result.

It’s a highly abstract idea – we all probably have our own views on the matter – and Moki’s presentation is thus justifiably abstract and entirely unique. Blending light, colour, motion and – if you opt to have the audio stream active – sound, the installation is perhaps best described as a kind of lattice of cube-like (or the most part) spaces that climbs upwards through several levels.

Within the cubic spaces of this lattice are groupings of spheres – some coloured and solid, some themselves a simple lattice, some large, some small. Some sit within defined cubes, others float freely. Every so often, and frequently in close succession, these groupings on sphere will rotate around a central axis (with those inside a defined cube turning with the frame of the cub itself) to create new alignments with their neighbours.

Given the context of the installation, this motion perhaps suggests the passage of thought and / or the firing of individual synapses and the AI brain processes information. And visitors can become part of this: at the centre is a double helix-like strand of ramps that climb up through the installation. I doubt their form is accidental, but I’ll leave it to visitors to determine how they interpret them. Along the way they pass through the levels of the installation, allowing visitors to step off the ramps and wander through the spheres as they rotate.

It is here that frustration creeps in as frankly, travelling on foot through CELLS diminishes both its beauty and its complexity. This an installation that should the soared through and witnessed from within and without. As such, I urge you to consider taking flight when visiting (and if you’re comfortable flying in Mouselook, so much the better), or if (like me) you are graced with a 3D mouse – make use of it.

Simply put, beings able to free translate movement from vertical to horizontal and to be able to rise and fall through this installation without constraint utterly alters one’s perspective and heightens appreciation of, and engagement with, CELLS.

A colourful, engaging, potentially mesmerizing and visually impressive, installation, CELLS is definitely worth taking time to visit and explore (again,particularly aerially). For those who like hunting gifts, look out for the conical white prims that are scattered through the installation and rotate   around their own axes. Touch the right one and accept the folder it offers, and you might just gain a reward for your efforts.

SLurl Details

• CELLS (The Sim Quarterly, rated Moderate)

 

 

 

 

 

Djehuti-Anpu (Thoth Jantzen – TJ to those who know him) is an artist specialising in immersive,  interactive audio-visual presentations within virtual spaces. His work is a captivating mix of light, colour, sound, and interaction that many have likely seen at various venues across Second Life, including several SL Birthday events, where he has frequently presented microcosms of his work as featured artist at those events.

On Saturday February 13th, he opened Immergence, an installation featuring music, sound, light and colour that is made up of a series of experiences joined together through a common hub.

The very title of the piece is itself an interesting fusion, given that the two words  can be taken as opposites: “immersion” tends to suggest being subsumed into something, confined by it, whilst “emergence” might be said to be moving out of something, to be free of its constraints.

However, when put together like this, they suggest the act of opening oneself to experience, thought, stimulation and ideas through the act of immersing oneself into a single medium – in this case, a series of interconnected virtual environments, each with its own form and purpose, but all of which combine to present a contiguous, provocative and evocative experience.

Before visiting the installation, there are a number of settings that should be enabled within your viewer:

• Advanced Lighting Model (ALM) – must be enabled (Preferences → Graphics → ensure Advanced Lighting Model is checked)
  • Note that you do not need to enable shadows as well if rendering these places a significant strain on your computer’s rendering capabilities.
• Ensure you have set the following media requirements (Preferences → Sound and Media → Media):
  • Media auto-play = ON / checked.
  • Allow in-world scripts to play media = ON / checked.
  • Play media on other avatars = OFF / unchecked.
  • Media Filter (TPVs only, if part of the viewer) = OFF / unchecked.
• Ensure your viewer is set to Use Shared Environment (menus → World → Environment → make sure Use Shared Environment is checked).

Do note as well, that those sensitive to moving or flashing light or who may be particularly motion sensitive may find elements of Immergence unsettling.

The landing point offers information on the installation – presented by the HAL-like THJ-900 computer, together with a series of teleport portals that lead to the surrounding experiences, some of which can also be found at TJ’s New Khemmenu spaces at Ars Simulacra NMC’s SL Artist’s Showcase Island.

There is no set order of portals to take, so just choose those that pique your curiosity and step through. Similar portals within each of the environments can be used to return you to the landing point:

• Khemennu University: immerse yourself in one (or more) of a number of discussions on a range of topics – ethics, philosophy, physicalism, memetics, and more, and test your own knowledge.
• Marbles: float and / or dance amidst the dancing marbles as they capture and reflect the lights and patterns of the sphere that encloses you.
• Mothership: take to a purple pod and lose yourself in music as the camera reveals the many environments within Immergence – just tap the ESC key a couple of times once folded into your pod.
• Ramalama: I think this is about using a canon to shoot yourself into a tunnel of light, but I confess (possibly because of a shortcoming with my Bluetooth keyboard) I could not get the canon to work.
• The Gauntlet – embark on a walk through space, light, time and more; best appreciated if you can manage it in Mouselook.
• The Hippycampus: float through the brain, Superman-style.
• The Mind Melter: wander halls of colour and reflection in what appears to be an endless space.

The two remaining portals – the large stargate and the Starburst portal – access event spaces that I gather will be used for special events.

In addition a green diamond formed by a pair of pyramids at the landing point will allow you to rez a little flying car (and companion) and zoom around the installation, whilst a second platform reached via a semi-transparent bridge, is home to a further series of portals connecting to other arts environments, including Ars Simulacra, mentioned above.

Obviously intended to be experienced rather than written about, Immergence is fascinating in its presentation, offering visitors an immersive, visually and aurally stimulating opportunity to both escape and, should you so wish, have your grey matter informed and exercised.

SLurl Details

• Immergence (Akimitsu, rated Moderate)