Cica Ghost opened her new installation 50 Cats early in February 2018. Following on from Bird People, which presented something of a conundrum (see here for more), this is an altogether more light-hearted piece, offering a little tongue-in-cheek fun.
As a strap-line, the installation uses a quote by novelist and short story writer Bobbie Ann Mason, One day I was counting the cats and I absent-mindedly counted myself. It’s from her first published novel from 1982, Shiloh and Other Stories, although beyond the reference to counting cats, this doesn’t appear to have a deeper meaning for the installation – or at least, not one I could fathom.
A visit begins in the south-west corner of a sandy island. Almost entirely devoid of trees, this little island has a ring of houses, tall and thin with pitched roofs, surrounding its lone hill. It is atop the hill, with its wooden fence crown, that the cats can be found. And there really are fifty of them.
They are standing, sitting, lying down, rolling on the ground, chasing butterflies, watching one another, washing – doing all the things cats do. Some look happy, many look a little nervous, some have a look of pathos in their eyes, as if asking to be taken home and shown a little love. None of them show the slightest interest ion the two trees in their garden nor the dustbins occupying a corner, despite the latter oft being associated with stray cats. For human visitors however, a click on the lid of one of the bins might generate interest and raise a chuckle.
In a similar nature to the dustbins, there are a number of “bunny cars” – some of which can be touched for animations as well. These are also fun to play with, and grab the attention. Also to be found on the fence and on some of the buildings are Cica’s little cartoon stick people. And do keep an eye out for the mice; they are as captivating as the cats.
50 Cats is a wonderfully light-hearted build offers fun and smiles. For those who love cats, and wish to respond to the heartfelt looks of wanting to be taken home an loved, each one is available for sale. Just right-click to buy a copy; all can be resized to suit personal needs.
Bird People is Cica Ghost’s latest region-wide installation, and it presents something of a conundrum. In a largely denuded landscape, the ground of which has been partially and neatly divided into a black-on-white grid, sit giant, ornate metalworks. Some stand alone, others support great cages – or form cage-like structures, equally huge, while block-like towers, apparently made of stacked cubes also rise from the ground here and there. It’s a strange environment – and one, frankly, difficult to see when using the default landscape and following the viewing instructions (ALM enabled and Shadows set to Sun/Moon + Projectors).
Throughout the landscape, stairways rise, curl and undulate, some supported by metal structures, some starting from the blocky forms. All of them twist and turn, and run by rise and fall to connect the ground – or at least their foundation blocks – offering people climbs up to dizzying heights and the giant cages waiting there. Some of these cages, but many are occupied by strange creatures with the bodies of bird and the heads of men. Most of these creatures sit within their cages individually or in pairs, facing open doors or sides to their enclosures almost apprehensively, as if fearing stepping out into the world beyond.
What are we to make of this? The clue, perhaps, lies in the quote Cica has offered with the piece: We are all living in cages with the door wide open. It’s a quote from Star Wars creator George Lucas about creativity and imagination. It references the idea that we can all be creative, we can all soar far and wide on the wings of imagination, if we are only willing to just let go; So does the installation perhaps stand as a metaphor for this idea?
Certainly, there is a strong contrast between the expressions worn by the creatures who have stepped out of their cages and are variously gathered or dotted across the open spaces beneath their former prisons, and those who have yet to venture forth. The former – for the most part – appear happy, chatty, curious and even playfully (although there are one or two looking slightly wary). Those still within their cages look through open doorways with a mix of confusion, apprehension and uncertainty – or even close their eyes on their potential route to freedom. This contrast plays strongly into the idea that stepping beyond the confines of our personal cages – our comfort zones – if you will, and embracing the imagination can be a liberating, positive influence on us.
For me, and in keeping with the broader theme offered by Lucas’ quote, the installation stands as the embodiment of a piece written be Debbie Hampton , the blogger and writer behind The Best Brain Possible. In 2015 She used the quote as the title for an essay about overcoming personal fear and the apparent “comforts” we can have in allowing ourselves to become caged by a “normal” life; we become, in effect, our own jailers.
I’ve lived most of my life like a bird in a cage with the door wide open. At any time, I could have hopped on over to the opening, taken flight and soared to new heights. All along, I’ve known how to fly. No one clipped my wings.
So, what kept me in the cage? My own fear and self-imposed limitations held me there. I was my own prison guard. I think we are all born knowing how to fly, but life happens and beats us down little-by-little until we forget that we ever had this valuable skill.
I must also, and in passing, admit that Cica’s human-headed birds put me in mind of something else – something entirely unintended by Cica (I know this because I asked her!), so I’m not going to draw any parallels between the two. I’ll simply state that in looking at these creatures, I couldn’t help but be put in mind of the Brontitallians from Douglas Adams’ Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – and while it may have been unintentional, it was also quite delightful.
A conundrum it may first be upon first arriving within it, Bird People is worth exploring and thinking about – although I do perhaps suggest you try a Midnight windlight setting rather than the default; it doesn’t detract that much from the experience (just ensure you do have LM enabled and Shadows set to Sun/Moon + Projectors), and it can certainly make navigation a lot easier when climbing the various stairways and reduces the risk of falling off them somewhat.
“Take a cart through the land of owls,” is the invitation to those arriving at Land of Owls, Cica Ghost’s installation which opened on Monday, October 30th, 2017.
The carts in question seat two, and quaintly resemble little wooden boats on cart wheels, with a parasol raised in imitation of a sail, perhaps offering a little shade for those riding them. Stationary when empty, they will start rolling over the landscape when someone sits in the “a” seat – so if you’re going to ride one with a friend, make sure you both jump into the seats together!
Cast beneath a twilight sky, this landscape is typically Cica; a mysterious mix of gently undulating, and broken up by needle like hills and copses of bamboo. Also to be found here are trees denuded for leaf and branch and little tower blocks, standing alone or in little clusters. Among the needle hills, bamboo copses and little groups of tower blocks are small expanses of tufted grass and bright, happy daisies.
It’s a whimsical setting with perhaps a hint of seasonal mystery created by the windlight. And the owls? They are to be found scattered around the setting, keeping an eye on things as they sit in the branches of the old trees, or perch atop an old wardrobe, one of a number to be found sitting out in the open. They are not the only avian locals to be found here; patrolling the south side of the island are a group of crane-like birds, also being watched from a distance by the owls.
Is there a story to be told here? Perhaps, but not all of Cica’s installations are necessarily heavy on message or meaning; they can also be as much about fun and whimsy as anything else, and that certainly seems to be the case here.
Do keep in mind that while the carts can save your feet from doing all the work, they may not carry you everywhere – so it is worth having a wander on foot as well. There are also plenty of places to sit as well – another Cica hallmark – so its worth mousing over things while exploring. All told, another enjoyable exhibition by one of may favourite SL artists.
Floating is an accident, pure and simple. It was never intended to be a collaboration between Bryn Oh and Cica Ghost – but that is what it is. Which is not to say that it is anything unfortunate – far from it; it’s an installation that mixes fun with something of a slight social message.
As Bryn explains, the installation was originally intended to be her design, but built to display the 2D art of another person. But for some reason (shyness?), having secured a grant to use the region, the other artist did not follow through on their commitment and no 2D art was supplied – leaving Bryn holding the lease on a region and in need of an idea. Enter Cica Ghost. She and Bryn put their heads together and in a week, Floating had emerged, with the assistance of Desdemona Enfield and Serenity Mercier.
The core of the build is a city hugging a shoreline; at one end are high-rise apartments overlooking a marina with motor cruisers and boats. The people in the apartments are clearly wealthy or well-off; through the windows of one we can see a family sitting down for a sumptuous meal, a butler in attendance, in another, a family sits in coloured warmth. With the marina and the high-rise buildings, the evidence of wealth, it is hard not to be put in mind of somewhere like Monaco.
At the other end of the curving shoreline it is a different story. Here there are no glittering high-rises, only older buildings, grubbier in appearance, which in turn give way to humble, racked living pods. The beach here is also far from the pristine marina, with piles of detritus, while the absence of colour underlines the lack of affluence. Thus, a comment on the divide between those who have, and those who have less (and who serve?), is made.
However, this isn’t just a build with a message on society’s disparities; there is also a sense of fun yo be found. At the arrival point, visitors can take an umbrella and float around the build, while free-floating balloons also offer a means to float through the air. But be warned – care needs to be taken as there are blocks that periodically fall from the sky.
Also to be found at the landing point is a zap gun. This can be purchased for L$0, and allows people to hunt and shoot one another. Just make sure you join the experience in the region if you intend to place – otherwise, should you be shot by someone else, you’ll be teleported home, rather than just back to the landing point.
Floating is a curious, electric mix of art, message and fun (if visiting with others and the guns are being used). Instructions on obtaining the zap gun and on getting around can be found at the landing point.
“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again,” so reads the quote from C.S. Lewis which Cica has selected for her latest installation, Fairy Tale, which opened on August 29th, 2017. It’s part of a dedication he gave to his God-daughter after writing The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. While Cica assures me she wasn’t aware of the full dedication when picking the quote, it is nevertheless the most salient part of Lewis’ comment – and fits this installation perfectly.
Across an undulating landscape, columns of rocks stack their way into the sky, vying with denuded trees and the surrounding hills for height. Only one of the hills is topped in grass – the rest of the land appears hard and dry. Reached by a set of steps formed by more rocks, it is home to a little red house sitting in a tiny garden. A plethora of cats occupy the house, most taken by the bed sitting towards one end of the single room, although one is attentive to the young woman who also stands inside the house.
The hill looks across the region, over the stacks of rocks, the trees and a group of standing stones to where three dragons proudly sit, surveying the world around them. One, perched high on a shelf of rock, is winged. “He’s the male,” Cica told me as we chatted about the build. “The other two without wings are female.”
One of the latter seems to have wandered a little from her nest, where patterned eggs awaiting hatching. another nest lies in a hollow of the ground a little further away. The second female offers a clue to the shell-like objects also scattered across the landscape. She is sitting on top of one, as if claiming it. “The dragons use the shells as caves,” Cica said. “They live in them!”
Scattered throughout the setting are sitting points, some with the addition of dances and other animations. Check the tops of some of the rock stacks and the little – but tall – island lying just off-shore as well in order to find them. All offer views out over this region and the opportunity to cam around or take photos.
Fairy Tale is another whimsical installation from Cica. It is also a curio: just what do we make of it as we travel through it? What should we make of the dragons’ use of giant shells, and what of the original occupants of the shells? Where does the woman and her cats in the house fit within all this?
The clue to these and other questions lies best in the quote from C.S. Lewis: we are all enthralled with tales that give flight for the imagination, but somewhere along life’s path, we often lose the will to use our imaginations as fully as we might. Fairy Tale is perhaps presents a chance to recapture that willingness, to let out imaginations roams across this landscape as freely as our feet, and let imagination fill-in the blanks of the story.
“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.
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?
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.
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!
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 