Tag: Cica Ghost

Cica Ghost’s latest turn of whimsy opened in Second Life towards the end of April, bringing with it another opportunity to leave the weight of the world behind and just have a little fun and let a smile or six crease your lips.

Rocks and Drums is another charming setting featuring giants, strange houses, beautiful flowers, vehicles, dancing, and a sense of fun. It comes with a line from  American singer, songwriter, poet, painter, author, and photographer, Patricia Lee “Patti” Smith, If you don’t have what you need, just rock with what you’ve got!

Given the core aspect of this installation is rock, it’s an apt quote. This is a place of rocky hills, rocky cairns, stone of primitively-hewn rock, and most notably rock giants and strange houses hewn from rock. Some are on the ground, other balance precariously on the top of stacks of flat rocks or rocky plinths. Like the stone giants, the houses are topped by tufted grass-like hair.

Across the land, grass and flowers grow tall, and people can wander freely. The stone giants are not the only creatures here, huge friendly treemen can also be found, and can rocks with fair-sized teeth!

While the houses on the ground are easy enough to access, those atop rock piles and plinths present something of a problem.  However, the answer comes in the form of flat rock tablets. Some have balloons attached, others are propellor-driven. Simply step up onto one as it reaches the ground and then allow it to carry you elevator-like up to one of the houses.

Those who fancy a shot of making like Fred and Barney can jump on one of three rock car rezzers and go for a drive around the setting. And of course there are Cica’s familiar dance stations and places to sit. So, go on over and let Cica’s creations raise a smile. Her shop means you can even bring some of them home with you if you like!

SLurl Details

• Rocks and Drums by Cica Ghost (Mysterious Isle, rated Moderate)

Having written the title to this piece, I realised that it could just as easily be “Cica’s Playground IS Second Life”, because for well over a decade now, Cica Ghost has been presenting 3D art installations within Second Life – and has been doing so monthly for the last few years.

As a result she has, and continues to, present a wide range of environments and settings, many of them more-or-less entirely whimsical, some of them wonderfully layered, offering views of folk tales or myths or ideas with a depth of perception and evocation which have never failed to inspire. Throughout much of her work there is a simple statement of joy in life, and it is this, as much as everything else she carefully wraps in her installations which has made me a long-time fan of her work, and why I have always tried to cover her installations in these pages, collecting them under my Cica Ghost tag.

One of the first of Cica’s builds I both saw and wrote about was Ghostville, a 3D village inhabited by Cica’s (already by then) famous animated stick figures (see: A short stay in Ghostville). It was a wonderful experience, and led to further encounters with her little people in installations such as The Visitors, which made marvellous use of the pre-existing (but long since sadly departed from Second Life) art venue of La Città Perduta, aka The Lost City (see Visiting the Visitors).

I mention all of this because within Playground, which opened on March 25th, 2025, there is something of a nod towards those wonderfully animated stick figures, together with a range of other 2D elements offering memories of some of Cica’s past creatures and creations. They sit within a village-like environment which might also be regarded as an avant-garde playground (given everything appears to be made of carboard, adding to the playtime like feel) in which new 3D creatures bot large and small and quite wondrous in their respective forms might be found. I loved them all but the almost Yaphit-like pair brought a particular smile to my face – but that’s purely the sci-fi nerd in me!

Such is the jollity here that even stars appear to have sprung from the ground along with flowers and clover, bopping to an unheard melody (there is an audio stream, but I preferred to keep it turned off) as much as some of the painted creatures and the various Cicas awaiting discovery.

The potential call-outs to many of Cica’s past design might be pointed to by fans of Cica’s work; however, whether they are intentional or not, I’ve no idea. This being the case I’ll leave it to people to decide for themselves, because I don’t want to give the impression this is a place that cannot be enjoyed in its own right or is in any way some form of intentional retrospective – it is not; it is simply that there are a lot of perfect little bells that might chime for some in visiting, but which also do not diminish Playground in any way if they pass unheard.

As is common with Cica’s build, visitors can join in with the fun via dancing, while the particularly energetic can jump up onto one of the local flying saucers and help keep them spinning (and flying?). These are not the only way to get airborne – hidden in plain sight is the means to bring out your inner Supergirl / Superman – but you can find that on your own 😀 . For those seeking a little rest afterwards (or perhaps a mug of 2D coffee!) there are various places to set down and recover.

In all – wonderful!

SLurl Details

• Playground by Cica Ghost (Mysterious Isle, rated Moderate)

Cica Ghost’s installation tend to carry with them elements of fairy tale; sometimes these elements are obvious in terms of the narrative on offer, in others the fairy tale aspect is further offered by the installations title, whilst the installation itself includes touches and turns which might cause the mind to wander further than any idea of “traditional” fairy tales. But howsoever the theme might be presented, the installation itself is always engaging.

For February 2024, Cica presents Dark Fairytale, which – for me, sits within those installations Cica offers which perhaps encourage the mind to wander further than the “traditional” idea of fairy tales. Flowing into it – in very subtle ways – are a touch of Guillermo del Toro and a tickle of cosmology. As with all of Cica’s installation, use of the Share Environment is a must.

Dark Fairytale presents a dark, somewhat parched landscape of lowlands watched over by peaks and hills around their edges, with two hills detached from the rest as if scouting inland. Caught under a cloud-rippled sky, this is a place with an otherworldly feel to it – a feeling that’s increased by the large face of planet (or moon?) hanging low above the westward horizon, its surface marked by the veins of a vast mountain complex spreading outward from its southern extreme.

The presence of this world / moon which does much to cast this place as much into the realm of far-away worlds in distant space as much as it does conjure thoughts of fairy tale lands. Yet at the same time, the eye of this planet might cause some to think of our own solar system; for those familiar with Mars, one of the splayed tendrils of light coloured mountains stretching across the world offers a faint suggestion of a mirrored Vallis Marineris and Noctis Labyrinthus so familiar to Mars. The effect is entirely coincidental rather than intended, but for those who see it, it gives a further twist to any backstory the imagination might choose to write for the installation.

This is a world inhabited by various kinds of dragon (one tucked away off-shore), all of whom appear to peacefully co-exist with the local humanoids, who in turn appear to live in exotic little homes.  As with all of Cica’s characters, the creatures here carry with them a sense of innocence rather than menace, with the humanoids having some technical know-how, going by the snail car in the midst of the landscape. As one would expect, there are multiple places to sit or dance scattered through the landscape, whilst the creatures offer plenty of opportunities for photography.

Given the friendliness of the locals, the “Dark” of the installation’s title would appear to relate less to any idea of the kind of tales involving a twist of fear and / or horror, and more to the fact that this world is either dimly lit or seen at night. That said, the fantastical nature of the creatures and beings here does pump the cosmological element within Dark Fairytale, as noted. In this, the quote Cica has chosen for the installation also has a role to play, coming as it does from a longer statement by the late English cosmologist and theoretical physicist, John David Barrow.

All told, another marvellous setting from Cica, one able to suggest all sorts of stories to the willing imagination. And the hint of Del Torro? Take a peek inside the rotor-topped house, and you might spot it!

Slurl Details

• Dark Fairytale (Mysterious Isle, rated Moderate)

Cica Ghost is back with a wintertime setting to see out 2024 with Snowflakes, and in doing so, offers us a little insight into the fact that even snow monsters appreciate a little warmth on cold winter nights when the stars shine brightly.

In a darkened world where hills rise like comical bumps a cartoon character might suffer after taking a bop to the head, birch tress point boughs bereft of leaves towards the nigh sky, as if trying to to pull down the blanket of stars to wrap around themselves and stave off the cold. All around, snowflakes drift towards the ground to join their siblings already there.

Night-time can be one of the most magical times to witness gently falling snow when the wind is calm and the air is fresh; there can be a wonderful sense of mystery, particularly when walking through wooded land  – and believe me, as one who has partaken of late evening walks through the park adjoining my home, walking under naked tress and over the bridges panning the local stream, I speak from experience!

But here, among these trees, are other wonders to be found. This is because, with the Sun long set and darkness all around, the local snow monsters have come out. Although in fairness, “monster” here is more due to a matter of their scale rather than any wicked intent on their part. Indeed, and as noted all they are seeking a little of the forementioned warmth – both the kind born of a warm fire and the kind from friendly companionship – or having a little fun building a snowman.

These chaps clearly mean no harm (although beware the falling snowballs near some of them!); one even looks a little looks a little unhappy and lonely on the cold night, possibly because there’s a nice little house close by (one of a number sharing the landscape) which could well be a lot warmer inside than it is outside – but he’s a little too big to get through the front door!

For those who like a little fun, there are Cica’s dances to be found and a pair of “snow rollers” to ride around on. The setting is accompanied from a quote from Lorelei Gilmore from the 8th episode of the first season of The Gilmore Girls, A show I’d never heard of until reading the quote – and subsequently finding the episode – love and War and Snow – is one of the most highly regarded of the show’s entire run. However, it expresses the mood of Cica’s Snowflakes perfectly:

Everything’s magical when it snows

SLurl Details

• Cica’s Snowflakes (Mysterious Isle, rated Moderate)

Cica Ghost is back for October with another whimsical installation with White, which opened its doors on October 14th, 2024. The setting uses a quote from the American portrait and genre artist, Charles Webster Hawthorne (1872-1930), who is perhaps most famous for  for his lushly painted portraits and landscapes and for founding the Cape Cod School of Art (1899):

Put variety in white.

To be honest, I’ve no idea of the context in which the quote was originally given, but Cica has taken it to heart ahead of the coming of winter in the northern hemisphere to give us a symphony of white from the ground on which we walk when visiting to the sky overhead. Has it snowed? Is the world frosted?  Are we perhaps in another realm entirely? You decide.

Certainly, the creatures scattered through the landscape are somewhat otherworldly; some appear slug-like (but friendly – for the most part!) as they sit upon the pockmarked white of the ground; others appear to be partially extruded from that very ground, as if squeezed up from below – or perhaps they are simply lying partially buried for some reason; still other looks like alien mice, small (compared to their companions!) and potentially huggable. Some even look like hills within the landscape – at least until their maws open in a long, slow yawn-like motion.

The structures here are equally strange, carrying with them the feeling that they’ve also been extruded from the ground – or some giant little boy or girl has been building the more extraordinary sandcastle-like creations as they raise trumpet-like appendages to the sky.

But then, also, there are the tall flowers, snowdrop-like in their white innocence and the monochrome butterflies flittering overhead (and under at least one of which people can ride); these look so natural, so familiar, it’s hard to place this strange place as being anywhere else than on Earth. And perhaps it is; perhaps it is a dreamscape, and we are invited to be travellers crossing it. The choice is yours.

And that’s the beauty of Cica’s installations: they allow us a moment of escape, a chance to relax and inhale the air of whimsy. so – enjoy!

SLurl Details

• White by Cica Ghost (Mysterious Isle, rated Moderate)

August brings with it – for those of us in the northern hemisphere – the latter part of summer and the promise that autumn is about to get out out of bed and start looking in our direction. But before it arrives there is still time for those who wish to grab the opportunity and have some summer fun – be it a vacation or simply a little time at the seaside.

It is the latter – a trip to the seaside – that Cica Ghost celebrates in her August 2024 installation Summer Camp. While it many not have anything to do with the more formalised affairs families in various countries pack their kids off to for a part of summer, Cica’s setting does have much to offer the kid residing in all of us: sand castles, friendly dinosaurs, happy-go-lucky snakes, fishy cars to sit on, opportunities to dance.

As is usual with Cica, the installation is framed by a quote, this one from a poem by the American poet, writer and physician, William Carlos Williams.

In summer the song
sings itself 

– William Carlos Williams, The Botticellian Trees

Williams’ work is a fascinating trove; most closely associated with the modernism and imagism movements, both in word and art, his poetry drew on multiple inspirations whiles often centres of related imagery – such as trees.

The Botticellian Trees itself interweaves the theme of trees and reflection on art (or at least, an artist, hence in part the title), but it is perhaps best know for this pair of lines, fully capturing as they do all of the beauty, promise and feeling that summer can bring, regardless of our age. Here, it perfectly captures the essence of Summer Camp.

There’s really not too much else to say about this installation; it is very much something to be experiences rather than read about. The creatures and figures found throughout are offered for sale in Cica’s shop, storefronts for which are perched up on the cliffs overlooking this sandy realm. The fish cars may be static, but they still offer places to sit (and other can – as usual – be found throughout), with a touch of acrobatics / balancing thrown in as well. And then there are the sand castles to wander through and (in places) climb, while for those who’d like more of a bird’s eye view (or should that be crow’s eye view 🙂 ), there’s always the balloon floating serenely overhead.

So – go see and enjoy!

SLurl Details

• Summer Camp (Mysterious Isle, rated Moderate)