Tag: LEA Reviews

My Space, which officially opens on Friday August 29th at 13:00 SLT (with a concert by Ultraviolet Ultra from 14:00 SLT), is the latest installation by Betty Tureaud and a part of the AIR round 7 offerings. I had the opportunity to pay the installation a visit at the start of the week, and I have to say it’s …. interesting.

There are of course Betty’s trademarked vivid colours throughout, and much of the piece is interactive; but quite what it is, is hard to define – other than having a strong element of fun about it and most likely being a place enjoyed when visiting with others.

At the landing point, you’re furnished with a set of simple instructions: grab a rocket hat, ride the flying saucers (or use the teleport squares), rise up through the various levels of the installation and then grab a parachute (a Cubey Terra e-chute), and ride back down.

The rocket hat isn’t actually vital to proceedings, although donning it will give you a foretaste of what is to come: touch it, and you’ll “launch” and start floating around and performing acrobatics against the bright background of your surroundings. To get up higher, you can either attempt to sit on one of the aforementioned rising flying saucers, or touch the green squares and teleport up between the various levels. Riding the flying saucers will set you dancing, while using the teleport squares is probably the easiest way of getting between the levels.

Most of the levels offer something to do, be it dancing, floating, swimming with jellyfish-like creatures, and so on, and each level also has a parachute dispenser for those wishing to get down to the landing point. Right at the top of the installation is what I believe to be the dance floor and stage for the opening concert, where one can dance on the floor area or up on one of the hovering flying saucers. The picture at the top of the piece shows the stage area, and hopefully also gives the scale of the place; you can just see two of us dancing on the saucers.

To get down, one can either fly or use the aforementioned free parachutes. Simply wear one of the latter, step off a level and type “pull” in chat as you fall to open the ‘chute. Steering is best done in Mouselook when looking down (via the mouse) and using the cursor keys. Dropping down through the centre hole in the dance floor will take you through the middle of the various cones which form each of the levels, although careful steering is required, as you can “land” on the walls of the cone, re-packing your parachute in the process, something which will leave you falling. Should this happen, just type “pull” again to open the ‘chute once more.

As noted at the start of this piece, defining My Space isn’t easy. The colours certainly give it a psychedelic feel, and the flying saucers, floating jellyfish, dancing on a rotating, spinning gold disk in defiance of gravity, certainly add to the “trippy” feeling one gets.  This feeling is perhaps further enhanced when parachuting through the centre of the cones on your way back down (particularly if you aren’t showing your avatar when in Mouselook and you’re not wearing any mesh), when the colours can become somewhat entrancing as they drift and spiral by.

Overall, and as also noted, this is a piece that is perhaps best enjoyed with others. Betty has also indicated that she may well add to the piece throughout its run at LEA24, which will be until the conclusion of this round of AIR grants in December.

Related Links

• My Space – LEA24 (Rated: General)

Two new installations have opened at the Linden Endowments for the Arts (LEA) of late; one as a part of the LEA’s Artist In Residence (AIR) series, and the other being the latest in the Full Sim Art  series sponsored by the University of Western Australia.

Spirit Within, the Full Sim Art piece, is by Lagu Indigo and Stardove Spirit, and is based on a “life death” experience, which transports you to a walled garden surrounded by light and water. Within this garden sits a tall, translucent temple, the steps leading up to it bordered by amorphous forms, while before and within the temple, butterflies rise into the bright sky.

In describing the piece, Stardove and Lagu continue: “The walk up to the temple you will have spirits on each side of the steps , this represents the spirits that where the guides that showed the way to the light, they where of pure light and like ancestors from the past. as you reach the top within the temple is the light and an Angel he was the giver of light and shows the way to the light though the darkness and back to reality and earth. The butterflies represent the rebirth and the beauty that there is life and that you can be reborn.”

There is something of a personal expression here, the work having grown out of a situation experienced by one of the artists (which, out of Lagu and Starlove isn’t clear from the notes), the author continuing: “My experience of life  and death it is only a small part  of the journey and as the light was given so I am grateful to be  alive and free like the butterfly. There where many parts to this experience  and this is just the one part , maybe a dream of the mind or a reality,  but I know that I got though a bad time and am thankful for the experience, It like a cleansing of the soul to a new beginning of a new life.”

Note that applications are being sought for the December 2014 and January 2015 Full Sim Art slots. Interested artists should contact Jayjay Zifanwee, indicated their preferred month.

David Searby Mason – known as Searby in-world, offers a very different experience in his AIR piece. Do make sure you have sound enabled when visiting (and wear headphone if you have them). The recommended time-of-day for the installation is either sunset or midnight.

Called simply Searby’s, the installation comprises three individual parts. At ground level is the Welcome Area, where visitors are invited to spend time relaxing in a watery environment from which rises a rises of low hills covered with geometric patterns. Multi-hued spheres and shapes roll, drift and slide over and above this landscape, and visitors  are invited to interact with them.

Two teleport spheres at the arrival point will carry you up to the remaining parts of the installation. The first of these is Sound Spheres – and you definitely will need local sounds on for this. As the name suggests, it comprises a series of sphere of various sizes, all rotating on the spot, each displaying a quite psychedelic pattern of colour and light as it does so. Walking through a sphere triggers a unique sound: a tone, an electronic chord, voices, footsteps, excerpts from compositions, and so on. So wandering the space results in an interesting aural as well as visual experience.

The second teleport (you’ll have to return to ground level via the all white sphere in order to travel between levels) take you up to Seahorses, a huge kaleidoscopic  display focused on seahorses, and which is most certainly bet viewed in the suggested windlights of sunset or midnight.

“The Seahorses are also designed to walk through like the spheres but here the visual aim is different.  I wanted to create a ghostly feel to add another dimension to the sounds,” Dave says of this part of the installation. Viewing the piece at midnight and running, flying through the display certainly achieves that; the seahorses seem to transform into ghostly forms drifting by or perhaps elements of some strange, otherworldly spider’s web, while the sounds they trigger all blend and mix to create a constantly changing sound scape for as long as you are moving.

Searby’s will remain open until the end of December.

Related Links

• Spirit Within, an LEA Full Sim Art installation (Rated: Moderate)
• Searby’s, an LEA AIR round 7 installation (Rated: Moderate)

The Sea of Cubic Dreams is a new installation by the ALEGRIA Studio team. It is an intriguing piece, a preview, perhaps, of a much larger work which will be opening in the same region in due course, entitled Theatre Night’s Dream.

This prelude piece presents the visitor with a rich blue environment – it’s really best appreciated with the default windlight – penned on two sides by tall blue mural-like walls, the remaining two sides open to the surrounding sea.

floating on, under, or over the waters here are a series of differently sized black, blue and teal cubes which make good use of materials on their surfaces. They come in several different sizes, and if you get close enough to one (trying standing on the really big ones) you can sit down, give it a shove, and you’ll set off floating across the region until you opt to change direction with another shove, slow to a halt, or collide with another cube. The latter can, depending on the size of the cube you are sat upon, send you tumbling around (and up into the air or underwater), allowing you a bounce around the space.

Some of the cubes you collide with will also react, sliding off on their own or rolling over gently, depending on their size. Controlling your direction takes a little practice, and a set of three transparent region-wide prims stop you from colliding with the region boundaries or flying up off up too high. and it has to be said that bouncing around when someone else is using the cubes can be fun!

Theatre Night’s Dream is apparently being developed higher up in the air and sounds as intriguing as Cubic Sea of Dreams appears. “This is going to be the new ALEGRIA’s adventure,” the team say of the piece. “A surrealistic CG New Media Art installation inspired in the theatre and fantasy culture, the role of the hero in modern video games era, the Cloud Atlas film and Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

“Theatre Night’s Dream opens the gate between the real and fictional sides of its characters, all members of the cast of a theater production, as short stories where their real lives merges with their roles in the play during its release. Two worlds that blend into a night dream where they will have to face their tragedies and fears to become sublime.”

There’s currently no opening date for Theatre Night’s Dream, but doubtless one will be announced through ALEGRIA’s website and via the LEA blog when the productions starts. In the meantime, visitors are free to enjoy Cubic Sea of Dreams, and Ultraviolet Alter will be performing for the official opening at 14:00 SLT on Saturday August 16th.

Related Links

• The Sea of Cubic Dreams, LEA25 (Rated: General)
• ALEGRIA website

In February 2014, Mac Kanashimi unveiled Dragon Curves at LEA26. A stunning 3D piece of fractal art which quite captivated those who visited – including myself.

Now, as a part of the Artist In Residence (AIR) round 7 series, Mac is back at LEA26, this time with Pinwheels, which he invited me over to see on Saturday August 2nd, not long after he’d set it up in the region. Pinwheels is another remarkable mathematical structure with something of a fractal bent, and which uses Charles Radin’s pinwheel tilings, themselves based on the Conway triangles, to tremendous visual and artistic effect.

To explain this requires delving into a little bit of maths and geometry, but bear with me. A Conway triangle is a right-angle triangle with sides of 1, 2 and . which can be divided into five isometric copies of itself by the dilation factor of 1/  (see the image below), and when suitably rescaled and translated / rotated, can produce an infinite growing pattern of isometric copies of the original.

A pinwheel tiling is essentially a pattern of these isometric triangles where one tile may only intersect another either on a whole side or on half the 2 side (which actually makes the Conway triangle itself a pinwheel tiling – again, look at the image on the right and see how the five smaller triangles are positioned relative to one another). There’s actually more to the math than this, but I’ll let wikipedia explain the rest.

Like Dragon Curves, Mac’s Pinwheels is a huge piece, measuring 256 x 256m, but this time is confined vertically to a height of 256 metres as well, so to get the full measure of the piece – and to appreciate the overall complexity and beauty of the piece, you’ll need to ramp-up your draw distance to at least 600 metres, and cam out.

When you do so, the patterns of pinwheels and triangles and triangles within triangles becomes apparent. Each Conway triangle forms an individual segment made up of five prim isometric triangles of a similar shade (blues, greens, reds, etc, sometimes mixed with whites), which helps the eye to define individual groupings. These segments in turn are arranged to form pinwheels among themselves – although you’ll need to cam overhead to see them clearly.

Nor is it static; sections of the design rise and fall, creating an ever-changing landscape of colour and form, with only the arrival point, which is itself quite fascinating to watch. However, this motion isn’t in any way random; the triangles making up a particular pinwheel pattern all move together, and in doing so, they communicate their height and position to one another and to the surrounding segments.

The result of all this is that as the landscape changes and triangles and patterns rise and fall, paths can be found running through the entire construct, allowing the visitor to walk through it starting at the landing point (itself a static platform of 5 Conway triangles), with the individual prim triangles within each larger Conway triangle suitably adjusted so that they form steps for you to follow.

Just how artful this is requires you to walk through the piece. In this way you get to experience how the motion of segments works – no matter how the triangles on which you stand rise or fall relative to one another or to the surrounding patterns, no matter how high the plateau on which you find yourself lifted, or how far down into the depths of the piece you are carried, a footpath can always be found before you and behind you, leading you through the piece without ever necessarily reaching an end.

Pinwheels is another mathematical masterpiece from Mac, and will remain open through until the end of December. If you enjoyed Dragon Curves or if you’re into maths-based art, it’s a recommended visit.

Related Links

• Pinwheels, LEA26 (Rated: General)

Open now through until the end of July 2014 at LEA23 is Sniper Siemens’ brilliant installation Second Life History, a glorious walk through the platform’s past, marvellously presented in a series of visual vignettes which recapture events which are bound to be both familiar and new to Second Life residents.

From the landing point, one is invited to tread a watery path through a partially submerged park, only the trees, lamp posts and railings visible, the route leading the way from the gates and 2001, through successive years charting the highs and lows of Second Life’s past and present, before climbing a set of stairs towards the open door of the future, and the promise of the Lab’s “next generation” platform.

Along the way you can meet a Primitar (looking rather broken and forlorn, lying in the water) and various characters who point the way to different events and occurrences represented by information boards and self-contained scenes which evoke those moments of history and / or the emotions to which they gave rise.

So it is you can learn about (or recall, if you’ve been around long enough) such events as the initial Second Life closed beta in 2002, the opening of the gates to all in 2003, the tax revolt later that year, the arrival of the Linden dollar as a virtual currency and the advent of free accounts, Black September (2006), the banking shutdown of 2007, the Lab’s withdrawal from paying VAT on behalf of users in the European Union, and so on.

Technical innovations are also marked, both by overhead SL version numbers, and by their own little vignettes – LindenWorld, the first viewer, the arrival of the famous blue UI, prims, pay-to-TP teleport hubs, streaming media, open-sourcing the viewer, voice, windlight, viewer 2.0, it’s all here, as well as all the more recent technical innovations on the platform.

To call the installation a delight is an understatment; if you have any interest at all in SL’s history, it is guaranteed to stir memories, raise a smile, and more. There are a lot of cheeky little touches, and one or two personal pieces; one little vignette marks the rezday of sniper’s first avatar incarnation, while further around the installation is a wonderful little poke at Philip Rosedale’s stepping-down as CEO. Similarly, the arrival of viewer 2.0 is announced by the appropriately named (given users’ reaction to the viewer’s arrival) Curveball Resident.

While exploring the build, don’t miss the web icons; clicking these will take you the official blog posts on the subject being displayed / discussed. These include the very first official blog post from Philip Rosedale in 2004.

This really is a marvellous installation, and shame on me for not having found the time to write about it any sooner. If you’ve not already dropped-in, I really do urge you to do so before the end of July; I seriously doubt you’ll be disappointed!

Given the subject matter, it seems only appropriate that I close with yet another look back at LindenWorld from August 2001.

Related Links

• Second Life History (Rated: Moderate) – until Jul 31st, 2014