Recently opened at LEA6 is Krystali Rabeni’s A Maze in Grace, which offers visitors a two-part maze to explore.
“Labyrinths are arguably mankind’s first creation borne purely of human imagination. Today, labyrinths and mazes cradle millennia of legend and folklore in their twisted articulations,” Krystali says of the piece. “Labyrinth and maze imagery has at different periods of time in various parts of the world been associated with all aspects of human life. It has been used as a symbol of fertility and birth, as well as one of purgatory and death. It has religious and meditative importance in Hindu, Christian, Islamic, Buddhist and Shamanic rituals.”
The starting point for this particular maze is a raised stone terrace ranged to the west of the region, and which offers visitors a note card on the installation. Much of the rest of the region has been flooded, squat grassy banks dividing the water up into channels which surround the terrace. Fours sets of steps, one on each side of the terrace, descend into the ankle-deep waters. At the foot of each set of steps is a sign admonishing people to Keep Off The Grass – a reminder that the water forms the paths of the maze, not the grassy banks.
Within these channels lie several paths which will lead the explorer around and through the region, passing through gaps in the grass banks and to the entrance to the second part of the maze. This is a classic Venus labyrinth, the labyrinth of love and creation, and itself represented by the water element, and one of the nine celestial labyrinths.
There are also a couple of secrets to be found as you journey along the watery paths, passing swans and sculptures alike. The first of these is A Maze in Grace; the second, a solitary koi carp. The koi is also reflective of the overall theme of the installation, having a strong life symbolism of it own, as described in the introductory note card.
Krystali tells visitors that as with life, there is no map to help people through this maze. The paths to the centre are many and varied; some people may opt for the short, quick routes to the Venus labyrinth, others may try for the longer paths. There is no right or wrong; but also, as Krystali says, there is no rush nor race. This is a place where you can wander with your thoughts for as long or as short a time as you like.
After all, as many in the past have noted, it is not the destination that counts, but rather the journey taken.
Now open through until June 30th on LEA19 is Hyakki Yagyou – Chaotic Parade. Curated by Yooma Mayo, this is a collaborative / shared space installation, featuring the work of 25 SL artists (see the installation poster at the end of this article for the names of all who participated), which draws its inspiration from the Gazu Hyakki Yagyō.
Dating from the 1770’s, Gazu Hyakki Yagyō, “The Illustrated Night Parade of a Hundred Demons” was the first volume in an ehon by Toriyama Sekien, and which featured illustrations of assorted beasts, demons, ghosts, monsters and more, drawn (literally and figuratively) from assorted Japanese folklore, stories and artwork.
Sekien’s demonic parade, spread over a number of volumes, was not something you’d wish to encounter, as doing so could prove fatal or result in the procession laying claim to you, and carrying you away.
The parade at LEA19 features quite the menagerie winding its way up into the sky over the region. I confess to not being sufficiently familiar with all of the beasties and assorted demons and others from the original to say which among those spiralling upwards in Second Life are drawn directly from Japanese lore – although some educated guesses can be taken. However, it is fairly clear that a number of the demons here are from times a lot more recent that the 1770/1780s – which doesn’t make them any less fascinating to witness.
For those wishing to poke and pry some more into the individual creations, Yooma has provided a list of all the demons in the parade (broken down into three parts) listing their name and the artist responsible for creating them, together with a snapshot of the creature in question.
Rather than run through them here, what I will say is that this parade is an imaginative, vibrant swirl of colour and motion, each piece within it forming a unique part of the whole. Each of them is delightfully detailed – even the creepy-crawlies – and naturally draw you in and encourages careful camming and studying in order to capture it all. Doubtless when doing so, you’ll find you’ll have certain favourites among the gathering…
…Just be careful they also don’t decide to make you their favourite, and spirit you off forever on their nocturnal chaotic meanderings!
Igor Ballyhoo’s Cyber Orthodoxopened on Sunday May 11th, the first installation in the 4th round of the Linden Endowment for the Arts Full Sim Art series.
Born of the artist’s fascination with the amount of time and energy humans spend trying to convince the world at large that their way is the “right” way, hence the “orthodox” of the title, and his overall response to such attempts: that perhaps we cannot know, and that as such, it is better to keep an open mind to all possibilities, rather than in trying to constrain thinking.
The term “orthodox” implies religion; and there’s certainly there is much in the installation which does poke at religious dogma. However, it would not be fair to classify cyber Orthodox as “anti-religion”. While the symbolism in places is clear, there is much else commented upon here than may at first be apparent to the eye.
The setting for the installation is somewhat industrial; great steel scaffolds stand on two sides of the flooded region, supporting two mammoth curved walls made up of overlapping metal plates. At the base of these are piled the kind of concrete forms sometimes seen in parts of sea defences, designed to break-up the force of incoming waves.
To the north side of the region stand four large concrete piers, towers rising from their northern ends. Sculptures stand both at the ends of these piers and atop their towers, while steel frames supported thick glass form bridges between them, alternately connecting tower with tower, pier with pier, and thus to a further walkway at the foot of the high wall which forms a route around the installation.
The sculptures on the piers range from a piece called The Processing of Splitting Things, through Icarus, the all-seeing eye (with it’s religious and cult related meanings), the cross, a stylised mosquito, to the remnants of a great model of Titan. What do they mean? And what of the ornate cube, suspended between four great concrete piles between two of the piers, within which sits a strand of the double helix?
Out on the water are four more pieces. There’s another gigantic scaffold, the upper parts of which resemble the masts of the ship. This shares the space with a cross of transparent cubes, within which sits a chariot, as if surrounded by clouds, a pair of stylised winged horses, flames rising from them, the entire piece, at first suggestive of Apollo riding his chariot across the sky. Not far from this is an apple floating in the centre of an Esher-like staircase, and a group of slowly rotating minarets floating among clouds. Meaning here is layered.
To take one of these pieces, the apple within the Esher staircase, for example. At first look, it might be taken as a comment upon how the strictures of religious belief (represented by the apple and its association with humanity’s fall from grace). The adherence to the orthodox dogma of a religion can ultimately be circular in nature, appearing to go somewhere whilst ultimately going nowhere.
However, closer examination of the apple reveals it to be etched with a grid work of lines, suggestive of some form of digital mapping, perhaps indicative of the creation of the perfect apple. So is the apple perhaps a metaphor for our hunt for perfection (as modern society perhaps tries to impress upon us through advertising, etc.) in looks and form? The comment again being on the circular nature of such pursuits?
Thus, the various pieces within the installation appear open to more than one interpretation, something which itself underlines the central theme of the piece, that insistence upon orthodoxy is a negative presumption on our part which, in the face of all that surrounds us, tends to limit our understanding more than it gives us growth?
In this, three of the pieces might be seen as particularly poignant: Icarus, the sailing-ship like scaffold and that of chariot lifted aloft by winged horses. These seem to be encouraging us all to keep an open mind, to spread our wings and set our thinking free as we voyage the sea of infinite possibilities, considering all and rejecting none.
Which brings me back to The Process of Splitting Things and the cube housing the DNA strand. Both might be seen as reflections on the reality of life and how it has over the eons, through the simple act of division – the process of splitting things – gone from the most basic of single-celled organisms to the very richness and diversity of life as we know it today, as exemplified by the DNA strand.
Here, perhaps, stands another message which can be addressed to those seeking to impose the confines of their own orthodoxy on us all, a message perhaps best summarised in a quote from Rad Bradbury: Life was its own answer. Life was the propagation of more life and the living of as good a life as possible.
Cyber Orthodox will be open through until the end of May 2014.
Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future, And time future contained in time past. If all time is eternally present All time is unredeemable. What might have been is an abstraction Remaining a perpetual possibility Only in a world of speculation.
These words from the opening of Burnt Norton, the first of T.S Eliot’s Four Quartets, were the first to enter my head while visiting LEA15 and Solkide Auer’s The Timewalkers, an installation which encourages you to contemplate time and its meaning, as you ride a pod up through the giant clock, and upwards into the wealth of colour, pattern and light, set against the backdrop of night.
Riding the pod up through the installation, I personally found a strong resonance between the piece and Eliot’s contemplation of time. Time is the one immutable force we cannot deny. It rules every aspect of our lives, past, present and future. It surrounds each of us as we live our lives of colour and light.
When contemplating time in reference to our own lives, we so often we look back; wondering what might have been, had a different path been taken. So even as we look back, we also catch a glimpse of a future that might have been. Thus our thoughts themselves span the past, present and future, even as well continue to travel forward.
And yet, here lies a conundrum: to be conscious of time is to be apart from our understanding of time, for consciousness implies a fixed perspective while time is characterised by a transient relativity focused on a fixed point in the present. Yet at the same time, the contemplation of time is also the contemplation of the eternal, as Eliot himself noted when he wrote:
Time past and time future Allow but a little consciousness. To be conscious is not to be in time But only in time can the moment in the rose-garden, The moment in the arbour where the rain beat, The moment in the draughty church at smokefall Be remembered; involved with past and future. Only through time time is conquered.
Wherever your thoughts take you, Solikide offers a stunning display, rich in colour while deeply evocative of the passage of time itself, be it through obvious elements such as the clock, the pendulum and the metronome, or in more subtle fashion through the slowly rotating circles which suggest the never-ending cycle of time, or the slow rocking of the bell-like objects hanging below them, or the colour terrible clefts which seem to fall like dying leaves, their time of growth now done, and which also carried more of Eliot’s evocative poem to my mind.
And what then of life and death? Time is all-encompassing, and a journey through it can hardly be devoid of thoughts on where we all are destined to travel. The symbolism here also seems apparent as one ascends up through the piece, rising towards the light, passing the “bells” tolling silently (and perhaps causing an echo of another writer’s words – those of John Donne), to arrive at a place of intricate beauty.
Wherever your own thoughts take you, do make sure you spend time – no pun intended – as a Timewalker. It’s a visually stunning installation, and one that stirs the grey matter. Recommended.
This project began as a self guided spiritual learning path but quickly became an all-encompassing Journey of Ascending To A Higher Place with each individual choosing how they want to perceive the experience and to what degree of Complexity and learning they choose. Life is a continuous journey of choices, represented by the many choices provided for you at many levels.
So states Tansee in her opening remarks about her new exhibition at LEA16 on Sunday May 4th.
Ascension is further described as “a celebration of colour, sight, sound and spirit”, and presents a series of themes and ideals in the form of an exploratory journey. This starts at an underwater landing point, where you can take a note card on the installation (recommended). Seven tunnels, each a particular colour intended to represent a specific chakra, all lead to an undersea environment which can be explored before selecting one of seven ropes and climbing up to the Ascension island.
Here one can take one of seven further tunnels, each leading out to an encircling garden which is divided into seven areas, each representing a state / mood reflective of one’s state of self (“I Know”, “I Do”, “I Feel”, etc.). Here, different activities are presented to be shared and enjoyed, with each area having a slide show present thoughts on self and one’s being.
The circular nature of the garden, complete with path leading the way between each of the seven areas, represents the endless infinity of birth and rebirth. The areas bordering the path are intended as places where people can seek refuge, relaxation, renewal and a sense of spiritual growth.
As well as providing access to the garden, the central Ascension island offers visitors a very literal journey of ascension, flying up through a series of chakra spheres, each one offering the opportunity to learn about the chakra in question, and the emotional states associated with it. Each sphere provides a place of rest and meditation, so one’s journey need not be rushed. For those who prefer, teleport boards offer a means of moving up and down between the spheres – although I recommend flying, as it’s easy to miss things along the way when teleporting.
At the very top of the installation is a MerKaBa, a vehicle of Ascension, which it is believed can be activated by certain principles in meditation. These involve breathing changes, and mind, heart, and body changes that alter the way a person perceives the reality. A fully activated MerKaBa field enables you to turn your body into a ball of light and bring it with you as you travel between worlds on different spiritual planes.
Towards the back (north side) of the installation is the International Mountain of Peace, a place where visitors are invited to use a series of direct input boards to leave their own thoughts with the world on matters of wisdom, love, hope, peace and more, either signed or anonymously.
As well as representing a spiritual journey and an encouragement for us all to celebrate joy, compassion and understanding, and carry these ideals into the world at large, the Ascension also represents a personal journey undertaken by Tansee herself, who notes, “When I began this project in December, I was not sure what a script did, had no idea what a particle was, and did not really know how to form a group. What a Beautiful Challenge it has been! This opportunity was a facing of fears for me personally. I wanted to prove to myself that despite my personal challenges, determination and success can and will prevail if you believe in yourself.”
To mark the opening of the installation, The Ascension will be hosting a special live performance. Sky Fires, will feature the work of Particle Tom and Lexi, with music by DJ Sunshine. The event will take place at 14:00 SLT on Sunday May 4th, on the Chromatic Atmospheres particle platform.
History has a tendency to be a little ironic at times. Thirteen months ago, the United Kingdom and Russia issued a joint declaration that 2014 would be the bi-lateral UK-Russia Year of Culture. At the time they sat down to sign that agreement, little did Sergey Lavrov, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation and William Hague, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs of the United Kingdom, would be facing one another across a quite different table and under less convivial circumstances in April 2014.
Not that the one should in any way negate or cancel the other. Rather the reverse, in fact. In the face of mounting political tensions, one would hope that the events staged in both the UK and in Russia as a part of the bi-lateral UK-Russia Year of Culture would stand as a reminder of each side’s humanity and the benefits of people of different nationalities looking beyond superficial national boundaries and collaborating with one another.
Bryn Oh / Vladimir Tatlin: Monument to the Third International, The Golden Age of the Russian Avant-Garde, LEA8
And collaboration is very much the focal-point of one of the pieces selected by the British Council for display in Russia, and it is one that crosses not only the political divide, but also the digital divide as well.
The Golden Age of Russian Avant-Garde is a large-scale exhibition project, created especially for the main exhibition hall of Moscow’s Manege Museum by Peter Greenaway (UK) and Saskia Boddeke (Holland) supported by the British Council. The primary part of this exhibition opened in Moscow on April 15th, and will run through until May 18th, 2014, in an exhibition space totalling some 5,000 square metres – which is enormous by any standards. This multimedia installation will feature, in the words of the British Council:
Polyscreen installations made with the help of the most up-to-date projection, light and sound equipment. It will represent a new approach to the history of art, creating new visuals and new possibilities for learning about the world around us through images. Using polyscreens as an artistic method not only allows us to explore new aspects in paintings or sculptures: synchronised images, bound together by a single idea, create new architectonics, bringing another dimension to the exhibition. Combining film and painting, animation and 3D technology helps create a unified atmospheric work, drawing the viewer into the space of Russian avant-garde.
But this is more than a real-world exhibition. A major element of the piece exists not in the real-world, but in Second Life, at LEA8, to be precise.
It is here that Saskia Boddeke, perhaps better known to many of us as artist Rose Borchovski has brought together seven artists from around the world, each with the task of recreating a famous element of the Russian avant-garde movement, also known as Constructivism, in-world (and some in the real world as well), and which forms a part of the overall exhibition space, real and virtual.
The SL exhibits are placed on multiple, interactive levels within a pseudo-industrial setting. Here direct re-interpretations of famous elements from the Constructivist movement – such as Bryn Oh’s representation of the never-built (at least in full size) Monument to the Third International by Tatlin (and also known as “Tatlin’s Tower” and regarded as a key work of the movement) and Popova’s stage design for theatrical director / actor Vsevolod Meyerhold, recreated by Nessuno Myoo through to broader pieces drawn from within and beyond the Constructivist movement and presented in both 2D and 3D installations.
A further cross-cultural element is evident in the SL installation. When exploring, you might come across avatars named AvanteGarde001 through AvanteGarde004. These are in fact controlled by visitors to the Manege Museum in Moscow, who are invited to extend their visit to the real-world pieces there into the realm of the virtual – and have been able to do so since the real-world exhibition opened.
Exploration of the SL exhibit space requires a reasonable amount of time – there is a lot to see; even the environment itself, designed by Bryn, makes a powerful statement. Not only does it frame the pieces on display and provides the means by which they can be explored, it also reflects the form and context of the Constructivist movement and the age they represented.
In terms of the pieces on display, each offers a unique view on the movement and / or the era. In this, I found Eupalinos Ugajin’s interpretation of We, Yevgeny Zamiatine’s dystopian novel particularly interesting, given its historical context. While the Constructivist movement celebrated and promoted the ideals of the socialist state, Zamiatine’s novel painted a far more negative image of socialism: that of a repressive police state. In doing so, it became the first work to be banned by the Soviet censorship board shortly after its publication. The inclusion of a piece reflective of We is given greater depth when one considers the manner in which Constructivism itself was to be suppressed (and some of its proponents forced into exile or murdered) following Stalin’s rise to power and repressive leadership of the state machine.
However, perhaps the most remarkable piece in the installation is Jo Ellsmere’s representation of V. Meyerhold’s biomechanics, a system he developed for training actors. This uses five beautifully scripted avatars moving in a series of synchronised movements which sees them move both as an individual unit, and as five unique elements of the whole, a slight syncopation to their movements giving them a time-lapsed grace which cannot easily be captured in still images and really has to be seen to be appreciated. There is much here that reaches beyond the immediacy of the installation and offers a lot of potential for synchronised movement in art and dance.
As one might expect, a piece of this magnitude, whether real or virtual, takes a huge amount of effort to bring together, and I am for one very glad that RL events didn’t result in either the real or the virtual aspects of this remarkable celebration from being derailed. This is not an exhibition to be missed and if you are fortunate enough to be able to see the real-world elements at the Manege, I envy you.
Definitely one for the books – and kudos to all those involved. When visiting the LEA installation, don’t forget you can also pick-up one of several (or all, if you like), avatars near the arrival point and make yourself a part of the exhibits offered for your delight and consideration. For my part, the LEA installation only presents one problem; such are the pieces on display here, that they each really deserve an individual review / exploration.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 