Tag: Linden Endowment for the Arts

On January 3rd, and thanks to Quan Lavender, I wrote-up a small piece on In the Belly of the Whale and Flash Mob, both of which are taking place under the auspices of the LEA in January. At the time of writing, Flash Mob was just in the process of starting-up, so I thought I’d pop back and take a peek – although admittedly with ulterior motives.

The event is the brainchild of Secret Rage, who is also curating it across LEA26 and LEA27. As noted in my preview report, Secret is inviting people to submit one or more art pieces (the total for which should not exceed 200 LI) to be displayed within one of the regions through until the end of January – the hope being to keep on adding pieces until the combined 30,000 LI capacity of both regions is reached.

Already a number of noted artists and SL photographers have responded to the call, and Flash Mob is turning into a fascinating collection of SL art work which is also quite possibly one of the most unique in SL in the way it is both bringing so many different talents together in one place and because there is no central theme or idea on which the exhibits are to be based, leading to an intrigue mix of exhibits.

Piece currently on display include works by Claudia222 Jewell (always a favourite), Giovanna Cerise, Bear Silvershade and Derry McMahon and Ziki Questi (three photographers I greatly admire), Haveit Neox, Betty Tureaud, Ataro Asbrink, Fuschia Nightfire – and more.

The pieces on display range from photos and paintings through sculptures and murals to interactive pieces, all set-out in an open landscape one can explore at will and in whatever direction one opts to take.

Given the nature of the event, it makes for a highly eclectic exhibit, one which perhaps gives visitors the chance to see works by people they’ve not come across in SL before (that’s certainly the case with me; I’ve already found pieces by several people I’ve added to my list of Names To Watch Out For in art and other announcements).

And the ulterior move for this revisit? Well, I got up the courage to submit 8 of my own images of places around SL, and Secret has put them up in a rather nice little display in what is the first time I’ve exhibited anything in-world.

I don’t expect anyone to visit Flash Mob simply because I have some pictures there, but given the august company surrounding my little efforts, I do commend Flash Mob as a worthwhile visit; It’s a great way to enjoy a very broad cross-section of SL art,

Related Links

• Flash Mob 1 SLurl
• Flash Mob 2 SLurl

Opening on Monday January 6th as a part of the LEA’s Full Sim Art series is Gem Preiz’s A Catherdral Dreamer, exhibiting his most recent fractal art creations and which is effectively one-third of a three-part exhibition. Opening at the same time (14:00 SLT on January 6th) will be an additional in-world exhibit featuring his fractal paintings, which includes those on display at LEA6, at his own gallery, while the third part comprises a version of A Cathedral Dreamer displayed on the Metropolis Opensim Grid.

The Installation comprises five distinct elements. There is a central arrival plaza, which is largely devoid of distinguishing features, symbolic of, Gem tells us, “the choices which each of us inevitably has to make about the various attitudes towards Life, the world and other people.” Surrounding this, and connected to it by individual paths, are four great exhibition halls, which the artist advises people to visit in the specific order of East, West, North and South.

The East hall, reached by a path which is increasingly given over to grass and plants, presents a submarine environment, sunlight falling into it from a dappled surface of waves high overhead. Here the images are strongly evocative of coral scenes, as fish and other creatures of the deep circle and swim. It is a place devoid of human presence; a place, Gem states, which “is the domain of the present and permanency at the same time.  It is also the evocation of the contemplative attitude of Man before Nature.”

To the West, within what might be an old, abandon warehouse, lay works representing humankind’s industrious nature, featuring huge and complex constructions and buildings of immense size and complexity – but all suffering from decay. From the roof hang a series of cages in which are set a number of human figures in evocative poses. Each of these conveys its own pathos, drawing the observer into its world in a quite powerful manner. This is a setting designed to evoke “the human society which takes, in its whirlwind, the individuals who are the actors and the slaves.”

The hall to the North is more hopeful, containing images of a possible future, focused on a grand and ambitious design, a great cathedral, designed to awe and overwhelm in its sheer beauty. However, one only has to examine the onlookers and the forlorn figure of the designer, seated with his back to the wall, head cradled in his hands, to know this great vision will never be achieved; it is simply to overwhelming.

Finally, to the South lies the future; a place of lines and light, which the artist describes as being, “beyond Time, beyond the world and beyond human activity.  A universe of pure concepts which evokes the domain and the activity of the spirit, and which everyone will fill with one’s own faith.” Take your time exploring here; there is more to be seen than might at first seem apparent.

The fractal images on display in the three halls are stunning in their depth and detail, deeply evocative and completely captivating in both their design and their beauty – even those representing decay and loss. The stories present within the halls – particularly the West and North halls – are also very emotive, drawing the visitor into them, encouraging careful observation in camming around if everything is to be captured fully and properly.

Four videos have been produced alongside the exhibition – the full listing is in the note card – and these are also striking in their grandeur and execution, featuring carefully considered music tracks. Pasting the links will play the videos in full-screen HD mode – and they really are worth watching; the marrying of soundtracks to images is simply superb. I’m including one here – make sure you play it full screen and set it to 480p.

A Cathedral Dreamer opens at 14:00 SLT on Monday January 6th, and will remain open until the end of the month. Recommended.

Related Links

• A Cathedral Dreamer SLurl (Rated: Moderate)
• Gem’s gallery in-world – Timamoon Arts

In December, I wrote a piece concerning Asterion Coen’s full sim installation formerly at LEA28. While I do admire Asterion’s builds – as I said in that article, they are a veritable tour de force of prim construction, and clearly demonstrate that the prim is far from dead as a building material – the installation itself appeared to be bereft of purpose.

As such, I wondered at the time I wrote my review as to the purpose of the installation, and the ideal behind it; questioning whether things had gone a little off-course due to something like a lack of cohesive guidance from the LEA or some other issue had caused the purpose of the installation to have become a little lost.

Asterion has since contacted me on the matter, and his comments have helped put things into a better perspective. Here, printed with his permission, is what he had to say:

About the content itself, The project should be as described in the LEA form, but some unwanted and unavoidable RL issues in my company meant I was unable to spend time on my SL projects (LEA and others).

If the LEA28 sim looked unstructured and just showroom, with lot of parts everywhere, it’s because I didn’t have time to finish everything as I had little time available for SL. Things were made worse because an inventory issue meant I lost a number of sections for the buildings. The military vehicles, for example, were to be a part of a museum I originally built for Bourbon Island [now apparently closed], but which vanished from my inventory.

Those issues, in addition to my RL ones, made it impossible for me to finish the sim. Had the time been available, there would have been another platform about space and an underground moonbase (in lava tubes). This platform would have been accessed via a shuttle, a lift and other vehicles. The project would have meant people would not be allowed to fly, and would be asked to move around using the vehicles provided and along designated paths.

We can never predict how RL will impact our SL times and work; when matters take an unexpected turn, sometimes we have no choice but to re-prioritise and deal with some matters later. In Asterion’s case, problems with RL appear to have coincided with a period of his SL life that was especially busy, and unfortunately, the latter suffered.

While it would be easy to second-guess what might have been done differently or how things might have been handled better, the fact is that at the time, things were dealt with in the best manner that appeared to be possible. The result was less than satisfying for those of us visiting LEA28 and equally – if not more so – for Asterion himself.

For my part, I’d like to thank him for taking the time to contact me and let me know more of the circumstances surrounding the installation at LEA28. I certainly and sincerely hope that real life does settle down positively for him in 2014, and look forward to seeing more of his creations – particularly those with a “space” theme (!) – within SL in the future.

In the late 1990s, I caught a series on Discovery (or possibly TLC before it got rebranded by Discovery UK), called Connections 2. It was the follow-up to a series originally made and broadcast by the BBC back in the ’70s or ’80s and called (oddly enough) Connections back in the ’70s or ’80s. In it, commentator, broadcaster and journalist James Burke demonstrated how various discoveries, scientific achievements, and historical world events were built from one another successively in an interconnected way to bring about particular aspects of modern technology.

I bring this up because I was put in mind of how that series drew connections between people, events and so on to present a narrative on how we arrived at a modern aspect of technology and / or thinking, while touring Takni Miklos’ Plankton, which is open through until the end of December as a Part of the LEA’s Full Sim Art series.

Like the television series, Plankton is about making connections. There are very strong cultural / historical elements here, rooted in particular in astronomy, leading to something of a theme of continuity running through some elements of the installation which connect the past right through to our lives. But unlike the TV series, there is no actual narrative, per se; one is very much left to draw one’s own through the process of exploration.

The connections in Plankton take several forms and are as much about how we connect with the installation as they are with themes or ideas. There are a number of ways in which to move around: “taxi” teleporters, point-to-pint teleports, elevators, walkways – you can even use your “inner pig” (presented to you on arrival) to reach other avatars in the region, thus offering the means to connect with them.

All of this means that any two experiences within the installation and the connections made when travelling through it are likely to be same. How you proceed, the choices you make in your explorations, lead to discoveries and connections which are not necessarily linear; making this a complex and involved place to explore.

Aspects of the installation extend from the ground, up through multiple platforms and spheres reaching high up into the sky. Not all of them are linked to the cultural / astronomy theme, so may even appear frivolous or confusing. But it is worthwhile taking your time in exploring and moving around.

One thing you can be sure of is that this is a lively space, with almost everything within it interacting with the visitor in some way, either responding to direct touch or to the nearby presence of any avatar. Even the landscape at ground level is in places changing, where objects will freely interact with one another as well as to the presence of visitors.

In all, I’m not sure words really suffice in describing it – better you go and see for yourself!

Related Links

• Plankton at LEA21 (Rated: Moderate)

Giovanna Cerise’s latest installation, Fisicofollia, opened at LEA6 on Monday December 16th as part of the LEA’s Full Sim Art Series.

Fisicofollia takes as its springboard the Futurist movement,  and particularly the works of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Fortunato Depero, Giacomo Balla, and Enrico Prampolini.

Marinetti effectively founded the movement following the publication of The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism (1909), in which he declared,  “Art, in fact, can be nothing but violence, cruelty, and injustice.” Violence became one of the themes emphasised and glorified by the movement, alongside others such as speed, technology, and youth, together with objects such as the industrial city, the car and the aeroplane; indeed, almost anything that represented the technological triumph of humanity over nature.

Futurist were slow to develop a distinctive style in the early years, initially basing their works on Divisionism, the breaking light and colour down into a field of stippled dots and stripes, before adopting Cubism as they looked to find a more individual means of expression through their works.

In terms of paintings, many of the works by Futurists exhibited strong lines and often imbued a sense of velocity through a blurring of lines and form. These aspects are somewhat reflected in elements of this installation. One section in particular uses colour and blurring to great effect. Elsewhere, there is a more free-form interpretation of the movement’s works, which embraced not only paintings, but sculpture, architecture, fabrics and fashion.

Throughout the main part of the build is the figure of a man, constructed from blue-shaded pyramids or tetrahedrons. Of varying sizes, it appears to be leaning back, arms raised horizontally, and is found in various sizes and numbers across the installation. Many of these figures are regimented into lines, some even into ordered into ranks. The latter are especially evocative of the movement’s militaristic leanings, their ordered rows, identical poses and colours suggestive of soldiers on parade. Draw in close to these figures, and they seem to mix and merge into a stippling effect, again perhaps again echoing the influence Divisionism had on the Futurists.

Geometry is used to great effect throughout the piece. One section of the installation appears to be draped in mist; approach it, however, and one discovers the mist is in fact a series of closely spaced, translucent grids, forming a moiré pattern which breaks-up  the landscape and which shifts and changes as one’s eye (and camera) moves.

Patterns are also formed through the use of multiple parallel lines, spaced and placed to give the impression of stairways. Higher-up, in what is very much as three-dimensional design, these come together, Escher-like, to form eternal stairways leading nowhere, presenting a place where, to use Giovanna’s words, “lines, planes, shapes and colours combine, alluding to an invention related to childhood and madness.”

Along with the visual elements of the piece is an accompanying sound scape, and it is recommended that the visitor has sounds enabled when visiting in order to benefit from the auditory elements present in the installation.

As well as describing Fisicofollia as a free-form interpretation of the Futurist movement’s approach to art, Giovanna also refers to the piece as:

A multi-dimensional performance space, in which light and shadow, colour and movement are the protagonists. The scene expands to create a multiplicity of perspectives in a continuous emotional tension … The visitor can interact with the environment simply going through it, resulting in different visual impressions.

Fisicofollia is open through until the end of December 2013.

Related Links

• Fisicofollia SLurl (Rated: Moderate)