Tag: MetaLES

On Monday, January 15th, Ux Hax and Second Life partner, Romy Nayar, announced that their art region, MetaLES, would be closing at the end of the day. The announcement came in a simple statement passed through a number of art group:

After 8 years of art, fantasy and work MetaLES ..O.. closes its doors. Many thanks to all the artists, bloggers, friends and visitors who made it possible, The decision is for the lack of time to dedicate to the project.

Kisses and hugs

Romy & Ux

“Yes today is the last day,” Ux informed me. “We are sad, but the art in SL will continue!” He went on to say that the lack of time mentioned in the notices is related to a new physical world project he and Romy are involved in. However, he refused to be drawn into providing any  specifics for the time being.

My first exposure to MetaLES was back when it was referred to as Per4mance MetaLES ..O.., and came with the installation Conformational Change by Selavy Oh. However, it wasn’t until 2013 and Cica Ghost’s Ghostville that I regularly started blogging about the region and installations hosted there.

From the start, MetaLES proved a popular venue for some of Second Life’s top artists – Selavy, Rebeca Bashly, Cica, Cherry Manga, Eupalinos Ugajin, Moya, Bryn Oh, Kicca Igaly, Nessuno Myoo, Igor Ballyhoo, to name but a few, together with Romy and Ux themselves. The depth of art displayed on the region speaks volumes on the esteem in which both Romy and Ux are held by the SL arts community. For my part, one of the great attractions of the installations presented through the region has been the depth of narrative in so many of them.

For example, both Haveit Neox and Igor Ballyhoo both explored ecological issues with The Haul and Tumor respectively; JadeYu Fang examined our anxieties through OpeRaAxiEty;  Rebeca Bashly explored ideas of birth, growth and life, and renewal with Queens Gambit Declined, while Ux and Romy explored the tarot through a multi-part series of installation in Escenas / Scenes (see here, here and here).

Such is the richness of art displayed at MateLES over the years, that it is hard to pick out a personal favourite – I thoroughly enjoyed all of those mentioned above, as well pieces like the exploration of Gaston Leroux’s Le Fantôme de l’Opéra in A Bit of Red, by Kicca Igaly and Nessuno Myoo, and lighter installations like Romy’s Sparky’s.

MetaLES is currently hosting three exhibitions, all of which will end with the closure: Shattered, by Theda Tammas, Melancholy by Ini Inaka and Journey into Communication by Nevereux (see here).  All three are well worth a visit.

SLurl Details

• Journey into Communication (MetaLES, rated: Moderate) – only available until the end of Monday, January 15th, SLT.

 

Now open at MetaLES, curated by Ux Hax and Romy Nayar, is Journey into Communication, an installation by Nevereux. Mixing 2D art, words and 3D settings, it presents a quirky but thought-provoking journey into the ways in which we communicate which all contains a degree of social commentary and some insight into the artist herself.

Nevereux introduces the installation in a completely self-effacing manner, “So here you’ll find everything you need (aside from few artistic skills) so to waste your most precious 77 minutes. Due to a fortunate series of coincidences, you’ll find a brand new iPhoneZ and a handsome pencil on the ground. Sure I’ve also got lots of decent pictures, but they’re all just kinda boring. Keep yourself awaken by sniffing the paint(ings) on the walls.”

This drastically undersells the installation, reached via teleport from the MetaLES landing point. The art is ranging in a circle around a slightly undulating snowy landscape. Pictures hang from the sky, and are mounted within small sets related to their subject matter (those on signals from space, immersion, and similar, are presented within the shells of what might be a space station, for example).

At first, the installation can be confusing – however there is logic to it. A raised stage sits in the south-east corner, with a door marked Enter beneath it. This is the starting-point, and visitors should progress from here in a clockwise direction around the display areas. The first of these poses the question about how we look at the world: through the limits of the screen – be it television, computer, ‘phone and so on – or through the richness of knowledge and imagination presented by books. After this, we are warned – again in a self-effacing comment: This is where it all gets a bit surreal.

Surreal things might be in places; but so to are they rich in depth and meaning – pointed to by way of the labels each has. “The images you see here are concepts,” Nevereux states. And they very much are – and more. They are reflections and thought on life, how we relate to one another, to the world around us, our condition – even on the way life has been reduced to a matter of consumerism. In many these ideas are clearly offered, either directly or through the support of accompanying text; in others, they are more obscure, encouraging one to take time considering them.

This is a provocative exhibition in that it demands thought and consideration when visiting. There is even, as noted, a small section offering insight into Neverex herself – and it is beautifully presented: through the words of a poem. Bitter-sweet, poignant and rich in imagery, this alone make a visit worth while.

SLurl Details

• Journey into Communication (MetaLES, rated: Moderate)

Wild Lost Line, now open at MetaLES, curated by Ux Hax and Romy Nayar, is a new art / sound installation by artist and musician Morlita Quan, a physical world artist hailing from Spain and working under the name. Her artistic expression covers 2D and 3D art and music, and all three are very much reflected in her Second Life presence.

The installation should be be viewed with the viewer’s Advanced Lighting Model enabled and local sounds turned on, with local time set to midnight. There is a recommendation to set Shadows to Sun/Moon + Projectors, but given the time-of-day setting and the fact that Shadows can result in a sizeable performance hit for some, I would suggest this isn’t so vital a requirement. I would, however, recommend using headphones to get the full stereo effect of the aural environment. Once you are set-up, touch the teleport board at the MetaLES landing point to jump to the installation.

This comprises a path through a series of halls and rooms in which Mori’s art is displayed, the route through them indicated by black or white arrows on floors and walls. The art itself is offered on a huge scale, from drape-like hangings you must walk through, to pieces forming floors and ceilings, as well a those hanging on walls. They are, perhaps, a little too huge – but I’ll come back to that.

The final part of the exhibit takes you along the top of the walls separating the various rooms, allowing you another view of the art on display. at the end of this, a teleport drops you to a 3D element, a flower-like structure surrounded by floating cubes. Touch a white cube at the base of “stem” of this, and you’ll be seated within the “petals”, where touching the surrounding ring  of coloured triangles and the small spheres below them will allow you to play various notes and tones. From here, a ramp leads you back into the installation while a teleport board takes you back the MetaLES landing point.

Quantifying Wild Lost Line is difficult. I find Mori’s work to be its most captivating when a piece can be seen in its entirety. This allows one to fully appreciate its complex beauty, the use of line, colour, shade and pattern to present something deeply organic yet also clearly geometrically defined. Such is the overwhelming size of the pieces present in Wild Lost Line, my deeper appreciation born of this appreciation of complexity and form was lost amidst the technicalities of camera juggling and an inability to easily encompass all of a single piece comfortably in my view. Thus, I found myself conflicted in touring the installation.

However, you may see things differently – so why not pay a visit?

SLurl Details

• MetaLES landing point (MetaLES, rated: Moderate)

Hauling, on land and in the sea. Exploring limits and bypassing any respect for them, while stringing our catch into a growing story.

So reads the introduction to Haveit Neox’s latest installation The Haul, which opened on February 5th, 2017 at MetaLES, curated by Ux Hax and Romy Nayar. It’s an interesting description, offering just enough to pique the curiosity and point the imagination in a certain direction, without laying bare the artist’s intent or hope.

Occupying the region’s sea level – loftier reaches being occupied by Chimkami’s Illogism (which you can read about here), The Haul offers an enigmatic setting which is both familiar and other-worldly. Teleporting from the MetaLES landing point, visitors arrive on the deck of a vessel, one of three in fact, although it appears to have collided with one of its sister ships. All are deserted, delicate sails unfettered by rigging, silent roll outwards from heavy masts, caught in a gentle breeze.

Above these ships are four giant objects, looking like some otherworldly jelly fish floating serenely in the currents of the air. Three of these drop chain-like lines or tentacles down into the sea, but the largest trails an intricate filigree of lines and webbing from its rim, in which are caught fish and other creatures. Look up inside this great jelly fish of the sky, and you will see this web of tentacles is in fact nets, the catch within them being hauled aloft by figures poised on spheres within the great dome.

Nor is this all. Follow the lines of the smaller “jelly fish” down below the waves and you will find them drifting over ruins encrusted in coral – some are even holding the upturned form of an encased car. The ruins are arranged around a central square, the remains of a great hall to one side. In the midst of this former square, delicate, broken spiral of coral rises, its spines and turns resembling a broken strand of DNA.

What are we to make of all of this? The clue seems to rest in Haveit’s description: we explore – or exploit – over land and sea. We take what we want, ignoring limits and showing no respect for the damage our actions may cause, stringing everything into a net of greed and want. Not even the loss of our homes and lifestyles (the flooded ruins a reference to global warming?) can stop us, even as we sow the seeds of our own destruction (which are perhaps embodied in the sleeker, smaller, group of “jellyfish” which seem to be approaching the larger group in an almost predatory manner).

Of course, this is only one interpretation, you my well find your own narrative within the great tableau, and it is Haveit’s ability to put before us some pages from a narrative hidden within our thoughts, as much as his ability to create such beautifully intricate pieces as these, which make him not just an artist, but a master storyteller and a social commentator.

Fascinating, beautiful and challenging, The Haul will remain open through until the end of March 2017.

SLurl Details

• The Haul (MetaLES, rated: Moderate)

Now open at MetaLES, curated by Ux Hax and Romy Nayar, is Illogism (from the French Illogisme, or illogicality), an exhibition of 55 images by Chimkami. These are presented in large format within a bizarre environment visualised by Romy Nayar, designed to represent disproportionate, or diform, doll’s houses of enormous size, and which are themselves contained within a large doll’s house.

“At all heights, outside as inside the houses, “Chimkami notes in her introduction to the setting, “you can discover the photos in this universe freed from any constraint, exposed with [the] nonsensical. Each corner and nook will reveal photos and rest places. Will you have nerves to find them ? Walk, fly, use your camera, relax, laugh, observe, discuss, as you want. Only one thing matters: take pleasure in it!”

It is a curious, bewildering environment where gravity plays no part: a dance floor is located on a ceiling, objects occupy roof tops and floors, images hang from walls or occupy the clefts and cuts through objects. Houses stand and float or sit at the end of disembodied stairs and plank-like walks, their shapes twisted, squeezed or bent, the photos in them, on them and around them.

The best way to get around is to join the MetaLES group at the installation’s landing point. This will give you local rezzing rights, so you can grab a Walker from the neighbouring board, rez it, and then sit on it. This will allow you to freely explore the space – use the standard WASD keys of arrow keys for navigation – and will also allow your to walk up walls, cross ceilings and along the various twisted paths through the exhibition. Along the way, there are various points where you might also enjoy rides, take a seat, and so on.

The images themselves are an eclectic mix, focusing on avatar studies, but not exclusive human in nature. Some are stylised, others more direct, others lean towards monochrome, others in bright, bold colours. All are subject to individual interpretation and appreciation. Such is the size of things, that getting around to everything can take time.

Illogism is an interesting piece. Quirky, a little out of the ordinary, a space where we are presented as tiny explorers, and where everything is being close examined from “outside” – look out for the eyes staring through the windows of the enclosing doll’s house. It will remain open through until February 28th, 2017.

SLurl Details

• Illogism (MetaLES, rated: Moderate)

Now open at MetaLES, curated by Ux Hax and Romy Nayar, is OpeRaAxiEty,  by JadeYu Fang. Reached via teleport from the landing point, it presents a haunting mix of ideas and images  intended to play on our anxieties – albeit at times in the most subtle of ways (make sure you have local sounds enabled when visiting).

A misty landscape awaits visitors, across which web-like lines faintly ebb and flow and the air throbs with a steady beat, warping at times into the high-pitched beep of an electrocardiogram. These combine to offer the first play on feelings of discomfort.

In the distance, a huge structure glimmers its way into the sky, figures limned against its glow while darker shapes sit on the horizon. Closer to hand, a hill rises from the surroundings, crowned by twin human torsos atop stilt-like legs, each holding a sphere in which two more figures, back-to-back, stand surrounded by eggs as large, blood-red spiders sit on their abdomens as if about to suckle. Apparently genuflecting before this scene on the slope of the hill, is a crystal Arachne (as perhaps popularised more by fantasy than mythology).

A web forms a bridge from these figures to the floating crystalline structure, its arches and general form suggesting a temple. Here, green female figures fade and form as one cams around them, bright trails of light curling and twisting around their bodies, kneel in a circle as a black arachnid female offers up eggs to a female human. Above all of this, watching, sits another crystal Arachne.

Elsewhere, human figures lie wrapped in webs, tended by more arachnids, while before the glimmering, cathedral-like structure stand three android torsos raised on great plinths. Within the arches (vaults?) of the “cathedral” white human forms float over their barbed wire doppelgängers. Flanking this, on either side, are two groups of plinth-mounted female forms, heads encased in televisions sets / computer CRTs.

With the ebb and flow of the webs on the ground at this point giving way to flickering data displays (which also form the walls of the cathedral), and data wrapping itself through the misty air, OpeRaAnxiEty offers an ethereal, fascinating environment. But what might it all mean? The artist offers few clues; it is for us to create our own narrative.

To me, the arachnids are a metaphor – albeit perhaps a multi-faceted one. There is the obvious spider-as-phobia element. Many of us are put on edge on seeing spiders, and it would seem that is the intent here. But it is also true that we are by nature complex creatures;  we weave and create so much that often it can ensnare us or confuse us – hence the webs. This idea is also perhaps manifested in the armless figures with their heads encased by screens: they are helpless to prevent their total immersion in a media-driven overload of information which creates is own reality around them.

Thus, OpeRaAnxiety might offer a warning: that the unequal blending of humanity and technology may give rise to something potentially unpleasant. Hence (again) the use of arachnids and their link to images of gestation and hatching / birth (might even the heartbeat throb in the air and the ECG be indicative for new life?).

But perhaps there is also hope here as well. Might the figures floating over their barbed wire doppelgängers within the data-walled vaults of the great “cathedral” be a metaphor representing the potential for technology to yet free us from the mortal constraints  imposed by our own bodies?

OpeRaAnxiety will remain at MetaLES  into the New Year.

SLurl Details

• OpeRaAnxiEty, MetalLES (MetaLES, rated: Moderate)