Tag: Nitroglobus

Creating and inhabiting an avatar is, for me, an act of translation. It does not replace the body; it extends it. The gestures, the gaze, and the silence of this digital body are attempts at language — ways of existing within a space where everything is image and nothing is tangible.

By using my own avatar-character, I transfer fragments of myself into a body that must learn to feel without skin, to speak without a voice, to occupy space knowing that every presence there is also an absence. It is in this tension — between being, existing, and trying to communicate — that the true pulse of my work emerges.

These are the words Debora Kaz uses to introduce the latest chapter in her Invisible Cities art series, entitled Syntax of Absence, which is being hosted by Dido Haas at her Nitroglobus Roof Gallery in Second Life.

Collectively, Invisible Cities thus far comprises Fighting Women, hosted at Nitroglobus in August 2022, The Future in the Present Overflows, presented at Artsville galleries in May 2023 and Essay on Desire, again presented at Nitroglobus in September 2023, and now Syntax of Absence. Together, these installations offer(ed) personal reflections of what it is to be a woman, with Fighting Women focusing on showing the pain and difficulty of being a woman in a world where women have historically been portrayed as objects of desire, exposed to consumption – and how they are encouraged into harmful (and often shallow) rivalry with one another in order to be seen as such.

The Future in the Present Overflows, meanwhile expanded upon these themes, encompassing them in a boarder historical context before Essays in Desire took on a more directly personal (to the artist and the observer) exploration of the precepts of desire – notably those of sensuality, sexuality, and eroticism – and how they play a vital role within the process of self-discovery and understanding of oneself.

All three of these past exhibitions were offered in the abstract of “invisible cities”, places which are not physical or tangible, but rather symbolic; shades of light and dark, suggestions of spaces and places sketched from the void and intended to present architecture of emotion intended to backlight, if you will, the core themes and discourse Debora presented in each exhibition, rather than forming a structured part of them.

Within Syntax of Absence, Debora more brings together the literal – as in the emotions and perceptions present within the earlier chapters of this series – more directly with the artificiality of the “digital backlighting” of those earlier installations. In doing so, she further explores concepts of self, strength, vulnerability, femininity and erasure. However, she does so through the idea of the self becoming subsumed within the digital.

The women I create live in an in-between state — they want to exist, yet they also want to disappear. They are fragments of myself, of others, and of what society insists on projecting and consuming: the female body as both victim and language, erased as person, highlighted as product.

These investigations unfold into Syntax of Absence, where the body no longer inhabits the city but becomes the code itself. The feminine turns into syntax, command, and conscious noise. Absence becomes language; presence becomes data.

– Debora Kaz, Syntax of Absence

In this idea of the subsumption of the body by the digital, Syntax of Absence in some ways completes a circle that started with Fighting Women: the study of the feminine rising out of a digital landscape to provoke and evoke our thinking, now sublimating back into and becoming lost within the digital.

At the same time, it perhaps might also be seen as a wider observation of our current state of our digital engagement today; one in which we gain both a far greater freedom of expression and ability to escape constraints we might otherwise feel, whilst at the same time our ever-deepening involvement (reliance?) on digital means for projecting ourselves and digital (AI) tools for interactions / expression), we also risk further reducing ourselves, became more of the digital noise, our presence reduced to mere data bytes.

In all, another thought-provoking exhibition with layered meaning  / interpretation. When visiting, do please note that Syntax of Absence extends through the main gallery and The Annex at Nitroglobus.

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• Nitroglobus Roof Gallery (Sunshine Homestead, rated Moderate)

It was back to Nitroglobus Roof Gallery for me of late, to catch the September 2025 Main Hall exhibition. I was keen to do so as Nitroglobus owner and curator, Dido Haas, has invited Catherine Nikolaidis to display more of her art.

I’ve touched on Catherine’s SL-based  photography on several occasions in these pages. Working predominantly in monochrome with a focus on avatar studies, she has a gift for framing her work as much a photo-essays in reflection of mood, emotion, beauty, vulnerability, and life. Her skill lay not only in the technicalities of composition, framing, processing, cropping, and so on, but in inhabiting her images with a depth of life and subtle detail rich in the power of communication.

This was very much brought home to me some two years ago, when I was able to catch two overlapping solo exhibitions by Catherine, hosted at Frank Atisso’s Artsville Gallery and at the Kondor Art Centre (see: Catherine’s black and white photography in Second Life), and it is further underlined within this Nitroglobus exhibition, which Catherine has called Skin like Syntax. The easiest way to describe this exhibition is to use Catherine’s own words.

Skin like Syntax explores woman and her body as a living language. In monochrome tones, I capture shifting moods and the balance between softness and strength, intimacy and distance.

Through my lens, real life turns into visual poetry, where light, shadow, and emotion blend together.

– Catherine Nikolaidis

The result is a stunning collection of images rich in context, subtle in narrative and utterly captivating in form and presentation. Within each of them is a story  – or perhaps a poem might be a better term, given Catherine’s description – waiting to be told. In fact, such is the richness of expression to be found in each piece that offering words here is somewhat superfluous – and would merely be subjective on my part.

As such, I will close here, and leave it to you to visit Skin like Syntax and allow Catherine’s unique voice to speak to you.

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• Nitroglobus Roof Gallery (Sunshine Homestead, rated Moderate)

Miles Cantelou is an artist whom I have covered on numerous occasions in these pages, most recently in terms of Miles’ return to Second Life after time away, when I wrote about his Homestead gallery space Scirocco Art Galleries (see: The art of Miles Cantelou in Second Life).

But I’m not the only one appreciative of Miles’ work. Dido Haas, the operator / curator of Nitroglobus Roof Gallery also visited Scirocco and, like me, was struck by the intensity of Miles’ studies – particularly (I hope I’m correct in assuming) those found within the Galleria Polynesia. As a result, Dido invited Miles to exhibit at Nitroglobus, and on September 1st, 2025 they opened Shamanism.

Located with The Annex at Nitroglobus, this is a further richly engaging exhibition of paint-renderings by Miles, this one on the subject of Shamanism, with a focus on the (mainly female in this case) Shaman. Produced through a process of ink line sketches scanned into a PC and subjected to photographic and post camera blending, prior to being printed and painted, before an image of the finished piece is uploaded to Second Life.

Shamanism is a spiritual phenomenon centred on the shaman, a person believed to achieve various powers through trance or ecstatic religious experience – the Shaman, a person regarded in many cultures as intermediary between humans and the spirit realm, performing roles such as healing, divination, guiding souls, and maintaining spiritual balance within their communities. The term comes from the Manchu-Tungus word šaman, a noun formed from the verb ša- “to know”; so a shaman is literally “one who knows.”

Given this etymology, the terms apply in the strictest sense to the spiritual systems of the people of northern Asia. However, shamanism has played an important role among Australian Aborigines, some African groups, Arctic peoples and Native American Indians.

Shamanism presents fourteen richly emotive portrait studies startling in their intensity and depth. Given the headdresses apparent in all of the images, they might be taken to lean towards Native American shaman. That the majority of the images appear to be female in nature reflects the fact that shamanism has no gender exclusion.

For me, however, what is particularly striking about these portraits is the intensity of intelligence and vitality they carry. It is hard not to be drawn to the eyes of those pieces which appear to be looking directly at you and not sense the depth of knowledge and wisdom lying behind them. The result is a series of images that suggest they have not originated from within Miles’ head and sketches, but with the subjects physically allowing their likeness to be captured.

In order words, a marvellous selection of evocative art.

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• The Annex at Nitroglobus (Sunshine Homestead, rated Moderate)

As a Second Life artist-photographer, Maghda is rightfully renowned for her avatar studies. More than portraits, they are always stunningly composed, layered, and rich in narrative explorations. Often the latter takes the form of self-reflection as well as themes we can all grasp –  as with such exhibitions as Sole Fragments (from 2023) and Demons (from 2024), both of which were featured at Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, curated and operated by Dido Haas.

And it is to Nitroglobus that Maghda returns for an exhibition running from Monday, July 14th, 2025 through into August. Entitled Mute, the exhibition also – I gather from the notes supplied by Dido for the event – marks Maghda’s return to the SL art scene after a period of intense personal upheaval.

I’ve no idea – nor need to know – what that upheaval might have been, but would say that in no way has it diminished Maghda’s ability to produce pieces with a depth of emotional content and evocative statements on life and our relationship with its twists and turns. In this, its is hard not to see Mute are a third part of a (thus far) trilogy of Exhibitions at Nitroglobus – the first two being the aforementioned Sole Fragments and Demons.

Sometimes the ground gives way beneath you,
and the air stands still, refusing to carry sound.
No words rise—
only the heaviness of all that remains unspeakable.
A look. A breath. A storm held at the edge.
Mute isn’t silence—it’s the overflow of what words can’t contain.
Your voice, once steady, curls inward, tucked behind your ribs.

– Maghda on Mute

I’m not going to attempt to offer any personal interpretation of Mute; the pieces are bound to speak to each of us differently. All I will say is that as someone facing a significant degree of adversity in the physical world, I found much within Mute that resonates strongly with me. I would also note that the three large sculptures placed within the gallery space (by JadeYu Fhang, SATANasss and Cherry Manga respectively) also offer reflections of the themes and emotions found within Maghda’s art, perfectly completing it.

Officially opening at 12:00 noon SLT on Monday, July 14th, 2025 with music from NOIR, Mute is again an exhibition rich in content and not to be missed.

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• Nitroglobus Roof Gallery (Sunshine Homestead, rated Moderate)

Having opened on May 12th, 2025 for a (roughly) two-month run, Love is a Stranger is an evocative exhibition of black and white photography by – YO – (yoasa) being hosted by Dido Haas within the Annex of Nitroglobus Roof Gallery. Dido notes that the first time she came across YO’s work, she was immediately drawn to it, such was the emotive – almost physical  – strength with the images. Given this is also my first exposure to YO’s work, I can understand why she felt so drawn; working in monochrome brings a depth of raw humanity to their work, carrying within it a persistence of passion that is enthralling.

Colour brings joy to the eyes – but black & white reaches the heart.

Yo(asa)

The title of the the exhibition – which features eighteen marvellously composed and processed pieces – is taken from the song of the same name by Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart, aka Eurythmics, and which formed the opening track of their second album Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This). 

The lyrics, penned by Lennox, sought encapsulate the dichotomic relationship of love and hatred – so often two sides of the same coin – by putting opposites together, expressing how one can lift you up, lead you forward, whilst the other is just awaiting the opportunity to cut you down through doubt, confusion, and more; and where one can be so glamourous and appealing, with the other lurking just beneath with cruelty and unkindness; the promise of both, when taken together, equally rich and false.

To be honest, with one or two exceptions, I did not see many parallels between Lennox’s intent and the images YO presents – and if they are present, the failure to see them is purely mine, and not that of the artist. What I did find, however, are images that are simply breath-taking in their emotive depth and resonance; pieces beautifully focused and framed as an ode to the fickleness of love itself.

Each picture is a masterpiece of visual storytelling, conveying a richness of desire, loneliness, loss, need, innocence, uncertainty. These are all emotions common to love. We all want to be loved, to be in love, and feel the same in return: to feel wanted cherished, desired. Yet love itself is mercurial; even in the midst of all the the sense of fulfilment, of finding that desire and cherishment in the eyes and arms of another, so too can it all too easily give forth doubts, take away the comfort as easily as it provides. It can turn thoughts of certainty and contentment into those of incertitude, and feelings of warmth to those of uncertainty.

Thus, we become alone in thought and trapped contradictions, literally and figuratively wandering; driven, perhaps to feel the very world around us is alien or as if the feelings that at first lifted us, made us feel a part of something so easily turn to feel apart from everything; standing outside and looking in. We have discovered that love itself has turned from welcoming friend to a complete stranger.

All of this is conveyed within YO’s images, and quite powerfully and evocatively so. It is, in short: an absolutely exquisite collection.

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•  Love is a Stranger, The Annex at Nitroglobus (Sunshine Homestead, rated Moderate)

Drawn from the Latin, simulacrum (“likeness, semblance”) entered the language of European art during the late 1500s, when was originally used to refer to a painting or statue directly representing someone or something (most notably a god or deity). However, by the 19th century, it had come to express an artistic endeavour – notably an image – formed without the substance or qualities of the original (e.g. to use a more modern example: a photocopy of a photograph of a painting).

It is a term which is particularly relevant today thanks to the rapid rise of generative AI tools, and the manner in which they can be used to literally churn out prompt-based images over and over without any genuine artistic input or understanding of the actual desired request or the inconsistencies, anachronisms and outright errors present within the final product.

Of course, those using such tools diligently will argue that they are merely a tool; when balanced with a critical eye and the use of other tools to refine, enhance and correct, they can be used to produce richly diverse pieces that do have originality within them. This is actually not an unfair summation, as far as it goes.

The problem¹ here is that the vast majority of users of such generative tools don’t exercise skill or talent. They prompt, wait, publish, often using minor variations of the same prompt ad nauseam (“make the woman’s hair colour blue”) to produce a stream of near identical images (as all too often seen on the likes of Deviant Art). There is little originality within such pieces when compared one to the next; worse, there is little in the way of critical review, and those aforementioned errors are allowed to persist. Worse still, all this repetition (complete with errors) is fed back into the data pool, further diluting it and increasing the regurgitation of vacuous elements to form what amounts to self-perpetuating simulacrums, devoid of originality and talent.

This constant cycle of regurgitation and repetition without originality is explored by Manoji Yachvili (onceagain), in her exhibition Simulacrum, currently on display at Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, curated by Dido Haas. It is also very much a personal expression of Manoji’s own increasing sense of artistic loss and frustration as she sees creative expression, skill and progress within art and artistic experimentation vanishing in a rising tide of banality.

Reality no longer exists, it has disappeared, crumbled by the media and modern technologies that propose images that do not refer to reality, that receive meaning only from other images and that are perpetually regenerated, thus remaining increasingly disconnected from what was originally real. Everything I see has an appearance and the power of appearance, without a faithful external image and therefore devoid of the original vitality.

– Manoji Yachvili

To achieve this, Manoji presents a collection of original paintings that are richly expressive whilst clearly echoing the banality and emptiness of the kind all too easily spewed forth by generative AI. Through the use of simple, repeated elements – masks, faceless figures, and muted colours – she beautifully conveys the empty, expressionless redundancy so common within generative AI art.

Yes, these are all paintings utilising common themes elements – but each of them is completely original in form and presentation, allow it to stand on its own as a singular, unique piece carrying with it an ability to speak to each of us differently. Thus, these are pieces that reach beyond the artist, offering a richness of expression and meaning, standing not as the result of a collection of prompts, but as a prompt for our imaginations to take flight within them.

In doing so, Manoji establishes the genuine power of art through the hand, eye and talent originating from within the artist, making this a beautiful expressive collection, each piece standing in its own right as a genuine work of art.

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• Nitroglobus Roof Gallery (Sunshine Homestead, rated Moderate)

1. Please note that within this article, I’m intentionally avoiding issues of copyright and ownership in relations to the “training” of generative AI tools, because while these are clearly of concern generally, they are not the focus of the exhibition being reviewed.