Tag: Ribong Gallery

A nightingale song to prims in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Ribong Gallery Artspace: Bleu Oleander – A Nightingale Sang

Currently open at Artspace 3042, a part of the Ribong art hub curated by San (Santoshima), is A Nightingale Sang by Bleu (Bleu Oleander), a visually engaging celebration of the magic of working with prims in Second Life.

The piece takes its title from the British romantic song A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square (lyrics by Eric Maschwitz and music by Manning Sherwin), published in 1940; specifically the opening to lines of what has become the more traditional rendition of the song (Maschwitz actually wrote an initial opening verse that tends to be dropped from the majority of recordings):

That certain night, the night we met
There was magic abroad in the air.
Ribong Gallery Artspace: Bleu Oleander – A Nightingale Sang

However, rather than referencing the love between two people, the lyrics here are used to underline that moment when human imagination and expression meet the creative promise and digital beauty of the humble prim, a moment when the most magical of relationships can begin.

In this age of external mesh tools, LODs, uploads and the need to familiarise oneself with dozens of workflows and practices in order to create something within the digital void, it is easy to forget just how powerful and rich Second Life’s in-built tools and capabilities are in their ability to give all of us the ability to build and create.

Ribong Gallery Artspace: Bleu Oleander – A Nightingale Sang

Prims don’t need complex workflows or multiple different applications; everything needed to create something captivating lies right here within the viewer, or, thanks to things like texture and script libraries, just a few clicks of the mouse away. And the skills to bring it all together can be acquired whilst remaining within Second Life, rather than far away within the near-isolation of this or that graphics tool.

From the landing point A Nightingale Sang takes visitors on a journey through a darkened space in which reside the most marvellous sculptures created and animated by Bleu. In both 2D and 3D, all of them are constructed by bringing prims together and then using scripts, textures, and the tools of the viewer – notably, for the visitor, the use of Advanced Lighting Model (Preferences → Graphics → make sure Advanced Lighting Model (ALM) is checked – this will also enable projected lighting without the need to keep Shadows enabled) – to create a richly visual installation.

Ribong Gallery Artspace: Bleu Oleander – A Nightingale Sang

Equally spaced through out the rising and falling levels of the space, the pieces are perfectly positioned so that each can be appreciated in turn – again, I’d advise using the local environment settings (World → Environment → Use Shared Environment). Also, as you explore, don’t forget to look up as well as around.

These pieces are simple yet complex living demonstrations of how we can use the tools before us to bring life to what might initially look to be little more than simple shapes to create something unique; of how once we have learn to rez and glue, an entire world of potential lies within our grasp, a world we can explore alone or with friends and in which the limits as to how far we go are defined by how far we want to go.

Ribong Gallery Artspace: Bleu Oleander – A Nightingale Sang

At the top of the installation can be found a little chapel, on the “alter” of which sit those basic shapes available within the Build floater that open the door to universe of creativity. Because, as someone once said: it all starts with a cube.

SLurl Details

Haveit’s Golden Light in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Ribong Artspace: Haveit Neox – Golden Light
What fascinates me about ritual is its primal essence, reaching way back to a culture’s birth. They may be highly decorative or stylized versions of cherished concepts. These inflexible portraits of a culture are meant to endure the tests of time.

– Haveit Neox, Golden Light

With these words Haveit Neox introduces Golden Light, a small-scale installation that opened on March 19th, 2022 within the Ribong Artspace 2336, curated by San (Santoshima). While the scale might be comparatively small, this is an installation that offers a personally stylised and richly layered exploration of the subject of ritual, with symbolism that may well reach beyond what might first be apparent.

The core installation takes the form of a large bowl set beneath a dome of stars (whilst not expressly required, I set my viewer’s time to Midnight as the stars suggest – like many rituals – this is one undertaken after the Sun has set). The walls of the bowl bear four large paintings whilst its floor is largely given over to a vast pit, dark and foreboding and crossed by a single tightrope. It is a setting that can be best summed up using Haveit’s own words:

Draped chairs of giants stand among the plant life. The plants have yet to bloom; the seats have yet to be occupied. The landscape is portrayed entirely in 2D, except for the tightrope apparatus suspended over the deep pit. A supplicant brings a pinecone offering from the real world. Perched precariously on a tightrope over a deep, dark pit, perfect balance must be maintained for the ceremony to succeed.

– Haveit Neox, Golden Light

Ribong Artspace: Haveit Neox – Golden Light

All of this is plain from looking at the installation, marking it as a statement on ritual; however, it is what is presented rather than what is going on that brings forth the richness of the piece.

Take how the tightrope is held across the pit by a pair of stags. Whilst perhaps superseded in some respects by the likes of bears, boars, great cats, raptors etc., as the totemic animals of deities across Indo-European cultures and civilisations, the stag nevertheless was of importance to the Scythians and the Kurgans, associated with strength and fertility; concepts that were carried westward, embraced by paganism. Similarly, across the Atlantic, the stag was seen as totemic of numerous tribal gods, and a harbinger of fertility. Additionally, white stags have oft been seen as symbolic of protectors watching over the land, the tribe, etc., and thus venerated.

Similarly, the pine cone, with its natural Fibonacci sequence has, throughout multiple civilisations from Ancient Egypt and Assyria on one side of the world, the Mayans and Incas on the other, and all the way through to modern paganism, been seen as both a symbol of fertility and of enlightenment;  And I need hardly mention the physical and symbolic importance of trees to many cultures. Meanwhile the four paintings are placed at the cardinal points, so-called because they are the chief – or true – directions, whilst the reference to gold enfolds the idea of purity (of both ritual and self).

Ribong Artspace: Haveit Neox – Golden Light

Thus, by including these specific elements, Haveit encompasses symbolise that have played a role in humanity’s cultures down civilisations down through the halls of time – and which continue to be a part of our cultures, rituals and religions to this day, even if we don’t always recognise them as such.

For example, we are all familiar with the role of trees within the Christian religions: humanity’s separation from God started with a tree (Eden’s tree of the knowledge of good and evil), with the path to redemption marked by a tree (the cross upon which Christ was nailed). However, what might not be so well recognised is that both the pine cone and the stag also have their places in Christian religions; the stag for example, is seen as representative of Christ, standing in opposition to the snake’s totem in representing Satan, with the white stag symbolic of God’s protection.

This continuing need for (/appropriation of) rituals and symbols down the ages is further marked by the fact the supplicant within the installation carries not an actual pine cone across the tightrope, but the image of a pine cone. It is symbolic of all that has happened down the ages, and which still happens in various ways and forms today, allowing it to stand as a symbol for future ritual, whatever form it might take (and in this, I was stuck by the way the paint itself resembles a tablet, something that has both ancient and modern connotations for ritual!).

Ribong Artspace: Haveit Neox – Golden Light

Simple in style, complex is interpretation, Golden Light is another wonderful mix of art, metaphor and meaning from Haveit.

SLurl Details

Quadrapop’s Art is What You Make It in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Ribong Gallery Artspace – Quadrapop Lane: Art is What You Make It

I’m starting this article with an apology for San (Santoshima), curator / owner of Ribong Gallery. In mid-February, she sent me an invite to attend Art is What You Make It, the (at the time) new exhibition by Quadrapop Lane … and I managed to mis-file it in inventory. As a result, I am late getting to it and writing about it – but the exhibition is currently still open and well worth viewing.

The easiest way – to a point – of explaining this installation is to use Quadrapop’s own words:

Art is What You Make It is an installation of art made from other art, starting with textures used on prims, mesh and particles from quad’s RL photos, designs created in photoshop, digital drawings, and quad’s physical drawings and paintings. These images are often recycled through SL screen shots that may further be manipulated and uploaded as textures.
The images have been altered and recycled repeatedly so that their source is often unrecognizable to the maker: Art is built of layers of experience, personal and cultural, built on an artist’s response to the world. The results may bear no resemblance to the initial motivation or concept.

– Quadrapop Lane

Ribong Gallery Artspace – Quadrapop Lane: Art is What You Make It

The result is a walk through 2D and 3D art that is genuinely and stunningly visual. There are elements of animation,  abstraction , particle and physical art. To see it at its best, you’ll need a reasonable Draw Distance (96m recommended) and have Advanced Lighting Model (ALM – Preference → Graphics → make sure the option is checked). The installation is divided into six areas – four on the same level, which can be visited in a counter-clockwise direction and end with a surprise (take the angled tunnel).

These four areas include 2D, 3D and animated art pieces by Quadrapop (with the latter including particle emitters). ALM is required as projectors are used throughout, so without the option being enabled, you’ll miss a lot. A spiral ramp rising from the centre on the four rooms, rising to a mezzanine level with further art, including a walk-through element which can be intense in terms of the lighting, and a marvellous 3D animated fresco hanging in space.

Ribong Gallery Artspace – Quadrapop Lane: Art is What You Make It

The remaining level is reached via teleport from the lowest level (look for the TP disk on the four of one of the rooms), and takes the form of a maze-like walk through light to the centre and the TP back to the low level.

Describing all that is here is a little wasted, as this is an entirely visual installation, one fully deserving to to be seen and enjoyed. So I’m going to shut up now and encourage you to visit while there is time enough to enjoy Quadra’s work for yourself.

Ribong Gallery Artspace – Quadrapop Lane: Art is What You Make It

SLurl Details

The Way of the Sun in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Ribong Gallery Artspace 3583: The Way of the Sun

The Way of the Sun is an intriguing art installation by Bleu Oleander that is currently open at Ribong Gallery Artspace 3583, curated by  San (Santoshima). It is an installation that that offers multiple aspects of metaphor and narrative.

In THE WAY OF THE SUN, I explore themes of temple building, pilgrimage, worship, reflection and transcendence. Over the long human history, there are examples of humans worshipping the Sun and elements of nature, and building temples to access the divine.

– Bleu Oleander, on The Way of the Sun

Ribong Gallery Artspace 3583: The Way of the Sun

From the arrival point, a large enclosed area intentionally suggestive of darkness, visitors are encouraged to read a poem celebrating the work of the temple builders, before following an arrow pointing to where a tower of light rises into the void, a ramp within it offering the way up. This in turn leads the way to a golden platform on which sits a high temple attempting to reach clouds that seem to form mystical patterns whilst turned to a burnished yellow by the Sun above them.

The metaphors within in this are clear – the passage from the landing point to the golden platform representing pilgrimage; the move from darkness to light representing the desire to achieve spirituality / enlightenment, the climb through the tower representing both the raising of temples and our need to ascend / transcend after or during life, all of which is further underlined by the presence of the figures within the installation, who stand as if lost within the lower level, but have arms raised in exultation within the temple.

Ribong Gallery Artspace 3583: The Way of the Sun

Also to be found within this is the personal desire to achieve enlightening, to improve ourselves – not materially or religiously, but mentally and personally; the transfiguration through self-reflection and mental training through the likes of meditation within the “temples of the mind”.

Similarly, the temple stands as both a literal place of worship and as a symbol of the deep furrow temples, religion and ritual have played throughout human history. Even the Sun plays a dual role: the subject of so much of humankind’s worship and that actual essential giver of life to Earth, and the light that so often represent the achieving of self-awareness and personal transcendence.

Ribong Gallery Artspace 3583: The Way of the Sun

Drawing on ancient cultures from around the world, notably Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and mesoamerican – The Way of the Sun also has a modern twist within it that again links the cultural aspects of spirituality with the personal. A small teleport panel, when found, will carry the individual visitor down to a floatation tank and the opportunity of mediation and reflection.

All told a fascinating installation.

SLurl Details

Isolation, self, and mood at Ribong Gallery, Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Ribong Gallery Artspace: Confined Within Me

It’s been too long sine my last visit to Ribong Gallery Artspace, operated and curated by San (Santoshima) – so my apologies to her for this being the case.

Ribong is a gallery that offers extensive space for 2D and 3D arts, the individual display spaces separated by altitude, giving each a sense of individuality. They can also be reached either via direct LM, or for first-time visitors via the gallery’s lobby. Exhibitions within the spaces can be quite long-lasting (or possibly permanent); I actually reviewed Harbor Galaxy’s Alter Ego, available at Ribong 2535, in October 2019, and Bamboo Barnes’ Receding Reality at Ribong 2243 in September 2020.

Ribong Gallery Artspace: Confined Within Me

More recent to Ribong is Meiló Minotaur’s Confined Within Me, located at Ribong 903. While it is a more recent exhibit than those mentioned above, it nevertheless shares something of a common theme: that of introspection, the nature of self and reflections on identity, although its core theme is perhaps somewhat deeper and potentially darker.

Starting from a large room with a small poem printed on one wall, the installation leads visitors through a pattern of spaces that grow smaller in size, including narrow hallways. Within them are figures, partially embedded in walls, or lined between the narrowing walls, slumped, eyes or mouths covered, whilst further inside the installation the figures become more smoke-like or become themselves wreathed in black, apparently trying to pull themselves apart.

Ribong Gallery Artspace: Confined Within Me

The references to mental illness – depression, anxiety, depersonalisation-derealisation disorder (DPD), the sense of losing one’s own identity – losing oneself -, of being trapped within one’s life – all appear clear. Without the need for extensive exposition, but through simple representation and a six line poem that is itself incredibly powerful in its wording, Confined Within Me visualises a range of conditions that can be so debilitating to those who suffer from them, but so hard to put into words such that others might might understand.

It is an exhibition that is given additional poignancy at this time: With a global pandemic forcing people to keep apart, stay at home, avoid social contact, those caught in the web of mental illness can find their sense of separation even harder to endure, and made more visible through the need to wear face masks – something that may well be referenced by Confined Within Me through the mouth coverings worn by some of the figures (which also represent the sense of not being heard, just as the eye coverings represent the sense of not being seen.

Ribong Gallery Artspace: Silence is the Flower

Opening on Saturday March 20th at Ribong 1920 is Silence is the Flower, by Joss Floss, an exhibition of 2D art. Again, it shares something of a connection with the other three exhibitions, in that it explores communications and feelings, as noted in the artist’s statement on the images presented:

“Silence is the Flower” is a Japanese phrase roughly translated as “Some things are better left unsaid.” These pictures are about not saying and not showing.

– Joss Floss on Silence is the Flower

Ribong Gallery Artspace: Silence is the Flower

Spread across three levels (use the yellow teleport cubes to move between them), Silence presents a series of images in soft focus or which use depth of field in order to focus the eye on the flowers whilst keeping the figure (Joss) either out-of-focus or gently blurred, the idea being to allow the flowers and tone to offer the sense of mood and message within each piece.

What this might be is down to those observing each of the of the images presented here. What is clear is that the direct, unadorned method of presentation allows the eye to focus on each picture, allowing it so suggest its own story.

Ribong Gallery Artspace: Silence is the Flower

Whether taken individually or as part of a visit that also encompasses Alter Ego and Receding Reality, both Silence is the Flower and Confined Within Me offer two engaging exhibitions.

SLurl Details

Mieum is rated General

Bamboo Barnes at Ribong Gallery in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Bamboo Barnes at Ribong Artspace Gallery, September 2020

Bamboo Barnes is one of the most vibrant, evocative, provocative, and emotive artists displaying her work in Second Life. Hailing from Japan, Bamboo works with digital tools to produce pieces that are strongly assertive, both in terms their narrative depth and their ability to dominate the space they occupy, rich pieces that speak to the eye and mind.

All of this can be witnessed first-hand at her current exhibition, Receding Reality, which opened at Ribong Gallery’s Artspace 2243, and which opened on September 12th, 2020.

Bamboo Barnes at Ribong Artspace Gallery, September 2020

What is born out of me transforms like water: here is an uncertain ego and an inexhaustible feeling for those who have left.

– Bamboo Barnes

This is an extensive exhibition of work that presents pieces in a range of styles that have, per Bamboo’s description, something of a introspective nature about them. The styles themselves offer hints of Dali, Picasso, Warhol, encompassing abstract, pop-art, neo-impressionism, expressionism and neo-expressionism.

Bamboo Barnes at Ribong Artspace Gallery, September 2020

The elements of introspection comes from the faces apparent within many of the painting on offer; faces that oft carry thoughtful expressions or distant looks, suggestive of caught in memory, or are incomplete  or distorted, as if being pulled from half-remembered memories. Those that feature figures rather than facial features equally suggest distant thoughts.

As I’ve noted in the past when writing about Bamboo’s art, the emotions she experiences whilst producing a piece are a central aspect in how it eventually emerges. These emotions may be the result of her own feelings or perhaps those evoked by the music she is listening to, and her own response to the emerging piece. This tends to give her art an added depth, those emotions remaining with it and transferring to the observer the longer one regards it. There is also something almost visceral in her work through her use of colour; this in turn gives her work an attraction that pulls at the attention.

Bamboo Barnes at Ribong Artspace Gallery, September 2020

SLurl Details