The Lost Alphabet

Opening tomorrow, Saturday, March 23 at La Città Perduta (Lost Town) is an immense and impressive artwork by Haveit Neox entitled The Lost Alphabet. A center for rotating exhibitions, La Città Perduta invites artists to essentially take over the town, and Haveit's build extends to every nook and cranny, reaching up far overhead and tunneling deep underground. I'm sure that even after spending a couple hours there I hadn't discovered everything.

The build is based on a long storyline that, if read while exploring, will take you from place to place on the sim via teleports. (You should receive a notecard as you arrive.) I don't have space here to share it (although I'm tempted), but the narrative begins in part: "There had been such horrible acts committed in the case now on trial, that even the instruments of the crime (the letters of the alphabet), were themselves put on judgment. The prosecutor’s proof was solid. Treacherous documents could not have been written without language, and language cannot be conveyed without the use of the letters of the alphabet. There was no denying this fact, and thus charged, the letters were shamed and severely sentenced. A, B, and C, in the company of 23 other letters and a host of punctuation marks and digits sat imprisoned..."

Personally, I would suggest that you explore first by foot, just wandering on the paths and discovering what there is to see—and quite a lot of it there is—because by teleporting about you won't really get the sense of scale. And there are places you still won't see by only using the prescribed landmarks—but on the other hand they do link the story together and give the build its overall context. Haveit's work often uses large textures, sometimes moving, that can be a graphics challenge—however to my mind this is his most impressive work to date (and because textures are in motion these photos don't quite capture the feel of things). The last artwork here was by Yooma Mayo (about which I blogged here), and it's delightful to see that Haveit's build refers to it in an ingenuous way.

You can read more about The Lost Alphabet on Haveit Neox's blog, ACC Alpha. An opening reception will be held at 3 pm slt. The town itself is also worth exploring for its own sake, and it's remarkable how smoothly Haveit's additions meld with the original scene. A tip of the hat is also due to sivi Kelberry and AKILAE Gant, the sim owners and builders, who also curate La Città Perduta's art exhibitions. Please consider making a contribution to support the sim and this and future art installations.