Borderlines

Now open at LEA24 is Borderlines, a creation by Lemonodo Oh. It's not typical of what one might expect to find on an LEA sim — at least it might not strike one as "art" in the usual sense, even for those with a broad definition — and is rather more of an experiment in terrain. It's easy to create terrain in Second Life that varies in texture by using region tools and playing with texture elevation ranges. But let's say you wanted to recreate a very specific real life environment, where the textures have to fall in exactly the right spots. Lemonodo has done just that, replicating a slice of California coastline (which you can see as you arrive, or look here) by mapping images onto 64x64 meter pieces of mesh, sculpted to take on the appropriate elevation and curvature. The result is a sweeping vista, an interesting but not precisely literal recreation: the starting texture is, after all, a two dimensional map.

Lemonodo was inspired by the work of Vanessa Blaylock, who happens to be working next door at LEA23, and who often organizes crazy and very enjoyable multi-sim walks. "Vanessa has a project about walking," says Lemonodo, "and somehow because of her interest in that, I came up with defining a three-dimensional study area of a coastal region in maps and translated it to 64 sq m meshes and flat prims as appropriate. There are numerous borderlines associated with the project, which came out to be less conceptual than my original vision to accommodate walking, but in the end, the concept hasn't suffered much." As you explore the sim, you'll discover some images (taken by Lemonodo) that appear as you approach: closeups of the rocks and other areas, and he tells me that he'll set up a flickr stream to hold additional photographs. I was surprised to find, at the landing point, media on a prim — the magnificent 1977 opera Neither by Morton Feldman and Samuel Beckett. Lemonodo explained that he uses ambient music in his gallery but "Morton Feldman takes it up a notch." Enjoy the 50 minute long opera if you have the time.