Alchemy Immortalis Sims

Rustic. Windswept. Rugged. Timeless. One could go on for some time with adjectives to describe the group of five sims connected to the Alchemy Immortalis shop: Empress and Hierophant, Inis Caiseal, ceangal, Saerlaith and the sim Alchemy Immortalis itself. One of the most picturesque and favorited areas of the Second Life grid, these rainy sims hearken to the romantic, rural western edge of Ireland, where the cold sea relentlessly pounds the dramatic cliffs and barren coastline. Empty but well trodden dirt roads wind through the hillsides, connecting small cottages that dot the shore and the ridges, while blackface sheep graze on the steep inclines.

You can live here, too: after a bit of a scare just a year ago, when four of the sims were announced to be for sale, they were converted to bed and breakfasts, and you can rent one of the little cottages short or long term. (I think many if not most homes are Alchemy Immortalis's Gatehouse Cottage, which I once lived in—they're really delightful and are for sale at the shop.) Whenever I visit these sims, I meet other people who are just there wandering, immersed in the sheer beauty, taking it all in step by step and view by view. It's just that kind of place.

Note: Just after I wrote this post, Alchemy Cyannis announced on the Alchemy Immortalis blog that all four regions connected to the main Alchemy Immortalis sim are now for sale.

Dream for New Year's

Yes, for New Year’s Even you can go dancing, you can party, or ... you can participate in a fabulous sonic art event, the culmination of Ione’s 17th Annual Dream Festival. Since 1996, real life author/playwright/director Carole Ione, in collaboration with many other visual and performing artists, has organized an international series of events to celebrate, well, dreams. She notes, “This year’s festival theme focuses on ‘Abundance.’ Dreaming of abundance means seeking clues in our dreams to a sense of plenty and goodness that could be financial or emotional, for example.”

For Second Life on New Year’s Eve (from 2 pm slt on December 31st to 6 am slt on January 1st) North Zipper (Norman Lowrey in real life, the chair of the Department of Music at Drew University) has organized the culminating dream event at the Odyssey sim. (Click there for the teleport link—these images are just some photos of the stage area, but they don't convey much about the event itself.) As Zipper says, “You are invited to dream with us at any time for as long as you wish, weaving in and out of Real/Virtual Life sleeping, dreaming, waking, dreaming.” Attendees will be provided sound-producing devices and a HUD, and you just ... listen. As people float nearer or father, the amplitude of their sounds increase or decrease, creating an ever-changing (or sometimes static, depending on what's happening) sonic environment. It’s a very simple and at the same time very beautiful experience.

“Deep listening” is a term coined by real life composer Pauline Oliveros, who began her career in the 1960s as one of those at the forefront of electronic music. Over time her career focused more and more on the importance of sonic awareness—of listening, not just hearing, sounds and music—first through the development of compositions known as Sonic Meditations and eventually through Deep Listening, a program which has spawned multiple pathways toward sonic awareness, from performances to annual listening retreats and other events. Oliveros will attend these performances through her Second Life avatar, Free Noyes. (I love that name.)

So, as you float about on New Year’s at Odyssey, it’s not only a chance to celebrate, have fun and socialize: it’s a chance to listen, to really listen, to the beautiful sounds that we will all create together, and then to carry that experience back to real life, our ears wide open.

New at alpha.tribe

alpha.tribe, designers of distinctive avatars and outfits, have been fairly quiet over the past year, but recently rolled out some group gifts and just now released a pair of new avatars: the Nordic Noir unisex avatar (above) and the Barracuda unisex avatar (below). Both come with female and male skins and attachments (although the Nordic Noir seems to look a little masculine even in the female version, but maybe it was just the shape I was wearing) and are now on sale at the main alpha.tribe store. It's Second Life, so here's your chance to stand out in the crowd! :)

Eupalinos Ugajin: You are the music while the music lasts + There is a hole in my inventory

In the work of Eupalinos Ugajin, the intersection and interplay between incongruous objects creates a world where the irrational is expected and where nonsense is the norm. At times whimsical and often absurd, his most recent exhibition (or double exhibition), You are the music while the music lasts + There is a hole in my inventory, on view at LEA25, is a participatory experience in which the viewer interacts with the artwork in order to experience it, walking through the exhibition as if it were a grand stage. (Indeed, the viewer generally becomes part of the artwork.) Causality seems to have no logic: here, a click on a stick of dynamite will trap the viewer inside a giant house fan, or a click on a pile of red bicycle wheels positions the viewer at the helm of a computer, the Minivac 6010 (the buttons on which, by the way, are the keys to controlling many other things on the central level of the sim).

Positioned around the main level of the installation are many small but wonderful additions to the scene that were created by the team of Kikas Babenco and Marmaduke Arado. Be sure to have your sound turned up as you spend time here—I loved in particular the way in which there was something suggestive of a Doppler effect as I flew about over the sea below. Here are there you'll also discover some free items. Above all, one must click on everything—and there's a lot of it—to fully appreciate the exhibit.

Be sure to get to the top level of the exhibition, which isn't very visible from the lower or middle areas. You can fly up (about 350 meters) or take the teleport. Here, scattered about on an undulating surface, is a delightful collection of works by many artists, including AM Radio, blotto Epsilon, Scottius Polke, Albert Beerbaum, Naxos Loon, CapCat Ragu, Pandora Popstar, Astin Miles, Spartacus (Research Projects), Leyla Firefly, Jo Ellsmere, Whiskey Monday, aston Leisen, Hat Mechanic (Fade Dana), Four Yip, Penumbra Carter, Dekka Raymaker, Yooma Mayo, Madcow Cosmos, Alpha Auer, Cica Ghost, flopsie McArdle, Kake Broek, Marmaduke Arado, Koto Nizna, Typote Beck, Ruby69Kill Moonites, Lollito Larkham, Haveit Neox, Cutea Benelli, Aley, nessuno Mayo, Harter Fall, Bryn Oh, Trill Zapatero, paramparamm papp, pallina60 Loon, Xan Radek, Oberon Onmura, and probably others I missed. Their juxtaposition, which might normally seemed jumbled and disconnected, fits perfectly with the rest of the exhibition, because everything is a jumble, an assortment of unrelated things bound to coexist in harmony.

William Weaver at Pixel Panic

Currently on view at the Pixel Panic Gallery, curated by Megan Prumier and located on the sim CRIMARIZON, is an exhibition of recent works by William Weaver. This artist's exploration of color, light, shadows and depth of field has revolutionized Second Life photography, and his recent development of the Phototools extension for the Firestorm viewer places powerful tools in the hands of other photographers.

The remarkable structure in which William's photos are displayed was designed by Charlotte Bartlett, whose brand, Scarlet Creative, is known for its elegant use of texture, light and shadow. Designed especially for William, the gallery provides a beautiful setting for viewing photos and paintings, and Charlotte has generously listed the 70 prim building on the Marketplace for free.

Whiskey Monday at Atelier Kreslo

Whiskey Monday, one of my favorite Second Life photographers, recently plurked that she has a little show at Atelier Kreslo that runs for the next few weeks. I knew the name Atelier Kreslo—and that of designer Flutter Memel—but hadn't ever visited the shop, and it's a sweet little place. If you've been wanting to own something by Whiskey, here's a chance to purchase five works, do a little extra shopping, and have a nice cup of coffee.

Adieux, Scribbled Hearts

A few weeks ago I blogged that winter had come to the lovely sim known as Scribbled Hearts (or Water Reserve). Now, sadly, endless winter has arrived, as one of the sim's owners, meme, announced on flickr four days ago that the sim will close permanently on December 27. Do stop by to visit this beautiful, tranquil space before it disappears—and do a little shopping there too, of course!

Goatswood

Are you the perfect Victorian? If so, take a stroll in Goatswood, the spectacular new sim created by eDream Factory (Kora Zenkova and Baal Zobel) that opened last month, branded as "a Victorian Gothic novel waiting to happen." This richly textured town, which the creators note is modeled loosely after Castle Combe, a village in Wiltshire, dazzles the eyes with its finely wrought detail and subtle color palette—a mixture of browns and dark greens in which the foliage can intermingle with the pathways, low stone walls and buildings.

This is a serious roleplay sim, but visitors are very welcome and can obtain a three-day pass at the train station at the entrance. It's even possible to rent a cottage or other location here without joining in the roleplay, although I suspect most who rent would partake in the activities. In exploring Goatswood, one cannot help but feel that there's more under the surface, something dark and mysterious, perhaps a sense of veiled evil or foreboding. It's a world of light and shadows, a town with hidden pathways. And there are places dotting the edge of the town, such as Phoebe's Wheel, a Stonehenge-like place clearly associated with rituals, that suggest something unusual might be happening in Goatswood. The creators invite you to discover as you explore: here and there you can pick up a notecard with some background information about specific locations.

There isn't a fixed or recommended windlight setting in Goatswood, but darker or foggy settings strike me as the best, a world in twilight where one isn't quite certain what lies in the shadows. (But almost anything looks amazing.) Like Venexia—developed by the same creators—tremendous care was taken to summon a mood, and with great success. Click to zoom in on any of the images—I'll post some to my flickr stream as well.

MadPea Carneval

Now that the December issue of AVENUE magazine has been published, including my feature on the MadPea Carneval, I'll put in a good word for it here on my blog, but please read the issue to get my comprehensive review (starting on page 308). This is simply a "must see" location in Second Life, and is one deserving multiple visits to fully appreciate all its nooks and crannies. I must stress that it's very important to discover some of the fabulously executed games that exist within the sim—not only the simple arcade-style games near the entrance, but also the puzzles found in the amazing Kaaos Effect.

Carneval's initial concept was generated by the founder and director of MadPea, Kiana Writer, and its development was overseen by MadPea creative director Harter Fall. They were complemented by a large team of designers, including Arduenn Schwartzman, Fae Varriale, Geoffrey Xenobuilder, Linus Humphreys, Lorin Tone, paramparamm Papp, Penelope Parx, RAG Randt and Zachh Barkley, with additional contributions from Apollosmile, claudia222 Jewell, Clicquot Oh, cold Frog, Elizabeth Tinsley, Fuzz Difference, Glitch Axelrad, Madcow Cosmos, Quan Lavender, Smiley Dyrssen, Voidheart Mistwalker, Yooma Mayo and Yuna Khaos.

It's an explorer's dream and a photographer's delight. You'll find some fun shopping opportunities on the sim as well. To pay a vist to Carneval, just click here. I'll be posting a few images on my flickr stream.

Dryland

For the past several months, artist Anita Witt has generously provided an opportunity for Second Life residents to explore and use several builds by William Weaver, all designed with an eye toward light and photography (previously blogged about here). Now it comes time to say goodbye to these spaces, as Anita has built out a larger area below with a striking landscape and new gallery space. Dryland, as it's called, is inspired by the parched and barren lakebed of the Aral Sea in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, with hulks of old ships now resting on the dried mud.

To celebrate the opening of Dryland, Anita has organized and curated four bodies of work. In the decayed shell of a concrete building that towers above Dryland will the be exhibition Visions of Dryland, featuring works by Melusina Parkin, Ziki Questi, Marlen Slazar and William Weaver. Nearby, the delightful Woops ..... a baby by pallina60 Loon, first displayed at Burn2, has been rebuilt and can be enjoyed anew in this lag-free setting. Tarek Atoui - Un-Drum is a selection of real life works by Anita that focus on the Lebanese avant garde musician Tarek Atoui, and additionally a gallery space features a selection of Anita's photographic work.

The closing party for the Weaver Project will take place today, Saturday, December 8, starting at 12 pm slt, and then guests can parachute to the ground far below for the Invasion of Dryland opening party at about 1:30. To reach the Weaver Project go here, but after the event you can teleport here to get directly to Dryland. (And thanks to Anita Witt for permission to reproduce the poster shown above!)

Scribbled Hearts: Winter

The last time I blogged about scribbled . hearts (also known by the sim name, Water Reserve), it was autumn—the leaves vibrant shades of red, orange and yellow, and the sun moving lower on the horizon. Time has quietly marched on, and now winter has settled over the land. The redesigned sim is blanketed in a tranquil carpet of snow, and the trees, now bare save for the evergreens, are dusted with white. Lights twinkle here and there, and looking straight up through the cold air one can glimpse the aurora borealis.

The *. emm [ shop ] and hello, september stores are here, of course, now offering items for the holiday season. As usual, I'll post some images on my flickr stream.

William Weaver's Build 013: the Phi Cube

Some of you may have seen this photo on flickr, which for me is the most jaw dropping image William Weaver has produced. Will gave me a copy of this build, 013: the phi cube, and I've rezzed it on my land at Catalana and have fiddled with it a little, trying to replicate that image. I've gotten close, but no cigar so far!

At first glace the build is a bunch of interlocked black cubes with white lines, but it comes alive using the right windlight settings and depth of field. These aren't very refined photos—just some quick images I took to give you a feel for it.

For the time being I've opened my place, so if you'd like to play around with the cube you're welcome to—it's a large piece (based in some way on the Fibonacci series, I'm informed) and I've rezzed it up in the air. To get there, land here and then walk inside Sextan Shepherd's observatory (which you're welcome to explore, of course, along with the rest of my half the island, although it's nothing too exciting!), and go through the little door that you'll see on your wall to the immediate left. And up you go! Please clean up after yourselves. :)

P.S. If you need to rez stuff, just ask—I can add you to the group.

Chess-Cherry

The materials in Cherry Manga's new work, Chess-Cherry, which opened today at the gallery organized by the Tanalois Group and the torno Kohime Foundation, are simple: black and white, a chess board, chess pieces, nude female forms, and images of classified advertisements from an early 20th century Minneapolis newspaper (these are wrapped around the chess pieces and plastered on the board and the surrounding floor). As a life-size interactive space, the board and pieces aren't something we think of manipulating with our hands (plus, it's clearly not our game to play)—these are more like statues, the women on them caught in poses that range from awkward to borderline erotic. (Skeletons show through the women's skins, putting a damper on their sexuality, unless you're into that sort of thing.)

Although the materials are simple the execution is not, and the result, to me at least, is enigmatic and compelling. I have been wrestling with what to say about this work, or what to think about it—the combination of materials, the immersive experience, the inherent battle going on before us (is it frozen in time?), the nude figures positioned on the pieces, and so on. In this case I'll fall in line behind the composer/artist John Cage, who remarked that art we don't understand is more interesting than art we do understand.

"I think white will win," I said to Cherry. "Let's hope," she replied.

Guernica

Second Life artists London Junkers and Lizzie Gudkov unveiled today a new exhibition in the sim LEA6—Guernica, a three dimensional expression of Pablo Picasso's monumental painting of the same name that stands in real life at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid. The iconic original, created in 1937 and depicting the horrors of the Spanish Civil War, measures an amazing 25.6 feet (7.8 meters) wide by 11 feet (3.5 meters) high. I'm not sure whether Mr. Junkers and Ms. Gudkov have created the Second Life model to scale or not, but one cannot visit this installation without experiencing a sense of the work's massive proportions.

Here, however, there's a new take on Guernica: this installation is three-dimensional, allowing Picasso's gestures to emerge from the canvas. We can wander and fly among them, seeing the work, quite literally, from new perspectives. I'll post some images on my flickr stream.

: ) BCC

Thanks to a photo by Ysé Ah, I recently visited the sim : ) BCC, created by Daisy (花になろう) (username vitamingirl) and home to her shop, also known as : ) BCC. Three photos won't do this stunning homestead sim justice—this is yet another region that's breathtakingly lovely and provides endless opportunities for photography. Ordinarily I stick with a sim's given environment settings, but here they've changed in the two days I've visited, so I've been taking the liberty of playing around a bit.

The watery landscape is articulated with sandy walkways that lead between the little shop areas. A stranded train that rests on long-decayed tracks stands at the center of the sim, while a beautiful little cottage with a watermill lies at the far northeastern corner. I'll post some additional images on my flickr stream over the next few days.

Dreams

Pho Vinternatt, proprietor of A.S.S., has created an elegantly simple, eloquent and somewhat disturbing installation, Dreams, on the sim Space Illusion 2. Fifteen pairings of photos and text line a simple white space, with a small table and notecard on the far end. The photos are evocative and the texts are deeply private—each of the anonymous subjects shares exceptionally personal thoughts. "I wish I wasn't sick anymore," begins the one pictured above, continuing, "I have a degree in animation that I can't do [anything] with because my hands shake so much..."

"When I started this project I had no idea that peoples' dreams and wishes would be so much scarier, personal and moving than their fears. I hadn't realized how little we speak of our dreams, big or small ones, realistic or not, and how seldom we tell them to others," comments Pho in an explanatory text.

These aren't dreams like, "I'd like to win the lottery." They're far more honest—brutally honest—and as such create a delicate window into the soul of each of these interviewees. When I said it's a somewhat disturbing exhibition, it's because one cannot spend time here reading these stories without being confronted by his or her own dreams. And one cannot help but feel admiration for these fifteen subjects for sharing a slice of their lives.

lippes in smiling mood, kiss akiss after kisokushk

No, that's not a typo. It's the title (thank you Mr. Joyce) of a silly little installation I created for the very short-lived Burn2 event, which opened last Saturday and closes this Sunday, October 28. Some photos are flying about, and you can join in the fun by taking a seat in one of the three chairs, plus you can get a whole grab bag of my junk too. Last Saturday quite a spontaneous party went on for a couple hours, one that reminded me of Second Life circa 2007—"I hope we all go into the same mental hospital," quipped my friend Naxos Loon. One party pic is below and others are on my flickr stream (although you have to be logged into flickr to see those with "moderate" images turned on!).

I'm guilty of not having had time to fully explore the Burn sims—there are six of them and a lot to see. For more on Burn2 visit their website or just teleport to my spot and start roaming.

Special thanks to my friend Caer Balogh for her awesome scripting and to the Burn2 group for all their hard work!