Sparkys

"I'm smiling already and I only just got here!" remarked Maya Paris as she and I converged on Sparkys, an installation by Romy Nayar that opened yesterday at MetaLES. And it's fabulously engaging — along with Maya, I have had a delightful time there today with Honour McMillan, Cica Ghost, Giovanna Cerise and Romy herself, just playing and having fun. One arrives at a world that appears to be only white, black and gray — but it seems that the residents have discovered something new: color, which they harvest from odd little flying animals, the sparkies (or sparkys). To get around, visitors need to follow a pre-established path through the city-on-stilts by clicking on elevators, balloons and other modes of transport. (If you reach a platform that doesn't seem to have a way to leave, just wait, and something will show up to offer you a ride.)

"The story is," Romy explained to me (slightly edited for translation), "that a doctor has invented a new substance that makes color — because everything was white — and he can produce the colors from the sparkys that you will meet in the forest. And everybody in the city is trying to give color to the city — but they have a great deal of work, so you can help if you want." And indeed, you'll spot many of the city's inhabitants working with colors — or at least trying to figure out what to do with them. The lady in the image above distributes the paint, so be sure to connect with her during your visit. (The forest, by the way, is the area with the curious dark trees, and you'll spot the sparkies there, being tended by a watcher — you can get a glimpse of it in the first image at the uppermost center.)

To help paint, wear the object you'll receive, click on it to set your parameters, and then go into mouselook to color things. (Update: You have to join the MetaLES group in order to paint.) Nothing's permanent — the paint washes away after a few minutes, so you can keep busy for a long time. (By the way, the paint is prim-based, so if there's too much coloring going on the sim can reach its object limit. Just wait a minute or two to continue.) This is simply one of the best art installations to open in a while — playful, imaginative, and beautifully constructed. Sparkys will remain on display at MetaLES through the month of April.

Everwinter

A few days ago, Torley teleported me to Everwinter, a post-apocalyptic theme park created by Lauren Bentham that replaces the previous build on Elven Mist, historic Bentham Forest. And quite a transformation it is: obscured by mist and fog and a sort of sepia-toned atmospheric haze, the theme park has seen better days. Littered with broken rides, broken glass, and, well, broken everything, the build features plenty of places to hang out (dilapidated sofas, a tire swing, rusty ride seats and so on). A few creepy children are out playing, slipping in circles or just eerily standing, many wearing gas masks (and bringing to mind "The Empty Child" episode of Doctor Who, even if coincidental).

Lauren made use of materials from a number of creators, especially some new designs by Jaimy Hancroft — "I wanted to do a build like this for a long time, and when I saw her theme park bits I couldn't resist," she explained — and Jaimy's works happen to be available at the current manifestation of The Arcade. The photogenic Everwinter won't disappear anytime soon: "It's permanent," Lauren assured me. You'll receive some sim rules as you arrive (no face lights, please), and a few tip jars are available in case you'd like to lend support.

When life gives you apples...run!

Now open at LEA6 as the final installment of the Linden Endowment for the Arts Full Sim Art Series (the sim, no worries, will continue to offer other artistic opportunities) is Rebeca Bashly's When life gives you apples...run! "Looking at various myths, legends and fairy tales, apples seem to be pretty misfortunate for women," Rebeca says in her exhibition notes. "When an apple appears in a story, you know that something will go bad. From Eve through Greek mythology to Snow White, there was always a catch with an apple. It is beautiful, delicious, tempting, seductive. A perfect disguise for all bad that can come. I use it as a symbol for the monstrosities that woman too often don't recognize as such in its early stages. This installation is about domestic violence and eating disorders — on first sight two very different things, but violence against someone and violence against oneself are the same thing, a violence."

And an eaten apple is precisely where we find ourselves as we arrive, although you might not realize it unless you zoom way out. (I've had repeated problems with the mesh of the apple not rezzing on arrival, so try right-clicking the general area, which should force it to appear.) About 95 meters high from its base to the tip of its stem, the apple is an extraordinary piece of mesh sculpture that brings to mind Rebeca's Colossus of Rhodes, created for Fashion for Life in 2013. As visitors wind their way upwards and through it, worm-like (just follow the path), they encounter two points at which they teleport away to second scenes: No Place Like Home, with an emphasis on domestic violence (image above, with a heart bursting apart a house over a highway); and Doll House, which focuses on anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa (lowest image). At each location, a brief story awaits. Positioned in the center of the apple between the two story locations is a prominent sculpture, Seed2 (image below), featuring two women, naked and intertwined.

When you make it the top of the apple (there are a couple spots where I fell through the floor — just keep going), you'll step out at the pinnacle, where a tremendous view of the apple awaits. This is a poignant work, heartfelt and personal, and a fitting end to the Full Sim Art Series, which has been administered by the University of Western Australia (UWA) in partnership with the LEA. When life gives you apples...run! will remain on display through March.

Ruins

Opening tomorrow, Monday, March 9, at 12 pm slt, is a new sim-wide build, Ruins, by Cica Ghost. (As I write this, though, Cica has just opened the sim, so it's possible to visit for an unofficial advance peek.) Only the blackbirds and wildflowers remain to inhabit the ruins of the once active city, its brick edifices having collapsed to reveal the deserted worlds within. While we can easily discern where some buildings stood — a few still have a floor or two intact — many columns stand alone or in groups, only vaguely suggesting some former structure.

To my mind, the brick ruins evoke a nineteenth-century city, perhaps a gritty industrial revolution town, built long before modern steel and glass, but of course Cica intended no such deliberate connection. Perhaps the iron cables strung between some of the columns have helped keep them steady and erect over the decades. Trees grow inside what were houses; flowers — now shriveled and dead — populate a bathtub. But perhaps we do see some signs of life: the weathered wooden planks between buildings suggest that someone has been here — at least since things fell to ruin — and, in a kitchen, water is running, and a pot of pasulj — Serbian white bean stew — is on the stove, an orange balloon floating languidly overhead.

If you're not running a viewer that automatically changes your environmental settings, you're likely to miss out Cica's custom windlight, shown here. The ruins are sure to be a favorite location for photographers and will probably remain on display for about a month. Please consider leaving a contribution near the landing point to support this and future work, or visit Cica's shop (there's a landmark giver on the sim) to pick up copies of some of her other artworks.

FreeWee's Laboratory v.8.0: Music, Myth, Magic, Light, Shadows, Physics

The title of FreeWee Ling's installation at LEA27 says it all: FreeWee's Laboratory v.8.0: Music, Myth, Magic, Light, Shadows, Physics. Over the years, her artwork has touched on all those areas and more — she creates with remarkable versatility and prolific creativity, to the point where her work might not be immediately recognizable as her own. She's also been an ardent champion of the virtual arts in general, having worked extensively with the University of Western Australia, where she's now enjoying a fellowship in real life. The presentation at LEA27 is almost like a retrospective, taking us through much of FreeWee's oeuvre — and it's likely to change over time as she continues to add and refine material.

Much of her art is interactive — often playful or humorous — and invites physical exploration. In the image above, we're inside the Nanotech Platform, where a linear accelerator tube (on the right) fires a volley of ten nanoprims, and detectors down the line inform us as to whether or not they were seen. I'm standing at the large nano rezzer sphere, which rezzes a single nano. Nearby, in another building, is the Theatrum Instrumentorum, containing sonic works, including an array of musical instruments (some playable) and creations developed in collaboration with Oriscus "Oz" Zauberflote, with whom FreeWee works as Kithara Associates.

And then there are works that place avatars into poses, sometimes capturing the camera. In the image immediately above (zoom in to see me in a box), I'm in one of the stops in A Time Away — other locations, to which we're transported automatically and dropped into place, include a sports car ride through a tunnel, a swim in a pond, a ski slope, some sort of egg capsule, and a ride on a space shuttle. As FreeWee says, it's "a kind of amusement park ride. Imagine a roller coaster that suddenly turns into a carousel or bumper cars or a sideshow magic act. That's basically how my mind works."

But to my mind, FreeWee's most interesting endeavors investigate light. Be sure to spend lots of time in the Shadow Lab (image below), where you're going to need to have advanced lighting turned on, with sun/moon and projector shadows as well. The image doesn't capture the experience, as the projected light is in motion, creating fascinating effects that handsomely show off Second Life's capabilities. In the image immediately above at the gladiatrix projection model, texture-less prims are brought to life by projected light. And there's much more, enough to keep you busy for a long time, or for return trips. The Laboratory will remain on display through the end of June.

Elle Ellsmere at LEA5

A few days ago, my friend Dividni Shostakovich suggested that I pay a visit to LEA5 (the LEA Self-Curated Gallery or sandbox) to see some works-in-progress by Elle Ellsmere, of whom I had never heard. "They're pretty wild, a taste of Francis Bacon," encouraged Dividni. And indeed, they are quite striking, as Whiskey Monday and I discovered last night as we visited. The largest piece is a tall enclosure, a surreal and disturbing environment, in which a pair of figures attempt to kiss while one is being pulled away by two other figures, one with the head of a pig and one with the head of a stag, while an assemblage of other strange characters observe from on high (first two images).

Another piece features a long row of tall windows, each of which looks into a padded room (third image — although none of these artworks can really be captured very well in single images, and the latter work includes movement). Stacked nearby are a few smaller, loose pieces (none of the works are named) on which Elle was focused today. He tells me that he generally works in MakeHuman, Sculptris and Blender, and hasn't exhibited his works anywhere before. I hope we see more of this artist in the future, and in a more permanent location.

Pirate Bay

Now open at MetaLES, curated by Ux Hax, Lanjran Choche and Romy Nayar, is Pirate Bay, a modest installation by Igor Ballyhoo — modest not only in scope but also in time, having opened yesterday and being scheduled to close on Friday, March 6. Visitors arrive at an ocean platform in the darkened sim, facing a pirate ship illuminated by spotlights ... and ... that's it. The ship is a reference to The Pirate Bay (TPB) (in fact, it replicates The Pirate Bay's logo), an infamous torrent-related website that has had a history of legal issues, particularly with the Swedish government. Click on the red button at the landing point to learn more.

Small Worlds

Opening today, Tuesday, March 3, at 12:00 pm slt, is Small Worlds by Cica Ghost, a delightful collection of miniatures she has created, based in part on some of her recent sim-wide installations. Framed in cases on small pedestals, each of the small worlds — Little Lake, House on the Hill, Little Village, and then one for each of the four seasons, Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn — depicts in exquisite detail a little scene: curious landscapes, some with Dr. Suess-like houses and some without, and with animated elements ranging from balloons to cats to snow to ducks in water. (In the lowest image here, I'm standing next to a couple to provide a sense of scale.)

"Sometimes I so want to have land to make something," Cica explains, "but I don't have it. So I thought I could make small lands — I tried to shrink things, and I liked it." And so the small worlds were born. If you zoom in, as I've done in the two middle images here, you can almost imagine the scenes as places into which you could walk. There's an additional world, Our House, that's only on display at Cica's shop, which you can visit here. After this exhibition, the small worlds, each of which is available for L$400 (unfortunately minus the backdrops), might not be available again for some time, as Cica doesn't have the prim space in her store for all of them.

The gallery itself, The Living Room, is new, and is curated by Daallee and Owl (Owl Dragonash), with space contributed by Hippie Bowman, who owns the sim (Lagrange Point Spaceport) on which the gallery resides. All three shared with me their desire to provide a vibrant space for the arts community, and Hippie has some art of his own also on display in another section of the gallery. Small Worlds will remain on display through most of the month of March. And ... I'm also pleased to say that I've had lots of time to watch Cica create a new sim-wide build, and it should open within a matter of days — stay tuned for more on that!

Hills Gallery

Yesterday, photographer Hills (Hillany Scofield) opened Hills Gallery to showcase her photography, and the initial exhibition is devoted to the male nude, a form seen often enough in SL galleries but perhaps not frequently from the female perspective. Her images, often black and white, delineate the form with eloquence and a great command of light and shadow — they're among her most impressive works. While she had had the thought to focus exclusively on mesh male bodies — most of the images are of her partner, Aran M. June (Aranfell) — two are of Xander Torkelsonn wearing a default system body.

The magnificent gallery is a build by William Weaver, and is probably seen best through its intended environmental setting, Breakwave Building Light (top and bottom images). Part of William's concept with the build was to create an environment around which one would not need to cam to observe the art, but to simply walk through, mirroring a real life experience. So give it a try — you'll find that the artworks are all easily perused by venturing around the space on foot. Hills plans to change exhibitions about once every two months.

Spring in Frisland

Frisland, that photogenic and popular location about which I've written a couple times (read here (March 2014) and here (November 2014)), has just reopened after a brief hiatus, now decorated for spring. With the return of warmer weather, green leaves and grasses have sprouted everywhere, and the sim has taken on much of its original appearance from a year ago.

Traveling through the sim by bicycle is one of the most pleasant ways of exploring, and one can rez a bike along the inland path. Those who wish to rez their own items may join the Frisland group (L$150, which of course helps to support the sim, and further contributions are welcome via the tip piggy bank at the landing point).