Monday, March 18, 2013

THE LOST ALPHABET. Opening this Saturday


“THE LOST ALPHABET” 


 
The bell tower struck nine pm. The woman rubbed her eyes in disbelief, for suddenly, the writing on the page she was reading simply disappeared. The page was blank. She turned the next page and the next, then flipped wildly through the book, yet the same was true for every part of it. The whole town was experiencing the same phenomenon, and this stroke of magic would change everyone’s life forever.



Please come discover the most curious circumstances that la Citta Perduta (Lost Town) encounters in this full sim story. The beautiful Mediterranean village built by Akilae Gant and Sivi Kelberry is host to Haveit Neox’ story, a 2,500 prim-build that scatters his visual message across the map. You cannot predict what you will find around any corner. Accompanied by 13 brief ‘chapters’, the story suggests a modern day fable in an old world setting.

THE OPENING RECEPTION:
Saturday, March 23 at 3 PM, SLT
Don't miss the beautiful music and singing of REIS and ALD ALTER at the opening.
Click here for transport to the opening reception.




XXX

Saturday, March 9, 2013

ALMOST THERE

Work on "The Lost Alphabet" is nearing completion. I am very grateful for the one week extension. The opening will therefore be one week later than mentioned below. It is presently set for March 23 2013 which is a Saturday. I will be posting the name of the sim near opening date. Below is the description of the build.




LOST ALPHABET  (L’Alphabeto Perduto)

     The bell tower struck nine pm. The woman rubbed her eyes in disbelief, for suddenly, the writing on the page she was reading simply disappeared. The page was blank. She turned the next page and the next, then flipped wildly through the book, yet the same was true for every part of it. Her husband, downstairs on the computer watched as his word document went blank. There was no place to navigate his files nor to click off the blank window. In fact, all throughout this Mediterranean town, every citizen was experiencing the same phenomenon. No one slept, and within an hour, the news surfaced that the town was the victim of an alphabetic plague. The virus appeared to favor paper pages and computer screens, throwing letters off into the air, or terribly distorting them. With the loss of so much vital and practical information, not only could the town no longer function properly, but the extraordinary strangeness of the situation scared the public into believing it was a curse. After burning books and computers in pyres to prevent the virus from spreading, the people fled.

     But the town is not vacant.  There remains behind a less favored public: the homeless living in the sewers beneath the streets, the poor who had no means to leave, the outcasts who would not be welcome in a new town, and the adventurous types among whom count many artists.

     These citizens spread throughout the town, into its grocery stores, clothing stores, pastry shops, pet shops, artisan shops, and into its vacant apartments.  They plant vegetable gardens in the streets and free the animals. They hang paintings on exterior walls. They move all manner of furnishings outside to the streets where they belong. Under the sky.

     Cut off from the outside world, the new society must find a substitute for the vulnerable alphabet. Finding no legible books or manuals, song becomes the mode of storing information.

     They establish the School of Song. The first community project is to construct towering guitar fret boards rising many stories high from key buildings in the town. The buildings themselves, which are hollow structures after all, become in essence the body of the guitar: the acoustic soundboard. Maidens spin the heavy chords onto the ‘guitars’, and when plucked, the music reverberates clearly throughout each neighborhood. The streets and establishments bloom in carnival, with acrobatics, dramas and farces telling the story of their town.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

L’ALPHABET PERDU   (L’Alfabeto Perduto)

Le clocher a sonné neuf heures. La femme s’est frotté les yeux, incrédule, car soudain  l'écriture sur la page qu’elle lisait tout simplement a disparu. La page était vide. Elle a tourné la page suivante et encore une autre, elle a renversé sauvagement à travers le livre, mais c’était toujours la meme histoire. Son mari, en bas sur l'ordinateur a regardé son document word qui est devenu tout blanc. Il n'y avait pas de place pour naviguer ses dossiers, ni de cliquer hors de la fenêtre vide. En fait, tout au long de cette ville méditerranéenne, chaque citoyen connaissait le même phénomène. Personne ne dormait, et dans une heure, les nouvelles ont apparues que la ville avait été victime d'une peste alphabétique. Le virus semble favoriser le papier des pages et les écrans d'ordinateur, en lançant les lettres et mots dans l’air, ou les déformant terriblement. Avec la perte de tant d'information vitale et pratique, non seulement la ville ne pourrait plus fonctionner correctement, mais la nature bizzare de la situation extraordinaire a semmé la peur au public en lui faisant croire que c'était une malédiction. Après avoir brûlé des livres et des ordinateurs dans des bûchers pour empêcher le virus de se propager, les gens ont fui.

     Mais la ville n'est pas vide de vie. Il reste derrière un public moins favorisé: les sans-abris vivant dans les égouts sous les rues, les pauvres qui n'avaient pas de moyens de partir, les insolites qui ne seraient pas les bienvenus dans une nouvelle ville, et les types aventureux parmi lesquels comptent de nombreux artistes.

     Ces citoyens se répandent dans toute la ville, dans ses épiceries, magasins de vêtements, pâtisseries, animaleries, magasins d'artisanat, et dans ses appartements vacants. Ils poussent des potagers végétaux dans les rues et libèrent les animaux. Ils pendent des peintures sur les murs extérieurs. Ils se déplacent toutes sortes de mobiliers à l’extérieur dans les rues sous le ciel.

     Coupée du monde extérieur, la nouvelle société doit trouver un substitut pour l'alphabet vulnérable. Ne trouvant ni livres ni manuels lisibles, la chanson devient le mode de stockage d'informations.

     Ils établissent l'École de la Chanson. Le premier projet de la communauté est celui de construire des coups de guitare d’une immense taille qui poussent plusieurs étages au-dessous des bâtiments principaux de la ville. Les bâtiments eux-mêmes, qui sont des structures creuses, après tout, deviennent en substance le corps de la guitare: l’instrument acoustique. Les demoiselles tournent les cordes lourdes sur les «guitares», et quand pincées, la musique résonne clairement tout au long de chaque quartier. Les rues et les établissements fleurissent au carnaval, avec des acrobaties, des drames et des farces qui racontent l'histoire de leur ville.

Haveit Neox
Le 26 février 2013



XXX


Thursday, February 28, 2013

PROGRESS UPDATE


IN PROGRESS

     The full sim art presentation that I mentioned below in a couple previous posts, is making good progress. My calendar is filled up to the brim each day with work to complete for the installation. For the past couple months, I’ve written down ideas and descriptions for my project, built along those lines, but as each day comes closer to the opening date on March 16 (Saturday), the obsession to create grows. I’ve been a tourist of the sim up until now, but presently, I’m beginning to feel more like an inhabitant.  

     When the owners of the sim give me the word, I’ll make a formal announcement with the location, time, and description of the tale I have fashioned to fit the site.

.....................

Du progrès

     La présentation d’art que j'ai mentionnée ci-dessous dans un message précédent, est en bonne voie. Mon agenda est entièrement rempli chaque jour avec du travail pour l'installation. Pour les deux derniers mois, j'ai écrit des idées et des descriptions pour mon projet, construit des builds d’après ces lignes, mais chaque jour qui rapproche la date d'ouverture le 16 Mars (samedi), l'obsession de créer accélère. Je me suis senti être un touriste de la sim jusqu'à maintenant, mais aujourd'hui, je commence à me sentir comme un habitant.

     Lorsque les propriétaires de la sim me donneront la parole, je vais faire une annonce officielle avec le lieu, la date et la description de l'histoire que j'ai façonné pour l’oeuvre.




XXX


Sunday, January 27, 2013

FISH MARKET



     The base along the cliff-side walls of Medusa Locks has had a long history of changes. Lacking romanticism, the original structure along the cliff’s bottom was a public restroom. A little space furnished with some of the best grungy toilets and sinks I could find. Not long afterwards, the little room was expanded into a larger restroom with a sizable floor. Ironically, the less than tidy space took a remarkable transformation as this little jut of land became increasingly developed. What was once the fringe of the neighborhood suddenly became central. The bathroom expanded yet again to become a Visitor Center.

That change occurred due to a question my friend Lilia Artis had asked me one day: Why did I have the Visitor Center toward the edge of the sim, when the Paper Tower was not only directly in the middle of the sim, but afforded the best views over the entire city. I took her advice and moved the Center high up in the Paper Tower where it remains to this day. Shortly after the Visitor Center vacated the Medusa Locks neighborhood, it wasn't long before the other builds on the jut of land known as Darkrodin Pier also disappeared. For a brief time, a couple of colorful booths offering free fish took up the space. Bees and ants attracted to the odors of fish were somewhat reminiscent of buzzing sounds from the old days of the original restroom. By the way, only a bit of the first tiled wall, and a cat in the window remain today from that first structure.

I recently watched a movie called Darshan. It is a spiritual movie, and shot with fine cinematography. I found it a remarkable film in many respects, from its technique to the story, and thoroughly enjoyed the settings in India. Benares (Varanasi) is one of those special sites among human landscapes that really sticks out. In Benares, one purifies oneself in the river Ganges where city and nature merge, where life and death share the bustling shore. In Second Life where gatherings of people are uncommon (3 or 4 avatars in one area is considered a hopping place), I felt that if I wanted to create a very modest interpretation of a purifying ground, the emphasis would need to be on fragments of life, and representations of death. It is a project that will grow through time, as I become more familiar with its spiritual potential. Beneath what was once the bathroom, once the Visitor Center, once the Fish Market, rises the flat quai of libations. Fires burn on the quai pavement in reference to the cremations along the Ganges. But what I choose to position at the water’s edge is a question. For now, there are stretchers of art slanting down the stairs to the river, as if they were bodies awaiting the fire, or souls adrift on the next current.







XXX

Monday, January 21, 2013

A RUSTED DEVELOPMENT TOUR


     Yesterday, Rowan Derryth gave a tour of ‘A Rusted Development’ which is on the LEA1 sim. She is the curator who selected the artists to fill the spaces in the full sim city I’d built for this exhibit. It was slated to stand for about 2 months, but through welcomed extensions, it has been up for 9 months. I believe it’s time has come however, and at the end of this month it is due to come down.

Rowan leads around 25 visitors along the exhibit


     Rowan’s ability to engage an audience is punctuated with her well organized mind. It’s fun and instructive. She gave the tour, which even in extreme lag produced by the large attendance of avatars, lasted exactly one hour. Just right for Second Life. But I will let her tell you the details when she posts the transcription. I plan to post a link.





XXX

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Friday, January 11, 2013

THE CHORUS




     The exhibit I’m preparing for March (see Dec 8 2012 entry further down this blog for info) continues to make progress. Last night, I temporarily rezzed the chorus on site to see how the textures and spacing fit. The bluish default windlight setting is quite fabulous, but I also wanted to see how it looked on Midnight setting. Evidently, the creators of the  building that will house my chorus has an orange light feature inside. It gave these wonderful ochre tones. Until March, my work schedule will be full creating the parts for this exhibit. 




xxx

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

CHANGES AT THE MUSEUM


The North Wing Gallery is behind the photographer in this shot. But the expanded courtyard and the new tree are clearly visible.

     The Studio of Builds Museum gets quite a makeover. For the past week, I’ve been doing remodeling of both the North Wing Gallery and Cranberry Dock Courtyard. Around the seam of 2012 to2013, the courtyard was expanded threefold in area. An important consideration while remodeling is to use fewer textures so that the court and the space inside the North Wing are not confusing to the eye. There was a lot of simplifying to consider. As I made progress, it became evident that I would have to address the small tower that was part of the original build from June of 2010. I hate removing historical features, but for a clean sweep of the eye, I made the sacrifice. There are still several areas of the old 2010 build remaining in other parts of the museum complex, but increasingly, a modern air dominates. The old stone bridge over the river was also removed along with many trees. But a gain to the landscape showed itself in the two gorgeous new additions I bought from the Zen Island sim. One is a cluster of bamboo, and the second is one of the most beautiful trees I’ve seen in Second Life. Its texturing and light bark complement the area perfectly. Large pods hang down from the red flower laden branches. Please come for a visit. When in Second Life, go to my PICKS from my profile, and click on MY MUSEUM.

Currently showing at the galleries of the museum:

North Wing Gallery: Paintings by Fiona Leitner. 
Feathered Muse Pavilion: Small temporary exhibit of the works by Hypatia Pickens. 
Bowsprit Well: Images by Nessuno Myoo.