Idus December: Night of the Winter Creatures

Happy Holidays!

Lilia Artis, Moeuhane Sandalwood, and myself set up our Winter inspired installation inside the Palazzo of Lost Town (on the sim LAND OF GLORY). It's called "Idus December: Night of the Winter Creatures." A surprise followed. Recently, Veyot made a charming film of our exhibit “Idus December: Night of the Winter Creatures”. If you visit Lost Town, make sure to explore. The creators of the city, Sivi and Akilae, have invited several artists to participate in this Winterfest. A major exhibit called “invisible People” by Rebeca Bashly weaves thru the streets, where textures render the figures transparent when viewed at certain angles.

Lilia, Moe and I worked together on this installation. We took our idea from Rebeca Bashly's exhibit  'Invisible People', and chose to play on that theme, asking ourselves, who then, are the 'visible' people? We each interpreted this in our own way, and brought our vision together in the build. For myself, I've written my viewpoint here:

STORY

Invisible people: including the homeless, or people with debilitating fears, hermits, and other estranged citizens live in the shadows of the city. They are invisible either by choice or circumstance. The rest of the citizens remain in the 'light'. We are the nobles, living by the dictates of our particular cultures. Cultures within cultures, we all do the same thing, we single out those who do not fit. Displaying ourselves in the light, laughing at the circus around us, believing ourselves to be exempt from it, we rarely perceive the 'snowballs' coming our way, and when reality hits at given moments, it can leave us chilled.

I could not make an LM to take you directly to the Palazzo, as the sim appears to have a forced landing point on the opposite side of the city. If you look on the mini map, the Palazzo is on the north rim, a little bit West of center. You can't miss the glow inside! If you open the SL map, type in LAND OF GLORY for the sim, and you will arrive to Lost Town.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH Veyot’s film touring the Palazzo.

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MOVING ISLANDS

Partial view of the installation.

Beginning tomorrow, Sunday, Eupalinos Ugajin's group exhibit "Moving Islands" will open on the sim LEA20 in the Second Life virtual world. I will be one of the participating artists. Most of the 'rafts' are scripted so that they interact on the mirror slick ocean (and in some cases below the ocean's surface). I went by to see how the sim looked with the rafts in place, which is quite astounding. Derek Michelson and Oberon Onmura wrote scripts which many participants used. The exhibit will evolve over its run from now into December.

Click HERE to visit the exhibit.

The photo above shows the pieces I made. The composition is called "Mythic Raft"

I plan to update this day's blog as other infos come available.

The artists in Eupalinos' exhibit, as listed on the invitation texture:

Alpha Auer
Artistide Despres
Aston Leisen
CapCat Ragu
Cica Ghost
Cutea Benelli
Derek Michelson
Eupalinos Ugajin
Haveit Neox
Kake Broek
Kikas Babenco
Livio Korobase
Maclane Mills
Marmaduke Arado
Maya Paris
Meilo Minotaur
Merlino Mayo
Oberon Onmura
Ole Etzel
Pallina60 Loon
Scottius Polke
Simotron Aquila
Takio Ra
Uan Ceriaptrix
... and it is possible the list will grow. Stay tuned!


UPDATE: Movie LAST GREEN

I made a film that takes place in the Moving Islands installation. It's called "ProjectSciFi 2013 LAST GREEN"
Click HERE to watch the film.

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Overnight Development at Darkrodin Pier

Darkrodin Pier leads up to the cliff side neighborhood of Medusa Locks.

     For a year, the pier had no structures on it, except for traces of ruins and boardwalks from previous developments. Once a home to the Visitor Center, gardens (most notably Herolds’ Knoll: a hill top garden which exploded like a volcano, leaving the ocean pocket where a plaque commemorates the Prim Mausoleum which used to stand here), the remaining fragments of land now support the extended village seen in the photo. Built in one day, with a meagre prim allowance, my dream of having an urban neighborhood finally comes to light.

Houses surround Darkrodin Plaza, a small open space which has seen
many alterations in its years of existence.

     The houses are only two prims: A hollowed phantom cube, and a roof. By necessity, this neighborhood has to be minimal in prim usage, as the sim’s resources are stretched. Last night and again this morning, I worked on ideas how to ‘furnish’ the interiors with no more than 1 prim each. There are two approaches I’m currently working on. The first is simply to make the interior walls of an interesting architectural texture and brought down to 50 % opacity. Therefore, from the interior, you look onto the neighboring views, veiled in a pleasant composition. The effect comprises multiple layers in some locations. The second approach is to make animated panels using Prim Generator. This way, I can produce several objects using only one prim count. The sculpt can then be pulled to conform to the interior measurements of the house.

     I also placed a gift temporarily in one of the squares.

     About the textures: Most of them are what I sketched roughly of a Venetian façade in charcoal. Taking this into Photoshop, a couple variations help to give variety to the pier. I superimposed in some areas of the texture an African charcoal drawing I’d made a few months ago. Being roughly drawn in charcoal, the styles complement each other.

ARIETE NEL CUORE at Maze Gardens

I purchased a statue by SL artist Maddomxc (based on the RL work of Mazzieri) for Maze Gardens. The luminous golden figure holds a rotating globe in the left hand, and leans back with all the weight of the world in his/her thoughts. I'm not sure if the model is male or female. I found the ambiguity particularly fitting for a public fountain, where visitors will see him/her as they choose. On Google Translate, the Italian is rendered as 'Ram of the Heart'. I don't know the story behind this title, nor am I sure if that was a correct translation. For the present, it remains a mystery to me, while the artwork itself shines warmly in its new home along the North Shore edge of Maze Gardens.

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THE FROG PUPPETEER

DREAM

Yesterday, I awoke with a new idea for my virtual city. Since I’d sculpted a miniature group of buildings in the Plateau of Man Park the day before, I wanted to carry on the theme of more miniature groupings. This comes naturally to me. I grew up building miniature cities in the yard, and when later in life, I had no yard, I would draw cities on long rolls of paper, or sculpt ceramic buildings for aquariums. So why not do the same in Second Life?

MEDUSA LOCKS NEIGHBORHOOD

It didn’t take me long to decide where to put this next mini city. The Medusa Locks neighborhood in the cliffs provides all sorts of ancient nooks and crannies for the unexpected. The area is riddled with convoluted paths, boring into the walls of the hillside as if planned by an earthworm. These short tunnels and little rooms effect a porous shell around the inner Library of Darkrodin, which is the large space at the core inside the hill. The area around an outdoor ramp linking two levels of the Locks seemed an ideal site. With a virtual trowel at hand (Prim Generator), and a large bristled paintbrush (Photoshop), I set to work.

FROGGY

The frog was taken from one of my past exhibits called Second Libations. She was a puppeteer in that show, and remains so in the Locks. Her fellow puppeteers were photographed so I did not have to use large numbers of prims in the construction of this sculpture. The strings from the handheld handle do not attach to people or animals however. The characters in this story are the buildings. The puppeteer manipulates the city itself, its structures, its roads, its vegetation.

CERAMIC CITY

As mentioned above, I used to build ceramic cities for gardens. I used a photo of one city I built in RL, and adjusted it in Photoshop. It is the city image you see on the background wall of the installation. To bring more depth to the flat texture, I used Prim Generator to make some buildings come out at us in 3D.

VISIT

THE MEDUSA LOCKS NEIGHBORHOOD
In the center of the above photo, you will see a couple glowing areas in the seawall.
The one most central is the Frog Puppeteer. You cannot miss her, she is to the left
of a ship which juts out from this seawall.

If you’d like to visit the location, it is in the city of Accentaury (the ACC Alpha sim). This is visible from the ocean while looking toward the Medusa Locks neighborhood. It is easy to find… a complex seawall of buildings topped with a domed structure as seen in the photo. The Frog Puppeteer is fairly central, and situated near the ship that protrudes from the seawall. 

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NEW DEVELOPMENTS AT THE PARK

Colorful procession on the ancient stairs leading up to the Plateau of Man Park.

     After the “Lost Alphabet” installation closed a month ago, I decided to pull some of the scenes from inventory into the city of Accentaury. Originally, rezzed deep in the ocean, and accessed through a gaping hole in the Library floor (which has since been closed), I began moving them up to the surface of the Plateau of Man Park, as well as the Spilt Gold Corridor below the Studio of Builds Arena.

     This gives a sense of drama to the Park, and though these scenes were originally designed to fit my story “Lost Alphabet”, I have reworked the arrangement of the characters so that visitors can deduce their own stories. Whatever the interpretation, there is a great deal of action which lends vitality to an otherwise tranquil space.

Women with birdcage skirts, run in the Park toward the Wash.

     Recently I’ve made several large changes to the sim. The parading people at the Spilt Gold Corridor lead to the Lost Alphabet Wash Fountain (see earlier post), which in turn gave me ideas for the interior of the House of ACCentaury, the construction of the Black Gate which visually frames the carousel, and finally, reworking the game room which is also on the Park grounds. I’m on a building spree. Who knows what tomorrow brings.

THE BLACK GATE

Textures in the upper section of the Black Gate.

     This tower was designed to visually frame the old carousel (when viewed from inside the House of ACCentaury), the carousel being among the oldest structures remaining from the Park’s early days in 2010. Four new textures applied to the Black Gate are among six that I am including in a hunt gift for the upcoming Renaissance Hunt in September. I always apply new textures I make for a hunt onto a building or statue in the vicinity of the House  of ACCentaury, so that the hunters can get an idea how they appear on a build.

THE GAME ROOM

Remodeled interior of the Game Room, including balcony plantings,

an enclosed garden (unseen in this photo, is behind the chair) and the artworks of 

Lilia Artis, whose pieces inspired me to undergo this project. The reflecting floor is unchanged,

though the game table is a lower prim mesh version of the original sliding puzzle. 

Warning, the game is addictive.

     The sliding puzzle table is in the western pavilion of the Caravan Tent arcade. You can find this on the north side of the Park. I just installed elegant photo art by Lilia Artis there, which transformed the space. Wanting to further it’s unique qualities, I also added plantings, and squared off a small hedged garden. I always prefer Midday light, but when viewing the chorus in the Lost Alphabet Wash fountain, I suggest also setting Midnight view. The rising mists offer mysterious effects.

The particle mist machine gives atmospheric effects no matter the time

of day or night.

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LOST ALPHABET WASH

     Some chapters of my “Lost Alphabet” installation that had shown earlier this year at La Citta Perduta, can be seen in both Sparquerry, and ACCentaury (ACC Alpha). Two days ago, I began adding parts of the Exodus, Multi-Species-Chorus, and Pied Piper chapters to the old reflecting pool on the Plateau of Man, as seen in the photo above. Having placed the ship of refugees in the center of the pool, I noticed that the arcade behind it was quite similar in color, blending it with the background to such a degree that the ship was barely visible. Then I decided to add a wall of water, not only highlighting the boat, but adding some lively animation to the calm surrounds. One thing led to another, and before long, I had a flood on my hands. The concept of the lost alphabet takes a new variation here: it is washed away. You can literally see this, by the sheets of As, Bs, and Cs, churning in the waves.

     The arcade (Puppet Theater) has more to see if you follow behind the waterfall that spills from its façade. Walk along the back corridor that will lead you to another section of the city along the North Shore.

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