By Becky Shamen
During the last month, we have been tied up with producing a full length
animated tour of Sunweaver Estates. The next sim to be included is
remodeling for upcoming RFL events, so we were faced with either
rescheduling our shooting sequence or taking a break and creating a new
article for the Newser. At the same time, we learned that Cica Ghost had
a new exhibit, called "Arachnid", located on the Weeds sim. Having
already enjoyed exploring and writing about two of Cica's previous
exhibits, it was a no brainer and I informed the Editor that I was
heading there to play with the spiders.For maximum enjoyment of this exhibit, set your viewer to use local "windlight" settings and allow music and media to play automatically. This reviewer rates art by how well the artist uses their skills, tools and materials to communicate a series of thoughts, from their mind, into the minds of those viewing the art. If a picture is worth a thousand words, we expect these creepy spiders to tell us a detailed story of "What was Cica thinking?"
The sim landing places us in a large cage, or trap structure, with
information, a TP to Cica's workshop and a tip jar. The sim lighting is a
cloudy twilight grey. It's the kind of sky that makes you wish you had
brought an umbrella along. As we look around, the large spider webs, in
every direction, suggest the umbrella might also serve to hack our way
through the sticky barriers. We also notice that there are eight cages,
like the one we started in, scattered around the sim. Eight is also the
number of legs on a spider. Is Cica doing this to show that there is a
connection between the spiders and cages. These structures are "man
made". Are they here to protect us from the spiders, or are they the
webs we weave for ourselves, that trap us and remove our freedom to live
a full life?One of the cages contains several revolving displays of fancy gowns. How much of our life energy is drained by the need to stay in style with the trends, when most of us would be just as happy to wear the same old t-shirt and jeans, every day?
Several of the cages have TV sets, that play music videos, in the living
room, the bed room and by an open bookshelf. As we walk to the next
cage, we wonder if we have misread these symbols. Surely, Cica is not
suggesting that pretty dresses and TVs are going to kill us. Such
thoughts are quickly dispelled, as we almost fly into a large web which
holds the wrapped remains of two humanoid victims, with a pair of trash
cans on the ground below.In another cage, we find a stack of commercial clothes dryers. These, at first, seem to have no place in the theory being pondered, until we notice that each dryer is an amusement ride that will spin and tumble two avatars together. One has to ask, how much better would life have been, had you only learned to avoid whirlwind relationships that ended up taking you to the cleaners?
The last cage that we explored took a little longer to extract the
thoughts from. It contains two chairs and a table with a potted plant on
it. Over by the bars of the cage, a raven is looking outside the cage.
You can sit in the chairs, so we parked our cotton tail down, to
contemplate the meaning. The old saying, "a little birdie told me so",
came to mind. What is this little bird telling us? He is looking outside
the cage. Next, we notice the unusual construction of the furniture.
The chairs, instead of having four wooden legs, each have a pair of
human legs, wearing shoes. The table has a single wheel, in place of
legs. A wheel and legs suggest motion and the raven is looking outside
the cage. We got the hint and moved on, in the direction indicated by
the raven.
I give the Arachnid Exhibit my top rating. Cica Ghost's continually
evolving artistic skills and abilities to communicate with thought
forms, makes her exhibits a "Must See". Come to the exhibit and set your
butterflies free.
"Sha"
