Lichtbringer's 16 Fields and the LEA Photo Contest

By Klaus Bereznyak

The tripartite collective of Lichtbringer (Light-bringer) have been bringing light to the grid through their collaborations since they first got together in 2015. Their latest installation on LEA26 is called 16 Fields, a sim divided four by four into squares, each square hosting a unique offering of original 3D work.

​There's still time to to enter the Linden Endowment for the Arts (LEA) Photo Contest, open for entries until 17 August, and submit your best snap of this breathtaking show. I'm a sucker for a photographic challenge, so I loaded a roll, grabbed some lenses and set my coordinates to LEA26.

The landing point is in a cafe area (one of the 16 fields) with a well-stocked bar and equally well-stocked information points where one can find out about Lichtbringer and some of their other diverse work. Each member of the group, an artist in their own right, contributes unique skills to the collective. They work with handmade meshes, sculpts, prims, particles, lighting and scripts, endlessly experimenting with light. Beyond the cafe area is a surreal plane with tantalising cubic aurorae snaking overhead, snow falling upwards, shapes morphing and changing color. Whether you are a mouselooker or an ALT-zoomer, you need to get out and in among the lights.

​Immersing here is like being in a continuous firework display that you can get up close to without being burned. I was a little overwhelmed at first, but there are only 15 more fields to see after you have had a drink at the bar, or a late breakfast. Three other AVs were lounging near the landing point and, no doubt, camming. I wandered off in the direction of what first aroused my curiosity, a seemingly dark and static piece, beyond all the swirling light, on a corner of the sim. 

A protester stands under a towering sculpture of the word "APOCALYPSE" with arms lifted in an open gesture. Surrounded by death and dryness, the figure seemed hopeless, but I wasn't sure what the message was here. Some of the fields contain sculpted words or recognisable symbols that hint at meanings but leave it open to interpretation. For all the light in play, the dark shapes in some of the fields are fascinating too.

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Across the fields, the light, colors and shapes that are visible are constantly changing, so that no two moments will be the same, offering endless opportunities for a unique photo capture. The scale of the works ranges from a quirky assortment of colorful polygons in a sort of 'playground' on the NW corner to epic structures that dwarf any AV and can be flown through. For the best flying experience, I recommend the high, cubic lattice of point lights, filled with a morphing funnel of particles in the middle of the southern edge of the sim.

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To participate in the photo competition for a 1000L$ cash prize and a unique, handmade "namehopper", one must submit a picture taken within the installation. Post-processing is allowed but not essential and there's no entry fee, so it seems open and not too fussy. However, make sure you read all the rules on the competition web-page, especially the detail on perms and how to submit. 

Nobody seems to know what a "namehopper" is, answers on a postcard? I was hoping I'd find the answer somewhere on the sim, and I know what I think it might be, but we shall see. 

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Lea26 is at: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/LEA26/158/160/32
Details of the photo competiton: http://lindenarts.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/lea26-holds-photo-contest-starting.html

Castle and Home and Garden Contest Opens

By Gemma Cleanslate

Sunday at 3:00 pm slt the Castle and Home and Garden contest had its grand opening.Be there! It is a bit late this year but well worth the wait!!!  I have been roaming the regions and am amazed at the gorgeous creations that are filling the sims. I will let you come see them for yourself! Everyone has been working so hard to make the regions look enchanting to the eye. 


Evo ‘KhrysT Neox let me take a picture of his tiny castles , surrounded by larger ones.
 The merchants are setting up their wares in the shops , and, Gotchas, raffles , auctions all set up for you . It is a wonderful event to visit. It will be here all week until the 31st of July. There is music and live entertainment going on every day. http://chgrfl.org/schedule/

 “The builds are displayed over a set of days, wherein both a set of impartial judges and the public at large can vote for their favorite castles. All proceeds from the Castle, Home and Garden Contest go towards Relay for Life of Second Life, a charity organization supporting the American Cancer Society.” So make sure you visit all the castles and look for the voting kiosk. 

Remember this event takes place on TWO levels. There is a ground level and an upper level!! Please don’t miss those entries up on the top level. There are prizes but even these go to the Relay for Life. I will be taking pictures during the week but walking in and looking for hidden room is much more fun so come over and do it!  

The Otter .. Rowena Dubrov is the founder and  small but mighty lead of this awesome event!

The sims were open at 2PM SL time. The main ceremonies took place at 3PM at CHG Main.  

See you there

Gemma Cleanslate

Editor's Note: This article was meant to go up Sunday morning, but thanks to Murphy's Law, it ended up in the spam folder. So here it is now. Better late than never. 

One can find a transcript of the opening speech here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/16f5wSO7ESHHpnGlh1hrt2TcUTiSxZ4PI5qbYt-qsruE/edit

The Sunbeamer Camp for 2017

By Bixyl Shuftan

The Relay Weekend is the high point of the Relay for Life fundraising season every year, and although some of it's areas are "designer sims," most of what people see on the track are the various exhibits of the teams. Since the members of the team meet up at these places, they've gotten the name "campsites." While some are often nature scenes, often they're buildings or something else.

Made up mostly of members of the former Passionate Redheads when starting out, since 2013 the Sunbeamers, the team of Second Life's Sunweaver community, have been part of the Relay. And every time, several of the people have come together to build an exhibit. Over time, the Newser has written about most of the camps in 2013 (2014 picture), in 2015, and of the 2016 camp which won an award for it's educating the visitors while telling the story of a farmer's daughter discovering she had cancer. So how to follow up on an award-winning build? That was the challenge the team, notably the top builders Shockwave Yareach and Cynthia Farshore faced.

"Shocky was the head builder for this year," Cynthia Farshore told me, saying it was "his idea to make an airport terminal, and he laid out the model on my dinning room table. From that we then took things to a build platform the same size as this camp over (Farshore Field),  about two thousand meters, and began piecing it together. He was able to get the size and placement worked out before it came to here." The camp would be at RFL Celebrate (185/130/22).

Around the main build was a parking lot with a few cars, and a couple airliners and a baggage carrier. The entrance would have people going through a security checkpoint, which included an x-ray machine. Before going in, there was a HUD for a game they could pick up. "Gives a passport," Cynthia told me, "You look for the stamps around the camp, Most are in rooms." One stamp, that of the Sunweavers, was somewhere in the entrance area. Past the entrance, there was a round concourse with a number of rooms around it, as well as one in the center. In each a stamp for the game was placed. Finding all of the stamps would get the resident a small prize.

On the walls were a number of posters of locations, but only a handful were what one would expect to find at a real airport, "In true Sunweaver fashion, we just couldn't put up straight posters." One of New York city was a cartoon picture of someone in a taxi getting robbed and two grinning people looking over a deed to the Brooklyn Bridge. Another showed a "Star Wars" Stormtrooper in an icy place, inviting people to vacation in Hoth. Still another "Greetings from Baghdad" showed a plane dropping a bomb as it flew behind two unknowing tourists. There was also a poster titled "United," which made me think of the airliner which had gotten in trouble a few months ago for forcing a passenger off it's plane. In between the comedy and comedic references were more serious statistics, stating how much money various activities in the treatment of cancer took.

Each of the six rooms represented a real-world location: New York City, Bejing, Rome, Rio de Janeiro, Los Angeles, and Mexico City. In most of the rooms, information about cancer was placed appropriate to the setting. For the traffic scene in New York, there was information about carcinogens. For the sunbathers on the beach in Rio, there was information on skin cancer. For the nude male statues in Rome, there were facts about prostrate cancer. For the food and outhouse in the Mexico area, there was information on colon and rectal cancer.

There were a couple details from previous builds. One was the prayer tower, which launched balloons towards heaven, people able to place names of those they wished to honor. There was also a memorial garden, with a pink fox statue for Artistic Fimicloud, a resident of the Sunweaver community whom had passed away nine years ago. There were a couple smaller pink foxes in the fountain in front of the airport as well, which when clicked gave some information about "Fimi" as she was called.

They were limited with how much could be built, "land is misleading, shows (it) supports 4687, but turns out they limited us to, what is it, 2500? Guess need room for all the million prim furries that will be coming through." Some last minute work on the build, such as placing another couple panels, was postponed until after the judging of the camps due to Cynthia and Shockwave's real-life work schedules, "when I got on I was so tired after doing an all nighter and working all day. Shocky was no better, so we said we're done." Still, they were happy with what they had accomplished. So was team captain Rita Mariner, "I am happy with the way the build came together. I think our builders did a great job and had some fun doing it."

Skylark Lefavre commented, "I think in my own honest opinion this is the best one we did in a long time. Its in it's own rights a competitor, with teams like 'Aliens Love Tatas Too.' It's not only informative and educational, its also entertaining and visual, something you can participate in, almost like a tour. Using the airport take the tour is a nice touch since an airport represents a way into any part of the world it also shows the education of cancer prevention and treatment can reach any place as well."

As it turned out, others would be impressed with the campsite too. It would be awarded second place for "Best Themed Decorated Campsite." Rita was happy, "Second place and fun doing it." Shockwave was very pleased, especially considering the quality of some of the other camps, "Against THIS level of expertise? I'm ecstatic! Couldn't have done it without all of you!"

And so, once again "the little team that could" made a big impact in the Relay for Life in Second Life, thanks in part to the skill and persistence of it's builders.

Addition: Wildstar Beaumont took several pictures of the exhibit, which can be seen here. 

Bixyl Shuftan

Interview With Ambri Jung

By Bixyl Shuftan

A couple months ago, Gemma Cleanslate wrote about a photography exhibit by Anibrm Jung. Recently, I had the chance to meet up with her. We met up at the Little Red Door Chapel Gallery and Retreat, where she has an exhibit. Anibrm told me the exhibit had opened July 8, with about twenty people being there are the start, "I was really surprised about that many people."

So how did she find out about Second Life? "Ohhhhh long time ago," Anibrm answered with a smile, "I was curious about it and never left. 2006 I started." Of her first days, "If I remember well; I felt lost, but on my second day I met Lorenzo. This guy stayed with me my whole Second Life. He showed me around. ... In that time I met some great friends. Second Life was different than. It was more a community. Nowadays it is like real life. Everybody for there own. I think that is a sad thing. Second Life needs a place for people to hide, run away too and be themselves and meet people and become friends without any obstacles." She felt there has been less community spirit lately, "SL became a business instead of a community"

When arriving, a notecard handed to me automatically by an auto-greeter informed me that Anibrm in real life was a real-life "award-winning photographer for her sensitive and vibrant portraits of nature's works of art," using a Nikon D60 digital camera. Asking her about it, she referred to herself as an amateur, "It`s a great hobby to have." I asked how she got the idea for displaying her work in Second Life. She answered, "That has been some years ago. This friend I talked about asked me to show my photo`s in SL. So I did (smile). He made a gallery and I showed my photos. (I) Didn`t expect any one would come to have a look at them. But they did, and even (bought) some." The exhibit at the Little Red Door Chapel Gallery, Amicus curiae (134, 161, 24), will be up until the end of July.

Asking her about the other location she had pictures, she told me, "Graine Macbain offered me her gallery for showing my Art for a long time now. She is awesome for doing that!" The Graine Gallery and Riverside Cafe is in Blue Curacao (29/44/23)

Noticing she was carrying a satchel, I asked if she carried her camera in anything like that in real life. She warmly told me she had, saying she had been looking around Second Life for one just like it, and had found this only two weeks ago.

For now, Anibrm has no further plans for showings of her work, at least for the time being, "I had a lot of exhibitions in here the last three months and had my plot at SL14th Birthday. So for now this is it. That a love Second Life in all it`s way, but I think the Lindens are taking to much control about it, which will lead to a competitive SL. Where business is more important than fun, shelter, friendship etc." She thanked the Newser for it's coverage of art and artists, "I really like you doing this for artists in Second Life!"

Bixyl Shuftan