The Newser SL21B Exhibit, And A Few More

 

By Bixyl Shuftan

 

 The Second Life Birthday, the SL21B is over. This year, yours truly wasn't able to get there as often as he wanted. But I still had a little time to get a few pictures. 

As in all but the first SL Birthday's we've covered, the Newser had it's own exhbit, built by Silvia Ametza and her team, at SLB Incredible. 

In the middle was a rotating globe, supported by two arches. 

 

Silvia had set up something for people to guestimate the future of climate change.

 

 

The calculations depend on variables which can change. 

There was a little lost puppy at the build, which would occasionally howl.

There was also an elevator that would take people to the lower, underwater level.

Silvia and her teammates,  Aimeelou Destiny and Kimblecoles Resident did great, as they always have in previous builds.

Before leaving, I would take a few more pictures of some other exhibits. 

French artist Moya had an exhibit there. 

 

See you at next year's SL Birthday.

 

Bixyl Shuftan

 

The Shui Mo Gallery

 

By Gemma Cleanslate

 

Last week Andee Cooper’s  VAI tour group visited two galleries lead by Isa (Isalia Michalak) who is an aficionado of art. Our first visit was to the Shui Mo Gallery which is the installation of Fionafei. I am familiar with Fionafei’s art from Burn2 and various exhibits in Second Life. Her art is, “ Chinese ink brush painting, depicting a common theme or landscape seen in many traditional Chinese paintings.” At first glance on arrival it looks like a simple gallery of brush art on the wall. Take a close look. In almost every piece there is movement. At the end of the gallery is a red door and here is the real beginning .Enter and behold! Become part of the art.

Now you are facing a huge hall filled with black and white moving or still. This is the Dreams Garden Plot where one can float or pose on the umbrellas scattered around or dance while you admire the stunning garden and reflection under the floor . Koi swim gracefully around under the floor. There are four doors above on the bridge, two to the left and two to the right. One however shows an under construction sign.

Fionafei graciously stopped by to thank us for visiting her gallery and presented us all with a personal Koi like the ones swimming in the Garden Plot. She informed us she is creating a new exhibit that will fill the room behind the construction sign and invited us all to return to see it and I certainly will. I want to spend more time in the rooms examining all the stunning figures in each.We entered the first door. What a surprise. It is a full village of homes. Walk among them to see how they are “built”. This is where Fionafei is such an expert in her distinctive style. She is a Chinese American and loves to be in touch through her art with her ancestors and celebrate the “old masters who painted in this beautiful art style” she says. Fionafei told us she was inspired to create the village from her visits to Shanghai.

The third room holds Dragons intertwining and moving . Walk around so you can experience the dragons from different angles so you are viewing the art in 3d. Try another door. Inside the you will find a huge room full of windows from all over the world just hanging in the air and below the floor. This is a visit not to be missed. 

Here is the entrance to Shui Mo.  http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Dreams/149/34/2554

Some background on the region appears on the notecard available at the gallery.

“About the Dreams Sim

************************

Shui Mo hovers over Dreams, a sim dedicated to helping and supporting stroke survivors and people with autism by means of regular group meetings, classes, games, and creative building contests. The goal of the Shui Mo Gallery is to give the visitors and the Dreams community the feel of being fully immersed inside a 2D drawing as well as an escape from even 'virtual' reality, where the 3D space melts away into the mind of the artist. Initially designed as a stand-alone art installation is now also used to house many of my other Second Life sculptures and installations. “


I will tell you about the other fantastic gallery another day. 

Gemma Cleanslate

 

Design

Serenity's "The Fantastic Future of Health"

 

By Bixyl Shuftan

 

At SLB Fabulous (213, 221, 23), there's an exhibit "The Fantastic Future of Health," by Serenity (SerenKitty). It's also called "My Adventuredom's Hedge Maze."

The first part of the exhibit was what Serenity felt were the greater problems with the current US health care system, notably working-class people sometimes having trouble getting adequate treatment for illnesses and conditions due to a system "that focuses on sick people equaling profit."

 

"The current model causes the sick to go without care and medicine unless they can afford it."

 

 

 There, I ran into Serenity, and Kamden (KamdenFoxHyde) who Serenity introduced as her real-life son. Serenity told me the exhibit, "nutshells our two LLCs. I head one and Kam the other."

Serenity showed me the other parts of the exhibit, "This area highlights the wellness center that we're working to build."

 

"The purpose of our businesses is to fund no-cost wellness and urgent care centers across the US and Canada. We opened our My Adventuredom LLC in 2020, and Kam opened his this year.

Part of the exhibit was for "animal-assisted therapy to help with physical and psychological needs." Serenity would tell me, "Kam works with horses. He volunteers and trains at a stable near our house. He's working toward training therapy horses and dogs."

We then got to the next part of the exhibit, "This area represents how we do it. Some of these businesses are currently running and some we're working to build. We offer both physical and virtual products through our various companies, all under the My Adventuredom LLC umbrella. Kam's LLC has his own brands and lines. Typically horse focused."

We went up an elevator to the treehouse part of the exhibit.

Inside were a few gifts, and a couple graphs about My Adventuredom and Sen Michaelson LLC, "These graphics display how it all works. So now you know what I do in RL, besides school. This is why Kam and I are working towards our medical doctorates so that we can work in our own clinics."

Serenity mentioned her real-life trouble on her profile's First Life page, "You also know about my autoimmune disease. That is why my focus is diagnostics and rare diseases.

"Kam is my primary caregiver. He's my right-hand man in business, school, and my health. Well, my husband helps us too. I've been with him for 25 years, so can't leave him out (laughter)."

 

When I asked about her time in Virtual Ability, Serenity answered, "Oh, goodness. I can't remember how long I've been there. I believe it was 2012-2016 but then I left for a few years after a friend passes away. Kam moved the class I was teaching over to Whole Brain Health and added Spanish to the Nutrition classes he intends to teach. I'm only holding Building Hour on Wednesdays at VAI at the moment.  I also volunteer with Virtual Worlds Education Consortium. I'm on the comm team, events team, and networking team."

Our conversation soon drifted to other subjects, and Serenity soon had to take care of other matters. Her exhibit at the Second Life Birthday will be around until the sims close to the public on Tuesday July 11.

More information can be found on her website at: https://www.myadventuredom.com/

 

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SLB%20Fabulous/238/226/23

Bixyl Shuftan

SLEA3 - A Dark Star

 

 By Bixyl Shuftan

At the Second Life Endowment for the Arts regions, there's an exhibit named "A Dark Star." It was designed by Gem Preiz, and is listed in the Destinations Guide.

A DARK STAR by Gem Preiz will be the third of 3 installations exhibited on SLEA 3 full region grant during the first half of 2023. It synthesizes the colors of "LINES OF LIGHTS" and the shape of the structures of "COLOR & GLOW", both still on display on the same Sim (see landmarks below). After an enclosed maze of lines and lights, and glowing colors open to sky and horizons, A DARK STAR concludes the series with a construction in 3 dimensions, surrounded by orbiters, and nested in an isotropic 3D universe of glowing lines, the boundaries of which are unreachable.

 

I, along with Charlee, headed to the listed location at SLEA3 (80/66/319). And the place was quite stunning, a little like stepping into a "Tron" scene. It was dark with neon-like lines of colored light, with small pyramid-shapes on the ground and larger crystals. Hearing some sound, I looked around, and there was some cluster of objects made up partially of white, blue, and purplish light and partially of black spheres, the latter which were moving in and out of the cluster. There was also a "throne" of amber crystal and shapes. We also found a spaceship, and were able to fly around see most of the place from above.

It wasn't long before I got contacted by someone, the artist of the exhibit, Gem Preiz. He told me this wasn't the only place in the sim, but the latest one of three, the two others being "Color and Glow" and "Lines of Light." "If you see the two first ones, you will see that this third one, the dark Star is a bit the synthesis of the others," he described.

"I have been exhibiting fractals in SL for years, then started to build environment to display them, and then the builds became predominant, and nowadays I show mostly constructions if this kind, using much reflections, lights and highlighting of this kind. (It is) purely conceptual, not aiming at meaning anything special, else than pleasure for the eyes. And I like minerals, crystals, and geometries. I like repetitive patterns and try to create some nice ones to look at. ... as recommendation, advanced lighting model , shared environment, and long drawing distance to see everything as I created it.

 

"I like to build sim wide environments, almost always going off sim as much as I can,  to maximize (for me at least) the immersion I like to be overwhelmed by the environment. 

When I asked what he had made before, Gem answered, "... in summary, many fractals exhibition, several LEA grants in the past, and sim wide builds : skyscrapers, a short model of a modern city, arcadia, a neoclassical city, a space station, a space base on exoplanet. You can see some pictures of everything in my flickr if you are interested:  https://www.flickr.com/photos/187894176@N07/albums ."

Charlee and I would visit the other two places. "Color and Glow" was just as impressive and striking in its own right. The landscape and some objects would change color every several minutes. Over time, we would see it go from red, to green, to orange and yellow, to blue. So would a "couch" that we saw. There were also large dark spheres that would roll down inclines at some places. 

After some time, we checked out "Lines of Light" next. While interesting, it wasn't quite as good as the other two places, lacking the up and down movement of the other two. Sill, it was worth a look with it's lit blue and reddish passageways.

 

To get to A Dark Star, head to http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SLEA3/80/66/3199 

 

Bixyl Shuftan

 

A Visit to the Viridian Gallery

 
by Anita Kimono

One unique and memorable day, I happened to find myself at Viridian Gallery on Antara, where I was greeted by a huge life-like crab that looked like it was ready to snatch me in its claws. But instead, it greeted me with a bounce, and even a slight smile, as it steadily gazed into my eyes to welcome me.  
 

Viridian Gallery is located on Antara, at Antara (228/7/25). The gallery showcases photos captured by Eyeclectic. Each photo has a story of his own experience and interaction with nature. I was fascinated by the enlarged photos situated throughout the island, merging into the ocean waves. Photos of dandelions, and of sunflowers, and of insects, as ant perched on the tip of his finger.  Real photos used to create an immersive 3D environment that visitors can interact with.  
 

Surrounding the photos are fields of wildflowers with dragonflies and butterflies flying freely through the air. There is even one dragonfly that followed me everywhere. It is drawn to me.
 

There is also a dandelion that you can touch to rez a seed and 'go with the wind' to fly with it through the island. I felt like Mary Poppins. Eyeclectic likes to call it, “Eyemagination Therapy.” Don't forget to make a wish ~

The creator of Viridian Gallery is Jules McWinnie aka Julian Crooks, a program director of design at Harcum College, outside Philadelphia. She is working to bring virtual reality into the design education. Eyeclectic is Ohio-based photographer, John Stone. 

His exhibit in Second Life is called, “The Butterfly Eyeffect: Touch of Light at the Edge of the World.” In first life, Eyeclectic has exhibited in major cities.

His "Empathy from the Empire" exhibit was displayed for visitors in the main lobby of the Empire State Building in NYC. He presented Eyeclectic Photography as Therapy  concepts to an international audience of occupational therapist and magicians in Las Vegas at David Copperfield's 25th Anniversary Project Magic Conference. In Chicago, his photos were exhibited at the Omidyar Network Members Conference.
 

As Jules McWinnie has been quoted, "The focus of the Viridian gallery art space has been to provide a venue for art that focuses on green issues and themes. This show, the Butterfly Eyeffect, has evolved from an exhibit of photographs to something far larger. Fueled by Eye's boundless creativity he has brought a truly beautiful, immersive and spiritual experience to the gallery site - an experience that reflects his deep inner connection to the natural world. It really is astonishing what he's done with the space. I can take no credit. I just gave him free rein and the most remarkable things started to happen."

In another statement from Eyeclectic, “ ‘As everything is connected in the Timeless Science of our
relationship with Nature, what will the world will bee like when we see everything through eyes of
LOVE? More than just photos of insects, "The Butterfly Eyeffect" is a message of Human Evolution,
creating waves around the world, as "Imaginal Cells" cause a Caterpillar to become a Butterfly.’ “
 

Eyeclectic happily offers personal tours to groups and individuals. As he talked about how the photos came about, there is always the underlying theme of respect of nature that allows for inter-species communication. He tells of how often grasshoppers would land on his hand, or even his face. Or a tiny little ant would crawl up to his little finger. Maybe they sense his respect and feel no harm from this human. I find myself during the day watching where I walk so that I would not step on any insects. I became more aware of the birds, insects, any living being, and how they are more than we think...they can sense what kind of people we are. This exhibit had changed my view of how I approached nature.
 

Serendipity is another word that comes to my mind when I view the exhibit. Photos of a young woman with butterfly wings;  a shadow of a hand outstretched over a pond full of plants; a leaf “head”; the sun “crowning” a sunflower; the encounter with the man on the beach; or a sunflower in front of a roller coaster. All these photos are taken at the right moment. The moment is right if you are aware of it.
 

Eyeclectic plans to expand over the whole Antara region, and hopefully be sustainable for all to come and visit and have their visions of nature forever changed. If you have  environmentally conscious art and/or ideas to help make Antara an educational entertaining experience, please let Eyeclectic know.
 

So come and explore this beautiful exhibit. Meditate on the messages of each picture, while learning about phenology (cycles in nature), and symbiosis (interaction between different lifeforms). Ride an owl, be carried away by a dandelion seed,  or sit on the fastest slugs you've ever seen and race your friends to find the treasure chest offering gifts from the Infinite Peace Garden to share with the world.
 

As María Concepción Pomar Rosselló, a university professor in Spain says, “I'm going to do my best to share it with my students. I'm sure they will all be extremely interested in the philosophy and message of this work, to love all kinds of things, to trust the universe, life, God, and living in peace.”
 

For private tours, or if interested in any of the photos for personal or educational use, please contact Eyeclectic at Eyeclectic@aol.com. Visit Eyeclectic.net and follow @InfinitePeaceGarden on Instagram.

Anita Kimono 

Editor's Note: This is the last article of Anita Kimono/Kayly Iali, whose work with Second Life art has led to her getting a real-life job involving the arts. We at the Newser wish her the best of luck.