Bryn Oh's "The Singularity of Kumiko"

By Bixyl Shuftan

Bryn Oh, the Second Life artist long known for her three-dimensional exhibitions that tell a story, such as her "Rabbicorn" series, has been at it again. Her latest work, "The Singularity of Kumiko" is up at her sim of Immersiva. Hearing about it, I went over to take a look.

Arriving at the entrance, Bryn Oh herself was there and greeted me, "Hi Bixyl." Of her new exhibit, she mentioned I might have to make a few changes in my preferences, as well as picking up a light which is then worn on the forehead, "You will need to set up a few things and get a headlamp to see. ... You need some specific things to allow the flashlight to work." Asking her to describe her exhibit, she wouldn't say much, "Hmmm, perhaps a moral question. 'The Singularity of Kumiko' is a discourse between two people on love and choices. A question on what gives value to our lives. I don't want to give up too much of the story though. It is a non linear narrative that the viewer must put together over time and figure out what has happened to Kumiko and who she really is."

Among the instructions for better lighting on the wall was a sign stating "With Generous Support from the Ontario Arts Council." I asked her about it, and she responded, "Yes, I got a new grant a week ago. ... I applied for a new media grant and they liked the idea enough to award me one. ... very exciting, opens many doors."

Going inside was simple enough, touching the red door to the exhibit, then walking in. The scenery is Bryn Oh's classic style, dark, detailed, often  hauntingly beautiful and a little disturbing. The first scene one comes across is the aftermath of an accident: a small car stopped on the road, in front of it a bicicle on the road with a spilled napsack beside it. Near this scene, and others, are both a message in a bottle and a microphone. One can click on the bottle to read the message, or click on the bottle to hear an audio one.

There is much more scenery one comes across. Some are spots of illumination in the darkness, such as a metal mobile. Others such as a giant skeleton on the ground are hidden by the darkness and you'll probably won't recognize until you're right by it. I was trying to get the messages from Kumiko and her friend Iktomi  in order, but ended up finding some a few ahead at times. Memory is a theme in the story, and it's like you're trying to piece together what happened, much like someone struggling to remember an event.

As one goes along, the exhibit describes a future in which humankind has tried to compensate losses with machines and technology. Visitors are also likely to come across a roving robot, possibly the "Mr. Zippers" in the story. The robot will try to attack you, and as the sim is "damage enabled," if you're hit enough your avatar "dies" and reappears back in it's home location, so it's best to run if you come across the 'bot.

Going about, I was able to find the majority of the messages, enough to piece out what happened. The final scene, appearing just after the last message, was both happy and sad at the same time, with the song "We'll Meet Again" playing in the background. Exiting the scene, one is teleported out of the exhibition.

There is a trailer of "Kumiko" out that sets the tone for the story.



<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/JONF4tgTh34" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

(click here if the video fails to load)


I give the story/exhibit my thumbs-up. Very well done. If you have the time, I reccomend dropping by. If you're a fan of Bryn Oh's work, by all means do see it. There is a limit to how many can be on the sim at once, which Bryn Oh describes as getting about 600 visitors a day at this time. So if you're blocked from entering, try again later.

Immersiva (14, 104, 21)

Bixyl Shuftan

Neo Machina Gallery

By Gemma Cleanslate

 I was happy  to be invited to the Opening to Neo Machina Gallery in Alterego on Saturday afternoon. I have not been to many galleries lately... too busy.Three of my friends have exhibits there among the sixteen exhibitors.The opening was well attended and the DJ Mikel Shilov provided music that enhanced the mood at the opening party.  The Gallery is owned and curated by Sarrah Docherty and cocurator is  Cenedra (cenedra.ashbourne), who is also showing her fairy like images as part of the  exhibit. The exhibitors will be  resident artists. However Cenedra told me, “we plan to make special themed exhibitons , plan on guest artists , so that there are not always the same pics the entire time.” There are several brand new artists on exhibit which is always nice to see. 

I asked Sarrah why she opened the gallery. Her response was, ”Really it's the rebirth of another Gallery that closed last year due to several issues, this time I'm running it all in-house so to say, Its main goal has always been to respect all SL artists and move away from judging one style, genre or skill level to be "better" than the other, and just focus on the creative process and having a good mixture.”  And the collection is very eclectic.There are Photography artists, Sculpt artists, and a story artist. Each artist has a notecard to pick up by their area.  I spoke wih Evola Courtois , another friend and fishing buddy, who has exhibited a few times before and is happy to be a resident artist here. I saw three exquisite pieces  by my friend, Neeks Karu, who does wonderful sculpts that are alive. I enjoyed both floors of stunning photography, sculpts and reading the story art by Alanna Oh. 

I suggest you put this on your list of new galleries and do not miss it! Enter here and work your way around and down and  you take the elevaor to the ground floor and outside  I recommend you have an umbrella handy . http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/ALTEREGO/13/55/3526

Gemma Cleanslate

LEA13 – The Work of Xineohp Guisse

By DrFran Babcock

I was amazed and entranced from the first day I came into Second Life™. I have never lost my enthusiasm for this virtual world, and its ability to continue to surprise and delight. The thing I like to do most after socializing with friends and creating content is to explore in hopes of finding magic. Thus it was, that I stumbled upon Xineohp Guisse’s ethereal and wonderful build.

I was with my friend Brick, exploring the soon-to-be-opened Linden Endowment for the Arts (LEA) builds. He had shown me the gigantic Dragon Curves fractal installation by Mac Kanashimi on LEA 26, covered by Inara Pey here: http://modemworld.wordpress.com/2014/02/02/enter-the-dragon-curves/ . After spending some time there, I began to sim hop, and upon landing on LEA13 I stopped, drew my camera back and smiled.

Whenever I find something I like—clothing, furniture, landscaping, hair—I immediately inspect it to see who is responsible, and the creator of this green and intricate sim was Xineohp Guisse. Even better, he showed up on the sim as a green dot. Thinking of nothing more than complimenting him on his work, I IMed him, and said: I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this build! Thus began an hour long exploration and visit with one of the LEA’s artists.

Xineohp was modest: “I’m still building, sorry about the mess (smile),” he replied. He is also a great jokester. After I told him I thought the build was gorgeous, and hardly a mess, he responded with what I later realized was an out and out pun: “Nope. Not mess; old-school build (smile)," by which he meant that he had used not one sculpt or mesh object, but used prims for the entire construction!

The build is in two folds, and contains an interactive piece. Xineohp, a cello player, used cello notes that sound as you collide with the flexi glass on many parts of the build. “So you can make your own music,” kids Xineohp.

On the main tower, there are two creatures, that to me looked acquatic. They moved around on the grass creating tones as well, and because they are random in their movements, the sounds evolve and change. When two notes are struck, it creates a third resounding note. I walked around and loved the experience of the sounds, and the cello notes were just perfect with the swaying grass. Xineohp was working on a pod chair when I finally joined him on one of the towers. He asked me to test it out, and I ended up with my camera trained on one of the two wriggly creatures. The two creatures on the main towers are named: Connie and Blyde (a spoonerism reference my older readers may get).

The LEA grant runs for five months, and Xineohp plans to do a different chapter of a story each month, starting with the current build: The Lost Garden of Sundarya. Chapter Two will be under water, and tell the story of Connie and Blyde, focusing on how creatures come into being, and how they end up being a symbiotic musical link. Chapter Three will take you to the middle sky and deal with wind and birds, and flying “stuff.” Chapter Four will go higher, and be in the spirit world, but Chapter Five will be a secret.

Xineohp was still debating some of the details of the build, set to open on Saturday, February 8^th, but he was still willing to talk about it. He also told me he is the alt of an older resident, so watch for an Oldbie Project from him in the future.

We went on to look at an old THiNC Book that had pictures of older avatars, and quotes about their relationship with their avatar. We poured over it for a while, and I was pleased that he was so willing to spend time. He reminisced about his early days: "I remember when I first came into SL, and started building. I was a total massive crap at it! I built a swimming pool, which even I wouldn't want to swim in!"

"You remember free 512 land when you signed up as a premium member? I went from owning my first 512 to buying an entire island. That was fun.

"I did a charity art thingy on my island for World AIDS Day that ran non-stop for an entire weekend, and we raised just over 500USD. Then I kinda gave it up … Real Life, work, yada yada. Then I came back and lived in a rock, after killing my first avie in a big swan song. I burnt the entire island, and reinvented myself as Xineohp Guisse. Xineohp is Phoenix backwards, by the way."

Cube Project posted by Bix: http://slnewser.blogspot.com/2012/09/sl-video-cube-project-lea-2012-second.html

<-- About the build --->

For the SecondLife LEA round 6 2014, I present to you Chapter One of my 5-month long build - The {Lost} Garden Of Sundarya Lahari.

The build is based on live sampling of my cello "plucking". Each "reed" in the build, upon collision, produces a specific note. The build is made up of two chambers - An interactive chamber where avatars can move around, collide with the reeds and make their own music. And a second chamber, where the musical notes are produced in total random fashion by the collision of the creatures "the pentapuss" - Thus creating a musical score that is ever-changing and evolving.

Resonant sounds/notes are produced when two notes are simultaneously struck.

I hope you'll enjoy this build...... Just as much as I have building it.

Xineohp Guisse xxo

P.S. This build would not have been possible without the help of my dear friend (and darling sweetheart) Nava Muni, and the generosity of Linden Lab with the LEA initiatives.

 

So, you absolutely must come see this build at the Linden Endowment for the Arts. Here’s the information from the notecard for the event:

SLurl to installation: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/LEA13/125/82/29

DrFran Babcock

Avatar Review: 1st Act Mesh Werewolf

By Xymbers Slade

In thinking along the lines of "Go Mesh or Go Home", I decided to go through my old landmarks and see if any other of my favorite avatar makers had also gone mesh. Cue 1st Act, makers of werewolves. I've spent quite a lot of $L on their werewolves (their originals --- the "big buff wolf" in my pictures --- cost 1950 $L per color of wolf and I have over a dozen) and I was pleasantly surprised to find that they too had "gone mesh" with a new variety of werewolf.

The starting werewolf comes in three flavors (each for 1250 $L) --- Timber, Shadow and Arctic. Off to one side, there's also a vendor for re-skinning (at 650 $L a skin) where you buy a little hud that you click to change the basic color of the body. Simple and easy. There's a shop next to the vendor that has basic mesh clothes to fit the body (I settled on a dress for 450). The hud for controlling the wolf allows you to control the expression of the wolf (there's about a dozen programmed expressions, and five different hand positions) as well as controls for the ears, eyes and mouth.

Missing from the hud is a howl or snarl sound effect gesture like from their originals as well as an option for coloring eyes (those are now human-esque and need to be bought separately (at 150 $L per variety, coming in black background with "rich color", natural, evil eyes or cybernetical), but I think that's just a minor nitpick as the mesh is really well done. My only real nitpick is that the mesh isn't easily editable; in an effort to make my female wolf a bit bustier, nothing changes from the "edit my shape" menu when I go to edit (well, the shape changes but is hidden by an alpha layer; the mesh doesn't change with the avatar shape as the two are different things).

So that's that. A short and sweet write up on the new 1st Act mesh werewolves which I am going to rate at 4 dragon hoards out of 5 --- I think the skins and the clothing could be a bit cheaper, and I would have liked to see a few more gestures like snarling, scratching, tail-flicking, etc. It's a good choice if you want to upgrade your avatar to a mesh skin (that and it's hard to find clothes  for the female bigger buff original versions that -aren't- harem wear, so I was looking for something new). These new mesh wolves can be found at the 1st Act Main Store.

Xymbers Slade

SS Galaxy Art Exhibits

By Gemma Cleanslate

Visiting the Galaxy is always fun since there are always events taking place somewhere on the ship , or fun games to play, or exercise, or a visit to the Port of call which at this time is Dublin. Check out the events at the blog http://ssgalaxynews.blogspot.com/p/ss-galaxy-events.html .

I went over to the three sim ship to check out the latest art exhibits taking place on board. My visit to the International Gallery in the Aft part of the ship was a walk through a display of lithographic prints  placed by Nicolo Anthony, of  Second Life New England, and a real-life art curator. There are many pieces I have seen before in real life. Currier and Ives works were very popular back in the victorian times for household decoration.  http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Galaxy%20AFT/119/44/30 
 

After that I made a stop in the Nova Straaf Gallery midship where several artists are displaying their art in various mediums. In one corner is a splash of color, and in the other subtle beauty so you get to see many techniques in one place. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Galaxy%20MID/120/226/26 . 

 

 My last stop was at the Ransome Gallery in the forward part of the ship which winds around the entire 2nd deck there. This is a holiday showing . There are lovely photographs from various sims in sl, one of the lighthouse I visited last week, and another from LEA of the Portuguese castle that I recognized.  One wall is covered with various vintage  holiday greetings, very sweet. Just walk along the deck to see all the pieces. I found several interesting  3d creations by my friend Neeks Karu against the other wall. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Galaxy%20FORWARD/126/178/30 .

 

There are pieces from these artists in both galleries: Blaize Batra, Fuschia Nightfire, Moeuhane Sandalwood, Sanspareil London, Antenna Rae, Asmita Duranjaya, Burk Bode, Em Larsso, Moeuhane Sandalwood, Neeks Karu “ you are certain to find something that speaks to you and have a wonderful time looking as well.” There are always exhibits at these galleries to view and also along the deck walls all over the ship so take a long walk while you are there. 

 

Gemma Cleanslate

Avatar Review: Spider Productions Dragon Guardian

By Xymber Slade

Wandering around Second Life, these days I tend to wander the Social Islands, where new residents start out. In between dodging simcrashers, trolls, religious nuts, "free lindens, click here" signpost-wearing bots, and mic-screamers, I came across someone wearing a huge mesh dragon. It was really well done and when I found out the dragon was by Spider Productions, my interest was raised (as I have some of their original dragons and they do good work). Naturally, I hopped over to the Spider Productions mainstore to have myself a look.

Spider Productions makes quite a lot of things, from medieval armor and weapons, some jewelry, to multiple avatars (the Dragon Lord, an anthro shark, an anthro fox and a "freak" which looks like a rabbit-ized version of a Crux).

This newest mesh dragon of theirs is billed as "over one and a half years of blood, sweat, patience and experimentation" and quite honestly I think they did a good job. The dragon stands in at about three or four times the height of a normal human avatar (about the size of an adult Seawolf dragon, for comparison). It's very Godzilla-like in its bipedal form, which was a slight turn off for me but I quickly put it out of my head as I messed about with the HUDs. There are quite a lot of different options on an actions hud, 12 different dragon sounds (the roar of which they reuse from their original dragons, but I think that's a shortcut they're allowed to take), and they can both take a rider and carry people in their claws while flying (which is something I haven't tried yet).

The work that went into this avatar is plainly visible, and the only complaints I had while stomping around with it (there's a "stomp footstep" sound that can be toggled on and off) was that the anatomy looked a little weird and that the body shouldn't be supported on such short thin legs. Well tough, this is Second Life, things can look how we want them to look (grin) These dragons are also able to go into a quad mode (there's a shape and a mod attachment to move the feet to the right shape, though to me the movement makes it look like the dragon is crawling on his knees).

Overall, I think Spider Carnot (the maker of this dragon) outdid himself. Certainly they're much better than his original bipedal ones (of which I have a few). At 3000 $L, I think it's a bargain considering how much work obviously went into making this avatar work. I'm going to give it a full five dragon hoards out of five because to give anything less would be a crime. About the only bad thing that might be a put-off would be the price, but the price is reasonable. I ended up looking at the other dozens of dragons I have in my inventory and went to myself, "People are going to have to go mesh or go home..."

Spider Productions and the avatar itself can be found both on the Marketplace and at the Arachnid Island (129, 243, 376).

Xymbers Slade

Lost Second Life

By Becky Shaman/Joshua Xavier

This reporter has been featured in the last 7 articles published by Becky Shamen. He started out as an alt, but in November he split off into a seperate account and now is his own man. At the January Newser staff meeting, Josh attended in Sha's place and asked to be hired, so he could have his own Byline in the paper. At the meeting, Josh indicated that he and Sha were also working on a series of articles, a synopsis of "The Unveiling", by J.J.Dewey, which is being posted at ShaAdventures.blogspot.com , but they were also looking for new adventures in Second Life, to write about. The Editor suggested a photo exhibit, that he had heard of, might be just our cup of tea. The name of the exhibit is, "Lost Second Life." Josh, being a sorta Indiana Jones type, was on it like a mouse on cheese.

The landing, on the Mado sim, puts you in the center of a desert, said to be a post apocalypse sea floor. As the only building on the sim, you won't have any trouble finding the Anita Witt Photography Gallery. The main gallery features photos by Anita, which are all very high quality and copies are for sale. Behind the main gallery, there is a four story building, housing the "Lost Second Life" exhibit.

The photos in this exhibit are all by Photographer Ziki Questi, of sims that are no longer in Second Life. Knowing this premise, we were hoping there would be a photo from our all time favorite, the Sistine chapel, which disappeared last year. To our great delight, they not only included it, at L$100, it is the most affordable photo at the gallery.

We found the stairs difficult to navigate, but fortunately the building was missing one side and flying is permitted, making it easier to view all of the fine photographs.

As a life time artist, we can be somewhat critical of what some galleries have to offer. In the case of photographs by Anita and Ziki, we are pleased to report these are exceptionally good quality. No
doubt, some of you will find photos of sims that you have visited and now miss. Here is your chance to see them again and add reminders to the walls of your home.

Having, in the two months of our independent existence, evolved the persona of our new avatar, we were now planning to make a fresh profile pic. As we viewed each photograph, consideration was given as to how it would look as a background for a picture that fits our character. The one chosen fit both style and colors needed and now is included in the profile. From this slice of the visit, incorporated into my profile, it should be evident that we liked the exhibit. We give it two thumbs up and recommend y'all go check it out, before it goes away like the Lost Second Life it depicts.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Mado/125/172/38

Joshua Xavier