I got an invitation from Aki (akikokinoshi) to visit and see “ROOMS by Betty Tureaud“, an installation realized in Aki’s sim. And I didn’t regret my visit at all. Upon landing you can grab a notecard in many different languages that provides some background for what you are going to see. You also get a free avatar and it is recommended to wear it during your visit – I did that.
ROOMS by Betty Tureaud – upper right is at the landing point / other pictures show the hallways and the rooms
ROOMS is an art installation by Betty Tureaud inspired of a dream.
Dreaming Rooms…
“… at drømme om rum er en adgang til din underbevidsthed om dig selv. ”
(Dreaming of rooms is an access to your subconscious of yourself.) — Betty Tureaud
“If you dream of a room or find yourself alone in a room this represents different factors of your personality within the waking world. One of the most intriguing of dreams to have is of being in a house, and suddenly discovering new rooms in it that you did not know were there. In the dream, these rooms may be a very pleasant and even exciting surprise, they may be unusually decorated or full of interesting things. But most commonly, you will have a sense of surprise, because you thought you knew this house well, and never would have suspected that rooms such as these were here. To dream of discovering new rooms is often a symbol of releasing new aspects of your own personality.
The analogy is that you thought you knew yourself so well, but suddenly circumstances have arisen that have revealed there is far more to you than you previously thought.These kinds of dreams are a great gift, they challenge you to outgrow previous limited perceptions, and to embrace growth and change in your life.”
(taken from the notecard)
There are 15 rooms. I think I didn’t see all of them because after a while you get lost in the hallways and rooms. But I might have seen most of the rooms. It doesn’t matter where you start. Important is that you look in the main chat when you enter a room to get a quick thought about the room. You often have to fully enter the room and to go to the center to see the installation of the room. The colourful hallways, the avatar that melts into the walls, ceilings and floor, the dancing figures at hallway crossings, it all does feel like a dream after a hile and when you get lost in the hallways and rooms. I’ll present the rooms in the order I saw them.
Impressions of ROOMS by Betty Tureaud (1)
In the picture above are three rooms.
Betty whispers: Get some new brain cells Diomita Maurer (upper left)
Betty whispers: Stay in the center and get caught in colors Diomita Maurer (lower left)
Betty whispers: Click on the floor Diomita Maurer (upper and lower right)
The pictures are just catching a moment and give just a tiny impressions of what you see in the rooms. For example, the room with the brain cells fills slowly with the cells until they form a net around the avatar’s head. Everything is steadily moving and you get different impressions depending on viewing angle and zooming. On the other hand my captured 2D pictures are quite artful (in my opinion) and can’t be reproduced again, they are temporary like thoughts, that come and go.
Impressions of ROOMS by Betty Tureaud (2)
Betty whispers: Now you see them now you don’t Diomita Maurer (left pictures)
Betty whispers: Tribute to Yayoi Kusama Diomita Maurer (right pictures)
The whales in the left picture appear and disappear, yet they are moving and they don’t show up in the same position, and strangely they are not intimidating at all.
The room in the left picture was filled with imaginary walls in colourful textures with circles. I admit, that I never heard, read or saw anything about Yayoi Kusama but I do know a bit of her now looking her up in wikipedia: “Yayoi Kusama (born 22 March 1929) is a Japanese contemporary artist who works primarily in sculpture and installation, but is also active in painting, performance, film, fashion, poetry, fiction, and other arts. Her work is based in conceptual art and shows some attributes of feminism, minimalism, surrealism, Art Brut, pop art, and abstract expressionism, and is infused with autobiographical, psychological, and sexual content. She has been acknowledged as one of the most important living artists to come out of Japan” (source wikipedia)
Impressions of ROOMS by Betty Tureaud (3)
Betty whispers: Don’t be afraid of the dark! Click the box and sit on the doll then click again Diomita Maurer
The dark room is quite funny and playful. When you click the box a uni coloured (lego-like) figure appears, when you sit on it you become one with it and your avatar vanishes and when you stand up the figure falls from the box and jumps around on the floor before it vanishes … and you can do that with all boxes …
Impressions of ROOMS by Betty Tureaud (4)
Betty whispers: Sit and enjoy Diomita Maurer (upper left)
Betty whispers: Relax Diomita Maurer (lower left)
Betty whispers: Welcome to the crazy circus Diomita Maurer (upper right)
Betty whispers: walk around and be a griffer for a day Diomita Maurer (lower right)
Sitting down in the gallery room makes your avatar disappear. You can sit in the boat in the relax room and there are mayn poses offered, including coupleposes. The crazy circus reminded me a bit of pole dancing, set the stools are way to umcomfortable for the spectators. The colourful boxes did offer a lot of different perspectives for taking pictures.
Impressions of ROOMS by Betty Tureaud (5)
Betty whispers: Take my hand and stay in the center Diomita Maurer (upper left)
Betty whispers: Stay in the center of the room Diomita Maurer (lower left)
I either missed the text for the upper right room or it was also “Stay in the center of the room Diomita Maurer” (upper right)
Betty whispers: Say hello to mister AI Diomita Maurer (lower right)
While I was with many other peopler in the room shown in the upper left picture, I was alone with colours and colourful particles in the next two rooms. In the last room I visited I met mister Artitical Intelligance – at least now it has a face … and it springs out of the human brain.
Betty Tureaud is from Denmark, she’s a builder and light and space artist in Second Life. I came across her art before at ArtSpace UTSA in 2016 (read here), in August 2018 when I visited her installation “The Art Game” (read here), in January 2019 when her work was shown at La Maison d’Aneli (read here), and in April 2020 when I visited “swim with elephants” which was also hosted in a sim owned by Aki (akikokinoshi) (read here).
ROOMS by Betty Tureaud is a well made journey into your dreams and inspries to let your mind wander, to play around, to dream and to get away from everyday life and maybe as Betty wrote to find new sides of yourself or new rooms in your “house”.
Thank you for this artful istallation, Betty and thank you Aki for hosting it. I enjoyed my visit!
Landmark to ROOMS
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Akimori/102/92/3257
Diomita Maurer’s Blog 