London Junkers invited me to experience his newest installation named “Thunderous Train of Air“. The installation is set up at Kuidvis Art Space, a project that unites art in rl and sl and that offers the artists a chance to show their creativity. Kuidvis Art Space is founded and curated by lylaya.
To best view this installation set your viewer to Shared Environment and turn advance lighting model on. To understand the piece it is (more than) highly recommended the click the book right at where you land or at the center of the round floor to receive a poem, which inspired this installation. To read it, just add the object you will receive.
The poem is written by London Junkers, as far as I understood it. And he wrote it for Ruth Stone, an American poet, author, and teacher (1915-2011).
In the wikipedia entry for Ruth Stone the American journalist and author Elizabeth Gilbert tells a story about Stone’s writing style and inspiration, which she had shared with Gilbert:
“As [Stone] was growing up in rural Virginia, she would be out, working in the fields and she would feel and hear a poem coming at her from over the landscape. It was like a thunderous train of air and it would come barrelling down at her over the landscape. And when she felt it coming . . . ’cause it would shake the earth under her feet, she knew she had only one thing to do at that point. That was to, in her words, “run like hell” to the house as she would be chased by this poem.
The whole deal was that she had to get to a piece of paper fast enough so that when it thundered through her, she could collect it and grab it on the page. Other times she wouldn’t be fast enough, so she would be running and running, and she wouldn’t get to the house, and the poem would barrel through her and she would miss it, and it would “continue on across the landscape looking for another poet.”
And then there were these times, there were moments where she would almost miss it. She is running to the house and is looking for the paper and the poem passes through her. She grabs a pencil just as it’s going through her and she would reach out with her other hand and she would catch it. She would catch the poem by its tail and she would pull it backwards into her body as she was transcribing on the page. In those instances, the poem would come up on the page perfect and intact, but backwards, from the last word to the first.“
Impressions of “Thunderous Train of Air” by London Junkers (1)
London Junkers took this story and made a poem of it, a poem for Ruth Stone. And he not only wrote the poem, he also visualized it in Second Life. His installation has all elements mentioned in the story and the poem: The running girl, the thunderstorm, the whirlwind, the sun, the winged stars, the fields of wheat, the paper and the pen to write down the poem, the sun and light that breaks through the clouds, the dark air. And yes your can almost feel the “Thunderous Train of Air“.
Impressions of “Thunderous Train of Air” by London Junkers (2)
London Junkers is in Second Life for more than 13 years. He runs a store for Gothic clothes “Lnlsquare” in Second Life and, he writes and he visualizes (his) short stories and poems in 3D.
Landmark to “Thunderous Train Of Air” by London Junkers at Kuidvis art space
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Omael/17/38/25
Kuidvis art space flickr
https://www.flickr.com/photos/146337904@N08/
Gothic clothes “Lnlsquare”
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Borgatti/248/49/301
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