I visited “The Frayed Thread” at Second Life Endowment for The Arts (SLEA) Region 1. The installation was created by Armageddon (Day Silvercloud) and was opened October 31st.
Armageddon wrote about “The Frayed Thread”:
““The Frayed Thread” is a visual exploration, utilizing mesh and lighting, of the effect of individual perception and motivation on civilization formation and destruction, illuminating how the threads of personal experience and relationships weave together. So each strand starts somewhere…a location, a time, a person, an idea, and then it crosses the other strings as those ideas and resources begin to build to create a tapestry of their final product. It spans 1940s through 2020.“
When you enter “The Frayed Thread” you are asked to use shared environment and to set your viewer to advanced lighting. On the floor you see the number “1944”, the year the journey begins. The world is red, be it to symbolize blood, or just because it fits. Once you enter you see a black line with “1960” and furtheron lines with “1970”, “1980”….until “2020”. You further see giant thread spools and single threads connecting them. Like on a ropeway you futher see padlocks moving along the threads, sometimes as a couple of two, sometimes just one. The padlock might stand for the people who’s threads expands over the decades, some ending in a spool, other ending in a big net that almost covers the a big sphere, our planet earth. Furtheron, when you start your tour, you see a sign, giving a hint about the meaning of “The Frayed Thread“:
“There were two reason I was scared to let people see: The damage they could do, and the damage they would find.”
On the floor line above 2000 you see 2 big towers, the twin towers. The above mentioned net of threads, that covers the earth ends in a pond, it might symbolize the suffering of our planet.
The whole scenery offers a lot of light effects be it in the sky, at the sim boarder which’s texture looks like a snake, on the two towers or on the surface of the pond. The moving padlocks add dynamic into the installation. The padlocks that travel together are kept together by a paper clip, some threads lead through folder … and for sure there’re a lot more details that I didn’t see at my fist visit.
Armageddon (Day Silvercloud) is in Second Life almost 13 years. She’s an SL lighting and environment artist who regularly explores new visual (and movement, and auditory) limits to push and break until they are something else entirely.
“The Frayed Thread” convinces by the light effects and the perfect fitting environment settings, it offers quite some symbols, which might be interpreted as the visitor sees fit. It’s an intriguing installation. “The Frayed Thread” will stay open until the end of 2021.
Thank you, Armageddon, for creating this world. Many thanks to Tansee for your work for SLEA. I enjoyed my visit.
Direct landmark to The Frayed Thread
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SLEA1/33/197/23
Second Life Endowment for The Arts – SLEA (central landing hub)
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SLEA7/23/26/57