Art in Second Life 2023 (7) Memory Gongs at The Hannington Arts Foundation

27 Jan 2023 Leave a comment

by diomitamaurer in Art in Second Life Tags: , , , , , ,

I got an invitation from Therese Carfagno. She sent a message and told me that she had teamed up with two friends, Sweet Susanowa and Violaine (Anadonne), and that the three teamed up and installed a permanent exhibition in a big gallery at The Hannington Arts Foundation. The gallery is named: Memory Gongs.

Actually Memory Gongs consists of three galleries that are built in several connected buildings. One is called The First Life Gallery, the other The Second Life Gallery and the third The Erotic Gallery. When you zoom out you can recognize the three different galleries. Each gallery has a different base colour outside as well as inside. The landing is at the entrance to all three galleries.

Impressions of Memory Gongs (1) Gallery overview

The gallery was built by Sweet Susanowa. All three artists have pictures in all galleries. I started my visit with The First Life Gallery. The featured pictures there are RL pictures and paintings of all kinds uploaded into Second Life. They reach from abstract to monochrome photographs

Impressions of Memory Gongs (2) The First Life Gallery

I know all three artists, Therese Carfagno, Sweet Susanowa and Violaine (Anadonne) from my visits to La Maison d’Aneli, which has closed it’s doors end of last year. And now the three made their own gallery.

Violaine is in Second Life since 2016. She contributed at La Maison d’Aneli in November 2018 (read here), in January 2020 (read here), in April 2021 (read here) and in September 2022 (read here).
I saw Sweet Susanowa’s art at La Maison d’Aneli back in July 2019 (read here), in May 2020 (read here) and in December 2021 (read here). Sweet joined Second Life 14 years ago without thinking about any exhibition at a gallery. She is a photographer now in real life as well as in Second Life.

The Second Life Gallery features pictures that are based on photographs taken within Second Life as the name already implies. The show the braod variety of art that can be created based an SL pictures. For me that is still facinating after all the years I have spent in SL already. I don’t get tired of it.

Impressions of Memory Gongs (3) The Second Life Gallery

Therese Carfagno is also an artist who I know from La Maison d’Aneli. She had exhibitions there in June 2021 (read here) and in May 2022 (read here). Therese came to Second Life in February 2007. Soon she got a job as a journalist, and met the most interesting artists in SL. Seeing so much creativity inspired her to start taking pictures herself. Therese thinks that taking pictures helps to look at the world a little closer – and there are so many wonders to see in SL:
“I have no interest in calling myself an artist. I take snapshots. If I’m happy with the picture because of the motive, the colours, the people in it, or anything, I upload it to Flickr or exhibit it somewhere. That’s it. And if someone else like what I do, that’s even better.”
You can see Therese Carfagno’s pictures also on her flickr account.

Memory Gongs is a really large gallery and you can spend hours there. My quick visit took already more than an hour and I didn’t see all, nor did I look at many details. The pictures have all names, that you can see when you hoover with your mouse over them. The titles may provide a little insight in the artists thoughts about their work.
What I missed were notcards about the artists. And you can’t see easily who of the three artists made which picture. Maybe that is intended, I don’t know. I personally would appreciate to see the artists names.

Finally I visited The Erotic Gallery. I think I won’t have to describe what kind of pictures are featured there *winks*.

Impressions of Memory Gongs (4) The Erotic Gallery

Hannington Arts Foundation (HAF) is owned by Hannington Xeltentat. Thank you Hannington for providing the space for the art and for enabling Memory Gongs.
Thank you Therese Carfagno, Sweet Susanowa and Violaine (Anadonne) for your art.

Landmark to Memory Gongs
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Xeltentat%20Enterprises/116/135/3333
Therese Carfagno’s flickr
https://www.flickr.com/photos/carfagno
Landmark to Hannington Arts Foundation (HAF)
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Xeltentat%20Enterprises/128/129/3501

Art in Second Life 2022 (73) “New Day” by Bamboo Barnes

19 Aug 2022 Leave a comment

by diomitamaurer in Art in Second Life Tags: , , , , , ,

Bamboo Barnes is going to open a new exhibition at The Hannington Arts Foundation today, on August 19th, 12 pm slt (9 pm CET).

I visited on August 15th. Bamboo added these thoughts to her exhibition called “New Day“:

A slithering, damp darkness.
A blood stained rainbow, shed by a stagnant sky.
When was the last time you cried,
covering the scars that linger in your heart.
Yesterday’s tears and a new day’s embrace
on outstretched fingers.

When I think of Bamboo Barnes, I immediately think of colours, of colourful pictures, of a feast of colours. All exhibitions that I saw from her were colourful – and so is “New Day”

All of the exhibited pictures show females, mostly female faces. But the faces are often blurry and other elements cover them, layers of colour, simple lines, geometric patterns. You have to focus to see the face clearly itself, if you can at all. There are two pictures where Bamboo just choose a different set of colours for the same picture – and of course it looks different.

Some pictures express pain, misery and worries. The colour red is often used to express that – as are bright and happy colours like yellow express a new beginning, a new day. A new day is always positive. It has the mystery of a new beginning, a fresh start, leaving yesterday behind us – not to make it forgotten but to embrace the mystic that is in all beginnings.

I see this positive energy in the yellow picture, that is right where you land next to the notecard giver. The picture is called “Too long 2022” and shows a female face bathed in yellow on the left very blurred with several several layers and on the right more clearer, as if the sun had cleared it up.
The picture used for the exhibition poster is called “Solace 2”. Solace is what you need when you grieve. Solace shall help you to gather the energy to start a new day. Hence this picture is kind of both considering Bamboo’s thoughts about “New Day“.

Bamboo is in Second Life for over 15 years already, painting software & photoshop are her best friends. Bamboo had many exhibtions and appearances in the Second Life art scene and in 2018 she had her first exhibition in real life: “I create what I see but maybe you won’t, they are about people’s reality and  mind.”
Bamboo’s art is a mixture of abstract forms, of people and photographs. Most pictures are colourful and it is in the eye of the beholder what we see in her pictures.
I myself saw her work the first time at La Maison d’Aneli during the Holiday season 2019/2020 (read here). I also saw her exhibition “Marginal Mannerism” at DixMixGallery in April 2021 (read here), the exhibition “Meant to be” at Itakos Art Gallery last year (read here), I saw “Conjure” at FOCUS Magazine F.A.I.R Gallery in August 2021 (read here), “Mindstorm” at IMAGO Land (read here) and “Drawer” at Hannington Arts Foundation (read here). Last December I saw her exhibition “The path” at Art care gallery (read here) and this year “Metaphysics” at the Kondar Art Center, (read here) and Colores Primarios (read here) – wow, quite a list in the meanwhile!
Look also at Bamboo’s flickr page.

When I visited “New Day” on August 15th the exhibition space was not yet finished. I visited again, Thursday, August 18th. Kerupa Flow added 3D art objects to the exbibition, that fit well into the theme. They are named “Birth place”, “Fetal Movement” and “I’ll be sure to find you” – so the theme “New Day” is accompanied by “New Life”. The 3D objects are not completely static. In “Fetal Movement” one part is appearing and vanishing, “Birth place” and “I’ll be sure to find you” look different from every angle and have light effects to liven up the objects.

Kerupa Flow’s 3D art objects at “New Day” by Bamboo Barnes

Kerupa Flow is a 2D&3D artist from Japan and in Second Life since 2007: “After all, there live the same person both SL and outside SL, so even if the tools changed, you can have the same scent.“.
Kerupa has a permanet place “Kerupa’s World” at Akimori. For more information and current exhibitions look up Kerupa’s profile or grab a notecard.

At the opening event hEIN (heinrichmader) will be the dj. hEIN is from Austria. He had over 500 online DJ sets in SL between 2010 and 2022. He’s also a DJ in RL and got several awards. hEIN! publishes electronic music that he calls “Art Techno” because of the voice processing he does. If you want more information about him, read the interview about his RL and SL activities that he gave in March 2022 here. hEIN! has also an own website.

I enjoyed my visit.

Hannington Arts Foundation (HAF) is owned by Hannington Xeltentat. Thank you Hannington for providing the space for the art and for enabling “New Day” by Bamnoo Barnes. Thank you for your art, Bamboo.

Landmark to “New Day” by Bamboo Barnes at Hannington Arts Foundation (HAF)
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Xeltentat%20Enterprises/121/127/3427
Bamboo Barnes’ flickr page
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bamboobarnes/
hEIN! RL/SL Interview 3/2022:
https://www.cityflyer.at/heinrich-mader-aka-hein-tanzen-im-metaversum/
nHEIN! website:
www.hein.vision
Kerupa Flow’s World at Akimori
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Akimori/55/129/4000

Art in Second Life 2022 (36) Grove Compositions – New work by Simulat Almendros

13 Apr 2022 Leave a comment

by diomitamaurer in Art in Second Life Tags: , , , , , , , ,

In December 2020 I visited “Spirals and Metaspirals – An exploration by Simulat Almendros” at Hannington Arts Foundation (HAF) (read here). This exhibition is still open for a visit – and it is worth it.
In March 2021 I visited again, this time my focus was on the expansion of the exhibtion “Virtual Tables by Simulat Almendros” (read here). The expansion was done by adding a second level above over one half of space. The next expansion that I saw in April 2021 was named “Lines of Force by Simulat Almendros” (read here). The base exhibition “Spirals and Metaspirals – An exploration” is still open. I have missed one or two iterations / additions. For example the “Virtual Tables” is now gone, but some of the tables are still exhibited. On January 31st, I visited again and saw the addition named “Winter Snowflakes” (read here).

And now another addition was opened integrated in the existing exhibition: “Grove Compositions“

“Grove Compositions” – New work by Simulat Almendros

The landmark leads you directly to the new work. It is presented in two slowly rotating circles. Hence you can simple stand and watch the pictures pass by in front of your eyes. Simulat wrote an accompanying text for this addition:
“A number of years ago I was playing with a photograph I took one morning on my way to work. I copied the base layer into a new layer. Then I flipped that horizontally to make it’s mirror image. I widened the canvas and moved the layers so that they formed an image with mirror symmetry on the horizontal axis. Then I repeated that vertically. This ended up with an image 4 times as large that had both horizontal and vertical mirror symmetry. I liked it.
Then I selected an equilateral triangular section from it with that with the peak centred on the vertical mirror axis. A triangle like that can be rotated an fit together like pie wedges.
Once that was done I was like – WOW – that’s very interesting.

It was a hexagon with 6 sided rotational symmetry and within each of those sections you had a 4 sided mirror symmetry.
I tried doing the same thing with other images. Same result. Every time I got a very interesting picture. I even tried starting with just random dots. Same result. A very interesting picture. Since I was working with 6 sided symmetry I called the transformation a snowflake transformation and I classed the pictures as snowflakes.
I figured I’d exhaust the potential of snowflakes pretty quickly. Boy – was I ever wrong.
I found that you could do the same thing with any isosoles triangle that would make a regular polygon. So I could work with 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 and 12 sided figures.
Then I started taking pictures just to see what sort of snowflake would emerge.
Then I started using the output of the code I was writing as the seed for a snowflake.
I’ve got Photoshop set up now to automate a lot of the snowflake transformations. The tech is very productive.

Recently I stole an idea from Claude Monet and started using the scene outside my window for this series of pictures that I call Grove Compositions. Like Monet I’m struck by how changing light gives different impressions. Unlike Monet, I’m not much interested in representing anything. But I can make a picture and then explore variations where the only thing that changes is the color. And I can take a single seed through several orders of transformation, each producing a new picture.“

Examples from “Grove Compositions” – New work by Simulat Almendros

Simulat is in SL for mare than 15 years. He’s an artist and displays his work at HAF in Second Life. In the 1st life tab of his profile he describes himself with the tags: “Computer art, philosophizing Web, graphic arts programming, simulations“. Simulat picked his name because at the time he got his first internet account he was writing simulations of physics.

But there’s more than the “Grove Compositions“. There’s still the basic exhibition “Spirals and Metaspirals” with all it’s additions and iterations. And Simulat explains the different techniques he used to create his mathematical graphic artwork. So there’s a lot to learn and you might be inspired to try yourself.

The provided landmark leads you directly to “Grove Compositions“. Alternatively you can travel the central landing point at Hannington Arts Foundation (HAF) from where you can take a teleport to the exhibtion “Grove Compositions by Simulat Almendros“. Right next to the entrance of the exhibition space, you can grab a notecard from Simulat. In this notecard you find a lot of information about how Simulat makes his pictures. And you get even more information by clicking the poster between the two rotating circles at “Grove Compositions“.

If you haven’t seen “Spirals and Metaspirals” yet, don’t miss the opportunity to visit the now really large exhibition, you can spned hours there, it’s all in one exhitbion space.

Hannington Arts Foundation (HAF) is owned by Hannington Xeltentat. Thank you Hannington for providing the space for the art and for enabling “Winter Snowflakes” by Simulat Almendros. I enjoyed my visit.

direct Landmark to “Grove Compositions”
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Xeltentat%20Enterprises/103/203/3501
Landmark to Hannington Art Foundation (central landing point)
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Xeltentat%20Enterprises/169/204/3521

Art in Second Life 2022 (13) Winter Snowflakes by Simulat Almendros

04 Feb 2022 Leave a comment

by diomitamaurer in Art in Second Life Tags: , , , , , , ,

In December 2020 I visited “Spirals and Metaspirals – An exploration by Simulat Almendros” at Hannington Arts Foundation (HAF) (read here). This exhibition is still open for a visit – and it is worth it.
In March 2021 I visited again, this time my focus was on the expansion of the exhibtion “Virtual Tables by Simulat Almendros” (read here). The expansion was done by adding a second level above over one half of space. The next expansion that I saw in April 2021 was named “Lines of Force by Simulat Almendros” (read here). The base exhibition “Spirals and Metaspirals – An exploration” is still open. I have missed one or two iterations / additions. For example the “Virtual Tables” is now gone, but some of the tables are still exhibited. On January 31st, I visited again and saw the latest interation and addition named “Winter Snowflakes“.

“Winter Snowflakes” by Simulat Almendros”

Simulat wrote an accompanying text for this addition:
“I live in Vancouver and am a computer based artist. I have a technique that creates images that have many orders of symetry that are are very beautiful in a symetric way.
My sister lives outside Saint John in New Brunswick in a nice house with a big yard. Herds of deer wander through her yard and she fenced half of it off so she could grow a big garden. Last Summer she sent me pictures of the garden each morning and I would turn them into a snowflake. This show is a result of that collaboration.
Years ago I found out how to make images that have both horizontal and vertical symmetry. Later I discovered that if I took an equilateral triangle and centered it on an image like that I could copy that area into a new image as a layer. Duplicate that and rotate 60 degrees. Then you can move that layer so it lines up with the first one. Repeat 4 more times and I have made a hexagonal snowflake.
That snowflake is also symmetrical. It has two levels of symmetry – so I think of that as an order 2 symmetry. You can repeat that as many times as you want though it isn’t very interesting beyond order 4.
I can do the same with pentagons with 5 layers rotated by 72 degrees. In fact I can do it with any isosceles triangle whose apex angle devides into 360 degrees evenly.
When I first started making snowflakes I was interested in how they could make an interesting image out of anything. I thought I’d get bored. But I kept learning new things about them and now have a lot of creative control and keep finding new things to work with.
This Summer’s collaboration is a case in point. The combination of biological forms and colors and snowflakes is pretty fantastic.“

Examples from “Winter Snowflakes” by Simulat Almendros”

Simulat is in SL for mare than 15 years. He’s an artist and displays his work at HAF in Second Life. In the 1st life tab of his profile he describes himself with the tags: “Computer art, philosophizing Web, graphic arts programming, simulations“. Simulat picked his name because at the time he got his first internet account he was writing simulations of physics.

But there’s more then the many snowflakes. There’s still the basic exhibition “Spirals and Metaspirals” with all it’s additions and iterations. And Simulat explains the different techniques he used to create his mathematical graphic artwork. So there’s a lot to learn and you might be inspired to try yourself.

Impressions of Simulat Almendros’ exhibitions space at HAF

The provided landmark leads you to the central landing point at Hannington Arts Foundation (HAF) from where you can take a direct teleport to the exhibtion “Winter Snowflakes by Simulat Almendros”. Right next to the entrance of the exhibition space, you can grab a notecard from Simulat. In this notecard you find a lot of information about how Simulat makes his pictures. And you get even more information in the above mentioned inner circle, where several boards explain the different techniques.

If you haven’t seen “Spirals and Metaspirals” yet, don’t miss the opportunity to visit the now really large exhibition, you can spned hours there, it’s all in one exhitbion space.

Hannington Arts Foundation (HAF) is owned by Hannington Xeltentat. Thank you Hannington for providing the space for the art and for enabling “Winter Snowflakes” by Simulat Almendros. I enjoyed my visit.

Landmark to “Winter Snowflakes” at Hannington Art Foundation (central landing point)
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Xeltentat%20Enterprises/169/204/3521

Art in Second Life (38) Lines of Force by Simulat Almendros

24 Apr 2021 Leave a comment

by diomitamaurer in Art in Second Life Tags: , , , , , ,

In December 2020 I visited “Spirals and Metaspirals – An exploration by Simulat Almendros” at Hannington Arts Foundation (HAF) (read here). This exhibition is still open for a visit – and it is worth it.
Last month I visited again, this time my focus was on the expansion of the exhibtion “Virtual Tables by Simulat Almendros” (read here). The expansion was done by adding a second level above over one half of space.
And now there has been a second expansion, another level added above the remaining half. This expansion is named “Lines of Force by Simulat Almendros“.
I visited Monday, April 5th.

Lines of Force – the second expansion of Simulat Almendros’s exhibition at Hannington Arts Foundation (HAF)

Lines of Force is an exhibtion of pictures made using a simulation of the magnetic fields. While you can visualize magnetic forces in experiments in physics, you can also simulate the “lines of force” between the poles in computer programs. Simulat Almendros overlaps several of these magnetic fields pictures, he adds other regular formulars which influence the colors or the deviations from one point to the next – and the result is true artwork.

The exhibtion is organized in 3 concentric circles. The outer circle shows Linofo images that Simulat used as seeds for supersymmetric pictures that he calls Snowflakes. Inside he shoes pictures that are just as they emerge from the simulation. And in the inner circle are explanations about how the simulations are created.

Examples of “Lines of Force by Simulat Almendros” (1)

Simulat is in SL for almost 14 years. He’s an artist and displays his work at two galleries. In the 1st life tab of his profile he describes himself with the tags: “Computer art, philosophizing Web, graphic arts programming, simulations“. Simulat picked his name because at the time he got his first internet account he was writing simulations of physics. He simulated a gravity field and a magnetic field and later he wrote a system that imitated biological forms. These systems all used the computer screen to display the output as images.
The magnetic field simulation turned out to have the most artistic potential. Simulat spent about 5 years working with that simulation, slowly extending it’s capabilities and exploring the possibilities. That led to his first (and unfortunately also last) real life gallery show.

Examples of “Lines of Force by Simulat Almendros” (2)

Now Simulat rediscoverd his former work and with the better performance of computers and graphics nowadays, he could create even more and also more complex simulations.

The provided landmark leads you to the central landing point at Hannington Arts Foundation (HAF) from where you can take a direct teleport to the exhibtion “Lines of Force by Simulat Almendros“. Right next to where you land, you can grab a notecard from Simulat. In this notecard you find a lot of information about how Simulat makes his pictures. And you get even more information in the above mentioned inner circle, where several boards explain the different techniques.

Examples of “Lines of Force by Simulat Almendros” (3)

If you haven’t seen “Spirals and Metaspirals” or “Virtual Tables” yet, don’t miss the opportunity to visit both – it’s all in one exhitbion space.

Hannington Arts Foundation (HAF) is owned by Hannington Xeltentat. Thank you Hannington for providing the space for the art and for enabling “Lines of Force by Simulat Almendros“. I enjoyed my visit.

Landmark to “Lines of Force” at Hannington Art Foundation (central landing point)
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Xeltentat%20Enterprises/169/204/3521

Art in Second Life 2021 (25) “Virtual Tables by Simulat Almendros”

16 Mar 2021 Leave a comment

by diomitamaurer in Art in Second Life Tags: , , , ,

Last year I visited “Spirals and Metaspirals – An exploration by Simulat Almendros” at Hannington Arts Foundation (HAF) (read here). The exhibtion is still open, although it has been rearranged. And on February 17th, an addition was added, a second level, that is full with tables, well virtual tables of course.

Simulat is in SL for almost 14 years. He’s an artist and displays his work at two galleries. In the 1st life tab of his profile he describes himself with the tags: “Computer art, philosophizing Web, graphic arts programming, simulations“

For the expansion with the “Virtual tables” Simulat wrote an notecard explaining his work at bit:
Second Life was the first 3D modelling medium I worked with. I got pretty good with prims but they do have limitations. About 2 years later I started using Blender which is a free 3D modelling system that is as powerful as commercial 3D software like Maya. The learning curve is very steep. Learning to use a powerful program like learning a language. You start of with simple things and slowly your vocabulary and fluency increase. Now 8 years later it’s become a central tool in my art making tool box. I use Blender to make 2D pictures that are raw material to import into Photoshop to make Snowflakes. And of course I use it to make 3D forms to import into Second Life.

I like to explore meaningful but abstract forms. The forms are abstract because generally the don’t represent anything that you would see in reality. They are based on the implications of math and science. I work with geometry and symmetry. I try to make those kinds of abstract ideas into concrete forms that you can walk around.”

The expansion “Virtual tables” by Simulat Almendros on a seperate level of “Spirals and Metaspirals”

The tables are really outstanding, colourful and artful. Simulat uses mostly glass for the table plate so that you can see the counter framework. It is suprprising to see his different ideas. I can imagine such a table in RL as an eyecatcher in every room. They can develop their class standing close by eachother but I assume that Simulat wanted to show how different you can make them, her can make them. I’d buy one in RL immediately, if I could.

Virtual Tables by Simulat Almendros

Thank you for this expansion, Simulat. I really like the tables, well done!

Hannington Arts Foundation (HAF) is owned by Hannington Xeltentat. Thank you Hannington for providing the space for the art and for enabling “Virtual tables by Simulat Almendros”. I enjoyed my visit.

Landmark to HAF “The Hannington Arts Foundation at Xeltentat Enterprises”
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Xeltentat%20Enterprises/163/145/3502

Art in Second Life 2020 (83) “Spirals and Metaspirals – An exploration by Simulat Almendros”

21 Dec 2020 Leave a comment

by diomitamaurer in Art in Second Life Tags: , , , ,

I visited “Spirals and Metaspirals – An exploration by Simulat Almendros” at Hannington Arts Foundation (HAF).
No surprise the exhibtion is about spirals :-). Right next to the entrance you find a board with two links. One leads ot a video, the other to an article. I watched the short video by Martin Hunt about spirals first. In a little bit less than 4 minutes I understood the difference between a spiral and a metaspiral and I got an idea how the exhibited spirals were generated. The article goes a bit further into details. I recommend to have a look at the video and the article before looking at all the exhibits.

“Spirals and Metaspirals – An exploration by Simulat Almendros” at Hannington Arts Foundation (HAF) (1)

On another board close to the entrance Simulat Almendros explains the exhibtion like this:
“This exhibition explores the visusal potential of a certain sort of spiral that I call Fibonacci Spiral.
There are an infinite number of these spirals. Natural selection explored those possibilities and found one that is biologically useful.
Flowers like daisies or sunflowers have a particular Fibonacci Spiral at their centers. The spiral is a pattern of florets that become seeds. Each floret is placed by a balance of hormones and the result is a packing of florets that is about as dense as is possible yet giving each floret the same amount of resources.“

“Spirals and Metaspirals – An exploration by Simulat Almendros” at Hannington Arts Foundation (HAF) (2)

The showcased spirals are beautiful and it is facinating to learn how they were done. Each of them were generated by quite simple mathematical formulars. Leaving out some lines or dots, colouring them in a certain predefined way creates more and more complex patterns that are real eye candies.

Along your way through the exhibtion you follow Simulat Amendros exploration.

“Spirals and Metaspirals – An exploration by Simulat Almendros” at Hannington Arts Foundation (HAF) (3)

I never heard about Simulat Almendros before. Simulat is in SL for almost 14 years. He’s an artist and displays his work at two galleries. In the 1st life tab of his profile he describes himself with the tags: “Computer art, philosophizing Web, graphic arts programming, simulations“

Hannington Arts Foundation (HAF) is owned by Hannington Xeltentat. Thank you Hannington for providing the space for the art and for enabling “Spirals and Metaspirals – An exploration by Simulat Almendros”. I enjoyed my visit – and learned something new.

Landmark to HAF “The Hannington Arts Foundation at Xeltentat Enterprises”
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Xeltentat%20Enterprises/163/145/3502
A video about spirals:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtEaB4LQ1GE&feature=youtu.be
An illustrated essay about spirals
http://www.simulat.ca/spiralessay.php

Art in Second Life 2020 (70) Hexagonia by Amita Duranjaya

06 Nov 2020 Leave a comment

by diomitamaurer in Art in Second Life Tags: , , , ,

On Tuesday, October 13th, I visited “Hexagonia – A Virtual Cyber-Paradise” by Asmita Duranjaya at Hannington Arts Foundation (HAF).

Writing about “Hexagonia – A Virtual Cyber-Paradise” by Asmita Duranjaya” was made easy for me as there’s a text about the artist and a text about the installation on the great board at the entrance.

My Cyber-Paradise is a place for de-celeration, Absolute relaxation and enjoyment of colours, shapes and sounds. Basic shape is the hexagon due to the host place Hannington Endowment for The arts (Remark: nowadys Hanningtion Arts Foundation), which is itself a hexagonian gallery. The hexagon and the hexagonian fractals, the colours teal and violet are typical expressive tools in cyber art.
The conceptiual idea is a paradise in the future, where all religions and cultures are equally respected. Symbos for this background are the bridges with a quote from the basic scriptures of six different religions – whether humans will still exist or not is an open question.
The paradisiac environment is enlivened by two cyber bots and some animals, partly with animesh function, which I am not able to creat myself due to missing hard- and software – so I am giving my credits to EliteDesign, Shephard and Lance.
My thanks go to Tansee and Hannington Yeltentat for providing the space.
Enjoy the paradise, take a seat on the flying insect and do a round trip and play with the horns at the bridges, which play music by touch and can be stopped too. Musical credits go to David Schombert and his ambient composition “L’Exile Des Arbres”.
Play with your windlights, every graphic card is different. Recommendable are: [TOR] SUNRISE – Turtle Island or [TOR] MIDDAY – Precision blue or [EUPHORIA] smoky blue sky.”
(Asmita Duranjaya)

Impressions of “Hexagonia – A Virtual Cyber-Paradise” by Asmita Duranjaya (1)

I tried all recommended windlight settings and to be honest on my hardware it made no big difference which one I used. I had a relaxed visit and enjoyed the views, I flew with the insect and I had a few minutes of meditation. You can really immerse yourself into another (better?) world.

Impressions of “Hexagonia – A Virtual Cyber-Paradise” by Asmita Duranjaya (2) – Quotes on the bridges

I never came across Asmita Duranjaya before – and I’m in Second Life for more than 12 years and spend quite a lot of time inworld. This virtual world is really large and steadily changing, so there’s something new to discover every day.
“Asmita Duranjaya is an avatar-artist in Second Life and OS, interested in creating landscapes and virtual environments with fractals and cyber-related forms of expression, with a colour concept and a conceptual topic.
Asmita has organized numerous collaborative shows and solo-exhibitions, was awarded in competitions for virtual art and won five times a LEA-grant (Linden Endowment For The Art). She has been co-founder of Space 4 Art, runds the art-sim interstellART with 15 artists in residence and arranges monthly changing solo-exhibtions and one huge-size collaborative project per year.
Asmita runs a webpage with inforation about the topic cyber-art – here.“

Impressions of “Hexagonia – A Virtual Cyber-Paradise” by Asmita Duranjaya (3) – some close-up’s, zooming in provides artful views

Hannington Arts Foundation (HAF), the former HEA Gallery is owned by Hannington Xeltentat and was built by Tansee, who also curates the foundation. Thank you Hannington for providing the space and thank you Tansee for enabling Amita Duranjaya’s installation. I enjoyed my visit.

Landmark to HAF “The Hannington Arts Foundation at Xeltentat Enterprises”
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Xeltentat%20Enterprises/132/124/3525
Asmita’s webpage with inforation about the topic cyber-art
http://www.ethnomusicscape.de/cyber/CyberArt.htm
Landmark to art-sim interstellART
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Nice%20Atoll/160/148/20

Art in Second Life 2020 (68) “The Ghosts in My Closets – Cobwebs & Other Thoughts in the Attic” by Ilyra Chardin

26 Oct 2020 Leave a comment

by diomitamaurer in Art in Second Life Tags: , , , ,

On October 8th Ilyra Chardin’s installation “The Ghosts in My Closets – Cobwebs & Other Thoughts in the Attic” was opened at “The Hannington Arts Foundation at Xeltentat Enterprises” (HAF).

“Ilyra chardin is an artist and designer, whose work has been featured in numerous installations and exhibits across the grid. Her art work crosses media and styles, spanning from real life and digital to SL art. First and foremost, Ilyra is a story teller. Whether in full SIM, 3D installation, sculpture, or 2D (original mixed media, hand-painted, hand-drawn, and photo) art, she includes multiple layers with depth of meaning. Her work has been the subject of numerous blogs, machinimas, and has been featured on Designing Worlds.” (taken from the accompaying notecard)

I saw Ilyra’s work at La Maison d’Aneli in May/June 2020 where she had an installtion called “The New Normal – The Date”. It showed a little Mediterrean town under the current restrictions (read here)

First Impressions of “The Ghosts in My Closets – Cobwebs & Other Thoughts in the Attic” by Ilyra Chardin

There’s a big board at the entrance of Hive 3 at HAF where Ilyra gives some background about the installion:
“Enter the Hall of Giants, also known as Giant’s square. Behind each door, explore the shadows of my imagination expressed in artistic vignettes.
The area behind each door is a self contained, mini art installation. In order to maintain the illusion presented in each of the display, the doors do no open, but rather they are phanton and beckon you walk through and immerse yourself in the story.”

I entered the Giant’s square, a market hall in a medieval style. I really was a dwarf there, but luckily none of the giants was there who could have overseen me and stepped on me. The saw the above mentioned doors on the ground level as well as on the attic And started exploring the seperate installations.

To the left and to the right on the ground are two rooms. One is occupied by a medival giant magician or alchemist, the other by a giant tailor. If these two are ghosts in Ilyra’s closet, what does that tell us? Does she have a particular connection to these professions? Are her parents an alchemist and a tailor? Or did she have bad experiences as a child with them? I guess you can spin a lot of stories about it.

Impressions of “The Ghosts in My Closets – Cobwebs & Other Thoughts in the Attic” by Ilyra Chardin (1)

In the back of the giant’s court are four more rooms. One shows a rubbish dump surrounded by chimneys and plants of heavy industry, another looks like an old mine or underground industry. Both do not look really healthy. In the third room is a grave, more a mausoleum surronded by a peaceful landscape. There’s a passage to the fourth room where you see the entrance to a mine and a ferryman who brings his passengers to the other whore where the graveyard is located.
Again I can only speculate but for me it looks as if the unhealthy environment kills people and workers. Are these the ghosts in Ilyra’s closet? Who knows?

Impressions of “The Ghosts in My Closets – Cobwebs & Other Thoughts in the Attic” by Ilyra Chardin (2)

On the attic are a few more rooms and more to speculate about. THe first room I visited was quite colourful. You immerse into the digital world, between motherboards and chips, between bits and bytes and printed circuits. This isntallation as actually two rooms, one for the hackers and another for the gamers. At least from a pure artistic view, this installation a highlight.

Impressions of “The Ghosts in My Closets – Cobwebs & Other Thoughts in the Attic” by Ilyra Chardin (3)

But all rooms are connected in some way. We just don’t know how. The are pieces of memories, pieces of thoughts, pictures and scences that appear in dreams and nightmares. The last room I visited looked to me like the headquarter of a secret agency on the first glance. Furnished with just the basics for a headquarter: beds, desks, chairs, computers, one toilet and gasmasks. If you cross the room you can walk through another door and come to a desert, very hot with charred trees and one road leading to nowhere and an old van. The scene is quite scary (at least for me)

Impressions of “The Ghosts in My Closets – Cobwebs & Other Thoughts in the Attic” by Ilyra Chardin (4)

Ilyra is a story teller as stated in the accompanying notecard. I outlined my thoughts, the relation to youth and former days, heavy industry and an unhealthy environment on the ground level. The attic is more related to future, to a world dominated by gamers and hackers in a more and more virtual environment while the real environment is almost uninhabitable and humans live in bunkers … or is the headquarter of a secret agency what was my first thought?

Anyway, you have to make up your own story visiting Ilyra Chardin’s installation “The Ghosts in My Closets – Cobwebs & Other Thoughts in the Attic” at Hannington Arts Foundation. It shall be open until the end of this year.

Hannington Arts Foundation (HAF), the former HEA Gallery is owned by Hannington Xeltentat and was built by Tansee, who also curates the foundation. Thank you Hannington for providing the space and thank you Tansee for enabling Ilyra Chardin’s installation. I enjoyed my visit again.

Landmark to HAF “The Hannington Arts Foundation at Xeltentat Enterprises”
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Xeltentat%20Enterprises/132/124/3525

Art in Second Life 2020 (60) The Crystal Dragon by Cat Boucher

27 Sep 2020 1 Comment

by diomitamaurer in Art in Second Life Tags: , , , , , ,

On Saturday, August 29th, I had some time at night unexpectedly. I usually don’t go to live performances at night as I’m busy with my SL family. I went to visit HEA-Gallery. Cat Boucher had an installation there at the HEA Performance Platform, which could be reached by a teleporter.

The Crystal Dragon by Cat Boucher – program / I attended Ryo Sogame

At the platform Hannington endowment for the arts & cool cat’s art music circus presented live performances of music artists. And the platform, the event space was designed by Cat Boucher.

Cat arranged a colourful ensemble of objects around the stage, big light objects looking a bit like mushrooms, glowing flower beds, giant ice menhirs and crystals … all in different colours, yet the main colours were greens and blues.
The platform was huge and the event was visited well, there were around 30 people and I knew at least 10 people, artists who’s work artists I had seen before.

Impressions of The Crystal Dragon by Cat Boucher from Saturday, August 29th (1) – upper right is SoJuKaNoU (Ryo Maynard), lower right is Cat Boucher

Cat Boucher is in SL since 2007. Like myself she was immediately fascinated by the creativity I saw here. Cat started to support live musicians and other artists and built a music circus to hold my events/concerts, a circus without animals but with clowns. She learned to build and to create objects in SL.

Impressions of The Crystal Dragon by Cat Boucher from Saturday, August 29th (2)

The event on that Saturday night was to the music of SoJuKaNoU (Ryo Maynard), a mixture of psycadelic and chill out music with some vocals. SoJuKaNoU (Ryo Maynard) is from Japan and a music geek. Listening to the music you can feel his passion.
The whole stage was flooded with different particles, fitting to the music. I took a lot of pictures. These events are noot static and everybody gets different views – and it is gone again. The whole installation is gone again. What remains are memories and the picture and the good feeling watching art provides.

Impressions of The Crystal Dragon by Cat Boucher from Saturday, August 29th (3)

As the event is over and can’t be reproduced, there’s no landmark, where you could go to see the event yourself. There’s just the hint to watch out for events like this for example at HEA-Gallery.

HEA Gallery is owned by Hannington Xeltentat and was built by Tansee, who also runs the gallery. Thank you Hannington for providing the space and thank you Tansee for enabling the live performances on Cat Boucher stage “The Crytal Dragon”. I enjoyed the show.

Hannington Endowment for The ARTS
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Xeltentat%20Enterprises/129/128/3503

Previous Older Entries