Dunkirk – La Digue du Braek

13 Dec 2016 4 Comments

by diomitamaurer in Exploring sims in Second Life Tags: , , , , , , ,

20161209-la-digue-du-break_001Once again I went simploring. A post in Inara’s blog caught my attention: “Walking La Digue du Braek in Second Life“. Industrial structures, cranes, rust, dirt, and black smoke are rare in Second Life. La Digue du Braek is the creation of Serene Footmann and his partner Jade Koltai. Serene Footman is alse the creation of Furillen which I visited in November (Furillen in Second Life). Like Furillen, La Digue du Braek is the Second Life version of a real place – it’s a long street at the harbour of Dunkirk, France. On one side of this road is a beach and just opposed to it is the harbour. You’ll find more Information about La Digue du Braek at the Furillen homepage.

La Digue du Break, Dunkirk, France (snapshot from https://furillen.org/la-digue-du-braek/)

La Digue du Braek, Dunkirk, France (snapshot from https://furillen.org/la-digue-du-braek/)

The contrasts at La Digue du Braek are really impressive. Beach, nature and the industrial harbour are just next to eachother. The Harbour suprises with two sided open containers, which are furnished as if someone is living there. Then there is a tower buildt of piled-up mobile homes. At the top of this tower you can seemingly touch the tall cranes. And there’s a big warehouse with oddities from all over the world. For example i saw a Christmas pyramid there. I can also recommend to just sit at the beach and inhale the atmosphere of La Digue du Braek.20161209-la-digue-du-break_01820161209-la-digue-du-break_019La Digue du Braek is a very different sim proving once again the variety of Second Life. It feels real at the first glance. Once you go exploring more in detail you can see more contrasts: the container ship with the dark smoke (hence in operation) and the car wrecks in the harbour, the containers with two open sides but used for living, the piled up mobile homes that look abandoned inside, the huge warehouse which is empty inside except some oddities. The contrasts make La Digue du Braek so different form the real spot, a form of art that is possible in Second Life.20161209-la-digue-du-break_020Landmark to La Digue du Braek
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Muppets%20Island/111/232/23
Inara Pey’s blog “Walking La Digue du Braek in Second Life”
https://modemworld.me/2016/12/04/walking-la-digue-du-braek-in-second-life/
Furillen homepage
https://furillen.org/la-digue-du-braek/

Furillen in Second Life

08 Nov 2016 6 Comments

by diomitamaurer in Exploring sims in Second Life Tags: , , ,

Saturday, November 5th, I looked up the SL destination guide and came across Furillen. Somehow the name rang a bell, but more about this later. The description read very tempting for me “Furillen depicts an island off the north-east coast of Sweden containing abandoned industrial builds that were once part of a former limestone factory. Remote, bleak and beautiful, this is a Second Life photographers haven.”

Once I arrived at Furillen and saw the cold, snowy, dismal island with the ruins of a former insudstry, I began to do some research about Furillen.20161105-furillen_017Furillen (older spelling Furilden) is an island in Rute on the northeast coast of Gotland, Sweden. For most of the 20th century, there was a limestone industry on the island until it was closed to the public by the Swedish military in the 1970s–90s, when radar installations became operational. The north part of Furillen is a nature reserve and a Natura 2000 area. Since 2000, the old factory buildings from the limestone industry have been used as hotel and conference venues by the Fabriken Furillen (the Furillen Factory) company, owned by photographer and entrepreneur Jonas Hellström. He started out using the abandoned factory and its surroundings as a backdrop for commercials and rock videos. (source Wikipedia)

November 5th - Furillen in Second Life: Arrving at Furillen

November 5th – Furillen in Second Life: Arrving at Furillen

There’s a website about this sim furillen.org and I recommend visiting it first. The following information is en excerpt taken from furillen.org. The sim is owned and was created by serene footman in Ocotber 2015. Serene is an university professor in the UK in RL and the author of several books. “I originally ventured into Second Life as a researcher. I have always found creative sims to be the most compelling aspect of Second Life. By creating Furillen, I wanted to provide an environment in which photographers and Second Life wanderers would feel welcomed and inspired.”
The virtual Furillen was designed to retain some of the most distinct and recognisable features of the real Furillen: the airstream, the tree line and pier, for example, together with the large slag heaps that still exist as a reminder of the old quarry. In addition, there are several buildings, the main being a hotel that – on the virtual Furillen – doubles up as an art space with a series of rooms featuring minimalist installations.20161105-furillen_018
Furillen became quite a social space. It is, especially, a place for photographers. Serene has also staged events over the past year, most memorably those devoted to Bowie, Radiohead and Pink Floyd – and it is the Pink Floyd event that rang a bell for me. I’ve visited Furillen before together with Mistress jenny during this event, not konowing about the background of Furillen. You can read in this blog about the Pink Floyd event in the article “Pink“.
It is amazing how perfectly Serene succeeded in making the virtual Furillen looking similar to the real island as you can see when you compare the pictures from wikipedia with the pictures taken in Second Life – chapeau! One of the old buildings is used for exhibitions and right now there’s an exhibition called “Birds” with photographs from laura.20161105-furillen_019

I roamed over the island and climbed on the structures and was impressed how intense you feel to be in a real abandoned industry ruin. The highlight of my visit was the hotel which is placed just behind the tree line. The tree line looks really misplaced on this island in this dismal environment but is also just reflecting the real Furillen. In the hotel each room is a different piece of art, mostly surreal and a heaven for photograhers.

November 5th - Furillen in Second Life: The hotel behind the tree line

November 5th – Furillen in Second Life: The hotel behind the tree line

2s1611s5-furillen_020

I know I am by far not the first writing about Furillen. There’s a long list of articles on furillen.org. Nonetheless I wanted to keep something for this diary and to inspire others to have a look at Furillen. Thank you so much Serene for providing this sim to the public!
Landmark to Furillen in Second Life
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Love%20of%20Life/160/105/21
Website Furillen
https://furillen.org/
List of articles about Furillen in Second Life
https://furillen.org/reviews/

Pink

14 Jul 2016 2 Comments

by diomitamaurer in Exploring sims in Second Life Tags: , , , , , , ,

The title of this post is a bit misleading intentionally. This post is about Pink Floyd – Pink Floyd in Second Life to be more precisely. Again I came across it following Inara Pey’s blog. Her post is titeled “When Pink Floyd eats your sim in Second Life“. This place is temporarily a real homage to Pink Floyd, their music and their art. Serene Footman, who owns the sim “Furillen“, wrote a full decription of what you can see here and titeled it “Pink Floyd ate my sim“.

July 11th: Furillen - Pink Floyd (1)

July 11th: Furillen – Pink Floyd (1)

One of the attractions is Battersea Power Station which is famous as it it appeared on the cover of Pink Floyd’s 1977 album Animals, on which it was photographed with the group’s inflatable pink pig floating above it. Inside of the building I felt beamed back into the 1970ies. The huge giant hall is filled with fog steadily changing in all colours of the rainbow. There’s a seating goup in one corner, a big picture of Battersea Power Station and a “Fower Power” Volkswagen Transporter.

July 11th: Mistress Jenny and Diomita inside Battersea Power Station at Furillen

July 11th: Mistress Jenny and Diomita inside Battersea Power Station at Furillen

But there’s a lot more to discover, way too much to list it here. I recommend reading the above mentioned post in the Furillen blog (“Pink Floyd ate my sim“). In the Furillen blog you will also find a full list of all objects from Pink Floyd that you can discover here on one spot in 3D. And there’re lots of really great pictures, just have a look into the blog “Furillen – love of (a minimalist) life“.

July 11th: Furillen - Pink Floyd (2)

July 11th: Furillen – Pink Floyd (2)

Of course the music stram provided is Pink Floyd. Actually I read that it is a 13 hour play list featuring every studio album made by Pink Floyd, in chronological order. While we were visiting we heard “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” (1975) and we, Mistress Jenny and me, just stood there enjoying the music. And even slave cecy, who accompanied us, just knelt silently and relaxed. By the way, the slideshow at the wall in the pictures above and below is one of 2 slideshows that contain around 800 (!) pictures.

July 11th: Mistress Jenny and Diomita at Furillen enjoying Pink Floyd

July 11th: Mistress Jenny and Diomita at Furillen enjoying Pink Floyd

Art in SL is temporary. We can keep it in pictures and in our memories but it is digital and mostly short-lived. The Pink Floyd installation might be gone soon again.
Really fitting to our visit to Furillen was a strange avatar that we just saw shortly. I managed to take a picture. He could have appeared on a Pink Floyd cover in my humble opinion.

July 11th: The "grid-man" at Furillen - Pink Floyd

July 11th: The “grid-man” at Furillen – Pink Floyd (in the background the beds based on the cover of A Momentary Lapse of Reason)

Landmark Furillen:
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Love%20of%20Life/166/96/21
Blog Furillen – love of (a minimalist) life:
https://furillen.org/
Blog Pink Floyd ate my sim:
https://furillen.org/2016/07/09/pink-floyd-ate-my-sim/
Inara Pey’s blog When Pink Floyd eats your sim in Second Life:
https://modemworld.me/2016/07/11/when-pink-floyd-eats-your-sim-in-second-life/

 

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