19 June 2012

She's baaaaaack!

My friend Kara, who left SL about a month ago, has decided to come back! She talks about it in her blog. She's been a great supporter of the arts in SL, and a great source of news about activities if you want to go to something fun. Plus she's a wonderful friend and great to joke around with. Welcome back, Kara! Yay!*

*In case you're wondering why I'm not teasing her mercilessly, I am -- but that's more fun to do privately, where I can make better jokes! :-D

07 June 2012

Rose Borchovski: The Inevitability of Fate

• I like words. Sometimes I know not to use them. I'm going to keep this simple.

• The photos below are small because I want you to click on them to see them larger. They are no substitute for going there.




• Use the recommended windlight settings.

• Turn local sounds all the way up. Turn your master volume up.

• Click on everything you can find to click on.

• Cam everywhere, including from above, around corners, and close up.

• Give yourself at least 45 minutes.

• Yes. It's that good.

GO.

02 June 2012

Betty Tureaud and Trill Zapatero at Split Screen

During June, Split Screen is hosting Betty Tureaud's Liquid Crystals and Trill Zapatero's The Apocalypse Will Not Be Televised.  They are thoroughly immersive installations of completely different kinds.

In Liquid Crystals, Betty expresses her fascination with crystals and their use in technology. It has three levels. The landing point is breathtaking and magnificent: a vast field of color that spreads to the horizon. On a black platform are two small spheres. Sitting on them brings you down into a large cylinder where you float within Betty's bright colors. Standing up from there, you tumble down to the base of the cylinder, where you walk amid cubical and conical crystals, some in a pile in the middle.

Betty Tureaud, Liquid Crystals

In contrast to Betty's highly abstract piece, Trill's Apocalypse is concrete and narrative. There's been a run of apocalyptic work lately (including, at Split Screen alone, shellina Winkler's Apocalypse 2012 and Alizarin Goldflake's Acquarella: After the Apocalypse). Trill's installation is unusual for its optimism. We see the destruction, but also reconstruction. The installation is designed to lead us along a path through ruins occupied by ghosts and rats, and still crumbling around us. However, many of the walls have graffiti (among them, images by Hieronymus Bosch), a few with clues to the background to the disaster. Eventually the path takes us to a paddleboat, the beginning of the salvaging of materials. The boat brings us to an oil rig that has been wholly re-purposed, and now boasts a garden, chairs and lamps made from various types of detritus, and a small house powered by a wind turbine.

Trill Zapatero, The Apocalypse Will Not Be Televised

Showing June only, so go see them!