10 July 2020

New art works, and a new(ish) art sim in SL

I haven't been paying close attention to SL's art scene for a while. Chalk it up to feeling the SL art scene was in the doldrums, as I've written earlier, and being busy in RL. One interesting artist has appeared during the past year or so, FionaFei, known for importing Chinese inkbrush techniques into three dimensions. She has a work up at the Hannington Endowment for the Arts called "I Had a Dream, and You Were There," which I recommend. One reason to keep an eye on her is that she's done a full-sim work, Imposter, and not many artists have taken that challenge lately.

FionaFei, "I Had a Dream, and You Were There"

But the larger thing that slipped past me was the sim which hosted Imposter, called Sim Quarterly. Curated by Electric Monday, Sim Quarterly opened in July 2019 to provide a homestead "where SL creators and dreamers share their sim-wide, 3D installations" (to quote the notecard from the sim greeter). It is "quarterly" because Electric brings in a new artist every three months (a model similar to Split Screen's, except she has a whole homestead). I regret overlooking its entry into SL, because gaining a sim dedicated to large 3D installations is A Big Deal, in my view anyway. For the past several years the story has been the steady disappearance of such locations, culminating in the closure of LEA.

The current installation at the Sim Quarterly is JadeYu Fhang's Le Déraciné (The Uprooted). This work has three levels. At the landing point there's a small installation with a door through which you can TP to the second level, and from there walk or fly to the higher section on the side. That's all I'll say since I'm pretty busy these days, but go see it.




JadeYu Fhang's Le Déraciné