Division Street / Divided Path: Yooma Mayo

28 July 2013

Run away to the circus ... FAST!

Yooma Mayo's Mechanical Circus just opened a couple of days ago, and in a couple more days -- on 1 Aug -- it will disappear again, so go there NOW. Don't be too hard on Yooma for taking nearly all of his five months on a LEA sim to build Mechanical Circus: when you see it, you'll understand why. Yooma is a classic Second Life builder: where others are exploring mesh or using sculpties, Yooma works with prims, and proves how much can be done with them. His work is intricate and finely detailed for its scale. His texturing is so meticulous that seams are hard to find. This is handwork at its best. And there is plenty to see.

But you won't see it at first. The landing point is underneath most of the build. Stop a moment to pick up the circus performer avatar and wear it. Then cam out to see where you are ... way out. Mechanical Circus is enormous and photos don't do it justice. Still, here are a few -- click to enlarge.

You're still reading? Hurry up, go see the Mechanical Circus -- time is slipping away!

10 February 2013

Yooma Mayo and Pixels Sideways at Split Screen During February

Yikes, am I running behind on things!

Running through 28 Feb, Split Screen presents two new works: Yooma Mayo's Yes, Giovanni, and Pixels Sideways's Afterlife: A Journey Through the Imagination of Pixels Sideways.

Yooma is well known for his fantastical, enormous, mechanical, steampunkish animals, such as the seahorses at a LEA sim and the elephants at The Lost Town (La Citta Perduta). In Yes, Giovanni he continues in this vein with two huge goldfish leaping through the air, looking like they are charging into each other. Beneath them is a railway stop, with the engine off in the distance. I haven't come up with an interpretation for any of this (including the title) but it's magnificent nevertheless.

Yes, Giovanni, by Yooma Mayo

Pixels has a long history in SL arts, and Afterlife is to some extent a retrospective, but many of the works have never been publicly displayed before. She writes, "The concept behind Afterlife continues to shift and change, in much the same way each individual interprets the meaning of 'afterlife' in their own context of existence.... More specifically, Afterlife is a journey through my imagination which is in a constant state of loco-motion." (Note: the lighting in Afterlife is intentionally low, so photos are a bit difficult to take.)