Two Art Projects to take an interest in: ArtWalk in Raglanshire and Art Contest in Cloud Party

Well, there’s always plenty of art projects going on in Second Life, but two have come to my attention recently.

Raglanshire ArtWalk

The Raglan Shire ArtWalk 2013 opened Sunday May 5th, and displays the works of over 130 artists over four sims in an outdoor setting.  The show runs from May 5th through May 26th. Artists gridwide converge to exhibit their RL photography and art and SL photography and sculpture in this annual arts festival, hosted by the tiny community of the Raglan Shire sim cluster.

2D art of all kinds is exhibited along the hedgerows in the central area of Raglan Shire sim. Second Life sculptural works are exhibited among the trees and along the shores of the western half of Heron Forest in Heron Shire sim, in the parks on Morning Shire and Raglan Commons sim.  TP kiosks to the display locations are throughout the grounds of the festival. It’s a little like the displays we get in my hometown or in London, where artists exhibit on park railings every Sunday (and sell their paintings too).

You don’t have to be a tiny to visit and enjoy Raglan Shire. Avatars of all shapes and sizes are welcome to visit the show during May and enjoy wandering these fun sims dedicated to tiny avatars. Be wary of riding the transport if you’re a biggie, though. It might (heh heh) bring you down to size.

For more information, contact Teal Freenote or Liandras Jameson, or visit the Raglan Shire website at http://raglanshire.com/

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Looking for Art in Cloud Party …

Meanwhile, Cloud Partty are celebrating their first Anniverary with an Art Contest, and a handsome $1,000.00 (USD) prize.

In collaboration with art critic Ben Davis, executive editor of Artinfo.com, Cloud Party are sponsoring an Art in Cloud Party contest with a first prize of $1,000.00(USD)! The Community Favorite prize, as voted by the community, takes home 2000CC(Cloud Coins virtual currency). And to make it easier for artists, entrants in the competitionwill be given free virtual studio space for a month to create their entry. The deadline for entries in June 12th.

The theme is “Monumental Work of Public Art” – so one suspects we’re not looking for small, intimate pictures of family life here.

The Cloud Party team say, “We’re looking for people who make truly use of Cloud Party’s tools to create the kinds of visionary artworks that have never been seen before.”

There’s already a taste of the possible in Cloud Party with Claudia222 Jewell’s work.  The clarity of textures she achieves and the level of involvement suggests that Cloud Party has great potential for installation art – as you can see on the Designing Worlds show where we featured Cloud Party. It will be fascinating to see what is offered.

Art work by Claudia222 Jewell in Cloud Party – photograph by Wildstar Beaumont

Entries will be judged on the following criteria:

• Originality of concept
• Personal voice
• How well it takes advantage of the virtual environment
• Overall coherence of vision

The rules for what you create are pretty wide open. It can be visual, interactive, collaborative – whatever you come up with that meets your definition of art and reflects our theme. Since this is a subjective topic the organisers say that they intend to be pretty open-minded, but do keep their Terms of Service in mind and that this is a 13+ website. More details (including entry forms) can be found here.

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It’s all about the Art (and the textures) in the new issue of Prim Perfect!

Prim Perfect: Issue 46 – March 2013 – cover

Welcome to our second issue of 2013 - and more of our new range of features in Prim Perfect magazine, as well as those you know and love!

This month of theme is Art – and we’ve expanded that to also look at textures.

And our inworld issue this month is full of gifts and tools for you, many designed to help you create you own items, as shown in the magazine! So as you read throughh the magazine, watch out for those gift tags  on the left or right of the screen – clicking on them will bring you something very special!

On the fine art front, Rowan Derryth supplies an Overview of Virtual Art, and a guide to some of the art that you might choose to display in your virtual home in Home is Where the Art Is.

Prim Perfect: Issue 46 – March 2013 – Home is where the art is

Honour McMillan interviews the well-known Second Life artist Bryn Oh, and talks to a comparative newcomer to the art scene, Livio Oak Korobase. And I visit our Designers of the Month, Marcus Inkpen and Sharni Azalee, who combine fine art with superlative design on their beautiful region, The Looking Glass.

Prim Perfect: Issue 46 – March 2013 – Bryn Oh

In addition, Honour McMillan supplies an introduction to the Linden Endowment for the Arts, while Tricia Aferdita explores ten amazing art galleries that you should visit.

If your tastes run to textures, you’ll find plenty of information in this month’s magazine.  Ceejay Writer interviews Hyasynth Tiramisu on the subject of the beautiful textures she creates for Silent Sparrow – more than that – Hyasynth not only gives a masterclass on creating textures – she has also supplied a very special texture free to Prim Perfect readers that you can use to decorate your own home.

Prim Perfect: Issue 46 – March 2013 – Silent Sparrow

In addition, Ethan Westland looks at the importance of textures (and gives away a few secret texture-buying locations!) while Qwis Greenwood, in the second of our series promoting small business around the grid, has found three very exciting and very different texture creators to share with our readers.

Prim Perfect: Issue 46 – March 2013 – Building a skybox

In our continuing series on building your own home, our designer (and phenomenal builder) Winona Wiefel will be teaching you how to create a door and windows and add them to the basic skybox that you created in Part 1 of the series.

And to help you with your building, there’s not only a copy of the skybox (which you can use as a model) but there’s also a pack of textures for you to experiment with too!

Prim Perfect: Issue 46 – March 2013 – Building in Mesh

We also have the second in our major series on Mesh. Beq Janus supplies a simple entry to the world of mesh, touching on buying full perm mesh from marketplace with a rudimentary guide to texturing those – and giving a brief view of in world tools for mesh.

And she also supplies a mesh chair for you to start practising texturising too!

Then there are reports on the fantastic One Billion Rising event — the Second Life version of the global event that celebrates women even as it raises awareness of the issue of violence against women. And Beq Janus looks at the opening of Relay for Life and tells us all about the upcoming season of events.

Prim Perfect: Issue 46 – March 2013 – The Looking Glass

Rosamoo Mendelsohn brings us Hunting News, while there are details from our TV shows, Designing Worlds and Happy Hunting!, available on Treet TV.

Our team of talented photographers, led by Judith Lefevre, PJ Trenton, Winona Wiefel, Wildstar Beaumont, and Honour McMillan, bring you some of the most artistic eye candy from across the metaverse.

All this with News From the Grid and more!

Prim Perfect: Issue 46 – March 2013 – Art Galleries

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So how can I get Prim Perfect?

Prim Perfect: Issue 46 – March 2013 – Textures

If you prefer to read the magazine online but not inworld, there are choices. Firstly, there’s the wonderful Calaméo system, which allows you to moves smoothly through the pages, giving you the feeling of reading a real magazine. You’ll find Issue 46 here – and please do leave a comment!

But, if you like to download your magazines to read as you commute to work, or in the bath, or wherever, you can also download a pdf of the magazine from Calameo – or print it out!.

You can get the latest issue inworld – and copies of all our earlier issues too – at our new head offices in the Irish Isles.  It has a great cafe to relax in while you’re reading the latest issue too!

Prim Perfect: Issue 46 – March 2013 – Art Galleries

We also have subscribe-o-matic kiosks throughout Second Life – so you can just click to subscribe. You’ll be sent a copy of the latest issue, and then you’ll receive your issues regularly!

Or you can have it delivered to you each month as an IntelliBook, by joining the Prim Perfect Readers group inworld. It costs nothing to join and, apart from delivering the magazine each month, we won’t overload you with chat or messages!

Prim Perfect: Issue 46 – March 2013 – Ars Virtua

In addition to delivering the Intellibook version of the magazine, you’ll also get a link to the online Calaméo version of the magazine, so you’ll be able to access that too.

How to Join Prim Perfect Readers

• Inworld, open Search.
• Search Groups for Prim Perfect Readers.
• Click to join

Prim Perfect: Issue 46 – March 2013 – LEA

So … enjoy! And let us know what you think of our new edition!

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Explore the Four Elements with the Spirit Light Galleries and the Spirit Light Dance Company

The Elements exhibition

A message came to us from the LunaMar Performing Arts, The Spirit Light Galleries:

Why did we never see an arts event in Second Life that combines dance with an exhibition of RL paintings, sculptures, poetry, and creations of digital art?

Well the opportunity is now here!

Fire

 The Spirit Light Dance Company is a Second Life group of dancers with a really outstanding dance repertoire attended by a large audience from all over Second Life and the world. They will give a performance with the theme “The Four Elements:  Fire, Earth, Water and Air”

In collaboration with this, we organized an arts exhibit with the same theme The Four Elements. Specially for that purpose, a beautiful gallery has been created to display artwork and poetry panels by SL creators using this theme. There are 4 pavilions decorated into one of the Elements in which art of 23 artists is displayed. Well known artists as well as new residents who never have exhibited before. Special and not often seen in SL is that a lot of poems are also displayed .We can conclude that art in all it forms are connected in this special exhibition.

Earth

On Saturday and Sunday March 23rd – 24th, the really breathtaking performance of the Four Elements by the Spirit Light Dance Group under the direction of Caryl Meridith will be performed.

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS (in alphabetic order)
Alesia Barbosa
Asmita Duranjaya
Bella Larkspur
Caryl Meridith
Elin Egoyan
JudiLynn India
Jullianna Juliesse
June Faramore
Karli Daviau
Kylie Angel
Luna Branwen
Margaj
Mathilde Vhargon
Mik Frequency
Milly Sharple
Monroe Snook
Rosedrop Rust
Sarafina Destiny
Simonetta Martella2
Treacle Darlandes
Tuatha Tread Softly (rivereden)
Ub Yifu
Una Milena

 

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Encounters in the Cloud – Designing Worlds explores Cloud Party

Now available on the web – our latest episode, as we explore a whole new virtual environment – Cloud Party!

Cloud Party uses the metaphor of islands floating in the sky,while the the menu systems uses the metaphor of a smart phone with various apps – a rather clever way of introducing users not used to virtual worlds to what can be a complex set of tools.

To help us explore Cloud Party, we’re joined by three creators from Cloud Party – Maxwell Graf, who is well known in Second life as the designer of Rustica, Ashasekayi Ra, who has been doing some interesting work on avatar customisation, and Phate Shepherd, who has been exploring some of the possibilities of scripting and game creation in Cloud Party.

Inside Cloud Party – looking at the islands

We visit a number of islands within Cloud Party, including the starting including Phate’s fascinating Misfit Toys, Maxwell’s stormy forest … and an amazing art creation by the well known artist in virtual worlds – Claudia222 Jewell.

Watch the show – and learn more!

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LEA Announces Round 4 AIRs!

Yooma Mayo’s previous LEA work ‘Dreaming Machine’. Yooma is one of a handful of returning artists this round.

The LEA is pleased to announce the fourth round of Artists-in-Residence, who will receive a full sim for six months on which to create and display their proposed projects:

Aequitas (Artist Collective)
Ambi bimbogami
Betty Turead
Cica Ghost
Ginger Lorakeet
Jack Mondegreen
Johnas Merlin
Mac Kanashimi
Mantis Oh
Marx Catteneo/Krakassus Jigsaw
Morlita Quan and Noke Yuitza
Newbab Zsigmond
Ole Etzel
Seraph Kegel
Sniper Siemens
Solkide Auer
thingiwishihadsaid
uan ceriaptrix
Vaneeesa Blaylock
Yooma Mayo

The LEA received nearly 50 high-quality applications, and it was a difficult decision, but those selected submitted truly outstanding proposals that represent a diverse range of virtual art. While a handful are artists returning for a second round, the majority will be exhibiting at the LEA for the first time. Projects range from full-sim immersions, to innovative builds geared specifically for multimedia works such as sound and machinima projects.

Artists will have up to four months to build their projects (though many have suggested they will be completed sooner), with all exhibits set to be open by mid-June. Many will likely open sooner, though, so keep an eye on this blog for announcements of exhibit openings and related special events.

The previous three rounds of LEA land grant artists-in-residence have resulted in some truly exceptional works, and we anticipate this next group to be just as fantastic. Congratulations to all the artists, we can’t wait to see your vision!

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InWorldz invites visitors at the 2013 SXSW Conference to have a glimpse into their grid!

Inworldz welcomes SXSW

SXSW will be in InWorldz – from March 8th – 10th in 49 regions.

SXSW stands for South By Southwest and is a real life Conference of Technology, Music & Film which runs in Austin Texas annually – this year from March 8th – March 10th 2013.  They have a website you can visit here:  http://sxsw.com/

InWorldz Creators, Artists & Educators have composed a 49 sim display, sponsored by the founders of InWorldz, containing some featured builds from within their grid and are inviting visitors to the Coference to take some time to see them all, and return afterwards to become a part of Inworldz!

The Main sims and themes:
Sim A – Education
Sim B – Arts & Literature
Sim C – Entertainment
Sim D – Technology
Sim E – Physics
Sim F – Fantasy & Roleplay
Sim G – Transportation
Sim H – The Harbor- Boating & Nature

These 8 main featured sims will be part of a 49 sim block, many of which are scenic backdrops and “crossing sims” where vehicles will take you from one main sim to another.

Additionally they will be featuring some special builds in some of the surrounding sims as well.

These include Replicant City, Alchemy, Wizard Gynoid’s Temple of Sacred Geometry & E8 Polytope, a Mer Cove surrounding the Roleplay & Fantasy sim and a few backdrops from artistic creators. There are musical events happening from 8 am to 10 pm all 3 days with Live Performers, Djs and even Belly Dancing!

This event has so much to do and explore, to learn and to interact with. Of course the InWorldz grid is much larger, but they hope visitors walk away with a good sense that the  grid houses many wonderful things beyond what they see at the Conference.

 

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LEA Talks this weekend

As part of the LEA Arts Festival, I’ll be chatting with six artists about their work as Artists-in-Residenes and beyond. Todays talks:

• 12pm SLT: Nino Vichan (in voice) at LEA 28 http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/LEA28/137/128/1610
• 2PM SLT: Giovanna Cerise (in text) at LEA 14 http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/LEA14/130/140/22

Saturday the 23rd:

• 4pm SLT Chic Aeon (in text) at LEA 20 http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/LEA20/127/130/21

Sunday the 24th:

• 10am SLT Daco Monday (in text) at LEA 11 http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/LEA11/94/119/22
• 12pm SLT Rose Borchovski (in voice) at LEA 23 http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/LEA23/62/75/21
• 2pm SLT Fae Varriale (in text) at LEA 22 http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/LEA26/218/40/551

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Moving forward with the campaign … after One Billion Rising in Second Life

Bryn Oh’s installation at One Billion Rising in Second Life

During the one Billion Rising event last week, The Guardian newspaper in the UK live-blogged the event – and  mentioned the Second Life event as part of their coverage.  But – as for so many of us – it’s not going to end there.  Today I received an invitation from them, to carry the campaign and its message forward.

Following on from the momentum of last week’s campaign and running up to the Commission of the Status of Women in March, we’re asking readers who inspires them in the fight to end gender violence. Malala caught the world’s attention last year – who else needs recognition? What are the amazing projects we should be highlighting?

You can submit yoru nomination directly to our site, or upload a photo to flickr, twitter, facebook or instgram using the hashtag #globaldevwomen. Full instructions here http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2013/feb/14/ending-gender-violence-inspiration

Please share this – and send in your thoughts and inspirations.

I’m also going to be talking here on the blog about elements of the event and sharing ideas how we could move this campaign forward in Second Life – and asking how best we could share our ideas too. So watch this space!

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LEA AIRS DEADLINE EXTENDED

The LEA has decided to extend the artist-in-residence application deadline to this Sunday, the 24th, at midnight.  Complete details and information, timeframe and how to apply are available here.

Poster by PJ Trenton

The LEA AIR programme seeks to promote and nurture the arts in Second Life, through providing limited term full-sim land grants to be used for creative projects and art installations over the course of a few months. Recipients can be individuals or groups interested in creating or curating art, or proposing cultural projects which would require/utilise a full-sim build and can be completed within the allotted time frame (5 months). The LEA is able to offer land grants through the generosity of Linden Lab.

While many well-known virtual artists have received grants, the LEA has also had the pleasure of hosting ‘younger’ AIRs and hopes to continue in that tradition. You need not have a great deal of experience, just some good ideas. The application is a bit more detailed to help guide you in thinking through your project, which we do expect at this point to be an idea in progress and not necessarily a portrait of the final result – more like a loose sketch! We also welcome applications from across the spectrum of the arts, for example performance groups that might want to embark on a bigger/longer term project than we can support at our performing arts space!

If you still need a little more inspiration, take some time to visit the current artists-in-residence, which will be open until the end of the month.

Good luck!

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Prim Perfect Jigsaws: Tough and Crazy – from One Billion Rising in Second Life

Gracie’s installation

At One Billion Rising in Second Life

You have all been very patient about Prim Perfect Jigsaws while I have been a tad busy with a certain event known as One Billion Rising in Second Life. So here today are not one but two jigsaws (yes, count ‘em – two!). Admittedly they both come from One Billion Rising in Second Life but … I’ve been a little tunnel vision for some reason, you know?

And one is tough because it’s a complex abstract image, and the other is … well, I went a little crazy, you know?

The first jigsaw is a glorious, colourful abstract, taken from Gracie Kendal’s joyous mini-version of her installation Ce n’est pas une peinture, the large size version of which is on display at LEA15 – it was one of the locations used in the One Billion Rising in Second Life video.

Gracie Kendal’s Installation at One Billion Rising in Second Life

Gracie will be in conversation with Rowan Derryth today at The Linden Endowment for the Arts Festival – you can read about the Talks here. But first – do the jigsaw!

Secondly, we have a jigsaw taken from a photograph taken on the One Billion Rising in Second Life regions – and here, as you will see, I decided to go a little crazy!

One Billion Rising in Second Life region

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Catch up with your Prim Perfect jigsaws (showing images of Second Life and other virtual worlds).

If you’d like to submit a photo of your own to feature as a jigsaw, send it to the Prim Perfect Flickr Group. It should be sized 800w x 600h, or else it will need to be re-sized.

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