Art by Ariel

This Sunday at 2pm SLT a new art-gallery is opening inworld: Benzaiten Gallery. I had the privilege to see the place earlier this week when I stopped by there to put up one of my own pics. I have to say Fingers Scintilla and Ariel Brearly did a great job putting together a wonderful collection of SLArt by people like Stephen Venkman, Kimberly Mirabeau, Nephie Eerie, Joy Fellini, Senna Conoret and many others. It goes without saying Fingers and Ariel put up some of their own work too. The place they made has a nice cyberpunk feel to it that reminded me a little of the Cannery Gallery. So if you have no plans for Sunday join us for the opening of this beautiful new gallery. It will undoubtedly be a big hit.

SLURL to Benzaiten

Another worth-to-see is Ariel "busy bee" Brearly's temporary exhibit at the RavenLynxx gallery. As an artist Ariel has really made a name for herself with her very personal style. It is at the same time emotional, whimsical and full of symbolism. At times it refers at the great surrealists like Dali or Delveaux In my opinion Ariel is one of the few SL artists to escape the SL stigma. Even though her work is generated in SL it escapes the SLArt label and is just plain and simple digital Art. Amidst the pictures of pretty avatars and SL landscapes on Flickr her work really stands out. The favs and comments on her stream make it clear it touches a nerve with many.

Some of her best work is now presented at the RavenLynx gallery and it is a pleasure to see all these magnificent works together. The exhibit opened last weekend and will run till the end of July. Don't let this chance pass you by and go see this fantastic exhibit.

SLURL to RavenLynxx Gallery

Survey

Picture by Ganymedes Costagravas

A while ago I took part in a focus group about morals, ethics and emotions in SL vs RL organised by a student from the university of Ghent who is doing a study on the topic. It turned out to be an interesting evening. I even found me a new friend. Based on this group talk and a similar one held at a later date a survey was made to gather data for the study. So, if you are or have been active in SL please help Katleen and fill out the online survey it will only take a few minutes. The project's website where you can find the survey: http://www.survey.gendersquare.org/

Also check Gany's blogpost on the subject.

Schizophrenia

I finally caved in and made myself a Facebook profile. I'm not exactly a private person or terribly shy but I have always been weary about posting personal details online. It often flabbergasts me what people post about themselves online. All that data will be there forever for everyone to find whether it be a possible employer, a creepy stalker or a new girlfriend. Face it we have nothing to hide but in some cases our oppinions or style may work against us. Loki has always given me a chance to be present online without revealing my RL identity. If you Google my RL name you get about 133 hits and 90% of those refer to someone who happens to have the same name. Run a search for "Loki Popinjay" and you get 2600 hits and there is no one else by that name.


The only thing bugging me now is the schizophrenic situation of having two completely separate online identities. On the one hand I wouldn't mind sharing some aspects of my SL life with RL friends or the other way around but it's near impossible or at least a lot of work to do it selectively. If I link both I do it for everyone and I'm not sure I want that. Somehow it would spoil the liberty Loki enjoys so much and I guess it would also take away part of the fantasy and mystery that has always been part of the SL and in general online experience.

Of course I have RL friends who know about SL and I have SL friends who know a lot about my RL. There are even those who are friends in both RL and SL. I think for now that's how it will stay.

Moving

Due to circumstances I wil not be online as often as you, my friends and readers are used to. For the next month or so my only access to the net will be a 3G modem with a data limit of 4Gb/month (unless I want to pay through the nose for extra volume). Compared to my usual 25 to 30 Gb a month you can imagine it will hurt.

an old pic but thought it was fitting

This also means that any SL activity will probably be almost non-existant and because of it I guess my Flickr stream will come to a trickle at best for a while. On the positive side of things, it may give me a bit more time to post here.

All of this is because it takes Telenet, a local cable provider, a MONTH to reactivate an existing connection that was deactivated. To add insult to injury, the place already has cable television and a telephone connection via cable from Telenet. Why does it take so long ? They claim they have to physically be on the spot to reactivate internet access. To do what, turn the modem back on ? I can do that for them thank you very much. If they said two days to sort out the billing and add the modem to DHCP I'd think it was slow but acceptable, but a MONTH ?? I guess it's about time they got some competition ...

Oh well, it's only a month but I can't say I'm looking forward to it ...

Rancor @ uqbar. media art culture ARENA

Cienega Soon is showing some of her fantastic artwork at the uqbar media art culture arena. I went to have a look there yesterday when the exhibit opened and was blown away not just by the gorgeous pictures but by the way they were presented. An awful lot of work must have gone into these displays.


Now beauty is one thing but art is about so much more and I must say that especially "Rancor" really touched me. This is art that speaks and grabs you by the short and curlies, an aspect so often overshadowed by the quest for aesthetics in SL Art.


From what I can see the exhibit is only open until tomorrow so get your asses over there before it is too late !!


Announcement on her Flickr stream

Go there straight from here

Happy New Year

Let me start by wishing you all a fantastic 2009. I hope you all manage to make some long fostered dreams and wishes come true in the year ahead.

Just before 2008 drew to an end I got a very nice prezzie in the mail. The catalogue of the Firenze exhibit arrived.


It turned out to be an impressive 300+ pages of very nicely printed SL images and I have to commend the organisers for keeping their promise to send it to all participating artists for just the shipping cost.


Guess I could bitch about the fact they managed to attribute the only one of my pictures that made it into the book to someone else but hey, I can live with the nice pic that was wrongly attributed to me ;-)

As for New Year's resolutions; I promise I will shut up about Firenze on this blog from now on and start doing a bit more writing about other aspects of SL again. Promised !