Transubstantiation revisited

Many thanks to Hexx for composing this music especially for the build in spite of now being in employment...

hugs.

:))

Transubstantiation

Some thoughts about my new build at UWA.., which I have called Transubstantiation.

Now, in the normal course of events I build a piece without much of a ‘back story’ and rely on my feelings for composition, colour etc to compose a piece that has a volumetric balance to it.

I’ve been doing this since I was about 5 or 6 I think and I just try to obey ‘the Law of Volumes and Lines”, if such a law exists.... it seems to, in my eyes.

So, any theory is really a sort of post-rationalisation of what I have built, though it does actually inform the details and some choices I make in the latter stages of finishing a piece, giving, hopefully, a meaning for myself if no-one else.

Some theories are more than just passing intellectualism for me and form the basis of a personal theology.

Considering the prim as Increatum, I had the following to say prior to my build at Magoo...

“Paracelsus was the first person to coin this word, using it to define the "uncreated" which is basically what it means.

"Prima Materia", an Alchemical concept, is what everything is made of, literally the First Matter. Now, according to alchemists, the Prima Materia is what you start The Work with, and through diligence, ritual, and devotion you turn base matter into gold.

Now, as this Matter is "the root of itself" (radix ipsius) it bears a (projected) resemblance to the godhead in that it, like Uroboros, "fertilises and gives birth to itself".

It is the Uncreated Creation. A god.

Now....let’s fast forward a few hundred years to Second Life..... The Prim.

The Prim is the Prima Materia of Second Life, everything is made of this "stuff", and like alchemy (often called The Art) we can, through diligence, ritual and devotion turn this humble prim into pure gold. "Everything is made by prim and without prim is nothing made that was made."

The Prim is an uncreated creation.

The Prim "fertilises and gives birth to itself".

The Prim is Increatum. ....

i.e....... the Prim is a god.”

Taking this idea a step further in my consideration of Nature I wrote the following when I built Tree of Trees at IBM..

“There’s a thing about nature that I have been trying to express these last three years that is intrinsic to the way nature works.

Nature is economical. It takes matter and sculpts it in the most efficient manner to suit its ends.

Johann Wolfgang Goethe wrote a book in 1790 called The Metamorphosis of Plants, in it he points out how a stem is basically a transformed leaf, as is a petal, as is a root. The basic unit of the plant is simply metamorphosed into different ‘organs’ by, as we now know, a fairly mathematical process of the changing shape and nature of the unit cell.

This process is almost identical to the one I use in Blender. I can only do one thing in Blender, namely change the distance between vertices.

In plants this is called homology and has a lot to do with why my plants in SL look as they do. All my plants have evolved in this manner from a single group of vertices in a Blender file: this is Virtual Homology.”

i.e. there is only One Prim, really..

So, in my build at UWA this thought process takes a further step when considering this process, as The Prim undergoes Transubstantiation in the artistic process.

Artists turn stones into bread and water into wine (on a good day).

Alchemists considered that the work of redemption was left unfinished by the Christian god as it basically applied simply to Mankind and not to the actual Matter of the Earth. Nature and Matter were left, they believed, to be redeemed by the Art (alchemy).


The spiritualisation of matter may be the greatest task before the artist, redeeming the atomic world to a conceptual purity, to thought, to emotion, while the Second Law of Thermodynamics charts its destruction... in that “The entropy of the universe tends to a maximum.”.

..i.e. erosion is universal, only art creates.

What does this mean?

Well, as greek mythology tells it, we humans stole The Fire of the Gods, the power to create... and were duly punished, not collectively, but poor Prometheus got severely punished by Zeus.

Because we have created virtual worlds, we act as gods.... (I am one of the gods sat here in my Olympus squabbling with the other gods and generally interfering with the lesser avatars below).

We create and destroy worlds and conjure emotion and spirituality from prims, well, actually from The Prim.

Each Prim is essentially a Cornucopia as its final manifestation is at my whim, my desire.

The Prim contains my body and my blood... my essence.

How? ....Every Prim I build is actually a REAL part of my psyche... (there is nothing virtual in this argument/statement).


.. and so this artistic process is a transubstantiation.

I am a god, The Prim is a god, I am in The Prim and I manifest through Transubstantiation.



More details on opening and location to follow when I've finished building it....



:))

UWA.... a new year.. a new voting system

This new voting system makes it far easier to vote. Firstly you can stand infront of the piece, rather than try and find it again on the board, secondly you can grade your vote...3 is v good, 2 is medium good and 1 is good....and that makes it easier to express your 'degree' of appreciation...and, of course, not being restricted to just three pieces is a boon.

Well done for improving this, I like it a lot.





Strictly speaking it's the old year as this is the December Round... and, it's time to vote. Ginger Alsop has put together some images of some of the pieces on show... credits are at the end of the machinima.




Zola Zsun has made pieces previously which I have enjoyed a lot, and this one is v elegant too.





...and Nish Mip is a past winner, of course..

I have previously blogged a piece by Faery Sola, Sleeping Beauty... here.

As usual, a great selection of pieces showcasing what is possible in SL Art, and very worth a visit or two.

Pop along and vote, take a friend.

:))

Mark Linden (scoop)

Your intrepid virtual explorer/reporteress has once again got her little fingers (well, ears actually) on a tasty little morsel....

In a pleasantly surprising move, to be announced tomorrow at the UWA November Awards party, and intimated in my Koinup post Mark Linden and I....Mark Linden will join the judges panel at The University of Western Australia for these, much praised, awards. This confirms my deep held belief that this university is doing more for the arts than anyone else in SL, a view that Mark Linden maybe agrees with, and, hopefully, learns from (re. LL).

Jayjay Zifanwe (yes, I know I spell his name differently every time I blog...) was extremely pleased at the move and, well, he and Quadrapop have worked hard to achieve what they have in these few months and deserve all the support they get. 59 artists have submitted for the November competition, and this alone tells a lot about the 'management'.

For those of you who don't have this event firmly marked in your diaries its 5am SLT (well, yes, it's one event the West Coast does have to get up very early for...) on Sunday 6th December, i.e. tomorrow.

...it's...here....

:)))

Weekend Stuff

Ok....so, I'm sure to blog this again with a few more precise details, but... Next Sunday there's an opening of my Alien Forest at the Space Convention Centre on Sunday the 18th. It's Deutche Info Welt.....and I will post a Slurl and stuff. Its gonna be at 1PM SLT I think....have yet to work out the time.....10PM CET anyway...... more about it here, though you might need to translate it....





Popped into Reaction Grid for the first time on Friday just to say hi to Snowy but he wasn't there....anyway got my clothes and skin on etc...met a few cool people, these small grids are very welcoming... all seemed quite stable...





AuraKyo is showing a lovely piece ....here and there's a wishes board you can add you're thoughts too.... I got carried away with the lights and effects and didn't notice it, but I was trying to squeeze it in before heading off to Australia.....





University of Western Australia has been hosting, and will continue, a monthly design/build competition....

"Some exciting new developments that happened today. Thanks to ShedworX.com, we have managed to raise the GRAND PRIZE for both the IMAGINE & FLAGSHIP Challenges to L$75,000 (& L$14,000 for the Second Prize. Monthly prizes, with immediate effect will increase to $L5,000 & $L1,250 respectively.

For the IMAGINE challenge, the Best Non-Scripted entry prize will also increase to L$1,250 and the winner of the 1st prize and best Non-Scripted prize will have RL custom T-Shirts made for them based on their favourite texture. This will be custom made in RL, and posted to them, wherever they are in the world! These special prizes come courtesy of www.etshirts.com

Also a special artists participation pool (donation) has been established thanks to the generosity of Sasun Steinbeck & Tranguloid Trefoil who have agreed to join me in contributing L$1000 monthly toward the pool, and Phillip Vought who has agreed to contribute for October. This will be reset at the start of every month. All artists who submit a genuine entry (not a block of plywood) and who do not receive one of the main prizes, will receive a share of what has been contributed to the donation jar for that month. Nothing is being kept for the land tier, 100% will go back to artists."

Now, this is exactly the sort of thing that should be encouraged in my view.... anyway...I won a RL T-shirt for the best textures...and... the other top prizes were.....

September round winner

IMAGINE CHALLENGE - 3D Art
1st Prize: Our Souls Collide by Snubnose Genopeak ($L5,000)
2nd Prize: Immersize Art: The Maze by Alizarin Goldflake ($L1,250)
Best Non-Scripted Entry: An Unknown Race by isaa Gelber ($L1,250)
Best New Artist (as selected by Art Philanthropist, Phillip Vought): isaa Gelber (7,000 prims for 1 month & $L1,000). This has been set up at Excalibur, Aquitain

Honourable Mention (Technique): Seahorse by Tweak Serpente ($L500)
Honourable Mention (Elegance & Movement): Peacocks by Ninka Darkstone ($L500)
Honourable Mention (Legacy): First Prim by Venom Silverfall ($L500)
Honourable Mention (Excellence in Texture Creation): The Wizard Fruit Tree by Soror Nishi

FLAGSHIP CHALLENGE
1st Prize : Arcapelus Sanctuary by Moth Rexen ($L5,000) see photo above.....


4 Honourable mention prizes have been awarded. The Honourable Mention prize of $L500 for Legacy is awarded to:
FIRST PRIM - VENOM SILVERFALL

The Honourable mention prize of $L500 for Elegance & Movement is awarded to:
PEACOCKS - NINKA DARKSTONE

The Honourable Mention prize of $L500 for Technique, is awarded to:
SEAHORSE - TWEAK SERPENTE/STRIX SERENITY

The Honourable Mention Prize for Excellence in Texture Creation, which is a Custom Made RL T-Shirt for them based on any texture they would like, is awarded to:
SOROR NISHI - THE WIZARD FRUIT TREE

Next we move to the 2nd overall prive for the IMAGINE Challenge. There were an incredible array of remarkable entries, and it was very difficult for the judges to seperate the top 6. After long consultation, the 2nd prize ($L1,250) was awarded to:
IMMERSIVE ART: THE MAZE - ALIZARIN GOLDFLAKE

We also have for this month, a special prize for Best New Artist. This was judged 2 weeks ago, by Arts Philanthropist, Phillip Vought, who contributed 7,000 prims on his land at Excalibur, Aquitaine for use by the artist for the month of October. UWA have added L$1,000 to the prize. This award, was given not for a single artwork, but for the incredible range displayed by the artist. The prize goes to:
ISAA GELBER

Please visit the Exhibition she has set up, and do let all your colleagues know about this:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Aquitaine/41/38/32

Next is the prize for Best Non-Scripted Entry ($L1,250). What the judges were looking for, was the entire message the artwork gave, and the capacity of the artwork to make the viewer pause and ponder. This prize has been awarded to:
AN UNKNOWN RACE - ISAA GELBER

An amazing double truimph for isaa, from 2 different judging panels

Now for one of the overall winner prizes. Again,as mentioned, 6 artworks were shortlisted for the top 2 positions, and very little seperated them, but in the end, the judges decided that inaugural monthly winner of the L$5,000 IMAGINE Challenge prize is:
OUR SOULS COLLIDE - SNUBNOSE GENOPEAK

The final prize for the day, is the winner of the FLAGSHIP CHALLENGE for September. The judging panel, elected not to award a 2nd prize for this category, and hence we were able to award the Honourable Mention prizes. Inaugural monthly winer of the L$5,000 FLAGSHIP Challenge is:
ARCAPELUS SANCTUARY - MOTH REXEN

so....if you haven't entered it's well worth doing so as some Linden's will be available to every entry.... now...that's what I call a good competition.

and....I have to say that Snubnose's very clever particles were well deserving of the prize....

All this, and I did manage to more-or-less finish my latest tree... my 82nd Ancient One, and, at last, I'm very happy with it. just need to wait for a good opportunity to show it now..... will post photos next week I hope.

University of Western Australia, and other stuff

Popped over to Aliz'z plaze and she has the builder in.....more later, when he's finished.... but we had to get a photo. This is the pair of us on a stair to nowhere...and....

talking of stairs... well, I went to Pirats, the Bunker, to see a show. OMG the lag was more than bad...anyway, after hanging around on the TP site I decided to try and guess where the entrance is....RANT WARNING>>>>>> why oh why oh why do people not make proper entrances on their buildings.

For Avatars In Lag....ALL entrances should be 10 to 20 meters wide....why not? you got a problem with that??? Bloody architects (poor Newbab got a bit of a rant when I finally arrived)....... here are a list of idiocies

1) spiral stairs.... words fail me when I want to describe how much I hate spiral stairs. Let's just say that I hate them more than.... more than the most hated things in any world.

2) floor to ceiling flat "glass" invisible prims on the front of malls.... the ones you walk into 5 times trying to get into the store.... Duh!!!! RL glass has reflections and frames, and theres no lag!!

3) doors you have to click to get in....WHY? just make em phantom so I can walk through them...

4) porta loos at Burning Life....this is the 3rd year that I have been at Burning Life and I want to know why, after all this time, people still find it SO amusing to build porta loos?? ..Toilet humour I use to enjoy before I reached 10 years old....what a total waste of prims.

...anyway, I digress (and I do it well, some think)... my story was about Pirats who have a very good show at the Bunker, I particulary liked Ling's stuff, altho quite cutsie.... Well, after I had aged, waiting for things to rezz...I thought that these stairs have to be the way in...and I started climbing them. Now although I stopped pressing any keys on my baby mac...SL continued my journey for me, as happens.... I climbed vertically up the doors that didnt open, over the roof and fell off into the sea on the other side....

...that's when I screamed for help and Merlina TPed me in....(why the tp point couldn't have been inside I have no idea...like they want visitors to enjoy the architectural marvels of the exterior first???) ... and I enjoyed the show.





So...this is a sight (site) that sort of gets the blood flowing... a prim free area waiting for plants etc.

Jayjay Zifanwe of the University of Western Australia got me over to have a look and asked me to do a bit...







So, sandwiched (artisically, not sexually) between Quadrapop Lane and Glyph Graves, I put out a few trees and flowers....will post a couple more photos when its finished and pukker, but it all seems to be going well....

Scotsgraymouser is entering the Building building competition, that should be good.... bit too much for me I think tho....bet she does a good entrance......


:))