Big Cat Safari

         First off, the nudity was all Nara Malone's fault.
        This week Safari (which meets every Wednesday at 12 noon PDT on sim Outlands, Metropolis Grid) was accused of being a bunch of cat ladies by SLave Me Oh (the sister of the famous SL artist and provocateur).

          Of course, those who doesn't follow Safari on Facebook had no idea why we were all kitted out this way, but this being Safari, they didn't bother to ask. If you are curious, well, go look here.
          We have been adding stuff to the sim this week, including hypergrid LMs to freebie shops .and a number of giveaways, so drop in at Outlands if you'd like, even if you can't make the event.
          And it was an event, this week, a Big Art day in every sense. In terms of the combination of art destinations, probably the most mindblowing safari yet. This was the lineup. (Tip: you log in to your hypergrid-enabled grid of choice, Open your Map, copy the URI into the Search box, hit Search, then when the location has been found, Teleport.)
     Destination 1 Wunderland in Metropolis hypergrid.org:8002:Wunderland
     Destination 2 Aire Mille Flux  grid.aire-mille-flux.org:8002
     Destination 3 New Genres Grid hg.ngrid.0rg:8002
            It feels wrong to give up the secret of Brenda Geissen's Wunderland, but come to think of it, mere words cannot touch the magic of this cluttered, old fashioned bedroom with animals and books and snow globes and a box of chocolates and a couple of dozen other things. 

        It is a masterclass in three dimensional art, a symphony of proportionality.

Kiss the cat.

          All these conventional, real-world reconstructions, the bed, the bookcase, the photo album, they come together to form colossal abstractions in the mind of the viewer in a way ... well, you have to go and see it. 
Brenda Geissen: ich hoffe es hat allen spass gemacht und die sim hat durchgehalten. :-)

          For the longest time, everyone on safari went quiet, I think we were all trying to come to terms with how it might be filmed, - photos can barely express the feeling of the place - and just enjoying the pure fun of it. Brenda's genius is in making it so interactive. We might have stayed here for the whole safari, but it was just the beginning...
          Off to Aire Mille Flux.  When you read that name, what image does it conjure? Something airy perhaps, even though Google translate says not. But AMF is exactly like that - an airy, beachy, bright and wonderful grid run by Marc Moana (aka Marc Blieux) who welcomed us in person.
 Marc Moana: j'utilise un traducteur automatique alors il y a peut être des phrases qui seront un peu étranges parfais : )
Marc Moana (fr -> en): I use an automatic translator then there may be sentences that will be a little strange perfect:)
Marc Moana: parfois*
Marc Moana (fr -> en): sometimes *.

Marc Moana: We are a non profit French Organization, We also have a RL place, in the centre of the France. We were the first French association coming in Second Life in 1996, but it has become too expensive and we wanted to have our own server, because we work with schools. It is a grid exclusively dedicated to art, there are about 50 artists represented here.
James.AtLLOUD @grid.kitely.com:8002: Marc, are all artists also educators?
Marc Moana: No, they are artists coming from all countries and many are professionals. Some came with us from Second Life when we left.

classy cat lady meets trashy cat lady

        Also on hand to welcome us, artist Simotron Aquila. Apparently she also got the memo. Aire grid is a delight to navigate, the tp boards are easy to find and use. We went to Quantic to the charming floating islands (Marc's Source des Espoirs is about water pollution) with sounds and icecream and some poses. You can never have too many poses, guys. Just saying.

          We also went to Ecologia which is where Simotron Aquila has an installation 'My Beautiful Nightmare'. 

              A sparse space, the install is a curious theatrical meditation on the concept of place-no place, with the figure of the Moving House animating the deep ideas she is expressing (Moving House avie is very cute too). 

Simotron Aquila: A theater without actors is the stage for a representation of our relationships with objects: how our presence can define the identity of a place and how a place is part of our own identity.
          Visit Ecologia while you're on Aire; there is more to see and read on the install, some elegantly expressed notions here. It is particularly pertinent to the Safari experience, for, having visited these grids alone, and then in a group, it is undeniable that the places (and we ourselves) come alive in a completely different way. 

        And onwards, to meet up with the legendary Alpha Auer, a Second Life star and one of the brilliant artists who make New Genres Grid such a fantastic place to visit. Marc Moana and Simotron Aquila joined us too! Alpha is really designer and academic Elif Ayiter from Istanbul (how cool is that!) and on New Genres Grid she is called FeliX Ringtail but I am just going to use Alpha because that is the name we all know best.
Alpha Auer: NGrid was started in 2011 by MosMax Hax from SL and it was (and still is) primarily an educational grid that belongs to the University of Fine Arts in Zurich, where Max teaches new media art, so 90% of the sim is full of student's work. In the begining Max used to have more personal work scattered around but he has not been here very much over the past year or so nowadays all his own work is collected on this one sim called Max. If you search on the map you you will see it, and I think this is the place we should start from because his work is spectacular.
          And this is where it happened.
          Like everyone else, I could see  my own attachments, but nobody else could. I was listening, sure, but I was also messing with my appearance. A certain Nara Malone had told me that by creating an Outfit and putting it into my Suitcase, I would not lose all my attachments. Yet here they were gone, so I tried taking them off and putting them back on again, and suddenly it was all gone. Not only the attachments, also the baked clothes. Everyone was focussed on Alpha (aka Ringtail) and on grabbing the many goodies at the store on Ubik sim, so I thought I might get away with it. No.
Miso Susanowa: Thirza is in her rezzday suit :O
Wizzy and Fuschia both asked what I was playing at, in IM as I frantically tried wearing all kinds of clothing, to no effect. Thank goodness there was a gentleman present.
Alex.Zed: Unfortunately I see you dressed.
          Well, so he says. i am still waiting for the blackmail letters to appear. We soon forgot about all that when they saw the colossal art on sim Max.

I notice PatriciaAnne Daviau had no such attachment problems. Must ask her what her secret is...

 From sim Max we went to Alpha's sim Shapeshifter. 
Alpha Auer: Please set it to what i have written here, otherwise it looks all wrong, it has to be red, and then follow me. Torley sunset, brouhatta charme. I always build for a certain light. I mean I set light before I build.
Think she is kidding? Here it is with any old light:

and here it is with her chosen setting:

          This is what makes Safari so much fun for me. When the artists and owners are there to help us get the right settings, to give us the background story, when as a group - I almost wrote family - we are together messing about but also learning a lot about new opportunities for networking and cross pollinating our enthusiasm for the virtual environment, this is what makes visiting new grids worth any hassles with lag or organization. Although, thanks to the thoughtfulness of our hosts, the grids had been restarted and were in tip top shape.

          Alpha's build is breathtakingly beautiful, full of rich sparkling dreamy warmth. Being part of the group, we could rez the poseballs available at the free shop on Ubik, and take photos. That is sort of the idea. 
          It was starting to get late in Europe. Three hours is a long safari, but this one was so intensely interesting, it seemed like a few minutes only. 

Alpha had more to show us. Blueprint City.
Alpha Auer: You may already know it from SL, but the one here is nicer I think; there is a light for this one too. Torley sunrise cobraring1. What we have here (which we dont have in the one in SL) is the mosque, the whole idea of this city is that every religion is here -and then i come from the city of mosques. Not that I am competing of course. The mosques are famous there is a whole skyline wait let me find a picture url for you
John Sheppard: do you have a pagan/wiccan area or for druids?

Wizzy going 20 below.

Alpha Auer: I hav

e a 

pagan area all to itself. I guess this pavillion here is a pagan sort of place. We can now go underwater, it is called 20 Below, and that is sort of the official pagan place. View it in Analu Outdoor City. 

Alpha Auer: I made a lot of pictures at this level, if you want to see them.
It was getting really late here in Europe. It had been an unbelievably engaging trip, but Thursday was looming, and many of us had to go. 
Alpha Auer: Let me take you to one more place which is kinda out of the way and then i will leave you to it so we now go to Pessoa's Tower

          You have to fly up the middle of the tower to get the special effects. Too late for me to try it, but the party went on. This was the last thing I heard.
PatriciaAnne Daviau: Wow! that's amazing!