French Weave

To weave the mirror's magic sights...

Tennyson, The Lady of Shalott

The appointed hour - the heure fixée -  is 12 noon SLT, let's call it 21 heure de Paris. The place, a marble palace on the tiny grid of Eden Cat, full of souvenirs, games, pictures, comfortable chairs, and music. The day - the first Thursday of the month.

It's time again for a regular get-together of anyone who enjoys the francophone community in Opensim. This month, half a dozen grids were represented among the participants, some with famous names, others bijou grids with only a handful of residents, some personal sanctuaries with a single  inhabitant.  It can be fun to have your own place, there's a lot to be said for it creatively and in terms of keep the drama to a minimum, but humans do tend towards gregariousness. Advice, encouragement, and some chill chit chat can make a welcome change.

The Wonders of Wellspring

Opensim has a long and storied past, and certain projects exemplify the resilience, ingenuity and strength of  the community on the vast archipelago of independent grids that it comprises. One of these is the Sendalonde Library, currently residing on Digiworldz. 

This was the second destination on our Safari trip, and although we lost a few travelers due to the slight complication required to access the grid (you have to verify your UUID and some find that a bit complicated) the majority of us made it through. To welcome us, Alexina Proctor, Prax Maryjacz and Snoots Dwagon were on hand, and let us into the Sendalonde Theater which is an integrated part of the library building.

The Sendalonde Library is the gateway into 'Wellspring' - follow this link to learn more about that.

The Sendalonde is preparing for a grand reopening on Sunday October 16 at 1pm SLT , so you might say that our visit was a bit of a dress rehearsal for region performance! We saw a really nice slideshow down memory lane, ably put together by Alexina.

Cho and Tell

Kashi Takeshi: Hello all, happy to see you and welcome at Heiwa. Heiwa is hosted on the Virtual Worlds Grid that was founded 2 years ago.  The grid is non-commercial and sponsored by the founder and residents. Heiwa stands for Peace and is the name I gave this region where I am making a little Japanese village. I do like the old Japanese ways instead of the modern cities, The ambiance and atmosphere breathes Zen.  That's what I am trying to create here on Heiwa. Heiwa is still being build and hopefully will be ready this winter ;)  Many people helped my out to gather the items you see around  you.  If you happen to like an item please send me a notecard and I will deliver it to you later.

Kashi Takeshi 

The Wow Factor

 Our second destination this week was to one of the most unusual and spectacular mesh builds you'll find in Opensim. Inspired by the great city of Dalaran in World of Warcraft, it's an immense labour of love by Gridmistress Wendie Blackthorn on her delightful grid, Kinky Haven. Lots of mesh, lots of passion, but not lots of Blender, as one might assume -pro tip alert!

Wendie Blackthorn:  I do not use blender to edit mesh, that program gives me a headache to look at it

Star Ravenhurst: What do you use?

The splendid floating city of Dalaran

Wendie Blackthorn: Wings3D   it's a much friendlier interface and has lots of tutorials that are easy to follow

Arielle Popstar: oh really, little more intuitive then Blender

Fetter Gyve: Good to know. Thanks Wendie. I will check it out

The Art Factor(y)

Way too many pictures, interesting things to look at, lag, fun, and fascinating people to put both of this week's destinations in a single post, so this is the first half of our trip. The second part, on sim Dalaran, Kinky Haven, is in a separate post. The Art Factory is not just a repository of art, it's a thriving community based in OSGrid but with its arms open to artists and art lovers all over the hyperverse. Here's what happened. URL as always at the end of the post.

Ernest Moncrieff: Hi All and welcome to the Art Factory, before I start I'd just like to say that due to timezones Co-founder Ellen Tiratzo cannot join up this evening (3am in Japan!) But she has helped to put together tonight's Safari and I will be using the words that she prepared.

Ernest Moncrieff: (Speaking for Ellen) - Welcome Thank you all so much for coming out today to support the Art Factory and to learn about and enjoy some of what our artists have helped us create here. Thirza asked us to give you a brief history behind The Art Factory. I met Ernest in LBSA Plaza, when he was trying to fix his broken mouth in preparation for a musical performance! Long before we began TAF, I would get up at 4 am here in Japan to attend and support Ernest’s shows, before beginning my work day. We would often talk about art, and he would tell me about different art installations he had built in other worlds and regions. I could tell he longed to create again, so on his birthday, I bought a small plot of land, teleported him there, and said…”Let’s make art!”. And so began The Art Factory!

Performing in VWs by Laszlo Ordogh

 The following is a guest post by Velazquez Bonetto, in rl László Ördögh. Vela's long career in virtual worlds is best known for the many performances and presentations of the Cybernetic Art Research Project 'CARP'  which was founded in Second Life in 2007. Now based mostly on Craft Grid and a close collaborator with Rosanna Galvani and her Museo del Metaverso, Vela reflects here on aspects of performance in Virtual Worlds. 

The miracle that we are experiencing today: the Cyberspace, the dematerialized virtual time-space, the worldwide webbed society, where we surf at lightspeed. Any artist NOT using this virtual universe as a challenge and a goal does not deserve the name Avantgarde.

Velazquez and colleague Rosanna Galvani, on Craft Grid, 2022

Why work in Virtual worlds?

1: Everything built in virtual worlds has no material consequences. Everything is Illusion but is useful as a model situation.
2: There is a unbelievable potential in variability and flexibility.
3: Nowhere else you can express and experiment new ideas and thoughts in such a fast spontaneous way. For creative people this world is a  playground to model new situations and experiment with them.

New and Nu on Safari

This week a trip two regions with something 'nu' about them - first, New Hope, on Asgard, also known by its hg address grid.our-dawn, and to NUNA the spectacular sim on 3rd Rock grid. Complete addresses, as usual, at the end of the post.

the spectacular NUNA art museum on 3rd Rock Grid

First up Asgard, aka Grid Our Dawn, in some places called 'Starfleet', but Asgard is a shorter name so I'm going to stick with it. The story of the Asgard grid is a story full of Ragnaroks - although, not really, because that Viking term means the final destruction of the world, and this grid/group has survived not one massive upheaval but many, and with surprising resilience. We met on a community sim with two members of the grid, Thundergod Thor and Star Ravenhurst.