Anatomy of an Artist

Something special has been brewing over the past few months. Cherry Manga, one of the most respected and admired artists working in opensim. The region is Anatobotanica, on Pangea Grid. This opening was timed for the conclusion of this season of the Safari, and it really gave the WOW factor to our trip.
At the end you'll find the HG Address spelled out for you - and just to say THANK YOU for reading this blog, for following it, for visiting the destinations whether with the Safari group or on your own - it means a lot to our kind hosts! - and for all the comments, suggestions, help and support. It's been a great season, and there is so much more out there to see.

Anatobotanica is a golden artefact, hanging on a mirrored ocean, with an inland sea of molten gold.

The highlands are spheres, bubbles, bodies - a hive of creativity, golden like the rest. That golden glow is everywhere; the lightbulb of an idea, the first rays of sunrise, the glistering of passions, thoughts, challenges, and pure creativity. It flows through virtual spaces, out into the real world and then back, directly through the fingers of, and the idiosyncratic imagination of, Cherry Manga. 

Rainbows, Sounds, Jellyfish and Doodles

The summer is coming, and while this blog will continue to have new posts, the weekly hypergrid Safari trips will be on hold until September 6.
The final stop of the Spring season was at the Grand Opening of a virtual gallery. It showcases the pictural art of late Jerry Garcia, best known as the lead guitarist and vocalist of The Grateful Dead.
 Peter Agelasto opened the ribbon cutting ceremony with a few words.

 Peter Agelasto: Hello friends, family, sisters and brothers. Welcome to the opening of the Virtual Jerry Garcia Archive Museum, We are so grateful to have you join us for such a special event and free concert.  Thank you everyone who has helped bring this to joyful place life...  Manasha and Keelin Garcia, my teammates over at the Jerry Garcia Foundation. Huge special thanks to the creators behind the Neverworld Grid. Govega and your team. 

Peter Agelasto

Felix and the Mythologies

Felix, qui potest rerum cognoscere causas

Virgil, Georgics 490:II

Ange Menges: C'est une  région tatouée ? :-)

Cherry Manga: pretty creatures everywhere ♥

Shapeshifter, a region famed across opensim, is now on OSGrid. 

Its creator? The well known artist of many names - in RL, she is Elif Ayiter, in SL she's best known as Alpha Auer, but here in opensim she goes by the name FeliX Ringtail. 

The region is  complex, detailed, varied. On the ground level, the landscape is divided into a pair of islands and all the installations make up a story, which you can read here. In the sky are one-off elements, defined by FeliX as 'not really having a story' but they invite flights of fancy, dreamlike motions of the imagination, just the same.

Tosha's Towers

 For our second stop on this week's adventure around the hyperverse, we went over to see a build by Tosha Tyran on Craft Grid Tosha is famed for her reconstructions of real world places, including the Taj Mahal, India; a Hopi village, Arizona; the city of Timbuktu, Mali; and the Guggenheim Museum in Barcelona.

This one's in Cambodia - the famed Angkor Wat.

If the build looks familiar to you, there's an earlier Safari blog post about it here, but this was our first opportunity to explore as a group. If you go alone, you'll have plenty of company - there are about 25 NPCs around the build, adding atmosphere and context.  

The arrival point is sets the scene immediately - as jungle and architecture vie for supremacy.

Tosha Tyran: I would like to tell you a bit about Angkor wat, ok?

Wizardoz Chrome: yesss :)

Through a Glass, Darkly

What does it mean to be mirrored?

Reflect upon it. The photo, the drawing, the video clip - we often hardly recognize ourselves so seen, so replicated. Yet in the looking glass, where everything is backwards, we find our true face, our true form. 

And sometimes, we are lucky enough to find a mirror for more than the external. That's the beauty of Rage Darkstone's latest opus, Mirrored, opening on Wednesday at 1pm SLT on Pangea grid - the HG address is of course at the end of the post.

CapCat Conference

 On Craft grid this Friday CatCat Ragu hosted an interesting conference about art and education, in Portuguese and Italian, with a powerful rl/vw crossover. 

It was partly inworld, partly in Zoom  -  the inworld bit was held on the lovely IPVerso region. This is the second year the conference has been held here, and the region is well worth a visit any time, conference or not.

At Atlas

Second stop on Safari this week - there are just two more tours left before we break for the summer, returning on September 7 - was on the francophone grid, Atlas. The Atlas crew is small but enthusiastic. Harthelie, Chip, and Jeff make up the team, and the grid aims at clean lines, low lag, and lots of tech innovation. 

The grid may be new but these guys are far from being opensim novices. Here is a post about Jeff Kelley from back when this blog was called Pings from the afterLife ,,, check it out,   'Hyper and Hamster' from February 2011

No newbies here, but lots of new ideas!

 Jeff Atlas: Our mission is to build a spot of technical knowledge around opensimulator. We have a variety of lectures and workshops on Linux, databases, networks, opensim administration, streaming, and our insanely fun scripting class every week. This is not place where you will see elaborate builds, although we plan to add some new scenes in the future. Atlas is currently four regions and the staff is composed of three : Harthelie, Chip and myself. We had, and will have more special events. Last was a fashion show. 134 NPCs were walking on the set, in sync with music. This is the kind of challenges we love, and the next will be yet more crazy.