Safari Lite

Peace and Freedom

Lumiere Noir

           It was a funky day of DSKCHK and bluescreen warnings about kernels, and Singularity crashing after sixty seconds. The only sane solution seemed to be to get Firestorm, and deal with all the hassle an unfamiliar viewer might add to the chaos which is Safari Night. I never thought I'd even get to Ilha Magica, and when eight-thirty came around (11:30 SLT), the  sim was funky too, as the Safarinas began to arrive, Fuschia Nightfire, Wizard Gynoid, and Wizardoz Chrome. On top of that, I'd had some really sad news, but that's for another time. Grr. Ilha Magica wasn't going to work as a meeting point - and boo hoo! There were even special new posters in the little house!

          You're thinking, 'shame you didn't research the Firestorm built-in a/o - shame you swear by Singularity'. I was thinking the same thing, believe me, as I struggled with the Firestorm UI. 

          Since Ilha Magica was acting weird, Fuschia Wizardoz,and Wiz tp'd over to our first  destination, Cuteulala Park (OSGrid) along with  snow, Avia and gradually all the others - Nara, Serene, Alex, Mercalia, Han Held, and the lovely Sarah Kline. 

            Endora came too, just for a bit - she has an art show coming up soon, and was busy with that. So twelve took the tube ride, and visited the haunted house. 

          Here's the thing. Obviously it's easier to travel alone in open sim; you can do everything in your own time, and grid jumping is comparatively stress free. But it's nothing to the feeling of good companionship. It was especially nice to have Sarah with us, she kindly pointed out my mistake at attributing the haunted house Cuteulala Artis, who instead is the mastermind - or should that be mistressmind? - behind the rollercoasters, along with the scriptalicious Takni Miklos. I think the Haunted house is by Eryn Galen. Sigh - so much easier to tell who made a prim object - you just click on Edit and voila! But it's a groaning, laughing, brilliant horrorfest on Recreation Plaza, home of the OSGrid Speedbuild, the smaller green sim south of Cuteulala Park, and a perfect foil to the exhilaration of the Big Wheel and the flume. 

          Check out the map - the Park is huge.There is fun to be had for hours here, but we had an appointment not to be missed, with Lumiere Noir, on sim Glow, part of Sean Emerald's Sanctuary Grid. 

          Famed for his Ivory Tower of Primitives in SL, Lumiere's been in open sim for many years. I first met him when we were both on Craft grid, and I'm kind of proud and humiliated to say that he taught me to use the 'Select Texture' button in Edit. I'd been in vws for 3 years by then, and had never noticed it.

           Lumiere and his partner Tosha Tyran are getting into mesh, watching Blender tutorials together and figuring it out, gradually, The buildings on the sims we visited were all by Tosha, but Lumiere, whose color changing avie was made up of about 5 or 6 different mesh shapes, also shared some of his own recent creations with us. 

          As usual, not all our attachments made it from OSGrid; since snowbody's whole outfit was made of attachments, he made quite an impression. Clothes were provided: his idea of 'traveling light' was a wee bit too light! Serene has the very sensible idea of not wearing a bald base, to avoid the 'just out of chemo' look that I was sporting, on everyone else's viewers. Fuschia has a robot look going on, so she's always elegant, and Wizzy's hair must be superglued on or something, it follows her everywhere.

           Lumiere talked to us about his choice to come to open sim, about the Ivory Tower, and its griefing problems in SL, (who knew anyone would grief a place like that? Apparently they do, and in quite sophisticated and horrible ways) about the joys and headaches of coming to grips with Blender in its complexity, and in terms of the loneliness that builders experience when using off world programs. Serene made a great suggestion, to combat the isolation of blending, she listens in to inworld Spoken Word performances.

Lumiere showed us some of his blends, some buildings, a table, and this pencil. That's when the trouble began. Somebody moaned about this blog being slow to load because of all the photos, so I have put the worst of them on Flickr; let's just say ...

          ...it was all Wizzy's fault, and Avia survived suffocation, but only just. 

          Lumiere's answer to the question - why open sim? - was succinct. The peace and the freedom of open sim. Freedom to create things not possible in SL, due to size and prim number restrictions, and the peace and quiet essential to getting on with your work. 
          Speaking of work, Tosha Tyran's builds here are amazing! One short visit is not enough. The quality textures loaded instantly, even in Ultra graphics. A little bit of sim-to-sim tp trouble, but we got around that by using our Map. 

          The Taj Mahal is just one piece by Tosha that we admired on Sanctuary Grid. I'm not saying that anyone peed in the pool, but the water did get warm at one point, and Fuschia looked a little pink... nuff said. 

          By the time we were ready to set off on our last stop (Wizzy's right, the 3 hour safari is a little too long) we were down to about six travelers. The destination was PM Grid. The LM everyone got worked just fine for Wizard and Serene, and eventually snow and I got there, but it was late and laggy, and Bob Wellman's PMGrid deserves a more thorough visit, a dedicated safari.That'll be upcoming - will you be joining us? I hope so!

Safari goes South

          People keep coming back. And new people joining. HG Safari is about friends and patience and sure some art also but mostly about the amazing possibilities opening up for creators and community, free and independent of SL. It is like standing on the edge of the prairie. Yes, it's not easy. You do have to think your way around the bugs, and compromise, and not mind if your hair gets stuck on your butt occasionally. But it is fun. A world of optimism and missing attachments.
          We met on Ilha Magica again. After weeks of thinking about it, I actually put up some freebie clothes. 

Nothing fancy or even meshy, just a few shirts and skirts. Where Pathfinder's group had a camp fire and dealt with real open sim news, we sit on the furniture and make jokes. But Wizard Gynoid asked a pertinent question.
Wizard Gynoid: why is it that every world's search works differently?. 
Thirza Ember: because every grid owner makes what they want of the material available. Each version of Open Sim is like this massive catalog of bits... the main stuff obviously you don't mess about with, but things like partners, Search, Map, they are extras, in a way. So when you set up the grid, you decide which bits are more important to you. Since it's a massive number of plug ins, everyone chooses the bits they care about most... 
          You may have a better answer than that - put it in Comments, it would be great to hear.

Star Struck Safari

Thirza Ember: Hypergridding is about weird shit. 

Our main purpose is to experience the weird shit together.

Fuschia Nightfire: weird shit is good

Wizard Gynoid: i love drinking my recycled urine. ;-)

Miso Susanowa: THE SPICE MUST FLOW

Ten of us, there were, this week on the Safari. We 'assembled' for about half an hour, at Ilha Magica on OSGrid, just to try to make sure we didn't miss anyone. Of course, I bet we did, but as you probably know, if you IM us in Facebook, we will wait for you, or send you our hg address, and help you figure out how to use the address to hypergrid, if you're a novice. The key thing is to say beforehand you are thinking of coming.

Romenna on PM Grid

Mercalia Beck, who has a Travel Centre at Wright Plaza, and Kosmos Unlimited and Alex Zed were among the newcomers to the group, though not to hg in general. When there are such different time zones represented, from Australia to America to Europe, it's impossible to find a time that suits everyone, but we appreciate so many people fitting in with the current arrangements. First off, we all try to friend each other so that if hypergridding hoodoo fails us we have the option of attempting a personal TP. 

Opensim is full of people, it's just that most of them are busy. However, there are socials and meetups happening, like the one Lani Global organizes. We also heard Arcadia Asylum was on the grid, *starstruck!!* but it didn't seem right to bug her while she was building. So we left her alone. Or most of us did. Wizzy attempted to TP to her location but the sheer quantity of sims in the sandbox where Arcadia was working seems to have ejected Wiz right back to Ilha Magica. 

So near, safari

This week's safari was a bit of a change of pace. We met on Miguel Rotunno's sim, Ilha Magica, in OSGrid, and there were about 8 of us, which was a nice number - some cool new friends from Kitely were there, and even SaveMe Oh popped over to wish us well on our travels. We have plans for a machinima competition in open sim, I hope she and many more of you will join in, more about that in coming weeks.

Ilha Magica house

We really lucked out with destinations this week. Our first stop was Francogrid. Their Fest'Avi was last week, and they have launched a new range of full perm avatars,with lots of weird and wonderful looks for you to try. 

Francogrid arrival

Praline B, Cherry Manga, Phil, Gill, Cendres and all the guys and gals of Francogrid interrupted their weekly meeting at LeVillage to come over to sim Avatar and welcome us. It was immensely heartwarming. There are about 20 avies so far, and the plan is to add to the collection, so by next year, as Cherry said, there will be twice as many! It still very slightly a work in progress, not all the outfits were complete when she unpacked them, Wizard Gynoid tells me, so once you're grabbed your freebies, check in with the folks over there if you're missing a wing or a wingnut, and I'm sure they will sort you out.

From Francogrid to OSGrid, managed to lose a few Safaristas in the process, but bear in mind, our meeting time is the lunch hour/early afternoon in the US, not an ideal moment for many, and we much appreciated them joining in if only for part of the tour. We went to meet Avia Bonne on her sim DutchMountains. It's important not to add a space between the two words, or you may never get there! In fact quite a few people had problems jumping back to OSGrid. Your alternatives are, I suppose, two. Either move to a different sim within grid you're on, and try again or just log out and back in again, in which case you'll find yourself back on your home grid.

Avia's shops put the lie to the rumor that there's little or no mesh in open sim, or that you can't be a 'real' virtual designer unless you sell your stuff. She has everything from menswear to houses, dresses to sofas, (unmissable is Garry Beaumont's wall of manly accessories!) and it is all up for grabs. But please, don't actually grab the items! Take a copy, not the original. 

Duh, I know, seems obvious, but sadly, she keeps coming inworld only to find creations are missing from her stores, because someone took the shop 'original' by mistake. If you do use her creations, remember they took hours - even days - to make, so drop her an IM to say thanks. 

That's the open sim way. If you're not on someone's friends list, or are from another grid, you can still IM a person by clicking Edit on one of that person's prims, and in General, click on the Profile of the creator, then IM them. 

 Take a moment to pan away from the shops and see the full extent of her bravura. The sim has more than freebies to share!

 Avia has been in open sim, she said, for about 5 years, and has a huge portfolio of work on her regions, lots of Steampunk, plenty of fashion. Her generosity extends beyond the many free items she has made available, she's always quick to praise her fellow builders. 

Avia suggested we visit her neighbor Kathje Kitaj's sim, Hill Valley, based on the movie Back to the Future. The entire build is basically all mesh. It is amazing!

Next stop, the grid created by Vanish Seriath and his dear wife, El. The name is TGIB; it's pure poetry. The Grey In Between, The Good In Bad, The Ground Is Below, and a host of different meanings. The regions are poetry too, a tribute to the spirituality and charm of both halves of this lovely couple. All the anxiety of grid hopping seemed to melt away, helped perhaps by a quick dip in the lake.  Vanish explained about OpenSim Creations, which is of course an online 'community shop' for open sim items. I notice they also have a monthly building challenge, how neat! Vanish explained to me what a Var is - turns out you can have a variable sized sim now. I know, right? These crazy scientists! 

It was also a joy to listen to Miso Susanowa, who has been in vw's for just about forever, chatting about the early days of virtual living with DJ Phil and SSM back on Francogrid, as well as talking about the wonderful skin resource that Eloh Eliot put on line, oh centuries ago. Lag is probably the biggest headache in hypergridding. So many proxies, servers, signals, programs. It helps to have a second computer for Facebook or Skype or anything heavy that you need to keep open. Taking Ultra photos is a sudden pit of treacle. Inexplicably, people suddenly are reduced to a name tag and a head of Ruth hair.

 Fuschia looks invariably gorgeous in my viewer, I think it has a crush on her, but when Vanish Seriath, who had been along with the group from the start, took us to TGIB his upper torso disappeared. Does it matter? Not really, on the whole. There's a sense of being on the edge of a great ocean of progress and possibility in Open Sim, a world where people are in it not to make money but for the love of the game, the love of creating. 
Luckily everyone in the group is good at getting pictures, and a special shout-out to the lovely Wizardoz Chrome, who always takes such great shots. We now have a Flickr group too, for those who want to join there.
What about if you don't even have an open sim avatar yet? Don't let that hold you back. Sure, there is going to be an initial moment in which you'll feel dorky, or even invisible. You will crash, I can't lie. But we are in no rush, we'll wait while you come back on line, we keep FB chat open so you can send an SOS and get the hg address of where we are, in real time. Let me stress, it's not just me. You can also contact Wizard Gynoid, Wizardoz Chrome, or Fuschia Nightfire if you need help.  
Next week - the future, today! Join the Facebook group and page, both called HGSafari, if you'd like to know more.

Safari Starts

This week was the third outing of HG Safari, a new group nothing like Pathfinder's fabulous HGAC, which always seemed to work smoothly. The idea behind Safari is very different too: his Hypergrid Adventurer's Club mostly attracted seasoned, or semi-seasoned, grid jumpers and folk who already had their own grids. HG Safari is aimed at people active and experienced in Second Life, and maybe InWorldz, or anywhere in opensim from Kitely and OSGrid to the tiniest boutique grids, but who have not been out hypergridding very much. 

Reticulation on OSGrid

It's a rip-roaring clusterfuck of lag, miscommunication, disappearing skins, linden hair, and sheer determination. Not for the impatient or the faint hearted.

It's a slow process getting people started, and the aim is to assist SL artists and creators to reach a level of hypergridding savvy and new friends so they'll be able to make the most of the free uploads and masses of space that Open Sim offers, and then encourage and accompany their friends to see what's out there. 

Kitely: somewhere and no wear

           You know that sweater in your wardrobe, no, not that expensive one you shrunk but don't have the heart to throw away, the other one, the one that's not a weird color, or too small, or anything like that, yet every time you're looking for a sweater to wear, you think no, not that one, not today.

          That's me and Kitely. But wait! Hosoi Ichiba is in Kitely, and has been for months!

          You know, there probably is a reason you don't wear that sweater, if you really think about it. Something subconscious maybe. 

With Kitely, I don't go there because of the minutes. In March 2012 I joined up and got my free sim Chocolate and it was great but only kind of great because sure, it was free and that's always nice, but you could only be present on your sim for something like 100 hours a month for free - any more than that, and you had to pay. You could go see other people's stuff - if those other people have the right kind of membership - but you couldn't hang out gratis in your own place for more than those hundred hours. Which, if you're already paying in SL, Craft and Veesome, is going to make a girl think twice.
          There was something about that concept of the tick tick tick of the meter that drained all the creativity away, too. Perhaps you're the kind of person who already has OARs prepared, or at least a plan on paper, but for those of us who like to contemplate the land and develop it slowly, 100 hours a month seemed way too few to form the basis of something like a relationship with the grid.

          Time went by and Kitely developed in my absence, and there were murmurings of neat builds like this one, and (by all accounts) great strides being made with their commercial website which hopefully is better than that dreadful one SpotOn3D had with its Double Dutch system. It speaks to the affection in which SpotOn is held that nobody could be bothered to point out to Tessa and co what 'double dutch' actually means. 
          The thing with websites and selling is, if you came to open sim to make your own stuff and occasionally share it with others, how much is a place where you buy stuff going to have you whooping for joy? If you're committed to capitalism, wouldn't you just stay in SL, or if you really have too many enemies there, go to InWorldz?

          But OK, Kitely promises they have a lot to offer, and hey, they're going to find a way to make being a commercial grid compatible with hg travel to no-money grids. Right? With lots of lovely content. And that would be good, because this is what Kitely Thirza looks like. Back in 2012 apparently Kitely noob outfits included undershirts made in Appearance. To fix that, instead of going to Kitely Market, I went for Import textures, because I have a whole store of freebie clothes on my own grid.

          Because why buy what you already have? 
          Although, I may be missing the point.
          Face and sweater, leggings and undies, easy peasy, texture uploads, all free. But when it came to shoes, there was a problem. I have neat .obj boots I made on my grid, but to import an object to a new world, you need to be somewhere you can Build, like a Sandbox. OK, there were a dozen listed on the Map. Oh dear. I tried them all, and wasn't allowed to visit any of them. OK then, perhaps my famous free-hundred-hours-a-month sim that I've barely used shall now come in handy. Taxi to sim Chocolate, right away!

          Newp.
          You may say - 'Things changed while you were away.' and 'Kitely is obviously looking for consumers, not freebie hunters and the self-sufficient.' or 'They're looking for commitment, not people passing through, you're just not their target audience,' or 'Get some KC, you cheapskate.' Maybe.
          I kept thinking of fried chicken.
          So, OK, give up on the hair and the shoes and the earrings and other goodies of my own invention that would typically be my first uploads to a new grid. Let's just be a barefoot traveler, and go in search of Edo villages.

            Years ago, my mother would make us all go and spend Easter with an old aunt who had a sprawling house and garden in the country. Dad would sort out the vegetable patch, Mom would get the spring cleaning done, and the children would help out with both. Auntie was glad enough for the help, and we were on our best behavior. She was a nice old bird but she had the irritating habit of switching off lights all the time. If you went from sitting room to library to get a book for five minutes, you'd find the light switched out in the sitting room when you returned. The same if you went to the loo at night, you'd come out of the bathroom to find the corridor bathed in darkness. It was a pessimistic, penny pinching, claustrophobic habit not caused by a shortage of money, but a reaction you often find in people who have lived through Tough Times. It paid off in a way, for when she died, the Donkey Sanctuary got enough money to keep the lights on in the stables for another ten years.
          The 'on demand' feature of Kitely gives that same rather depressing sense of everything being in darkness until it's absolutely essential to turn something on. True, the Hosoi Mura sims loaded very quickly, but there was something of my old auntie about the process.

          But the build is a joy. The Matsumoto castle, the gardens, the hiroba, the walls and the houses, the countryside with fields and hills, even the spare buildings, hovering just off the ground as though waiting for aliens to take them off to another planet, it's all so well made, and charming. True, a 9 or 16 sim build is not the big deal in open sim that it would be in SL, but Ami has made excellent use of the wide open spaces. It feels like a real place. Once that 'wait for me to turn the lights on' feeling has passed.

          Walking around was cool, but there weren't any poses or moving vehicles and with no interactivity, it wasn't long before I started wondering what else there might be to see.

          A number of SL friends have set up homes and builds in Kitely, and one name came to mind, as a possible source of good places to visit. Opening her profile, it was kind of disappointing to find the Picks closely resembled her Facebook posts - nothing more than a long tribute to Self. Unappealing. When someone lavishes that much public love and attention on their own creations, there really is no room left for the rest of us to admire it without feeling a bit sick.
          Back to the Map, then, as a source of inspiration.

          Back to Evergreen? That sighing, slightly long-suffering little grey window 'oh, ok, if you really must, just a second, and we'll turn it on' message again. I felt guilty at making them waste the electricity, and decide not to go after all.

            But then Woot ! The Map and I got lucky and found Time Vault, a region by Paislee Myrtle, one of the Devokan storytellers. It loaded pretty fast, and was way nicer than my dim recollections of Evergreen.

          Nobody around doing RP or anything, thank goodness, (good lord, memories of Grimmrfell! Urk!) Instead, a strange, thundery landscape and fabulous flights of alien fancy, with steampunkesque buildings and mechanisms littering the land.

           This might be turning a corner. The never-worn sweater might become a favorite after all! More hunting for regions on the Map, and pretty soon it yielded another big build, Brian Robert's Dragon's Bane. Tp!

          No, sadly no Bane for Thirza. The same thing happened about ten more times.
          Sigh. Well OK, you know what, all this faffing about sticking a pin in the map, it's not the way to do things. Every grid has its Welcome sim, where all is made clear, and newcomers or prodigal sons can return and be made, well, welcome. Let me and Kitely give each other a proper chance in the orthodox manner. Wow, and maybe I'll even find an A/O and a pair of shoes! Yay! I am still not giving up on Kitely!
          Oh noes...

          Except Welcome Area is only for Premium Accounts.
          OK, OK, hold on, there's a Welcome 2, maybe that's for folks like me...  shows they don't know me well, if they've got me down as Moderately Mature.  Although, I did find the Edo village moderately interesting, so perhaps they're partly right. Let me pop the whole thing back in the wardrobe.
          Aren't Paislee's mushrooms nice, though?

What dreams may come: FrancoGrid

         Pixel for pixel, Francogrid is probably the most beautiful grid in the metaverse. If you enjoy art or are involved in education, or heck, just want to be somewhere with a gallic flavor as deliciously diverse as baguettes, Chanel number 5 and Veuve Clicquot, then this may be the grid for you.
          Praline Barjowski is an artist, researcher and curator. She works with African artists, getting them involved in digital creativity, and was based in Dakar when she first learned about SL via an artist she met at a conference in Marseilles. That was in 2009. The jump from SL to Francogrid was a natural one... for a researcher.
Praline B: I realized that the most resources were in English and I'm in a French zone, and my students are French speaking, and also I'm involved in open source system, so I did a research and I found OpenSimulator and FrancoGrid. I came here for the first time in 2010 and at the same time I discovered hypergrid. Open simulator is a very different way to move but very interesting. I feel me more free here to create, it's also more experimental and that adds something more pepsy !  and yes, I feel more at home too. And I have this mad dream, lolol, that Linden Labs decides to go to open source, to liberate their code and to be a part of the huge metaverse.

         Dream on.
         It's very attractive, this businesslike approach to art.  Everything above board, designed for low levels of pointless drama and high levels of real world exposure, with a strong sense of respect for creator's rights. The goal, one guesses instantly, is to be taken seriously in a world where playing about online is still often viewed with derision and suspicion. The whole grid is that way, and it came as no surprise to find that Praline is a bit of a tech person, as well as an art person.
 Praline B: Well, here I'm studying code, I'm learning how to manage a Linux server. It's funny but not so easy for someone who is always dreaming! The first time i got a pc, I de-constructed it immediately. I think I'm very curious, I love to know how things are inside, so naturally now I want to know how is the backstage of a virtual world. For now here, I don't have artwork, I have an archipelago of regions.

        The regions are going to be home to a number of virtual artists, principally coming from West Africa, via her MetaTrame project. Diversity, and a different 'look' are the hallmarks of Francogrid, and that's obvious from your first arrival at Accueil sim, seen above, recently re-worked by Cherry Manga and the wonderful, beautiful DJ Phil who you can see in the last picture as a very adorable white bunny!
         The the big blue blob is a cave that contains TP machines and a 'Guide to the regions' that owners can update  with their latest developments. It also shows if a region is offline, which in opensim, is a handy tool, since teleporting is a little bit hit and miss.
         So, which is better, SL or FG?
Praline B: I think both are good. Diversity is a very great thing  disadvantage is definitely the closed side. Its like a frontier. Also the fact that your art , your objects are not yours. that is a mistake from LL. You have to let people improve new system, new territories and they will learn how to be nice and ethic. I always think that we have to be trusty there will be always bad people but SL is always a very amazing place for artists, creators, because they can have a feedback quickly they have a public in opensim, this is the disadvantage, population is less you may feel sometimes alone but you may experiment more things here, you may push the limits Here at FrancoGrid, this is a community very newcomer friendly and people help participate to your projects you don't have to be good in script or all the stuff.

This is monsieur le president, ssm2017 Binder (no, I'm too shy. You ask him!)  He was on his way to the weekly grid get-together on LeVillage sim, which if you're planning on coming to check out the lie of the land, would be a good thing to attend. It's every Wednesday evening, French time - that's 9 pm in Europe and midday in California - I leave you to do your own math. And it's village life, but not a grey concrete arena or hopelessly huge theater that dwarfs rather than embraces the group. It's another Cherry Manga build.

          OK it is grey, and it is huge. But in good ways. No rows of samey cinema seats. No stale poses.  That alien is the lovely Gill. Wave! No, not the giant figure below, on the box, which is actually a building. LeVillage in its various incarnations has inspired machinima by people you've heard of like Morlita Quan and WizardOz Chrome. Sounds like a cleaning product, actually a film maker.  Which raises the question - where does Francogrid stand in relation to the SLuggernaut?

ssm2017 Binder: in FrancoGrid, there are some people from the art, from education, from research etc... actual FrancoGrid residents are in a sharing point of view instead of mercantile.
         Which is the sexiest way ever of saying they're not in it for the moolah.
         Now, you may be thinking, sheesh Cherry Manga is all over that grid like a rash. Is there room there of other artists? Or has she kind of bagged the big stuff? Well, she knows you might think that, so - let's ask her - " Hey Cherry, is there room for other voices on Francogrid?"
Cherry Manga: Of course there is, see, I just gave the opportunity to JadeYu Fhang to try opensim by giving her my region, childhood, and there are other projects like Praline's, Metatrame which will involve African artists. I personally think that artists bring something important to any grids- candies for the eyes. They make us think about how combine visual effect with ideas. I am not here to be THE ONE Thirza, you know, if I was looking for art lovers recognition, I would stay in SL. Here most people don't care about my art :)
         So there. Speaking of other art, Praline was keen for Katia from Parc des Arts to show her stuff, and immensely impressive it is too. The organization is based in real life Bordeaux, France, and it is all about real working artists showing their stuff both in virtual and physical environments. Katia is a stunner in palest blue. 

         This is their clubhouse and the photos behind her are the founding members. They have that whole 'this is serious stuff' down at the Parc des Arts (unlike artsparks, yeah yeah) and these two sims are just stuffed with things to see and spaces for performance and exhibition. 
         Don't be alarmed if your French isn't up to much. This is an International grid, and they are very accommodating; Katia's good at Italian as well as French, and of course many others like Praline and Cherry are perfectly fluent in English (and typonese).

          Again, everything is designed with panache. Here in this beach-grunge outdoor hangout, last year, they had an evening with a two-handed performance piece called La Planque (watch it here on youtube) by Arlette Fétat with Myriam Douhi. The playwright came into Francogrid to talk to the audience, how cool is that. Katia also showed us the work of engraver and painter Julien Schuster whose March 2014 art show in Honfleur Normandy will be echoed by a parallel exhibition in Francogrid. Tere's a neat little news stand on Parc des Arts where you can pick up more info about all the events here, and tp to regions in different parts of the metaverse where art rules supreme.

         Praline is right, it's this kind of organization with room for diversity that makes the difference. Katia actively encourages independent artists on the grid, and they make a point of showing up to see exhibitions, and offering landmark links to shows and installations, wherever they may be in opensim.
Praline B: What I love here is this mix between reality and new creative territories. Also, its very important , to feel you are not alone, to feel friends around you. You may stay alone and work and you may have them around you for all discussions around your doubts! I really enjoy the spirit around Frangogrid, people here knows what they want, be happy in their projects and share this happiness and in the build, you have always people to help you, to push you more further.

         Another aspect of Parc Des Arts is the big AIDS memorial. It's a reminder, as Katia said, of the people who haven't made it, love ones lost... but also a celebration of the ones still fighting, still fighting in elegant clouds of red. Extremely effective. On the other side, the 'protected' obelisk that reminds us all that this is a very French grid. I totally love it.

         Terra Mater is Cherry's home sim, scroll through in this blog and you'll find a post about it ages back. It's another great feature of Francogrid, well of open sim in general. You've got the space to keep up builds that in SL would have to come down for reasons of space. 

          Here, Cherry can maintain a big install like Red Riding Hood (built for SL in collaboration with soror Nishi and Fragile Fanou, as well as her Collection, and still have room for more. Cherry's latest venture is learning anough Blender to make all her own mesh and leave the full perm sculpties and mesh of the past behind her. But art breeds art, doesn't it? Perhaps more installs, and photography, or machinima?
Cherry Manga: I think la collection is one old work I like still thinking it's like wine, goes good with time lol.  I don't want to inspire art, but creativity, I want people imagine they can be free from reality here, physics, imagination, there's no limit. I wish people creative and dreamy, not specially arty.
Praline B: Cherry Manga absolutely has a great impact on the grid. She is very strong and her artwork talks for her.  I think that opensim and Francogrid  gave Cherry a new boost. Here she has the time to learn more technical stuff and with her talent is amazing. 

omg DJ Phil he is such a hot bunny

         So, what is the future for Francogrid? More art, more fun, more family! They also encourage all to make an avatar here, so you can enjoy Voice in all its splendor. There are some things hypergridding doesn't quite do right. 
Praline B: I think that is the magic side of this grid if someone is a true one a real creator, all the grid is under the charme. That gives to the community the desire to put the level more high and that is a very good thing, that is what i was expected here.  I think we will see the same phenomena in opensim now because of LL politic for one part and in another part because open simulator is now more efficient. ssm our President confirms that he would love that we have here at Francogrid one region for permanent exhibits and one devoted to the artist in residency; a season for exhibits and artists in residency here.
         So might that be you, the 'artist in residence?' Might be worth a thought.... and in the meantime, drop in on this exquisite grid and its happy denizens.