Get Inside The Art

Last weekend in first life I had the opportunity to catch an amazing show in Philadelphia, "La Verita", a Salvador Dali-inspired cirque production. From the Kimmel Center's website, "Inspired by the unbridled imagination of artistic genius, Salvador Dalí, La Verità features a cast of virtuosic performers — juxtaposing circus, dance, music, and vaudeville." If this comes to your town, GO SEE IT. It is by far one of the strangest, loveliest, funniest, and most jaw-dropping displays of talent I've seen in years.

"That's great, Kinn," I can hear you thinking, "but what does that have to do with SL Mainland??" Well, it reminded me of a cool little Mainland parcel I'd visited once, so I went to investigate if it still existed. And...it does!

Located in the sim Da Boom, "The Persistence of Memory" (pictured above) is an av-sized shadowbox setting based on Dali's painting of the same name. You can place yourself into the scene, as I have, and "melt" over the branch. Da Boom was the very first sim on the Grid, so once you are done melting to the ticking sound of the Dali timepieces, take a look around and see where Second Life began. The nearby Linden playground is a great place for some vintage fun.

Then, if you'd like some more immersive art experiences, let's head down to the very southern tip of the Sansara snowlands to Art Box in the sim Klaw. Created by Frankie Rockett and Violet Sweetwater, Art Box is a three-level building containing dozens of famous artworks, recreated with backdrops and poseballs so that you can put yourself into the art. In the photo below, I try out some Warhol-inspired pop art, and in the final photo, I place myself in Rene Magritte's "Son of Man".

Second Life is full of some really wonderful immersive art experiences, but Art Box is the one place where you can become a part of some of your favorite, classic paintings. According to Frankie and Violet, "Art Box is a fully immersive Second Life art installation. It takes the form of a virtual gallery that provides a series of detailed three dimensional sets, each recreating scenes in homage to famous works of art, in a virtual world setting. This enables you to place your avatar into the scene, stage center, and compose your own version of the referenced artwork. You become both the artist, and the art. With this facility it's easy to reinterpret famous art in your own style, and create your own SL photographic art. Using the pictures you can take at Art Box you have perfect material for your profile, for your Flickr account, for Koinup, for your blog, for framing in-world — in fact for any application you can think of. It's fully immersive, highly creative, fun, and totally free." Stop on over and see what YOU can create!