Growing Shrooms

Hello reader! Apologies for my distinct lack of updates on the Second Life front of late - truth be told, it's simply because of my complete lack of activity in-world. My time spent in SL has greatly diminished of late, not through a lack of interest, but simply because RL demands it.

That being said, someone reminded me a couple of weeks ago that it was SLxB time again and inquired as to whether the Shire would be having a presence there again. Seeing that the theme of this year's SL9B event is 'community', I felt it was imperative that we would; after all, it has been said a number of times in the past that the Shire community is one of the strongest and largest on the Grid.

So I'm here at Jamboree, slowly putting the plot build together with the help of my trusted friends Etheria Parrott and Panacea Pangaea, who between them could build, texture and code almost anything. The above picture is just a teaser of what our plot consist of, but I think it fits perfectly with the natural feel of our home sims and offers a good general picture of what our community has to offer all year round. It's an incredibly difficult thing to bottle, as by its very nature 'community' is only really defined by the people who take part in the events, but I'm trying to involve as many tinies as I can by asking for snapshots of tiny life. We'll have a method of hearing poems written by Copper Mistral's Poetry Slam group too.

And as an amazing unplanned bonus, our plot neighbours the plot for in-world percussion group DRUM!

SL9B opens to the general populace on June 18th. More information can be found on the official blog.

Through The Lens

Snapshot of Through The Lens Of Dreams, taken by Pyewacket Bellman

Although the surreal majesty of Alien Isles has now departed the Grid, the brilliant creative minds of those behind it - Madcow Cosmos and Lorin Tone - have found a new sim upon which to collaborate and unleash their own unique brand of fairytale-esque craftsmanship.

Through The Lens Of Dreams is the name of their new art installation across the sim of Art Screamer. It's a rich assortment of Madcow's trademark wide-eyed monsters and toothy beings scored by a cacophony of Lorin's chirps and whistles, and again represents just how limitless Second Life can be for an imaginative soul. Arriving at a small floating platform and dropping down onto a cushion suspended in the mouths of giant caterpillars is just the first step you'll take on the incredible adventure that awaits: you'll find the vast grassy banks littered with a sprinkling of tiny blue flowers, through which hordes of cute cycloptic critters amble; the trees laugh from under their giant leafy hats as you wander past, each given their own distinct look and sound; the sky is filled with oversized insects and airborne pieces of fruit; giant bamboo-framed bikes ferry about miniature potted gardens.

Look up, down and all around to see this amazing work

Much of Madcow's work before now was through the careful assembly of cleverly shaped and lovingly textured basic prims but with his extensive use of sculpty prims on this build, his imagination has really run amok. Lorin and Madcow describe it as "an exploration of the transformative nature of dreams, where each new setting may emerge from the last and seems continuous while we're experiencing them." Whilst some dreamscapes tend to be more ethereal and less hallucinatory, this is akin to running through the set of an Aardman animation movie directed by Tim Burton. You can even take away one of Madcow's avatars as a souvenir.

The brains behind the operation

There are some slight issues; I'm not the only person to have gone over there and found a problem with sounds; not necessarily the sounds within the build but system sounds too, which after a while can become a little grating. Madcow and Lorin are both aware of it and they are looking to get the problems resolved, but they believe it's a server side issue. However, turn your volume and your draw distances down and it's a truly wonderful build, well worth visiting and exploring as soon as you can. I would imagine that, very much like a dream, it won't be around for long and when it's gone, will be hard to reimagine.

Reach Art Screamer at the following SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Art%20Screamer/127/150/80