Telegraph Pole of the Month, Feb 2013

Telegraph Pole of the Month Feb 2013

It is with great pleasure that we can now bring you the final result of February’s 2013 ‘Telegraph Pole of the Month’ competition…

And the winner is this beautiful telegraph pole created by Debora Stine - available from both her in-world and marketplace stores.

When my eyes first beheld it, I knew had to have it for my own land! This was not a spontaneous impulse-buy but rather the satisfying of a burning need and yearning buried deep inside me.

Debora, as many of you will already know, is also one of SL’s most talented and popular adult photographers. Her flickr account has many great pictures, successfully combining great visuals, great humour and sexiness. Check out her work!

My love of telegraph poles has been with me almost as long as I can remember, along with my love of electrical pylons. But it was Naughty Nataly who introduced me to the wonderful ‘Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society’ founded by the late great Sir Benjamin Spooner B.E.M.

The Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society provides refuge for those of us who bask in the glory of the “everyday mundanitude of these simple silent sentinels the world over.”

If you know of or discover any other visually interesting telegraph poles or electrical pylons in-world, be sure to leave details in the comments below or IM me in-world!

You never know, you too could be cited in a ‘Telegraph Pole of the Month’ blog-post! Imagine!

Pixie xx

What You See Is What You Get

A Rabbit Man’s work is never done.

From the crack of dawn to the set of sun,

In unrewarded servitude

He labours to protect his beloved rabbits.

                                        Papageno in ‘The Magic Flute’ (1791)

I’ve had a lazy week this week.

After THE SEXIEST® Awards, I had granted myself one night off for some R&R. However, that “one night” has turned into six so far and may extend even further!

On Wednesday and Thursday, I visited an exhibit inspired by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s ‘The Magic Flute’.

This got me thinking about child prodigies – one of which Mozart undoubtedly was – and those so-called “brats” in Second Life.

Mozart has always fascinated me because running parallel with his wonderful creative energies was (some believe) an affliction which we now label as “Tourette’s Syndrome”.

He would often break out in explosions of the foulest language – even as a youngster of 9 or 10. As I wandered around the installation, I understood why Mozart behaved so, but I couldn't help but wonder what the “brats” excuse was!

Thanks to Naughty Nataly for the hysterical “tattooist” photograph. Easily the funniest thing I have seen all week!

Crazy Horses!

JayJay Zifanwe – a guy whose name is re-occurring on this blog more times than can possibly be healthy for a happily married man – circulated a notecard stating that the UWA Grand Finale Artworks for 2009/10 and 2010/11 would be on display at the UWA Winthrop region until end of January 2012.

Naughty Nataly & I went along for a look-see.

Now, whereas I can be pretty opinionated about what I like and don’t like, Naughty Nataly can be downright caustic.

I have seen grown artists brought to tears as she pummels them with her rapier-like bluntness!

I like my virtual 3D installation-art to be immersive and engaging. I do not want to stand and simply “look” at a piece of work.

I want to sit on it and walk on it.

I want the hear it.

I want to collide with it, I want to touch it.

I want to be sensed and detected.

I want to engage with it. And be engaged by it.

I want to immerse.

There is much work in SL which accomplishes this. Equally, there is much that does not.

A certain amount of virtual 3D art consists of rotating prims containing a texture animation script. The complexity of the prims might differ from installation to installation, as might the size. The intricacy of movement will likely vary too. Similarly, the texture and its accompanying animation script will differ.

But, unfortunately, when I see such work, not only do I fail to be excited or motivated but I often think “we’ve seen this all before.”

SaveMe Oh – l’enfant terrible of the SL art world – has aptly, and really rather astutely in my opinion, labelled such work “screensaver art”.

Now, that’s not to say that SaveMe and I will necessarily always like the same art. Not at all. Further, I strongly suspect she would not like my own work at all, if only because of the use of After Effects, but on the question of "screensaver art" – and a number of other issues – we are certainly in agreement.

With all this in mind, Nataly & I fly around the UWA Winthrop region quickly discounting various installations and investigating others.

And then we came across ‘The Wild Wild World of Illusion’ by RazorZ – and stop dead in our tracks.

This is a fabulous installation.

It ticks off all the boxes on my personal checklist of what an ideal virtual 3D installation should be, and - importantly - should *do*.

It is also great fun with a gentle but skilful “Keystone Kop” type sense of humour.

RazorZ uses the installation to compare Second Life with the Wild West of the old USA and more recently ‘spaghetti western’ films. I totally get that and toyed with similar concepts and sentiments in my machinima ‘Showdown’.

In ‘Showdown’ I used clips from Michael Crichton’s ‘Westworld’, Lawrence Kasdan’s ‘Wyatt Earp’ and Sergio Leone’s ever-classic ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ to reinforce the spaghetti-western-type “showdown” that was about to occur in Second Life. RazorZ himself cites ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ as an influence in his installation.

I made a short film of ‘The Wild Wild World of Illusion’ (embedded below) but would like to say that to really *experience* the dynamic energy of this installation, to be properly deceived by the skill of its illusion, to see how detailed and fun it truly is – well, y’all just have to go teleport over and see it for yourself. But hurry, it will be gone at the end of January!

Nataly enjoyed this installation *so much* and had *so much* fun that she almost stopped being naughty for a few minutes!

Almost.

“Pixie-Squeak,” she said, “I want to rugby-tackle those horses to the ground and take them home and have their babies.”

“Nataly!” I said for probably the twentieth time that day, “That is *so* naughty!”

Pixie xx