The Second Louvre Museum

As far as I was aware, Kharis Forti’s Second Louvre museum was fairly well known about and frequented. However, on my latest visit today I noticed traffic was limited and decided to ask a few people on my buddies list whether they had been. None of them had heard of it!

That in itself is a complete travesty. This place is utterly amazing! The build is impeccable and certainly one of the finest in Second Life™ and the content is of a superbly high standard as well. The structure was created by Kharis Forti (who is also the curator) with painstaking detail and the end result is flawless.

The Second Louvre

The entrance hall is dominated by a Starax Statosky 2006 sculpture called Achilles, which is intricately detailed and a marvel to admire. What a shame Starax is no longer in game! The rest of the floor is a number of varying sculptures from some of the more ‘traditional art’ styles to some modern and abstract types too. It would be a shame for me to go into detail here as it is something that really would be better appreciated by visiting. Suffice to say that the work in display is created by a number of different people and none of it is anything less than high standard. It seems Kharis Forti is certainly maintaining a good level of work here to ensure the museum maintains its more ‘exclusive’ feel.

The remaining floors contain paintings and photographic arts again contributed by a number of artists and again of great standard! Needless to say, not everything will be to everyone’s tastes here, given that the styles are so varied. However, ever if something might not be a style you would usually appreciate, what you cannot fail to appreciate is the amazing level of workmanship and creativity in both the contents and build.

Whether you enjoy RL museums or not, the Second Louvre is a must see in Second Life. The build bears something of a resemblance to its Parisien namesake and whether you go as someone who appreciates art or not, you will be sure to love the standard of the build.

You will find the Second Louvre here. Go visit! It really is amongst the best places in Second Life.

El Haiga Classic Car Museum

Museums are not uncommon in Second Life™. Cars are not incommon in Second Life. But I have never come across a classic car museum in game until my exploring today led me here.

Classic Car Museum

Owned by lobisones Congrejo, the museum lies on a parcel on the sim ‘Classic Car Museum’ and charts in some exquisite prim detail the life of the classic car models from 1900 onwards. The cars are impeccably well built and the designs wonderfully authentic. They are built by a variety of different builders. What is also impressive is the fact that there is a notecard you can click to take with information about each car. So this is a great location for both those who just appreciate fine prim work and those who have a genuine interest in cars (or motorcycles since they have those too). there’s a great selection of racing cars (Formula 1 etc) as well as the classics!

The Classic Car Museum

The Classic Car Museum

The Classic Car Museum

I didn’t come across any of the models for sale within the museum, though looking at some of the creators of the vehicles, I am sure many of them sell them themselves. What there is in terms of items to purchase are classic car posters etc with prices starting at a very reasonable L$15.

Demoiselle was more interested in the ‘famous’ cars than the old classics. By famous cars I mean the vehicles from Ghost Busters, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Herbie all recreated here in prims!

The Classic Car Museum

Kudos to lobisones Congrejo for both the concept here and for keeping the actual museum itself relatively uncommercial and incredibly informative. Whether for motoring history education or admiration of some incredible building and texturing by the car creators, this should definitely find a place on your ‘places to go in Second Life’ list!

You will find the Class Car Museum here.

All photography comes courtesty of the wonderful Demoiselle Denimore.

Primtings!

Even without the catchy name, Primtings is pretty awesome! This is another of those places I just happened across when searching random words and ended up spending quite some time there. Primtings is a shortened word for ‘Primmed Paintings’ because that is exactly what this full sim gallery displays. It is described as being in its preview stages at the moment, with a search on for artists to display. However, preview or otherwise, I found the place to be incredible and already displaying an impressive array of talent.

Primting - Primmed Paintings Museum

Ok, so what is its idea? As I gather, organiser and owner, Ina Centaur and other participating artists take famous real world paintings of varying artistic types and create 3D versions from prims in game, bringing the painting to life, perhaps, for those who may not have ever believed they had an appreciation of art. By each Primting is a copy of the 2D painting on which is was based, information about who did the original, who built the primting and other information too.

There are various categories and displays across the museum. In fact, there is too much in there already, despite it only being in preview stages, to really go into too much detail with. What I would like to do though, is to show you a few of my personal favourites and then wholeheartedly recommend that you go along and find your own favourites too! There’s plenty more there than just what I’m going to show you!

The first one I’d like to show you is based on ‘Nighthawks,’ a painting by Edward Hopper (with all of these you can either Google the painting name to see the original or go along to Primtings where the originals are on display by the 3D recreation). The Primting was built by Tezcatlipoca Bisiani and is a really inspiring recreation. It certainly resembles the original well, while permitting its creator to add their own stamp.

Nighthawks recreated by Tezcatlipoca Bisiani

Another I particularly liked was a recreation of ‘Vincent’s Room,’ originally painted by Van Gogh and built in world here by Dekka Raymaker. Interestingly there are two version of this. In one, each surface is textured and in the second he simply pulls away the texturing leaving bare colours. The absence of any texturing on the second one leaves everything to sheer simplicity and actually, Dekka leaves himself exposed in the second one, with the focus suddenly being on how everything is put together without any texture for distraction. Fortunately for Dekka, everything is put together very well and both versions of this are amazing.

Vincent's Room recreated by Dekka Raymaker

The third of four I want to specifically mention is a recretion of Max Ernst’s ‘Ambiguous Figures,’ recreated in primmed painting form by Kacy Despres. Kacy has a number of works featured at Primtings, but this is probably my favourite of them!

Ambiguous Figures recreated by Kacy Depres

And finally my absolute favourite of them all has to be Voodoo Shilton’s recreation of one of my all time favourite works. Salvador Dali’s, ‘Persistence of Memory,’ is an iconic piece of art. I don’t regard myself as an art enthusiast. I know little about the works of most famous painters. But I know what I like. And I love, ‘Persistence of Memory.’ Before I visited this, if someone would have told me that Voodoo had built a 3D model based on it, I would undoubtedly have been a little reluctant to see it, for the simple fact I generally believe that some things are at their best in their original form and should not be touched. But Voodoo Shilton’s recreation is incredible. I was thoroughly impressed!

Persistence of Memory recreated by Voodoo Shilton

As I said, these are just my person favourites. As with anything it is subject to tastes and you will probably have your own favourites. But I strongly encourage you to go down and take a look. It’s a completely original idea of Ina Centaur’s and her notecard available from on site tell us that it’s something she has been planning since August 2007, though has only recently purchased the sim for and set up. The concept, as I said, is original and is yet another opportunity in game for residents to express their creativity in a remarkable way. My only complaint about the whole thing, actually, is that I found it a little difficult in places to find my way around. But consider it an adventure.

Do go along. And if you’re a keen creator yourself, they are actively seeking submissions and all the information in regard to this can be found on site. Go visit! You will find Primtings here.

Tyrol Rimbaud’s “Ego.”

By ‘Ego’ in this case, I am referring to the remarkable exhibition in the virtual world of Second Life™ by Tryol Rimbaud.

I’ve been to a couple of exhibitions in game but never have I found myself feeling so challenged by one. I have always felt that Second Life as a platform for art or creative expression has incredible potential. This exhibit goes a long way to cementing this belief.

The exhibition deals with humanity in a social context. It falls across a number of parcels which enables a variety of different mood setting audio streams. The ‘Provenance’ parcel provides is home of the welcome area, over 500m in the air. The ‘Ego’ signs around and about contain notecards about the exhibit and provide some crucial information. My first time around, I missed the fact that these were notecard givers, actually!

The welcome notecard lets you know about the audio, how you might want to view things and asks you to pay real attention for the hidden details. Personally, I found the exhibition to have the greatest effects in midnight settings, though for clarity of photography these are taken in daylight settings by my rather wonderful photographer!

Upon entering the cave that marks to true beginning of this exhibit, you are greeted with historic tribal images, representing (in my opinion) the beginnings of mankind. You are suddenly taken by surprise while walking through here as you suddenly fall through the floor into the next part of the exhibit on the next parcel.

The next parcel is the Hall of History, which is a tunnel like corridor with images of world landmarks such as the Taj Mahal and Great Wall of China. Here the notecard speaks the responsibility society gained. You walk through the curtain here into the next parcel, which is in my opinion the most challenging.

The parcel is called “Will to Power,” and features some upsetting images that speak volumes about society. With photographs of missing child, Maddie McCann, other children as well as some disturbing Holocause images, this room will undoubtedly stir emotion in anyone. With minimal use of words this room says more about what society can do at its worst than any essay, political or philosophical paper ever will. One of the quotes that features around these images is, “People who live in society have learned to see themselves in mirrors as they appear to their friends. I have it, the filth, the Nausea.” The notecard here offers, “Each of us is capable of horrific deeds. The limits of human cruelty has yet to know its bounds.”

Again the descent into the next room takes you to Converse, a tunnel offering a number of evocative images floating around in a ghostly fashion.

The walk through here takes you out into the end parcel, “Responsibility.” The most interesting feature, I found, was the statue of a human with a globe balancing on its finger, representative of just what humanity has in its own hands.

The producers of the audio throughout are credited on the notecards. The audio varies from lines from Shakespeare to ambient mood setting music. The quick summary of the basics of what to expect from this exhibition, as I have provided here, cannot possibly do this work much justice. The fact is there are so many hidden details there and so much to consider. The descent from the Welcome Area throughout the exhibition to the end is symbolic of the progressive descent of society in complete moral disarray and actually left me feeling guilty, as a human, for all that mankind has done and continues to do. This is particularly impressive, in my opinion, as TV commercials and the like, all designed to make us feel guilty, often fail to have that effect. Yet here, with an exhibition put together in this virtual world… I was actually impacted. Forget the fact that I was actually, if we think about it, just looking at images on a screen. I wasn’t out there causing the Holocaust, kidnapping children, beating people or causing any physical harm myself. Yet I felt, in some way, responsible for the acts of humanity as a whole.

All in all, an amazing exhibition. I do feel that the notecard giving signs are very easy to miss… but honestly, once I’d realised what they were, the information they provided was invaluable and a true joy to read. The emotions evoked by the exhibit are incredible. The build itself is effective, put together to enable to images to have the biggest impact they can.

It’s certainly something I believe everyone should see. Tyrol told me that the exhibit was three months in the making. It will be on for several weeks to come and anyone not going to look will be missing out. You can visit “Ego,” here.

Sarah’s Magic Kingdom

Whether you are seven, seventeen or sixty-seven, male, female, human or otherwise, the chances are you’ll have enjoyed at least one Disney movie (even if you won’t admit it). Second Life™ has its fair share of fanatics creating Disney inspired merchandise and so on.Yet hidden in amongst this melee of animated magic is something a little different; Sarah’s Magic Kingdom.

For a start, this isn’t a profit-making venture. There is nothing for sale. It is essentially a tribute museum set up for fans of Disney to go and enjoy. Owned by Sarah Nikitin, the museum is housed in a replica of Cinderella’s castle (very well built by Beast Mauvaise). It is laid out in 4 sections offering different Disney themed. These include the Animal Kingdom and the Hollywood Studios zone. There’s plenty of images of the characters and the Disneyworld Parks around. Almost all images have a notecard giver in them offering fun trivia and information.

Outside there’s a Disney themed ‘mouse house’ offering Disney streams from the various parks and a cute Disney style barge.

All in all this is a very ‘feel good’ type of place. I’m not a Disney ‘fanatic’ myself (but I admit to enjoying some of the films), but came across this while I was searching for museums. Even as someone not crazily fanatic for Disney, I enjoyed this. The effort that has gone into this, down to the meticulous information and trivia, is clear to see. Go take a look for yourself! http://slurl.com/secondlife/Readux/235/63/23