(SecondLife) An Outing to Ladies Room @ The Hills Gallery

Posted on February 17, 2017 by Mangrovejane

Whenever I teleport into any place I have a momentary confusion as the world fills itself in around me. Quite often, when you teleport into a place, you have to look around for a bit to find where you are supposed to go or at the very least spin around to find the entrance. Today was no exception to this.

confused_001 You see this right??? I am walking on water!!! That’s ok….I am used to many moments of confusion happening in my day to day life, I just shrug and know I will stumble into the right way somehow.

So…When you go visit a place like this I highly recommend you READ THE NOTECARD they give you at the very beginning and FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS. They will quite often give you instructions on how to set up your graphics preferences or tell you the story of the exhibit or give you helpful hints like…”Walk into the building and not halfway across the SIM because you are distracted by the mountains in the distance…”
This is an exhibition in 2 parts. The first part is an exhibition of erotic photography, which I will not show you because taking photos of other peoples work without their permission is bad M’Kay? In the notecard, Hills states:

Part 1
“YOU SHINE THROUGH”:
“11 pictures in black and white showing my latest work. Erotic photography has always been a passion of mine and I finding appropriate ways of not crossing that thin line where erotic becomes pornography has been my task here. I hope you enjoy the result :)”

OK…so let me state this straight up. I am not a huge fan of erotic photography in SL because there is SO MUCH OF IT. And SO much of it is done badly. I LOVE the human form, but since looking at SL photographs online, I have been consistently inundated with avatar photos posing in horribly contrived “sexy” ways. I am BORED with it. I don’t dislike it, I don’t want to see it banned, I don’t have a prudish view on what should and should be presented as “art”or even on what other people choose to view or how they want to portray themselves….I just am so exposed to it now that I nothing it. I don’t feel it and I don’t care about it.

These photos are not like that. These photos are sensitively taken with a real eye to portray emotion. These photos rely on what is NOT seen as much as what IS seen to give you that feeling that you get in the moment. An indrawn breath, a touch, a look. Those pauses you get when you are with your partner and the world stops and all that is left is you both and the sensations that are rushing through you. My heart sped up and my breath hitched in my chest as I waited for the next moment. I FELT it.

recreate4-14022017_001 Part 2
“THE RECREATION”
“Recreate. Either find your place or lose yourself in the grid of impressions and projection.
Second life is about you and the ability to find your own fascination. Find yourself. Position yourself. Be a part of the world which your imagination can create.
Take a picture ! – the lights are on you.”

I really enjoy installations that you become a part of and that invite you to participate. It was one of the original reasons I came into Second Life, because it gives you that chance to invite people into your world and your thoughts and let them become a part of what you create. This installation invites you to come and take photos within the installation, to recreate who you are in the context of where you are. You could be anywhere, the mannequins could be anyone. Who ARE you really? This installation brings up many questions about identity and at this time in this world, it is a particularly significant connection to make.

recreate10-social-anxiety-14022017_001 — Social Anxiety

Did I take photos and recreate myself? HELL YES!!! Soooo…I may not have been quite as serious as I could have been but i sure did have some fun. I DID TRY to get all serious and arty but I appear to have devolved somewhat into making up weird names for the poses instead.

recreate19-stop-looking-at-me2-14022017_001 — STOP LOOKING AT ME!!!!!!!!

In any case, I really liked this exhibit. BOTH parts of it. It made me think. It made me interact. It made me turn into a giggling child as I put myself into some truly ridiculous poses that a much better photographer or artist could have done something brilliant with. But…just in case you doubt my true genius at doing completely the wrong thing …here are a couple of my photos…