Liquid Light and Aurora Room
Launch Artwork 
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Liquid Light and Aurora Room |
Description
Location of Liquid Light: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Princeton%20North/188/117/30/
Location of Aurora Room: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Alexander%20Beach/115/123/25/
One illumination big, another small shimmer in the night at the newly opened Princeton University sim. Two experiments in light by Juria Yoshikawa are balanced by the deep ambient music and transformative sounds of AldoManutio Abruzzo.
On a grandiose scale, “Liquid Light” hovers over the waterway of Princeton North. Towers of rippling white light solidify and then melt away. Burning through and fusing with the ripples are yellow forms reminscent of the heat of the sun. An avatar flies into this passage of liquid light and she herself blends with the layers of thawing and reconstituting elements. Is this simulacra? If it is, it’s linked to something more primal, sense based, an early memory of warm light on water.
A more intimate installation, “Aurora Room” is set up in the great hall at Alexander Beach. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to actually be inside an Aurora Borealis here’s your chance. Having only read about the Northern Lights in Norway, I had dream of creating my own in sl. Color and shape mix, sometimes a solid curtain of light, other times a thin translucence. The aurora seems to live and breath. It’s said in Norway that if you hold out a white handkerchief to an aurora, it will take you away. One can only hope.
Running through both of these works is the belief that intangible elements of natural phenomena can come alive in this dream space we call sl.
Juria's sl artist blog:
http://www.memespelunk.org/blog/
Also see photos of her work at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lancesh/
After two decades of creative pursuits - ranging from conceptual art, installation, poetry, performance, computer art, animation, photography and digital design - Juria Yoshikawa (a.k.a. Lance Shields, Tokyo-based multimedia artist) arrived in Second Life in the winter of 2007 looking for a new artistic spark. Rather than bringing in rl artwork, Juria is compelled to use mainly the elements that make up sl itself. A typical Juria Yoshikawa virtual artwork mixes kinetic objects, animated texture, ambient noise and av animations. She inevitably chooses scales larger than conventional gallery work because she is interested in people experiencing the work in a physical way - flying through them, riding on them and socializing within the art. To Juria virtual art is about freeing oneself up to create in ways she finds impossible in real life.
Lance Shields - Real Life Artist
In my real life, I am a Tokyo based multimedia artist and designer. I have spent many years making digital art, installation art and performance. Sculpture and installation are where I started my creative career but I became progressively more involved in the digital and interactive. I see Second Life as a return back to my artistic roots yet at the same time combines my newer interests in the phenomenology in the virtual world. This difficult to say word is defined as “the reflective study of the essence of consciousness as experienced from the first-person point of view”. In my commercial life, I am a social media strategist helping a global company embrace social networking, blogging and Second Life.
Artist blog: http://www.memespelunk.org/blog/
Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lancesh/
Video: http://www.youtube.com/user/JuriaYoshikawa
Current Works in SL:
"Liquid Light"
Princeton Univ. Sim
http://slurl.com/secondlife/%20Princeton%20North/188/117/30/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lancesh/sets/72157602177198263/
"I Lived Long Enough in the Dark"
Garden Memespelunk
http://slurl.com/secondlife/North%20Dolores/86/57/406/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lancesh/sets/72157603994881968/
"Scratchy Night"
http://slurl.com/secondlife/OTONA%20SEA/97/48/326/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lancesh/sets/72157603577570117/
