January 2011 – AvatarPlanet Blog

Lost Gardens of Apollo

The Lost Gardens of Apollo is one of Second Life’s treasures. It’s also one of its oldest attractions, dating all the way back to 2005. There isn’t much in Second Life that’s been around this long.
It’s a place of seductive beauty, a place for lovers and for lovers of beauty. The sheer complexity of the build is stunning. Covering an entire sim, it contains lush forests, hidden places to relax with a lover, an imposing temple-like structure on the harbor, and a “Bridge to Nowhere” floating high above. Former members of the now-defunct virtual world There.com will feel at home in the floating islands that conjure a feeling of the magical place Saja in that extinct world.

Second Life members can visit by using either of these slurls:

slurl.com/secondlife/Apollo/76/212/24 (central landing point)
slurl.com/secondlife/Apollo/76/212/24 (Bridge to Nowhere)

The Lost Gardens of Apollo has a Facebook page at /www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=20573244932

Here are four photos I took on my visit there yesterday. I’ll have more in the future.

Lost Gardens of Apollo - Bridge to Nowhere

Lost Gardens of Apollo - wide view of towers

Second Life Muslims confront Al-Qaeda Taliban group

When you enter OnIslam.net’s Second Life sim, a holy place with the Grand Mosque where you can do a virtual Hajj, the first thing you see are prominent signs barring Al-Qaeda everywhere you turn. Al-Qaeda in Second Life? The group that the sim is banning is “(Al-Qaeda-Taliban)the right path1”, which has 67 members. (NadiaLane, CNN iReports, Jan 19, 2011) Read

Art Planet

The many-colored space you are in appears vast. You turn, east, west, south, north, up, or down, and you see a world of shifting colors. Here and there, objects crumble while others remain steadfast. Even your avatar is shifting in appearance, at times appearing normal, other times seeming to glow in shifting colors.

It is Betty Tureaud’s Art Planet, an installation this month at University of Western Australia in Second Life. This is Second Life art on a scale you’ve rarely seen. For the next six months, the University of Western Australia in Second Life will host a series of full sim installation artworks by leading virtual artists. Betty’s is the first in the series and will be on display for the month of January 2011. The artists whose work will be featured over the next five months are Blue Tsuki (February), Anley Piers & Cherry Manga (March), soror Nishi (April), and Wizard Gynoid (May).

The scale of this installation is breathtaking. It’s an environment of ever shifting colors and moving objects, a place where you can very quickly lose your orientation. Betty says of it, “My art installation is made like a oil painting that evolves during the work. I use transparent color surfaces as flip themselves whichever direction you look. It allows you even to create your own paintings just turn and you see a new one. It is you who decides what colors and patterns, your picture will serve.”

Betty, a Danish artist working in both the physical and virtual worlds, provides a free car that you can rez and use for traveling around her creation, but this writer preferred just flying from point to point. She also provides a notecard with slurls for teleporting to the main points. You can learn more about her and her extensive body of work at her website www.bettys-second-life.dk .

Second Life members can teleport to the installation’s entry point slurl.com/secondlife/UWA%20VIRTLANTIS/104/72/276.

Be sure to check out the other slurls that betty provides for exploring: