Bathed in Quicklime: a Ramble along the Golden Thread

quicklime

The Golden Thread appears to have been a great success. It sold out, so to speak, with audience members queuing for over an hour to get in and those that couldn't hopped on to the livestream to view it there. Since then, MIAMAI's BlackLabel Golden Thread Collection has appeared all over Flickr, and two trailer-style videos have been made of the event (links at the end). The venue itself is to remain open until the end of the month, so those who didn't manage to make it there in the flesh, so to speak, have chance to see it for the first time, and audience members a second. I promise that it's worth it.

I don't want a write a huge review here: it's already been done, and I find that often, after being in a show, it's difficult to write about it. Not because there's nothing to be said, but because there is so much to be said, and no real way to say it all. To speak only half of it would feel like a betrayal. What I want to do is write a summary here - a conclusion, if you will - that might go some way to explaining what this virtual performance was like to both SL and non-SL users alike.

The Golden Thread: on the floor at the MIAMAI store

The Golden Thread is an avant-garde fashion collection released by MIAMAI under their BlackLabel. Instead of releasing the collection with a 'normal' fashion show, CEO Monica Outlander organised what can only be described, kind of lamely, as an art event. She commissioned work to be produced by four groups - two dance groups, one acting troupe, and then sian and I - and built a vehicle that would transport the audience members from one performance to another. All of four took place on individual stages within a (purpose-built) dark and winding forest. There were lights, music, a very gracious host to explain what was going on, and, of course, the clothes themselves. Everything worn by the performers and the models is being sold in the MIAMAI store, and the forest is also dotted with associated artwork, some of which is now for sale. Information about all of the performers has been put into notecards and made available to those who wander the venue. 

The sheer amount of work and effort that went into the creation of this concept and this production is insane. 

Knowing I wouldn't have too much to do during the performance itself, I set myself up to take lots of photos of the event. However, it didn't end up being that way, and as a result, I only managed to snap one quick picture of Kitti before the show began. For no reason I can fathom, Monica asked me if I could mind operating the vehicle the audience travelled about on (doesn't she know I am still having driving lessons?! :P) and that took all of my concentration. All of the pictures used in this post where taken after the event, at the venue.

MIAMAI is, I think it's fair to say, a fashion giant if such a thing exists in SL. Mesh has come such a long way since I first blogged about it - and I was slow to the mesh party - but the new collection is just something else. The cut and texture of everything Monica has made are just incredible. You can genuinely almost reach out and feel them with your fingertips. My photos here don't do them justice. I can assure you that more will follow because I don't think I'm going to be wearing anything but the BlackLabel for a long time yet. This collection is a game-changer, I think, and it will be interesting to see if and how other fashion designers respond.

shadow cousins; Kitti and sian in costume

What was so remarkably unremarkable was that, come the day of the performance, working on this show in SL became exactly like working on a show in the real world - in my experience, anyway. The day began with panic as someone was sick and a script needed finishing. Then nobody turned up to the dress rehearsal, and not everybody received the message containing the time we were requested to arrive at the venue to set up. During the final show (we performed three consecutive shows), we had technology troubles and our wonderful host was forced to improvise off-script and keep the audience happy for a full ten minutes at least whilst we got it up and running again. I was interested to see how performing in Second Life might differ from performing in real life, and honestly, I think it's pretty similar.

Obviously, it was also completely different in a million ways, too. I could argue about physicality, and I didn't get the same kind of nervous shakes that I get every time I go on stage in real life. I could also talk about language barriers, and how this performance had much more of a global reach than anything IRL is likely to have without a physical tour. There is, too, the fact that I could leave my body standing on the stage beside sian, costumed and ready to perform, but have my screen focusing on the vehicle moving the audience around. I couldn't have been in two places at once IRL, although such a feat is often called for back-stage at a show on opening night. Let's not forget the danger with so many people occupying one small space that any one of us could have crashed at any time, effectively vanishing from the performance space and the entire world at any given point during the show. 

But for all intents and purposes, what happened and what went wrong and what went right and the general atmosphere was a very similar to my experiences of putting on a show in real life.

And, as I have said, it appears to have been a great success. It was really fantastic to meet Monica, and then to meet so many of the MIAMAI staff and models, and meeting other performers, particularly those who are professional SL dancers - doesn't that raise a lot of questions?! -, is always interesting. 

And I only swore at someone once. That's probably a record for me...so maybe performing online isn't like performing IRL after all ;).

Promised and related links: a video by Thalia Heckroth / a video by Forren Ashford / MIAMAI Pool on Flickr / the MIAMAI store (SL viewer required) / the MIAMAI performance venue (SL viewer required) / see all the photos from this post, with more to come, on my Flickr here /

Something to Say: SAVE THE ARTS

Aye my lord, honest

Those of you will peripheral vision might have noted that I graduated last Summer (2012) with a BA Hons in Theatre and Performance Studies from the University of Warwick, England, UK. I have been involved with drama clubs since I was seven/eight. They were run by my school,  and allowed Key Stage Two children the opportunity to be involved in Drama beyond the kind of hot-seating exercises labelled as 'Drama' in our English classes. I picked it up again in high school, and have been studying the subject ever since. 

The most wonderful things about studying a subject like Theatre and Performance (as opposed to Drama, which is mostly the study of written theatrical texts) are the diversity of subject matter, and the people. You cannot avoid getting to know people when you are forced to work with them on a show. For the duration of rehearsals, you practically live together, and you begin to learn everything about them from their strengths and weaknesses, to their body's pliancy, and just how much of a jerk they are when they've skipped a meal. During my degree, I have studied everything from Victorian Britain to the American Avant-Garde to Islamic culture to Guantanamo Bay. I have written for the stage, devised, planned interventions, given presentations and delivered project pitches.

Remember the light and believe the light - nothing matters more

I know I have only flagged up Drama/Theatre here, but the arts as a whole are important. There have been so many studies done now that show the benefit of creative outlets - particularly Drama - to everybody from toddlers to those with learning difficulties to criminals. I'm not trying to suggest that the world should become actors, but we really do need to consider the role the arts play in our lives and our education, development, and rehabilitation, and make sure that they aren't allowed to fall by the wayside. 

Cutting funding to the arts during the recession is understandable, but still not acceptable. It's a cheap shot that fails to take into consideration how integral they are to our education, personal development, and mental well-being. Because the big musicals continue to run in the West End, most people don't see the damage the cuts to funding are doing. In the 50s and 60s, and even into the 70s, the UK had a fantastic reputation for Theatre that did not rest on musicals, but on potent new writing that sought to deal with real-life issues that faced real-life, every-day people in real-life every-day Britain, and across the world. And when the Conservative Government cut funding to the arts in the 80s to almost nothing, we lost that reputation. We lost our gritty dramas, we lost our clear-headed and cutting new perspectives. The writers and the actors crawled under the kitchen sink and stayed there. 

I'm sorry said the soldier

When you turn your television on, you're watching art. When you see beautiful buildings going up, landscaped gardens, stunning clothes and inviting signage inviting you into shops and cafes and museums...when you pick up a book, buy a picture for your wall, download wallpapers for your computer, watch a film, decide you might have a trip to the theatre, listen to your favourite song...this is art. This is the arts. This is made possible by the arts. This has been inspired by the arts.

Next time you see George Osborne, or whoever his equivalent is in your country, standing there, taking cheap shots at the arts, take note. He has said he wants more cuts, and we'll be damned if he isn't coming to cut us off. The arts, and again Drama in particular, are being pulled out of schools, pulled out of the national curriculum, like so many weeds. The arts isn't a weed. It's the concrete between the building blocks of our society and culture. 

Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, wants to cut arts from the curriculum. This argument in the Guardian dated 22/01/13 seems to think those that want to save the arts want to do away with all other subjects, and that is not what is being said at all. It's a childish attempt to discredit art and those that champion it. Yes - childish. This article in the Telegraph dated the same day is more grown-up, and highlights what is at the heart of the problem - that the arts, despite all of the studies being done, are just not valued enough. If this doesn't start to change, I think Tracy Emin's prediction of a riot might well come true - and I reckon I'll know a good handful of those who'll be standing in the ranks of those marching on Downing Street. Maybe I will be there myself!

SAVE THE ARTS. Encourage your children. Petition the local schools. Write to David Cameron. Support local amateur dramatics groups. Support your local theatre. Support the London theatres. Go to the cinema. Buy your music. Buy painted pictures, prints, photographs. Go to exhibitions. Find time yourself to write and draw and try getting involved in something performative in your area.

This public service announcement was brought to you by The Concerned Bloggers Association. For more information, please contact Marleen Vaughan.

 Read other posts on saving the arts: 

Empower your Children, Devil's Tools, Arts in Education, The Arts in Education. 

These are the ones listed on the Concerned Bloggers Association site at the time of posting, but check here - here! - for more.

Brick Thick

I hate building. During my time in SL, I have avoided anything that required me to build anything like the plague. This time last year, Sian Pearl taught me how to doctor prims (using the same interface as the build-interface), and I was really pleased with myself that I could now pull bits off outfits that I didn't like. I cannot tell you how many hours have gone into making Kitti's collars fit. 

In my defence, I am running SL on the lowest graphic settings, and I lag like Hell most of the time. I bravely attempted to put my settings up to "medium" - daring, I know! - this morning, and I was doing just fine, but Kitti's face kept melting into a pink and white blur every twenty seconds or so, and I got bored having to rebake the textures. So back down to "low" I went.

But yes: I hate building! It's not, really, the most difficult thing in the world, but the SL camera is unforgiving, and it makes it look as if things are resting on the ground when they are actually floating, and I imagine that working on small things such as building the beautiful pieces of jewellery SL designers put together, or creating hair, must take forever. I found it hard enough to make my walls join in the corner properly, and it made me feel...well...as thick as a brick!

It took me, with the kind and patient help of Sian Pearl, two-three hours of sweat and blood and tears and God only knows what else, to build a window and encase it in wall. I kid you not. But I persevered, and now I have a really cool wall with a window, and (what I think is ) a pretty cool virtual stage-set for the adaptation I am writing for my upcoming Dramaturgy Exam Presentation.

It all begins with a cube. Damn. Cube.

I built a window - that you can see through!

Ta-dah!

I give you, my stage-set!

My Dramaturgy Exam Presentation is one of the biggies. This is my last year at uni, and I need to do well in this exam. The task is to create a (live, so, theatre rather than film) stage adaptation of, well, anything we like really, and present it to the class as if to a board of investors. I need them to be able to see my show perfectly, else they won't want to invest and I won't get the grades I need to graduate with the mark I want. I have written a pretty adjective-heavy description of the piece, but for the visual people in my class (including the lecturer), I needed to have something more concrete. And my drawing skills are...well. Let's not talk about those.

We were told to download Blender, a software package that allows you to build things, basically. It is used in game design and things like that. I tend to be quite good with technology, but I missed the Blender master-class because I had another lecture, and when I loaded Blender up, I died a little inside. So. Many. Buttons! 

Deciding I didn't feel brave enough to tackle the Blender interface, I turned to SL. Now, it is my understanding that SL uses a very similar, if not the same, building system as Blender does, but it has a much, much simpler interface. And I appreciate a simple interface.

I even costumed Kitti, and got hold of some poses so that I could place her in the scene the way I imagined my central character would be placed. I am quite pleased with the outcome, though my screenie isn't the best. What I really like about it is that I could load SL in my presentation and allow the class to walk around the set, as Kitti-in-character-costume, and see it for themselves. Maybe I'm just easily amused.

I'd better get a good mark for this!

(Thank you Sian for helping me. I really appreciate it)

Nuke Tableau

This blog is not a lonely planet guide, but, occasionally, I find myself drawn to singing the praises on certain sims I have stumbled across. Please, bear with me. 

Ordinarily, I ignore the Destination Guide. The Destination Guide is a kind of lonely planet guide of places Linden Labs thinks are cool, or that just seem to be popular with the SL populace right now. But it seems to be a little too much like an instruction manual, and, like any good student, I have an instinctual loathing and complete disregard for anything trying to tell me the rules. 

Often, too, this "popularity" is quite a tricky statistic to deal with, because there are so many inhabitants of SL, and so many sims, that fifty people visiting one can make it rocket right to the top of the "What's Hot" list. In defence of this list, I am not sure I would willingly go to a sim that was populated with fifty other avatars. My laptop isn't capable of holding that many pieces together all at once, and I'd imagine that lag would be through the roof. 

To get to the point: at some point last week, I decided to be a rebel and take a look at the Destination Guide, and I found this place: Tableau. 

Aside from being a well-decorated, sun-baked little town, the sim is also home to its own theatre; a charmingly decadent proscenium arch balanced on the sand before only a couple of rows plush seats. The whole is rather reminiscent of Baz Luhrman's "Romeo and Juliet" and, loving that film, and in particular that image, as I do, I was immediately drawn to the stage.

Finding theatres within SL is always a little thrilling, and seems to back up the sense of the centrality of the theatre to society. What most theatres do not have, however, within SL and the real world, is an unexploded nuke for a backdrop.

A (nuclear) plague on both your houses!

Oh, you know the non-manual reading rebel in me loved this!

The juxtaposition is quite a strange one, though such stories of bombs being dropped but not going off, and instead just hanging in the rafts of various buildings, are not so rare. Did such not happen to St.Paul's Cathedral during the Blitz? I am ashamed that I can't remember.

The post-apocalyptic aesthetic is one that holds hands quite nicely with the rest of the baked/desert/South American feel of the rest of the sim, and the gilt skulls that are scattered around.

The best thing about this little theatre are its puppets. In the little wooden chest you can just about make out on the stage above are a whole host of puppets that you can pick up, for free. And they are wonderful!

:D

I don't know much about puppet theatre, and the quick search I ran on the names of each of these figures turned up precious little, but I am half in love with these. Each is bigger than the standard-sized avatar (which is taller than people are generally irl) and held up and moved by a pole attached to the head. The fabric hangs down to simulate the body, and also to hide the puppeteer behind.

Puppet show for a non-existent crowd

The potential with such a little set-up is kind of exciting. Would it be possible to put on a little something here with these puppets? Where would we get an audience from?

If anything comes of it, I'll let you know.