Light Waves's Night Dreaming




#11 Madcow Cosmos - Unfinished build
#10 Ub Yifu's Avatar - Don Quixote
#9 Spiral Walcher - "Tunnel of Light"
#8 Jojorunoo Runo - Pervy Room
#7 Madpea - Swamp Hotel
#6 Nonnatus Korhonnen - Needlebirds
#5 Light Waves - "Night Dreaming"



Light Waves might be the oldest and most famous of second life artists, both as Light Waves and as Starax his alt. He is a bit of a recluse and his profile would lead us to believe he has left second life. However, I don't believe a word of it seeing as we are both in a mutual group where I can see the last time he logged in. I have never spoken to him, so much of what I will say about "Night Dreaming" will be my own interpretation.
I am not sure if my picks up until now have been predictable and I don't know if the remaining five will be either. But having a Light Waves sculpture as a top 10 is probably quite common for art enthusiasts. I am a big fan of his Degas like Ballerina as far as straight beauty and craftsmanship goes, but for me a more complete work is Night Dreaming. I believe this work to be inspired by the sculpture Nike of Samothrace. Created 200 years before Christ was born. Nike of Samothrace depicts the goddess landing on the prow of a ship. She lands while a strong wind blows against her with her wings spread wide. In Nike of S you can feel the wind in the posture and in the beautifully crafted drapery over her body.
In Light Waves version he begins with her as the marble sculpture we might see in the Louvre but then he brings her to life. She moves from stone into a living being. Her rigid drapery becomes fluid and the wind we think we can see when she is stone comes forth and interacts with her. Light Waves uses the features of second life to take the sculpture further. Further than his Ballerina. And that to me is what makes this successful and a distinctive piece of second life art. He took advantage of the medium and made use of it.
Second life is a medium with all the tools of a well stocked studio. If it were real life this studio would be full of wood and tools, machinery and artist paints. It would contain all manner of things to work with and that is what Light Waves takes advantage of. This is not an imported jpeg of a painting put on a prim. Because that is a waste of the medium. That would be like walking into this fantasy workshop and seeing a piece of paper and pencil you are to use for drawing up your fantastic plans. Taking the pencil and drawing a stick man while ignoring the many tools around you. There is no comparison between a painting seen in real life to that of a jpeg. A jpeg pretty much loses all the emotive brush strokes and textures. There are always exceptions and Four Yip's oil paintings of Avatars is one as I imagine everyone would love to see their avatar immortalized into the traditional medium of paint. Her paintings take Pinocchio and turn him into a real boy.
What I also like about Night Dreaming (if it is based on Nike of Samothrace) is that he has taken a damaged sculpture (no head) and renewed it. He has taken something from a time period before God existed. A time when there were many Gods and Goddesses. A time we can barely imagine and transported it into a virtual world which they obviously couldn't conceive of, but also which many living people can't understand. Telling my father about second life creates the same reaction as I would get if I said I could see ghosts. He brought it into a frontier of art which all the great masters of the past would have given their left leg to have access to. Its somehow poetic.



So if you take this slurl to black swan then fly first and
be aware you have 2 min before they zap you

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Black%20Swan/48/209/59

Comments

Anonymous said…
oh thank you for the insight Bryn! /me smacks her forehead at not seeing the Nike similarity. If I might be so bold - I know where that is, but you might consider SlUrls in these posts for other readers who don't, or who aren't so good with Search ;-)
Bryn Oh said…
Ahh great idea Val. I am not exactly sure how to do that but for those interested Light Waves work can be found at Black Swan sim and I think I have also seen it at Caerleon Island, though perhaps not as scenic there.
Anonymous said…
Hi Bryn - when you are at a location in world, open your map and at the bottom you will see a button called 'Copy Slurl to Clipboard'. At least on a Mac, this makes the SLurl and Copies it, so you can then Paste it into something you are writing with another program on your computer.
Anonymous said…
I love light waves and yes he is still around indeed to talk to him would be like talking to god in real life standing right in front of you. You know he made a magic wand that another artist friend i know has and he showed it to me and i was like omg its awesome there are people in sl that adore that wand..I wish i could get one but its gone now no one can find one any where ...But oh well i will live ...this piece he did is just amazing like wow !! ...I have a rose he did and its my fav of all time I soo love it
ttyl bryn
MaggieL said…
Personally, I think Night Dreaming is much closer to Maxfield Parrish's "Ecstasy". http://maxfieldparrish.info/maxfieldparrishworks1920to1929/ecstasy

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