May LEA FULL SIM review of Mentality, as written by Victoria Lenoirre,

This month at LEA6, it is Mentality by Katy Isodo. Katy is the General Manager of ConcreteSL and Cofounder of Pixelgasm. Mentality opens on May 5th at 12pm SLT. I am writing this now since I will be out of town for much of this month. I'll be back by the 27th. :-)

Below is what she has to say about Mentality:


Mentality
Definition of MENTALITY

1: mental power or capacity : intelligence
2: mode or way of thought : outlook

This sim is a creation about and surrounding mentality.  The power and way we perceive and understand, even move and operate through our changing worlds.  It seems obvious that two people experiencing the same event may see the incident in entirely different ways, go about reacting in opposite manners, learn something not even related to one another.  Mentality is your past, your personality, your present, your emotions.. all rolled into one.

Many of the exhibits are meant to challenge you to look beyond the mentality you have now, to literally begin to live inside the mind you want and hope to have.  This sim is a reflection of not only my journey of doing just that on a daily basis, but those of my partner and friends.

Mentality is the mental power, your mental power, and capacity to change the outlook on your life.

Mentality landing zone

Above is a photo of the book you see when you arrive at Mentality. It is a note written by the artist with a brief introduction of what mentality is to her.

Turn towards your left and walk past the area of huge paintbrushes, Draw Your Life. There is also a huge palette. Life is like a blank canvas that you can paint on. Your mentality allows to paint and embellish on it as you wish. You can choose broad, rich strokes or you can use thin, dense strokes. How will you choose to paint?

Past the brushes is a stone fountain with an angel and an energy orb above it. Around the base are the words, "Mental Power Or Thought" and "Mode Or Way Of Thought." The fountain is called "Perception of Mentality". My interview below explains a bit about it.

Beyond the fountain is a rotatating cyclone of runes. The runes rotate as well."It's representing how.. you can have all these plans in life, but some things are just up to chance. We are given a certain set of 'runes'.. a deck of cards.. however, and you deal with it the way you deal with it."

To the right and on the grass is a yellow square with a stick figure on it, that is the teleporter. There are six destinations including, Cave of Want, Draw Your life, Oblivion, Oblivion1000, and Emergence. The skybox is Oblivion1000. Katy said to me, " this piece is a bit darker in nature - we'll be putting some warnings up for those that might be triggered by it." Katy is helped by her partner, Joe Utherwurldly. 

Oblivion1000

You will find teleporters throughout the sim so you can navigate to the six areas. I'm truly sorry if I miss the opening for this one. I've always been fascinated by the human mind.

 Mentality is such a pivotal concept in our lives. The mind is such an important aspect of life. Is this work about independent thinking and acting, not caring how others view us or act towards us?

The sim is really about mentality and how our mentality effects us, how what we think, feel.. refuse to face.. can change how we see things and perceive things.  The graphic I did for the photo is from the fountain called "Perception of Mentality".  It is possible to see the Angel being attacked and losing, fighting against an alien force, creating a ball of energy, losing control, and probably even more.  

Perception of Mentality

My own concept of mentality isn't so much not caring what others think but coming to a realization you won't be able to please everyone.  There's a quote on pinterest I found once something like "You can be the juiciest peach in the world, and there will still be someone who doesn't like peaches".  Often times people get confused by either not caring enough and thus being oblivious to changes they need to make - often done defensively, and caring too much to the point of taking on extra baggage from others.  If something I do hits a nerve for someone else, they might be angry with me, but that has no reflection on what I am.

 In your view of mentality, it doesn't matter if people forgive us for wrongs we did in the past?

Being forgiven is a tricky subject because it does make things easier - that being said it's one of those things that is outside of our control.  You can't force someone to forgive you, nor should any past mistake put you in forever emotional bondage to another person.  It's not that it doesn't matter as much as forgiveness in itself isn't even for anyone but yourself.  As an example, I can choose to forgive people who are not apologetic for what they've done.  Forgiveness is different than saying it was okay, or trusting again, it's just coming to peace with it - letting go of the anger that only serves to hurt me.  

 What does it say about their mentality if they have a lot of anger and/or are unable to forgive? 

Like I said with the last question - forgiveness is a very personal decision.  It doesn't even have to include the other party at all if you don't want.  Sometimes that's even for the best.  Another quote I found somewhere - can never remember where I find them lol - Staying angry is like taking poison thinking it's going to kill who we are angry at.  Being angry is valid, being hurt is valid - holding onto a resentment and a hatred is like a mental self destruction.

Has meditation and Zen buddhism influenced your look on life?

I've done a bit of meditation in and out of the mental health scene through the years but can't say zen buddhism has really effected much of my outlook that I'm aware of.

Who are the most healthy individuals you know of who embody a healthy mentality?

While there are people I admire, personal health and healthy mentality is so a singular thing.  It's just different for every person.  Some of the common factors are just an ability to persevere through life.  Being able to go through rough things - difficult times without it changing them as people.  It's almost as if these people can walk through hurricanes and yet not fall to hopelessness.  Anne Frank is a big example of this for me since childhood, Lacey Strum is another who is more recent.

Thank you so much, Katy Isodo and Joe Utherwurldly for your work at LEA6. Mentality looks intriguing and I think it challenges the mind to think deep.

Please visit Mentality when you can! The opening is May 5th at 12pm SLT! We hope you can make it!

Have fun and enjoy the art!

~Victoria Lenoirre