The University of Western Australia (UWA) in Second Life: May Winners of the UWA 3D Art & Design Challenge

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Nish Rains On Imagine, Eliza Almost Scoops Double

Mankind Tracer wows the crowd at the May Imagine & Flagship Challenge Afterparty

An amazingly immersive and interactive work called UMBRELLAS by Nish Mip of the United Kingdom scooped top honours in the May Round of the UWA 3D Art & Design Imagine Challenge winning both the People's Choice Award as well at the L$5,000 1st Prize in the Imagine Section. Australia's Eliza Wierwight in the meantime, almost became the first person to land the grand double, as her PATRON GALLERY BUILD took the top prize (L$5,000) in the Flagship Section, while also being tied for 2nd prize (L$3,000) in the Imagine Section with her TORSO SERIES (FIRE & WATER).

UMBRELLAS by Nish Mip

Describing Umbrellas, Nish says, "It's that time when umbrellas take on a life of their own. A rainy night in town. I just love that feeling of being dry underneath whilst the rain buckets down above me . Neon lights, the rain, smoky noisy streets, making your way through the crowd to catch the last train home." How true indeed, as one of the judges (Paul Bourke - Director of WASP) commented that he felt drenched when leaving the exhibit as he had not picked up an umbrella.

UWA 3d Art & Design May After party being held int he May Flagship winner:

PATRON GALLERY BUILD by Eliza Wierwight

Eliza was floored as well by her success, "Winning this UWA Flagship Challenge, considering the superb caliber of those that also participated, is such a huge honor. To be rewarded for something I had such an inherent pleasure creating has taken on a surreal dimension for me. When asked recently to expand on my submission to the UWA challenges, my first thought unencumbered by forced rhetoric, is simply that I just love to create. During the chaos of the Award Ceremony, I managed to extend my gratitude to my friends. I am the sum of their generosity in Second Life as anywhere. To the University of Western Australian Judging Panel, I also would like to extend my sincere thanks and respect. I have made some remarkable new friends in this short transition and it seems the treasure in my life is ongoing. I think I will step quietly aside now before this rant of mine takes on annoying an Oscar Night 'will someone shove her off the damn stage' proportions."

The incredible quality of the entries forced the judges to award two 2nd prizes in both the Imagine & Flagship Sections with Cat Boccaccio's sublime SL IDENTITY CRISIS taking 2nd prize in both the Imagine Challenge and the People's Choice, with Dusty Canning's MAY UWA FLAGSHIP & Dijodi Dubratt's UWA BRIDGE TO THE FUTURE being awarded 2nd Prize in the Flagship Section. All these works go into the reckoning for the Grand Prize to be announced in early October.

IDENTITY CRISIS by Cat Boccaccio

"I am thrilled that "Identity Crisis" was understood and appreciated by the panel and by visitors to the gallery, and thank Jayjay and Taralyn and all those who encouraged me to enter. I and my many alts, my many selves, except for Fury, who is never happy, thank you so very much for this award.", said Cat.

OZ WONDERLAND by Nicci Lane

Nicci Lane's piece, OZ WONDERLAND took the Casey Cultural Prize (L$4,000). The Casey judging panel said, " the use of Pindan colours evoked the feeling of the desert borders of the coastal plains and the iron rich north." The piece also includes the floral emblem of Western Australia, the Kangaroo Paw Anigozanthos manglesii. Nicci said of her entry "I just think that the challenges are fantastic, creative and innovative, and I am just happy to have a love of our culture, to have a go, and for someone to appreciate it."

WHITE GODDESS TREE by soror Nishi

soror Nishi, the doyen of Second Life tree lovers became the first person to the Best Non-Scripted Entry Prize for a 2nd time, this time with THE WHITE GODDESS TREE, with Alizarin Goldflake, Kolor Fall, Fuschia Nightfire and Sharni Azalee building on their past successes by picking up the Honourable Mention prizes ($L1,000 each) alongside first time winner Ginger Lorakeet, who won for INSIDE ART.

INSIDE ART by Ginger Lorakeet

Some other exciting developments with the UWA presence were announced at the awards ceremony. Most of the prize money had increased from previous months with a wave of sponsorship flowing in. UWA are grateful to The Residents of Artemisia, through FreeWee Ling who have stepped in to sponsor the People's Choice Award for the rest of the challenge, and this has allowed for the increase in the People's Choice Prize to $1,000L with a 2nd Prize of $500L also being available.

The balloons are released as the winners are announced....

Also, Taralyn Gravois, the newly appointed Director of the 200-seater UWA-BOSL Amphitheater together with an anonymous benefactor (whose works have previously graced this challenge) have further contributed such that the 2nd prizes increased to $L3,000 and all the honourable mention prizes increased to $L1,000.

Mankind Tracer played a great set of Live Music for the after party taking requests from the audience.
He also did a great job of supplying some background tunes for the announcements.

It was also announced that UWA had secured a plot for SLB7 (Second Life Birthday 7) on SLB7 Enigma, with challenge curator quadrapop Lane planning for a revue of the challenge thus far. This will be open from 10:00 a.m. SLT on Monday 21 June 2010.

The UWA partnership with Second Physics, SL Art and Experience Italy for the Science & Art Physics Competition has reached the public vote stage for the 31 artworks submitted across 6 sims. That is a fascinating exhibition of Physics works divided into 6 categories ATOM, BIG BANG, COSMIC RAYS, ELECTRICITY, NANOTECHNOLOGY and STRINGS, with UWA Hosting the Nanotechnology section with TP's to the
other areas available there.

The relatively young UWA presence, did stunningly well to be not only nominated but also shortlisted for the 2010 Linden Prize. Jay Jay Zifanwe commented, "I want to acknowledge all of you here today, as, in my opinion it is the collective force of the art that has driven UWA to being selected in the top 10 for the 2010 Linden Prize from 130 nominations. It was an honour to be among so many other wonderful SL projects".

A major development from this is the teaming up of 2 of the Linden Prize finalists, UWA & Archivist Lewellyn (of the National Space Society) for The National Space Society's 'NSS in SL' machinima contestant exhibition showing and award ceremony, which celebrates the mission of the NSS for space exploration and the technical and artistic expertise of machinima artists, with the winner walking away with a L$100,000 prize. This will take place at the 200 seater UWA-BOSL Amphitheater at 2pm slt on the 12th of June. This partnership is another exercise in serendipity as the NSS Machinima event was inspired by UWA's own Machinima Challenge which completed early this year.

The UWA Imagine Landing pavilion and party crowd

With 9 months complete of this year long challenge, the Grand Prize judging looms large, and the UWA 3D Art & Design Challenge also welcomed 3 new judges to the Grand Prize panel, namely Dr Gary Zabel (Georg Janick - SL) of the University of Masachusetts one of UWA's RL/SL partners, Saffia Widdershins, Owner and Editor of Prim Perfect Publications and Jordan Whitt - Editor in Chief of ICON Lifestyle Magazine.

Winners of the May round of the UWA 3D Art & Design Challenge:

IMAGINE CHALLENGE - 3D ART

Imagine Challenge 1st Prize:
($L5,000 + Custom T-Shirt)
UMBRELLAS by Nish Mip

Imagine Challenge 2nd Prize:
($L3,000) JOINT
IDENTITY CRISIS by Cat Boccaccio

TORSO SERIES (FIRE & WATER) by Eliza Wierwight

Best Non-Scripted Entry:
($L3,000 + Custom T-Shirt)
THE WHITE GODDESS TREE by Soror Nishi

FLAGSHIP CHALLENGE - BUILDING DESIGN

Flagship Challenge 1st Prize:
($L5,000)
THE PATRON GALLERY BUILD by Eliza Wierwight

Flagship Challenge 2nd Prize:
($L3,000) JOINT
UWA BRIDGE TO THE FUTURE by Dijodi Dubratt

MAY UWA FLAGSHIP by Dusty Canning

MAY UWA FLAGSHIP by Dusty Canning
(find the secret Noob - IM quadrapop Lane in SL with a snapshot of him and win a prize :)

Honourable Mention Prize for ELEGANCE
(L$1,000)
CYBORG SCHOLAR by Fuschia Nightfire