Victoria Lenoirre's Exploration of Nino Vichan's "When the Mind's Eye Listens"

Up and running this month at LEA6 is the full sim build created by the imaginative Nino Vichan, When the Mind's Eye Listens. He was kind enough to give me a tour of his sim creation on July 2nd, the day his sim opened up to the public. There are seven levels, not including the teleport area that he calls "home" on the teleport menu.

This is what I copied from the notecard you should receive at the landing point:

About the Installation

In the infinite space of your mind's eye the neural pathways that define your memories, dreams, fantasies, and the memories of those dreams and fantasies, intersect and reform patterns that combine the stimuli received from your visual and auditory input channels.

In this dimension the laws of physics are only used as referential material for the infinite creative processes that govern your experiences.

Free floating endlessly through this continually modulating universe you encounter a melody from a wooden flute that drifts like a dusky, perfumed mist and gives you a feeling of peace. 

A flash of pure yellow light, that is only the meaning of the color and not the visual color itself, is defined by a metallic crash that evaporates into the vapor.

The universe of your Mind's Eye is inhabited by strange and wonderful creatures, of Intangible substance or pure color, that live in the ephemeral space of a momentary sound.

I offer this work as a vehicle into your mind's eye where you may pause for a moment and breathe deeply and slowly in an atmosphere of 
color, 
    sound, 
        shape, 
            light, 
                motion, 
                    emotion                                                 and meaning...

When you arrive, you are in an open area of black water. You can either walk around or click on a green slab and sit on it, to be flown around the area. The slab is called Feather tour 2.2. Make sure to turn your sound up, this sim installation is reliant on sound. So just close your eyes and feel the ambience as you explore Nino's vision of the mind's eye. Let the music be absorbed into your body and feel the space it creates within you.

Home point at When the Mind's Eye Listens

To go up to the first level, click on a green spiky sphere and click 1.landing. This is the first level of the mind's eye. Here you can see shapes and everything is in black and white. Images in our minds are based on shapes. The landing is full of materials that our minds can use to create all sorts of fantasies and stories. Notice that the sounds here are mechanical, they are symbolic of an industrial reality.

Proceed to the next level, 2.green eye. Green eye is about defining the infinite space inside our mind's eye. This level is also where synesthesia occurs.

From wiki:

"Synesthesia, is a neurological condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway."

"According to Richard Cytowic, sound  color synesthesia, or chromesthesia is "something like fireworks": voice, music, and assorted environmental sounds such as clattering dishes or dog barks trigger color and firework shapes that arise, move around, and then fade when the sound ends."

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia)

So on to the third level, yellow eye. Nino called it "the land of tinker bell." You are now going deeper into the imagination. You will notice green particles, neurons. This level is about passageways and synapses. Messages are constantly being transmitted between our neurons. Yellow eye is "the genesis of our conceptualizations". Here is where we experience reality.

The fourth level too has to do with anatomy as well. Salmon eye gets molecular. As you explore this level, you will see a cell. Nino was surprised that I identified it correctly. I still remember my Biology lessons! :-)

And the fifth level, is one of my favorites, blue eye. From the teleporter, it is a little bit of a drop when you walk forward to get to the teleporter. Riding through this level is the ideal approach, you feel through you're riding through the eye of a storm. There are the intense hot pinks and the icy blue. The pink made me think of flames. This is what Nino calls the "space for exploration." As you go deeper into this level, you might feel like the waves or flames of pink and blue are enveloping you, coming at your face like a veil. The colors tease and intrigue you.

Now the sixth level, orange eye evokes more emotions and feelings. When we dream, the emotions and the body are involved. The rays of orange radiate in an outward direction at first then move inward.

Are you ready for the final level, level 7? Reflection, here we come! By the way, Nino Vichan submitted a piece of work for the UWA Centenary 3d Challege Reflection. His piece was phenomenal.  In this level, this is where thoughts are occurring...the land of thoughts. In Nino's words, it's a "cerebral metropolis." Recurring dreams happen here. "We create this space and become familiar with it, we revisit it. It is a structured environment that resembles structure in the real world. " Reflection has a quieter and more enigmatic tone and sound. A sea of light, reflected light beams. It was a whole new experience for me.

Level 7. reflection, me  riding on the feather tour 2.2 to see this amazing level

Where does REM start?
Nino: REM starts when you put in the CD

Hahaha, Nino made a joke. R.E.M. is a great music band, no?  He loves puns and jokes.

Have you ever had a lucid dream about SL?
Nino: A lucid dream is a dream in which the sleeper is aware the he or she is dreaming
 A dream-initiated lucid dream (DILD). It  starts as a normal dream and the dreamer eventually concludes
that he or she is dreaming. A wake-initiated lucid dream (WILD) occurs when the dreamer goes from
a normal waking state directly into a dream state with no apparent lapse in consciousness.
 Nino Vichan: SL is WILD. When you see my art, you see my lucid dream.

Thanks so much, Nino for a brilliant installation and full sim art installation! If you haven't seen it, you should! It is definitely mind boggling and a treat for your senses.

Here's your limo to LEA 6.

Nino has an installation running at Aneli's Gallery now, Bob and the Box. His new installation is full of puns. His partner, Cayenne Avon, also has one there called "Flowers." Come see it! It'll be there until September.

Have fun and enjoy the art!

Victoria Lenoirre