LEA6 Review of Rebecca Bashly's Colour Key by Victoria Lenoirre

Hello, hello all you art lovers and art creators! I just wanted to share with you all my impressions about this months LEA Full Sim, Colour Key by Rebeca Bashly!


The landing pad is a long, wide wooden platform that is over 300m above the ground, so don't look down! You'll need to step up the ramp to get to the next platform. This is the meat grinder. From the next platform, you just have to jump onto an old, iron key.

Me on the landing pad

Instead of landing on a platform on the same level, I found myself plummeting to a lower level. It just happened so fast. Then I'm in an open room and I see two statues. Rebecca is renown for her human figures. She just knows how to depict the human body in a beautiful (in a dark, unconventional sense), intriguing way.

Some meters away from the statues is another iron key. This one will teleport you further down. Another indication that you are going down is that the keys are pointing downwards.

Then you should see box on a round base. You have to sit on the box and start walking. You'll walk past a light bulb on a pole. Where's the lamp shade? You walk on. Up a few steps you will climb. Notice anything unusual as you climb? The steps lead up to a narrow doorway. Through the doorway you are led to more stairs. Continue walking and you come to a room with a checkered floor and what looks like a clay medusa head. The lips and the skin around the eyes is red. The hair looks like hair instead of snakes but the style of her hair just seemed reminiscent of the gorgon Medusa from ancient Greek mythology.

The next key will take you down to another room where you see four figures carrying large keys on their back or dragging it behind them by a chain. One large key lies in front of them. The cracked marble floor contrasts with the rustiness of the keys. Their skin matches the floor, a sort of beige or yellowish white. Beyond the large key that lies on its side is a brass keyhole. Click it to teleport.

You teleport to a ledge and you walk forward and enter a room of red. I saw 2 figures. One seemed to be huddled on the floor in agony. The other was standing and facing the wall. Rebecca's figures depict pain and suffering. These are universal truths of life. Her art depicts the harshness and agony of living. Her art has a poignant quality to it. She captures the darkness and depression while also conveying the beauty of the human form in its straight lines and gentle curves.

To leave this room, you must go past the standing figure and into a passage of gray stone. It is such a contrast to the red! After you find the key and teleport down you find yourself in a room flooded with dirty water. Rebeca tells me that this is the uterus. Bleeding hearts branches hang from the ceiling and from the two female figures on pedestals. I get the sense that they are like martyrs that we worship, if the pedestals are any indication of that. And when you walk to the back of the room you find two urinals.

The uterus

Once you teleport out by sitting on a urinal, you are brought to a large pile of rusted keys over the water. This looks like the end of  the line.

Did you have questions about this sim? I sure did. So below are my questions for Rebeca Bashly.

In one room there is this head. It looks like Medusa. Who is she? What does she symbolize? I notice that after an avatar sits on that box, it changes how the avatar walks, especially on the stairs. What does that signify? In one room there is this head. It looks like Medusa. Who is she? What does she symbolize?

RB: The third scene in the installation is the house with  3 exactly the same rooms placed in upward trajectory but rotated.First is normal,second is rotated by 90C and third by 180C. The sculpture around which this scene evolves is "The Queen", a female head on a  stand with her hair resembling tree branches and white eyes. It represents how we often in life make the same moves and expect different results,which is not likely to happen...but what if we force a different point of view? Therefore the visitors are given wall walkers to explore this level.

For awhile, the work lacks color and then all of a sudden there is that room of bright red. What does that mean?

RB: Well if you look at complete structure you will see that red scene is positioned where heart should be.

What is the purpose or purposes of the key?

RB: The key is the knowledge, a way, a tool to get what we want, be it object of desire, understanding of a situation, an answer to a puzzle...

Come and see this fantastical work of art at LEA6!

Have fun and enjoy the art!

Victoria Lenoirre