Transcending Borders: 6. Yepar, Takni, Misio2, Ronin1, iSkye, Mistero

We have had several new entries in the last week or so for UWA 3D Art & Machinima Challenge: Transcending Borders. It's interesting to see how people use SL as a medium to create objects that may be very simple or very complicated. And how objects can appear similar, but are really quite different in approach. 

Yepar Saenz impressed a lot of people (like me) with last year's carousel entry for the Reflections show. This time Yepar's imagery is more subdued, but also more interactive. We are presented with a large box space with a wall of blocks. When touched, the blocks rearrange themselves into various configurations that represent different icons of location around the world, including the Eiffel Tower, Australian and British flags, a sitting Buddha, a pyramid, and several other identifiable structures. The wall is a symbol of the struggle for national identity. 

Almost immediately on the heels of Yepar's entry came a collaborative installation called "Offworld" by Takni and Misio2. These two have worked together often in the past, but I think this may be the first entry by Misio2 at UWA. Takni is well known for remarkably complex scripted objects that often have an underlying whimsy and humor about them. Offworld has a train station in the UWA gallery that will rez a train (or perhaps a submarine or a surfboard) which takes you up to a platform. If you stay where you land you can watch a fascinating particle show. Move towards the center and a set of blocks appears that will rearrange themselves into lots of interesting shapes, similar to Yepar's idea, but with a more playful set of objects and executed in a very different scripting technique. 

As one of Takni's biggest fans, Misio2 has also submitted an individual entry that is a sort of homage to Takni. It is a large replica of a real life piece of jewelry made of silver, opal, pearl, and a diamond all depicting a scene with a planet, stars, and a rocket ship. It's called "Google Planet Takni."

Ronin1 Shippe had wonderful 2D entries in the recent Freedom Project show. For this show he gives us a sort of twisted stained-glass image of a lute player.

iSkye Silverweb is well known to us at UWA from previous shows. Her entry this time is about how political borders are an illusion and that the elements that make up the earth and its inhabitants are all the same.

Finally, we have a dramatic mesh sculpture by Mistero Hifeng. Of this piece Mistero says: "Sometimes exceeding the limits means to lose oneself. In the image of the man who dissolves into a thousand pieces, there is all the drama of loneliness and desperation of those who can not go back."

  
Entry deadline for Transcending Borders is October 31 and the show is open to all 3D artists.