Have you ever imagined when you saw a beautiful painting how it would be to walk in this scene?
Would you change things? And how would you feel if an imagination like this would come true?
This is your chance!
Just a few months ago a new very talented artist was born in Second Life. Zweet (azee Resident) had this fantasy when she was a child and she made this fantasy real in Second Life. *ZED* is her first project in SL and I really think we will see a lot of this talented Canadian woman in the future. Her goal with *ZED* is to bring art closer to the people.
Zweet: “I wanted to create a mood, ambiance with places for people to be close and chat and have fun, not just cold art to look at.”
And I can tell you, she did reach this goal with glance! You can relax here and have a good time with your friends and lovers and in the meanwhile you actually can learn something! Zweet is very promising:
” If I don’t create something every other day I get bored!”
” I need to to be creative… I always say, to create is to be alive”
“I knew from the start I wanted to learn the tools and experiment myself… I wanted to do something different… not something already existing here.”
” I thought, why not being creative and artistic in the way you present art in SL!”
What does it make different? You really have to look for yourself, but up here you’ll see that art isn’t boring!
There’s a central point where you enter and will come back from time to time. When you enter the first time, you’ll notice you enter in a little ring of flowers and will immediately be surprised with a beautiful gift and useful information. When you look around, at first sight this place looks like a park, but of course there’s much more to see!
For the people who are comfortable with art, you’ll recognise that Zweet was inspired, by great surrealistic artists, like Salvador Dali, René Magritte and Max Ernst. But up here you have the opportunity to see in 3D.
Lovers in Second Life, who read this article, can have here a great romantic time with their lover. There are nice places to dance and enough places to cuddle.
The people who just want to relax can find some peace here thanks to the great environment and the relaxing music.
Of course you can laugh here too. The great tunnel will first surprise you with a well built dragon, but after that you’ll be surprised how long this tunnel is! Beside of that, Zweet has chosen some funny poses in a few scenes. How would you feel to be a part of a painting of Salvador Dali? For the people who aren’t familiar with the paintings that Zweet used in her creations, she putted pictures of the originals close to the scenes. And even when you aren’t familiar, you will recognise the paintings!
Let’s take a closer look to *ZED*
Because this place is so big and you can do a lot, the teleport system is a useful option to explore the homestead, but I advice you to walk around too and be amazed how well everything fits in the environment!
When you walk westwards you’ll find yourself a beach where you can relax in a perfect combination of nature and the surrealistic atmosphere in the paintings of René Magritte.
Don’t forget to peek in the water too!
You can take a tour by boat. I have to admit, I was a bit too impatient and didn’t finish it.
When you go eastward, you’ll be surprised with another beach and a complete different scene. From here you can teleport to a cave, where you really can be a part of a painting of one of the most famous surrealists of the 20th century, Salvador Dali.
After you teleported back to the ground, you’ll find yourself again on the entry point, which gives me a good reason to tell you a little bit about the north, where you can find several scenes of Magritte and Dali. Personally I love some scenes even better than the original paintings.
When you found yourself the scene based on the painting “The Departure of the Winged Ship” of Dali, follow the path, cross the bridge and be amazed by “The Hegel’s Holiday” of Magritte. I was very surprised how well these scenes are combined with each other!
And of course, don’t forget to watch the beautiful underwater scene here too.
If you think, that’s all, you’re wrong. When you go westwards, you’ll see a tunnel, but please look in the sky before you enter…
In the tunnel you’ll find an amazing piece of art. But I advice you to enter the tunnel too and walk through it. This tunnel has some funny visual effects and brings you to a scene based on a beautiful painting of Karen Rose.
But there’s much more here to see, because in the sky are even more scenes you can enter by using the teleport system.
For example the scene based on the art of Max Ernst, which is the latest creation of Zweet at the moment I write this article.
*ZED* exists since about 2 months. It was ready for the public after 2 weeks and within a week it was noticed and listed in the Editor Picks of Second Life.
Zweet, the creator, is very realistic. *ZED* is a good place for her and her visitors. She wants it to keep it open as long as possible, but because it’s very expensive to keep, she doesn’t know how long she can keep this place alive. If you do a little research you can understand the costs are big to keep it open. Not only the homestead, but also the materials.
To reduce the costs she added a few places where you can donate Linden. And if you have a few Linden and you love the place. This might be a good thing to do. It helps to keep *ZED* alive, because it isn’t based on commercial activities.
Zweet is absolutely a talent, although she doesn’t agree with me. I asked her how she learned all this so fast and what her best advice is for new residents of Second Life. (But I think the oldies can use this advice too).
“The best advice to newbies on SL is to have a good friend to show you around… it is a shock the first day you come in SL, the virtual world here is so different… you don’t know what to do, where to go, etc… too much at once. I had a very good friend who has been here for 3 years and he explained many things, showed me places as examples, taught me how to use different tools, etc. Then it ,clicked, I made the connection here, I understood what it meant.Fast learner only because I had a good teacher from day one.”
Zweet creates 95% on *ZED*, she gets some help from a few people, like Shaft Laval, who made some impressive sculpties for her. And in the future you can find more of his art on *ZED*. And also her friend Rikku Talin helped her with a beautiful dance floor.
At this moment busy she’s very busy with organising a very interesting event, which will come up in May 2011. It will be a 3D art contest based in the same spirit as Zweet works. So everybody who can build and like to have a new challenge, keep your eyes open and visit *ZED*!
Although I like *ZED* in almost every day setting, Zweet made sure that even in midnight this place is like a pearl to see.
Her use of glow, lights and colours is very impressive.
If you like to experiment with settings. I have put some of my settings I used on *ZED* to explore this place on the internet. You can download them here for free.
Finally I want to say to you, I hope you will enjoy this place as much as I did.
If you aren’t familiar with surrealism, or it isn’t your taste, *ZED* might can bring you some new perspectives. If you want to know more about this, in the following list of URLs you can find some information.
http://www.surrealist.com/
http://www.surrealism.org/
http://wwar.com/masters/movements/surrealism.html
Of course I’m very curious about your experiences on *ZED*. Please make a comment and write about what you liked or didn’t like there.
TP to *ZED*
Hugs Justum
Maybe you think. What a strange name for a gallery. But the Tornado gallery thanks its name to a real tornado. When it’s tornado time you won’t be safe. The tornado that comes here from time to time is huge, impressive, spits the stuff it has absorbed during its invasion. And then it starts to ruin the gallery. And oh watch out! Sometimes it absorbs avatars too!
Mushroom
The Docks
