04 May 2014

Transit't - Imago Anatopism

Opening today, Sunday, May 4 at 1 pm slt at LEA10 is Transit't - Imago Anatopism, an exceptional installation by Alpha Auer in collaboration with Mimesis Monday. It's the third in a triptych of installations at LEA curated by Mimesis (storyteller Heidi Dahlsveen in real life), the first of which was Transit't: Your breath was shed (by visual artist Giovanna Cerise, performance artist SaveMe Oh, and blogger Fjara (Jordan Giant)) and the second of which was Transit't: Taciturnly (by Selavy Oh). The first installation focused on breath, the second on silence, and the third — this new work by Alpha — on personality.

Imago Anatopism tells an adaptation of a Norsk myth (selected by Mimesis, who also drew structure from Joseph Campbell's seminal work The Hero with a Thousand Faces — more reading here if you're interested) in which the central character is Volund, an elf who was probably born on the edge of the world between Midgaard — the home of humans, and Utgaard — the home home of giants. As we follow his story through twelve stations (which you can see in the lowermost image here, far zoomed out) we obtain pieces of his avatar, along with a few accessories (central to the scenes) and poses, so that by the end we have his complete persona. (He's male, but the avatar still works well on a female form, not to worry if that happens to apply to you.) The build itself is a shining gold architectural delight, and the scenes, wrapped in exquisite textures, feature mesh avatars co-created by Alpha and Memisis.

I won't spoil the delight by telling the story in advance, but you're sure to enjoy it. A note on navigation: the build is best explored on foot, at least initially — the walkways aren't at first very evident, so look for the beams of light leading up or down away from the various platforms, and also keep an eye out for the many interactive poses through the installation. Alpha's build is extensive and spans a considerable distance in sky, so I recommend that on arrival you set your draw distance up considerably, and that you also ensure automatic parcel windlight settings are on, because the environmental settings will change as you move from one set of elevations to another. (If you don't have that capacity, the upper areas are in [TOR] SUNRISE - Farmatronic sepia, and the lower ones in [TOR] SCIFI - Albedo 0.39.) Transit't - Imago Anatopism will remain in display through the end of June.

4 comments: