Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting
Meilo Minotaur may be familiar to many SL residents as she and her collaborator CapCat Ragu have been experimental artists and avatar creators for years. Their Meta Body Project launched in 2011 and ended this year. They encouraged interactive creation, providing full avatars that people were encouraged to change and manipulate and create new ones.
Minotaur and Ragu founded an art sim called Delicatessen that has been a go-to site for many Second Life residents. They often exhibit work by other residents as well as their own. I checked in with Minotaur with a few questions:
How would you describe your photo style/aesthetic?
I do not consider myself a photographer and the style does not worry me. I prefer to learn one thing one day — and I have much to learn — to try something else another day and do what I think is best and give me more pleasure at the time.
Where can people see your work inworld and on the internet?
My photos can be seen on Flickr and Meilo Minotaur's Facebook page.
I also have the "Bobbinlace" exhibition in the Metaverso Museum of Craft World, with a series of avatars with this name, which I have been distributing for some time in Second Life.
In Craft World the Sim Delicatessen with the installation "Europe".
In collaboration with CapCat Ragu, I have the Metabody project at the MetaversoMuseum of Craft World and the installation "The Swamp" in Berg by Nordan Art.
The Sim Delicatessen in Second Life is also the responsibility of the two and is currently undergoing reconstruction.
Your use of light and layers is quite bold. Are you using projectors in SL?
Rarely.
How much of your work is in SL and how much is post-processing in Photoshop or other editing software?
The main part of my work is done in Second Life. The focus is on the avatar that I build, which I then photograph to analyze it better and see if there is anything to change. Of course, then I have a lot of fun doing the post-editing.
You explore avatar creation, too. What are your ideas behind your many avatars you have created? I recall a project several years ago giving away many avatars, do you sell or distribute any avatars now?
Usually, the avatars that CapCat Ragu and I do are linked to an installation, are an integral part of it and are offered there. Yes, we are currently offering avatars at the "The Swamp" installation in Berg.by Nordan Art. Metabody's avatars are offered at the Metaverse Museum.
What do you wish people knew about you and your art?
I would like to draw attention to the collaborative nature of the work in which our interest is to originate others, derived from it, whether in photographs or videos, or in modifying the avatars themselves.
We have exposed, several times, in the RL photographs and videos of other artists, derived from our work. The project Metabody had a first phase in which we distributed avatars made by us and a second in which were offered avatars made by others from ours.
What is your favorite of your own photos? Can you describe how you were inspired to create it and what your process was?
I'd like to speak, not of a photograph but an album, "The Dreamers," because it's an example of how we work.
Avatars have been created - characters - photographed (CapCat Ragu is working with me in this) and now the installation will be done.
It will be presented at Berg by Nordan Art, where they will be offered.
Who are your favorite SL photographers/bloggers?
There are very good photographers in SL. It would be difficult for me to name them all, but I wanted to pay tribute to two photographers whom I admired and who have recently passed away: Amona Savira and Podenga.
What brought you to Second Life? What keeps you in Second Life?
What led me to Second Life was the fact that I could have an artistic activity there, different from the one I had for years: ceramic sculpture.
And that's what keeps me there.
How has SL changed your first life?
It changed, because for some years I had abandoned the ceramic, and then I restarted an artistic activity.
It is a new art form with other type of media.
What are you interested in sharing about your RL?
I just want to talk about the group of people who collaborate with me and who are all my family: CapCat Ragu (daughter), the person responsible for the sound Takio Ra (son-in-law) and the voices of the last two installations are of Rita Eustáquio (granddaughter).
Cajsa Lilliehook joined Second Life in 2007 and has been enjoying the art of SL ever since. Disliking the common practice of critiquing poor photos, she decided to highlight good ones and explain why they work in hopes of inspiring with praise instead of criticism. Follow Cajsa on Flickr, on Twitter or on her blog.
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