Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting
ATZ Tribute Group is a Second Life performance team that pays tribute to the KPop group ATEEZ. I think it’s cool how Halloween has become a sort of global holiday, at least in Second Life. Anything for an excuse to wear a costume, right? Since today is Halloween, it seems best to take a tour of residents in their costumes.
For more costumery, click here:
Gwyndoleen and her friend Saffire in the picture “In the Witching Hour.” demonstrate the essential quality of a first-class witch: an excellent manicure.
Adore La Femme, who was featured last year in an article highlighting the SL Drag Community, gives us classic Halloween glamhorrour with a vampiric vamp in a mortal embrace. Will her handsome conquest be reanimated with a transfusion? We don’t know, the story is open-ended.
Scarlett Saphira’s “Horror Night” features a terrifying family portrait. I bet I am not the only one who thinks the scariest element in the picture is the doll. That particular doll is one of the scariest which is why I don’t think it’s the Uncanny Valley that creeps us out. That doll kind of reminds me of this one from the British Museum and dates back to sometime between the 1st and 5th century Egypt. I am sure one could make a scary movie with that doll.
Dicky Jackman’s “Ghostface Sara” reveals a truth that is often ignored in the quest for ghoulishness on Halloween. Sometimes horror is beautiful and sometimes beauty is horrifying. I love this picture for being such an original expression of how we scare ourselves.
Susann DeCuir made me laugh with “Did I already say that I don’t like clowns?” This is just one of several pictures she took of Boogeyman’s Halloween and wrote about in her blog. (I featured her blog back in March.)
Lady Mercury gave us this gorgeous red temptress. What a stunning costume. And we have a new answer to the age-old riddle, what’s black and white and read all over?
Zarah Boom Dawes effectively creates a scene of horror. Humans are so much scarier than monsters.
Why do we like to be frightened? If you google it, you will get as many answers as there are sources. They say being scared releases small amounts of adrenaline and epinephrine that makes us feel a little high. Then they say we get an endorphins and dopamine rush that make us feel a little high. They say we like to have the feeling of a narrow escape.
Others say it’s cathartic. Another says horror movies are good for making your date sit closer and the fear response can mimic arousal. Or is it that we feel self-satisfied and even a little bit smug being perfectly safe in a scary situation. Others suggest that we are curious about the forbidden arts. This one that says getting scared is good for us.
But we’re not alone in our desire to be scared. Chimpanzees also like to “satiate their horror” as Darwin put it. And so Scientific American argues that “Morbid curiosity is a powerful way for animals to gain information about the most dangerous things in their environment. It also gives them an opportunity to practice dealing with scary experiences.” See, being scared is good for you.
For whatever the reason, we like to be scared out of our ever-loving minds at least once a year. There are more great pics from Halloween in my faves or in the slideshow below.
See all of Cajsa's Choices here. Follow Cajsa on Flickr, on Twitter, on her blog, and on her Ko-Fi.
All images copyright the various artists
Suggest images and Flickr feeds to Cajsa: Cajsa’s Choices is devoted to unique, artistic, and innovative virtual world-based images and screenshots that showcase the medium as an art form and Second Life as a creative platform. (Generally not images that fit on this Bingo card.) To recommend the best in virtual world imagery, tag the picture with #CasjaNWN or tag Cajsa Lilliehook by adding her to the photo.
Cajsa Lilliehook is a sixteen year resident of Second Life, where she owned a photo studio, spent several years as a DJ at The Velvet, and for her first SL job, cleaned up prim trash. She co-founded and runs the It’s Only Fashion blog with her best friend Gidge Uriza. She also has a book review blog, Tonstant Weader Reviews and a cooking blog, Single Serving Recipes. She spends a lot of time researching and reporting on Republican sexual predators. In her first life, she is a retired grassroots leader who has worked for economic and social justice issues most of her life. She is also the minion of a cat named Nora.
Thank you very much, I feel very honored. A great article on the topic of Halloween.
Posted by: Susann DeCuir | Tuesday, October 31, 2023 at 02:52 PM