A new machinima from the fertile mind of Lyric Lundquist

I consider it an event whenever Lyric Lundquist publishes a new machinima of hers, and this time is no exception. She had taken a short break from Second Life® - we missed you, Lyric! - but apparently got right back to work making beautiful things the moment she returned.

"I named this video after a quote from one of my favorite books by Chuck Palahniuk - Invisible Monsters," she explained.

"The world," Brandy says, "Is your cradle and your trap. And if you can find any way out of our culture, then that's a trap too. Just wanting to get out of the trap reinforces the trap."

Lyric, who's lush cinematic videos always make me think that MTV is creaky and old by comparison, continued, "I tried to take my time with this machinima instead of totally indulging myself and just going for images that are aesthetically pleasing and meaningful only to me with no obvious story line to an outside viewer. Instead, I kept the images I loved while also attempting to portray a story."

"The surface level story is about a girl trapped in a black and white world, but when she films, she sees a world of color with a darker, more lustrous version of herself. It tempts her to cross over and leave her colorless world behind. In the end though, I try to show that perhaps the key is not trying to find a way 'out of the trap,' by choosing one world over the other. Both worlds have their dangers, and by struggling, it only reinforces that the bonds that hold me down are real," said Lyric.

cradle and trap from lyric_lundquist on Vimeo.

Credits:

• Song is by Saltillo - Backyard pond.
• Locations: Chouchou and a sim being developed by Hern Worsley.
• Clothing and accessories by Cora Lu and her Paper Couture, Triangle Cauldron, the creator of "ghost!," and Bark Aabye's BjD "Hades Horns."
• Animations by Surrealia Anatine
• Lyric also wishes to thank Skills Hak for creating the Emerald Viewer: "It injected my SL with a whole new kind of magic. After playing endlessly with the myriad of settings, it was what originally inspired me to make this lil film."

"SL is killing me" redux - A new video by Lyric Lundquist

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

If machinima is undergoing a Renaissance, and I believe it is, then Lyric Lundquist would be the one who is leading us into new glory days. In just a matter of weeks she has won my admiration and affection for her intellect and blistering narrative power... painting - with her moving images and rhythms - moments that make us vibrate. It is one thing to make art - which she does - and to excite our sense of wonder (check!), but she hones in on what matters to us and frames it so eloquently, that I feel understood by her. I have never spoken with Lyric, but today she brought tears to my eyes.

It hasn't been a week since I blogged "SL is killing me," but response has been high, both in-world and via comments to this blog. Still, nothing could have prepared me for this.

She writes: "it's not that -i- necessarily feel like i've hit a wall, but some of my closest friends in SL recently have (maybe you know who you are?). so it was more about me acting out what they might be feeling, and how it saddens me when people that i connect with go "awol" because of SL burnout."

Hit the HQ button!


credits::
sim >> poetik velvets [particles in bryn oh's exhibition by colemarie soliel, sim build by hern worsley, steam room by jojoruno runo, flickering box by selavy oh, poetik idea by nur moo and juju dollinger.]
avatars >> lyric lundquist and story takakura
song >> yonderboi - before you snap

7:30pm Update: While I try to read New World Notes every day, I somehow missed Hamlet Au's full blown "Mixed Reality Profile" and interview with Lyric.

How can we explain what you are missing?

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

Avatars often grapple with how to demonstrate what it is that appeals to us so much about art, architecture and fashion in Second Life®, to people who will not or cannot log in. It's a dilemma akin to sharing a new color or flavor, because the immersive qualities of the 3D experience cannot be conveyed in words or even via film, given its flatness. So we take photographs. We create machinima. And we talk and talk and blog and twitter. Still, you are left out until you decide to take the plunge and devote sufficient time to learn how to move your camera and your avatar around.

I recently spent a pleasant hour chatting with a journalist about my own appraisal of content creation in virtual worlds, and while I'm an evangelist and like to think myself persuasive, I was unable to secure his interest in joining me to have a look with his own eyes. Still, we'll keep trying, and experienced early adopters that we are (remember when we tried to tell you about something called the Internet?), we know we will win in the end.

In the meantime, despite its 2 dimensional limitations, we'll blog about the experience with you however we can, sharing machinima like this stunner by artist Lyric Lundquist...

Be sure to click the HD button for higher quality transmission


... or Sepp Schimmer's inaugural video, featuring Bryn Oh's Immersiva and GutterBlood Spoonhammer's Error sims.*

Be sure to click the HD button for higher quality transmission


* A sim is a simulator and virtual region hosted by a single server CPU. You real-life folks call it an "island."

Hasta la vista...