The Hall of Wonders; wherein Escher meets Hogwarts

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

I love roaming the sandboxes, watching people's imaginations materialize into three-dimensional objects and places that can be shared with others. Yesterday, I discovered an intriguing work-in-progress that holds much promise for virtual world newbies.

"I grew up with books of Escher all around, as my brother was into him. The first picture I drew with shading was an Escher-like image of a well, so when I thought of what kind of space I could introduce to Second Life® to make people want to explore in different ways, the first thing I thought of was Escher."

So said Second Life resident and 3D artist Colin Fizgig who's been busy at the IBM sandbox (teleport directly from here), building the Hall of Wonders, a highly unusual edifice that will later be used as an IBM learning site. Perspective is at play here, as Colin is introducing unusual vanishing points and forcing us to reconsider what is "up," and what is "down."


The main building brings the tricky stairs at Hogwarts to mind

"The effect I'm going for is a seamless transition from a narrow tower on a cliff, to going through the front door and being in a small room... then going into a huge hall and going down instead of up. Sort of warp their idea of space," explained Colin when I spoke with him this morning.


The Tower is still under construction in the sandbox

The exterior of the building is angular, with numerous front doors. "It is designed to make people uncomfortable in normal WASD movement, so they learn to do camming (use their camera), teleports, and just explore by clicking," added Colin.



Visitors to the Hall of Wonders will be gifted with a HUD that will hint at the building's story lines and what happens to the characters there, including the inventor, the guard and his girlfriend.


The HUD visitors will wear, featured here with the image of the "inventor" (actually Colin's avatar). Photo provided by Colin Fizgig (click to see large)

I'll post the slurl once the Hall of Wonders has been completed and installed at its destination point.

Escher coming out of the pixelworks!

Yesterday, I told you about Furia Freeloader's Escher Relativity House, and this morning, I discovered a comment to that post from none other than Torley, alerting me to this (teleport directly from here). Per Torley, "It used to be in Uli, then I recall it moving to Serenite."


Photo by the inimitable Torley Linden

Keith Extraordinaire (rez: 7/8/2004) built it in July of 2004, which also happens to be the same month he rezzed!

I attempted to contact Keith, but he was not in-world. I had to smile when I read his profile, though: "I love to build and love to explore what folks have made in SL. There is nothing like walking through another’s creativity, and for me that is what SL is about. One of the things I enjoy most is getting totally lost in another’s imaginative dream."

I guess when you've been in Second Life almost four years, you give up trying to showcase your highlights in your profile picks. Instead, this generous man focuses on pointing others to the work of people he admires, including Lumiere Noir's Ivory Tower of Primitives (teleport directly from here).
Update: Ah... IMs can be so distracting! I got so caught up in them that I completely missed an onsite notecard giver that offered me this, by Keith Extraordinaire himself:

"SL Date 7/4/2004 A noob is born into SL with wide eyed amazement at all he sees.

Week one he discovers the Cordova sandbox and starts to play. I had MC Escher on my mind and so what better project than to try and replicate his 'Relativity' in 3D. (Why I always pick ambitious projects to learn from is beyond me.)

I started on one wall, baby steps lol... At this time I didn't know about shift and drag copying, nor that one could sit down to avoid push guns in the sandbox, but I dredged on and soon one wall section was done.

About this time I found a beginners building class so I went hoping to find some tips. In attendance were two others, now SL landmarks in themselves... a guy in a funny Spy vs Spy avatar, none other than Lumiere Noir and an odd looking blue fellow, junk collector extraordinaire YadNi Monde (pity that poor teacher!)

After class, Lumi invited us over to see his little pet project still under construction, The Ivory Tower. He was still building it and adding the tutorials but what he had done I devoured and quickly ran back to the sandbox with my new knowledge.

Soon my first build was done, MC Escher's Relativity in Prims, same as it stands before you today. I could go in and trim a few prims here and there, get rid on the flicker, but eh, It's my bit of SL history, so I leave it be and remember those early days being shot out of Cordova and faceplanting two sims away.

The build has moved with me as I have moved in SL and now lives on my island sim, Serenite.

KX"

Doncha love Second Life and the people who make it this incredible?

A house and a home Escher would have been proud of

Furia Freeloader (rez: 12/8/2005) built the Escher Relativity House in Second Life one year ago, and I am only just hearing about it, thanks to a wonderful notecard from Voodoo Shilton. Voodoo, thank you!


An in-world recreation of M.C. Escher's Relativity House, but instead of figures, you will find poseballs so that you, too, can become part of each specific gravity well

When you visit it, you can pick up a free copy of Furia's book (teleport directly from here).

As Furia explains it, "This house was created as a statement of what is possible when you free your mind from real life constraints. Aside from being a three-dimensional rendition of Escher's famed work, 'Relativity,' this house is a fully functional, livable, interactive home."


The original Relativity House, where the normal laws of gravity do not apply

In her book, she goes on to say,"The work by Escher shows figures oriented with three different directions of gravity. Rather than changing the direction of gravity in the house, however, I chose to let the house itself rotate. The result is a house that is, in essence really, three houses in one."

"Each of the poses in the work by Escher was recreated with color coded poseballs, corresponding to the different directions of gravity. The rotation of the house is achieved using a single control prim, a cube with color coded sides. Every aspect of the house is controlled by this cute, from rotation, to home security/privacy, to even storing and rezzing the home. Furnishings are also scripted and will rotate with the orientation of the house."



Nowadays, Furia works full time in Second Life as a builder. She scripts, animates, builds, textures and sculpts "just about anything anyone wants," including skins. Her biggest store is on the Planet of Taris: Furious Star Wars Avatars (teleport directly from here.)

All photographs taken in Second Life by Furia Freeloader

Navigating impossible objects via Echochrome

Just learned that M. C. Escher was not the father of impossible objects. Rather, it was Oscar Reutersvärd who was the first to create the impossible triangle upon which our group logo by Seifert Surface is based.

Speaking of impossible objects... Sony's downloadable Echochrome for PS3 looks rather fun.