Somebody... Give this woman a sim-wide show

Desert Rose: Spiral Threads #12, 1,000 prims


Posted by Bettina Tizzy
All photography and machinima by Suzanne Graves

I have an uncle who handily wins the prize for geekiest person in my personal sphere. The man has two interests in life and one of them is math. One Christmas years ago, as we all gathered round the tree for our gift exchange, my uncle showed up with a manila folder. When his turn came around, he explained that he'd spent the past several months creating art using math equations in his spare time and we could each choose one of his art pieces as our gift. This was my first exposure to the concept of fractals, and I've been indebted to him ever since. Oh, I know... it was such a dorky thing to do (and he is a dork!), but the fact remains, I love geek art.

I figure it has been two years now since I first became aware of an ardent explorer and photographer in Second Life by the name of Suzanne Graves. It must be about a year now since she hung up her traveling hat and began playing with scripts and prims. Random rotations, random locations, generative builds, animated textures, and more. Math-inspired art.

I'm here to tell you that this woman hasn't wasted a moment. Since her Slinky piece and Wireflower back in July, 2008 to date, Suzanne has discovered many more new tricks for making prims behave in arrestingly beautiful ways.

And now she is capturing these kinetic forms in her own machinima...


Viewable temporarily - along with two other sculptures by Suzanne - at Ars Simulacra. Teleport directly from here.
Music (c) Bertycox, Album: Synesthetism on jamendo.com

Suzanne calls this sculpture Sphere Balls as a play on words. "The spheres seem to be dancing at the ball," she explained. The piece, which she created quite by accident, consists of three similar sets of black and red spheres containing 200 spheres each that rotate in different directions simultaneously. Each of the three sets are positioned on an invisible/virtual bigger sphere, following a 3D curve on that big sphere.

"The size of each small sphere depends on the curvature of the 3D curve at its location. You may notice that the spheres on the top are smaller. Each "big" set is completed by (and linked to) an invisible prim, which is positioned at the center of the big virtual sphere, and this invisible prim responds to start and stop commands. I could add more commands such as changing the rotation direction, for instance," she added.

"The three sets of 200 spheres are concentric (their invisible prims have the same location), and the set in the middle rotates in an opposite direction relative to the outer and inner sets."

Because Suzanne's work is prim-heavy and script intense, it isn't easily displayed. In fact, I'm often frustrated because I don't know which sim or sandbox she is working in so that I can go and peek. I think it is time someone hosted a sim-wide show of her work. Don't you? Take a look...


Gold Box Sets


Spiral Threads #01


Spiral Threads #06

You can see more of Suzanne's work on her Flickr stream.

Suzanne Graves' exploding art

I'd come to know Suzanne Graves as an avid explorer and photographer, but recently she took up scripting and her art evolved from there.

Here are two examples that she showed me in a sandbox on Saturday.



On her blog she states, "I’ve always been fascinated by 3D math surfaces. You just pick some equation, and see what it produces. Change a parameter or two, and you have something different. I have spent hours and nights with Matlab or Mathematica doing this.

What a nerd.

When I started Second Life, I was expecting to be able to import math surfaces directly using 3D files. I was expecting to be able to build incredibly fun stuff. Then I discovered there were only… prims.

Argh. I don’t want to pile up cubes. But I can write programs which do that."

The one, the only, Sabine Stonebender: Flickr group SL Picture.Pile.Ups gives me a helping hand

Sabine Stonebender is one of the brightest stars - a true original - in Second Life. Yesterday, I had the good fortune to spend fascinating hours with her, as I am preparing to profile her soon. I took the opportunity to snap some pics, but when I reviewed them, my shortcomings as both a photographer and a post-producer glared right back at me. What to do? And then I had a brainstorm... I turned to a very active Flickr group founded by Miabella Foxley that I have been following with growing admiration - SL Picture.Pile.Ups - and submitted this shot.


Sabine's incredible skin in my shot is lost in darkness

The SL Picture.Pile.Ups, which boasts 357 members, explains the process this way in its charter, "Each new pile-up begins with a post in the discussion section. Take that picture and add to it in Photoshop.. maybe some effects? a background?? w/e floats your boat... then repost so another person can take your addition and add to it... get it??"

KadeKlata Karson was the first to come to my rescue to spectacular effect.



Luna Zolnir, whose gorgeous photography has been featured on this blog on more than one occasion, followed suit with her take.



Not long after, Suzanne Graves blew me away with this rendition...



All this happened in less than half a day! What a group! Many thanks for their time and generosity.