The Aesthete & The Amateur review the art of Moondrift Tomorrow
“Saying a Lot with a Little” reviews the work of Moondrift Tomorrow at Art Gallery Route 7 in Second Life®.
First seen months ago, Eleanor Medier could not forget the work of Moondrift Tomorrow. Iconic and simple, highly original, their graphic strength spoke to her of powerful symbolism. She knew her partner and collaborator, Heavy Writer, would have a lot to say about these mysteriously organic works, and she was not disappointed.
As they arrive at the gallery, Heavy is already distracted by the dozens of artists showing there. This time, she does not let him wander freely, but teleports him to the top floor in the corner, to discover these sparkling examples of unique but universal language. (See “Symbolic Extremes,” that is the introduction to this critique.)
Eleanor (is puffed up with the enthusiasm of discovery, and hopes to please the increasingly critical Heavy): “Moondrift Tomorrow’s works are iconographic in their simplicity and basic materials. I do look for artists that use methods we all know, but in new ways. I admit to a prejudice towards those who can do a lot with a little.”
Heavy: “Are these humans or aliens?”
Eleanor: “Hmmm— good question. They seem like humans trapped in situations. But they could be aliens. Might that imply a universal unity?? Are these ‘aliens’ doing things that humans would not??” This one called ‘Spherical 03’ may express that we each have our own journey, but that all the journeys fit together. We live in individual, yet similar, perceptual bubbles. It implies an interrelated structure. One of the dark circles escapes. It is either going into or out of the structure, but it mixes with the capsule circles containing people. Not all the light shapes have people in them.”
Heavy: “Probably those are eggs who were not inseminated yet. It is next to be fertilized. lol”
Eleanor: “Ohhh— so you see a reproductive process? That the dark shapes become populated and then turn into the white shapes? Maybe it is the other way around? Could it be birth versus death? One can interpret the dark shapes as dead.”
Heavy: “To be honest I can’t think of anything else but aliens and fertility procedures. What about you?”
Eleanor: “What about social structures? Many imply a greater force controlling these processes. And if you only see reproduction going on, how does the one with the clouds fit—‘Spherical 11’? Such a limited explanation does not fit many of these. But isolation fits, like these people on the clouds drawn like islands, and each person is on a different one.”
Heavy: “Ohhh, clouds? And I thought this is popcorn and they are watching a movie— hahaha.”
Eleanor: “Hehehe—little microscopic creatures on our popcorn?? Rather, it is about being individual and brave—to step out of the status quo.”
Heavy: “Look at ‘Spherical 10.’ See some people don’t have room to sit on the spheres. The series ends up optimistic because mankind will colonize space. Look, here there are no people left aside. All have a place to live.”
Eleanor: “Mankind will always be inventive— always have individuals. The white shapes have individuals in them. The dark shapes are in groups. The artist seems to set up rules—rules of behavior, or categories of people, or even universal laws.”
Heavy: “‘Spherical 10 is more realistic.’ Your favorite piece shows we have many options to chose from. Mine shows we don’t have that many.”
Eleanor: “But it clearly shows three levels of society.”
Heavy: “It shows people who will be sacrificed for the survival of the species.”
Eleanor: “One guy is really lucky, or maybe he is the boss. In this row of people on the bottom, there are five spaces. And then there are five people on the circles. Did they come from the masses and achieve their new positions?”
Heavy: “Of course those sacrificed are just numbers in statistics that nobody cares about. Collateral damage.”
Eleanor: “Here we find no death, per se. All these figures are in good shape. There is no variation between them, only position. These have some political qualities— the elite to the masses.”
Heavy: “Politicians are just stage puppets. The masterminds are not on public view.”
Eleanor: “Well, this places scientists and explorers as the elite.”
Heavy: “The white spheres are new homes.”
Eleanor: “Or the white bubbles are protection, as if to say: ‘to go it alone, be prepared.’ There is ambiguity between molecular and macroscopic.”
Heavy: “By the way, a couple days ago the news said scientists discovered liquid water on Mars, and where there is liquid water, there might be life. So this series comes out at the right time. I have no doubts there must be life in other parts of universe, not just on Earth.”
Eleanor: “There better be! If we are all there is, how sad is that??”
Heavy: “It is not sad to have an entire universe to play with!”
Eleanor: “It is much more boring if we are alone.”
Heavy: “Well, more people, more trouble. More civilizations, even more trouble. We are a rudimentary and barbaric civilization. If people can’t get along on earth, what makes you think they can get along with aliens?!?”
Eleanor: “Maybe we can learn to get along from aliens!”
Heavy: “We dream to colonize space like we colonized Africa, Australia, and America. To explore is also about the human need to find out more. We have hopes of new planets where we can live and make a better life than the one we have now on earth.”
Eleanor: “Sure there is that hope …”
Heavy: “People are foolish enough to hope things will get better.”
Eleanor: “… because once we totally pollute earth, we need somewhere else to go. We have no restraint as a species. Maybe the better question is: do aliens even want us out there? Maybe they planted us here to get rid of us—like prisoners were left in Australia a few hundred years ago?”
Heavy: “Until we will be able to terraform and travel to space at a decent speed, we should focus on Earth’s problems and solve them.”
Eleanor: “Yeah. That is not in our nature, which is to slash and burn—use it up and move on. Selfish little creatures!”
Heavy ponders: “Issues of birth control and ecology. The planet has plenty of resources, we just don’t have the tech to exploit them yet.”
Eleanor: “But once we do, we use it up and, oh well, time to leave. If I were the aliens, I would take the space ships away from us! I wonder how optimistic these images are. There is the strong current of yin and yang in these, contrasting light and dark shapes.”
Heavy: “My high school physics teacher told me that the resources people exploit from the planet are similar to what a fly takes from a cake when sitting on it.”
Eleanor: “The fly doesn’t destroy the cake, does it?”
Heavy: “She eats the cake.”
Eleanor: “One fly can’t eat a whole cake, dear.”
Heavy: “But the amount of cake she eats is very tiny—same with planet resources. People have just scratched the surface.”
Eleanor: “We have the power to use up resources— look how Europe cut down forests. Look how Easter Island lost all of its trees— tho scientists now think the rats did it, not the people. The rats came on ships and ate all the acorns. So what is this artist saying about the quality of life?? Or human nature? Or both?”
Heavy: “He is not saying anything about quality of life. Rather, it tells about technological progress. Earth is still a good place to live— compared with other places we know for now. Earth gets to be too small for us because we breed like rabbits!”
Eleanor: “One could say that, due to our nature, we have no choice but to seek alternatives. I don’t think we can learn restraint due to our inherent greed and short-term thinking— am I pessimistic? We always turn to science to solve the messes we make, and it usually works.”
Heavy: “Alternatives are here on earth for now; they are in-hand and easy to apply.”
Eleanor: “But we don’t do it, dear— we experience the same resource lessons over and over again. Along with the idea of the ‘have’ and ‘have-nots.’ The ‘haves’ feel good about themselves when they can point to the ‘have-nots’ who have less.”
Heavy: “The ‘have-nots’ will always be a majority. Someday the ‘have-nots’ will come up with a different system. It happened once already with communism. The problems of the world won’t be ignored forever.”
Eleanor: “I could make a case in these works that the human figure is the brave individual standing away from the rest. These are strong in that ambiguity of perspective from biological to astronomical. When they lose that ambiguity, they lose their strength.”
Also, enjoy the other reviews in the series that follows this unlikely pair in their aesthetic adventures. It continues with “Emotional Enigma,” a critique Talullah Winterwolf’s collages.
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