The Aesthete and the Amateur reviews Cica Ghost

by Eleanor Medier, edited by Heavy Writer

Review of 3D immersive installation for The Linden Endowment for the Arts by an unlikely fictitious couple—a professional art critic and her wise fool truck-driver husband.

(Please see the in-world release or download Sim Street Journal #3 for more photographs, articles, and functionality. Also available on MARKETPLACE).
———————CONTINUED FROM PART 2——————————————————————————–

For a guy struggling to understand abstraction, Eleanor didn’t want to push Heavy too hard all at once [please read “Arguing Abstraction”]. He even deserves a reward for patience, so the next assignment should satisfy his thirst for literal stories. Continuing to show him SL’s strength in immersive sculptural environments, she takes Heavy to see Cica Ghost‘s ‘Rust.’

Heavy: “Here is a lot of stuff and movement. For a nature lover, this is a dark place to be. Does this fit the trend called ‘Steampunk?’ What does that mean? These weird machines are not very advanced.”

Eleanor: “It hearkens back to the 1890’s technology—deliberately mechanical—gears, steam power, things bolted together, and rusty. This piece is even called “Rust.” Question: is this place greater than the sum of its parts?”

Heavy: “Each part is imaginative and adds to the entire setup. The builds are skillful and detailed. But I won’t notice if tomorrow, one piece will be missing. Yet, the entire setup tells a story that almost each piece can tell. But the whole thing gives a greater impact.”

Eleanor: “It has a spooky quality.”

Heavy: “Overwhelming, even. This must be where the crazy Einstein, that built all these machines, keeps his spare parts.”

Eleanor: “This has the quality of being created with ‘found objects’—like Louise Nevelson, he creates images out of items that were part of something else before—like gears turned into flowers.”

Heavy: “The elephants—don’t look alive. I bet they have wheels inside, not flesh and blood. All living creatures have been destroyed by pollution and bad environmental management. And those left tried to recreate what they lost forever, but they just made Frankensteins—poor replicas.”

Eleanor: “So who built it?”

Heavy: “These machines were supposed to make a better living for humans, but instead made it worst. I miss the green forest and the smell of flowers.”

Eleanor: “Nothing is alive. Even the flowers are mechanized. There are empty chairs around. Having no color makes this place feel sad, lonely, empty.”

Heavy: “The machines took over and they are like perpetual motion. They can’t be stopped now.”

Eleanor: “The past takes over the future.”

Heavy: “Every living thing, if any left, will be extinct. There’s a spider chained to a cart he was supposed to pull. The huge eggs chained in cages show that they are not sure what might pop out from them. Someone tried to save this world, but all went so wrong. There is no hope left. They need a miracle. With all their technological skills, they can’t recreate anything that nature once created. Still with sound effects on you can hear some crickets.”

Heavy: “It looks like someone may still live here and went out to do maintenance. The house is rusty metal and cold like a jail cell. This here might be a security device—a big eye and guns.”

Eleanor: “This house? Weird—a TV with no signal, like after humans are extinct. Everything inside has a human scale; everything outside is too large.”

Heavy: “Oh look—I have found art! Framed drawings of living things—they don`t even remember these.”

Eleanor: “Much of the movement of the machines is futile—one transforms

cubes into spheres and then transforms spheres back into cubes, over and over again.”

Heavy: “Soon it will break down and will all deteriorate with time. Nothing is shiny. Maybe those mechanical flowers will survive. They are all over the place and looks like they are doing fine. They are more than just decorative.”

Eleanor: “This place has great mystery. If you are looking for a story—this place seems to have one, or two, or three!! Someone made a bad approximation of life, like a bad translation using incomplete information.”

Heavy: “Still after a couple hours here I need to see grass and light. We should be wearing a gas mask.”

Eleanor: “It does feel like we can’t breathe. We would fit in here more with gas masks!”

Heavy: “Here is a framed drawing of normal flowers—a memory of what once was—relic of the past.”

Eleanor: “I found one of a person—like a stick figure.”

Heavy grins with a gleam in his eye: “There is a bed here. Maybe if we make love we can birth something good to resurrect this world. Just one man and one woman can populate a planet.”

Eleanor: “This place feels kind of creepy to make love here. I would be afraid to get bit by a mechanical spider.”

Heavy: “It doesn’t look like this can be saved anyway. What would you eat? Metal and rust? I think in the end, they gave up and moved to another planet. Hopefully they learned something.”

Eleanor: “Maybe it can’t be saved, but someone put in a lot of effort. I feel sorry for them.”

Heavy: “If there are still humans around there are not enough left to maintain all these machines. On this artist we both agree. :)”

Eleanor: “Yes, we do agree here.”

••••••••••••••••••••••••••CONTINUED IN PART 4

This series has continued from the previous issue as Eleanor and Heavy continue to make their way through the virtual cultural landscape.

From Sim Street Journal: Issue #3  • Please click here to see contents.

Published monthly in complimentary versions: in-world and online.

(Please see the in-world release or download Sim Street Journal #3 for more photographs, articles, and functionality. Also available on MARKETPLACE).

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© 2014 by Eleanor Medier, Sim Street Journal. Articles cannot be reprinted without permission.