Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Gin a Body Meta_Body, Comin' Thro' the Rye...

I followed one of the events links on the login screen, this morning, by way of a change, and logged in at the Meta_Body project in the Porto region.

It's an interesting project, and a weirdly atmospheric place to arrive in; a dark and desolate-looking space, with some traces of dead vegetation, and lots of picture frames hanging in mid-air, some of them empty, but others filled with pictures of strange and outlandish creatures, extreme variations on the human form, some of them even non-human forms....

... and, the thing is, every one of those pictures is a zero-Lindens vendor, containing within it everything you need - shapes, skins, accessories - to turn yourself into the being depicted.

It's one of those interesting art projects which are only possible in Second Life - well, surgical body modification is possible in RL, I  suppose, but it tends to be a bit permanent!  The creators of the Meta_Body project are asking people to think about applying a creative process to themselves, using their own shapes and bodies as a means of artistic expression.

Now, I suppose, to some extent we all do that, don't we?  Anyone who's tweaked their shape or their outfit does it, at least to some degree.... But the Meta_Body thing seems to be about exploring just how far you can go, or are prepared to go, with this.  (If anyone's reading this, they might remember an earlier post of mine, where I intimated that my personal answer to this question is "not actually all that far".  But... this is bodily plasticity in a good, or at least an interesting, cause, I think.)

This is a weird-looking place, and I don't know what my readership-at-very-small will make of it.  I'm not entirely sure what I make of it, for that matter.  Except that I approve.  The creative aspect of SL is what keeps me coming back to it, time after time, and I am glad to see people exploring that creative aspect.  Off-beat arts projects like Meta_Body are a good thing, in my opinion.


I mean, at the very least, it's a chance to pick up some unusual freebies, isn't it?

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