I’m an unabashed Rebeca Bashly fan. I have been for a goodly while, and still think her 2011 interpretation of Dante’s Inferno was an inspired installation (you can still visit it at UTSA Artspace and see for yourself). Similarly, The Tower from December 2012 was an equally fascinating study.
This month she is back at the LEA with another towering (literally – Rebeca does like the vertical medium in SL!) full sim installation entitled Colour Key, which opened on Monday October 7th. Quite how to describe this piece (other than “big”) isn’t easy. The artist herself has very little to say on possible interpretations and meanings, stating only that Colour Key is “all about human nature, breaking your spine to find answers that are under your nose. Explore and discuss, this is a joy to me”
Like The Tower before it, one travels through a tower-like structure passing scenes and images along the way. However, rather than travelling bottom-to-top as with The Tower, this installation takes you from the top down; and whereas The Tower was deeply evocative in the images and scenes presented, Colour Key is more enigmatic. There is a common motif running through the build – that of the key (hence the title) – but the key to what? That’s for the observer to decide; and one’s ideas and views tend to be challenged as one passes through each scene.
This is also a dark build; not in the sense that it is sad or macabre or suggestive of suffering or evil or anything like that. It is literally dark, so much so that if you run with shadows enabled, you may actually want to set them to None (no need to disable ALM, though, unless you’re finding the scenes particularly dark). There are passageways and stairways to walk and climb as you travel down from the top of the tower, and if you’re not careful you’ll risk disorientation trying to make your way through the build with shadows active (particularly after you’ve sat on the box as instructed).
Scale is another feature of the piece. Parts of it are simply huge – such as the gigantic meat grinder poised menacingly over the first part of your journey and through which you must apparently drop. Keep an eye out for a key at each stage of your journey, it provides your only means of moving through the various scenes until you reach the ground.
This is an installation which needs to be explored and experienced rather than simply blogged about. It’ll be available through until the end of October, and a visit is recommended.
Related Links
- Colour Key SLurl (Rated: Moderate)
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 
The “walk” was especially intriguing. I could not stop laughing at the sheer fun of it. So much fun to play with windlight settings as well.
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