The Syncretic Sense
YPAC worked with Elif Ayiter, a Turkish designer, who introduced us to the virtual world of Second Life. Second Life is a virtual online world which can completely be designed, edited an created. Thus making it a powerful and highly interactive art space. In Second Life Elif Ayiter becomes her celebrity avatar Alpha Auer. Ayiter also works intensively, editing and sculpting, her virtual island in Second Life called Syncretia, a magnificent, inspirational and constantly changing place. Our YPAC project was to create our own avatars, who could in turn make their own works of art within a specific contained space on Syncretia. This project was called The Syncretic Sense.
Getting to grips with the editing tools in Second Life was a challenge in itself, we found it difficult to make a piece of art as absolute beginners. Elif Ayiter kindly offered us help and advice to get us started and I (Kebar Forster) found talking to the other avatars very helpful too.
I was very inspired when creating my avatar, thankfully we were allowed to use objects created by others and edit them to our preferences. Every item has a creator and will always be linked to the initial maker. I decided to make my avatar nasty and sickly creature.
This project introduced me to a world which I did not know existed. I can honestly say I haven't been back to Second Life in a while but just writing this makes me want to return, to explore as my avatar and see how this world has changed.
