Nakedness
reveals itself. Nudity is placed on display.... The nude is condemned to never
being naked. Nudity is a form of dress.
John
Berger
Recently, I
received a notice from Fanny
Vermont, a friend in Second Life (SL), about an exhibition she was
having inworld of her work.
Fanny and I
go back to my days when I was wandering around !Naked!
working on my stories about nudist resorts in SL. (Don’t roll your eyes with me, these are the
stories
that bring you back! Admit it!)
Needless to
say, Fanny is comfortable wandering around SL nude.
Fanny is
also a photographer and the exhibit she invited me to combines both her
interests.
Her exhibit,
entitled It Might Get Nude is a collection
of nude self-portraits.
Always being
interested in the arts inworld (I ignore Significant Other’s comment about
especially when everyone is nude while rejoining with who suggested I go about
nude inworld in the first place!)
I schedule
an interview with Fanny to discuss her work and the exhibit.
Our plan is
to meet at her apartment and then proceed to the gallery hosting her exhibit.
(For the
record, we’re both dressed! And if you
plan on visiting the exhibit, please dress.
It’s required!)
A little
about Fanny before we proceed onto her work.
Fanny’s
first foray began with role play on a Gorean
sim
inworld.
While there
she met a friend who introduced her to getting by in SL.
However, after a couple of
months she felt “locked” there. It was a
very closed society and they did not like people to be elsewhere than on the Gorean
sim when they were online.
And so, sooner than later, Fanny
left to explore the Grid.
Fanny laughs as she tells me
how she stumbled into a porn movie circle in her incarnation inworld.
She explains that there were
some nice and interesting people among the crew but she did not play in one of
their movies except for one time as a dancer in the background.
In addition, there was a
relationship which ended badly and Fanny finally ran away from SL to have a
break.
(Trust me, SL can be as hard
on relationships as RL can ever be!)
But after a couple of months Fanny
felt the urge to come back again.
She was curious to see more of
SL.
And Fanny decided to restart
with a new avatar.
With a flourish she points to
herself and says, "And voila, it's me."
(For the record, Fanny has
done a great job with her new avatar whether dressed or undressed!)
Fanny doesn’t know why, but it
turned out that she once again started in the "sex corners" of SL.
(No snide comments about
that’s all there are inworld! Read some
of my other stories and you’ll see!)
Fanny continues saying It didn’t last too long
before she met a guy who then showed her the !Naked! sims.
Fanny moves on from her life
inworld to begin to talk about her exhibit.
Fanny is interested in
photography in Real Life (RL) as well and also likes nude photography.
For her, it's always a bit
like "back to the roots." Roots in the meaning of that we are not
born with clothes.
Her RL experience with nude
photography is pretty much finished as Fanny explains it's not easy to find
models or, well, models who would do it for fun as opposed to cash.
The name of the exhibit, she
explains, is based on the name of the RL documentary movie It
Might Get Loud.
A nice understatement right in
the beginning of a conversation among three guitar players of well known bands
gives the title, and yes, it gets loud, Fanny laughingly tells me.
And, as the exhibit might get
nude, well, you know the rest!
Fanny takes a step back and
begins to tell me about her creative process for her exhibit.
Fanny had an opportunity to do
her work at the Medici
Virtual University where she first thought she would use the
small space for a gallery of her “stuff.”
But it didn’t take long before
she thought to herself, "And what exactly do you have worth to be shown in
a gallery?"
This is when her creative
motor seems having gotten the kick it needed to get started.
I ask what motivated this “kick?”
Fanny replies that it was
motivated by building, or as she corrects herself, her way of building.
Fanny explains that she is
picky with things, working on details, etc.
I mention that all her models
are women and she laughs while replying that she hopes so because they’re all
her!
Next, I ask why there are no men
or other women in her photographs?
Fanny’s main reason (if not
the only one) is that she creates her own poses to get her hands and feet where
she wants them to be and she means exactly where she wants them to be. (She did say that she was picky!)
Continuing, she says that when
she plays the same pose/animation on different avatars wearing different shapes
you will notice that a pose/animation only looks perfect on the shape it was
made for.
I note that Fanny’s work is
sensual and erotic while being artistic instead of hardcore, and ask if this is
another deliberate choice on her part.
Her reply is that she does
have some hard core images too, but have not shown them in public and she says
that they don't lack art either but there are lots of hard core images
available already and the circle to show them in public gets smaller.
She wouldn’t be able to show
them in public other than at adult rated places.
I ask which photograph in the
exhibit is her favorite.
Fanny replies that “THE” piece
is hard to say but she still likes About
Snails and Circumstances, First
Breath of Resurrection, and Checkmate!
very much.
I add that I like the cello
piece myself and she excitedly adds that one to her list of favorites.
Fanny explains that she is
very proud of the cello photo and that if it was in RL it really would be a G
on the A-string where her finger is on the string.
(I’ll take her word for that.)
I ask if we'll see any more
work from Fanny in the future?
Her reply is that’s a good
question, she considers the actual exhibit as the closing of the circle which
is this series.
Fanny guesses she could go on with
making good snapshots but the challenge is to get a common theme like the
hollowed box of It Might Get Nude.
As for any other projects other
than photos, Fanny says no. It's
photography for her. She is not a universal artist.
The gallery is a repurposed
industrial building one would expect to see in NYC in RL.
The exhibit itself is small
consisting of only thirteen photographs.
Fanny’s work is an artist's
collection of studies in light, poses, and composition using herself as the
nude model.
Each shows a different view of
herself and make one stop and think about their meaning. (At least I did!)
While the photographs are not
hardcore erotica they may be considered NSFW in many places so I recommend
caution in viewing them.
Since they involve nudity and
I’m still not that kind of blog, I won’t be showing any close-ups here!
However, the exhibit can be
seen here in SL
and this flickr page
has many of Fanny’s
photographs available for viewing.
The exhibit is open from
November 21st to January 9th.
I strongly recommend anyone
interested in photography especially nude photographs and who wants to see the
work of an up and coming SL photographer to check this exhibit out before it
closes.
Please remember to dress!
I’d like to thank Fanny for
taking the time to meet with me, show me her work, and answer my
questions!
(Significant Other feels I can
be a Philistine when it comes to the arts!)
More
pictures from my visit with Fanny can be found on this flickr
page.
As always, I’m grateful to all
inworld for their kindness and time in stopping to talk with a stranger who was
passing through their lives
My Twitter handle is @webspelunker. Please feel free to follow me and I’d be
happy to follow you.
I can be found on Google+ as
webspelunker Ghostraven.
My flickr Photostream is
located here.
On Skype I’m webspelunker
Ghostraven.
Open roads
and kind fires!
negatives is a good thing.)
