09 May 2014

Alpha Auer at the Golden Age of the Russian Avant-Garde

I recently wrote about the collaborative exhibition The Golden Age of the Russian Avant-Garde, showcasing the collective creativity of artists Alpha Auer, Bryn Oh, Caer Balogh, Euaplinos Ugajin, Jo Ellsmere, Nessuno Myoo and Soror Nishi. (See here for the post.) But I didn't have time to write more fully about Alpha Auer's contribution.

Although some of what Alpha contributed can be seen as part of the installation, she excels in the creation of avatars — complete with skins, shapes, attachments and even poses — and for the Golden Age of the Russian Avant-Garde she created ten, some in variations, and they're all available for free near the landing point and also on the ground floor.

They include Announcer, Globetrotter, Gravedigger01, Gravedigger01+02, Gravedigger02, New Man, Old Man, Postman, Troublemaker and Mayakovsky, and I've depicted about half the them here. The results brilliantly reflect the look and feel of the entire installation, and are a delight to wear, especially when tramping around the sim.

You might notice that some of the avatars come with male but not female shapes. (Usually Alpha's avatars are unisex or contain both male and female options.) But I found that they translated well onto the female form, especially since much of the body was often hidden by alpha layers.

2 comments:

  1. wow! THANK YOU Ziki!

    You did notice that I deviated from my usual rule of making wearables for both sexes. This is indeed an exception, but the reason is that these are (as exact as I can get them to be) replicas that were based upon El Lissitzky's costume proposals for the Futuristic Russian opera "Victory over the Sun." And I had a sense that I should abide by the names of the roles. So, if a character was called "New Man" or "Old Man" I felt that it would be appropriate to work with a male shape only. The only one of these that is not based on an El Lissitzky's costume drawing, are the "Mayakovsky girls" that sort of go with that inner room that I have over at the Russian sim. Those, I did invent, but again they too are based on El Lissitzky's work, in this case his famed collaboration with Mayakovsky that resulted in a book of concrete poetry called "For the Voice" :-)

    El Lissitzky's costumes drawings are here:
    http://www.dataisnature.com/?p=1907
    And images of the Mayakovsky book are here:
    http://tinyurl.com/kjjshcf

    Again thank you!

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  2. Elif, thanks for all your added information — that really helps round out the picture! And thanks again for all the great avatars.

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