Location of Liquid Light: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Princeton%20North/188/117/30/ Location of Aurora Room: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Alexander%20Beach/115/123/25/

One illumination big, another small shimmer in the night at the newly opened Princeton University sim. Two experiments in light by Juria Yoshikawa are balanced by the deep ambient music and transformative sounds of AldoManutio Abruzzo.

On a grandiose scale, “Liquid Light” hovers over the waterway of Princeton North. Towers of rippling white light solidify and then melt away. Burning through and fusing with the ripples are yellow forms reminscent of the heat of the sun. An avatar flies into this passage of liquid light and she herself blends with the layers of thawing and reconstituting elements. Is this simulacra? If it is, it’s linked to something more primal, sense based, an early memory of warm light on water.

A more intimate installation, “Aurora Room” is set up in the great hall at Alexander Beach. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to actually be inside an Aurora Borealis here’s your chance. Having only read about the Northern Lights in Norway, I had dream of creating my own in sl. Color and shape mix, sometimes a solid curtain of light, other times a thin translucence. The aurora seems to live and breath. It’s said in Norway that if you hold out a white handkerchief to an aurora, it will take you away. One can only hope.

Running through both of these works is the belief that intangible elements of natural phenomena can come alive in this dream space we call sl.