You are on the passenger sit besides the driver and you are going through one of the longest road tunnels of the world, the St. Gotthard Tunnel (16.4 kilometres). You have a smartphone whose brand is an delicious fruit. What do you do?  Let’s shake the light! The smartphone has a long time of exposition. If you shake it while you take the picture, you will get strange effects.

Passenger only

The pictures presented in this exhibitions were taken by Arria Perreault in St. Gotthard Tunnel in october 2009.

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Monastery/171/112/99

To celebrate its re-opening on a new sim, the Monastery presents some examples of other monasteries of Second Life.

Monastery derives from the Greek word “monos” which means “alone”. It denotes the building, or complex of buildings, that houses a room reserved for prayer as well as the domestic quarters and workplace(s) of monastics, whether monks or nuns, and whether living in community or alone (hermits).

In most religions the life inside monasteries is governed by community rules that stipulates the gender of the inhabitants and requires them to remain celibate and own little or no personal property. The degree to which life inside a particular monastery is socially separate from the surrounding populace can also vary widely; some religious traditions mandate isolation for purposes of contemplation removed from the everyday world, in which case members of the monastic community may spend most of their time isolated even from each other. Others are focused on interacting with the local communities in order to provide some service, such as teaching, medical care, or evangelism. Some monastic communities are only occupied seasonally, depending both on the traditions involved and the local weather, and people may be part of a monastic community for periods ranging from a few days at a time to almost an entire lifetime.

The life within the walls of a monastery may be supported in several ways: by manufacturing and selling goods, often agricultural products such as cheese, wine, beer, liquor; by donations or alms; by rental or investment incomes; and by funds from other organizations within the religion which in the past has formed the traditional support of Monasteries.

(Free adaptation of the Wikipedia article “Monastery”)

Besides religious rituals and spiritual practices, monasteries have played an important role in the transmission of knowledge. In the european Middle Age, books were copied in monasteries by monks. Some monasteries were also educational institutions where pupils were sent by their family. Many monasteries had an important library.

In this exhibition, there are several examples of Monasteries found on Second Life. Three of them are christian, one is buddhist. The last one is fictionnal (from the TV serie Star Trek).

Sainte-Catherine Monastery in Sinai

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Monastery/171/105/99

List of monasteries

• Monastery of Felix Meritis, Lill Burn Valley
  The Monastery of Felix Meritis is an italian renaissance style cloister. It has a cathedral, a church, dorms, cells,  chapels, library, gardens, valley & farms.
• St, Benedict’s Monastery, Wildcat
  St. Benedict’s Monastery was built by Eva Virgo on one-half Wildcat sim. The building is inspired by the Cistercian “Abbey of Fontenay” in France. It includes a Gate House, Cloister, Chapter Room, meditation rotundas, Chapel, Bell Tower, & Graveyard.
• St. Catherine’s Monastery, Odessa Captivating
  This building is inspired by St. Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai, Egypt. It includes icons and a Library and the main Katholicon and the Mosaic of the Transfiguration.
• Dharma Gate Monastery, Mieum
  This place is modeled loosely after Tassajara Zen Mountain Monastery.
• The Vulcan monastery, P’Jem, Eridani
  The Vulcan monastery, P’Jem, is a part of the  Star Trek Museum. It was created by Tsora Enoch, Chief Engineer of the Museum, on the Vulcan sim, Eridani. In the saga, it is located on a planet near Andoria and was destroyed in 2125.

Since several weeks, the Monastery has been rebuild on the new sim, named Monastery. Only few changes has been made and some details has still to be emproved. The most difficult thing was to change the orientation of the building  25 degrees. The reason was esthetic: it gives to the main landscape more dynamism. The construction is a bit complicated now. Here are two views of the building on its platform on the new sim.

Monastery on its sim

Monastery on its sim by night

In few weeks, the activities of the Monastery will start again normally. A small exhibition is under contruction in the Chapel about other monasteries in SL. A bigger exhibition will be held later in the whole building. Keep informed by following us on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/ammonastery

The sim Monastery exists now. It will host soon the Monastery. There is still some work to do: terroforming,texturing, infrastructure. I am working on this project with Ulysse Alexandre. Here is a view of the general landscape.

Monastery sim

     

Second Monastery

Second Monastery

Second Monastery

The CDS is reviewing its General Master Plan (GMP). We have redesigned a bit the relief of the Monastery sim to be compatible with the GMP.

Four eggs are hidden in the Monastery. Take a free basket and find them. Each egg contains a painting with a rabbit.

Nice Easter

Finally CDS is ready to go further with the project of a sim for the Monastery. Here are some provisory maps. The details of these maps will have to be discussed with the responsable of CDS and the designers of the General Master Plan.

On this sim, there will be a nice hamlet and two isolated houses. The Monastery will be on the upper part, on a small flat land. The landscape will be similar to the next sim, Alpine Meadow. A lake make a separation between this Alpine landscape and the roman sim of Locus Amoenus.

Plots description (provisory): http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pmkdgnep6DkuoteL5pGtfIQ

The white marble Arch of Septimius Severus at the northeast end of the Roman Forum stands close to the foot of the Capitoline Hill. It is a triumphal arch dedicated in AD 203 to commemorate the Parthian victories of Emperor Septimius Severus and his two sons, Caracalla and Geta, in the two campaigns against the Parthians of 194/195 and 197-199. During the Middle Ages repeated flooding of the low-lying Forum washed in so much additional sediment and debris that when Canaletto painted it in 1742, only the upper half of the Arch showed above ground.

The Roman Forum, sometimes known by its original Latin name of Forum Romanum, is located between the Palatine hill and the Capitoline hill of the city of Rome. In the foreground, the three columns are the remains of one of the older edifice in the area, the temple of Castor and Pollux, originally built in gratitude for victory at the battle of Lake Regillus (495 BC). Castor and Pollux were the twin sons of Jupiter and Leda.

Forum Romanum

Map of Rome

The Arch of Constantine (Italian: Arco di Costantino) is a triumphal arch in Rome, situated between the Colosseum and the Palatine Hill. It was erected to commemorate Constantine I’s victory over Maxentius at the Battle of Milvian Bridge on October 28, 312.

Arch of Constantine

BUSIRI, Giovanni Battista, Rome: A View of the Forum, 1720
Oil on canvas, 48 x 63 cm, private collection

Map of Rome