Ubertemple Tour, More Central Area-2 January 4, 2009

Baker Bloch then uses the spiral ramp to go back down to the area with the Tyle Cube portal, where he knows he’ll find access to a similar, “hidden” floor, floor 8 in this case. Once again, a one-prim concrete bridge marks the opening down to this level.

But before dropping down, Blochs decides to explore more of floor 9, because on this level is found the second of three isolated clumps of photographs in the East Wing, this time of the Parkway region near our rl house, especially the Grandfather Mtn. location. This, too, is creates a logical segue between Central Region and East Wing, because the park featured in the Central region on floor 9, Herman Park, is directly adjacent to the protected region surrounding this huge NC mountain.

So just beyond the bridge, in the opening to the East Wing, you find these several photographs from Herman Park…

…and then rounding the corner of the red-violet wall, one can see the beginning of the Parkway related photographs. We won’t send Baker Bloch into that area — just noting that it exists if one wants to visit. I’ve already briefly described most of the photographs you’ll find here in this post regarding an earlier, Temple of TILE tour.

Baker then backtracks to the bridge and jumps in the provided opening down to floor 9. This is a really crucial floor to visit to truly complete your Ubertemple visit, because within are pictures taken directly from TILE Creek. This creek, as I’ve called it other places, is the “Ganges” of the TILE game/philosophy/religion, and now it’s also the heart of the Toy Avatar phenomenon. Within this level you’ll find pictures of Drink Lake, First Tree, Jonesborough, and New Hope, all mentioned in the blog already through categories Toy Avatars and CREEK (aka TILE Creek)

And just as on floor 13, you get some great views down the next floor below, and I want to especially point out the rather incredible triptych from TILE Mountain, directly above TILE Creek and where its spring fed headwaters are found. As I’ve already described this triptych and related Herman Park photographs in my blog (“House 1, Levels 4-5” and “House 2, Levels 5-4”), I won’t repeat the details in this particular post.

So ends the Ubertemple tour! Hope you enjoyed it, and I plan to add more specific information about the TILE game/philosophy/relgion and how it directly relates to TILE Creek and the encompassing Herman Park in the near future. In the meantime, I should also point out that “TILE” is a blog category as well, if one wants to do more studying in the present.

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Ubertemple Tour, More Central Area-1

So this is the scene Baker Bloch is confronted with on the next floor after starting to ascend the ramp pictured at the end of the previous post. His access to higher parts of the temple through this ramp is effectively blocked here. Eliminating the options of jumping off the ramp into the central chamber of the temple (thus going to the Ubertemple floor center, otherwise inaccessible except through teleportation), and also retracing his steps back down the ramp, Baker Bloch (and others in his position climbing the ramp in the same way) really only has one option for proceeding: head through the open door of the Victorian house directly in front of him. And that’s the idea, although perhaps I should put up a sign to clarify this intent. You can get to that particular floor of the house through other means, if one becomes stymied here. But Baker Bloch knows he can easily enter the house from the ramp, and does so.

The south Victorian house on this level is empty (as is the floor above it, accessible through the house’s provided floor teleporters), but Baker Bloch finds an opening to his left that leads him through the collonaded path, once again, around the back of the house, to the Fountain Area with its nice view of the north Victorian house facade.

But here comes another important twist: Blochs knows that floor 14 of the Ubertemple’s central region is only accessible through the square opening in front of the fountain pool in this area. From floor 14, you can jump down to floor 13 (with the Blinkerton-style Oz/Charleston photos), but you can’t directly get back up to floor 14 from floor 13 without flying. Instead, just as in the old Temple of TILE, you must ascend to the next floor up (15) and drop down to get to 14. One hopefully gets a visual clue as to the presence of this level by the view of pictures within, and also, probably more importantly, the elaborately rugged floor. Also, hopefully, the waterfall helps to lead one’s eyes down to this otherwise hidden level. That’s the idea anyway.

So Baker Bloch drops down through this opening between the pool and bridge, landing directly in front of the small, 5 meter waterfall. A number of additional Charleston photos are found on floor 14 here, mainly from the vast necropolis that borders the historic district to the northeast, one of our favorite Charleston locations. As well, you get some nice views down to the next floor below and the Blinkerton-style snapshots.

Ubertemple Tour, More Central Area-2.

Ubertemple Tour, East Wing

For the next leg of the Ubertemple tour, Baker Bloch decides to, ahem, leg it over to the top entrance of the East Wing, way on the other side of the roof section here from his present location at the top of the West Wing.

Notice the tops of the 2 glued-together Victorian houses sticking out from the roof section in the middle here, just like they did in the last version of the Temple of TILE, in Rubi.

Now like I said before, the East Wing is mostly empty, unlike the situation in the collage packed West Wing. Only a couple of floors display any art so far. But there are a couple of other interesting things to note about the East Wing, such as these views through the provided windows into the Fountain Area from floor 15.

But it is not until floor 13, 7 below the roof level, that you actually encounter pictures within the East Wing. Here we find the Land of Oz collection that was also found in all versions of the Rubi temple/gallery, and described a bit in this earlier blog post. 10 of some of Edna’s finest and most recent photographs of the annual event are found on this level, along with an entrance into the center of the temple.

There’s a nice segue between these more “ordinary” Land of Oz photographs and several addition snapshots from the festival found in the adjacent, central temple region. The ones in the center are of a more abstract nature, or what Edna and I have started to call the Blinkerton style of picture taking, in honor of the late New Mexican artist Charles Nelson Blinker. These several abstract Oz photos are then mixed, in the center area, with some of the Blinkerton-style Charleston photographs, pointing toward, in turn, the more ordinary Charleston photos in the Victorian houses directly above them. Thus this area, in effect, blends the essence of the Land of Oz and Charleston, two magical places, through abstraction.

But Baker Bloch is straying away from the East Wing, drawn toward ascending the spiral ramp to visit other places he knows remain undescribed still. And understandably, because he knows there’s not much more in the East Wing. Let’s keep following him, then, further into the central area again to capture more of its nuances not necessarily obvious from just a teleporter oriented tour.

Ubertemple Tour, More Central Area-1.

Ubertemple Tour, West Wing-3

Floor 8 brings a small twist to the journey, because for the first time Baker is greeted by a wall that divides a room at the top of a ramp into two parts. Through the left passage around this wall, he sees the next collage (3rd) of the Yale series, the 10×10 series that comes after Rose Hill. For those who knew B_Hivia, however, this will be a familiar space: the same wall exists on the 2nd floor of that earlier, smaller “beehive,” as talked about in this June post. I’ve actually thought about resurrecting and perhaps updating the “Outlands” theme of B_Hivia discussed in that and other B_Hivia posts within the new temple… we’ll have to see how it goes, though.

On the 9th floor, at the end of the 10 collage Yale series, we find another opening into the central region, this time at the “Tyle Cube” teleporter already discussed in this series of posts.

Baker Bloch continues to the right, staying within the West Wing this time. Here’s another long view found on the same floor toward the 1st collage of the Newton series that follows the Yale series.

We’re at about the 1/2way mark in our journey up through the West Wing as well.

And then another opening on the 11th floor at the end of the Newton series (10 collages, like the Yale series — in fact the two are most often combined… well, I’ll just let the reader review the 10×10 notecard if they wish).

This time, Baker can’t keep himself from exploring the central area once more, and finds this series of Frank Park/TILE Mountain photographs by Edna Million on the far wall. I’ll have more to say about these type of photographs soon enough.

Back in the West Wing, Baker Bloch then comes across the 1st collage of the 20 part Oblong series. Thought I’d show this because part of that spiral ramp that sticks out here I mentioned before is actually incorporated into the collage itself. Just fyi, this particular collage is probably the most complicated of the entire 10×10 so far, incorporating many images that have already been used in former collages in the work. Appropriately, the name of the collage is “It’s All Here!”. Indeed it almost appears so in that context.

The start of the 13th floor brings another little twist to the attention of Baker Bloch. The floor is transparent here, allowing a view down to floor 11 just below and several of the Newton collages.

We are now nearing the end of the Oblong series. I believe this could be the strongest of the 10×10 collage series, and probably my favorite. I think that collage #17 of the series (“Little Big Hand”) fits especially nicely on the far wall here. Just as a side note, notice that the collages on either side of where Blochs is standing share many of the same pictorial elements (gray rock, tan dachshund, small standing figure, stemmed haystack). This is the way the “story” of this series, as well as other series and the 10×10 as a whole, are carried forward, just as Baker Bloch is being propelled forward by the linear progression of West Wing floors. Something like that.

Then another familiar sight at the next opening, on the same floor (15th). It’s the collonaded path leading directly to the Fountain Area already visited in our Ubertemple tour. Baker Bloch thus resists walking to that interesting spot once more, and instead continues his journey upward and onward. He’s now at the end of the Oblong series, and starting the shorter (10 collage) Hidalgo series, the last series of the 10×10 currently completed.

The shorter jaunt through the Hidalgo series leads him to the top of the Ubertemple, or what can be called its 20th floor. He looks back at the last two collages of this series. And, yeah, that’s Baker Bloch himself in the collage facing us, along with a decked out Baker Blinker. In fact, Baker Bloch’s image, much to his pleasure, is found in a number of the Hidalgo works, the first 10×10 series created after my discovery of Second Life in Jan., 2008.

A somewhat winded Baker Bloch has finished his journey up through the West Wing.

Ubertemple Tour, East Wing.

Ubertemple Tour, West Wing-2

It took me a while to figure out where the below snapshot was taken, but this is actually Baker Bloch in the *East* Wing still, looking into the central area on the same level as before. So from here he still has to walk to the opposite side of this central area to resume his tour of the East Wing, through the opening provided at the beginning of the Rose Hill series. To do so he has to turn right toward the bright green section; the bright red section straight ahead of him leads to a dead end and the spiral ramp. So, yeah, it might not be too hard to get lost in this place. Thus one of the reasons for this series of posts. 🙂

Baker Bloch then continues up through the East Wing. Thought I’d provide this picture because it shows how the spiral ramp sticks a bit out into the East Wing at various spots. Careful not to bang your leg against it!

Nice view toward the 5th collage of the Rose Hill series, down a 30 meter long corridor.

After ascending the ramp to the 6th floor, Baker takes a break to look through the open space at its top, toward the west edge of the Sky Forest.

A longer shot of where Baker Bloch is standing now.

The 7th floor brings the end of the Rose Hill series with the last three, similarly sized and shaped collages.

Another view of the spiral ramp just after the last Rose Hill collage. Trhough the opening, Baker can also glimpse the Frank Park related photos decorating the lowest floor of the middle cube/section of this center. He’s 1/3rd the way up.

Ubertemple Tour, West Wing-3.

Ubertemple Tour, West Wing-1

For the next leg of this whirlwind tour of the Ubertemple, Baker Bloch decides just to walk into the West Wing, ascend its levels one by one, take snapshots, and then let me explain what’s going on to the best of my ability.

Here he is entering the ground floor at the West Wing again. Here on this lowest level I decided to “hang” several pre-10×10 collages, just to give more of a backdrop for what’s to come. All 10 of this particular collage set were formerly included in the Edwardston Station Gallery in Tyta. Also presently included on this level (nearer the ramp to the second floor) is one of the three chromagraphic works from the subway area of the Tyta gallery.

In rechecking my blog here, see that I haven’t really explained these works yet. Chromagraphs have a rather long and interesting history in my art and also music. The chromagraphic system is still actually deemed “classified” or protected, so I can’t discuss it at length. Same goes for the map synchronicity system I currently work out of more often. Same for, actually, the core of the TILE game/philosophy/religion, at least in terms of the game and its origins. So again my apologies here if my ramblings seem to be rather incoherent sometimes, or maybe most of the time. There’s quite a lot going on underneath the surface, you see.

Blochs here enters the second floor through a provided ramp. Now as I said in a former post, the West Wing, and also the East Wing, since they are structural doubles, are just 3 B_Hivias stacked on top of each other, as the central part of the Ubertemple is just 3 Temple of TILEs stacked one-two-three. So what you’ll see in each wing is a certain unique pattern for each section which is then repeated twice again.

Blochs is at the beginning of the entire 10×10, at the first of the Greenup series of 20 collages that starts this journey. I’ve placed a 10×10 notecard sign at the bottom of the ramp Baker has just exited to explain this more. In this post, then, I’ll just insert the comments from this notecard so you can read further about this now 4+ year work, if you wish.

Baker Bloch quickly ascends another ramp up to the third floor where the Greenup series is continued. The eucalyptus tree planted here in the pool (one of only two pools within the Ubertemple currently) is at essentially the same location as the one that use to exist in the Gliese B_Hivia before its deletion upon the move to the mainlands in August. You can read more about the Gliese B_Hivia through a created blog category on the subject.

Some pictures of how this particular area looked in B_Hivia can be found here.

Baker Bloch now stands on the 4th floor after walking through a emerald hued “L” shaped area (also present within B_Hivia). Still in the Greenup series, but moving toward the end.

On the 5th floor he reaches the beginning of the next series, Rose Hill, and, simultaneously, the first opening from the West Wing into the central part of the temple beyond the ground level. The third collage of the 11 part Rose Hill series is actually place within this central part (Baker Bloch is staring directly at it, here).

The transition from green to beige floor just in front of Baker Bloch in the snapshot below also marks the boundary between West Wing and Central Section, which here would still be part of the lowest of 3 “Temple of TILE” equivalents making up this center.

Baker can’t resist walking over to the view offered into the central chamber and peak down at the Xmas tree and surrounding portal objects. He’s at elevation 521 now, or 15 meters above the base of the Xmas tree (since it, in turn, is 5 meters above the actually ground level of the Ubertemple and adjacent Sky Forest).

Then a look up toward the Tyle Cube as well, about 25 meters higher than his present elevation. Which means he’s only ascended a little under 1/4th the temple’s total height.

In exploring further beyond the central area, Baker also finds an opening into the East Wing on this level, but with no art apparent within his visual range. As I said before, the East Wing is mostly empty.

Ubertemple Tour, West Wing-2.

*****

NEW 10×10 NOTECARD:

The West Wing of the Ubertemple (of TILE) features the collage series of the art 10×10, created by baker b. from 2004-[projected 2009].

The “10×10” is slated to be completed in late 2008/early 2009 with the Wheeler-Jasper series of 20 collages.

Each series of the “10×10”, as well as the effort as a whole, unfurls a kind of storyline, somewhat in the fashion of Max Ernst’s early 20th Century collage novels such as “A Week of Kindness” (1934)
http://www.spamula.net/blog/archives/000198.html

Not by coincidence, then, several images from Ernst’s collage novels can be found on the floor level of the Ubertemple (central area).

The 1st collage of the Greenup series, and the first of the 10×10 overall, is found on the right hand wall after ascending the first ramp of the West Wing. Simply keep going up and up and up through the remaining 17 floors of this wing to follow this and the other series, in order, until reaching the current, last collage (10th of Hidalgo series, 79th overall) at the top.

Enjoy!

Baker Bloch
Owner, The Edwardston Station Gallery

*****

ADDITIONAL “10×10” INFORMATION

The “10×10” collages began being produced in late 2004. I, baker b./Baker Bloch, initially had no idea that the project would be so large and long term. One collage followed another, seemingly, in a logical and even necessary manner. In about a month and a half the 1st series of the “10×10”, the Greenup Collage Series, stood complete. It consists of 20 collages that loop back into themselves from end to beginning. That is, the last collage of the series (“Jigkansawyer Neil”) creates an animation with the first collage of the series (“Finding The Niche”). This makes the series perpetual, in a fashion. Many of these earlier collages in the “10×10” were based on photos of a small valley (Greenup Gill) in the Lake District of northwestern England.

It was about a year later that the Rose Hill Collage Series was created (late 2005). When finished, I knew that it then acted as some kind of more or less direct follow-up to the Greenup series, but I still didn’t have any concrete ideas about the overall “10×10”. Unlike the Greenup series and most other series of the entire opus, the Rose Hill series doesn’t make a looped, perpetual system.

I should back up here a bit and point out that roughly every *fourth* collage, as the “10×10” progressed through each series, turned out to make an animation with the collage immediately following.

Moving onward, then the Yale series came along about a 1/2 year after the Rose Hill series, and it segued seamlessly (timewise) into another called the Newton series. Usually I see these, thus, as one series I term the Yale-Newton Collage Series. However, since both the Yale series and Newton series are looped, I feel they can also be treated as standalone works.

So, really, each batch of collages from these three time periods, as it were, make up separate systems, related but also distinct from one another. The main relationship is the basis upon the number *10* for each *tier* of a system.

Let me explain this crucial bit further, as it helps to link the individual series together and also understand the differences more. In a way, the Greenup series represents the “purest” of any of the systems so far. It represents the blueprint that others have more or less followed. It may be best to see this particular series as not a line of collages but instead a circular one, with the 20th and final collage next to the 1st collage at the top of such a circle. Opposite them on the circle, at the bottom, would be the 10th and 11th collages of the series, which also make an animation with each other like the 20th and 1st. Perpendicular to this opposition would then be another opposition formed by the 5th/6th and 15th/16th collages, more animation sets. So there are 4 pairs of animated collages in the Greenup series for a total of 8 in this category as a whole. The remaining 12 collages of the series do not make animations with other collages in the series. But the main point I wanted to make here is that the Greenup series is 20 collages total, but it can also be divided into 2 tiers of 10 collages, and these kind of 10 collage tiers actually form the basis of the entire “10×10” and lend it its name even, because the “10×10” is made up of *10* tiers of *10* collages. “10×10,” thus.

So to review the individual series so far, the Greenup Collage Series is 2 such tiers for a total of 20 collages (divided by an animated set in the middle), the Rose Hill Collage Series is one such tier, or the 3rd tier overall (10 collages, then), and the Yale-Newton Collage Series is 20 collages, just like the Greenup series — thus 2 tiers, or the 4th and 5th tier overall in the “10×10”. But in the case of Yale-Newton, the overall series can also be broken down into two looped series comprised of 1 tier of 10 collages apiece, or the Yale series and then the Newton series.

I know this may be quite confusing but it is important to explain because, then, the pattern of these first 5 tiers of the “10×10” and their respective series appears to be repeating *almost exactly* in the second 5 tiers and attached series.

So keeping that in mind, let’s move to the Oblong Collage Series created in the Spring/Summer of 2007. The structure of this series turns out to be very similar to the Greenup Collage Series. One could even say they form an octave relationship with each other. This surprised me since the Oblong series seemed to just evolve naturally this way. So the Oblong series, like the Greenup series before it, is made up of essentially 20 collages, including 4 pairs of animated collages (total equals 8 again, thus).

There are other similarities between the two, some too complicated to go into here. The Lake District is reinvoked in a strong way in the Oblong series, to name one obvious link.

Moving then to the last currently created series, we have the Hidalgo Collage Series, which is the first inspired partially by my experiences in Second Life itself. As the Oblong series is structured much like the Greenup series, so the Hidalgo series (direct follow-up to the Oblong series) turned out to be similar to the Rose Hill series (direct follow-up to the Greenup series). Both are composed of 10 collages that don’t loop into themselves from end to beginning, but which still form an animation in a central pair of collages.

Although not started yet, I can safely say that the next series will be similar to the Yale-Newton series, assuming that this pattern holds true. I also have a name for it: the Wheeler-Jasper series. These will form the 9th and 10th tiers of the overall “10×10”. By early to mid 2009, the Wheeler-Jasper series should be in production.

I think I’ve written enough. Enjoy the art and come back soon!

Thanks again,

Baker Bloch
Owner, Edwardston Station Gallery

Ubertemple Tour, Teleporters-2

Baker decides to head almost directly up, and thus selects the Pocahontas Attic as his next destination within the temple from the Ubertemple Floor Center teleporter. I designed this space to be as close as practical to the same attic space in the Rubi temple/gallery, and with the same Pocahontas, Virginia pictures, I believe. Actually in checking, see that I never got around to completing the text for that older post.

The story of Pocahontas, Virgnia and assoc. links can be found in wikipedia. The town is largely deserted, with the old commercial district and many of the residential dwellings now in ruins. It’s an amazing landscape, if not one that you would probably enjoy looking at up close day after day (i.e., as a resident of the town). But it makes for some super nifty Edna Million photos. We attempt to return to the town each year, about a 3 hour drive for us.

In terms of the Ubertemple, this attic space can be seen as the direct complement of the floor center just left behind (including the viewing space surrounding this 10m bx10m floor center). The two lie directly north and south of each other on opposite sides of the central chamber of shaft containing the Tyle Cube.

Next destination is “Tyle Cube.” Like I said, it’s in the very center of the hugish temple, and this spot in the temple is perhaps the best place to view the spinning cube, and to meditate on its meaning if one wishes. Several chairs and tables are thus provided here.

A view of the spiraling ramp from the Tyle Cube teleporter. This ramp runs through the entire 90 meter height of the temple.

A look back down to the Ubertemple floor with the Xmas tree and portal objects from the perch here.

The next location Baker Bloch decides to visit is called “Fountain Area”. This is currently the last teleporter put in the Ubertemple. We are at elevation 571 within the temple, meaning that we’re considerably closer to the roof than the base.

This might be a good time to point out that when walking around the Ubertemple, you can always tell which of the 3 major slices of the temple you’re located in by the latitude number in your SL menu bar. 0-30 assures you that you’re walking around somewhere in the West Wing, 30-60: you’re in the central region with the 3 large, stacked cubes (30 meters in diameter), and 60-90 places you in the mostly empty East Wing.

According to the figures in my SL menu bar, the “Fountain Area” teleporter is at 50, 28, 571. This means that Baker is 50 meters from the west side of the sim he’s located in (latitude number), 28 meters up from its southern border (longitude number), and 571 meters above SL “sea level”. As the temple lies between 500 and 590 meters, this also means that the “Fountain Area” teleporter is about 20 meters from the top or roof of the temple and 70 meters above the ground level of the temple. Since each of the cubes composing the center of the temple are 30 meters in diameter, he can also assume that he is in the third and highest of these cubes, just as he was in the Pocahontas Attic.

The Fountain Area is one of the more interesting and scenic spots within the Ubertemple. You can enter the area from the Ubertemple’s West Wing through the long collonaded path that the teleporter lies at the end of, as seen in the picture below.

The Fountain Area is rather dominated by the front of one of the two Victorian houses located at this level. This is another feature carried over from the Rubi temple, except here I decided to basically eliminate the porch area that formerly joined them to make room for the central chamber with the Tyle Cube.

The ceiling is about 20 meters high here. In the center of the what I’m calling the Fountain Area is, appropriately, a pool of water fed by a fountain attached to the east wall. The pool also spills down into the level below this one, forming the only waterfall within the Ubertemple (readers of this blog may remember that the Rubi temple, in one version anyway, contained two waterfalls, each larger than this particular one). A bridge spans the crevis just in front of the waterfall, allowing easy passage into the house beyond.

One can even catch a glimpse of the Tyle Cube from this bridge through the small opening to the temple’s central chamber, as Baker Bloch does here.

On the walls surrounding the Fountain area are found several Edna Million photographs of Charleston, South Carolina, our favorite holiday destination. These photographs continue into the house itself, which is enterable through a narrow opening just past the bridge. Charleston photographs continue into the second floor of this house, accessible through the floor teleporters that came with the purchased house itself. Through this teleporter system one can also reach the old third floor of the house, which has been remodelled as part of the Pocahontas Attic.

That’s the last of the teleporters.

Ubertemple Tour, West Wing-1

Ubertemple Tour, Teleporters-1

This first shot comes not from the Ubertemple but from another gallery on the Corsica continent mentioned in this earlier post. I thought I’d note the below series of photos from that gallery in this blog, since the same day Edna and I, in rl, visited similar looking ruins near our house. I was also reminded that the probable Corsica gallery of mine mentioned in that post would most likely not have worked out in the long run, and for the same reasons that the Rubi gallery didn’t work: mainland madness. I needed to get back to Azure Islands at any cost to regain needed perspective.

Anyway, let’s move to the Ubertemple itself. Here’s an exterior shot to begin with. As I said in the former post on this topic, the temple is 90 meters high and long, and 30 meters deep. It’s pretty large if not largely pretty. The green fronting platform is the Sky Forest. In the front right hand corner of this Sky Forest is situated the first teleporter of the gallery property. That’s where we’ll begin the tour.

So this is the scene you’ll see when beaming in. This is the spot I also have my gallery kiosk, so it’s where gallery roamers will teleport in as well using the kiosk. The Sky Forest, besides having a number of trees obviously, also has places for people to sit and take in the immensity that is the Ubertemple. Talk about how pretty or ugly it is, or just chat in general, perhaps even about the game/philosophy/religion of TILE.

Also in front of Baker Bloch here is the first of several notecard signs positioned at various spots on the floor level of the gallery, this one for the temple itself. As I did before with the Edwardston Station Gallery in Rubi, I’ll probably just cut and paste these notecards somewhere into the blog posts concerning the Ubertemple’s description.

No grand opening for the temple, btw. The only “friends” who have seen it are the wife (inworld: Edna Blinker), and another friend who lives in Tyta (site of one of my older galleries). Judging from visitor’s counts so far, looks like on a busy day I may get one non-friend visitor. I should also reinforce, as I do in the temple notecard, that no art is for sale within the gallery, complying with the Azure Islands residential zoning.

A look up.

Blochs finds a more secluded spot in the Sky Forest. Around him are those particle ferns I first used in the Gliese temple. They seem to be a better fit here.

Heres’ a map of Azure Island #1 that I collaged together sometime during my former sojourn in Gliese. The red ball shows the location of the temple on the island.

Baker Bloch decides that using the various teleporters located within the temple would make the best starting point for a tour, so he chooses not to enter the ground floor of the temple just yet but retraces his steps back to the Sky Forest teleporter.

First selection: Ubertemple Floor Center. Technically, this is not the ground floor of the temple but the second floor. However, there’s no floor underneath this particular, central 10×10 piece of grass. In the middle we still have the Xmas tree from the Rubi temple, and the same 11 objects surrounding the tree. Technically, then, this is still some kind of rl-sl portal, as it was in the Gliese and Rubi versions.

As I attempted to explain in this post from a couple of days ago, the central slice of the temple is “merely” three of the 30m by 30m by 30m Temple of TILE cubes stacked on top of each other. You can see the center of each of these 3 cubes marked by the red, green and blue walls as you look up from this center. And spinning about 40 meters above where Baker Bloch is standing here is the Tyle Cube. It lies at the center of the middle 30x30x30 cube, and thus at the center of the temple itself in terms of height, length and width.

If you look closely from this position, you’ll also see a side of one of the two Victorian houses in the Ubertemple sort of jutting into this central 80 meter high chamber (brown object directly above the Tyle Cube). The chamber is so high that an avatar who has his/her drawn distance set to the minimum 64 meters would not be able to see the top of the chamber from this teleporter.

One of the most obvious reasons I decided to insert a teleporter into the central floor area here is that there is no door to this space. Most avatars, such as Baker Bloch, cannot fly at this elevation, and thus there’s no way out except to teleport.

I think the Xmas tree may be a permanent fixture, but time will tell.

Ubertemple Tour, Teleporters-2.

Ta Do List, and… Chatting (w/ Wheeler?)… January 2, 2009

Ta Do List first…

Make notecards for the Ubertemple, which is basically complete otherwise. Number the floors by elevation, for example 500 510 520. And also lat. and long. but esp. long. 0-30 would put you always in the west wing (3 B_Hivias stacked on top of each other), 30-60 in the central “Temple of TILES” (three 30x30x30 cubes), and 60-90 will have you in the east wing (three B_Hivias, once more).

Latitude will always be 0-30 throughout the structure.

What I don’t think will change is the position of the art 10×10 collages. They will always occupy the entire space of the west wing. Let’s see how many floors that is (Baker Bloch is running the structure now). The ground of the sky forest and the lowest level of the Ubertemple is at elevation 502. There’s a floor about every 5 meters, and the entire structure is 90 meters. Counting the roof, that would make the building have a total of 20 floors. The structure is also 90 meters long (and 30 meters wide). The total interior volume is, then, 2300 (total cubic meters of each floor) x 9 (since the structure is 90 meters high), for a total of 21,300 cubic meters. It is literally a smallish skyscaper. For a comparison, the Empire State Building’s volume is a little over one million cubic meters, with a height of 448 meters. Total volume, then, is about 1/47th of the ESB.

Right now, probably about 1/3rd to 2/5ths of the building is empty of pictures. This will probably remain so, given that I’m right at my prim limit for the attached parcel.

Back to the pictures that are there. As I said, the West Wing is totally filled up with the present collages in the 10×10, or series 1-8 of the projected ten parts. In addition, there are a couple of pre-10×10 collages found on the lowest floor of this wing, for a total of about 85 collages. The oldest collages of the art 10×10 begin on the wing’s second floor (el. 506), and progress, in order, up to the 19th floor (el. 586). They are broken down into the following series:

Greenup series: 20 collages, floors 506, 512, 516, 521 (2-5)
Rose Hill series: 10 collages, floors 521, 526, 532 (5-7)
Yale-Newton series: 20 collages, floors 532, 537, 542, 546, 552 (7-11)
Oblong series: 20 collages, floors 552, 556, 561, 566, 572 (11-15)
Hidalgo series: 20 collages, floors 572, 576, 581, 586 (15-19)

One has to run in a spiraling triangular path from bottom to top to view all of these collages in order (there is a shortcut available underneath each ramp connecting two floors, but one would miss a number of collages using these).

The center of the Ubertemple, made up of the skeleton of 3 Temple of TILEs, is, in contrast to the wings (and, by association, B_Hivia), non-linear. As I’ve explained before in this blog concerning the older temple (of TILE), using only the central spiraling staircase, one has to make a journey from level 1 to level 3 before one can reach level 2. This “weakness” actually makes the combination of B_Hivias and Temple of TILEs a logical marriage, since the two complement each other in this way. If you become lost in the central square part of the temple, simply find an opening into either wing for a more simple, linear ascent or descent. But it is still a complicated space, admittedly.

As opposed to the stacked B_Hivias making up each wing, the central spiral staircase of the middle part of the temple takes one very rapidly, through its steep ascent, from the bottom to the top of the Ubertemple. This is a way to get to the roof quick, if you wish. Yet in doing so in this simple manner, one certainly misses the nuances of the Ubertemple’s central section.

A third and quickest way to access the various parts of the temple is through (hopefully) strategically placed teleporters within, currently numbering four. These are found at one corner of the Sky Forest, the center of the Ubertemple floor (otherwise inaccessible except through falling from higher stories… and also it’s tough to get out of once in), the Pocahontas Attic (opposite or counterpart space to the Ubertemple floor center), and then the Tyle Cube that lies at the very heart of the large structure (45, 15, 545).

Actually, as Baker Bloch just attempted to climb the central spiral from floor to roof, I was reminded that at elevation 572 the upward passage is cut off by the porch of one of the two Victorian houses within the temple. You are somewhat forced to “fall” or “progress” (forward) into the house itself in order to continue your journey.

I’ll save more detailed descriptions for the actual tour. Thanks, as usual, for listening.

Baker Bloch.

Updates; Loose Thoughts; Decisions December 30, 2008

I believe that, already, I’ve about finished all I want to do presently — basically — with the new Ubertemple. I suppose a blog tour is in store very soon, then.

Decisions: amazingly I’ve found that if I delete the ground house plus all the trees/bushes (22 objects total) on the second lot I’ve bought, that I’ll have enough prims to support the Ubertemple through just the one, larger Neith property. Simply amazing… but that was kind of my backup plan all along (to downsize from the mainland venture). But do I want to do this? The ground house is in an *excellent* location, but, really, how much time would I actually spend there? Judging by my house bordering the Rubi forest in Tyta, probably very little. So I’m incredibly tempted just to sell the second lot, or give it back to the Azure Ambassadors group, and manage what I deem the necessities of the Ubertemple from the first alone. None of the Sky Forest (Ubertemple’s floor skybox) is on the second property, so I wouldn’t have to tamper with that if I didn’t want to. It all seems set up for me to sell the 2nd parcel. When I give the tour of the Ubertemple, hopefully you, the reader, will also be amazed that I’m able to do this (!).

To other news: well, since I’m attempting to downsize I’m not sure doing the projected interviews is a good idea at this time. What I may do instead is create reviews of blogs, etc. — Headburro Antfarm’s blog immediately springs to mind — to put on this blog. I may increase energy spent toward the filling in of the Toy Avatar mythology, and, parallel with this, take more rl photographs to support the research. Also, although Carrcass-1 is complete now, I still haven’t really analyzed the work yet, and I also feel I need to sink a bit of money into music/movie research for any future projects of this kind (and they will come along). Also I need to focus on map synchronicity research. And buying some *keyboards* would be nice. Hmmmm… so it looks like I’m leaning toward giving up the second Neith property currently.

The other option would be to use the multitude of prims I have left over to fill the temple with more pictures, and also maybe some furniture. Also — this is also kind of tempting — to create an entirely different type of temple, a second one on the properties, and at the same elevation as the first. But perhaps based upon the circle shape instead of the square.

Let’s bring in at least Hucka D., or attempt to, to talk about these subjects further. Hucka?

Hucka D.:

Sell.

bb:

That simple?

Hucka D.:

Yup. You have everything now.

bb:

What about Nautilus City?

Hucka D.:

Put your energy in the blog. And also a web site. Writing, art, music. Web site. Baker B. You’ve built enough.

bb:

How about tunnels?

[Hucka D. doesn’t answer.]

bb:

Should I begin to explore Azure Islands again? Oh… I always have the option to build something later, when I’ve caught up with other projects. I have the ideal property.

Hucka D.:

We should talk about Mythos. And Grassy certainly feels neglected. Go back to Jonesborough tomorrow if you can. Spend more time there on your Tile Creek now that you’re off.

bb:

Ozmo has been set aside, necessarily.

Hucka D.:

Sell.

bb:

Thank you.