Wagner James Au / New World Notes

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Sesi is a Second Life explorer who has a knack for finding the enchanting and adorable side of SL life. This picture is the epitome of adorable. I don’t recommend standing in a boat, but those two are short enough, they can get away with it. This is so adorable that I actually said “Ofer cute” even though I have lived in Oregon which boasts similar watery views for decades.  

For more of Second Life through an adorable lens, click here:

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This untitled picture has all the ingredients for one of those thoughtful, emotionally wrenching pictures of loneliness and alienation with that statue at the end of the dock, hunched over and looking into the water. But Sesi is looking forward. Of course, that dog makes the picture. What I love is that she can make a sweet picture without being treacly or saccharine. I think she achieves this thanks to the gentle humor and authenticity in her photos. Authenticity in a virtual world might seem a strange idea, but her pictures feel organic, not forced.

“See you again” is her most popular photo and it’s easy to see why. Whether she planned this or not, this picture contains layers of meaning. At first glance, there is this humorous anthropomorphic interpretation of the sheep looking back toward the picture taker, as though they are saying goodbye at the departure gate. But then, the lowering sky and the heavy storm-laden clouds suggest danger on the horizon. The austere causeway feels like a border crossing. This picture can be humorous or chilling depending on whether you look at it as literal or metaphorical. 

Sesi has a lovely photostream. Most of her pictures are of her enjoying herself in Second Life, sometimes with her pets. She also captures pictures of scenes she encounters on her travels, often adorably. Sometimes with more complexity. I am guessing, but it seems to me that when she encounters the many picturesque tableaus of SL, she takes a moment to find a way to see them a little bit differently. It makes browsing her photostream a fascinating trip. 

All images copyright Sesi 

See all of Cajsa's Choices here. Follow Cajsa on Flickr, on Twitter, on her blog, and on her Ko-Fi.

Want to recommend amazing SL artists for future posts? Posts links to their image feeds in comments here. (Self-promotion welcome!)

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Cajsa’s Choices is devoted to unique, artistic, and innovative virtual world-based images and screenshots that showcase the medium as an art form and Second Life as a creative platform. (Generally not images that fit on this Bingo card.)  

Cajsa Lilliehook is a seventeen year resident of Second Life, where she owned a photo studio, spent several years as a DJ at The Velvet, and for her first SL job, cleaned up prim trash. She co-founded and runs the It’s Only Fashion blog with her best friend Gidge Uriza. She also has a book review blog, Tonstant Weader Reviews and a cooking blog, Single Serving Recipes. She spends a lot of time researching and reporting on Republican sexual predators. In her first life, she is a retired grassroots leader who has worked for economic and social justice issues most of her life. She is also the minion of a cat named Nora.

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