Interview: Trill Zapatero at Burn2 2011

I’m happy to report that my friend Trill Zapatero granted me an exclusive interview on her work, the Grail Quest, which will be seen at Burn2 this year (you can check out this work at Burn2 at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Burning%20Man-%20Black%20Rock/231/112/24). Trill is another one of the six artists who have been chosen to show work at Burn2. She has exhibited widely in Second Life, also at Nordan Art, and is the owner and creator of the Afghanistan Museum and the store BoHo HoBo. Our interview will be published today on this blog, a few days before the actual opening at Burn2 on October 1, 2011. Below please find our talk about her incredible contribution, the Grail Quest! Two bottom photos by Trill Zapatero.

Flora Nordenskiold: You were one of six artists selected to participate in the Burn2 2011 event. Your contribution to this event is you work the Grail Quest. Please tell us what inspired you to create it.

Trill Zapatero: Well, it started out as an exploration of identity. I was playing around with a deck of tarot cards and thought that life is sort of like a grail quest, the quest being the grail. So the giant grail is ”life” and the crumbling grail castle is the personality, the garden in the middle is the heart and the well is the soul, so that’s why the garden in the centre court is a cozy place to hang with friends. Then I kept adding imagery and it became more than just an exploration of identity and more like an idea about all of life. Oh, also the idea was also about “life” in virtual worlds so that’s why all the game imagery, like the tombstone that says “game over” on it and the game of wealth that you can’t win.

Flora Nordenskiold: I am fortunate enough to get a sneak peek of this work and I am stunned by all of its hidden meanings. Please elaborate on the meaning of the quest.

Trill Zapatero: Well the quest itself is the grail and in the end you discover that it’s not an object that you seek. Nothing made of matter. There’s a quote by Lao Tzu around here that essentially says that a “cup” is only valuable because of the empty space within. That was also the idea about SL/RL dichotomy; it’s not whether you’re made of pixels or molecules, it’s the space inside of you, your soul that makes you valuable. So, the RL/SL distinction about life or whatever kind of life you think is more valuable or more “real” and worthwhile isn’t really correct, in my opinion. So the inner universe that you enter from the well in the centre of the garden, that is the true path to where you find the grail.

Flora Nordenskiold: The build is filled with intricate details and surprises. Things that open and close, wall murals and a well. Perhaps one of the most intriguing things to me are the mirrors. You can actually see yourself in them, something unheard of in Second Life! Please tell us more about the technical aspect of creating this build.

Trill Zapatero: Well, I’m really not much of a scripter, all my scripts are mooched from friends or lifted online. I guess I like to learn about them and what they can do and put them together in different ways. Simple things like camera scripts and rez scripts, rez on sit or rez on touch. And puppeteer, it’s an awesomely easy tool to use, plus EZ particle generator, it really is EZ. My strongest skill area is graphics, photoshop and painting, strongest, and scanning stuff, making textures.

Flora Nordenskiold: There are several Tarot cards as part of the build. Can you tell us a little bit about the role they play? And the garden of ..ISM, please elaborate on that? Finally, at the end, the image of self in the grail itself, what does it mean?

Trill Zapatero: Well the tarot cards mark the path, they give hints of what is going on. I don’t see tarot as a way to tell the future, just to read present energy. I’m really into that. They also give the whole timeless feel to it. Using medieval imagery and also street type art together. The gauntlet of rusty grails, that pop up, the …isms, is the idea that modernism has collapsed, on the wall behind the path, there is a drawing of the Eiffel tower collapsing , sort of a symbol of modernism falling over. So the …isms are all in different fonts; bible font, big gold corporate lettering, neon, red white and blue western font. So the …isms are belief systems. At Burn, if you click the grails you also can hear a really ugly buzz, like the wrong answer on a game show, more game imagery. Then you enter the garden, the heart, and you jump into the well, the soul and enter the inner universe. Then you see a door up ahead at the end of a path of light you enter the door and are transported to a completely white space and up ahead in that space you see a grail. You click on it and you see the image of yourself inside it and the radiating streams of water in the cup look as if it is energy radiating from you so it’s like showing you an image of the soul inside your own avatar. I heard that there is no thing as an individual soul, one soul. Like water can be held in a cup, but no such thing as one water, all water in the world is united. Yay. Singular plural. Water.

Flora Nordenskiold: This was a huge project. Will you take a break from creating for a while or do you have other projects you are working on? If yes, what are some of the things you are creating; any plans for exhibits?

Trill Zapatero: Oi. I’m doing a fashion show with Avante this week too and then Peacefest is in November so I’m doing a line of Afghanistan Bohemian clothes. I’m nearly done with the clothes. That’s a collaboration with several agencies. It’s going to be at virtual Afghanistan.

Flora Nordenskiold: Thanks, Trill, always a pleasure.

Trill Zapatero: Same to you.