I was surprised (again!) today by the power of social networking tools, in this case Facebook.

Some months ago, for the 10^th June, Portugal’s Day, Beta Technologies sponsored an event in Second Life for the Museum of the Presidency of Portuguese Republic.

This event was the recriation of an exhibit that the Museum was opening in Lisbon, called “Portugal 12-21 – Identidade” (Identity) – the idea was to feature 10 major pieces, each characterizing each century, from a volume of songs in the ancient Galician-Portuguese language to a Euro coin.

Beta Technologies offered to make the modellation of one piece for the exhibit. The dramatic quality of this led me to pick it:

Cristo Monte Iras - Click the image to see more photos

This piece is a 14^th c. Crucified Christ, called the Cristo de Monte Irás, belonging to S. João da Ribeira Church in Santarém . It is actually a composite piece, the 14^th century statue being mounted on a 18^th century cross. It is a very wonderful Gothic piece, with all the emotional intensity that the style was able to express. The finality of the Dead Christ is so expertly rendered in the long, dropping arm and hand, and the ivory has been exquisitely carved and painted to depict bones, muscles, wounds. It is a very excellent and unique work or art, and I am very proud that Beta Technologies was able to sponsor it.

I want to thank again Damien Fate (the creator of the famous Loco Pocos avatars, plus many other incredible things!)  who used his amazing technique, which can only be called true artistic technique, for producing such a dramatic piece.

But… these were old news. This piece was made in June, after all, and I thought it would have been forgotten already in the big dynamism of Second Life. But today it was seen again, through Facebook! Thanks to Rui Lourenço, who organized the whole SL project, for posting about it, and making it known to his many hundreds of followers all over the world! )

Unfortunately, I don’t have permission to reproduce the photos of the original in this blog, so you could see how Damien’s work is true! This piece – and the amazing exhibit – can still be seen in Second Life: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Alma/118/108/34