I have started using Second Life over the last two weeks and it’s been with a lot of hesitation. I guess I’m a sceptic with regards to this ‘new world’. It all seems very reminiscent of the early days of the internet, go anywhere, be anyone, do anything but the reality is not that at all and this time around there seems to be quite a few things that worry me.

It all seems slightly kitsch, this 3d world where you can (supposedly) take any identity and any form yet when you join you are obliged to take a ‘real’ world name, the surname of which is from a preset list (these are heavily north American influenced however my surname, Lynch, was there - perhaps something to do with its infamous and unfortunate history in America) and a body shape which is primarily humanoid. Rules are different, you can fly, teleport etc. but Second Life just recreates scenarios and their associated issues from ‘first life’. Location, the idea of centres with more resources and attracting more people - cities, distance between places, the movement between place and privilege of being closer to the centres.

Everyone seems to be rushing to stake a claim in this rapidly growing space / place. To own land, to build, to have a slurl. While of course its all ‘virtual’ we may soon have a ‘world’ as large as it is in first life. Does this qualify as a sort of Borgesian 1:1 map? And lets not forget the most important issue here, one single company runs all of this, the protocols, the grid, the rules, how you rent land - everything. So why if I’m so sceptical am I interested?

Well a few glimers of hope. The Second Life Viewer has recently gone open source and even though the clever work ethic involved here (get programmers to work for you for free) is probably more important to Linden Lab than the idea of gifting the source to the public domain, its got to be a good thing over all.

And then I saw this, a sculpture park created by Adam Nash (Adam Ramona in SL) and Chris Dodds (Mashup Islander in SL) with interactive, immersive, audio-visual sculptures (images above). This alone makes the sign-up for Second Life worth while.

The sculpture park location can be viewed online at the second Life website. Adam Nash’s part of the island is here and Chris Dodds part of the island is here. To visit the works in Second Life use the Second Life urls (slurls):

secondlife:Marni/220/199/23/
and
secondlife:Marni/205/53/25/

Originally seen at Selectparks. A full interview with the artists is available here. More information about developments in Second Life can be read here.