A couple of months ago I was walking through Soho and saw a crowd spilling onto the street in front of a teeny art gallery. I automatically crossed the street to push my way inside to see what the fuss was about. Immediately I turned up my nose at the art. The exhibition was by photographer James Deavin.
On the walls were computer generated images of the inside of homes, buildings, and crude landscapes populated by crudely generated people and animals. I'm never a fan of seeing computer art in galleries and these pictures looked the kind of lame excersises computer art students have to create their first semester to demonstrate their skills at 3-D rendering. The cheese factor was 10+. Scanned the hip, talkative crowd, I noticed that none of them seemed to even be looking at the artwork. I thought surely the only things keeping them here were the free drinks and friends!
Please have patience with me as this little story unfolds.
On another day, I was watching TV and learned about a virtual reality world online called 'Second Life'. It's one of those 'places' that people from all over can tap into and play together online, like 'World of Warcraft'. (btw, that was a hilarious Southpark episode). Basically, you create a character to live inside this world whose agenda is determined by you, just like in the real world. The nutz thing about this online world is that you actually have to use real money to buy land, build property, and even buy clothing for your character! One savvy business woman actually makes her money buy buying up land in Second Life, improving it, and then selling off her hot properties! Another woman who designs clothing has made a killing selling her virtual gothic dresses to virtual world inhabitants! This world is not only used by computer nerds who prefer virtual worlds to the world outside, it is also used by professionals who want to create a simulated world for their employees training purposes. For example, one gas station used Second Life to set up a virtual model of it's station and underground system so that employees could learn the ropes. And a university set up a virtual school so students could go there to attend class instead.
Now we link the two. James Deavin's "photographs" were really screenshots he took while exploring the virtual world 'Second Life". He hadn't created these images but had rather wandered through Second Life snapping photos of a world "largely uncharted and almost entirely a mystery to the general public" (PDN Magazine). But second life residency is approaching 2 million people. I'm completely fascinated by this concept. I've been musing over whether you have to lock your door in Second Life? What if you pay $100 for a virtual painting (yes, you must pay for home furnishings), and someone sneaks into your home- can they steal it? According to the website, the Second Life "Marketplace currently supports millions of US dollars in monthly transactions. This commerce is handled with the in-world currency, the Linden dollar, which can be converted to US dollars at several thriving online currency exchanges."
I would love to interview the designers of Second Life to find out more about the crime rates. Can someone kill you? How do you protect your character while you are away from the computer? Do you send it to its room and lock the door?
Click HERE to join for free!
I just joined to see what it was like and here's my character, 'Annie Stubbs'.
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