Second Life: Freya Ophelia

I saw an art showing under "events" in SL the other day. Upon arriving I was very confused...I knew I teleported to the right place, but I didn't see any art. Another avatar tipped me off when he said "this is a really nice piece" while standing in front what I had previously dismissed as part of the landscape. These were the pieces in the show?



This art show, much like the power point presentation I spoke about in an earlier blog, is a sad misuse of Second Life. This artist took what is normally conisdered "art" in the real world and translated it to SL, and did a poor job at that. The pieces generally consisted of one prim, and a photograph taken in real life was used as the texture. I understand that simplicity is sometimes brilliant, but these pieces were simple in a way that didn't work. Why not exploit all the assets of SL that don't exist in the real world? Why poorly recreate reality? I can't wait until our class starts working on their final projects. We're going to blow this "artist" out of the water.

I really enjoyed the atmosphere at our first completely SL based class. Being able to walk around each others projects, touch them, sit on them, sometimes go inside them, spurred some great chat and constructive comments. The level of participation was amazing. In the real classroom there are usually a select few students who answer questions and actively participate while the rest of the class zones out. I think that SL is so much more engaging than a real classroom that participation and attentiveness weren’t even an issue. As strange as it sounds, I think I also benefited from the distractions going on around me. Being in my own comfy chair with Pink Floyd in the background and incense filling the air proved to be a better learning atmosphere than the starkness of a classroom. The ability for students of this day and age to multi-task has surpassed that of students in previous times. Our day to day lives are saturated with numerous distractions appealing to our 5 senses. If this high level of saturation is our norm, then why should the classroom be a site of saturation deprivation?

On a different note, I found it funny that other avatars were quite interested in what we were up to. I noticed numerous avatars hanging around the outskirts of our class...I even heard one say “I think Freya is the teacher.” I heard another say “oh, I get it, it’s a class,” which made me wonder…do you really get it? This is no SL class from TUI or whatever other virtual institutions there may be, this is a real life class that meets in a real classroom at the same time twice a week. I wonder if we had them fooled.

The concept of being able to duplicate items adds an interesting component to SL that most online games don’t have. In SL freebies are everywhere. Someone makes something cool, they offer it to you. Someone gets something cool from someone else; they naturally duplicate it and pass it on. In other games players are very partial to the items they have acquired, mostly due to the fact that they can’t be duplicated. You had to earn your sword, or get lucky and find it, or spend hours forging it. It definitely creates a different overall atmosphere. In both worlds (those in which you can duplicate and those in which you cant) players strive to look cool and own amazing items. Yet, in a world without duplication, players usually have to work hard to earn some sort of currency to acquire their desired look or items. And once you have what you want, it’s yours, and no one else’s, and you’re not going to share. In SL, all you have to do is ask, or even better, just make it. Anything you desire can be yours. And even though it’s easier to look how you want, the value of something deemed “cool” by a player doesn’t go down. The generosity in SL is astounding. One thing that doesn’t fit into this world of duplication is land. Land is typically purchased, belongs to one person, and cannot be duplicated. In fact, people don’t much appreciate other people building on their land...at least the lady that yelled at me didn’t...

I was trying to work on my class project so I teleported to an area that seemed empty. I began building and soon after I was greeted by somewhat snide avatar that was extremely curious to see what I was up to. I played dumb, saying I didn’t know the land was someone’s, and that I was just trying to work on a class project. After I explained they didn’t mind much, but she explained that there are people who will build a bunch of prims on someone else’s land and leave them there. It kind of reminded me of throwing toilet paper in someone’s trees in real life. It’s a lame practical joke that’s harmless but a pain to clean up. Well anyway, I’ve stuck to the sandboxes since then. I don’t want people to think I’m a prim dumper.

I did come across some interesting experiences while working on my project...namely being stuck in my own room. The concept for my project is optical illusions in a 3D world. I decided I would try making an all black room and then put optical illusions on the walls. The room came out well after some work, I even made the entrance a hallway with a 90 degree turn so that you couldn’t see any light at all once inside the room. I stood in the total darkness, marveling at my creation, when I suddenly became disoriented. Which way did I come in? I zoomed out so I could see which way the door was, and then zoomed back in to the totally black room. Even though I had just seen which way to go, I couldn’t find the door. It was just a box for crying out loud! Why was it so hard to get out!? I think this frustrating experience actually gave me more insight into an interesting project than my original idea of optical illusions. It would be really cool to experiment with disorientation in a 3D world. Maybe for my project I will dump everyone in a black room and see how long it takes them to get out :)

I'm currently dancing in a bath of blood with some vampires and one fallen angel in the Underworld...I look very out of place. But one of them sucked my blood, so I guess I've been generally accepted into the group.

On a different note, I've been conducting some research in SL to get ideas for art projects. I decided to explore the differences between avatars and their creators. I asked people to describe their avatar in 2 words and describe their real self in 2 words. The results thus far:

Digital awesome, completely awesome
Pathetic cat. Pathetic life
Not real. Not sl.
Rockin out. Artistically shy.
Sexy bitch. Sexier bitch.
Kinky perverted. Kinky perverted.
Brutal and sarcastic. Brutal and sarcastic.
Batman. Batman.
Very hot. Very not.
Overweight hacker. Fat ugly.
Sexy bitch. Horny bitch.
Sweet spicy. Spicy sweet.
White knight. White knight.
Carefree and passionate.
Philosophical and mysterious
Thrill seeker, photogenic. Hopeful romantic.
Smart and sexy. Smart and sexy.
Swinging free. Serious hardworking.
Total bastard.
Sexy dancer. Scholarly educator
Vampire bitch. Ancient soul
Ever changing. Eclectic strange.

It's interesesting that a lot of people wrote the same thing for both their avatar and their real self. I was expecting quite the opposite. It's also interesting that after all that reserearch, I still have no idea what to do for my project. Guess I better do some hard core thinking before tomorrow...

After attending a few classes (a flower/fountain making class and a class on making rave sticks) I began to wonder if the same stipulations for real life classes should apply in SL.

Should someone be allowed to leave during class? An avatar in one of my classes just stopped following along, and then 10 minutes later came back and said “sorry, phone.” The teacher then had to stop and catch him up. You wouldn’t leave to answer the phone in real class…you aren’t even supposed to have your phone on in real class.

Should the class wait for people that show up late? One of my classes ran a half hour behind because avatars kept on showing up well after the starting time of the class. In real life, class doesn’t wait for anyone. It starts on time, no matter when you show up.

Should you be allowed to take a class that is beyond your skill level? In my flower class one avatar didn’t even know how to use the arrows to move their object around. The whole class had to slow down for her. In real life you start with 100 level classes and progress from there, making it rare to be in a class that's way beyond your level.

Though an overall beneficial experience, I became slightly frustrated with the avatars not abiding to real life rules. The somewhat pressure free atmosphere of SL makes it easy to do a lot of thing that are normally looked down upon in real life (showing up late, being rude, etc). Plus, it’s only your avatar; you’re not putting your REAL self out there. I suppose it’s a double edged sword, because the atmosphere of SL also makes it easy to do things that are smiled upon in real life (ask questions, be friendly to new people, be bold, etc). I guess I shouldn't be too frustrated with some of the avatars because I found myself only half paying attention sometimes. It was way too easy to start doing something else (AIM, TV, music, daydreaming) during SL class. If nothing else, SL is sharpening my multitasking skills :)