Five things Five March loves in Second Life

The lists I made for the things I love quickly got larger than the list of things I hated in Second Life. This made me feel good!

Here they are:

For a start I love the encounter with books! Well books? Texts of books in notecard form. In principle you don’t encounter any books in SL. But suddenly in Public Library, ElvenGlen, I found myself in a Library. Books about poetry, science fiction. It has been put there to reinforce the fantasy of the sim. My feelings for books are maybe a residue from real life, but Second Life suddenly felt warmer. It felt it having more content with the reference to books. Of course I am well aware that theses texts can be found in the internet, being free texts without copyright. But it made a connection for me. Later on I discovered “real” libraries, that is to say, Second Life buildings providing buttons to access internet sites with search engines for texts and books. This works out rather impersonal; it provides much less “warmth”, because these building are actually just an internet button.

Secondly I like the idea of the "inventory" very much.

The inventory, where everything you own and made is stocked, gives a funny insight in the human character. It points out rather painfully to our drive to collect things indiscriminately. The inventory fills, slowly or quickly, up. Or better we are insatiable! It can easily contain thousands of items. The interesting part is that whole buildings, yachts, all the gear for disco, whole exhibitions, can be stored easily in this “backpack”, which everyone is carrying around. And these things can be “rezzed” in an instant. (Rezzing is putting it in the world.) You can put it on a location faster than the blinking of an eye. It is very funny imagining every avatar having his whole life of collecting invisible on his back.

I here show an image of a sandbox, where somebody showed me his disco table.

Third thing, this is what I love to see more:

This is an ideal: hidden things. Well the idea of hidden things. No not the skyboxes or the spying on people. Just have to search a little bit before something nice is found. In principle everyone wants to show his or her ability, imagination and products. Show it immediately and to everyone. Shout it around. Every now and then you find something that is hidden from this direct view. This makes you wonder if there is more to be found. This stimulates imagination and fantasy more than the immediate available. I met a very well made Leopard (from Julia Hathor) somewhere, and later I discovered one lying on a branch of a tree above. That was great! This is what I mean; it gives depth to the world.

The fourth thing I like is the profile। Clicking on a person you can find out when this person is born, well, started Second Life. A few words can be added about interests, language, and a couple of places can be listed, which this person liked. In an instant you can figure out if it is worthwhile talking to this person, or about what somebody would like to talk. We should have something like this in real life! I like very much the honesty and the directness with which people put things in their profiles. (A bit in contradiction with point 3 about the hidden things I suppose.)

The fifth point I like is to encounter a little bit of imagination. The being different from the average and the doing things differently. This can be in all aspects, building, clothing, behavior, chatting. This point is like the hidden things, an ideal. Sometimes I meet imagination, most of the time not too much. But as with the hidden, it is meant to be like that!

And I do meet imagination, for instance the crazy Brainiac HQ

Other things I like, in general, are of course the possibility to fly around, the manipulation of the camera, the idea that a person can indeed be represented by a texture and an inventory, I like the building up of the world when you arrive somewhere…. I’ll write more about the particular things later on

Five things Five March hates in Second Life

What is it easy to write about things we don’t like! But at the same time I have written about the five things I like very much. This is to compensate the negative by the positive. (Compensating seems to be a need of man. Being poor, you are given some money, being rich some money is stolen from you. Regrettably to become rich you have to steel lots of little bits from the poor.)

Ok, what are terrible things in Second Life?

First of all, I hate Slot machines. Stupid boxes mostly put in great quantities against a wall. Throw money in and if you are lucky you get money out, but always less. Sometimes it is indicated that you even get 90% of your money back. First of all the principle: why should you just pay somebody money for him (or her) to give only a part of it back? And second: why should we believe this? We cannot check the 90%, maybe it is 50% maybe less? And then with what statistics could we prove this figure as a customer? And then the people who own the slot machines, they don’t put one in their place, no 20, 40 or even more. This slot machine illness is like a virus. Why put so many of these things on your place? Is this to accommodate 100 avatars at the same time? But they cannot even enter the sim at the same time. Oh yes, all you hope for is that they quickly throw money in, and leave. Of course some of the avatars try these machines. They are hoping for a lucky break. Well don’t. Go dancing somewhere, or even camp to earn money. Better still, spend your time searching for freebies, because really, everything you need is available, free!

(Even more distasteful are the money jars. Just begging this is! Leave a tip, they say. Why? Present me something I could buy, imagine something, then you have an object or an idea to sell, seeing if somebody is interested, please!)

Then I hate the “no entry tape”. If you own a place you can shut it off. So flying around, exploring the world, we end up banging our head against a poorly visible barrier. It is like an invisible large brick on a highway, you are stopped abruptly, and you have to find your way around, sometimes landing against another invisible barrier and another. Why are these people in this world? Why don’t they just stay at their computer at home? Why building something in a large open world and then shutting this plot of land of. And then, with a little bit of manipulation of the camera you can always see what it is. Never is there anything to be seen you cannot see everywhere else. So please don’t shut off your land, It is spoiling the game and it serves no goal.

Thirdly how do I hate the ever-present FOR SALE signs! These things are spoiling the view! Ugly in design, because the speculators are just there to make a profit as fast as they can on land sales. The signs are as big as possible, and of course rotating. And by the way: the biggest signs are indicating the most expensive land, relative to surface. These signs of speculation are signaling that something evil has come into Second Life. Greed. Land speculation is a way to make real money fast. It is too simple to be true, it doesn’t demand any imagination. Actually it is a sort of denial of the goals of the game, to contribute to something bigger than the individual. Society, culture, development of civilized life, imagination. Luckily some signs are just lying on the land. I myself built a wall as high as the signs on my land, to get them out of my sight. I took this wall down the moment somebody bought the land and built something for herself on it. Peace!

The fourth thing I hate are the “the sitting ducks”, avatars sitting in chairs to earn a few bugs, but for the rest being totally inactive. Of course these avatars are not really “alive”, that is to say active. They are in Second Life, their computer is running, but they themselves, in real life, are doing other things. A small program called “Anti-idler” is running, so that their connection isn’t shut off because of inactivity. The avatars are sitting to attract other avatars. I do understand that these avatars are serving a purpose even when inactive, but they are the ghost’s of the game. These avatars are in a sort of sitting coma. The other option to earn money is to dance, it has the appearance of still being active.

Five!
As in real life, I hate repeats in SL. If you own a shop, why putting the same picture of an article you want to sell a hundred times on the wall? Why put a hundred slot machines against the wall? Why putting a “shop for rent” sign everywhere? Why 10 “for sale” sign instead of one? And why covering an enormous surface with all the pictures of all the clothes you ever made? Presenting a selection is much more convincing. Repeats are also visible in architecture. But awful is the repeating in the animations, the pose balls. Better emptiness than lacking imagination. Give us a break! Ok this gives me the chance to finish in an upbeat. This blogg is not about a sim in particular. But the dance animations of Sine Wave Island are really good and unique. These are really convincing. For sure made by a dancer.

And now forget about the bad and quickly go to the five things I love in Second Life!

Building drive in Second Life.

Coming in the world of Second Life we see we weren’t the first. This makes life easy. Others have tested, scouted, invented before us. We can say others, but maybe the others were like our selves. So if we see that there is a lot of building, we could say “we” like to build. There is a lot of sex (well a sort of sex) so we have an urge for sex. Who will deny these facts?

But looking closer, you can discover where things fail to be appropriate. For instance we can build a lot, but what do we do with the buildings? What are buildings for? Protecting against the wind, the rain, stocking. Homes are for living, making us comfortable, protecting us when sleeping.

Ok we quickly discover that in Second Life there is no rain. There is wind, but it serves to move floating objects and trees. The wind never becomes a storm. Also your belongings are yours for ever. Theft is unknown. All objects you make are signed absolutely with your name, even if sold. So seeing all those nice homes, I asked myself, why are all these people constructing homes? (I did it myself, found a nice Japanese house. But later I removed it.)

To have a place for their own, of their own? To have a personal mark set in this space? This here, is not “a” home, this is my place. But wait a minute! This is asking a big question! When is something personal? Is the putting together of anonymous objects, virtual things, made mostly by others (homes, chairs, tables, beds), is this making something personal?

Another aspect of this unstoppable building:it is simply too much! You discover in Second Life all kinds of buildings, being …empty, empty, so empty, and then to be rented.

See this picture of my the place of my neighbor. So people are building without knowing what to do with it. Putting a rental sign on the building they are hoping that others have an idea. This system of putting for rent and renting, when it is in equilibrium is well and doesn’t really surprise us. Also in real life there are buildings to be rent and people with ideas what to do with it, who rent these places. But in Second Life you see that the building urge is bigger then the ideas what to do with the buildings. So the buildings are mainly empty. Terrible places to float around. Holes in space painfully showing the lack of imagination of the people who ought to rent these places.

This is not to criticize. It is just very funny to realize that this building urge which is present in Second Life, reflects the building instinct in Real Life. Apparently we build to the limits of the possibilities. Always expanding. Always more and bigger.

In Second Life we can build rather easily. This could result in a building disaster! Filling up all space. So there is a limit of building blocks for a certain piece of land. Each morsel of land of 512 square meter having 117 prims available. Prims are building blocks to be used building walls, roofs, but also combining to make chairs, tables, and all that a human being can design. Well practically all. This limit is necessary because without it this world would be absolutely overgrown with buildings. It would be impossible to move around. This limit is enough for a small house with some things in it. If you want more, well buy more land. So the relation space – building blocks stays intact. Lots of people buy a lot more, building like “human beings” and then discovering the big question: what do I do with al this?

So Second Life and the things we see happening in it change our view on the real world. Now I see very clearly the ever expanding building drive in the human being. Our deep urge to construct. The difficulty and probably impossibility to keep some space in the real world “empty”. Empty could be called unspoiled, natural, but maybe that is already impossible. We can see the future of the earth: layers upon layers of buildings. Only where the climate is too rough, ok here we let nature in peace…

There is a place in Second Life where this is already visible. Nexus Prime for instance. Layers and layers of buildings. One of the oldest sims around. We can see our future in this aspect.
Well, I can give you my observations and opinions and leave you to it. But no, I also show you how I myself try to build. The trying is not about the building. The trying is to fill in the hole, the emptiness of what to do with it. For me this building is a sort of exhibition space and laboratory, where I want to find out what I could do in Second Life in the domain of art. Art for me being exploring reality. So I am filling this space with things I made in the past. And I am trying to transform the art works to become more fitted to the world of Second Life. My goal is not to sell, my goal is to find out what might be interesting in Second Life. The side aspect is discovering aspects of real life, as this blogg shows.

But more about my space later!

You can find my place where I experiment with building, scripting and "thinking" at Contrechoc.

You can find the place of my neighbor, still having shops to rent at Alles Beta!.

Who are we, in Second Life?

New world, new continents. I thought that was over after they discovered the South Pole, visited the moon and deciphered the human genome.

Well no, it was not, and is probably nevert over, although the notion of new world changes over time.
The Greeks could start new colonies in the Mediterranean, just around (their) corner. Later on the Dutch had to sail all the way to Indonesia.
The moon was different altogether, needing a bit of technology to be visited. It never became easy.
Second Life is for everyone. A new continent?

New? Well sometimes it is "outer space", sometimes it is rather the same as our world. Maybe even a bit to much the same.
Nonetheless it shapes my experience, even of the normal world. And it is about this re-programming of my mind I want to share a few experiences.

Contrechoc walks around in Second Life as Five March.

Five March is absolutely no copy of me and on the other hand how could we avoid being our self?

If you change clothes, are you the same? Working cloths, leisure clothes, it all changes more or less how we feel at the moment and also how we are perceived. Ok, but we are not simply how we are perceived. No, or ...yes: we perceive ourselves also. Putting on dancing clothes is not to go to work. We have a goal most of the time, and behave like it.

This about clothing influencing personality. Later more!

Enough about clothes, let’s talk about something more acute: gender!

Gender? But you just copy yourself in Second Life? SO your gender is sort of...th same as you are? Why actually? Second Life avatars are just shapes! So we can experiment.
In the real world we cannot change gender all too easily. In Second Life you can. Just turn a switch. It is made that simple!

What else is changed? Well quite something. The behaviour of other people for instance. As a woman (avatar) you can talk to practically everyone, as a man….not! Women are sort of suspicious, shy. In normal life we are used to this kind of behaviour, being the same all the time, we don’t even notice it anymore. By switching you can feel, what it's like in the skin of the other. This experience, even schematic and primitive as it is in Second Life influences even our perception and behaviour in Real Life. And of course, we react on the change of behaviour of the world around us. So we are indeed changed. How far we are changed depends on our selves.

But some questions are popping up: Are we deceiving when we change gender? But who are we deceiving about what? Who am I in Second Life. Myself? Who do I want to be? Anyway there is to my knowledge no law dictating me to be the same. Deceiving depends on what you expect of the other, in person or in avatar form. If you expect to meet the person behind the avatar in real life, and you are expecting a man, but actually meeting a woman, then you are probably deceived. But in the game itself? Only if you are willing to play the man-woman stuff. But even then? I don’t know! If you suppose everything in Second Life must be a copy of Real Life, why bother to play a game?

We could go one step further. Being able to choose between man or woman in Second Life is being attached to the past, to real life. We could say the man-woman stuff serves no practical purpose anymore. It should be possible to choose another shape for this game. And this is developing. Some people are experimenting with abstract shapes or Disney-like animals. It takes a bit of working around the avatar which is based on the human body, but it is possible. Maybe here we see a bit of the future, where our (old-fashioned) body will be lost?


All the pictures in the blog are "Five March". The last one too!!! The text rotating around it says: "peace", which is indeed what we need!

Five March can be found in Second Life, always busy at Contrechoc