Five in Slum City

Five visits Sandboxes regularly these days. Actually, when writing about sandboxes for a former blogg, Five was a little bit disappointed about what was being “on show”. A few weeks ago, there were amazing things to be ssen! But you have to be lucky! This time Five was more fortunate, because somebody was making a very odd looking car. It looks bizarre, because the textures are those from a cardboard construction set which you can cut, fold and glue together. The explanations and sizes are clearly visible in nice bright colors on the white background on the surface of the car. And just this is the fun! Indeed this way of constructing a car, in SL is really quite fascinating. Normally people are trying to hide the fact that the objects in this world are put together, with this car, the owner/maker Youma Muir (remember this name!) shows clearly that all is but cardboard, only virtual. This is questioning the belief of people, this urge to make something “real” even when everybody is quite aware that SL isn’t too real. Although we could conclude from the success of SL the opposite: that our conviction of existing in a “real” reality can be fooled quite easily. Think about what SL will look like in a few years with more powerful computers and servers, you can already see examples of it in more sophisticated computer games. Humans will be drawn in and be convinced that these worlds are as real as the world of our own. More and more features of the “real” will be added. And in fact, who can argue against it, if you can live, sell, earn, dance, communicate in these worlds? At the moment the distinctions are still very visible, but just that is what makes it attractive at the moment: the not really real…..


When something out of the ordinary happens Five studies the profile of the person involved. One thing often leads to more and Five’s appetite of exploring is big! (A real hunger in SL!) And bingo, the menu of the profile of Youma Muir on “interesting places” was filled up! The first one Five tried was Slum City .

Here Five landed in a fast food place. Remember the Japanese resto, a few blogg’s ago? The textures here are not as abundant, and maybe a bit more of grease and filthy things could be added. The small table is superb though and watch the bottle, fallen of the table, and pouring it’s liquid on the ground, seen through the gray surface of this table. Outside you see the shop with the yellow…what is this called in English? (Seen the pigeon, which really leaves a virtual dropping?)

But you will recognize it, just as the very rusty old car. Inside the shop a super job of textures, really a place you don’t want to visit being in a hurry. But here in SL it is a miracle. Chris Llanfair, who happened to stroll around told Five that it took Archadia Asylum weeks to make it and Five believed him ! Chris was looking in Fives profile and immediately asked about the local and the global.

But this story is for another blogg. Slum City is high in the sky, but this doesn’t really bother the creators to create a whole cargo ship, with beautiful textures on the containers. Just around the corner even a church, with a very nice light falling through a stained glass window above the entrance. Strange, just in this sim, they have attacked the problem of dirt and decay. In all 3D environments, dirt or dust is the most “expensive” there is. That’s why these virtual worlds are looking so unnaturally clean. In Slum City a bit of the feeling of dirt is regained. Lol, couldn’t we exchange a bit of the dust of our RL with the too cleanliness of SL! Dust, sand, grease, filth, decay is available in abundance in Real Life, we fight our whole life against it. The battle is so engraved in our soul that we miss this kind of mess in virtual worlds. Or is it that mess and chaos are the substrate, the fertile soil for the few good ideas we produce? Ok you sense a paradox here in Five’s existence: on the one hand Five distinguishes quite clearly between RL and SL, not liking the outright copying of things from RL to SL, for instance in the domain of the arts, on the other hand Five likes well done realistic textures and has an urge for mess and dust! Well that’s Five alright! It’s like the car with which this blogg started, compared to the very convincing rusted car in here Slum City…..


PS Did Five tell you about the manhole opposite the rusty old car? More to discover, Five won't whisper about it!