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!.