Blicky Kitty has been really curious about this virtual world, Second Life, he keeps hearing about and since he still cherishes an unfulfilled belief in futurist utopia he decided to hack his way in. Being a monochromatic kitty creating his avatar was a snap. Moving it around was a different story. Yes, he patiently submitted to the training tutorial about how to move, fly, give yourself enormous breasts, etc, but the second he left, he wandered into lava pits and walls and got stuck in trees while flying.
Luckily, he met a faerie named Una with a sparkling bindi and elaborate mehndi on her hands and feet and who, as luck would have it, was begrudgingly willing to show him around. This is an emersive 3D art installation at the amazing Kelly Yap Studios in second life. It's exciting to see how artists and architects are taking advantage of free materials, new possibilities for 3D and movement and not having to adhere to Newtonian physics. Blicky learned all about fractals by one of the artists/geniuses who creates installations, avatars and sculptures in second life.
Blicky's brain was starting to hurt, so he decided to go dancing at Jopsey Pendragon's Cloud Chateau. Blicky immediately friended Jopsey which, judging from the hushed whispers of his new friends, was the SL equivalent of having Johnny Depp on your friends list in Facebook (Which incidentally Blicky also has. His status today was "Johnny Depp is still suffering from existential angst."). All of a sudden it struck Blicky that he could be anything; human, dragon, animal, male, female, alien, cloud and do anything in Second Life. That's what things started to go downhill...
After about a week we noticed that Blicky was on the computer all night, then in the morning he'd wander around, eyes as big as saucers, mumbling about how he had to stay up for when his friends in India and Europe logged on. It was getting bad. He started forgetting his kittens' names, putting their shoes on their front paws, cooking their pet guinea pigs instead of breakfast etc. and we hoped it might be a phase. He got an SL girlfriend named SexyMysterious Starbeam and I'll spare you the details, but you know when you're little and you play with Barbies and you finally get the satin dress over her boobs and you realize she needs to be dressing up for a reason so you take Ken and you smush 'em together and squish 'em all up and make them kiss with the kissy kissy noises? Well a lot of people think that's a fun thing to play in Second Life.
Luckily, our intervention worked and as you can see he's made some more responsible and stable virtual companions. He even has a Second Life spouse, who complains about doing most of the virtual cleaning, and a mortgage, so he's been spending time off the computer to "get away from it all." He seldom spends any time there these days, but his kittens are fully clothed in the morning and they're thinking of getting a new guinea pig. While Blicky decidedly took the wrong road into Second Life there are so many others doing stunning and creative things there. Where else can you go to a lecture in a Victorian library, sit in on a buddhist discussion with people from around the world, fly in the apse of a virtual cathedral with a dragon, tour the Parthenon and listen to an in-world broadcast of Science Friday with Ira Flatow? I'm just curious about where these immersive environments will lead us. I mean this inter-a-web thing sure seems to be getting popular.
Oh and here's your Mandatory Fun:
Oh and here's your Mandatory Fun:
