[-empyre-] Re: // Second Life: Who's art is it anyway? //

Sun Mar 30 01:06:40 EST 2008

..on or around Sat, Mar 29, 2008 at 12:03:43PM +0100, Margarete Jahrmann said:
> Dear Mister Warwick, Julian, Ilias!
> 
> (a note and congrats to the great SL book on which you collaborated,
> melinda, chris!)
> 
> The Ludic Society magazine appears in this edition as usual in print and
> in 2nd Life ? to provoke a World 3 phenomenon! The periodical?s online
> presentation is a parallel Hello World event.
> 
> In order to vivisect 2nd Life critically, it must be considered not as
> game ? but as a hypothetical game system. Its focus is a playful 3rd
> life, according to Jorge Luis Borges´s "Orbis Tertius" and Sir Karl
> Popper´s "World 3". Games played in SL serve as examples for deviant
> gaming behaviour on the borderline.
> 
> 2nd life appears as a benevolant dictatorship and an unavoidable
> love&hate object of desire to the ludic artist in flux. Back-to-back a
> World3 investigation platform was constituted in 2007 ? as an in-depth
> research project hosted by the Interaction Design/ Game Design
> department of the HGK Zurich, and by the players in 1st life, members of
> the Ludic Society, also affiliated with the games research group of the
> local academic Game Design strand.
> 
> What I find challenging when regarding SL, is:
> the search for the missing link between first and 2nd life
> in the form of real toy objects (namely the SL aura indicator under
> development in World 3)?

hmm.. well i think SL benefits greatly from the promises of VR of their
being a digital universe separated from the corporeal greatly. as such
SL offers itself as /generous/ to experience, an 'other world' in which
to produce new 'being'. with such great suspension of disbelief comes a
fabulous business opportunity. that people actually believe they are
making a connection 'from one world to another', as they say, is perhaps
the deepest expression of the scope of this investment. 

from the perspective of software development 3D multiuser games are a
perfect exploit of a human's engines of investment. that people believe
their avatars are separate and whole objects - separate from the flat
polygonal field comprising the rendered scene - points only to the power
of this technology, one that implicates a heavy responsibility for
Linden Labs.

"Your World. Your Imagination" is their slogan.

in this sense there is no 'missing link' and no 'world' just a
consensual fairy tale, a playing at being, a phenomenological game.
this, for me, is by far the most interesting thing about SL and most
certainly MMORPG's themselves, which i've invested plenty of belief in
over the years myself.

> 
> This most hated environment is an opportunity to PLAY inside the belly
> of the beast, namely as shown on Odyssey Arts. MosMax Hax served as
> supermodel for such a test (and as mutual inspiration for Superfem Beebe
> and Chris Marker), using  reshaping, collecting Freebies as material for
> arts, being aware about the fact that you depend on a proprietary system
> ? and on the benevolence, of host whom we don?t really know (as
> Lindenlabs)!

yes really i think this is less of a problem if you configure play as
the primary - and temporary - subject and outcome of art practices in
SL, rather than the artefacts and/or props that support that play.

if play is unbound to the medium or 'material' vehicles themselves then
it's certainly safer from disappointing outcomes like Linden Labs
selling the platform to Microsoft or Google, as it may be aiming to do,
as HW warns. a non-materialist ludic practice may in fact be the best
strategy for survival in a climate of corporate owned tools and
territories. similarly it may be the way to retain mobility in and out
of the museum, as the fate of the Fluxus games - re-asserted and contained
as artefacts - reminds us.

> 
> To contrast an omnipresent euphoria, we quote an early SL observation:
> ?Second Life is a benevolant dictatorship. If you were doing corporate
> business development in emerging markets, political stability would be a
> key factor in measuring the attractiveness of a potential new market. I
> think, if given the the choice, you?d rather invest in a place with a
> representative government that has proven to support smooth transition
> of power in the past. To me, the fact that a very small group of people
> basically dictates what goes and what does not in this market, a group
> of people that is not beholden to the residents by law, is a political
> risk.?(Adamo Lanza, 2004)

it's endearing how quick people are to invest in the managerial and
corporate interests of Linden Labs as a Government, a make believe in
itself. 

seen in another light however: that a corporate interest could be double
as a government is somehow honest. it strikes me - and perhaps other
visitors of SL - as 'natural' especially given the increasing trend of
western governments to run countries as geo-strategic corporations,
tax-payers as employees, revenue generators and market stimulators:

we're already used to a subscription-based model of citizenship.

cheers,

julian

> 
> h w schrieb:
> > Could be that Second Life's public space isn't  "in" SL itself if (i
> > agree with Julian) it's an administrative gamespace, so everything you
> > 
> > 'make' in SL is SL bound.  But how about a public space of
> > risk and ambiguity at its edge or threshold, as it were, its
> > passage=moment.   I mean, at the laptops in real space / place where
> > subjects are flicking in and out of it?  If you make a film from SL
> > and put it on you-tube? (like 'China Tracey" did
> >  http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=5vcR7OkzHkI&mode=related&search=&v3
> > 
> > ================================================
> > 
> > Julian covered that (emphasis mine):
> > 
> >> you're allowed to take photos of it,
> > 
> >> ***even make derivative works***,
> > 
> >> but the island itself will always be the fixed home of the original.
> > 
> > 
> > Making a film of it be like "allowed to take photos" and "make
> > derivative works".
> > 
> > Frankly, I agree with Julian, and would take his point further: since
> > this is posing as a "public" space, there is a great deal of data
> > imbricated into its development and performance. Obviously, if
> > Microsoft or Fox News or GE simply bought SL right up, residents would
> > get upset... However, now that the SL protocol has been reverse
> > engineered, it only makes sense that there would be incentive for
> > corporate interests to set themselves as interstitial portals, or
> > Windows, on SL that provide "enhanced abilities" but also track and
> > catalogue behaviour to be used for data mining and other
> > investigations.
> > 
> > Myspace was bought outright by News Corp, and Facebook has its own set
> > of issues. Given the complexity and immersive character, SL is a more
> > challenging "space" to conquer, but given the profit motive and
> > coroporate investment in Linden Labs, SL's creator, that are resulting
> > in higher prices, and the level of investment can be quite high
> > (example: from wikipedia: total first year cost for a "16 acre" piece
> > of virtual ground is US$1,650 setup fee and US$295 a month server
> > fees... a total first year cost of $4,895.) There is incentive for such
> > questionable behaviour,as such people clearly have disposable income,
> > and waving cash around attracts people who want it.
> > 
> > SL *is* a private space, and it *is* run by a corporation, so it *is*
> > responsible to exhibit profit oriented behaviour as a requirement of
> > its existence. Given that it is not the only game in town, and the
> > classic problems of capitalist economics (declining profit over time,
> > etc.) One sould not expect SL to be "benign". In fact, I would expect
> > it to become  more draconian and limited over time. To protect the
> > children and all that, of course...
> > 
> > HW
> > 
> > [edit]
> > 
> > 
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> > .
> > 
> 
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-- 
julian oliver
http://julianoliver.com
http://selectparks.net
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