While reading Kurt Vonnegut’s “A Man Without a Country” recently, I’d come across an interesting comment he’d made regarding electronic communities. The chapter recounts how, in his writing life-time the technological impact had brought changes and, from his view, not for the better. He presents the reader a vignette of his routine in sending off marked up pages to a typist. It’s a delight to read and its theme revolves around the contact and interaction with his fellow New Yorkers. He begins with the picking up of an envelope at a stationery supplier, then a visit to the post office and concludes with his mailing by dropping off the envelope with the pagers. He then tells the reader:
“Electronic communities build nothing. You wind up with nothing. We are dancing animals. How beautiful it is to get up and go out and do something. We are on earth to fart around. Don’t let anybody tell you any different.”
I’m awfully fond of just “farting around” so I’m reluctant to dismiss his statement in whole. I believe that those surveyed for this and previous editions of “The Arts in Second Life” would disagree as each has built a community in this electronic metaverse of Second Life. All are remarkable and every day they get up and go out to do something for us and themselves. And it is something.
This is the last in the series, I do hope you’ve enjoyed hearing from these extraordinary people on what they’ve done and are planning to bring to our Second Lives in 2008. Here is part three of a survey on “The Arts in Second Life”.
Jilly Kidd - Written Word
What were some of last year’s key milestones in the SL Literature community and why were they significant?
The first milestone was the first SL Book Fair in Spring 2007. I helped to organize this with a team of people, the main ones being me researching and finding exhibitors, Selina Greene offering her land as the venue and organizing the event, and Roman Zeffirelli doing the build. This was a milestone because we gathered together publishers, writers and people involved in book design and production, all in one place, in a way that paralleled the London Book Fair. By gathering together, the exhibitors could attract traffic in a way that's difficult if they are in isolated locations only offering their own books, designs and writing. Exhibitors stayed after this event to create what is now Book Island and Publishing Island. This is a commercial area now and I wanted to work nonprofit with writers so I moved on to develop that project.
The development of broadcasting on SL. As part of the book fair, we encouraged authors to make appearances reading from their work using podcasting, but they still had to reply to audience questions in text. Afterwards I started an author interview show called "Meet the Author" which is broadcast on SLCN.tv, Second Life's cable network. SLCN streams this show live and I can talk to authors by phone anywhere in the world while the audience on SL can listen and ask questions by IM. The author reads, is interviewed and replies to questions all in live voice. This makes it like a professional television interview and is well in advance of what was being done for literary shows earlier in the year. The show is also streamed live online and archived for people to see on the website so it can also be seen by people who don't use SL. In this way, SL and RL have merged for this type of show. Another effect is that authors have seen the show online and have been attracted on to SL to join the literary community here. This show is for published authors and you can see it on http://www.slcn.tv/meet-author
The advent of voice. With voice becoming generally available, the types of events I've been describing have become much more widespread. Anyone can hold a reading in voice even if they don't have access to a stream or broadcasting technology - and they can film it and post to YouTube. The move from small isolated writing groups to big events and projects, like the ones I work on, helped get all of this started as we could get the land and the technology. Now I'm very happy to see an explosion of writing and literary events all over SL, with some professional authors appearing in cafes here and there, and writers gathering on beaches and in venues to read out and share their work.
The development of major SIMs for writers and publishers. Growing out of the projects described above, major SIMs have developed for writers and publishers. Book Island and Publishing Island are a professionally run venture with regular events. As a nonprofit organizer, I was surprised to be picked up by two very generous landowners who provided free space for me to work with writers. The first was Johnny Austin at the Joysco Convention Center who provided the venue for me to start my "Meet the Author" show. The second was Thinkerer Melville who provided a large parcel of land on Cookie Island to let me work with writers.
Looking back to the start of last year, have things evolved the way you thought they would? Why or why not?
Things haven't developed how I imagined at the beginning of the year as I only imagined getting the writers' community together to enjoy friendships with writers across the world. The potential of SL has made it a much larger enterprise than I could ever have known.
What were the trends that began last year that will have the greatest impact in 2008?
I see performance as being the way forward in 2008 and the next trend. We will still have the fairs and exhibitions to let writers display their work in various ways - with virtual books, links to websites, links to audio and live readings. In 2007, we had the largest ever writers' exhibition in SL - the Autumn Writers' Exhibition. We will continue to have these events to bring the writing community together and to let others see all or our work.
I see performance as the next big trend. Writers and publishers are increasingly wanting to have their work displayed not just as text, but brought to life on stage, film and audio. On Cookie Island, we have a team of people under Thinkerer Melville, who are very involved in performance in SL and RL, so we'll be bringing all sorts of performance art to SL. This isn't just literary - I also look for talented comedians and live singer songwriters who perform on our Saturdays Wild show on Broadway Live Island. All of this is to encourage live original writers in all forms on SL.
We also have Written Word competitions every month for L$5,000 prizes and publish virtual books with the winners. Writers here are also published online on our site http://www.writtenword.org.uk/ and can do a free online poetry workshop on my website message board http://www.communigate.co.uk/london/justpoets
Have you explored other virtual worlds and has that had any influence on what you've done in SL? If you have, has what you've done there been influenced by what you've done or not done in SL?
I was never on virtual worlds before so I had no idea what would be possible. I think coming to a virtual world as a total newbie can make you look at the potential in a totally different way, but I had a steep learning curve. The good thing about SL is that there's plenty of free help available so we learn fast.
What can we look forward to in 2008? (Events, openings, influences etc.)
More RL authors and organizations are getting involved with the Written Word and taking SL seriously as a place to have a presence. On January 30th, we're hosting an event for the Poetry International organization (contact Ardor Foden who represents them here). This is a major Dutch poetry organization which also publishes international poetry and has links to national poetry societies. We're helping them make a film of their RL poets reading in SL and this will be shown in the Written Word's Red Sky Club on Dutch National Poetry Day January 30th. The film will be followed by readings by some published poets on SL including a reading from my book. Hope to see you there!
Desideria Stockton - Literature Alive!
What were some of last year’s key milestones in the SL Literature community and why were they significant?
Literature Alive! has really come of age in the last year. It went from a small project, just involving my students, to a grid wide project that targets not just student but also residents. Educational Designer, Eloise Pasteur, came on board as a volunteer early in the year, and, her arrival marks the most significant milestone. In the quest to provide edifying grid content to residents, Literature Alive! seeks to provide immersive environments that allow participants to engage the environment even when classes are not in session. In the past year, we have developed over 27 sites for literature, and we have highlighted the work of about 117 authors. While all of our builds are milestones, the one we are most proud of is a full scale Dante's Inferno used to teach the novel Linden Hills by African American novelist, Gloria Naylor. Designer Eloise Pasteur created an awesome 3D version of Hell based on the text of the Inferno. Another milestone includes winning a Foundation for Rich Content grant to create the Literary Holodeck which allows us to pass out our open access builds to anyone wishing to use them. Additionally, we won a Texture Support grant from the V3 Group which helps offset the costs of texture uploads. Continued support from SLCN.tv allows us to offer engaging prizes to students. Finally, Intellagirl Tulley and Typerwriter Merlin's book, Second Life for Dummies, features Literature Alive! as an example, and that is an excellent milestone for us.
Looking back to the start of last year, have things evolved the way you thought they would? Why or why not?
Literature Alive! has grown in ways that I could never have imagined. It started out as just me and my students. Once Eloise Pasteur came on board, we were able to build engaging environments that moved beyond the "standard" college environment. As we met more and more people and collaborated with more of the educational community, we grew in leaps and bounds. Daliah Carter, a student from the pilot group at LCCC, is now my assistant. We really are blessed by how Literature Alive! has grown, but I think it is truly telling of the desire to have edifying content in the grid. People WANT cool places to go that don't involve money. The sciences have been doing a tremendous job (ISM, NOAA, Genome), and now literature is duly represented.
What were the trends that began last year that will have the greatest impact in 2008?
I think the educational community is growing exponentially, and there will be more of a call for collaborative projects. In the fall 2007 semester, my students participated in the World University Exchange program headed up by Elmo Wilder. This brought together students from the US, Canada, Korea, France, and Japan. I think more of these partnerships will surface as we learn how to use SL as a collaborative and social educational tool. I also believe that more universities and colleges will legitimize virtual educational tools. In the past year, many of us have faced great resistance on our real life campuses, but as more and more articles are published in peer review journals like Innovate, the more we will find legitimacy for our work. Legitimacy leads to funding in many places, and many people are starving for institutional funding. I think organizations like NMC, ISTE, and Elven will continue to grow as people collaborate with each other and seek professional development. These organizations have been leaders in providing cutting edge development opportunities, and I anticipate that they will continue to grow. Finally, I think more educators will try to utilize the teen grid for high school projects. Fred Fuchs, at FireSabre Consulting, and Global Kids are doing amazing development work and I anticipate they will continue to grow.
Have you explored other virtual worlds and has that had any influence on what you've done in SL? If you have, has what you've done there been influenced by what you've done or not done in SL?
I have toured a few other virtual worlds, and they are OK. If Second Life didn't exist, I would certainly use them, but SL has the best graphics (so far). I do believe that someone will build a better virtual world, so SL has the challenge of keeping up with the competition. However, I believe Linden Lab is full of a lot of heart; this model wasn't built on making money, it was built on a dream to change the world. The philanthropy in SL, the work of the MacArthur Foundation, and the work of residents working together for a cause (breast cancer, Relay for Life, The Virtual Orphanage Project) are all marks of long standing commitment to global service.
What can we look forward to in 2008? (Events, openings, influences etc.)
Literature Alive! will be creating a full SIM ghost town for the reading of Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters. Students will be working together to create visual and audio-prim poems by Maya Angelou. Students will be working at the VIT world campus to build a tenement museum and a progressive era timeline. We are still looking for a home for the Inferno, but will be doing a small scale version of it on land donated by MillionsOfUs. I am fortunate to have the amazing Eloise Pasteur and Daliah Carter on staff, and we will work together to create rich environments that provide access to literature. Professionally, I am guest co-editing Innovate on an issue on virtual worlds. Literature Alive! hopes to establish a presence on the teen grid, as well. Most importantly, we hope to maintain our mission: we hope to create a lifelong love of learning through a lifelong passion for reading :)
ItsNaughtKnotty Cannned - INKsters
What were some of last year’s key milestones in the SL Literary world and why were they significant?
Last year, SL saw an explosion of cultural events. Establishment of Cookie SIM and sLiterary sim were key components for authors. At least two other SIMs are dedicated to book-ish themes. The number of periodicals paying for news stories grew. Theatrical groups received the gift of voice chat ... which the rest of us curse! The grid became stable enough to reasonably hold large group meetings without fear of lag or crashing. And, of course, the INKsters was founded and, I might be biased, but we've been digging the authors out of the woodwork all year and have a pretty amazing group together now and we continue to grow every week.
Looking back to the start of last year, have things evolved the way you thought they would? Why or why not?
Things seem to be going about as one would expect. A little drama, a lot of expansion. There's no way to keep up with all the events now. Second Life seems to be growing up. If only we could get the Lindens to give newbies the tools to help them get connected to other people on arrival, rather than worrying about how to alter our appearance, it would do wonders. I tell every new person I meet to join as many groups as possible right off the bat. We're needlessly limited to 25 groups and a meaningful Second Life is all about collaboration and creation. Why the Lindens don't make that more evident to new arrivals is still a mystery to me.
What were the trends that began last year that will have the greatest impact in 2008?
Ummmmmmm, I expect real world entities will find a way to make Second Life more than just a place for cheap advertising. Big interactive builds with highly creative designs seem to be evolving every day. My hope is the tools will continue to evolve to allow more artists access to easier tools so that people don't have to be professional programmers to create new and interesting things in Second Life. From a literary perspective, I'm betting we'll see "the metaverse" come into its own as a literary genre that is distinct from science fiction.
Have you explored other virtual worlds and has that had any influence on what you've done in SL? If you have, has what you've done there been influenced by what you've done or not done in SL?
I'm a chat room addict. This is a fancy chat room where you look for the LEAST popular rooms, instead of the most popular. Being able to do a 3D web design while hanging out with people who have similar interests is quite charming, too. My experience with other virtual worlds is fairly limited, but I've been to enough of them to know that our ability to create our own content here is unique and quite wonderful.
What can we look forward to in 2008? (Events, openings, influences etc.)
Well, I can only speak for the INKsters. We're going to continue the daily competitions. I hope to find the rest of the writers in Second Life and put them all to work. :D We're expanding our critique group, our land holdings, our publications, and probably our workshops. We'll do everything we did this year, on a much bigger scale. Ultimately, my main goal is to find those people who feel a calling to become authors and help them find the tools to make their inner voices come alive. If I can help somebody do that, then I've made Second Life a better place.
Thinkerer Melville - Communication Arts
What were some of last year’s key milestones in the SL Literary world and why were they significant?
Voice. Many literary activities depend on oral communication. Poetry reading, once done in streaming audio, changes from a monologue to a conversation when you have voice. Plays can be more naturally done in voice and really require voice (oral reading) for collaborative development. Even written prose benefits from oral reading in a group.
Other milestones that I would identify are development of live comedy acts (Lauren Live) and live theater (by the Act Up group in July and October). Both of these are in response to the arrival of voice capability.
Possibly another milestone is the appearance of Broadway Live Island, a cluster of SIMs related to Broadway theater. These are being developed by Tom Polum, an experienced Broadway producer/artist. This, along with the ballet production by IBM and the documentary produced by Molotov Alva, mark the entry of real world cultural activities into SL.
Looking back to the start of last year, have things evolved the way you thought they would? Why or why not?
Things move so fast in Second Life that I'm not sure I had a firm idea of how things would develop. I expected that the advent of voice capability would lead to the developments cited above, but I had no idea that things would move so fast.
I started actively using surrogates (Skype, TeamSpeak) for SL voice before the real thing became available. I encouraged both Lauren Weyland and the Act Up players to use the TeamSpeak server to get ready for performances in voice. I suppose others were doing likewise. So I think one of the reasons things move fast in SL is that many people are bringing lots of previous experience with them.
What were the trends that began last year that will have the greatest impact in 2008?
I think the milestones mentioned above represent "proof of concept" steps in the cultural development of Second Life. As to the greatest impact, that is a judgment call that depends on the viewpoint of the caller. I will pick a sleeper on that. One of the groups I am working with wrote about seven plays last fall. These are all in a series to be called "Tales of the Metaverse." I see this as a demonstration of the potential for collaborative writing in Second Life. Last summer we realized (the Act Up players) that our rate-limiting factor was going to be the availability of suitable scripts with the necessary permissions to use copyrighted material. Now that the INKsters have demonstrated that they can produce the kind of scripts that are needed, I expect that capability to have a big impact.
Another trend I saw start is the development of multimedia art. (That’s the name I made up for it.) It is the combination of several forms of art, such as poetry, music, and 3-d graphics. Elros Tuominen makes some interesting versions of active art. I am now using them in a video I am making and expect to combine one of them with music and voice script I have written to produce a video. I hope to get other people to explore other ways of combining art forms in collaborative art.
Have you explored other virtual worlds and has that had any influence on what you've done in SL? If you have, has what you've done there been influenced by what you've done or not done in SL?
I have not explored other virtual worlds except superficial inquiry. My impression is that SL is the only VR world where I could work with older, professionally experienced people – the kind who would seriously interact with literature and art. I would suggest that art and literature in a virtual village work better than art in a lonely garret.
What can we look forward to in 2008? (Events, openings, influences etc.)
Predictions are really hard to make, especially about the future.
I expect to see the development of theater groups, some touring with a repertoire of one-act plays that they can offer to interested theater venues. Some of these plays will no doubt be produced as videos and perhaps even used in ways that generate a little income.
I also expect to see an increase in comedy performances – both solo and skit format.
Lauren Canetti - Arts and Literature Group
What were some of last year’s key milestones in the SL Literary world and why were they significant?
I would have to say that in the last couple years that I have been here, I have seen interest groups move from the standard, carefree events and groups, to something more intellectual and thoughtful. The bringing of books into SL and the constant creativity of its own residents provide a huge backdrop for cultural and intellectual discussion of many works.
Looking back to the start of last year, have things evolved the way you thought they would? Why or why not?
I would have to say, with the invention of the voice chat, bringing more feeling and strength into readings, more jazz / coffee shops opening up and theatre coming full fledged into Second Life, there have been wonderful changes. I hope to see more in the future, including widespread discussions and a library of material written by SL residents, for all to share.
What were the trends that began last year that will have the greatest impact in 2008?
Again, I would point out that the voice chats, along with the larger population of intellectual people seeking intellectual activities would be the largest impact. I personally have 200 people in my arts and literature group just chomping at the bit for more to soak up.
Have you explored other virtual worlds and has that had any influence on what you've done in SL? If you have, has what you've done there been influenced by what you've done or not done in SL?
I have been involved with other virtual worlds, and in all of them I have found myself, not drawn to their tasks and storylines, but drawn to the intellectual conversations among the members... much of my time was spent sitting around a table in an involved discussion. This is what brought me to SL and what fuels my desire to stay here... I am not bogged down with meaningless tasks, unobtainable goals, I am able to enjoy an evening with a nice glass of wine and some strong intellectual pursuits.
What can we look forward to in 2008? (Events, openings, influences etc.)
I see the theatre expanding in the next year, and am hoping to get myself involved in that.
I personally am excited to be reformulating my book study group and an art discussion group after a recent illness. Thankfully, I have someone else running the group in another area of the world, so we are hoping to have more participants, expand the views, etc.
I believe that expanding coffee shops to having more poetry readings and, eventually, putting together a library of works from the SL residents themselves will be a wonderful goal to obtain in the future.
Angeline Blachere - Book Island Events and Discussion
What were some of last year’s key milestones in the SL Literary world and why were they significant?
I think the opening of Book Island as a free standing SIM and the subsequent addition of Publishing Island paralleled the growth of the literary scene in SL. The SL literati hunger for places to find books, read books, display their works, and actually publish their work.
Looking back to the start of last year, have things evolved the way you thought they would? Why or why not?
Definitely not the way I thought, but the reality was much much better. I thought that I would open my shop "The Book Doctor" and pick up a few note cards to edit and stories to work on. Instead, I have been busier than I ever imagined with RL work, paying RL dollars all because of my virtual shop on Book Island.
What were the trends that began last year that will have the greatest impact in 2008?
I think that avatars' thirst for good books to read will continue to grow. I also think that more and more people come to SL as a place to market their work. There are readings and workshops and a thriving literary community.
Have you explored other virtual worlds and has that had any influence on what you've done in SL? If you have, has what you've done there been influenced by what you've done or not done in SL?
I have not explored any other virtual worlds. I consider SL the most serious one for my needs and my market.
What can we look forward to in 2008? (Events, openings, influences etc.)
Definitely more events, book fairs, and readings and as the reputation grows others will follow.
My friend and I met again over morning coffee as I was finishing up this last part of the series. She’d commented in surprise at all that had gone on this past year and what was in store for SL’ers this New Year. “Nazz, what will be the next subject for your list?” she asked. I replied, laughing, that I hadn’t even had a chance to think about it. “Well, you’ve been so wrapped up in this and we’ve not had much together time of late. Maybe you could take me … hmmmmmm …..I know! *She puts hands on her hips while turning the upper half of her body slightly to look at Nazz over a shoulder. She bats her eye lashes and curls her lips into a smile whispering seductively *… somewhere romantic,” she said. All I could do was grin and nod my head in agreement.
My special thanks to each of you who contributed to this edition and Parts One and Two, from me, the humble recorder of your activities. And, also, a thanks to all whom I didn’t touch for this series of articles that are building communities in Second Life.
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