Past MFA Show

Ok, so I am actually going back and re-writing this post before I ever publish it. I went back and reread the last one I wrote, and it just seemed like I was trying to glorify Second-Life even though that's not what my intention was. Well yeah, before you ask, this post is about the world of Seond-Life. For those of you who don't know what Second-Life or SL for short is, it is a virtual community. Some might describe it as an MMORPG like World of Warcraft, but un-like those kind of games where there is a story or purpose, SL totally relies on the users to make the story. It is a game and yet isn't in the same sense. SL is way for people to create a new personality for themselves or rather an avatar (their character) and be able to start a totally new life for themselves in this virtual world. This is a world where you can almost do anything that you can in real life. With this I mean. You can work a job, go on dates, create a business, and go to clubs. Stuff like that. The world offers more than that. For beginners you are able to make your avatar what ever you really want. It can be male or female, black or white, human or animal and that's just for beginners. You also have the ability to fly. These are only a few of the crazy things you can do in there. It's crazy what people have done with this world. For some, whom may not even have an ounce of artistic ability in real-life or RL have made a name for themselves as an artist in SL. That is sort of what I did for my graduate project. Atec has their own island in SL, and they have a gallery on the island where they are hoping to showcase different artist within SL. Well for my grad project, I wanted to see if I could have a graduate art show with my video art. Well after a little research and a lot of work. I had my art show inside SL. Actually that way it turns I may very well be the very first graduate MFA art show in SL. That alone is a nice little bit of news to be, but aside from the show came off very well. Plus I made a few art connections within the virtual world. Well the whole point for this story is because after all the comments that I have made about people eventually using these different on-line communities to create new media, people are already doing it with this program. People already steam full movies into this world. As sad as this is to say, I actually spent time watching the second half of The Devil Wore Prada in a made up movie theater (what can I say. Anne Hathaway is really cute). People are also creating their own movies using their avatars. This procedure is called Machinama. This is the process where you use a video game engine to create a movie. Of course this is a whole other blog post. It's fascinating. I've even found a company in RL that create movies using SL. Now I would never say that SL is future of in-line communities. Dan and Dean Terry would say the same. Second-Life still has a lot of issues that seem to grow everyday, but it is defiantly the stepping-stone for where the on-line and virtual worlds are going to head. Now I know it may not be for everyone, but I say go ahead and see what you might be able to do with it. I mean it's free. So what do you have to lose by just giving it a try?