Reply #20: In Second Life for years there was a Burning Life event

[Generic Other]

patterned after the real event. With firedancers, lamplighter processions, drumming, dancing, creation of amazing artworks. An empty desert plain was open to participants to fill with their creations. There are only a few groundrules. No selling or commercial advertising. And the land must be left as it was found. No sign of campfires, trash or any indication of human habitation. Even the art had to be destroyed as it is temporary. Clothing is optional. Imagination is not.

The interesting thing about Second Life's version of Burning Man was that the wife of the real Burning Man event ran the SL one. The participants took it very seriously. It is part of Second Life's origins as the creator of SL was said to have been at the real Burning Man reading Snowcrash when he got the idea of creating such a place in the virtual world.

At the end of the event, a huge Burning Man is set on fire. And the Temple is also set ablaze. One year on Second Life, the temple housed wishes and prayers and blessings that visitors had left behind. When they lit the temple on fire, these comments scrolled across my computer screen for 15 minutes. Prayers for peace, wishing blessings on humanity, amazing one sentence expressions of many many people's feelings throughout the world. I must admit, I was moved by this.

I know many may think Second Life is a silly game, but there are moments it transcends the pixel cartoon environment. This was one of those times.

As a postscript, the creator of Second Life and many of its inhabitants lost their vision of a free multi-dimensional cyberworld transcending the virtual in their lust for dollars. And most of Second Life looks exactly like the real world today. No imagination required at all. Everyone lives in a beach house in Malibu. :)

A video I made of the drummers in 2008 in SL. I was an amateur at machinima then.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtIbI2XKT0E

More often I filmed the art itself as is the case in this machinima filmed at the last Burning Life. Warning nude pixel statues.

http://www.vimeo.com/7414460