Nothing at all.
This should probably stand as a warning, oh audience who may, but probably don't, exist. It's unlikely this blog will see regular, steady posting. It'll be scattershot, random, long silences will be common. This is a kind of testing the waters, feeling a way forwards.
My secondary lifing has been more or less routine of late. Hanging out with friends, earning Linden pesos, promptly handing said pesos over to other folks. Just another cog in the great capitalist machine.
6/21/2008
6/08/2008
Floating Philosophers
Sanctuary was down last night so I decided to engage in a practice I learnt from Warren Ellis. Simply zoom the map to a distance where you can still read the region names, then look around for a name you find interesting. One of last night's stops was in Odyssey.
Far from being packed with Homeric warriors, Odyssey turned out to be an art space. A series of galleries, exhibits and installations dotted across a island sim. While wandering about I came across an amusing, possibly auspicious work that I just had to share. =)
The portly gentleman in these photos, chained down to prevent flights of postmodernist whimsy I presume, is the philosopher Jean Baudrillard. Baudrillard was one of the leading thinkers in the field of semiotics and had much to say on hyperreality and it's role in the modern world.
Significant that I should find this within hours of starting my blog, no?
6/07/2008
The name of this Blog...
The name of this blog, Travels in Hyperreality is borrowed from a collection of essays by Umberto Eco. I thought it an apt description of my feeling about the grid. Hyperreality is not to be confused with virtual reality. Virtual reality is all about recreation, mimicry and improvement, Second Life does all of this and it goes further. SL blurrs the boundaries, it actively encourages you to treat it as being as real as the real world, maybe even better than the real world, it is here it becomes hyperreality.
Hyperreality is the blurring of the real and the fake, which is which becomes impossible to ascertain. At this point I'm going to hand over to wikipedia, the relevant article there is a decent starting point. [Have a Link]
Hyperreality is the blurring of the real and the fake, which is which becomes impossible to ascertain. At this point I'm going to hand over to wikipedia, the relevant article there is a decent starting point. [Have a Link]
Phirst Post Passed
Weee!
I've been thinking about a Second Life blog for some time now, though my tendency towards procrastination has been getting in the way and seeding doubts. I'm a lazy one, there's no doubt. Thirty six years as a slacker with no spouse, house, kids or car. Thirty six years and essentially none of the trappings of a proper adult life, has more proven me a layabout of the most slothful stripe. You see this kind of Olympian level indolence tends to seep through you eventually. It begins to poison you. You start not doing things, not because you can't be bothered, but because you might not be bothered later. The only thing worse than a blog that no one reads would be be a blog that no one writes.
Some time ago I decided to Witness to some unbelievers. It was a message board I frequent, one dedicated to gaming. There is a lot of misunderstanding of Second Life amongst the forum's population. Despite being gamers; roleplayers, tabletoppers, video gamers, most of them held the same prejudices you see amongst any other random group...
"Second Life? It's all griefer and furry bondage sex innit?"
So in a rare fit of activity, I decided to do something. I started a photo journal, showcasing some of the sites across the grid. Interesting builds to stir the imaginations and maybe, just maybe, get some folks thinking differently. The journal lasted three posts, though the idea of it has hung around longer...
And so I've decided to try again, well kind of. This time I'm not trying to sell anything, this time it's about what I think and how I feel, about Second Life and about the wider internet. That's why if I'm talking to anyone but myself, I'm talking to other Second Lifers.
I've been thinking about a Second Life blog for some time now, though my tendency towards procrastination has been getting in the way and seeding doubts. I'm a lazy one, there's no doubt. Thirty six years as a slacker with no spouse, house, kids or car. Thirty six years and essentially none of the trappings of a proper adult life, has more proven me a layabout of the most slothful stripe. You see this kind of Olympian level indolence tends to seep through you eventually. It begins to poison you. You start not doing things, not because you can't be bothered, but because you might not be bothered later. The only thing worse than a blog that no one reads would be be a blog that no one writes.
Some time ago I decided to Witness to some unbelievers. It was a message board I frequent, one dedicated to gaming. There is a lot of misunderstanding of Second Life amongst the forum's population. Despite being gamers; roleplayers, tabletoppers, video gamers, most of them held the same prejudices you see amongst any other random group...
"Second Life? It's all griefer and furry bondage sex innit?"
So in a rare fit of activity, I decided to do something. I started a photo journal, showcasing some of the sites across the grid. Interesting builds to stir the imaginations and maybe, just maybe, get some folks thinking differently. The journal lasted three posts, though the idea of it has hung around longer...
And so I've decided to try again, well kind of. This time I'm not trying to sell anything, this time it's about what I think and how I feel, about Second Life and about the wider internet. That's why if I'm talking to anyone but myself, I'm talking to other Second Lifers.
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