This Burning Life

"Feels like we're in beta again." Ever heard that before? The first time I became acquainted with that saying in Second Life (which has since been recollected in various ways), I was on the preview grid, where creative experiments run amuck and land (for testing) didn't cost a thing. The "beta" refers to before Second Life officially launched, and a number of things (including land ownership) worked fundamentally different. Like one Wild West incumbent upon another (the World Wide Web) which had been relatively settled, creative chaos was spit out mercilessly and left to be gawked at by curious onlookers. This was an age of finding one's self — as an avatar — before commercial popularity crested its crown, and one could be content with simpler things, without having to think so much of money.

(In 2004, I heard oldtimers blame the inworld economy for killing creativity, but perhaps the virtual reality here was that already-greedy people gravitated towards profit-above-all-else opportunities, and merely showed their true selves. Meanwhile, the creators — including those who created their own balance of art and commerce — marshalled on.)

Enter Burning Life 2008, the latest incarnation of celebrating Second Life creativity, and inspired by the real-life Burning Man which is also quite a colorful festival. While crazy things happen in both realities, some constructs are simply not possible offline, such as physics-defying pieces you'll see in the embedded gallery above. Not to mention the cost of materials, negligible and as simple in SL as rezzing prims upon the pixel-playa.

For roughly a weekspan, Resident creators come forth to make self-express: some are political statements and I don't get them, others are abstract and couched in inner dialogue, yet others still are random, wacky fun designed to amuse and provoke memorable insights. These tend to be my faves for all the right reasons.

Ravenelle and I courted the digitally cracked earth, flying in a circle around the 22 regions before moving towards the center, where musicians were playing to packed houses (in other words, regions stuffed to the limit of 30 avatars).

Along the way, ColeMarie Soleil, who has her own Burning Life highlights, joined us as we invaded Mantis Oh's sci-fi sanctuary, and as requested, searched for ninja sprites based on Commodore 64's Bruce Lee. Incidentally, not too far away was a giant statue of Yamo, the hulking green beast from the same game, made by Milla Janick. I later IMed her to thank her for using my Torley Textures in her game-centric creation, and let her know of Mantis’ 8-bit content of interest.

Bantering on voice chat, ColeMarie brought Ravie and I to Dizzy Banjo's exceptional exhibit, "IO". It's a sublime experience bathed in celestial, purple gemfire. An intimate gathering of avatarfolk was about, mingling as ColeMarie observed that this was because Dizzy's cool. In the presence of such evidence, one must agree.

In solidarity, the 3 of us got into white, egg-shaped chairs, and were prompted to press the music player button when a countdown finished. 5… 4… 3… 2… 1… NOW! And click we did, synchronizing the beginning of this experience. Dizzy's own composition came out of the speakers like an astrally-projected Chopin, deep piano tonalities soon joined by a warbling, almost theremin-like high pitch that glissandoed between notes, two instruments interplaying — with plenty of space in between the notes — as we continued to head up.

Glow effects were put to great use, a vertical shaft heading towards the midnight moon, bathing us as the music played on. Dizzy explained to me this recording is an preversion for a real piano and singing saw player to perform. Last I saw a saw player sing with his saw, 'twas long ago, but delightfully warbling.

Things got a little confusing at the top: the rides descended slowly — too slowly. Eventually, we hopped out and freefell to back to where we started.

Sometimes, that's the way a (non-burning) life is too.

Tell me your fave Burning Life 2008 stories!