http://burninglife.secondlife.com
MACHINIMA: LOKI ELIOT
October 17 - 25, 2009, the Burning Life festival will be coming to a dusty wind-swept void near you! Yes, It’s time to dig out your fake googles and dust mask, put on your most outrageous attire, and come virtual *camping* with thousands of your closest friends.
“What is this Burning Thing?” most of you new Residents are probably wondering. We’ll be explaining that, and talk about why we do it, then get to some nitty gritty details that you veterans are dying to know, like “when can I start building my camp/artwork!?”
Burning Life is a festival of community, art and fire in the virtual world of Second Life. It was first held in 2003 when the Second Life grid was still in it’s infancy, and it’s inspired by the real life Art, Fire and Community festival known globally as Burning Man. Both Burning Man and Second Life began in San Francisco, California. But they have a lot more in common than their birthplace….
Some History:
In 1999, a dreamy guy from San Francisco decided to go explore this Burning Man thing he’d been hearing about. Into his car, he tossed a tent, water and everything else he needed to survive, then he drove 300 miles out to the Nevada high desert. He arrived at a featureless, 40-square miles of cracked mud, ringed by distant mountains. Hot. It was terribly hot. Except when the sun went down. Then it was just plain cold. The Black Rock Desert is an ancient dry lake bed. “The Playa”, geologists called it; harsh, foreign, unforgiving and so shockingly barren that it *begs* to be your empty canvas. A strange encampment had been erected there, ringed around a 40-foot tall anthropomorphic wooden statue destined to be burned the last night. What the Dreamer found there— a huge group of people, self organized into a city, collaboratively creating a different reality— tweaked the direction of the project he was working on back in San Francisco, and filled his head with ideas about the nature of reality, creativity, identity and community. He worked some of these ideas into the very fabric of his project “Linden World”, which you and I now know as Second Life. That Dreamer was our founder Philip Linden.
Fast forward to 2003. Numerous Linden Lab employees were regulars at Burning Man, but by 2003 they were too busy getting Second Life out the door to visit the real life Playa. So Phoenix Linden approached the Burning Man organization for permission to build a tribute to the real event in Second Life. With permission duly granted, the Lindens built a Man statue much like the real thing, and “burned” it in-world. Which seems like ancient history ;-). 2009 marks Burning Life’s 7th year here in Second Life.
Our Inspiration:
What happens at the real life Burning Man is quite phenomenal. This real-world city of 50,000, built entirely by its citizens, is 100 miles from the nearest source of supplies. Yet it has roads, street signs, an FAA-approved airport, a power grid, a hospital, huge public plazas, street lights, processions, rituals and spectacles. It has fabulous fashions, ridiculous situations and artworks so raw they are literally dangerous. “No Spectators” is a common meme and in fact, passive consumption of amusement is pretty difficult in a Survival Camping environment such as this. You must bring with you everything you need to survive, since nothing is for sale and exchange of money is forbidden in Black Rock City. Water, shelter, food— the hot tub, the 3-storey duck-shaped nightclub you designed, the fabulous sequined cocktail dress, the personal flame thrower— you need to bring it all with you! And people do. Many camps roll onto the playa with fully loaded 16-wheelers and hundreds of camp-mates anxious to get to work building their vision.
BUT - It’s all temporary. At the end of a week, much of the artwork is burned, and every last last speck of what was brought there is taken away again, down to the last sequin, Leaving No Trace of the city that was just there. When the winter rains come, even the footprints will vanish. Til next year….
Why we do Burning Life:
For the same reason people do Burning Man. To learn and grow. And to form a community that values creative learning and growing. The temporal nature of it is vital to having immediate and unmediated experience, and the DIY aesthetic meshes perfectly with Second Life’s riot of user-created content. When Philip Linden put the tools of creation into the hands of Residents, he set up the same level playing field that energizes Burning Man. Everyone contributes. Nobody is special, and everyone is a star!
So get involved. It doesn’t even matter how much you know about Second Life. If you are not a great builder– this is the place to experiment and learn from others. If you don’t know anyone in Second Life yet— you will. If you are a veteran of Second Life and you crave a little good-old-fashioned creative chaos, come on out. Burning Life ‘09 will be exactly what each of us put into it.
Participate! You can start by taking a look at the newly published list of volunteer staff opportunities on the Burning Life web site, http://burninglife.secondlife.com. The Burning Life Team, a fabulous and talented group of people, still has some you-shaped holes in it.
Next Blog Installment: A description of exactly how we do it, and how you can participate….
