Happy New Year Ponderings

Happy New Year to all my virtual and not so virtual friends.
When I look back over the year there’s been a lot of changes, a lot of things lost from Second Life, a shifting of the sands, a change in the focus of the world, and a realignment of the art and creativity sector.

I try to stay away from the rumour mills and just use what I can, but for the first time this year changes in virtual worlds have made me question how I can best enjoy my involvment. The biggest of these changes for me was the establishment of LEA, which made it less attractive and less viable for individual artists and galleries to maintain a presence in Second Life. The corporatization and commodification of creativity is nothing new, but for me it marked the end of an era.

Many galleries have closed in Second Life, including my own, and while this possibly has as much to do with the economic climate as anything else, for me, and others, finances weren’t the driving factor.

It’s been a year of personal decisions ….scaling down my commitment to land in Second Life and buying a sim in Inworldz being the two big ones. The availability of a cheaper and viable alternative to Second Life for artists and creative has been a driving factor in the success of alternative worlds like Inworldz.

I think small is beautiful (and manageable) and I’m pleased that these new worlds still have the sense of experimentation, raw settlement and cooperation that made Second Life an exciting place to be six years ago. Unfortunately, Linden Lab, as a larger organization, has been forced to go for lowest common demonimator, impersonal and corporate solutions for its user base, with the result that much that differentiated it from the real world has been lost.

I was over looking at Lanes List a few days ago and thought about our need to celebrate the survivors, things that have been constant over the years, those who have continued to make quiet contributions to the development of virtual world art. And there are many – like pirats, Nordan, and Rose, Arte Libera, Sasun, and………..all those artists and places we love.

Soror recently blogged about a couple of things that are pertinent to the continued development of virtual world art.

First, crossovers between the real and the virtual are becoming more and more common and real life audiences have become more accepting of and interested in virtual art. As someone who has integrated the virtual into my real life art practice from the start I can see this shift becoming stronger and stronger, and as Soror has suggested, perhaps we need to be documenting and capturing these crossover opportunities.

Second, Soror also suggested there’s a need for ‘naming’, for a category to embrace what virtual world artists do. We have ‘grown up’ there are artists doing the most amazing things, who have now had a longish career in virtual art, and perhaps it’s time we recognized that we, as the pioneers might need to develop a cohesive approach to what we do that can be recognized by real world curators and historians. Miso has pointed out in her comments just how broad this field is and how finding a name might be the trickiest part.

So….thank you everyone who has brought me joy and smiles and inspiration over 2011. I am continually amazed by the creativity of my fellow artists in virtual worlds, and I look forward to more in 2012.