Location: Burning Life Main Stage

It opened last night, Second Life’s tribute to one of its inspirations from our world, Burning Man. It runs through Oct. 5. You can follow events and get more photos than I can run here at Linden Lab’s official site (handy to check for the schedule of events) or GavinLeigh Wake’s blog on Burning Life.

What is Burning Man? You can visit that festival’s site, but to make some connections clear,  I’ll quote from the Linden Lab blog about their own version of this festival of art and music:

What happens at Burning Man is something phenomenal. This real-world city built by its citizens 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 dangerous.

BUT - It’s all temporary. At the end of that week, every last last speck of what was brought there is taken away again, Leaving No Trace of the city that was just there. When the winter rains come, even the footprints vanish. Til next year….

The other thing you need to know up front is this: Both Burning Life and Burning Man are completely non-commercial. There is no buying or selling in this city…no sponsorships, no logos, no advertising, but acts of unconditional gift-giving that play a large part in Burning culture. It’s all about about the radical inclusion of participants, it means welcome and respect — with no prerequisites for participation. It’s all about us and what we have made for each other to enjoy.

The author describes that playfulness, the gift-economy, and the freedom from the branded and marketed reality of America, Inc. This is why I love SL so much…I’m not the corporate type and my pleasure is seeing creative individuals make their own “content,” whatever that means in our world or this virtual one.  It’s even better when they give it away…

I will go back as often as possible to Burning Life over the next few days.  On opening night, I managed to get into the man event to hear Jax Streeter and his band play.  Jax had his own groupies and the house was packed.

The stage is placed at the junction of four regions in SL, so up to 400 avatars can crowd around.  Of course, these numbers produced what one concertgoer called “lag you could build a house on.” Hence the abundance of gray avatars in my snapshots.  Jax Streeter was gray through his first three songs for me, and I was on a fast computer and connection.  I’d have liked to see it all with higher-resolution graphics, but that seemed impossible. I will return to the venues for some high-quality shots of exhibits without so many avatars around.

Despite that, Ignatius, still with his pirate’s peg-leg, “busted some moves” (but not his leg) near the stage.

When all was said and done, I enjoyed the concert immensely.  I was able to IM and chat with others without missing the music. This seems impossible in a RL club, though I guess these young whipper-snappers text each other (but while dancing?).

Another nice feature of SL concerts is how a photographer can “get on stage” by moving the camera position (even when the photographer is dancing). 

A not-so-nice feature of SL concerts such as this one is that the arrival point was ON stage—the poor organizer was at wits end as newcomers popped right in beside the star!

More on Burning Life 2008 soon.

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

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