trees are people too

The qualities of space found in a virtual world such as Second Life are increasingly echoed in our everyday real life. If you consider the capabilities you have in Second Life – being able to fly and teleport, increase land space and terraform, and transcend cultural and political boundaries – we are seeing exactly these qualities mirrored in our own lives, through the process of rapid globalisation and technological advancement. Second Life essentially presents its world as one global village, and as Dalby discusses, parallels exist in the real world, in both a geographical, economical and social context:

“Given the accelerating links between the major urban centres of the world economy, the so-called global cities, it may now be more helpful to consider matters in the terms of one global city. …the degree of interconnection of global markets, the ubiquity of the cleverly named VISA cards, and the worldwide interconnection of airline schedules suggests at least an embryonic single system. …Understood as the global city, the whole planet becomes an interconnected hinterland.”

With its network capabilities and its very representation of space, this is exactly the situation that Second Life is emulating. And in turn, rapid globalisation means that real life is becoming more and more like Second Life, as barriers that previously divided and segregated social and physical spaces – barriers such as geography, communication and accessibility – are increasingly overcome. Second Life in a way presents a representation of a kind of utopian and ideological society, but one that is actually being realised. Dalby points out the potential use of science fiction as a tool for

“critical reflection on the cultural assumptions about nature that modern geography has taken for granted for so long…. Science fiction offers ways of reflecting on such possibilities precisely because it so effectively facilitates a critique of the ontological categories of modern culture and in the process raises questions of how to think rethink environmental geopolitics.”

Second Life, as a virtual world with its capabilities of networked technology, can be used in a similar fashion to science fiction to allow us this rethinking of space. Just in the way we are able to redesign our environment, our cultural and social limitations in Second Life, we are witnessing exactly this in the modern world. A space like Second Life, the concepts it provides, can therefore be a powerful reflective tool when considering social, cultural and geographical issues. Then translating it to a very product of the networked world – mobile phones – adds a whole new element of transcending spatial limitations. Mobility, immediacy and reach must all be considered, and again echo conceptual elements seen in Second Life. But more on the translation to mobile content another time.

Second Life:
…and Real Life:
Note the uncanny resemblance?? Except that the possibility of me buying a Mercedes Benz is much much higher in one of these locations. I’ll let you guess which one.