SL10B and the future

This year’s theme at SL10B is “Looking forward, looking back.” (It says so right here : http://slcommunitycelebration.com/theme/ )

One’s distinctly easier than the other, despite Lewis Carrol’s statement in Alice “It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,”

Where SL came from is fascinating enough; historians can give us good details of names and numbers, and perhaps even explain current things in the light of past facts.

But where we’re going... ahh, that one is tricky. Will Second Life go on and grow? Will it close like City of Heroes? 

Will Second Life change? It seems to me the older I get, the more change is bad, change is difficult, and change hurts.

Oh, I’m lucky enough to be exposed to enough of it that I only scream a bit, then carry on. But I’m certainly sympathetic to the point of view that all change is not automatically progress.

Mesh, server-side baking, materials processing - those are technical advancements, and it’s hard not to call them progress. But I know more than one designer who is staunchly waiting for the advent of parametric deform before releasing mesh.

It’s entirely possible that they’re missing a very huge boat and risk being left behind; everyone’s releasing mesh items, which fit more or less well.. while people like Kat and Dari are pushing the limits and dragging everyone along.

I picked two exhibits at SL10B that seemed to me to mean that the artist projected SL in reality. They struck a chord with me - as I think good art will - and made me reflect.

I remembered the first time I went out in a crowd and wished for a way to throw my point of view up like the camera in SL - which requires a helicopter and a Louma crane in RL films, let alone normal vision.

SL will change, and SL is changing us. Mostly for the good, with any luck.

Have a great weekend!

Deirdre and lelo

PS : See Inara Pey’s SL10B picks of the day for “don’t miss” exhibits! http://modemworld.wordpress.com/tag/sl10bcc/