Losing Zero Point: How Permanent Can Metaverse Art Be? (Updated)

As of last Thursday, this is all that remains of Zero Point-- a long bench and a broad white sign.  In previous years, however, it was a spectacular space of moving light and color, the work of Sabine Stonebender, ranked on this blog as among the Top 10 Art Installations in Second Life. 

Metaverse art maven Amalthea Blanc, who wrote that post for NWN last year, has a more in-depth review on Second Life Art News, including machinima, and an extensive Flickr stream.

It is a good thing Ms. Blanc documented Zero Point so well then, because it's gone from Second Life, and it's very unlikely to ever return, at least in its original form. I read about this last week in SLART magazine, which reported that a billing error caused the entirety of Zero Point to get returned to her inventory. Lindens have struggled to restore Ms. Stonebender's work, but, she told me then, that process is difficult at best:

"The land has been recovered," she says, "but the objects on it were by and large not salvageable, so it's to be a slow and lengthy rebuild there in a new form.  Apparently the autoreturn process is pretty brutal on how it groups unlinked objects." 

In other words, all the individual components of Zero Point still exist, but not all the data that bind them together.  "It was VERY random in the grouping," Sabine goes on. "The parts no longer fit and some honestly never appeared in Lost and Found," an inventory subdirectory.  "Most of the 3rd floor I didnt even find parts."

This is the paradox of Second Life creativity: the building block, prim-based system enables creations of great depth and complexity, but let a single technical hiccup intercede, and all could be torn asunder.  The question that follows is one beyond my expertise, so I put it to readers:  other than copious screenshots and machinima, what's the best way to preserve Second Life creations in perpetuity?

Second image credit: Amalthea Blanc's Zero Point Flickr stream.

Update, 10:45pm: Hitomi Mokusei has created a Flickr group page for Zero Point.  "I hope everyone who has pics that were taken there will contribute them to the group pool," he writes in Comments, "so Zero Point won't be forgotten."

Comments

[Hitomi Mokusei]

What a terrible loss for Sabine Stonebender, and for those who missed this installation.

Hamlet, I just wanted to let you know, and your readers, that after reading about this today, I was moved to start a Flickr group for Zero Point, to gather together in one spot pictures people have taken at Zero Point, so it will live on in some way.

The Flickr group is called "Zero Point - Sabine Stonebender", and here is the URL:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/zeropoint/

I hope everyone who has pics that were taken there will contribute them to the group pool, so Zero Point won't be forgotten.

-Hitomi Mokusei

[Gary Hayes]

Bettina over at NPIRL had good coverage of this 10 days ago here - a lesson to all SL builders and I spend a lot of time now 'packing' as much as is feasible into rezzers.

I think as a step forward Linden should offer as part of the premium quality of service, the ability to

1 Capture/download the data of a sim you own and have been paying $100-300 a month for! So you can look after it - this is a no brainer vs relying on what seems like a flawed back up system their end

2 At a sub sim installation level then there should again be built in tool/s to capture linked items...at the moment there are a few 3rd party tools that take forever to script.

But I for one would prefer the first as the most simple implementation from Linden which would put the power in the sim owner. thoughts?

[Court Goodman]

A hiccup like this happened to me. I had an intricately-scripted music machine that involved a rather large set of prims set as interactive surround-sound speakers. One day i found it all in my lost-and-found in strangely-grouped chunks. I could never get it working properly again.

I have no answer, but i can say this is a real achilles heel for LL. My ambitions really dropped after that incident for a long time. I am still hesitant to do intricate scripting to this day because of that.

[Maxx Monde]

If this project was developed in OpenSim, then ported over using Second Inventory - then a full sim-wide backup would've been in place.

Its a shame that even this far along, the only archival copies of a sim that exist on the grid is on LL's servers, and they're not about to open that up, for anyone.

I sympathize for the loss, but it just underscores the lack of detail that Linden Lab has exhibited in their long-term planning.

[Hamlet Au]

Interesting, Hitomi, thanks!

[Laetizia Coronet]

In the real world we have the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites. Maybe within Linden Lab there can be found money and time to buy/adopt and preserve such locations in Second Life. With the Second Life Heritage seal could come full protection against these mishaps by creating back-ups on the servers.

Other advantages are that these places are perfect showcases of the possibilities of SL (for LL promotional activities for example) and that they provide great possibilities for newbies to immerse themselves into their new environment.

[Christophe Hugo]

Best way for artists to avoid losng everything? Get the hell out of Second Life and find a more artist-friendly metaverse. One that cares more about creativity than its business plans and short-term profitability.

[Pete Eidenbach]

sad to hear about this loss. I face this problem in RL all the time as we lose important historic places to developers, looters, even state and federal agencies who are bound by law to protect the significant past. This type of loss in SL is why I am developing a Register of Historic Places in SL to give these important cultural and historical places recognition and greater appreciation. My developing list can be found at my faculty web site:
nmsua.edu/tiopete. Interested avatars can IM me as tiopete Renard or email me at [email protected].
Protect the Past so we can continue to learn from it.

[Arcadian Vanalten]

@ Cristophe...interesting. And where, exactly is this utopia? And how does it support itself and pay its own bills?