Second Life Architecture Featured In New York Times Magazine: Presage To SL Embraced As RL Design Platform?

The New York Times magazine is one of the most influential publications in the US, because it's mandatory Sunday reading for the country's most successful designers, executives, and assorted tastemakers, their weekly journal for following the most important trends in arts, politics, and culture.  And yesterday, when they opened up the magazine, they found themselves reading about architects with quirky names like Keystone Bouchard, Scope Cleaver, and Designer Dingson.  Written by Sam Lubell, author of books on Paris and London architecture and an editor with The Architect's Newspaper, his article, "The Architecture of Second Life", is no half-informed puff piece, but the work of a seasoned writer whose appraisal, "the virtual world is home to designs that can take your breath away", has special weight.  Along with the above designers, Insilico and Greenies get a mention, as does Bouchard's Wikitecture, Not Possible IRL, and many others.  All these names and places have long been well-known to Residents in Second Life-- and now, I picture artists in Greenwich Village, investors in the Upper East Side, and designers in Chelsea, finally learning about them too. I think this might very well become a transformational moment for Second Life, when it's actively embraced as a development platform for architecture and industrial design.

Comments

[Morris Vig]

Not sure where I read it, but I gather the writer wanted to pursue the standard media line of SL being for ne'er-do-wells. They were introduced to these builders and developed an entirely new worldview right quick.

Ah - here...it was Prok.

[Extropia DaSilva]

If Prokofy did indeed help steer the article towards a more positive feel, we should all thank him for that. So, thanks for that, Prok!

BTW, I noticed this...

'Scope Cleaver... declines to reveal any information about his real-world life (including his real name).'

It gets me thinking. Must we assme that there is one person in RL who is Scope? Is it not possible that there is a team of people who are Scope? That might explain why his builds are ten times better than others- he can bring ten minds to bare on a project, whereas the stereotypical avvie has to make do with one!

If this is true, what does that make Scope? As a digital person, I am fascinated by technologies that can project into minds the strong impression of conscious beings. A well-written story has characters that come to life. A great animator can make you cry over the death of a cartoon pig. Some digital people outlive their creator. I would like to think Homer Simpson will be entertaining us long after Mat Groenig is dead.

Wait a minute, outlive their creator?

If it is possible that Scope is more than one person IRL, that would mean 'Scope' is something like a pattern that can imprint itself on certain brains. We cannot ALL be Scope, because we do not all have the skills to run him propperly. But if we assume it is NOT true that ONLY one person can be an avvie, and that it IS possible (even if only in principle) that more than one person can run an avvie without compromising his/her individuality, and if we further assume that Scope is such an interesting and creative person that others would want to be him...He could have an indefinite life.

It would not matter WHO or WHAT is the brains behind Scope. All that matters is that there are brains capable and willing to run his patterns.

So there you go, SL can offer you immortality, at the price of anonymity IRL;)

Extie- not nearly interesting enough to be immortal.

[Nalates Urriah]

Much of the mainstream media is suffering from lazy and/or biased reporting.

Extropia DaSilva's idea of multi-person powered AV's is interesting.