A 9/11 Survivor Builds a Virtual Memorial in Second Life

Thirteen years ago today, Liam Kanno was in downtown Manhattan on a perfect morning when the sky ripped apart. He was three blocks from the World Trade Center as the planes came scything in, and as the buildings and bodies collapsed around him, he stumbled into a stranger's house to survive. Shortly after, he quit his high paying advertising job, abandoned his luxury apartment several blocks from Ground Zero, and returned to school, to study humanities. He traveled the country, he visited remote monasteries, he painted.

As part of this recovery process, Liam submitted a design in New York's official memorial competition, but it was not accepted. But there was another call for designs, this one for a memorial site in the virtual world of Second Life. So Liam created a new design, and that one was built, and you can see it right here:

"Most of the time visitors don't say much," Liam told me when it still stood in Second Life (for sad to say, it no longer does). "They change their clothes into gray suits and dresses, and talk about who they lost. They visit the names on the walls, and give each other hugs. So from the virtual reality aspect, it's amazing to see that SL can be used to help others share and express."

Unlike Maya Lin's Vietnam War memorial, which this one is meant to evoke, the names of the fallen remain at a close remove, just out of reach. "Personally for me," Liam explained, "when I saw the people fall from the towers... the biggest thing for me is that I could do nothing ot help them... they were there, but no one could catch them. So in the design I have in-world there is about a three foot gap between the names and the walkway...

"I felt that by showing how the 2996 names occupied space," he told me, "that would be enough."

Originally published in 2007.

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Comments

[CJ Theseus]

Second Life keeps vanishing

What good is SL when most of it is gone?

This memorial is gone,
Island of Wyrms is less than 1/2 what it once was,
Many of my most favorite places are dead links now,
many others are sold out - what used to be a fun park
is now someones basement with an autobot
ejecting people & banning them in 15 seconds - very rude &
not our fault they built a house on a former popular public sandbox !

Computer tech and servers grow smaller and cheaper every year.

Long term popular places sould get a longevity discount,
and places like this war memorial should get a 50% discount at least for a year.

Having this memorial vanish from Second Life is
Linden Labs murdering their memory a second time.

I know SL is built on paying customers,
but when a site has been popular for 3 years,
they should get a 10% discount for each year after that,
stacking up to 50% discount, in effect as that site is drawing people to second life.

LL can set the metrics of what popular is: such as dwelling real player traffic,
residents on a homestead, awards for outstanding art design or graphical beauty...

SL Still has not tapped the Huge Profit potential of STEAM and the millions to be made by gaining new players through STREAM.

[Saxon]

For as long as I live, I will be grateful to Liam for what he had built.

The Memorial could not have been more real for me.

Thank you.

[PK Otoole]

This was indeed a great memorial. It is sad to know it is no longer in SL. I thought of Liam just recently for the first time in years. I stopped into SL just last month and looking through my inventory I discovered my old displays for my MySecondLifePoject service/site that I used during a couple of tech conventions that Liam hosted on his Silicon Island back in SL's hey day. Those were certainly the good old days in Secondlife. Liam and his Silicon Island are gone, I've long since shuttered MySecondLifeProject. Orientation Island that a group of us worked to put together and support is gone. My friends in SL from that time haven't logged in in many years.