Inworldz.. dust to dust

          Another world bites the dust it.
          It seems after so long a time now another virtual world has collapsed in on itself as Inworldz falls down the virtual rabbit hole of pixels under the weight of a single click of ‘DELETE’. 
          Inworldz (IW) was made ages ago in some ways in sort of response to Second Life (SL) in part aimed at those disillusioned with SL as many had become at the time. Some left the inworld world entirely while others migrated to other worlds such as IW while others, and this was me partly, joined and lived for a time anyway happily in both.  That is until I realised how much time was needed to keep up not just inworld account but in two entirely separate worlds and somehow balance this with my real one, what I call the realme-world. 
          Despite this for a while I did seem to manage it, still spending more time in SL but also like a bit of an antidote to SL’s drama which has gotten bad at the time for me I managed hours in the day for IW.  So I established a me there too with the same name, Anan Eebus.  I even imported my body settings and looked almost identical.  Why wouldn’t I, as for me it was the only other-me I knew and in SL I did sort of model my inworld me on my RL (real life) me. I called it and still do, being comfortable in my own skin, especially as in these worlds you can basically choose any skin you like.  Weird I know.  I do hope you’re not getting lost in all these me’s I keep weaving into the blog here, just remember they are all me at the end of the day. 
          So I set up a whole other virtual life in IW for years in my avi, or avatar there, establishing regular places I’d go, like for dancing or for coffee and chat with fellow inworlders, or inmates, as sometimes it did all feel a bit insane and like an asylum, as did SL.  In truth there was very little difference between them except SL was a bit ahead of it in technology and because it was the thrill of the new, had far less psychodrama. I even set up mu unveiled Art Gallery and started having exhibitions and took part in build contests through which I did win some money, or I’z, or IW money, the equivalent of linden currency in SL. 
          But after many years IW has finally died, this month in fact, closed forever and all in it lost beneath the virtual sea that reclaimed it to its icy depths.  I wish I’d known sooner as because I had been logging in less in recent years I wasn’t there for the last few weeks or day so wasn’t able to save anything.  That is if there was even anyway I could have, but I would certainly have taken a few last photos of the old place before its imminent demise. 
          Anyway, luckily I do still have some photos but anything else I had there is gone forever, so fragile and ephemeral are such worlds, places, lives, gone in a click! It had over the years suffered a huge decline in active participants and I suppose cost or apathy or whatever got the better of it.  I somehow wish I could have made a little 3D model of myself though as a souvenir, which sounds weird I know, but you have to be a little weird to live in these worlds. 
          But I’m still here, in SL that is, happy enough and certainly as busy as I need to be but luckily not letting rule my life as I once did.

the last photo I took of me in IW

 © Anan Eebus (27th August 2018)

into the e-scape

It can be so easy to take for granted and become blasé to the virtual worlds in which some of us choose to while away some of our hours.

Of course they aren’t real as such, though they are just as real as anything else just they aren’t the real world in which we wake up at the start of every day and drift to sleep at the end, but they are real.  They are real imaginations brought to life in the same way as words in a book or drawings on a page or paintings on a canvas are, it’s just that these are done using the tools of codes and pixels.  People are so ready to accept a digital photograph taken with their phones and yet can’t see that these other worlds are imaged in pretty much the same way.

There are differences obviously but they do allow for something we can’t do outside our own heads normally, and that’s to interact with still-life, as though with a piece of artwork, in a sort of tangible way.  Not tangible as in tactile but insofar as one can ‘touch’ a world normally closed to us with our minds in a way that takes us one step beyond just imagining and provides a bridge that wasn’t there before; a place to be, to stand, to exist between worlds, a kind of insatiable limbo.

As these worlds have grown more and more sophisticated in their 3D-modelling and the degree with which one can interact it’s been incredible to look back and be surprised at how what we now see as so basic and simplistic has progressed, albeit still with so many limitations and frustrations at what can’t be done. Nevertheless what people, creators, manage to achieve despite such limitations has produced a plethora of the weird and wonderful, wacky and wayward, just as any artists does by letting their imagination master the medium at hand.  For a writer it’s a pen, for a painter it’s a brush, for an inworld avatar it’s a mouse and keyboard. The principals are the same it’s just this latter artisan and related aren’t as yet given their due in the world outside these realms.

You see, not only are these creators creating worlds within worlds they are also sculpting in some cases entire cultures, with their own histories, timelines, mores, traditions, even in some cases languages.  But what I’m talking about mostly here is some of the most inventive and immersive of inworld environments: landscapes, seascapes, skyscapes, alienscapes, fantasyscapes, futurescapes, spacescapes. All of which I could call e-scapes, as in  not just electronic landscapes but also in the sense of ‘escape’, a place far removed from our real, physical world with all it that goes with it, good, bad and downright ugly things.  Inworld there’s no illness, there’s no death, no worries unless you make them for yourself.

I’m not naïve though, I do understand I’m painting quite a rosy picture here of something that is essentially just seen as a game, a toy, a frivolous and hedonistic pursuit, as such an utter waste of time and merely wishing one’s life away. It’s no Utopia, no nirvana, no moksha or heavenly realm (though you could build any of these if you wanted), and some people do have a habit of invariably bringing  their real world prejudices, angsts, fears and narrow-mindedness into these spaces, havens, but that’s their choice and they rarely last long.  These worlds aren’t to blame for people like that, they exist anyway and in the real world we have to put up with them all the time.

I think today I must be feeling particularly giving, so who knows, on another day I might just remember how one of these worlds almost buried me in so much ugly stuff, but again, that was down to people being people.  But I dug my way out and learned how to leave that for the real world and keep this one free of niggles, mostly.

Obviously there are rules and such, but that’s no different from anywhere.  Not only isn’t is a Utopia nor is it Anarchia, for better or worse.  But still I find myself visiting, spending time, discovering yet another amazing creation born of someone’s incredible skill and imaginings and appreciated the sheer amount of time, work, learning, patience and understanding that’s gone into it, sometimes just for the sheer pleasure or artistry, and where I, me, myself and I, simply at the end of a day escape into the e-scape. 

© Emma Calder/ Anan Eebus