Inspired by my fellow writer Thorsten Küper aka Kueperpunk Korhonen, I’m active in the 3d Internet world of Second Life for several years now, first as a writer and electronic music performer, then also as an event organizer and a builder of my own projects. Second Life, originally designed by Philip Rosedale after reading Neal Stephenson’s cyberpunk classic Snow Crash and today operated by Linden Lab, is the most advanced and widely used virtual world created so far. Often underestimated as a pure multiuser online game, it has been utilized as a tool for education, research and artistic creation. Renowned artists such as Bryn Oh or legendary French filmmaker Chris Marker have experimented with its possibilities.
The World Culture Hub, my international cultural project on the Internet, has started out as a virtual museum in Second Life. Linden Lab has significantly reduced the land prices a while ago which made it possible for me to significantly rebuild and extend my Second Life installation that is now maintained in collaboration with several fellow writers and artists. Here’s an overview of the four major sections:
The new Reception Area provides easy teleport access to all sections of the World Culture Hub. The exhibitions about China, Japan, India, the Islamic World, Precolumbian and Latin America are on the same level, as well as the Library with an extensive landmark collection to the best cultural and educational sites in Second Life. The landing point is here.
The Contemporary Art Gallery features works of well-known artists active in Second Life as well as artists for the first time featured in virtual worlds. Among the highlights is an exclusive selection of paintings by renowned German surrealist Helmut Wenske. The landing point is here.
Embedded into the Landscape Garden on the ground level are exhibitions about Native America, Polynesia and the Celtic area. The landing point is here.
Our installation also includes a Second Life branch of The Turing Galaxy, a WCH subproject that is concerned with the history of computing and artificial intellegence and the ways they have inspired literature and art. It features, among others, exhibitions about the history of computing and artificial intelligence and about pioneers such as Ada Lovelace and Alan Turing. When you visit turn up the volume and you may hear the steady hum of a Cray XMP supercomputer recreation. The landing point is here.
Michael K. Iwoleit 