That vampire you've been shagging could be an NSA spy!

Oh for pete's sake ... The Guardian in the UK reports that according to documents supplied by Edward Snowden, the US's National Security Administration and the UK's Government Communications Headquarters decided that virtual worlds like the World of Warcraft and (of course) Second Life might be a haven for international terrorists (forgetting, as usual, that they should first look in the mirror), and so they're now present in-world to do some spying the good old-fashioned way: by dressing up as orcs and almost certainly as vampires (fitting, huh?). That woman wearing an Alli & Ali box on her head as though it were the hair she just bought? Be careful, she (or he) is listening to you bitch about wanting a version with streaks, and classifying your comments as code for bombing a Pizza Hut. The NSA & GCHQ have also raided Xbox.

I have to quote a couple paragraphs from the article:

One problem the paper's unnamed author [an NSA analyst] and others in the agency faced in making their case – and avoiding suspicion that their goal was merely to play computer games at work without getting fired – was the difficulty of proving terrorists were even thinking about using games to communicate.

and this:

Meanwhile, the FBI, CIA, and the Defense Humint Service were all running human intelligence operations – undercover agents – within Second Life. In fact, so crowded were the virtual worlds with staff from the different agencies, that there was a need to try to "deconflict" their efforts – or, in other words, to make sure each agency wasn't just duplicating what the others were doing.

The second paragraph there is pretty scary. But I have to admit, I can't stop laughing. Hello, Austin Powers, and the 1967 spy film satire Casino Royale. But at last, we finally know why we get so many random "bite" offers: they're made by CIA officers conducting a sting operation.

Addendum: Wagner James Au has a post about this in New World Notes, with a little history and a mention of its constitutionality. As he points out, there's nothing really surprising in any of this; but something about it strikes me as ridiculous. What sort of body shape, skin, hair and clothing do the NSA and GCHQ spooks shop for? Are they investigating the BDSM community for interrogation techniques, or do they think the steampunk crowd is developing new and highly dangerous weaponry? Hey, maybe we now have the truth about SaveMe Oh! :-P

(OK, I admit, that was slightly mean. But I cut my political teeth when the FBI was massively infiltrating leftwing groups with agents provocateurs.)

To LEA or Not to LEA

This post is a belated response to Quan Lavendar's discussion of some controversies regarding the LEA sims. At the time I was too busy to comment, but after Quan and I discussed some of the issues during the opening reception for A Rusted Development at LEA1 (a great installation, by the way, albeit a bit disjointed), I decided to write this post, expanding on some of my original thoughts. And from the start, I'll state that a number of my comments are based on ignorance ... which will be part of my point.

Many people have strong feelings about the LEA sims, sometimes accusing the committee's members of bias or favoritism or corruption or cliquishness. I'd like to pose a contrast that raises some questions. How do the independent curators compare? I don't know how the people who run (for example) Art Screamer, MetaLES, Originalia, and NMC select artists, but at Split Screen only one person has any say: me. I invite whoever I want to invite. Once in a while someone asks to build there; sometimes I say no, and sometimes (actually more often) I say yes. In theory, people could easily charge me with favoritism or whatever else, yet I've never heard that complaint raised against me or any of the other independent curators (not yet, anyway ... I've probably just invited it). So one has to ask, what's the difference between the necessary selectivity exercised by independent curators, and the necessary selectivity exercised by the LEA committee? Imagine the LEA committee didn't manage the sims on behalf of Linden Labs, but instead paid for the sims themselves. Would people's attitudes be different? I suspect they would.

Most likely, the LEA sims raise so much debate because of their "official" character. I know artists who won't even apply for a LEA sim because of their "official" status or their feelings about the LEA committee. Conversely, I'm told that one or two LEA members have been unwelcoming toward some artists, even accusing a few of "hating SL." The situation is a pity, because I bet those artists could do amazing things with a full sim. However, their refusal to apply helps make the point: the sims' "official" character raises hackles. If I'm right about that, then one of the questions artists need to ask themselves is why they have such strong feelings about the LEA sims. Does the intensity derive from the desirability of a full sim? Does "official sponsorship" offer higher status, cachet or clout? Is there a sense of entitlement or a right to LEA land? Will a LEA sim -- and only a LEA sim -- enable you to create better art? What's the difference between a LEA sim and an independent sim?

I don't envy the members of LEA; they have a tough job. That doesn't mean I agree with everything LEA has done. In fact I don't even understand some of their decisions (why 5 months, rather than 3, 4, or 6?). They do a crappy job publicizing work (like most artists). They need to be cautious about what they say to whom, and they sometimes fail. And they face the problem that confronts every sponsor of a new work: you make a bet, and there's a chance you bet wrong. Most of the work LEA has sponsored has been good, some has been amazing, but there have been some duds too. The possibility of disappointment is simply part of commissioning new work.

It is true that Linden Labs benefits from LEA's work -- the company didn't provide the sims (tenuous as they are) out of pure generosity. So? If LEA's work simultaneously helps artists and helps Second Life survive, I don't see the point of faulting them for it. (Some of LL's calls for promotional work are more exploitative.)

However, LEA suffers from a lack of transparency, starting with the committee's composition. I for one have no clue how its members were selected. A couple of them I've never even heard of, let alone observed their interest in SL art. (For what it's worth, none of the members are on my Friends list -- not even Bryn, who had an installation at Split Screen.) The grapevine says that there are major conflicts among personalities and/or priorities, which makes me wonder if the committee's membership needs to be reconsidered. It also suggests that the committee doesn't have a coherent set of goals for the sims. Do they feel it's important to include artists who haven't built on a full sim before? Do they strive to have a mix of (say) highly scripted and unscripted work? Do they place a priority on work with a narrative element? I have no idea -- but if they do have an articulate set of goals for the sims, it would help to set them out publicly. If they don't have clear aims, then the committee really isn't a committee: it's a squabbling reality TV show, and from the outside its decisions can easily look arbitrary or political -- even if they're nothing of the sort.

Which brings me to my major concerns about LEA: whatever the committee thinks or intends, from what I've observed it has given itself the appearance (and maybe reality) of operating in a top-down manner, and fostered competitiveness and jealousy among artists. Competitiveness and jealousy in turn are likely to make the sims more trouble than they're worth to Linden Labs. LEA needs to work toward generating a sense of community. But artists must bear some responsibility for achieving that too -- LEA can't do it alone. (I have other concerns, but these are at the top.)

The heart of community is transparency. I propose a set of forums, in which the LEA committee members explain what they do, hear and respond to concerns (maybe only to issues submitted in writing, in order to avoid heckling and recriminations), and seek ways to resolve shortcomings. I would also like artists to discuss why they respond to LEA the way they do (honesty would be nice, though I'm not sanguine about that). It might be best if LEA didn't directly sponsor the forums: instead, FreeWee Ling's ArtGyro group might provide more neutral auspices, although the forums might be held on a LEA sim (e.g., the theater space). (I haven't talked with Free about this; she's a smart woman, so she'll probably run like hell.)

I'd also encourage LEA to use its blog to explain as much as they can about themselves, their aims, their hurdles, and especially their relationship with Linden Labs ... or from what I hear, lack of relationship, and being upfront about their problems getting responses from LL might nip a lot of problems in the bud.

Meanwhile, to any artist angry about not getting a LEA sim: that's life. LEA is not all there is to SL art, and getting a LEA sim isn't the only chance -- or necessarily the best chance -- to do great work. There are other sims in the virtual sea. So I might not feel sorry for you. I might be celebrating, because now I have a shot at getting you. Maybe you should be looking for people like me. In fact maybe you should flip your perspective -- independent curators have to be far more selective than LEA because we have less land to offer, so maybe we're the plum gigs. Support your local independent curators.

Linden Labs to Third Party Viewers: "Get Lost"

This just in from Linden Labs: they've changed their Third Party Viewer policy. They claim that some of the changes have to do with privacy (I'm not convinced they're legitimate privacy issues, but OK). But one change has nothing to do with privacy -- it's strictly intended to squash innovation:

2.k: You must not provide any feature that alters the shared experience of the virtual world in any way not provided by or accessible to users of the latest released Linden Lab viewer.

LL will break many of TPV features in the next few days. So goodbye region windlights until LL's own viewer gets that feature ... if it ever does. Region windlights were an extraordinary boon to the arts community. [EDIT: see discussion in comments.]

The announcement adds,

We encourage Third Party Developers to continue innovating with unique user interfaces, niche features, and ways of interacting with the virtual world, and we look forward to working in partnership with developers on ideas they have for new or improved shared experiences for all of Second Life. We want to incorporate more innovative new features into Second Life to improve the experience for all users, and we encourage TPV developers to submit proposals through our standard process.

Yeah, right. It's horseshit. Basically all TPVs are allowed to do is tinker with the user interface and a couple of other things.  And as I read it, if the TPV developers come up with ideas, basically they have to work for Linden Labs for free.

See the Phoenix announcement for more.

Pirats and the Contraction of Second Life Art Spaces

IBM's Exhibition Spaces. The New Media Consortium. IDIA Laboratories. Caerleon. The University of Western Australia. The University of Texas - San Antonio. Odyssey. Immersiva. Crossworlds Gallery. All of them are major art spaces or supporting organizations that during the past couple of years, have either reduced their presence in Second Life, narrowly been rescued, or closed entirely. I'm sure I've missed several, and others are known to be in danger. True, some of these places pulled back (or out) for non-economic reasons, but contraction in art spaces affects SL art no matter what the reason. Now we may lose Pirats as well.

In the meantime, Linden Labs established a sandbox and self-curating gallery, and more recently opened a couple dozen sims for artists to work on (full sims by application, parcels by land rush), all under the auspices of the Linden Endowment for the Arts. The new sims quantitatively counterbalance at least some of the losses, possibly more so, but for various reasons the trade is not equivalent.

There's a petition going around asking (demanding?) that LL cover Pirats's costs, or maybe give Pirats one of the LEA sims. I certainly sympathize, but I think the idea is a bad one. It's also unlikely to succeed: Bryn Oh, who's worked a lot with the Lindens (e.g., through LEA) and has an international presence that brings attention and respect to SL, didn't get a penny of support (nor, from the sounds of things, even attention) from LL when her sim Immersiva was closed due to the loss of its sponsor.

Actually I think LL was right not to pay for Immersiva. For one thing, they would immediately be hounded by charges of favoritism, which they get often enough anyway. It's not LL's job to choose who gets land free and who doesn't, and I don't want it to become their job. LEA, for all its pros and cons, provides Linden Labs a bit of a firewall. Besides, from LL's perspective, better that charges of favoritism be directed toward LEA (as some have, rightly or wrongly) than at the Lab itself.

For another, there's no such thing as a free lunch. One of my concerns about the LEA sims is that they may foster a sense of entitlement among artists -- as it is, even without LEA, some artists (fortunately a minority) feel entitled to space merely because they're artists. Here's more food for feelings of jealousy and favoritism. There are hints that the LEA sims may already be undermining artists' feelings that they need to maintain relationships with private sim owners, which reflects a larger problem that artists don't really understand what curators do and how it contributes to the development of the arts.

However, unlike Thirza Ember, I don't think the trouble with the LEA sims is that what the Lindens giveth, the Lindens may taketh away: as my list above demonstrates, a sponsor might depart no matter who it is. That said, there's certainly the question of what Linden Labs gets by providing all those sims. I'm not certain I know what it is; but the fact the question leaps to many people's minds reflects their reasonable worries about dependence upon the company.

In other words, all told, I think the SL arts community is best served by independent art patrons.

One thing I do think Linden Labs should do is restore the discounted tier for educational and non-profit organizations. They brought more people and more respectability to Second Life than corporations or anyone else. They also have more reason to explore and exploit SL's capabilities. Of course, such a change won't help private landowners, but it would be a start.

Meanwhile, art sims are now turning to "crowdfunding" (numerous small or even large donations) for their survival. Immersiva was rescued this way -- Bryn obtained a couple of enormous donations and a great number of small donations, and due to her huge following, she reached her goal in a single day. But that experience is atypical.  Crossworlds tried something similar, but last I heard, they didn't make it. Odyssey squeaked through, just barely, by becoming an artist-supported sim. Pirats is now attempting crowdfunding too.

I've heard through the grapevine that a few people think that asking for donations is equivalent to begging, and yes in many ways it is, but so what? Every arts organization in the US has to do fundraising. And in SL, outside of a tiny number of people and organizations who can afford a sim singlehandedly, that's the only remaining option. Well, and leaving SL for other, less expensive grids; but there are drawbacks to that strategy too.

FreeWee Ling has started a group called ArtGyro to discuss the sustainability of SL arts. It hasn't met yet, but hopefully it will prove a venue for further discussion -- and action? -- on these issues.

For now, however, there's an immediate sustainability problem at stake.

Pirats is an important organization. Merlina Rokokoko and Newbab Zsigmond have done extraordinary work -- and it is work -- promoting SL arts and many, many artists. I've become a "passive member" at $50, and if you're reading this blog, click this link to become one too. Or if not Pirats, choose some other independent arts organization. Keep SL arts on its own feet.

The LEA land grant art sims and the future of curating

By now I'm sure everyone who reads this blog (all three of you!) has already heard that the crew that composes the Linden Endowment for the Arts (LEA) has gotten Linden Labs to provide 20 full sims which LEA will manage for artists' use. And if you haven't heard the news, read about it here.

Without a doubt, this is great news for artists (although I have a couple of questions, which I'll get to). There aren't many places where artists can build big, and in one stroke the number has probably doubled, maybe more. True, Linden Labs was supposed to do this a year or two ago; I assume the folks in LEA pestered them into submission. But it finally happened. So, credit is due to Bryn Oh, Dancoyote Antonelli, Dekka Raymaker, JayJay Zifanwe, L1Aura Loire, Sasun Steinbeck, Solo Mornington, Werner Kurosawa, and PatriciaAnne Daviau. (For those of you who care about such matters, not one of these people is on my Friends list, and I've had conversations with only about half of them, which proves ... well, nothing, actually. Maybe that I don't get out of the house enough.)

The way LEA has structured the sims' usage is interesting: four regions will be for exhibitions curated from LEA sandbox art, two will be allocated through a land rush, and fourteen will be allocated by application.  The applications can come from artists, groups of artists, even curators. There isn't any info yet on the land rush; I wonder if some people might be disadvantaged by time zones, job schedules, etc, but hopefully LEA is figuring that part out. One aspect is very odd: the sims available by application are given to the artists for five months. Five?? (Maybe before the next artist moves in, it takes a month to air out the place?)

The scope of eligible applicants naturally raised the notion of moving Split Screen to a LEA sim. However, I decided against the idea. The five-month turnover, even with the possibility of renewal, doesn't provide adequate stability for a place like Split Screen. Also I like where Split Screen is now -- the location within a primarily residential area, the support of sim owner Syzygy Merlin, even the constraints and challenge of being on a homestead sim. And finally, I value the sense of independence I get by spending my own money to foster the sort of art I like: Split Screen doesn't exist on anyone else's terms, no matter how benign.

But a question that crosses my mind is what impact the LEA sims will have on independent curators. Maybe none. But sixteen full sims can absorb a lot of artists. Will artists devote themselves to exploiting their sims all they can (and they should take full advantage of the possibilities), or will they also remain interested and available for work elsewhere? Would independent curators need to rethink their goals and perhaps become more niche players, primarily supporting emerging artists who aren't quite ready for "The Big Time"? Or would established artists simply play in more sandboxes (so to speak)? After all, even though soror Nishi mainly works in InWorldz these days, she still created an installation at Split Screen; on the other hand, she works unusually fast, and (as she herself states) Boogaloo uses some of her previous material. That said, I don't think there's any evidence at this point that InWorldz is draining artists from Second Life.

Obviously, only time will tell how this will develop. I'm not "worried." And when the new LEA sims were announced, I was already planning to pursue emerging artists more proactively, since that really needs to happen. But I will have to pay attention to possible unintended side-effects of the new sims, and I think other installation curators will need to do the same.

Holy %^#@!! Linden Labs finally added region environment controls!

For a while, many of us have wanted Linden Labs to make it feasible for landowners to establish a particular Windlight setting on their land. Not long ago the people who gave us Phoenix made this possible at least for Phoenix and I think Firestorm viewers. Well, in today's announcements from Linden Labs, after all the silly stuff is this:

You’ll also notice some changes relating to Region Environment Settings. These give region managers the ability to customize environment settings — like atmosphere, sun, time of day, and cloud coverage. Visiting Residents will automatically see those settings, unless they’ve already chosen to use a personal override. For example: a Gothic castle might have a gloomy, spooky environment — and a tropical island might be bright and sunny. This feature is sometimes referred to by its previous moniker, Windlight Environment Settings. Check out the Knowledge Base for more info.

This is great news! Yes, it took them long enough; and it's region-based rather than parcel-based, which creates limitations that Phoenix still surpasses (and Phoenix can have different Windlights depending on altitude, too). On the other hand, it doesn't require giving people a Windlight file. So on balance, definitely something for the SL art world to cheer about!

There's also an item about enabling parcels to have hidden avatars. Nice for people having sex, yeah. But somehow I suspect that people like Bryn Oh and Oberon Onmura (who's recently been trying things with bots) will find ways to make use of this feature....

Rod Humble interviewed by "The Mark" -- with intriguing results

"The Mark" published an interview with Rod Humble, Linden Lab's CEO. (Thanks to Kara Trapdoor for blogging this.)  It's an interesting read, especially as it raises questions about some of Linden Lab's strategies, which seem at odds with Humble's remarks. In fact he sounds like he shares more views with SL's creative community than with Linden Labs, or at least the Linden Labs of today.

Humble: Second Life is a completely user-created virtual world. It's really, at its bare bones, a creativity tool.

LL's slogan of "Your World. Your Imagination" was killed off some time ago, but Humble seems to be raising its ghost. One can only hope that he succeeds!

Humble: At Second Life, we’re really just following our customers – our creators – and seeing where they take us next.

Umm ... we wish. Get this on LL's mission statement, please!

Humble (responding to a question about "true selves"): I don’t have a clear answer on that, but I do have an opinion. There have been a series of high-profile people, from the head of Facebook to the Pope, talking about how social media should be about centering the individual – that it is all about your real life and ensuring that you don’t become a fractured person. I respectfully disagree with that.

I think that one of the healthiest things that technology can do is actually help us develop the different dimensions of ourselves that we portray in different situations. For example, the "me" at church is very different from the "me" who plays an online shooter game. The "me" talking to you now is very different from the one who will be at my parent-teacher-association meeting later tonight. We’ve always had that. I actually like the idea of enabling people to say, "In this community, I’m a completely different person, and I can hold views that aren't going to seep into this other part of my life." It’s a slightly heretical position, but that's the one I take.

Has Ron been reading Botgirl Questi, Miso Susanowa, soror Nishi, et al? Sure looks like it. Then can we please cease the absurd pressure to connect our SL identities with RL identities in Facebook (and evidently also Google+)? Yes, some people might want to do that, but the great majority of people in SL highly value the separation between SL and RL, so just sideline the idea.

Humble: I think that something big is going to happen when it comes to online associations, which are going to run headlong into conflict – probably with some totalitarian country somewhere. It's a broader thing than just Second Life.

What's going to happen when people identify with each other more in some online community than they do with their government or nation? It's hard to see how that's going to be anything other than messy.
In the past, we've seen – even with slower modes of communication – certain ideas, like Marxist ideas, spreading around the world and uniting people around ideas, rather than around their current rulers. At some point, a new idea is going to take shape, and it's going to spread far more easily through this online system that we have. Then what's going to happen?

It's an open question; I don't have an answer for you. I think it will happen, and it's probably going to be one of the major thematic stories that will govern the mid part of the century. We're due for some kind of new global idea, particularly in the field of politics – there haven't been many new ideas when it comes to politics in recent years. It's been pretty stable for a while, and you have to wonder when that stability will run out.

It's startling to read a CEO suggest that there are (or may be) political consequences to virtual worlds ... still more, that it might be a good thing. He's certainly right that our current political realm is intellectually and morally bankrupt. Although I don't remember any explicit discussions of it, I think plenty of people within SL's creative community (and hopefully elsewhere) have similar views of how virtual worlds could impact society politically. We've already seen examples of how online communication can be used for political ends, the uprising in Egypt being the most recent. But the impact derived from instrumental use of the internet. Rod is talking about more a fundamental philosophical and ideational effect. It's a visionary view (again, he seems to be following the lead of SL's creative community), and remarkably, he doesn't get all dreamy-eyed and utopian about it either.

Still, I'm starting to get impatient. When will we see these views start steering Linden Labs? Will they really steer it? LL made a lot of changes in the past couple of years that have alienated (and sometimes priced out) many of the very people most deeply involved with creating the "user-created world," and those most interested in exploring the possibilities of identity that virtual worlds offer. Will Humble turn Linden Labs around? If so ... please hurry.

Region Control of Windlight!; or, Linden Labs Straggles After Phoenix ... Again

New World Notes reports that Linden Labs is going to make it possible for regions and estates to establish Windlight sky, water and day settings that will kick in automatically for anyone using the standard viewer.  Well, about bloody time, there's been a JIRA request for this since June 2008!  And the Phoenix viewer already has a way to establish parcel Windlight settings, with some limitations (it only works for Phoenix, and with settings already on a user's computer), but also some snazzy options (you can have different settings by altitude).

Various artists use Windlight to establish the lighting and atmospheric environment for experiencing their installations, and finally making it possible for Windlight settings to come immediately into effect for everyone will, I hope, expand the range of artists interested in using it.  I applaud LL for at last providing one of the true infrastructure improvements that people have been asking for.  Now, if only they'd stop being such dicks about megaprims and nanoprims, extend LSL's function set, improve terraforming tools....

Pick your jaw up from the floor, Div ... twice!

Jaw-dropper #1 is Linden Labs' bizarre asinine moronic obscene and I think self-destructive decision to double sim prices for nonprofit organizations and educational institutions, which (more or less by definition) are not major moneymakers yet are (more or less for the same reason) fonts of creativity. It's hard to imagine what LL's forecast is -- that these groups are heavily invested enough in SL that they'll choke down the additional US $150/month? Well, maybe a bunch of them will. My own university isn't doing squat in SL, but given its two rounds of layoffs, drastic cuts in the library acquisitions budget (ca. 40%), elimination of travel funds for professional (non-faculty) staff, etc etc, I doubt it would consider SL a great use of its cash. But maybe other schools are doing work in distance learning or other activities that would make the increased cost tolerable. It seems like a stretch to me. More endangered is involvement by nonprofits, many of which are small and often desperately underfunded; yes, there are a few enormous and essentially corporate foundations like the American Cancer Society, but it seems like time and again, LL's decisions favor the big guns and let the small players hang.  People keep saying small businesses generate the most jobs, maybe that should be a clue to what LL should really support....

Jaw-dropper #2 is a post John "Pathfinder" Lester (formerly Linden) wrote describing how people are already able to run OpenSim and Imprudence on a USB key. Yes: an entire virtual world and the ability to inhabit it, all on a single thumb drive, and all of its contents your own -- not rented, not reliant on someone else's servers. And since a viewer like Imprudence can be used with more than one virtual world, in principle it should be possible to seamlessly travel from OpenSim to Second Life to Inworldz and on. It's a declaration of Virtual World Independence. Go plug in.

Earth to Linden Labs ... come in, Linden Labs ....

Hopefully, at this point everyone has heard about Linden Lab's absurd expulsion of Rose Borchovski's "The Kiss" from SL7B, and later Misprint Thursday's piece as well, due to their cardinal sin of creating works that show ... nipples. Not erotic works -- the pieces showed the nipples of a cartoonish child and of naked Barbie dolls. Pretty much every child under the age of eight has seen as much, but Linden Labs found them shocking, demonstrating ridiculous immaturity and prudishness. (Or maybe hypereroticism: I'm reminded of Tom Lehrer's satirical song "Smut," with the wonderful line, "When correctly viewed, everything is lewd.")

Rose Borchovski's banned work

Misprint Thursday's banned work

There's not a lot I can add to what others have written (e.g., New World Notes, and I liked Soror Nishi's comments), except to join the chorus of boos and express my own incredulousness and disgust at LL's behavior.  Yeah, their rules for SL7B say "no nudity," but come on!

A petition was sent to Linden Labs by artists to protest the censorship (which I didn't sign, because it was expressly from artists and I don't care to misrepresent myself). I hope it has some impact but I'm skeptical. I have to assume the members of the Linden Endowment for the Arts (well-regarded figures all) know about what happened, but I haven't heard if they've done anything.

Linden Labs: grow up!