off-SL5B
I won’t be in the SL5B official celebrations this year, and i won’t be there for more than one reason.
I was there last year, in SL4B, with a pavilion, quite simple, trying to speak about the diversity of Second Life (it sounds ironic under the actual circumstances, eh?). Was really interesting, met there wonderful people, some of them very good friends still right now. There were some problems, specially about performance (the SL4B sims were laggy as hell) but all together was a nice experience.
This year, well, is better to start in the beginning… When the organization started looking for people to participate in SL5B some friends and me planned a common space. Instead of individual pavilions we wanted to make a common space where we could express our vision about a theme colectively. After talking with SL5B Art Direction we saw our project was not matching their project, so we decided all together to be off SL5B and do our own exhibition. In this moment all the team is working on this project, but i don’t want to give more information for the moment, will talk about this soon…
Then, the “Gorean child into BDSM” issue…. As you all know and you can read in the previous two posts there was some problems about the participation of child avatars, Goreans and BDSM people. Finally all SL5B sims will be PG rated and Linden Lab took control over a celebration that was originally “resident-organized”.
So this are my reasons to be off SL5B, one we can call “artistic” and other we can call “ethical”.
UPDATE (Jun, 06th 2008): I’d like to clarify something. I know that Child Avatars are now allowed to participate in SL5B. About the “artistic” reason, as i said when we made our group porposal to SL5B the Art Direction said our project was not feeting their plans for the art area, we wanted to make our own pavilion to show our images in an enviroment, and they said this year “No pavilions this year, we will have enviroments were you can hang your art, but not building, just like a gallery”. We wanted to have our images in an enviroment, that was the reason to say no. Now it seems they permit to build enviroments in SL5B.
In both cases the organization (Linden or Resident organizations) said first NO (no to childs, no to enviroments), now organization says YES (yes to childs but all sims PG and yes to enviroments). Sorry, i can understand sometimes the needs or the ideas of an organization may change, for the preasure of residents in the case of Linden Lab and the childs-Gor-BDSM issues, or because they just saw is better to do it in other way, in the case of SL5B Art direction, but now i made my own plans outside their organization and i don’t need to change them.
That doesn’t mean i’m having any kind of bad feeling with SL5B Art direction, the Art team of SL5B are people i really apreciate and i can call them friends. About Linden Lab… well, that’s another story.
*Image published by Esther Dayson licensed under a Creative Commons License Attribution-Non commercial 2.0 Generic.
7 Responses to “off-SL5B”
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not sure if you knew but they accepted 2 sl kid builds (found out from codie) so at least that situation has been straightened out…
was sl4b pg? i can’t remember however i do remember you having a picture of lucas in chaps in your exibit lol
where are these unofficial celebrations being held?
Hey, Nimil.
Well, last year was half Mature, half PG, what i think is ok.
Happy about SLKids being in SL5B, really, but you know, right now i prefer not to participate.
That project i mentioned above will be in a sim in Mainland, one friend “donated” the land temporary for our event, we are still working on it, and possibly it will be opened after SL5B. I’ll post more info soon.
Hey Raul, I can understand your point of view. I was not sure either, to participate, but after the latest development, I think I will go through with it.
I look forward to your event. I am sure it will be worthwhile.
Hey, Looker. I wrote an update in the post trying to explain my reasons in a clearer way. Thanks for your comment and i’ll visit for sure your space at SL5B (possibly in a child avatar
).
Indeed Raul, some decisions may change during the discussions, but they can not expect that you would wait if or if they not will change their mind after all. So it is perfectly understandable that you draw another conclusion by organising your own event.
I would be happy to see you and other residents as a child avatar at SL5B, because my feelings towards the Lindens are still the same, and this could be a way to show them how all residents think about their behaviour towards us.
We have seen enough over the past year, and I don’t expect that it would be better in the future, so we will try to live with it.;))
Raul,
Some of these are my fault, some are the the fault of a bunch of volunteers trying to make something really cool, and some are the fault of LL jumping in at the last minute to make this THEIR celebration. First, for those who don’t know *I* am the Art Director for SL5B. I was also the Art Director for SL4B and an art participant in SL3B.
1) Originally, Marv (overall coordinator) indicated that he wanted a park-like environment on the ground and we would do our art build in the air. Ok, this was different from last year, but I can roll with it. I asked CodeBastard Redgrave and Stephen Venkman to be my “seconds”, just in case I fell off the earth. And to get help. Marv wanted the art displays to have culture themes just like the rest of the celebration would, so we thought about how best to do this. Our conclusion was to build themed galleries (arabian, victorian, asian, etc) and let people put their art in them. Stephen started planning the space.
Then Stephen and Codie reported that a number of people were upset that they couldn’t make their own builds and Marv backed off his requirement to have our displays in the air. Ok, we could do this like we did last year and have everyone build their own displays. A few people have complained about that, too, but that’s the way we’re leaving it.
So, the change you saw there was our attempt to respond to resident constructive criticism.
2) The whole child/BDSM/Gor thing is LL’s attempt to get a hold on this event at the last minute. In their defense, they are donating 16 (and maybe 20 by the end of this) sims, and if they are donating something, they get to have a say in it. It would have been really nice to have gotten their input on this 9 months ago when the SL5B resident volunteers drafted the policy on what would be allowed, or what the “cultures” would be. LL assigned a liason, as they have in the past, and things started to shake up after that. Was it Dusty’s fault that LL decided to go PG? I don’t think so. Was it Dusty’s fault that Marv decided to step down as head of the organization? I think so. I suspect Dusty’s method of “liasoning” is a bit heavier handed than he felt comfortable with.
Multiple Lindens made multiple statements that appeared to say that LL would not allow any display from any child avatar, and anyone in the BDSM or Gorean community. Community support for these groups, especially the child avatars, was overwhelming. Many people who were not involved in these communities themselves still felt that it was inappropriate to discriminate against them. Perhaps because of that overwhelming support, LL decided to back off the strong statement they’d made and decided to evaluate each display on a case-by-case basis.
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Personally, I plan on wearing a child avatar while in SL5B. I’m working hard on it. All my skins have breasts — I have to find something without makeup, etc. And even though my clothing isn’t sexy as an adult, it looks very inappropriate on a child. So, I’ll work on it and show my support for the multiple cultural event that this is SUPPOSED to be.
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On an historical note: SL4B had art areas in every sim. There were two sims representing year 1, two representing year 2, etc. Each pair of sims was divided into PG and a Mature sim. Each sim had a big notice telling the residents that the next sim was PG or Mature. It was the resident’s choice as to whether or not to enter. I’m told that 5 people complained about the nudity they found. *rolls her eyes*.
Thanks, Shoshana, for commenting here. As I said I understand your position, and of course that was not a critic, just is SL5B had a project different than our project. Sorry if, in any moment, I made you fell bad for any of my comments, was not my intention.
You and the rest of your team are friends of mine and people I respect a lot and I know your voluntary work at SL5B will be great, as it was last year.
About the “child-Gor-BDSM” story, you are right, the community was quite united this time, fighting for the rights of “cultures” or “groups” that even they may be not part. Actually i think that was nice, really, really nice to see people fighting for other’s rights.