Edie Starling’s Proposal
a proposal for the Second Life Endowment for the Arts (SLEA) Launch 10: July-December 2025.
- Title: The Death & Life of Great Second Life Regions
- SL Display Name: Edie Starling
- SL Legacy Name: Edie Starling
- SL URI: 5a6b439e-542b-44f5-aaad-3a8f88279564
- Other Builders: TBD
- Email: just.me@edie.pink
- Size Requesting: Full Region
- Considered for future launches if you are not given a grant this launch? Yes.
- Fill in for the remainder of the time left for artist who cannot complete their grant? Yes.
My Grant Proposal:
The Death & Life of Great Second Life Regions
Synopsis
“Great SL Regions” or “GSLR” will be a collaborative project with forty artists’ studios and several large commons spaces. The goal of GSLR is to create an active, bustling region filled with avatar life.
As of 16 January 2025, Second Life consists of 27,744 regions. At any hour of any day the number of logged in users is greater than 27,744, but less than 55,488. This means that the average number of users per region is always 1.x. A 256×256 SL region is 6.5 hectares of virtual land. 1.x users/6.5 hectares is an anemic world. If you consider all the dance clubs and crowded shops like LeLutka with so many visitors, then many regions don’t even reach 1.x occupancy.
By filling this SLEA Region with forty studios and common areas I hope to create a region of constant activity. A place where a participant can serendipitously meet with other participants. A place where any SL Resident can see not only other Resident’s work, but also chat with the creator and other viewers. In short, a “real” city.
Background
Philip Rosedale
Many SL Residents are aware that Neal Stephenson’s 1992 novel Snow Crash was a significant early influence for Second Life inventor Philip Rosedale. I think many residents are not aware, as I was not aware before watching his conversation with Andrew Meadows, that Jane Jacobs’ 1961 book The Death and Life of Great American Cities was also a significant early influence for Rosedale.
Why Fly when you can Walk?
In his conversation with Andrew Meadows, Philip Rosedale makes clear his vision of Second Life as a Place. Like Jane Jacobs’ idea of neighborhoods as Places. Cars in the physical world, and Teleporting in the virtual world, save time. But the cost of this time saving is the destruction of place. Instead of walkable neighborhoods, we come to exist as a series of drop ins.
Zoom Fatigue
Ever since the pandemic, people have been suffering Zoom Fatigue. Zoom is a powerful communications tool. But it is placeless. It’s me at my place using a wire to talk to you at your place. That only goes so far. The power of Second Life is that it is a place. A real place where you and I can be together. We can converse, co-create a document, script, or object, or play. We can hug, throw rubber frogs at each other, or climb a mountain.
Teleporting for us, like cars for Jane Jacobs, strives to erase the nature of the place. To make it a series of conversation drop-ins. To make it more Zoom-like and less of a shared physical place.
Jacobs famously fought New York mega-developer Robert Moses. Moses wanted, you could say, to destroy the “place” of New York with ribbons of highways – with a massive “teleporting” system. Jacobs fought to preserve neighborhoods. To make livable, walkable, community spaces. Second Life needs these qualities as much as physical cities do.
The Distraction of Sexy Avatars
One of the bright trajectories you can trace across the history of Second Life is the quality and customization of avatars. Early avatars, by 2025 standards, are pretty clunky. The mesh avatars we assemble today from shops like LeLutka, Maitreya, The Skinnery, Doux, and so many others are remarkable. Ten years ago it felt good to inhabit an SL avatar. Today, it feels great.
In the early days we made things by twisting and assembling prims, or primitive blocks, as designed for Linden Lab by Avi Bar-Zeev. Then uploading mesh came in and the quality of houses, vehicles, and yes avatar bodies and clothes went through the roof.
At a cost.
In the early days everybody could, and so many did, rez a prim. Take a small creative step. Or say “New Shirt,” upload a texture, stick it on that shirt, and wear it. Or give it to others to wear. You can still do these things today, but no one would want to wear your ugly shirt or live in your clunky house.
In the physical world so many of the commodities Westerners consume are no longer made “here at home.” They’re made offshore in China, Korea, Singapore, and elsewhere.
In Second Life, the commodities we avatars consume are also no longer made at home, or in-world. Instead of offshore manufacturing in China, Korea, Singapore, or elsewhere, for us it’s offshore manufacturing in Blender, Maya, 3DSMax, or elsewhere. It’s so damn convenient! But we’ve transitioned from a virtual world of makers, to a virtual world of consumers. No longer does your avatar stand in an SL sandbox and build something. Now, if you’re one of the few makers, your fleshvatar spends hours off-world building and then rigging something to eventually import into SL via a mesh cargo ship. Five of the six busiest container ports in the world are in China, with Shanghai being number one at 47.28 million TEUs. “Build > Upload > Model” is now the Shanghai of Second Life. We have transitioned from a world where almost everyone makes something, to a world where only a few make, and almost everyone consumes.
Except for the “De-Innovation Ring,” all the studios at Great SL Regions are free to work with offshore mesh or any other processes they choose. The De-Innovation Ring will be a set of a dozen studios encouraging oldschool prim creativity.
In the four quarters of Great SL Regions residents will be encouraged to explore the power of Second Life. The power that in our rush to dress sexy and go dancing, we sometimes forget has been here all along. There are quarters for exploring SL Physics, Linden Scripting Language (LSL), Lights and Projectors, and more.
In the spirit of remembering the power we may have forgotten Second Life has, here’s another Philip Rosedale conversation, this time with the designer of the Second Life Prim, Avi Bar-Zeev.
Jane Jacobs
Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.
Jane Jacobs, the Death and life of Great american cities
For as long as I’ve wandered the occasionally bustling, and more typically empty, regions of Second Life, Jane Jacobs ideas have been my guiding star.
Mixed Use
Jacobs was a champion of “Mixed Use.” Of old buildings next to new buildings. Of homes next to barber shops next to small markets. Of a vibrant “ballet of the street.” By various means, Second Life has done the exact opposite. Large swaths of the SL Mainland are residential-ish. Big SL retailers, much like the Walmarts that destroy community in the physical world, typically exist on private regions, not connected to the rest of neighborhoods and culture. And with the advent of the Linden Home, we have the creation of isolated, ghettoized suburban sprawl disconnected from the life of the city.
15-minute City; 2-minute Region
For a few precious months, Great SL Regions would like to think about a different way for Second Life. GSLR would like to think about community. About walkability. About civic engagement. About The Fifteen Minute City.
In contemporary SL, unlike the early days, we just assume that everyone will teleport everywhere and no one will ever walk anywhere. What if you could walk from your home to a clothing shop you like? And then to an art gallery? And then to a great dance club? How embodied would that be? What a place! What a neighborhood!
At the end of the night, instead of a disruptive, experience breaking “poof,” what if you simply walked home?
Voluntary Paraplegia
The Sphinx used to torment travelers with a riddle:
What creature walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?
The area was littered with the remains of victims who answered incorrectly. Oedipus answered correctly, the city welcomed him, and offered him the vacant job of king, and marriage to Jocasta.
The ability to walk is a fundamental aspect of our lives on earth. Fitness guru Peter Attia believes a key to longevity is to simply walk for an hour with a fifty-pound rucksack on your back. We humans are remarkably good at walking and carrying. Few if any fleshvatars would choose to be paraplegic if we had any alternative.
Yet as avatars, so many of us choose to be voluntary paraplegics. Oh sure, we may dance excitedly at Warehouse21, but we don’t walk there and we don’t walk home after. Like so much else in SL, we TP in, hang out, TP out. We avatars willingly give up that which so many fleshvatars would sell their souls for: the ability to walk. The ability to feel the ground beneath your feet. The squishiness of beach sand; the dew of morning grass. The soul quenching balm of water around your ankles on a hot summer afternoon.
In fact, Warehouse21, like so many clubs and retailers, cannot be walked to even if an avatar wanted to — it’s on a private island and in a skybox.
The Anti-Social Century
In his 11-page cover story for the February 2025 issue of The Atlantic, “The Anti-Social Century,” Derek Thompson chronicles humankind’s journey from the Social 20th century to the Anti-Social 21st. He follows our technologies of convenience that slowly erode social interaction:
- The Car
- The Television
- The Smart Phone
- AI Chatbots
Across the article he marshals volumes of research showing our tendency to be more alone and the harmful effects of it. Here are a few:
- 2023: 74% of all US restaurant business is Takeout
- Americans having dinner or drinks with friends in the evening: down 30% in the past 20 years
- Increase in solo dining over the past two years: 29%
- Number of movie tickets the average American buys in a year: 3
- Number of hours of television the average American watches in a week: 19
- For men who watch TV, hours of TV vs hours outside home with a friend: 7:1
- “Epidemic of Loneliness,” US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy’s 2023 warning that the health effects of loneliness were on par with tobacco use and obesity
- UK & Japan now have a “Minister for Loneliness”
- Minutes/day average American kid is awake: 900
- Minutes/weekday average American kid is on their phone: 270
- Minutes/weekend day average American kid is on their phone: 380
- 2023 US survey: more than half of teen girls felt “persistently sad or hopeless”
- Apartments today are “built for Netflix and chill”
- Decline in life satisfaction: 5% increase in alone time = 10% decrease in income
- Character.ai users spend 93 minutes/day chatting with their AI friend
We have evolved into an online consumer economy optimized for introverted living. Yet research shows that social interaction makes people happier and builds stronger communities.
While time with others is essential, solitary time to reflect is also important. Today we get less of both. Less time actually present with friends. And less alone time thanks to the constant pings of our phones. Never with, and never truly alone.
Second Life & Loneliness?
Thompson’s article is about first life. Is Second Life part of the problem? Or the solution? Or both?
Time with friends in SL is different from time with friends in FL. Or is it? Unlike the placelessness of smartphones and Zoom meetings, SL is a place. A real place. The other day Marcus Bremser and I hopped in his speedboat and traveled about 4 km across the waterways of SL from his home to the Prim Drilling Platform in the ANWR Channel. Marcus drove and I did my best to navigate, only giving him a few wrong turns and late cues.
Was this the same as a first life boat trip? Definitely not! If it was in FL, first, I wouldn’t have gone! And if I had, I’d be puking my guts out for most of the journey. I may be the world’s most seasick person! Given my nature and constitution, SL boating is vastly preferable. And fun!
But no, there isn’t the salt spray. Elaborate as the terrain and waters are, they lack the diversity of first life oceans. They also lack the danger and boredom. But in terms of Marcus and I spending time together, I suspect that if we had made this boat journey in FL, it would have been rather like our SL version. In FL I might not have had to be quite as glued to my map because we’d be traveling slower.
In meditating on Thompson’s article, it’s not my argument that SL is a cure for FL loneliness. Rather, that we can experience SL together or alone, and that in this world as well as the other, together has real value. Yes, alone time in both FL & SL is valuable. Yes alone time without incessant smartphone pings is priceless. But if all I ever do is dress my avatar and build my parcel, without human interaction, it’s as shallow a virtual life and the one he chronicles in physical life.
Edie’s Art Farm
Ten years ago, in 2015, the Linden Endowment for the Arts (LEA) granted me LEA-28 for my “Art Farm Coop” project. This was also a collaborative space where avatars were encouraged to express their creativity in a community setting. Now, ten years later, I’m ready to explore further ideas along this trajectory. You can learn more about Art Farm here:
Core Concepts
Inspired by Jane Jacobs 1961 and Philip Rosedale 2003, Great SL Regions seeks to foster creative community and neighborhoods in Second Life.
To achieve this we will use an SLEA region to create forty artist’s studios and a number of common areas. Any resident may claim a studio space. All residents will be encouraged to explore the creative possibilities of Second Life: Physics, Linden Scripting Language (LSL), Lights & Projectors and building with both prims and mesh.
The region will feature performances, talks, and weekly studio tours to facilitate interaction and community. Through an extensive network of kiosks across the region, participants may place posters for their various projects. Collaboration will be encouraged.
Details
Car = Teleport
When you look at Jane Jacobs’ ideas, or explore new concepts like “The 15-minute City,” there is significant discussion of the problems of car culture. In Second Life it is Teleporting that, like Cars in FL, tend to weaken the experience of the City or Region. Tend to erase community in the Neighborhood or Parcel. FL cars and SL teleporting create vast, abandoned, lonely places, only occasionally punctuated by a large dance club or other hub.
Great SL Regions will be a No Teleporting, No Flying, and No Skybox region. All activity will happen at ground level and will be accessible to all residents. It takes just over one minute to walk the 256 meters from one side of the region to the other. It takes under two minutes to walk the 362 meter diagonal from one far corner of the region to another.
Walking from the studio at Physics Quarter-5 to the studio at De-Innovation Ring-3 or Lights & Projectors-1 takes only seconds.
Bots = Admitting Failure
One of the things I’ve always loved about Second Life is that there are are relatively few NPCs (Non Player Characters or Bots). In a game world an NPC Quest Giver is fine because it’s all about me going off and completing some task. But in a social world like Second Life, every NPC is a little bit of failure. A little bit of admission that we want community, seek community, crave social interaction, yearn with all our heart’s desire for companionship, yet don’t have it. Instead of finding ways to create community and interaction, like building less in a smaller, more communal world, we sometimes admit defeat and place fake, creepy “rubber dolls” in the middle of our beautiful creations.
There are the “bad avatar” or “rubber doll” NPCs. These aren’t really “bots,” they’re just clumsy figures that have historically been placed here and there. You’ll find some along the main drag of Bay City, and sometimes in a futile attempt to make some of SL’s beautiful but empty coffee shops appear to have life.
To me, these rubber dolls don’t infuse life into the emptiness of Second Life, instead they are a mockery. They scream that this place is empty. They are the very admission of failure.
Other sim owners result to parking lots of fake or alt avatars at their beach or dance club. These “fake” avatars look better than the rubber dolls and they also game the SL search results. But as a resident exploring the grid, they’re even more disappointing. The map suggests life. Yet I walk up to only the lobotomized shells of bodies that were never truly SL avatars.
And now, in 2025 we have AI chatbots coming to SL. Yet another way of pretending there is life and community where there is no life or community. We come up with so many ways of pretending we have created community. So many twisted, distorted ways of admitting we have utterly failed.
Perhaps the lesson of Second Life is that many of us would rather go off into empty spaces and create what we wish, even if no one ever looks at it, explores it, or spends time in it. That, rather than share a smaller, more compact space where we live, work, and play side by side in community with other residents.
For a few short months, Great SL Regions will give SL residents a chance to explore another way. A chance to experience the revitalized SL city that never was. But always could have been. Great SL Regions will be a No Bots city filled, I hope, with embodied avatar life.
Special Needs Permits
As much as possible, Great SL Regions will be a No Teleport and No Fly region. If a participant has visual, motor, or other circumstances that make walking the short distances between studios difficult or problematic, they may be issued a Special Needs Permit (Group Role) that allows exceptions.
Schedule
- Receive Region: 1 July 2025
- Prepare Region: Terraform, install studio footprints, etc.: 1 July – 16 August
- Open Studios to Residents: Saturday 16 August 2025
- Region open to all: 16 August – 31 December
- Events: Frequently! 16 August – 31 December
- Region Returned: 31 December 2025
Events
- Live Performances in The Hub
- DJ Dance Parties in The Hub
- Weekly Walking Tours of Resident Studios
- Classes taught in The Hub
Layout of the Campus
Physics Quarter
What I was so excited by was that you could roll a ball across the ground and then it would cross over from one server to another, and on a good day, it would just keep running.
Philip Rosedale
The Physics Quarter is composed of 11 studios: PQ-1 to PQ-7 & DIR-2 to DIR-5, and the Southwest Commons.
At the seven Physics Studios, PQ-1 to PQ-7, avatars are encouraged to explore projects involving Second Life Physics.
The De-Innovation Ring Studios focus on resident projects engaging with the old-school joy of creating in-world with prims.
The Southwest Commons is an open area where anyone can create anything. Collaborative projects are encouraged here!
Somebody could build a table and you could build a clock on top of the table and that was pretty amazing. — Philip Rosedale
In addition to “my clock on top of your table,” residents who give each other permission to modify their objects, at least temporarily, can take turns Twisting Prims to create interactive sculptures.
Creations will remain in the Southwest Commons for a while. The Commons will be periodically cleared to make way for new creativity.
Linden Scripting Language Quarter
The Linden Scripting Language (LSL) Quarter is composed of 11 studios: LSLQ-1 to LSLQ-7 & DIR-1, 2, 11 & 12, and the Northwest Memorial, or Memorial I.
At the seven LSL Studios, LSLQ-1 to LSLQ-7, avatars are encouraged to explore projects involving the Linden Scripting Language.
The De-Innovation Ring Studios focus on resident projects engaging with the old-school joy of creating in-world with prims.
The Northwest Memorial is a place where residents may place a gravestone or other memorial for a lost avatar. Friends and loved ones who have passed in First Life may be memorialized here, as well as those who may still be alive in FL but have permanently left SL. For “missing,” or not seen in a long time, avatars, the Southeast Memorial features The Tree of Missing Avatars. Marking the passing of someone we have cared about is a deeply human experience, and a beautiful practice that many avatars around the SL grid have carried into our world. Residents placing memorials are also welcome to place guest books.
Lights & Projectors Quarter
The Lights & Projectors Quarter is composed of 11 studios: LPQ-1 to LPQ-7 & DIR-5 to DIR-8, and the Southeast Memorial, or Memorial II.
At the seven Light & Projectors Studios, LPQ-1 to LPQ-7, avatars are encouraged to explore projects involving Second Life Lights and Projectors.
The De-Innovation Ring Studios focus on resident projects engaging with the old-school joy of creating in-world with prims.
The Southeast Memorial features Agnes Incognito’s The Tree of Missing Avatars. Or, more likely, several trees. Here, avatars are given a locket in which they can place an image of an avatar friend or loved one they haven’t seen in some time. They then hang the locket from the tree. We may not know if the person has left Second Life, or left the earth itself. We know only that someone we cared about hasn’t been seen in-world for some time. The trees are memorials and celebrations of people who have crossed our virtual lives.
General Quarter
The General Quarter is composed of 11 studios: GQ-1 to GQ-7 & DIR-8 to DIR-11, and the Northeast Commons.
Unlike the Physics, LSL, and Projectors Quarters, the General Quarter will not nudge residents toward any particular creative modality. Residents may work with Physics, Scripting, and Projectors, or not. Prims or Mesh or not. Or other media such as Literary and Media Projects are also welcome.
The De-Innovation Ring Studios focus on resident projects engaging with the old-school joy of creating in-world with prims.
The Northeast Commons is an open area where anyone can create anything. Collaborative projects are encouraged here! Creations will remain in the Northeast Commons for a while. The Commons will be periodically cleared to make way for new creativity.
The Northeast Commons is also home to our campus coffee shop, Tina Kaw Fey.
De-Innovation Ring
The simple joy of rezzing a prim!
Is there anything in all the virtual worlds better than that?
As previously discussed, the evolution of Second Life creation from in-world prims to off-world mesh has brought us a bounty of beautiful homes, vehicles, toys, bodies, and clothes. We are lucky consumers indeed. But we have transitioned from a virtual nation of creators, to a virtual nation of consumers.
At the De-Innovation Ring we’ll turn back the clock! We’ll remember what it was like to build in-world with our own, now bento, avatar fingers. We’ll stack and twist prims. We’ll go back to the simple joy of rezzing a prim.
The Hub
The Hub is the GSLR’s Central Courtyard. A handy walking area from one side of campus to the other. And our performance venue. The Hub will feature live performances, demonstrations, and DJ sets.
Classes at The Hub
I’d like to collaborate with one of SL’s great teaching institutions to offer classes at The Hub. Classes of all kinds, but especially classes focused on SL Physics, Linden Scripting Language, and working with Lights and Projectors.
The Commons
The Southwest and Northeast Commons are places of collaboration. Residents may create what they like here. The areas will be periodically cleaned to allow space for new creativity.
Memorial I – The Lost
The Northwest Memorial is a place to remember those we’ve lost.
Memorial II – The Missing
The Southeast Memorial is a place to remember those whose status we don’t know, but who we have not seen for a long while.
Tina Kaw Fey
Located in the NE Commons is our campus coffee shop, Tina Kaw Fey.
Katy Perryopolis
Home to great DJs and energetic dancers, you’ll find the campus dance club, Katy Perryopolis, conveniently located in The Hub.
