The Virtual Life of Fizzy Oceans (6 page)

OF COURSE I spend time traveling through the different REPs in VL, just as one travels to different cities or countries in Physical Life. Each REP has something unique to offer, as it is a reflection of the builder’s creativity (I use the term builder in the singular here, but in fact many REPs in VL are the creation of multiple builders). Usually I surf these REPs on my own, but sometimes, just for fun, I take along a companion. Since Kizmet Aurora is already involved in the Burning Man movement in PL (which is a loosely organized, temporary community whose purpose is to promote radical forms of creativity for the enrichment of all), I thought she might be interested in accompanying me on an exploration of the VL Burning Life REP. As we transfer into Burning Life we encounter a sign that reads, “Welcome to Nowhere: Leave No Trace!”

As we walk through this less-than-familiar environment, Kizmet tries to orient me:

“The Burning Life REP is constructed much like the Burning Man temporary city in Black Rock, Utah,” she tells me. “As you can see, it is arranged as a series of concentric streets in an arc composing two-thirds of a 1.5 mile diameter circle with the eight-story Man sculpture and his supporting complex at the center. Radial streets extend from the Man sculpture to the outermost circle. The innermost street is named the Esplanade, and the remaining streets are given names to coincide with the overall theme of the burn.”

Kiz further informs: “In Burning Man 1999, for the ‘Wheel of Time’ theme, and again in 2004 for the ‘The Vault of Heaven’ theme, the streets were named after the planets of the solar system. The radial streets are usually also given a clock designation (for example, ‘6:00, 6:15’), in which the Man is at the center of the clock face. These avenues have been identified in other ways too, notably in the 2002 burn, in accordance with ‘The Floating World’ theme, as the degrees of a compass (for example, ‘180, 175 degrees’), and in the 2003 burn as part of the ‘Beyond Belief’ theme as adjectives (‘Rational, Absurd’), which caused every intersection with a concentric street to be named after concepts such as ‘Authority’ or ‘Creed’, which in turn formed phrases such as ‘Absurd Authority’ and ‘Rational Creed’. Center Camp is located along the midline of the REP at the 6:00 o’clock position on the Esplanade.”

Navigating through an exhibit called DMV (Disabled Mutant Vehicles), we find ourselves in a type of futuristic museum where taxicabs and school buses and tractors and turbine generators—all dilapidated and rusted—slouch in a virtual bone yard of carbon powered machines. Further along, we encounter the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine, and still further a rather unique tree with leaves made of knitted yarn. Each leaf has an errant piece of string just waiting to be pulled and tugged. The mere act of unraveling a knitted object is viscerally satisfying (it’s hard to resist pulling on a loose thread of a sweater, just to see it unwind). Even as our intent is to appreciate the tree in all its beauty, we also want to grasp the errant thread, pull it loose, and destroy the leaf whose stitches have been rendered by careful hands.

Entering the Ice Palace, three EMs, Orli Lusher, Calloway Pip-pip, and Trixie-Ann Tympany, direct us to a beautiful meditation area with intricately patterned Oriental rugs, Victorian furniture, lacey curtains and a central fountain. We are invited to remain and enjoy a time of peaceful contemplation, but meditation is not our mission here in Burning Life. No, we are seeking something a bit more challenging, an unexpected spectacle, or a serendipitous close encounter (of the VL kind), so we leave the meditation tent and press onward.

In a wide-open area of the REP, Digi-DJ Perplexia is playing music and dancing up a storm with several other burners: Audacious Adratica, Chai Gracias, Bjorn Loon and Stitch & Sew Hattrick. The dance is obviously a symbolic one, so when Kiz and I are invited to join, we decide to pass up the invitation. Just what we are looking for neither of us can say, but we think we’ll recognize it when we see it, so we proceed through the Burning Life REP until we encounter a group of three emulations sitting together on the
playa
. One of the EMs, Winter Heart, introduces us to two others, Six Fables and Arctic Artless. We, too, introduce ourselves. “I’m Fizzy Oceans and this is Kizmet Aurora.”

“This is our first time in Burning Life,” says Winter. “What exactly happens here?”

Naturally, Kiz is the one to answer: “Burning Life is the Virtual Life application of Burning Man. As a ‘burner’, you come to experience something totally new. Ride your bike in the vast expanse of nothingness with your eyes closed, or relax at Brianna’s Sugar Shack. Maybe you will find your spirit lover as you wander under veils of dust on the desert
playa
.

“On Saturday night, after a weeklong festival of spontaneous community, radical self-expression, decommodification and subsistence living in extreme conditions, the archetypical symbols of an extemporaneous society are burned, beginning with the temples that epitomize both the heights and the depths of our humanity. Over the years we have burned the
Temple of the Mind
, the
Temple of Tears
, the
Temple of Joy
, the
Temple of Honor
, the
Temple of the Stars
, and the
Temple of Forgiveness
. Finally, the Man is also burned. As the circle forms, the Man ignites, and one experiences something so personal and so new, something he has never felt before—an epiphany!”

“Cool!” says Six Fables.

We direct our emulations to sit on the ground so we can talk face to face with these new acquaintances. Kiz arranges her full skirt around her legs, and I wrap a lacey shawl round my shoulders against the encroaching chill of the desert evening. A large orange moon rises over the not-so-distant mountains, and the sky is filled with ever-changing hues of red and orange.

The EM called Winter Heart is at once engaging. She is lean and fit, with an angelic face and snow-white hair. Ice crystals upon her eyelashes glimmer each time she blinks, and her ruby lips pantomime each syllable she speaks.

“We three are long term role players—textual ones,” says Winter. “We are extemporaneous writers, and we’ve been friends forever it seems.”

“Sorry, not following,” I say. “Tell us more.”

“Role-playing is when you pretend you are someone else,” Winter explains. “We each assume the roll of a character, or several if skilled, and together, simultaneously, we write a story within a textual base.”

“So VL is a very natural environment for you,” I assume.

“Yes, I find Virtual Life extraordinary,” says Winter. “I’m saving up to buy some real estate where I can build a REP.”

“Since all three of you are obviously experts in fantasy,” says Kiz, “I’d like to pose a question: Is VL real? Or is it fantasy?”

“Or is it Memorex?” says Arctic Artless with a smile.

Winter Heart observes: “Real is when you have to pay bills; the rest is just fantasy.”

“Actually, I think of VL as a logbook of human culture,” I offer. “For the time after the icecaps melt and PL goes
whoosh
!!!”

Six Fables’ emulation is somewhat more comical than those one usually encounters in VL. Her black hair is (combed) haphazardly over her eyes, and she is wearing house slippers shaped like cats, as well as pajamas with cats stenciled on them. Her left hand is also a stuffed toy cat.
Meow
…

“If PL goes
whoosh
, I’m not going to be hanging in VL,” says Six Fables. “Nope, I’ll be hanging in Hellbound (aka Blaed Retreat 123426666), home of the brave and wonderful characters that make the heart go pitter-patter.”

“Is Hellbound a role-playing site?” I ask.

“Hellbound is Six’s role-playing setting,” Winter explains. “It’s a dark but funny fantasy with too many romances to count amidst the murders, mayhem, and volcanoes that erupt out of nowhere.”

“I suppose we could
build
Hellbound here in VL,” says Six Fables. “Then we wouldn’t have to just imagine Eton moving a chair, or watch Dalton pouring drinks.” She swoons, and then laughs. “If we played out our roles in VL, we could actually
see
Blaed flex his behiney and lift a brow and…” Again she sighs dreamily. “Speaking of bottoms,” she says, “does anyone else think the maker of these pants should have placed the kitty faces a little higher? I’m feeling a wedgie!”

“Just so I get it,” says Kiz, “how does this role-playing game, or reality, or whatever-it-is relate to your real life? Or does it?”

“Let’s put it this way,” Six Fables answers. “For Winter, if Eton (a character I play) came to life, she would marry him before he said hello. Me? I would jump for joy if Jinx or Dalton showed up. That’s real life. Role playing is an escape, just like VL is an escape.”

Arctic Artless’s emulation is quite transparent, and his blue and red neon vascular system is obvious at a glance.

“Wherever we exist, we never really know exactly where the story is heading,” he says, “because anyone can do something at any time to change circumstances.”

Winter Heart adds, “If I could make real money in VL, like some do, I’d hang up real life once and for all and enjoy this—save my excursions to the mountains and the ocean for communing with nature.”

“Ah! That’s part of it—sensuality,” I agree. “We have no sensuality here in VL. That’s what I call NL—Natural Life. Which is quite different than Physical Life.”

“I’ve found, in my experience, that sensuality is more in the mind than in the body,” says Winter pensively. “Take ice cream, for instance. Ice cream can bring happy thoughts to mind, thoughts of summertime fun, or ball games, or birthday parties. Or it can take a person back to a time of sadness (tonsils out, pet dying). In Virtual Life it becomes apparent that the brain is able to supply such circumstances for recognition without taste, touch, or scent to activate mental recognition. The more creative a person is, the more he can compel a visual scene into something more than mere imagery expressed in pixels.”

“Yes,” I confirm. “And where the lines are drawn is a function of one’s limitations!”

“I know people who limit themselves out of fear,” Winter says.

“Wait a minute. You guys are losing me,” says Kiz.

“When one refuses to fall into an illusion for fear he might feel what he doesn’t want to feel, or recognize something he is afraid of recognizing,” Winter explains. “So, the more he can convince himself that it isn’t really real, and that whatever he experiences in fantasy—VL or elsewhere—doesn’t really count, then the more he can shield himself from his core nature.”

“Most role-players come into Virtual Life thinking that it’s nothing but fantasy,” says Arctic Artless. “Then you have people who come in thinking of the emulations as nothing but cartoons. And of course there are those who make no pretense whatsoever about who they are and just come into the
game
to socialize and have a bit of fun. To top it all off you have the businesses. The one thing that most people forget is that there are real people on the other side of that cartoon, and that after an extended time in association with someone real emotions become involved which are just as strong as any you come across in PL.”

“So, you’re saying that people come here as an escape, not to create,” Kiz summarizes.

“They join to escape a PL life they find lacking in some way,” says Arctic.

“But why do you call VL a game?” I ask.

Winterheart says, “I see it as a game in that nine out of ten people in VL are fake: men portraying women, old people masquerading as young, prudes pretending to be extroverts, the domineering ones acting submissive. Isn’t it a game to discover who is real? Or who is merely on some ego trip, or working through personal issues? When the world decides that ‘pretend’ is the new real, I think we’re all in trouble.”

“Maybe not, Winter,” Kiz asserts. “Maybe this is the manifestation of a deeper, even greater self.”

“Virtual Life may be the nest egg of the future,” says Winter, “but will it thrive to become a glory all its own, and eventually become the setting for the trials and travails of the human flock? Or will it fall, just as Man’s other environments have fallen? Too soon to tell…”

Kiz has apparently become VL’s newest advocate as she counters Winter’s assertion: “What you call pretend is simply another expression of our inner reality. I’m sure that once TV might have been considered pretend, and while it may not be what it could be, or what it should be, these days most would not call it pretend. It is now a part of everyday life. Books are the same. In both realities we are simply dealing with symbols of what we conceive intellectually. Make sense?”

“From cartoons to news, sitcoms to ‘reality’ TV; it’s all illusion,” Arctic maintains.

“What is seen on TV is cut and pasted together to make it appear real—‘
appear
’ being the operative concept.”

Kiz has mastered an incredulous look for her emulation. “I’m actually quite surprised by your perspective. I think you’re drawing the lines much too finely between what might be real and what might be imaginary.”

“The basis of the
game
is imagination, and yet, as I mentioned earlier, real feelings do become involved,” Arctic reiterates.

“And then there is the question of if (or when) our emulations, having imprinted themselves with the traits and tendencies of our (human) representations, can
re
-animate outside PL. Might this not be the ‘Next Life’?” I propose.