I’m starting this blog to record my observations, thoughts and ideas, as I begin a new adventure into the Second Life metaworld.
In the mid 90’s I lead a group of ragtag artists from Manhattan out of a little storefront in Soho. The group was first met in a two-modem BBS called artnet. When the web becoming available, the name, and the platform, changed to artnetweb. The results of our explorations and experiments in performance art on the Internet, are well documented at http://artnetweb.com Soon the group turned into a minor art movement as we gathered like-mined artist and art groups from throughout the NYC area and far beyond the border of the US. It culminated in an major international exhibition/performance venue at MIT’s List Gallery. See http://artnetweb.com/port/
It was during this 3-month-long series of performance experiments that I first encountered my first metaworld. It was called Onlive and even back then it had voice-to-voice avatar communication.
I dove head-first into this technology, loving every minute and seeing it as the future. Unfortunately, back then bandwidth was only available to the rich and powerful; or people associated with big institutions like MIT. Once my residency was up, my big pipe was severed, leaving me to fend for myself armed with only a 28.8 modem connected to an unreliable twisted pair.
At the time, VRML was the only open architecture available for 3d virtual worlds. So I learned everything I could and started creating my own VRML objects and animations. But something odd was happening. As I became more and more enthralled with the possibilities in from of me, I couldn’t believe what was actually happening. It was all dying a painful death; VRML, Onlive, Traveler, Black Sun; all fell victim to the Darwinian dilemma of fiscal fitness. It was painful to watch all this passionately defended technologies become one by one, relegated to the garbage heap of techno-dreams and good intentions. I remember saying to myself, what a waste of some great minds. But of course, you can’t keep a great idea, or a great mind of that matter, down for long.
I knew someday, when the bandwidth was prevalent and somebody figured out how to make it profitable, that metaworlds would return. Lamenting the lose, and powerless to do anything about it, I did make a promised myself. I would return someday, to live out the final years of my life in this brave new world. That time has come.
I must give thanks the many people that have succeeded where I failed, the people that kept the dream alive and have forged through to create the splendor that is Second Life. These a truly people of unborrowed vision, personal fortitude and keen business savvy. I tip my virtual hat to you.
So thus begins a new phase of my life as the avatar called Political Magic. I hope I still have what it takes to make a difference and lead a new group of ragtag artists (political misfits) into the dawn of this truly unprecedented new way of experiencing life, love, creativity and political magic.
Come join me on an adventure of a lifetime…it promises not to disappoint, and so do I 
