Ghosts of the Internet

Opening today, Saturday, May 10 at 1 pm slt, is Ghosts of the Internet, an extraordinary installation by Glyph Graves. If you ever had the notion that Second Life and Inworldz, as similar as they are, were distinct and separate experiences — well, they're not any more. When you arrive at LEA21, you might see some "ghosts" wandering about, and those are avatars in Inworldz on the sim Translation (where, alternately, you could also log in to see the "ghosts" of avatars wandering on Second Life's sim LEA21). And you can converse with people in real time between the grids, even seeing their movement and location. In the image above, we're in Second Life on LEA21. To the left is Glyph's Inworldz ghost, then Glyph in SL, then me on the right; a detail of his ghost is in the second image. In the third image we're in Inworldz (where I hadn't visited for maybe years — I was a little horrified by my avatar's appearance), and you can see Glyph's SL ghost.

Full instructions on how to communicate are available at the landing point, but it's pretty easy. Obviously this only works when people are in both Inworldz Translation and Second Life LEA21, but it's amazing and brilliant. (Glyph said he's been working on the scripting for several months.) "You can talk with the apparitions though you need to be aware that the conversation with the avatar will in open chat on the other grid. Only the conversation of the initiator of the conversation will go to the other grid. To initiate a conversation simply touch the pseudo avatar once. To end the conversation simply touch the avatar at any time. Someone may initiate a conversation with you from the other grid. If that happens then simply chat normally (in chat range) and they will hear. If you do not wish to have a conversation or wish to end the conversation then simply touch the apparition once. Do not try to have a conversation with more than one apparition at any one time. Bad things will happen... err.. and its also pretty confusing," says Glyph. And give it a try in both worlds.