Building outside RL.

Just a question/critique.

We, us builders, are given an AMAZING amount of freedom in SL. Gravity can be suspended. The laws of physics can be broken... yet everything we make seems to echo RL. On one hand, I'm not suprised. I mean, a huge part of SL is the creation of a BETTER (perhaps perfect?) reality... so we rework + better the things that we know in the physical.

But why?

On one hand, I don't mind.
In fact, it's satisfying to recreate a good building. But, on the other, it's somewhat depressing. I mean, we can DO ANYTHING! Are there people who break this barrier? Have I just not found them... or does this stuff just seem lame and baseless? I know I've tried.


Gimme a shout.

JR.

In my humble opinion most of us are not willing to suspend reality for the sake of creating something in Second Life. I can only speak for myself but all of my creations are based on what I see in First Life and not on something I see in my dreams.

Why not you may ask? Well I must say that most things we imagine, that are not possible in First Life. may seem cool to us but are simply boring to others especially in Second Life. If I recreated my First Life illusions in Second Life I would be chased around with torches and pitchforks.

Yeah! Where's my bikini made out of water with little fishies swimming in it? Where is stonehenge, on it's side in the middle of a storm? Where is a table made of living flame? Sailboats made of treacle? Avatars made of clouds of snow?

Or should I have eaten those last two slices of pizza earlier than I did?

In part we are bound to reality because we understand it. It's familiar and it gives us rules to operate by. Table. Walls. Chairs. Watermelons. Sheep. Guns. We understand what these things are and what they represent. Imagine SL if you took the shapes of everything and scrambled them up a bit. Is that a chair? Or is it a lamp, or a gun? Is that a tree, or a fountain, or a pet dog, or a box with a product in it?

Freed from all constraints of familiar reality, SL would be a chaotic jumble of shapes. But we're not really talking about going that far. I'm just being longwinded about illustrating a point (one of my many vices and bad habits).

The best we seem to be able to accomplish is a postmodern mixing of the real and the fantastic. Combining the real in unexpected or surreal ways. We don't do quite as much of that as we could. Some portion of the population feels uncomfortable with that. That's probably why my store looks a little bit like a building, and not like, say, a giant electric penguin with long green tentacles that sting people. Or stereophonic cement wigwams with prehensile lawnmowers and stingray baits.

We mix a little here, a little there, though. Gothic architecture, married to edwardian, married to cyberpunk, with concessions to flight-access.

I think we could do more, though. Maybe I might give the penguin a go at some point.

Now I'm curious.

I've always been rather partial to Eddie Escher / Fallingwater Cellardoor.
I swear, I want to eat that girl's brain.

TN: No worries on the verbose reply. Much appreciated.

I guess I'm not surprised by the replies\reasons. It makes sense to emulate RL. Though, as I stated earlier, it does feel like we're missing interesting possibilities. The point raised of relevance/meaning is perhaps the most compelling reason against 'abstract' innovation. My idea of the perfect ____ would very likely have little significance to anyone else. Nor would it read as a _____ to anyone else.

All of which makes sense. I suppose the most direct comparison would be a look into architectural history. The "types" of buildings (use, physical form, etc) have a rather extensive track record of slow innovation and strict conservatism.

Thanks.
JR

there's a lot of structures out there that would never be able to be translated into RL... unless gravity was suspended and nanomaterials become commonplace... and yes, a lot of RL based stuff too... one hint for where to look for funky stuff: off the ground

While I was building my bridge in garrison, i had two sets of people coming up to me... those who were bothered by missing pylons and buttresswork to make it realistic... and those who loved the fantasy of a sim-long arc with no supporting structure.

seemed about half and half

Well I think notionsof space as as much psychological and cultural as they are architectural. It is not enough to make something just because you can, rather it needs to be something that people use and relate to. The best architecture setms for the way space is used.

I try to build what I dream, then again I haven't dreamed of much in a while

Mar

Jake, I couldn't agree more.
Certainly, the history of mankind + the built environs have yielded some VERY well refined building forms. In many cases, it could be argued that many building forms have adapted to their fullest exactly as you have stated: From the way that space is used.

And if this is the case, there is a VERY compelling argument for us to step up design innovation. Does this mean new building forms without basis in architectural history? Of course not. But what this does begin to imply is the possibility for a new evolution of form. A furthered distillation of use vs. form.

If we begin to analyze an architecture, one that works WELL in RL, and then rework it by removing the parts that are no longer needed in SL, do we not engender a better form? One that is better suited to our needs, to the collective of Second Life?

Perhaps the disjoint is made in the way that people use SL. Some are in it as an escape from RW. As a game, a different life, a social network... all are viable. Others may approach SL for many of the same reasons, but mixed with an analytic agenda to analyze, question, recreate. Both are of equal validity. The first group, if a majority, may pacify the need for change as felt by the second group.

JR

This made me laugh.

I think this post exemplifies what SL could, IMO should be - pushing the bounds of the imagination, seeing how far we can stretch recognized symbols and structures into something still understandable and recognizable but fantastic and unrealistic.

BTW, Tateru, you rock, you should post more often.

I've seen a few things that I thought were cool and along these lines, but they're few and far between. Saw a few interesting MC Escher drawings built in SL that were impressive, I had an idea for making an Ames room and a series of optical illusions in SL that ended up on the back burner months ago... Would love to see more stuff breaking outside of the typical square-box-building format out there.

If I could only build what is in my head...

But I also keep in mind that somethings evolve because their use is psychologically important, and really has little to with practicalites. For example in SL, with no weather, we do not, strictly speaking, require walls or roofs (and without allws we no longer need windows or doors.

However, walls, dorrs and windows also serve to break up and define the space. They shape the way with think about a place by creating mood. They guide us in our use of space an reflect our cultural assuptions.

We don't need interior walls IRL, yest we have them in western culture. Other cultures live in homes without interior walls.

Still other factors are the culutal relationship to persona space. In cultures the value personal space, rooms tend to be large, to allow for distance between people. In Cultures where personal space is much smaller, then the rooms tend to be smaller.
Yest even this can be juxtaposed with other factors that influence architecture-for example the cultural dynamic beteween public and private space, and its corresponding impact on a cultures realtionship to privcay-look at japanese culture, for example.

So really I think structures are built in SL to resemble RL things not so much because RL is familiar to us, but becaus the RL things represent thousands of years of study on how we relate to space.

Another thing I might add:

The things I envision, there is no way for SL to represent those shapes due to how the current prims are. I guess it could be done with a ton of prims but that kills ideas for vehicles and since prim space is a premium on land allocations, it is just easier to go with what looks good and works at the same time without having to use 200 prims to make a single 10x10x5 wall. If LL could introduce new types of prim shapes like a cube with rounded corners as opposed to using a box with cylenders/spheres to make rounded corners. Texture useage to get a look is nice but it can be a bear unless you are good at UV mapping to wrap some of teh oddball prims with unique looks such as the tube.

Because a lot of people like to craft builds that are immersive, that draw a person in. When you bend the laws of physics or gravity in any sort of art, it's subconsciously jarring. You may not always know WHY what you are looking at is wrong, but you know it IS, and it can break immersion. Your mind can even pick up on small things, like shadows on an image that go in different directions.

The choice whether to use the tools to create amazing and belief-defying builds, or to attempt to create a sense of immersion and reality is every builder's choice. It's not really surprising to me that many people would want to create builds that are believable, and it just makes those totally odd and sense-defying builds even more surprising when you encounter them.

- J

I make things in real life.