SL Educational/Informative/Arts Guide

I think of SL as a kind of 3D World Wide Web in the fetal stages, and it has many characteristics of the 2D version: games, hobby/obsession builds, ego builds, and business sites (including heaps of porn). Genuinely educational or informative sites, however, seem rare. My favorites are museums, including SLer art displays like Crescent Moon in Montmartre, and RL artists like the paintings at Oboe's Cave on Telador or the Palazzi in Iaconetti (sp?). Virtual Hallucinations is also an excellent use of SL--it's a schizophrenia simulation, giving an idea of a schizophrenic person's experience in a hospital ward.

I'm designing a build now offering information on Buddhism, and I may add a space dedicated to contemporary poetry.

Does anyone know of other educational/informative builds? I'd like to check them out. I'd also include ahk grommet's '50s build in this category (The Good Old Days, Dosojin), or any other historical/geographical simulation (tho not fantasy builds). Also, recreations of RL architecture.

I'm considering putting together a free-to-copy museum guide, available both as a display and an inventory folder, with landmarks and brief notecards on each site. Hopefully, everyone in the guide would put up the display, increasing traffic to these cultural sites. I would also include the Sci-Fi Museum and the Sleeping Beauty castle in Montmartre with its display of Romantic paintings. If anyone would like to help on this project (particularly scripting--my weak spot) please IM me in-world and/or post in this thread.

Please also nominate builds that would be appropriate for the guide. Would a group be useful/necessary for this project? The SL Arts Guild? The Education Ministry ?

Cool idea, Vudu! How about Chase's Manhattan, in Hawthorne? Aimee Weber did a great job on it . . . be sure to look inside the bar and the church. My Prohibition-era speakeasy is in a hidden room in Aimee's Empire State Building (if you don't know the password, you can get in via the main Manhattan teleport station). I built the furniture based on photos of period furnishings. Chase Rutherford (the Evil Landlady!) has rounded up real artists' works for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Chase is also working on a second museum . . . I can't wait for the grand opening! Be sure to try RacerX Gullwing's automated flying lawn chair tour -- they can be found by the subway and teleporter stations. It's near the location where Racer rezzes the grandstand for the weekly Giant Snail Race through the city streets (where various builders have parked classic cars). For a glimpse of Manhattan of the Future, hit the main teleport station or (if it's still there) Racer's avatar cannon to get a lift to the SkyLounge. Nearing completion, the structure is by Maxx Monde and the interior decor is by Leran Charlton -- plus there's an airship dock on the roof by Racer. It's a great observation deck from which to view all of Chase's Manhattan. And no visit to the SL Big Apple is complete without a stop at the Manhattan Art & Wine Festival, a waterfront marketplace with rent-free booths full of cool merchandise.

Other SL builds you might consider include the Old West town in Slate, Red Dragon Street Market & gardens in Tehama, Silk Waters (heck, I don't recall what sim, but it's a great Japanese village in the snow), occupied France in Jessie, Braniac Headquarters' hands-on displays of SL science, and I know I'm forgetting a bunch of other cool locations.

What sort of scripting help do you need, Vudu? I'd be happy to help -- catch me inworld.

I have an art gallery on the third floor of my store in Aqua called "ArtSpace Aqua" that features original real world works of art by SL residents.

For now there is a reconstruction of the ancient Theater of Dionysos in Athens on the private island of Digifolks. Picture attached. The island and project belong to Edgware Marker, I don't know his long term plans. (I did the seating, which is why I happen to know about it despite my hermit lifestyle.)

My tiny art gallery featuring my own paintings and prints, right now, is located on Bodega Bay. Osprey Therian Fine Art

Vudu, great idea to hear you promoting the arts & culture, and I applaud ya for it. However, I am a a bit confused as to why you said "tho not fantasy builds" although you're including the Sci-Fi Museum -- which certainly includes its fair share of speculative fantasy (not as per the genre term but in a sense of wonder and creativity).

Do you have specific criteria for qualifying projects for your guide? There are many unique things in SL which wouldn't have existed without SL, and as such, I do consider them nothing less than paragons of arts & culture within our own virtual world.

Thanks for the replies, all

Kim, I'll take a closer look at Chase's Manhattan, especially the Met. Red Dragon strikes me as primarily a mall, and doesn't recreate any particular site, so I don't know that I would include it. I'll check out Silk Waters.

I'll check out the Dionysian build and your gallery as well, Os. In general tho, I would exclude "Vanity galleries" in which only one's own work is represented, unless that work has an educational/informative bent.

Chip--you're already in the folder, forgot to mention you earlier

Torley, good concerns to bring up. I include the Sci-Fi Museum because it is a museum, featuring work by many people on a particular theme. Likewise, a museum of fantasy art by various artists would also be included (and many of the sites I listed include some fantasy art). For sale items and on-site stores are also fine, as long as the build isn't primarily commercial. As far as specific criteria, I'd say post first and ask questions later . If you know of a beautiful public build that contributes to SL, by all means share it.

Aha! Gracious thanks, Vudu, that makes more sense to me.