Burning Life: share your highlights and thoughts here...

I'll be covering Burning Life extensively this week and next, and I want to make sure I capture all the wildness in its full glory. So share your impressions here, for possible NWN/Newsletter quotage, and tell us your most memorable experiences/thoughts on BL: the good, the bad, and the unbelievable...

I put up a slideshow above my burning cool aid man build for those who missed it. It could use earlier screenshots though.

I made a giant picnic full of living food fighting off giant picnic ants. And i have a giant banana costume to go with it all

I have to say the disco was pretty much a blast -- even it was, as David Cartier said, "against the spirit of burning man" -- Chris spins some good tunes. I really enjoyed the floating religious/philosophical symbols over in Chartruese (sp? -- what thing to name a sim! It's not even a pretty color . . . .) just because I thought the fetus-in-the-earth was well done and kinda odd. Something about it made me uncomfortable, and I find it fascinating when something makes me uncomfortable. So I had to go back and look at it several times. Last night I was shown the POG temple by a good friend and we spent a good hour taking pictures of the contents (oooh -- giant, um, eh, *member* for those who didn't see it) and joking around about various attachments. This was fun because sexual and scatalogical humor always make me giggle, no matter how old I get. Go ahead and flame me for that one, I can't help it .

I also really loved Yuki's collapsing horses. The just look cool. Oh and Lordfly's giant newbie crushing the burning man. I still haven't figured out what symbolism he was going for exactly . . . but he was trying and that's enough for me .

Zana

Yeah, I'm with Zana on the disco. That was a *blast*, and I'm sorry I missed subsequent runs after the dry one (I think that's what it was, but if it was, one heckuva dry run).

Yuki's horses were fantastic -- I loved the time-lapse changes to pieces.

I liked Eggy's Cathedral of the Question -- it really made me stop and think about what it was saying.

BL was also the first chance I've had to put up my Torii of Fire, which really made me happy, even if it was only for a few days.

"Zeeman strip off the suit!"

I remember standing there, watching a bunch of scripters working on a Cube of Life, late at night, and watching the colors changing.

MUD! 'Nuff said!

I like the concept but it needs some development.
First of all was it just me or did the sims get awfully quiet after the first couple days? People built something, had their fun, and then it was mostly static except for a few late builders.
Why werent there any events? I mean they set up a stage near the burning man, one would expect to get some events there.
Was there a closing ceremony? I didnt even see the man burn. I looked for burning man-related events yesterday and all i saw was flea's wacky revolution crap along with darwin's space launch.

When I first came to SL, the first few days / trips in-world were filled with general exploration and wonder - a sense of "what am I going to run into next in this crazy place?"

It hasn't felt like that for me for quite some time. Maybe because the world is more familiar, or because I now have more of a "direction" in my approach to SL, less wandering, more tasks to complete - kind of like real work, alas. Plus there's nothing quite as depressing as wandering through a sim that "used" to be vibrant and filled with great content but now 75% of the residents have moved elsewhere in-world.

But for a few short hours, the Burning Life displays rekindled that "gee-whiz" feeling again, showcasing some of the best, unfettered SL creativity to be seen by these eyes in many weeks.

A concentrated collection of cacophonous creation...
I tip my virtual hat attachment to all participants.

=Sinclair

There was a closing ceremony and ya, the man burned. It was great

When this started I had no idea what Burning Man was supposed to be and google told me it was some kind of art thing. The Burning Life event was very successful because I think it is the essense of Second Life distilled and compressed. I mean, everyday people are making crazy, great builds somewhere in the world. Problem is you have to search and find them and that can be a chore This event was great for removing the searching part of it. The audience knew where the artists were, and artists knew where the audience was gonna be.

I had a great time looking at what everyone made in such a short time (expecially kool-aid (tm) man )

I wasn't objecting to the idea of a disco in Burning Life - in fact I had a lot of fun, there - so much as I was bugged by the decor.

I know that David, I need to work on my scarasm maybe?

Zana

Great insights, please keep 'em coming.

Has anyone here been to the real Burning Man, and can compare/contrast BL with, um, BM?

No, I'm awfully sarcastic myself, but rarely recognize it in others!

Was there creativity beyond reason? OH YEAH!!
Were there mud covered lunatics? OH YEAH!!!
Were there indecipherable political and religious statements? OH YEAH!!!!

Was there cool-aid all 'round? OH YEAHHH!!!!!

I was there several years ago. I think - to better replicate the atmosphere of the actual event - that next year there should be more time for planning of team efforts and we should have a clear theme to work within. We might also think about holding it in an enlarged sandbox sim to more closely resemble the Black Rock Desert Playa. There were many thought provoking, many hilarious projects done that I wish the organizers of the real Burning Man could see for themselves.

When I saw Hikaru building the picnic I just started laughing. Reminds me one of the reasons why I started playing in the first place. Taylor's lifesaver monkey cereal was hilarious as was the pig with the noisemaker in it's ass. fenik's display was very cool looking and the privacy booth with the eyeball's in the TV sets was sweet too.

I am very happy Linden's ignored the 300 prim limit and script/physics heavy objects. They allowed eveyrone to build on their plot without limitations. There was a good community spirit there as I noticed many plot owners sharing their space to those who missed the mad rush.

I got an awful lot of reactions that went something like...
"This is Burning Man, You built a disco... I dont get it?"

Burning Man is a celebration of art, or at least I thought so.
There is NOTHING that I can appreciate more than the ART of the 70's-80's Disco. The most flamboyant, egotistical, in your face art I could think of. Every aspect of a place like that is nothing more than yet another observation of the "me too" generation, which, oddly enough, seems to be enjoying a recycle phase these days.
Actually, the clothes sucked enough the first time around, why cant you kids come up with something a little more original instead of rehashing fashions of eons gone by?
Heh... thats about as much of a statement as I wanted to make at burning life.

Especially since I dont get involved in political or religious statements online. Too easy to offend, too easily offended.
For instance: I wish sometimes I could teleport people into the room with me that I bump into online.... open up a can o whup ass and get some lessons in manners handed out.
But thats another story for another time.

The "Privacy" booth was mine. I got mixed reactions. Most people said it was disturbing and left.

hehe. That was the idea

The privacy booth was awesome; very much the type of high-tech, countercultural projects you'd see out on the playa at a "real" Burning Man".

As a burner, I was a little concerned that the burning life event would be a disingenuous clone of the original event. Luckily, it looks like there was a massive outpouring of creativity for creativity's sake.

I wish I could have been there for some of the event to see some of the art, creativity, temporary community, and of course run around with my body covered in paint, but I was busy on a desert playa in Nevada at the time.

If you see me in world, pass me some snapshots of the event.

Hey Phoenix, I have a better idea, why dont we do the opposite and you tell us all about the real Burning Man instead?

I really liked Snark's lizard/dragon... Where did Snark go..?

Ok... this is going to sound mushy and loser-y... but here goes...

Wow! Words... can't even begin to describe it. It was probably one of the most beautiful things I've seen in my... uhm... 18 years living. Even with my horrible computer problems, I managed to fly around the sims on the last day and look at all of the awesome stuff. It was just some of the most wonderful creativity I've ever seen. Everything worked together so well. Even the clutter seemed appropriate. I almost cried out of happiness when I saw everything that had happened. I just stood in awe and wondered why something like this couldn't happen more often. I feel like crying now just thinking about it. It makes me so sad that it's all gone. I wish I could've taken part in it somehow, but my computer has been completely bleh lately, and I have no idea what's wrong with it. Sorry... I got off topic. Everything I saw was just so amazing. I wish I could see stuff like that more often. It gives me a little more faith in the species. In a world full of turmoil, where sneakiness and cruelty seem to be the deciding factors... It's just good to see creativity and beauty sometimes. I just hope my computer is fixed soon... this event filled me with creativity, which is something I've been completely devoid of for a few months. Thank you, Lindens, for making something like this possible, and for showing me that creativity on this level still exists. SL was in turmoil, and this is what it needed to get back on track. I have a feeling of purpose again. Now if I can just get my stupid computer to work... :^/

My favorite part of burning life had to be Tiger Crossings sound sculpture, that was incredibly well done and if you managed to hit it at a time with little lag it was just amazing.

I was really impressed overall with everything I saw, I thought everyone did a great job.

-Neil

hope ya all saw my "rose colored glasses" project it was a hoot to create and I realy enjoyed creating it

Odd yes, weird definatly, interesting...I hope you found it so

Thanks for the great write up Hamlet, talk at ya soon.

Cat C

Neil Protagonist:
Thanks Neil! I didn't know what I was going to make for Burning life until the second day. It was my first foray into working with physical objects (and heck, it was only my second build attempt), and when the sim wasn't too laggy it worked better than I any right to expect! Sometime when I have the cash, I'll have to set it up again and improve on it. I have some ideas...

...Just got to sell my current house (Aqua 172,51)...