Virtual Medieval Times

Could it be that the new book of Gerosa (entitled "Virtual Renaissance") has a somewhat too optimistic title? We, who live scattered and fragmented in the Dark Ages, surrounded by owners (who often often enough are brainless) and their vasals and subvasals; modern Serf (where Serf is now translated by the term of camping); by separatists ( "RL is RL and SL is SL" and the denial of the wholeness of persons) and "SL-event-artists" hooked on the "experience of how it feels to be a singer without really being one" (with other words: not exactly like Michelangelo); builders measuring their (and others) creative madness by the number of prims used for the realization of their works (when the great Renaissance sculptors often used only ONE and thus not generated Lags) by P.R. that, crazy about notecard and teleports for their Holy Wars, searching inductees for their nonsense crusades to Jerusalem (often enough passing for Sodom and Gomorrah first); by unbelievably barbaric and lobotomiced raid groups and by entrepreneurs (or those aspiring to be) littering entire SIMs with their excrements (the problem of waste is not, of course, just a matter of RL), could we be like that, too? Sorry we cannot..

We wanted very much to be able to join this celebration, however, if we would have, this post could not have been titled "Virtual Medieval Times".

So where is the Renaissance? Is it to be found in some kind of vassalage induced by pixel-hallucinations? Here, where the deep and smelly bit-blup meanders through our Virtual Medieval Times (where we are writing by the light of a candle, a weak and sad flame trembling in the wind of renewal - a renewal we wait for since its foundation code - and which barely manages to illuminate our pale keyboards), enshrouded by the darkness of reason and by business lags caused by it, we observe a celebration that looks like a postcard fin de siècle. No wonder that the most vital ideas get lost, irretrievably lost. It was solemnly announced that the Middle Ages SL had passed that from now on the a new and ideal life would prevail and a shimmmering city sun made of gleaming pixels is waiting for us around just the corner - while, in reality, we are often forced to wander about aimlessly because of an erroneous and/or unasked for teleport. Yes, the conditions there really all there. But everybody always has the capability to anhilate it all, thus betraying all the best opportunities for progress.

We had a chance. We had a chance to really create Our World Our Imagination ®. The chance not to create a cave-world but a virtual space with a new and great creativity. But we went and played real dirty - and now we find ourselves in the Virtual Middle Ages doubting that there will ever be a true Virtual Renaissance. The ones that really have done a "good job" destabilizing our dream belong to the Digital Feudal Caste, apparently open to sharing (uhm, His Highness Web 2.0!), but who, instead of sharing, are absolutely closed in themselves through rites that catapult us right back into medieval monasteries with their ancestral rituals and synthetic thrones, celebrated and consumed by chat which reflects the always present CODEX and the same sad monotonous scripts as many autocelebraties' blogs in the web. And to think that it would really be all great ... Instead: Freedom of thought is tolerated only if it is not expressed, if remains secretly enclosed in an IM. "Some things you think, but do not say"! (Who is being reminded of witches here?). In the public chat it is inappropriate to talk about reality ( "RL is RL and SL is SL". This is a parenthesis that has nothing to do with ourselves, no?). Very often it is also simply play and/or irony (SL is a game - but at the same time so baffling serious that it makes us regret even playful aspects that we concede, finally, in its folds, to RL). Better, much better, talk seriously and so committedly about clothing and accessories for our avatars, exchange landmark for one of the things most transgressive of our time: the Virtual Shopping (soon, its class in SL transgressions are the challenges of Iron Arm and to wear a mega-joint made of bits). The most recurrent phrase you can hear in Mid-Verse, particularly at the vernissages of artistic exhibitions (hence, attention! attended by the créme de la créme of virtual folks, who, of course, idespise highly places like Parioli; an almost divine glory in SL becomes the "if we had at least half of their ...") is "What a great dress! Where did you bought it? " This phrase we heard, indeed, even in the midst of the delirious artistic Crash Party of Gazira Babeli on March 15 . And this is supposed to be the Renaissance? If it was the Renaissance through the landmark store SL - cool - we could agree with this. This is the Virtual Renaissance: all the spasmodic search of the right outfit right that will not distort our avies! What else is this Renaissance if not just a synonym for "Re-dressing"???? Should we understand that we are evil? Indeed, well thought, "Editing Appearance" makes us take the position of Leonardo's Vitruvian Man! Here, all of a sudden, the puzzle-pieces fall into place, the reasoning order takes shape. Now we have a clear concept in our mind: Leonardo with his sublime skill would certainly built and wear the right shape for every occasion! Michelangelo would always have the suitable hair, for every eventuality and, above all, for vernissages! But they are not among us :-( and we are immersed in low-lag medieval ages, swallowed by conventional rigid schemes which are constructed by the imagination of the poor, dispersed by teleport to the land where Fantasia is trivial and so empty of ideas that you only hear an echo of the prevailing nothing, "Desire is no longer something you have to fight for, but becomes something what you can do anyways". Here is where we are ... And not even a glimpse of the shadow of poor Columbus departing from Palos, not even that of his alt ...

And we must also be very careful not to end up on one of the daily rezzed fires for the New Digital Witches...

However we are converging

:-(

Papper Papp & Neupaul Palen