Which Came First: the Creativity or the Creator?

by Alphaville Herald on 04/04/05 at 4:50 pm

by Budka Groshomme

Wander at random through Second Life and creativity seems to spring from every corner. Everyone, it seems, is building something. It might be trivial, ugly, overstated, ornate, minimalist, inconsequential, heroic, or offensive but, by God, they are building it! The creative variety is overwhelming. If you doubt this, take a look at the thousands of snapshots on Snapzilla.

And it isn’t just the special few: Nobody who has come to SL, it seems, remains immune for long to the allure of creating something out of the ubiquitous primitives of the Linden universe. But how can every single resident of Second Life be so creative?

It may just be a modest tweak here or there, changing the texture or color, or adding a twist here and a cut there. Or it could be profound, such as building a fifty-meter high gorilla, or a tower that reaches the heavens. But everyone, it seems, is creating something.

What, then, is the source of this copious Nile of creativity? From what spring does all this creativity spring? Are the current crop of residents simply a self-selected group of creative people, predisposed to creation and undaunted by the tools and opportunities? That is certainly one possibility.

Another possibility is that the creative tools that give everyone the capability of creation are simply too tempting to resist. Humans have always been tool-making and tool-using creatures. From the first hand axe to the most sophisticated digital tools of today, mankind has used anything and everything at hand to mold the environment nearer heart’s desire, but not always with pleasant results.

Science fiction and fantasy share an underlying theme of creativity, the ability of the protagonist to craft a gadget, theory, spell, or artifact sufficient to resolve the issue at hand. In short, the ability to create opportunity.

But the protagonist isn’t necessarily an unusually creative person. He or she may be quite ordinary, but driven to creativity by an extraordinary situation brought about by plan or mischance. Whatever their fictional origins, such characters usually discover unknown talents within themselves, find powers they did not know they possessed, or reach within themselves for the strength, the will, and the desire to overcome obstacles. Perhaps something along those lines is happening in SL: Ordinary people driven to creative opportunity by the environment their story has landed them in.

Here and there throughout SL are examples of tools and imagination coming together on a superior level: artists creating things bright and beautiful, architects putting up beautiful buildings, and wonderful clothing and creature designers. But these are in the minority, just as in RL. The rest of us build what we can with whatever skill and inadequate aesthetic sense we possess.

The lack of skills and aesthetic sense is painfully obvious in many areas. There are some nice buildings, but most are architectural disasters; little more than decorated copies of something that wouldn’t even be interesting in RL. Most of the malls look as tacky and garish as their real-world counterparts and the meeting places and event venues are sadly of a type, just the modern equivalent of the watering hole.

Taken in general, the residents have built a virtual Vegas, a playground for the mind, a place to escape from the real world’s tribulations. In Second Life everyone can be beautiful, powerful, and do whatever they damn well please. The life is heady, intoxicating, and addictive but, in the end, just another fantasy.

Is the best that SL can produce nothing more than commercial venues, entertainment that distracts but does not fulfill, or a handy way to enhance a typed conversation? Is it the best we can do to fill every vista with non-functional decoration? How much of this can anyone bear before they start asking themselves: What is the point of it all?

Second Life holds forth so much promise. It’s an environment where a true revolution of the mind could come about. Together we could create something unique, something completely different from anything conceivably possible in RL. All we need is the vision, the will, and the ability to make this a reality. All we need is to bring the right resources together.

That would be really creative.