Yesterday I added a post to Cyberloom, and I realized that it is three years since the last post was added to this blog! All I can say is time flies when you are preoccupied! Today, I have been reviewing some of my 190+ earlier posts. The reason for this review is that my friend Suzanne asked me to send her the link to this blog. Gosh, I thought how to guide someone through a blog about a peculiar hobby visiting the Metaverse? Well, Suzanne, I hope that this post will help.
I began writing this blog in 2008 when I was an Adult Education student looking into online education for my Certificate in Advanced Studies. One of the first things that hooked me into the virtual world was the discovery that I could interact with it. In an early post, I wrote about this in a piece titled: Living in a Painting: Introducing Second Life and Windlight. I had discovered I could take photographs and adjust the lighting in a virtual 3D space reached by my computer. Strange that this machine of glass and metal and tiny computer chips could open up such a vast and visually imaginative realm.

I have a few preoccupations when traveling in the virtual world. The first is an ongoing interest in adult learning in its various manifestations:
Self Directed Learning Exercise #2: Virtual flying
Maslow’s ghost in a virtual world
Second Life – Simulations#1: Watch the monitor my darling while the gentlemen go by…
Another recurring theme concerns a stack of sketchy questions about who we are as we connect with each other across the room, across virtual space and multiple time differences? Here are some of these posts:
Social Presence Theory & Second Life

Virtual Art is another area that fascinates and my approach to the work of Metaverse Artists stems from when I was a photographer working in London, and I would help artists by photographing their work for publicity purposes. I soon found that Second Life was teeming with incredibly thoughtful and talented artists. I also saw that there was a problem in that if you did not enter the 3D online space via your computer, you could not see and experience the work of these artists. This lead me on a mission to record the work of virtual world artists, here are just a few:
Archetypal Robots and Giant Donuts
Over the years, I have created a series with the title: “Second Life – Why would you go there?”
Second Life – Why would you go there? #1: To look at books!
‘Second Life – Why would you go there? #2: To be creative and express myself!
‘Second Life – Why would you go there? #3: Deep Sea Diving
‘Second Life -Why would you go there?’#4 Foul Whisperings
‘Second Life – Why would you go there?’#5: To practice Tai Chi in Narnia
‘Second Life-Why would you go there?’#6 To enjoy the nocturnal art of architecture
‘Second Life-Why would you go there?’#7: To stand at the edge of the underworld
Second Life – Why Would You Go There? #8 – To be a dancing banana
Second Life – Why Would You Go There? #10 – For Weird Fiction on Halloween
Image locations in Second Life:
Majilis al Jinn. Sands of Time by Calein Flux
Reunion by Andrek Lowell on display at Ars Simulacra: NMC’s SL Artist Showcase Island