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"Through the Looking Glass: Virtual Communities"

Part one of a special three-part series taped live in Second Life, the 3D on-line virtual community.

Broadcast beginning week of September 27, 2006

This week on The Infinite Mind, we make broadcast history as we air the first of three special programs taped inside a three-dimensional virtual on-line community.

Over the next three weeks, The Infinite Mind will present a special three-part series, "Through the Looking Glass." These landmark programs will examine the development and state of on-line virtual communities, including their technology, culture and art. We will also examine how this new medium of "3D virtual reality" is processed by the human mind in a manner that is different than other media, and look at its powerful potential for such uses as broadcast, education, outreach, and social marketing. The programs were taped, in part, in front of a live "virtual audience," inside the 3-D virtual web world of "Second Life." Guests include singer/songwriter Suzanne Vega; author Kurt Vonnegut; designer John Maeda; and futurist Howard Rheingold.

Joining host John Hockenberry in our first program, "Through the Looking Glass: Virtual Communities (Part One) are Philip Rosedale, founder of Linden Lab, which runs "Second Life," the virtual platform in which the programs were taped; Bill Lichtenstein, president of Lichtenstein Creative Media, which produces The Infinite Mind, and web developer Drew Stein, of Infinite Vision Media, which built a 16-acre "virtual broadcast center" for The Infinite Mind in Second Life; Thomas Malaby, an anthropologist who, under a National Science Foundation grant, spent more than a year studying human behavior and virtual communities in Second Life; and Howard Rheingold, whose book "Virtual Community" predicted the formation of on-line worlds.

Click here to read more about The Infinite Mind in Second Life in the Washington Post, Boston Globe, Rolling Stone and Wired.

Click here to read Bill Lichenstein's essay "The Transmission of Experience."

Click here to visit Second Life.

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"Through the Looking Glass: Virtual Communities" (Part One)

We think of media as channels for the transmission and translation of real life events, information, concepts, and sensory information such as sight and sound over time and distance.

While the concept of "media" seems broad, in fact only a handful of different types of media have come into existence through the history of humankind. They include at their core the development of spoken and written language, printing, visual images and art, radio, television and film, and the internet.

Here at The Infinite Mind, we have worked over the past decade to translate and transmit ideas and information about the science and art of the human mind using a variety of media, from radio to the Internet.

Early in 2006, we discovered what appeared to be an entirely new form of media, 3D virtual reality, as it existed in the on-line web platform called Second Life. As broadcasters, the thing that struck us most about this new medium was that it had the remarkable capacity to transmit experience, over time and space, via a digital cable. While the main focus of Second Life at the time was entertainment-related activities, we were eager to explore the possibilities of this new medium for broadcast and related social uses, given the importance that "experience" plays in such human processes as learning, and the formation of attitudes and beliefs.

The Infinite Mind is the first "real world" broadcast of any kind to establish an ongoing presence in Second Life, whose on-line population is nearing one million residents. Over the past three months our staff has worked and socialized there, we’ve purchased and built a 16-acre virtual broadcasting center, which includes functioning recording studios, listening and screening rooms, offices, and an amphitheater where we taped this series of special broadcasts.

Host John Hockenberry’s guests on "Through the Looking Glass: Virtual Communities" (the first installment of this three-part series) include Philip Rosedale, physicist and founder/CEO of Linden Labs, developers of Second Life. Rosedale built his first computer at age four, started a software company in high school and developed a video conferencing system that was later acquired by Real Networks. He talks about the creation and evolution of Second Life, as a new technology, community and culture, and his role in that process.

Bill Lichtenstein, president of Lichtenstein Creative Media and Senior Executive Producer of The Infinite Mind, and Drew Stein, a web developer whose company, Infinite Vision Media, constructed The Infinite Mind’s virtual broadcast center and studios, talk with John Hockenberry about the experiential quality of Second Life and The Infinite Mind's transition into virtual space.

We will also hear from an anthropology professor at the University of Wisconsin who researches the relationships between humans, technology and risk taking, Dr. Thomas Malaby discusses his year long, ethnographic research study of Linden Labs and Second Life, and his observations of how the creative culture of the company mirrors the ethos of the second life community.

Finally, the first excerpt from the live taping of The Infinite Mind that took place at our virtual amphitheater, in front of an audience of more than 100 Second Life residents, in avatar form, who participated by listening, watching and text-messaging questions for our guests. John Hockenberry speaks with futurist, Howard Rheingold, who coined the term “virtual community” 13 years ago in his book of the same name. In future shows, we will hear the interviews taped live in Second Life with Suzanne Vega (who also performs); Kurt Vonnegut; and John Maeda.

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Stayed tuned over the following three weeks as The Infinite Mind presents:

"Through the Looking Glass: Virtual Culture" (part two) for broadcast beginning October 4, 2006. The second in the special three-part series examines the use of virtual 3D platforms for therapeutic, educational and social purposes, as well as the nature of interpersonal relationships and commerce within the three-dimensional web space. Guests include a stroke survivor who started a support group for stroke victims; John Lester, a former information director at Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston, who now travels the world for Linden Lab speaking about the social potential of 3D virtual reality; and acclaimed graphic artist John Maeda of the MIT Media Lab, a founding voice for “simplicity” in the digital age.  We also speak with one couple who make their living creating clothing for avatars within Second Life, and expect to make $200,000 this year; and another couple who met in virtual community and overcame tremendous odds to move in together in “real life.”

"Through the Looking Glass: Music and Magic" (part three) for broadcast beginning October 11, 2006. In the third program in this special series, host John Hockenberry is joined live in Second Life by singer/songwriter Suzanne Vega, who performs “The Queen and the Soldier” and talks about imagination in her songwriting, and author Kurt Vonnegut, whose writing has chronicled the intersection of humanity and technology.  The program will also feature two Second Life singer/songwriters, Suzen “Juel Resistance” Beach and Grace “Cylindrian Rutabaga,” an Atlanta-based artist who launched her career in Second Life and has gone off to perform in the real world as well.  The program also features Torley Wong, (aka Torley Linden), who found a new life in 3D virtual cyberspace after a complicated medical condition ended a promising career as a composer and performer.

- Bill Lichtenstein