TILT – Therapeutic Innovations in Light of Technology
all laid out across the screen in a disturbing yet expected fashion. Thirdly, a woman searching for meaning in her vocation discovers that she can merge her love of gaming with her talent for design. She also explains that she has been dealing with several health issues so working from home is a plus for her. She starts a business creating a line of clothing and accessories as well as designer homes and landscapes. She manages to turn her hobby into a profitable enterprise. As with any entrepreneur, she applies focused concentration and long hours. Sadly, she has to fight lawsuits in the offline world when her designs are stolen and distributed freely throughout the Metaverse. Ultimately, she wins just $500 from the lawsuit. It is the stuff of life that therapists have been dealing with for years, or is it? The director describes his introduction to Second Life in 2006: I went into Second Life in the fall of 2006, when
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Life 2.0 Film Still: Avatars of lovers who met through Second Life
it started getting a ton of media attention. And it was great fun. At first I created a ridiculous avatar: he was really short and fat, and had a mowhawk, and wore short shorts and bare feet… But I soon found that no-one would talk to me. They just wanted to talk to all the sexy avatars. I tried changing my gender to a woman in a sexy outfit, and immediately people wanted to chat with me. I had a visceral physical reaction – Second Life was so immersive and disorientating…. This
felt like an important historical moment: the birth of something that could have a major impact on people and society. It was a no brainer that someone had to make a film about this. (BFI, 2010, p1)
Jason says he soon encountered the sort of problems that may seem easily anticipated on embarking on such a project. Obstacles included learning how to film in the virtual environment; conceptualising the film itself; and getting access to the makers of SL for comment (Linden Labs) – let alone