Of Cheeseburgers I have eaten
My “Cyber Monday” started with my fleshvatar going on a 7 mile walk. At the midpoint of the walk I stopped at a Café at at Golf Course and had breakfast/early lunch. The cafe’s location is sweet: a wooden deck above the trees and rolling hills of the golf course with a view of the city in the distance. The location and view are definitely the draw for this café. The actual food, meh, it’s OK.
For my OK cheeseburger, fries, hot chocolate, tax & tip, I spent US$22.50
A virtual shirt is as important as a physical shirt
IDK about you, but sometimes I feel guilty, or silly, or have buyer’s remorse if I spend money, or too much money, in Second Life. I know people who feel that “virtual = fake”. I’m not one of them. The clothes I wear in SL, or the clothes I wear in the physical world (PW) are… the clothes I wear! How I dress is part of how you experience and perceive me. And even if I’m alone, how I dress still becomes part of my internal identity formation. A virtual shirt is as important as a physical shirt.
Nonetheless, I still do feel a little guilty about spending, or too much spending, in SL. I wondered what my already eaten and gone cheeseburger would equal in L$? With a quick visit to the LindeX I learned that a physical cheeseburger gets me L$5,088.
Black Friday in Second Life
Black Friday is a huge shopping event in Second Life. Unlike the PW where even mass produced items still have some Marginal Cost, the marginal cost of pretty much everything in SL is zero. This allows designers at so many shops to offer whopping 50% sales that their counterparts in the PW would be hard pressed to match.
Instead of buying clothes or changing my head (is there something wrong with the one that I have?) I thought it’d be fun to buy “a cheeseburger’s worth of SL art”.
Nitroglobus Gallery
I started at Nitroglobus Gallery where I bought two pieces to decorate my bachelor parcel, “Hayden Planetarium”. The first, a monumental Ferris Wheel by Kitten (joaannna). And then “Be Fruitful” from Milena Carbone (mylena1992).
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery is a Second Life gallery that has exhibitions and installations of both emerging and well-known artists and is owned and curated by Dido Haas
Parcel Details
/Windlight Sky: “Midnight” RegionOverride/
- Nitroglobus Gallery: Sunshine Homestead/36/24/1001
- Nitroglobus owner/curator Dido Haas’ blog: exploringslwithdido
- flickr.com/people/substratum_kitten
- The Carbone Gallery News
One-of-a-kind works @Heartsong Gallery
Most of the art sold in Second Life follows a PW analog, to a point. The most common form of selling a 2D work is No Copy, No Mod, Yes Trans, with a resizer script inside. Like a 2D work in the PW, a collector can keep the work or sell the work to someone else, but not both. The PW doesn’t have “resizer scripts”, but given the vagaries and wild size discrepancies of SL, they’re handy.
Even though I can keep or transfer a work that I’ve collected, unlike 2D works in the PW, the artist can sell an unlimited quantity in SL. More like a PW Photograph, Not-so-limited print, or Digital Work, than a 1-of painting.
At Kat Heartsong (katherine.heartsong)’s eponymous Heartsong Gallery, it’s different. Heartsong produces 1-of, unique abstract works and sells 1 of them. At the gallery you can view the works currently on offer, and then head to SL Marketplace to purchase the one you want. And then, like an object in the PW, it’s gone. Heartsong dutifully comes back to the gallery and installs new works in place of the ones you’ve purchased.
The new home of Heartsong Gallery. Artwork by Kat Heartsong in an open-concept warehouse gallery space. Abstract artworks for your SL home, sold only once each.
Parcel Details
Suzen JueL @ Cloud Galleries
- Novatron/27/172/3848
- suzenjuel.com
- flickr.com/photos/suzenjuel
- marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/77519
Grand Opening – Gallery 51
Gallery 51’s grand opening featured works from Brook FiftyOne’s Flickr stories and graphic novels.
I inquired about buying two pieces and FiftyOne said that the work wasn’t for sale, but that the gallery did accept donations. I donated and received the prints below.
- Costa Lotta/232/200/1502
- flickr.com/photos/brookefiftyone
- CMNF Lounge Flickr Group: flickr.com/groups/3547100@N21
Megan Prumier @ DixMix
I acquired two pieces from Megan Prumier’s new exhibition “Geometry of a Dream” at DixMix Gallery.
Art Gallery, Art Photography, Music, Chilling, Relax, Cannabis Social, LGBTQ Friendly, DIXMIX Art Gallery Lounge
Parcel Details
A Cheeseburger’s worth of Art
I wound up spending:
- Nitroglobus: 400 + 590 = L$990
- Heartsong Gallery: 3 works @350 = L$1050
- Suzen JueL: 3 works @420 = L$1260
- Gallery 51 – Brooke FiftyOne said that her works were not for sale, but that the gallery did accept donations. I made an L$1000 donation to the gallery and she gave me copies of the two works I’d requested
- DixMix Gallery: 2 works @500 = L$1000
Grand Total = L$5,300
I almost exactly hit my L$5,088 goal going just L$212 over.
So now we know, a PW cheeseburger and L$212 will get you 12 works of art by 6 contemporary Second Life artists!
(PS: I made the back of Joanna Kitten’s Ferris Wheel transparent so I’m not sticking a big box in the neighbors’ face!)
I was the facilities manager at Medici University. Currently semi-retired. Leisurely strolling the SL grid. A little salsa dancing. A little salsa & chips. Maybe looking for a new job, who knows?
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