Montreal artist Jon Rafman is the director of the Rhizome-commissioned short film Small Crowd Gathers, to be filmed entirely in Second Life. I talked to the film’s writer, Tao Lin, about his take on the project, but wanted to learn more from Rafman about the significance and logistics of working and directing entirely in a virtual world. Rafman’s most recent film, Codes of Honor, was also filmed in Second Life and explores the world of professional videogaming — the transient childhood glory particular to a culture of guys in their late-twenties and past their prime. Rafman interviewed gamers at the much beloved, now shuttered Chinatown Fair Video Arcade, then used their stories as inspiration for the film’s nostalgic protagonist.I spoke with Jon on Gchat (he was even nice enough to Skype with me, share screens, and take me on a little tour of Second Life) about his new projects, why technology mimics our pre-existing structure of the world, and why DDR is more emo than Street Fighter.me: I talked to Tao about his screenplay and his other literary endeavors, but I’m also particularly interested in the Second Life aspect of your film which he didn’t know a lot about. Tao told me you’re an expert. How did you first encounter Second Life?Jon: I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m an expert, but I have been active in Second Life for a half a decade now, so let’s just say I know my way around. I have always been interested in virtual worlds in some form or another. Like Tao, I used to play MUDs when I was a kid. And like a lot of people in the 90s, I was obsessed with the idea of virtual reality. In fact, Linden Labs was originally developing a virtual reality system before it gave up and founded Second Life. In addition to this, I’ve always been very interested in role playing, but never had any friends to play Dungeons & Dragons with growing up. Early on I was very curious to explore the various role playing communities that existed in Second Life. But I only started doing the Kool-Aid Man in Second Life project [a guided tour of Second Life led by Rafman in avatar form as the iconic Kool-Aid Man] a couple years after I joined around the same time I got really into professional internet surfing culture.Read the rest at Motherboard.
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