Burn2: The Temple Burn

Sunday November 4th was the second of the two burns at the Burn2 festival: the Temple Burn. Like the burning of "The Man," it was scheduled to take place three times, morning, Noon, and evening. Due to the technical glitches that weekend, the early morning burn was postponed until the following day. So the first one that day was at Noon.

At Noon, the Temple begins to catch fire.

The temple brazier, which had been lit the entire time of the festival, is now joined by other flames.

Before lighting, people had been sending various messages to the temple, which it read aloud before and the early part of the burning.

"Peace love and friendship to all," "Love and light," "Life and love are best when both made fresh dailey :-D ," "I will always love you M," "Computers are useless. They can only give us answers. (Pablo Picasso)," "May the God and Goddess bless us all," "Pip is the greatest/Christ is the bestest," "Beautiful Dreamers~May love always lead your way," "I was never able to tell you how much I love you, it was always there deep in my heart, and will stay there till the end, I love you .. I wish you would know it!"

"May the long time SUNSHINE upon you, all LOVE surround you, and the pure light with in you GUIDE your way Home," "Truth and Love are gifts from the Universe to us! Reach out and receive Love," "Kindness is free share it!" "Hope for a gentle warm wind blown upon your mind and sail away to a dream state of harmony!" "I love Second Life, and all it's creative bliss," "We are spirits having a human experience!" "For those who burn, those who wish to burn, and those that have burnt before, (love), ""Which ever way I end up here I'm always home, Burn On, Burn on ツ "It is well to be born in a decadent age, one may obtain a reputation for virtue at a bargain price - Voltaire, " "Goodbye Paul David Addis, the dark impish soul of Burnin Man."

The sims adjacent to the burning Temple were packed. Among those were was blogger Daniel Voyager in his owl avatar, "I'm really excited!"

It wasn't long before the whole temple was afire, "Here comes the flame, boy!"

The Temple was soon consumed by the virtual flame, and began coming apart, "There she goes!" "Hot grits a'flyin, y'all!"

"Moar C4!" "Whoah!"

Parts didn't just fall down, but sometimes flew off a short distance, "Ow! I got hit by falling burning temple!"

Eventually, the Temple had completely collapsed.

And the all-clear was given, "Rabbit Hole is open now!" "Be brave and enter." And it was quickly filled with enthusiastic burners, "It's not letting me in." "Damn, this sim fills fast!" "Please try to take turns going in and out so everyone has a chance to enter." "Rabbit Hole is a homestead sim, so only 20 allowed at a time. Please take turns."

A close up of one of the Burners, a few items on her face still not completely showing, but the light made for a picturesque view.

People darted around, and even in, the virtual flames, "This temple burn was, and is, beautiful!"

One Ranger approached with a fire extinguisher.

With the flames dying down, some left. Others hung around, a few offering words of thanks and poetry, "Rebith, renew, not the same, better, again, brighter, for the past, renew, another opportunity, gifted, like each day, we burn, we renew."

The temple burn would take place again in the evening, and the next morning. After that, the Burn2 festival was officially over, although the sims remained up for a few more days and there were some smaller parties.

And so, the largest art and music festival in Second Life came to a close for another year. But fans won't have to wait a whole year for another taste. Saturday the 10th is the Skin Burn. And some smaller Burn-related events had been organized between the 2011 and 2012 festivals, so there will likely be more. But there's only one Burn2.

"Can't wait till next year, goodnight everybody!"

For more pictures, check the Burn2 Flickr. 

Bixyl Shuftan

The Nine Circles of Hell

Seeing what I thought to be an interesting location in the Destinations list on login, I headed over to the Lea Full Sim Art Series at Lea6 (124,164,625) to find Rebeca Bashly's take on the Nine Circles of Hell. All nine are represented, from the frigid land of the 9th circle (for those who commit treason) to the wearing of lead-lined cloaks and people walking backwards with their heads turned around (the Hell reserved for fraudsters and the like). On seeing the sign overhead before the entrance, I went in with high hopes figuring it was going to be something very much worth talking about.

In the first circle (Limbo), it's decked out as a large castle with ghostly forms sitting around, as if waiting to be redeemed. Ascending to the middle of the castle, the teleport up there dropped me down to the second level, the eternal hurricane of Lust (where those who let lust guide them are supposedly eternally blown about on an ill wind). After watching the ghostly faces within the hurricane spin for a minute or two, the next teleport led to the circle of Gluttony awaited. There, an "icy rain" fell on the souls of the damned, fored to live in disgusting slush of some kind for all eternity. From there it is a descent into Greed, showing souls pushing giant boulders back and forth with their chests.

After a visit to the land of the greedy, it was off to the fifth circle (Anger) where sculptures of large groups of people eternally fighting on the surface of the River Styx were displayed in a massed jumble of bodies trying to tear each other apart (an article in Wikipedia I looked up remarked that the souls are "locked in" to their level, forever stuck in the mindset of the "theme" the circle is supposed to revolve around). After that it was off on a trip to the City of Dis, the sixth circle (the circle of Heresy). Guarded by what appeared to be three gorgons or medusae at the front, the entire "city" was a bunch of flaming holes with bodies in them.

The teleport at the back led to the 7th circle of Hell, where those who subscribed to violence in life were punished. Met at the entrance by the Minotaur (guardian of the level), this one to me was the most defined, with three very visible "circles" within. The first showed the outer ring where centaurs shot at sinners immersed in a river of blood and fire; the inner circle showed the "wood of the suicides" being beset upon by the harpies, and the center showing the blasphemers being stuck up to their heads with fiery flakes raining down on them. Once I went to the teleport at the other end of the rings, it was off to the 8th circle of Hell, the Malebolgia.

The Malebolgia was full of many little "mini islands", each showing souls suffering in one way or another (one group in lead-lined cloaks, another group wandering eternally with their heads turned all the way around so they could not see where they were going). This is the home of those who were frauds in life, unable now to see the truth and how to redeem themselves. Finally it was off to the bottom level, an icy wasteland with the devil himself at the center, with wings flapping. Lots of faces frozen into the ice here, with no escape (literally, I had to teleport home to get out of the sim).

It's all in all a very nice piece of artwork and the effort really shows, but what seemed to be lacking here was interactability. There was nothing to click, other than the teleports from one circle to another... no signs revealing information about the various levels or punishments (or various "lyrics" from the Divine comedy), no ability to *be* one of the souls and float around in the river on the 7th circle and experience it... nothing at all. That kind of dumbed down the whole experience. That is why I'm giving the whole place a guarded three Dragon Hoards out of five. It's a nice place to visit, see, and interpret for yourself, but there's no replay value, at least not to me.

Lea6 (124,164,625)

Xymbers Slade



From the LEA Full Sim Art Series, "Nightmares," directed by Urban Steampunk, "Not every dream is a good dream and sometimes nightmares can be significantly far more than just bad dreams...."