Reality Enters Virtual World

By Robert Holden
TheStreet.com Virtual Reporter
12/8/2006 4:23 PM EST

A virtual-world rally against the Darfur conflict had to be rescheduled Friday as the impact of a life-threatening event in the real world was felt in Second Life.

Cambridge, Mass.-based Lichtenstein Creative Media, an independent media-production company that organized a Second Life exhibit titled, "Our Walls Bear Witness -- Darfur: Who Will Survive Today?" had to be evacuated following an electrical fire that left some of the building's workers trapped on a rooftop.

The Boston Globe was reporting that an NStar employee was killed and close to 100 people were being treated for smoke inhalation. It was also reported that the MBTA's railway line between Park Street in Boston and Central Square in Cambridge was temporarily shut down.

The Second Life exhibit was to be unveiled Friday on The Infinite Mind private island by actress and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Mia Farrow, as well as John Heffernan, director of the Genocide Prevention Initiative for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Committee on Conscience, and Ron Haviv, the award-winning photojournalist whose images were on display.

Minutes before the event was to kick off, however, Heffernan was given the unfortunate task of informing attendees that the event would have to be rescheduled due to the fire emergency.

"We just received a call from the company that is hosting this event at The Infinite Mind, and there has been a major fire emergency in their building which has resulted in a power outage throughout their entire block," said Heffernan. "For the safety of their employees, they have been instructed to evacuate the area. The upshot is that we will have to reschedule this event."

The event was set to coincide with a speech from outgoing U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, who was prepared to speak in New York about how the international community can help stop the terror and genocide in Darfur. The Second Life event was set to educate and inform residents about the struggle in Sudan and what could be done to end the crisis.

Bill Lichtenstein is founder and president of Lichtenstein Creative Media. A former producer for ABC News 20/20, World News Tonight and Nightline, he said shortly after the fire that the emergency could be drawn as a parallel in Second Life.

"Because of the fire, we were unable to attend the event," Lichtenstein said. "Everything was disrupted. It's such an aberration for this to have happened. It was like an event in real life where someone couldn't make it because of an emergency."

In the real world, photographs of Darfur, taken by Haviv, were projected onto one side of the Holocaust Museum during Thanksgiving week. The replication of this in Second Life includes those same photos, as well as video of the real-life event screening. Residents of Second Life were still welcome to visit the virtual Museum and experience the photos and video footage until the yet-to-be rescheduled launch. Haviv and Heffernan also fielded questions from attendees about the Darfur conflict for nearly an hour.

Lichtenstein said the rescheduled event with Farrow, Haviv and Heffernan will do its best to shed light on the Darfur struggle. Lichtenstein said that Second Life is the perfect medium to hold this sort of event.

Second Life, the 3-D virtual environment created by San Francisco-based Linden Lab, is best known as the home of both individual users and companies looking to extend into the so-called metaverse. While residents are creating 3-D identities in order to design and sell goods in this virtual world for real money, corporations like Dell , Toyota and Sun Microsystems  (are making a big push to gain traction in the burgeoning world.

"This is the new public media," Lichtenstein said enthusiastically. "It's like taking a step through the screen into something to be part of it. There's a hugely great story."