What if I’m a princess on another planet? And no one on this planet knows it?
The above quote, from The Carrie Diaries by American author Candace Bushnell, is a musing on the part of the book’s protagonist, the young Carrie Bradshaw (the book is a prequel to Carrie’s later adventure in Sex and the City) as she endures high school in Cranberry, Connecticut and dreams of life in New York City and all she might become / escape once she has moved there to become an aspiring author, and left behind her provincial origins.
It is also a quote that Cica Ghost uses in her latest installation, which opened on Tuesday, January 26th, 2021 – and in using it, she offers perhaps the most perfect encapsulation of what Second Life can be to those of us invested in their digital world.
As such, Planet is a location that can be enjoyed on two levels. It can be taken simply as a whimsical and fun setting, filled with Cica’s usual interactive touches that always make a visit to one of her installations a pleasure; or it can be combined with the quote that accompanies it to offer the opportunity for deeper reflections on life and Second Life.
Caught under a mauve sky where the clouds have been strung into ripples that wash gently along under the light of a distant white star, this is a strange world filled with creatures of strange origins. Some are capable of walking, others of flying and some of slithering, whilst others appear to be rooted to the spot, almost as if they have been extruded out of the ground.
Not that any are particularly threatening – rather the reverse in fact, many of them standing in little groups or close enough together as if to be conversing. They are certainly at ease within their otherworldly landscape and not in the least fazed by the little flying saucers a that hover and flit around certain points over the landscape like little mechanical bugs.
Nor are the locals particularly bothered by the fact an very Earthly-looking rocket ship has landed among them, or that a human has quote literally established a homestead in their midst, one complete with cat potted plants and very Earthly looking grass and tree.
It is here that setting and quote intertwine to add that deeper layer of potential and reflection to Planet. Within her dome, the girl has arrived from another planet, a place where she might well be a princess, but here is just another sharing the land with her strange neighbours, none of them truly aware of the status or otherwise she might hold back in wherever she came from.
Thus, her presence might be said to mirror our own in Second Life. Here we can be anything we desire, unencumbered by who we are in the physical world – be it living the life of a princess or a pauper, so to speak; we can be accepted simply for how we are perceived through our looks and actions and activities within this virtual realm, free from all that might otherwise encumber us.
And, just as importantly, the reverse is true: here we can be that princess or that dragon or an elf warrior on a quest, or a starship captain seeking brave new worlds, or even a tinkerer and inventor of Things, or can simply escape cares and pressures and sit in the digital shade of a tree or sail the digital tides of a broad sea, and no-one around us in the physical world need be any the wiser as to who we become, where we travel, who we meet or the adventures on which we might embark and discoveries we make.
Whether you are looking to simply visit and have a little fun drifting around in little flying saucers or dancing among the aliens or drafting weightlessly within a space ship, or whether you are tickled into stepping through he door that Cica opens to deeper, broader thoughts about life, expression, the power of the imagination and the freedoms presented by SL, Planet makes for an ideal visit, and should remain open through to around mid-to-late February.
SLurl Details
- Planet by Cica Ghost (Van, rated Moderate)
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 