The virtual world of Second Life runs on software developed by San Francisco–based Linden Labs, but it’s the hundreds of thousands of users that log into SL every day who create and develop the minutiae making up its interactive universe, whether its natural surroundings and commercial centers or the inhabitants themselves. Life 2.0 profiles three very different sets of users to examine how their experiences in SL feed back into RL (“real life”). One story features an SL entrepreneur who uses her SL skills to craft opulent goods, like dream homes and designer clothing, which make fantasies available to Second Lifers. Another focuses on a couple whose courtship begins with talking, kissing and having sex virtually, through SL, online chat and Skype. Finally, we meet an adult man whose SL avatar is an 11-year-old girl. (Although no one under 18 in the real world is allowed into SL, there are many adolescent, child and even infant avatars in the virtual one—not to mention adoption agencies!) Director Jason Spingarn-Koff might have made easy fun of SL users or attempted a paranoid exposé, but he does something far more stimulating, thoughtfully tracing the porous boundaries between real and virtual realms, illuminating both what is troubling and what is valuable in the interchange. With admirable clarity and humor, Life 2.0 suggests that what is at stake in this exchange is nothing less than love, the law, identity and consciousness. —Sean Uyehara
A fantastic documentary, and best served as a companion piece to 'Second Skin', another film that observes online communities. I think the biggest hurdle this film has is the acceptance of a wider audience that will likely miss the greater scope of the subject matter.
Love this one the first I saw at Sundance. Very very interesting I knew nothing about this stuff. The film is illuminating and very intelligent.
