Chatting with other artists is one of the main draws of Second Life, he added. “You can talk to people from all over the world. It’s bizarre who you’ll run into—I think the best work [comes out of] those conversations.”

Sometimes those conversations bleed over into real life, too. At a recent open studio at Yale, a visitor was able to identify Campbell after noticing similarities between his real-life and Second Life works. “It was a really weird experience,” Campbell said.

And this is where Campbell differs most from artists like Lipsky. If Campbell is recognized offline, it is a total coincidence, because he doesn’t promote his real-life works in Second Life, and he doesn’t sell his Second Life creations.

“I don’t really buy into that,” he said. “I usually give [my artworks] away. In Second Life, it’s an economy of abundance. It’s the total opposite of real life, because everything is reproducible. Building things is free, and you can make an infinite number of copies.”

He views Second Life as a practice studio and marketplace of ideas. “I just meet people and build things,” he explained. “I say, ‘That’s really cool what you’re doing. Why did you do it? And here’s what I’m doing.’ It can be just a really simple, innocent way to make art.”

Just Beginning

According to artist and Second Life art expert Richard Minsky, the online art community has tens of thousands of participants. He said a recent count tallied at least 700 Second Life galleries—and that’s not including museums, artist colonies, projects such as Campbell’s, and countless other online creations that can’t even be defined.

The sheer volume is one of the reasons Minsky created SLART, a magazine devoted to all things art-related in Second Life. The Web version is available now, and a print edition launches this summer.

“I saw the need [for a magazine] my first week in Second Life,” Minsky said. “There were many art galleries, with everything from startling innovation to shopping mall kitsch. I looked for a review that might serve as a guide and forum for critical thinking about art issues in Second Life, and there was none.”

Minsky, who plans to distribute free copies of the magazine at the Second Life Community Convention in Chicago in August, said circulation numbers won’t be available until the print version hits newsstands. However, on last count, more than 1,000 users had logged onto the SLART Web site in just two days. “In the beginning of April there were about 500 sessions in a week,” he said. “Now there can be more than that in one day. I expect that in a month or two it will be over 1,000 per day.”

Those growing numbers show the virtual art scene has only just begun, he said. “It's in its infancy now—there's a great pioneering spirit in the air.”

Inky’s Choice

After spending a few days with Filthy Fluno, mrY Tully, and their companions, I began to realize that if I wanted to fully capture the pioneering spirit that Minsky talks of, if I wanted to tell you about all the artistic endeavors happening in Second Life, I’d have to forget about my first life and disappear into the virtual world for years, maybe even forever.

I’m not ready to commit that much time to Second Life. After all, I do have a first life, where there are just as many artworks to see. And Lipsky warned me about “getting lost in Second Life and not spending enough time in your real life.”

But that doesn’t mean you won’t catch a glimpse of Inky wandering the Second Life galleries and sandboxes from time to time, or maybe even trying her hand at some of her own artworks—she’s not ready to disappear from the Second Life art scene quite yet. In fact, I think she’s hooked.