mazar.ca

I have always wanted to learn to build in Second Life. I was always a builder; starting in the early 90s, I was building in text-based virtual worlds. My first script was on a rat who’s fleas gave you the plague, which progressed for about 20 minutes, sending you through all the typical symptoms and stages of the bubonic plague until you are miraculously cured. Second life is visual building rather than just text, and I was a bit intimidated by it. I knew I would get into it if I could figure it out, but I never had the time to do it, or the right project to work on. Once I got sick, I didn’t have the attention span.

So once my attention span started to return, I decided to build an audio/visual exhibit in Second Life based on my experience with cancer. It’s called “Cancerland”.

It’s a fairly large exhibit, with paths that lead you around chronologically through the entire experience. Everywhere you go you see silver balls. These can be touched to trigger additional information, narrative, or sound.

First, the biopsies. I’m sorry that this part is so short, frankly. I could have built half of this exhibit on the biopsies alone.

I toyed witih using 3d models of a torso, but I discovered that people respond very strongly and powerfully to photos in Second Life, so I used those instead in this version. That picture is actually my passport photo, taken I think a couple of days after my first biopsy.

The operating room, with the lingering concern about my cat. (What would happen to him while I was off sick?) There are links there to the blog post I wrote at the time, and there’s my tipped over bottle of ativan. There are a lot of audio clips in Cancerland as well (more difficult to represent here), and there’s an audio panic attack going on as you enter the operating room.

My artistic rendering of the tumour. I should have asked for pictures, I suppose. Next: the scar room.

I think I could easily have constructed this entire build based solely on the process of becoming reconciled to my scar. The laptops scattered around link you to blog posts I wrote at the time. Again, I originally built these out with prims, but the pictures seem more powerful, in spite of their 2dness.

One of the things I struggled with for a long time in building Cancerland was how to represent symptoms. For the radical drop in body temperature, I’ve currently settled on this:

The walk through fridge.

Another tricky one is “tired”. You can have a bed, but…that doesn’t quite cover it. I’m still not delighted about my current decision, but here’s how I’m managing the “tired” part now:

I should really link my post there about the varieties of tired. What I wanted to get across here was the incredible effort involved in moving, like when you’re underwater. I put in some hidden obstacles under the water, so that you don’t move very quickly through it.

Then we have radiation:

…where you can sit on the bed and glow, then the whole body scan:

…which rotates around you as you lay on the bed.

I included my attempt at going back to work:

…with a very nearly scale model of my office, complete with visual and text additions to the narrative, and then my strange, emotionless, empty period thereafter:

And then my most recent visit to my endocrinologist for my status:

It’s been an incredible experience to build, and an even more incredible experience to share with others. I was lucky enough to be invited to join others along the road for this year’s Relay for Life in Second Life with this exhibit, and the response there was overwhelming and touching. My hope is to encourage many other cancer survivors to tell their story in Second Life for next year’s Relay.

Today at 3pm EST (12 SLT), I’m giving a tour of Cancerland to educators and other interested parties. If you’re interested, you’re more than welcome to join us!