Film and Digital Media @ Messiah

The Facing the Factual Future conference in my earlier post, has one of the most intriguing discussions of a documentary I have run across in awhile: Look at the Doc called “MY SECOND LIFE” listed under Cross Platform Producing @ 11:00-13:30

It starts with a nod to the purported disappearance of a man (AKA, Molotov Alva) from his California home in January 2007. After that it concerns happenings entirely within the Second Life world. So it is about events that happen only virtually, yet are not just fictional, since they certainly aren’t scripted, plotted, or intended in the way we have in mind when thinking of fiction, even within goal driven electronic gaming with its emphasis on a script.

A friend of mine, Mark Wolf, recently wrote a short article on “Subjunctive Documentary” in the Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film. Although it’s a catchy name, what he means by it is a type of documentary that “instead of merely recording a perceptual appearance … documents the invisible, imperceptible and conceptual by translating them into visual analogs.”

Would this apply to the virtual? What do you think?

Another way of thinking about “MY SECOND LIFE” would be to ally it to the category of Machinima, but this seems inappropriate because the two basic techniques of Machinima are essentially virtualizations of standard narrative film techniques, which this documentary at most only skirts. Or am I wrong? Is it a form of Machinima?

What do you think?

reid