The Art of Blur and the Infinite Game

Screen shot of new depth of field feature in Second Life mesh viewer beta

I finally got around to checking out the new depth of field capability of the mesh viewer beta. Although it's definitely not ready for practical machinima use yet, it offers a tantalizing glimpse of what a full-featured virtual camera rig might offer someday. In any case, it was really fun to just play around with the art of blur as it stands now without worrying about getting any particular result beyond a shot for this post.

The amateur can afford to lose. The expert is the man who stays put. Marshall McLuhan

Although I've toyed from time to time with doing something professionally-related with virtual worlds, I really love being an amateur enthusiast. Just as pseudonymous avatar identity provides many people with a sense of expanded personal freedom, the virtual sandbox has facilitated a similar sense of creative freedom for me. With no business purpose to serve nor customer goals to consider, I am free to go wherever the Muse takes me. I can fearlessly post even the most off-the-wall experiments and works in progress, because I'm sharing a journey rather than creating a product or bolstering a career.  In short, it allows me to enjoy my virtual life as an infinite game:

There are two kinds of games, finite and infinite games. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, and infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play. James P. Carse

The idea of playing an infinite game doesn't preclude the possibility of external pay-offs such as money, recognition, fame or whatever.  It's just that the focus is on the intrinsic joy of the doing, rather than on the projection of some future benefit.

- In the future everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes. Andy Warhol
- In the future, everyone will be famous to 15 people. Momus
-In the future, everyone will have 15 like-minded enthusiasts to play with. Botgirl Questi