Digital Wilderness

"Even in New York City," the naturalist Loren Eiseley once wrote, "there are patches of wilderness ...." I wonder sometimes whether in the landscape of our digital life - amidst websites and blogs, emails and instant messages, in the internet swirl of pixels, words and hypertext - there might also be wild spaces.

A few years ago, I came across a digital landscape - the Second Life® virtual world - where "residents" can build homes, make anything from chairs to trees to chipmunks, terra-form the land, create waves and weather systems, chat with strangers, friends and neighbors and live virtual second lives. In the midst of this diverse, sometimes chaotic and ever burgeoning world, I was struck at the number of raw terrain and "builds" that were naturescapes - gardens, parks, nature reserves, river lands, natural beaches and blue ocean.

The number of nature "builds" and wildlife (especially marine life) it seems have grown exponentially since then. I have felt an inexplicable urge to visit or revisit these virtual spaces and provide a few sketches for those who might find them of interest.

What is the meaning of nature in a virtual world? Why do we create forests filled with bird song and beaches with the spray of crashing waves in a world that consists of pixels and bytes?

The patches of wilderness of which Eiseley spoke were spaces and moments that might give rise to revelations, where "the mundane world gives way to quite another dimension." Perhaps that is also something we seek.