Modern life just gets stranger and stranger.

Singer-songwriter Suzanne Vega was one of my college heroes. So it's bizarre (but cool) to find out that she's the first major recording artist to perform in avatar form in the virtual world of Second Life. The whole blurry-line-between-virtual-reality-and-terra-firma thing gives me minor vertigo. It's equal parts hilarious and scary to me. But kudos to Suzanne for still staying ahead of the game after all these years.


YouTube :: Suzanne Vega's avatar sings "The Queen and the Soldier"

From New World Notes:

You have Vega's dulcet voice streamed from the East Coast recording studio into the world (along with public radio's "Infinite Mind" host John Hockenberry); you have an avatar that looks eerily like her; you have an audience of 80 to 90. And for several moments, here and there, you have what feels like a new kind of live music venue, one that's more intimate than a radio broadcast or an in-person live performance (since you're usually lucky to get even twenty feet close to the crowded stage), and more convenient than a drive to the nearest concert hall.

Then again, you also have an artist who's stuck, expressionless, to her chair, a simulated guitar that refuses to properly attach, and an audience that's uniformly bald. (Attendees were required to remove all attachments, including hair pieces, to curb the lag that so many residents on a single server would inevitably cause.)

The Official Suzanne Vega Website :: Welcome!