Celebrations to mark the eleventh anniversary of SL opening its gates to the world will take place between Sunday June 22nd and Sunday June 29th, 2014.

And now applications are open for you to be a part of the magic.

The theme for this year’s celebrations is a quote from a speech Sir Winston Churchill gave in 1943, “The empires of the future are the empires of the mind”.

‘The Sims Lie Empty’, SL10BCC, 2013

Right now, we stand at something of a new awakening for Second Life. There is an air of freshness and promise as the Lab once more reaches out – genuinely reaches out – to re-engage with all of the rich diversity of communities which make-up Second Life. We are also seeing a resurgence of interest in the whole concept of virtual worlds and their potential, partially as a result of emerging technologies, but also because people are once again willing to make their case for using virtual worlds, be it for education or research or medicine or entertainment.

Yes, there are still challenges and hurdles to overcome – and we’d be very foolish to link the future of SL and virtual environments to a single element of technology (or even a subset of technology), because the human mind is so much more creative than we can ever, at any single point, define, while technologies come and go.

And that is what this year’s theme is about: the sheer creativeness and inventiveness of the human mind. It’s already given us this incredibly diverse virtual world, a true melting-pot of ideas, imaginings, creative ideas and artistic expression. Now is the time to mark and celebrate all of this rich diversity, our digital home, created pure from the empires of our minds – and for those who dare, to look ahead to what may yet come to be as we continue to push at the very frontiers of imagination, creativity and the mind.

Whether you want to express what Second Life means to you, or whether you want to take a look down the road at what might yet come to pass – or what you’d perhaps like to see SL become – you can now apply for exhibition space on one of the SL11B Community Celebration regions and share your vision with others. Of course, there are guidelines all exhibitors should be aware of when applying to be a part of the celebrations, but now is the time to get thinking about how you can best reflect this year’s theme.

And that’s not all, the event team are still seeking applications from Performers, Volunteers and speakers and performers in the Auditorium.

Do note, however, that all applications should be submitted no later than Tuesday May 20th.

Given this year’s theme does encompass the opportunity to look to the future of virtual worlds, I’ll leave you (again, given it is one of my favourite video shorts!) an imagining of virtual environment as seen by Bruce Branit.

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