1. SecondLife is being used as a platform to observe virtual travel and the communication of imagined landscapes. 2. An experiment called LucaniaLab was conducted in SecondLife to study how avatars interact with and experience virtual representations of real landscapes in Basilicata, Italy. 3. Interviews with avatars found that SecondLife fulfilled their need to travel and experience new places, both through realistic landscapes and more fantastical spaces.

1. Visual Sociology 2.0: Imagined and Travelled Landscapes in SecondLife Laura Gemini ( [email_address] ) Giovanni Boccia Artieri ( [email_address] ) Valentina Orsucci (Valentina.Orsucci@iulm.it) LaRiCA – Dip. Communication Studies. Media, languages, spectacle University of Urbino “Carlo Bo” Faculty of Sociology

2. SecondLife is a new and interesting point of observation of the communicative dynamics of virtual imagined landscapes. SecondLife has been seen as an ideal place to observe an evolutionary process concerning with the imagery of travel and its communication.

3. From travelling as experience of images... Caspar David Friedrich, 1818 ... to the performing body dimension of travelling

4. LucaniaLab project and the research The sponsor is the Agency of Touristic Promotion of Basilicata http://basilicata.travel/

5. Real territories for a journey

6. … and pictures about fantasy land

7. … and pictures about fantasy land

8. the avatars have been interviewed into ad hoc built lab-room in Second Life with photo-elicitation.

9. From a methodological point of view we would like to underline the chance for the avatars/researchers to focus new ways and possibilities of making research.

10. 1. SecondLife fulfils the “need of elsewhere” and the avatars claim to experiment forms of travelling in the landscapes like in real life; “ I’m going to visit this mosque at the end of the next semptember and I’d like to re-enter throug the same gate I used in SL” Ambrose Birke

11. 2. The Postmodern tourist, inside SL, looks for an effective mix of simulated reality and new reality, based on the peculiarity of a virtual space (just think about new time and space forms for example). “ You are tiny, you get out of a tunnel which actually is a door of a dolly house and you find yourself in a word of giant objects. A game variation of size which stuns you” Roberta Greenfield

12. 3. An effective touristic communication in SecondLife has its “killer application” in the relationship and sociability (better between “natives” of a land and avatars/travellers) “ I did enduring friendships. You can find the wife of the farm-manager who tells you how she leads her farm, the lecturer or the scholar encountered by chance who comment about the politics of their country and this happened long before Obama” Pico Miles

13. 5. At the same time, and in relation with the more fantastic land, we can find new landscapes that reinforce the “real” wish of travelling in itself, as an experience based on the “real” body involvement. “ The fantastic places of SecondLife are tales, narrations. A book you can get into” Ginevra Lancaster

14. On these bases the land Lucania has been built as an evocative land based on the spirit of Lucania not as its realistic representation picture by Asian Lednev architect designer of Lucania

15. made lively on the one hand through relational occasions as celebrations…

16. Continuous Cinema pictures by Asian Lednev architect designer of Lucania

17. Thanks from the team Joannes Bedrosian Liu Lunasea Tilde Back http://basilicata.travel/lucanialab/