Sweden opening up an Embassy "In-World' aka "Second Life"

"Second Life is an exciting development of the
virtual world. A country that wishes to show that it
at least has the ambition to be at the forefront of
development of course has to be in it"[1]
Swedish minister of foreign affairs, Carl Bildt


The 30th of May, Sweden will be the first country in the world to
open an official Embassy within Second Life, the online 3D multi user
environment owned by Linden Lab. The project is initiated by the
Swedish Institute[2](a culture and marketing department of the Swedish
ministry of foreign affairs, and according to the official blog even
Sweden's "road warrior for peace" the minister of foreign affairs as
well as former head of state, Carl Bildt, himself will attend the
opening[3]. But what happens when a specific mode of representation is
transferred to a new context? In this case a building for bilateral
governmental representation is transferred to a private corporation.


/Linda Hilfling - MA Media Design Student Piet Zwart Institute ,
Rotterdam, May 2007


R e f e r e n c e s:
-----------------------
[1] From Carl Bildt's personal blog from the 30th of
January 2007. The blog entry was Bildt's response
after for the first time acquiring the news about the
Swedish embassy in Second Life via a BBC-news article.
The entry is called 'Heja Olle Wästberg" and is aimed
at the director of the Swedish institute Olle
Wästberg:
http://carlbildt.wordpress.com/2007/01/30/heja-
olle-wastberg/ [my translation from Swedish]
[2] Official announcement by the Swedish Institute,
Jan 2007:
http://www.si.se/templates/CommonPage____3052.aspx
[3]
http://secondhouseofsweden.com/2007/05/20/may-30-is-launch-day-for-the-
second-house-of-sweden/