The tower will replicate, as closely as possible, it’s real world counterpart which opened on October 9th, 2007 on Viðey Island in Kollafjörður Bay near Reykjavík, Iceland. The terrestrial version is made of 15 spotlights in all. 9 shine straight up from inside the well and 6 are in the ‘corridors’ around the base and are reflected up by 6 mirrors. This forms a column of light that is tall enough to not only reach cloud cover, but has been seen to penetrate well beyond it. According to the University of Iceland, the light is so powerful that, if within the column itself, the light would still be visible with the naked eye from space and could be easily detected with instruments from much further away from our planet. The base of the tower is an elegant but austere cylindrical structure made of white stone that is meant to symbolically represent a well, specifically a wishing well. Circling the well are engravings of the phrase “Imagine Peace” written in 24 different world languages.
Ono’s Imagine Peace website with the hopes of simply having them published to the site but they actually created a great deal of interest. Ono would eventually see the pictures and it was agreed that if there was to be an IMAGINE PEACE TOWER in SL, it would need to be an accurate relative to its real world counterpart, and that Herzog-Brenham would be the ones to build it. Ono is known for forward thinking and was open to the idea of her concept crossing into virtual worlds. Bernard tells us, “It was not a hard sell and when I eventually met Yoko, she seemed genuinely excited and very open to the idea.” Herzog-Brenham was introduced to Tetsuo Hamada and his son TetsuRo, who were responsible for the building of the real world tower and were supplied with blueprints, detailed documentation, and photos to work from. Herzog’s real life son and SL business partner, Dannyboy Brenham, has created scripting to handle the tower’s lighting sequence, which will happen at SL sunsets 6 times a day, as well as a special HUD to be used on the island and the handling of wishes sent in-world. The HUD operates the free Onochord and preloads textures to improve the experience of the tower lighting up. Herzog says “I believe it’s as realistic as it can be”.
The IMAGINE PEACE TOWER’s wishing well concept is one that is a continuation of Yoko Ono’s interactive art. In 1981, after the passing of her husband John Lennon, Ono began to collect wishes based on a traditional idea from her childhood. “As a child in Japan, I used to go to a temple and write out a wish on a piece of thin paper and tie it around the branch of a tree. Trees in temple courtyards were always filled with people’s wish knots, which looked like white flowers blossoming from afar. All my works are a form of wishing” says Ono and indeed she has collected over 700,000 wishes since she started the project. In a 1996 interview, Yoko Ono explained: “I’ll tell you what’s going to happen: every piece of paper has a wish on it, I don’t read it, and all of them will be put in one big tower of a sculpture, like a totem. It will be a very powerful sculpture… a tower which contains wishes of the people of the world of our time. All in one tower!” What may have seemed like an abstract concept at the time is exactly what she did. The wishes Ono had collected over decades are buried under, and made a spiritual part of the IMAGINE PEACE TOWER.
At the time of the writing of this article, construction was still underway and moving at a frantic pace to meet the October 9th opening date which also happens to be John Lennon’s birthday. The IMAGINE PEACE TOWER sim is restricted access until then but there’s no doubt there is a great deal of excitement surrounding it. Bernard Herzog tells us, “It’s a fantastic honor to be working on something that is so close to Yoko’s heart, albeit in a virtual world. I hope it captures a small part of the experience of visiting the real tower for many people who may not be able to travel to Iceland.” In many ways, it’s an honor to have the tower in our little world at all but it does seem fitting considering the global reach of Second Life.
Beginning October 9th: IMAGINE PEACE TOWER in SL IMAGINE PEACE TOWER (128/128/2)
The story of how the IMAGINE PEACE TOWER has come to be in Second Life begins with SL developer Bernard Herzog, the elder of the father-son duo Herzog-Brenham. Inspired by the real world project, Herzog built a tower of light on the New Brighton sim that he owns. He took pictures and sent them to Yoko
More information about the real world tower www.imaginepeace.com For information on SL Developers Herzog-Brenham: www.herzogbrenham.com 68