Diomita Maurer’s Blog

Saturday, November 5th, I looked up the SL destination guide and came across Furillen. Somehow the name rang a bell, but more about this later. The description read very tempting for me “Furillen depicts an island off the north-east coast of Sweden containing abandoned industrial builds that were once part of a former limestone factory. Remote, bleak and beautiful, this is a Second Life photographers haven.”

Once I arrived at Furillen and saw the cold, snowy, dismal island with the ruins of a former insudstry, I began to do some research about Furillen.Furillen (older spelling Furilden) is an island in Rute on the northeast coast of Gotland, Sweden. For most of the 20th century, there was a limestone industry on the island until it was closed to the public by the Swedish military in the 1970s–90s, when radar installations became operational. The north part of Furillen is a nature reserve and a Natura 2000 area. Since 2000, the old factory buildings from the limestone industry have been used as hotel and conference venues by the Fabriken Furillen (the Furillen Factory) company, owned by photographer and entrepreneur Jonas Hellström. He started out using the abandoned factory and its surroundings as a backdrop for commercials and rock videos. (source Wikipedia)

There’s a website about this sim furillen.org and I recommend visiting it first. The following information is en excerpt taken from furillen.org. The sim is owned and was created by serene footman in Ocotber 2015. Serene is an university professor in the UK in RL and the author of several books. “I originally ventured into Second Life as a researcher. I have always found creative sims to be the most compelling aspect of Second Life. By creating Furillen, I wanted to provide an environment in which photographers and Second Life wanderers would feel welcomed and inspired.”

The virtual Furillen was designed to retain some of the most distinct and recognisable features of the real Furillen: the airstream, the tree line and pier, for example, together with the large slag heaps that still exist as a reminder of the old quarry. In addition, there are several buildings, the main being a hotel that – on the virtual Furillen – doubles up as an art space with a series of rooms featuring minimalist installations.

Furillen became quite a social space. It is, especially, a place for photographers. Serene has also staged events over the past year, most memorably those devoted to Bowie, Radiohead and Pink Floyd – and it is the Pink Floyd event that rang a bell for me. I’ve visited Furillen before together with Mistress jenny during this event, not konowing about the background of Furillen. You can read in this blog about the Pink Floyd event in the article “Pink“.

It is amazing how perfectly Serene succeeded in making the virtual Furillen looking similar to the real island as you can see when you compare the pictures from wikipedia with the pictures taken in Second Life – chapeau! One of the old buildings is used for exhibitions and right now there’s an exhibition called “Birds” with photographs from laura.

I roamed over the island and climbed on the structures and was impressed how intense you feel to be in a real abandoned industry ruin. The highlight of my visit was the hotel which is placed just behind the tree line. The tree line looks really misplaced on this island in this dismal environment but is also just reflecting the real Furillen. In the hotel each room is a different piece of art, mostly surreal and a heaven for photograhers.

I know I am by far not the first writing about Furillen. There’s a long list of articles on furillen.org. Nonetheless I wanted to keep something for this diary and to inspire others to have a look at Furillen. Thank you so much Serene for providing this sim to the public!

Landmark to Furillen in Second Life
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Love%20of%20Life/160/105/21
Website Furillen
https://furillen.org/
List of articles about Furillen in Second Life
https://furillen.org/reviews/