Memory and heritage in second life: recreating Lisbon in a virtual world

Second Life is an open-ended virtual world owned by Linden Lab. One of the main characteristics of this virtual environment is the prevalence of user-generated content – 99 per cent of the game content was created by residents. Due to its characteristics, Second Life is the ideal platform to develop virtual representations of first life spaces. Different national spaces are being built throughout this virtual world, and Lisbon is one of the cities represented. Urban spaces and places in the city are represented in several locations. One of the most complex projects is ‘City and Spectacle: A Vision of Pre-Earthquake Lisbon’, a project that aims to build a virtual version of the city of Lisbon before the 1755 earthquake. Using this project as the starting point for my analysis, the aim of this article is to understand the potential of virtual worlds like Second Life for the remediation of city memories through the virtual representation of heritage sites that are part of our collective memory.