1000 Avatars Book Released

So yesterday Gracie Kendal had a book release party for 1000 Avatars. One of my friends tipped me to the project months ago and Gracie ended up photographing the Virtual Worlds class. After striking up a conversation with her while she photographed me she asked if I would be interested in writing an essay on avatars for her book. I am delighted to say that I am a small part of this fascinating project with an essay entitled "Capturing a Moment of Becoming." She has had to move the installation a few times - it is currently housed at Cal State Northridge - you can find the link here: http://secondlife.com/destination/1000-avatars-project?sourceid=dgw1. Gracie has information on the book on her blog here: http://1000avatars.wordpress.com. SL, like any online community, is so fleeting it is great to see someone preserving part of that history. Plus Gracie's site is a wonderful place to hang out and just chat.

Compassion is a virtue, but I don’t have the time . . . but apparently Derridada does.

So – I’m on a research mission to understand what it means to live in a virtual space through an avatar. I send Derridada out like the Mars Rover to get information and send pictures back to me of what he finds. And so Derri meets people. He asks questions. He listens. Sometimes he listens to funny stories. Sometimes he listens to sad stories. Sometimes he meets people in SL who are working out complex issues that they are also trying to work out in RL. Sometimes he just banters back and forth as others make jokes, quote movies, talk about music, and talk about their day. What surprises me is that in all cases Derri listens. He makes new friends, becomes concerned if they are having a good day or not, shares information and seems to learn a bit more about himself – or at least more about the person driving him. And the question I keep coming back to is why does this little critter that I created and pilot and dress and think through seem to be so much more patient and so much more compassionate than I am? Why is it that this virtual image is capable of magnifying traits in SL that I work very hard on sublimating in RL? I wonder if I just had him stick to dancing if I would learn as much about myself. Hmmmmm.

What I have learned from my Avatars (so far)

I figure the first avatar I ever had – if it can be called that – was a tiny white rectangle of light. Granted I had limited control over what I could make this little thing do – mainly move up and down on the screen and alter the speed at which it moved in a futile attempt to bounce the tinier dot of light back across the screen. But – it responded to my commands and represented me inside the TV screen. I would inhabit a host of other similarly benign images from tanks to spaceships, missile towers, aliens, and race cars – but it wasn’t until Mario that I would have a fully 2 dimensional humanoid shape to jostle around the cybersphere. Even here though, there was little choice as to look or action, but it was great leap from the tiny bar of light.

My first “fleshed” out avatar came with Dungeons and Dragons. A group of us would play once or twice a year from the early to mid 80s. Like any well-oiled orc killing machine each of us had different roles to play. My character was a thief - largely distrusted by my companions and mainly into the adventure for personal gain. I had a few secrets worked out with the dungeon master if I ever needed to double cross anyone. I skulked in the shadows as part of a larger group, but was also separate. Although we “travelled” together, I pretty much kept to myself.

My next major avi was an un-named character in the Myst franchise. This was really the first digital body that would respond to my commands to walk or run, stop, and investigate. Like most people, I assume, I made the image look quite a bit like me, only perhaps a bit more rugged – a bit more of an adventurer. But the thing with Myst is that you explore the worlds alone – combing through the ruins of a once proud civilization. This means that – like my Thief – I was really the only one who saw my avatar since there is no socialization in an abandoned culture.

Recently – in preparation for the class on Virtual Worlds – I went into World of Warcraft to get a sense of the game. Looking over all of the character choices I opted for a Female Rogue Night Elf – something about the loner quality of this character appealed to me. Plus – it came with the added bonus of invisibility. Employing the stealth feature I could creep around largely unnoticed. I played the game for about 30 hours or so – long enough that I reached quests that were becoming harder and harder to complete on my own. Once the necessity of companions arose – I was out.

Derridada was my next avatar – a work in progress that continues to slowly evolve. It is also with this character that I think I am beginning to understand the nature of digital representation. When I first entered SL I decided that I really didn’t want to have a “human” skin tone – so I opted for green – which seemed to satisfy me for a while. Then came the steampunk wardrobe, tattoos, glasses, painted nails and many of the other elements that I use to define this character. A more recent addition was the gold metallic skin – which – as I understand – reads sometimes yellow, sometimes green – depending on who is looking and what kind of monitor they have. While I see avatars that have any number of unique and complex looks, I rarely see another one that looks like mine. I like that – it sets me apart. (I discuss this in more detail in Stinalina Dreamscape’s wonderful blog on “Endless Possibilities” http://stinalinadreamscape.wordpress.com/page/3/).

And it is this idea of being set apart that caused me to review my avatar choices. Setting aside the bars of light, spaceships, cars and aliens along with the Myst critter I realize that the Thief, the Night Elf and Derridada all share two major traits – they are loners – they are outsiders. The first two deliberately creeping around the edges of their environments, and the third, Derridada – a social creature that slinks to the edge of any dance club he wanders into. He is not a “joiner,” and I find that I do not change his clothes for “theme” nights at the clubs, nor do I tend to partake of the group dances but prefer to modify my dances based on each song. So – I think it is safe to say that – with my avatars at least - I like the margins and not the center.

Hmmmm (this is the sound of me wondering about stuff) I’m concerned that without consciously thinking about these choices these avatars reveal a great deal about who I am in RL. I do not like to be the center of attention and feel much more comfortable in the shadows. This sounds even odder when I reveal that I have spent a great deal of time on stage as a performer and even in my current profession (teacher) I find that I am often in front of a crowd. But – I do have a number of techniques to deflect this position and minimize my centeredness. I must admit though, that I am surprised by this avatar revelation. I mean - they are just avatar’s right – just fictional beings put together often in haste to get on with the game at hand.

But I can see that there is more to them – quite a bit more. They are – as I have said before – highly charged semiotic images in which every little detail speaks volumes. But not just things like clothes and accessories, but the animations we choose or the way we drive these critters says something – consciously or not – about who we are. For example, I have found that in SL I really like falling and I do it every chance I get. I like the flailing, the out of control feeling and the final thud as I hit the virtual earth. This is something that I really can't experience in RL and so I am drawn to it in SL. I’m sure some shrink somewhere could sort all of this out and tell me about the need for margins and the desire to be out of control– but in the meantime I remain fascinated that these representations we build in cyberspace can actually tell us a great deal about ourselves. I can only imagine what will happen when we can fully enter these spaces with our nervous systems plugged in.

I think SL is causing me to have an existential crisis

Let me preface this entry by saying that in RL I pride myself on being a “postmodernist” or “poststructuralist” or something like that. I preach simultaneity descended from the Futurists in which awareness is always stranded between multiple thoughts and things can be both right and wrong at the same time. I think that the only real truth is that there is no such thing as truth and that everything we say, do, or think is filtered through our language, culture, and education. When I first encountered this way of looking at the world right before grad school (the second time) I had a bit of a melt-down. I have grown more comfortable with these ideas over time, so much so that I like being challenged by students if for no other reason than it erodes my authority and points out that there are always other ways to look at things.

So it is with this mindset that I enter SL. This space should be a wonderland, a playground, a space of multiple truths simultaneously – the virtual and the real – but for some reason I am obsessed with the real behind the virtual. I don’t actually want to know this real, but I know it is there, nagging me with every interaction in this space. Knowing that each avatar I meet has a secret self stashed away behind the ones and zeros is both fascinating and a bit unnerving. I avoid things like the voice feature when I can because part of me doesn’t want something this specific in this imaginary space. And yet, I dwell on the unknown behind the visible. And yet I project a kind of reality onto the virtual without completely understanding it.

Ok – so some of this current thinking was generated from dancing. I know I obsess over the dancing – I like it, its fun, and I don’t do it in RL – so this is a kind of fantasy outlet. Plus I get to listen to music. Bla, bla, bla. So the other night I go to visit a friend of mine in SL. I met her at a club where one of the DJs I follow plays. She follows the same DJ. We chatted, IM’d and became SL friends. “She” is pleasant, friendly, always says “Hi” and often invites me to come hang out in the clubs where she works (I still find the concept of working in here odd – but I do get that the lindens earned offset SL costs). So – she was hosting the other night and I showed up to do my dance thing. About a half an hour in she asks me if I would like to dance. This is the first time I have been asked and while in RL I would most likely deflect this with a joke or tales of awful dancing in here I say “yes.” As the gender roles are relatively clear I click on the blue ball she the pink. And we dance. Or rather our avatars dance. But that is the problem – it doesn’t feel like the avis dancing it feels like us dancing. “Us” two people who have absolutely no idea who or what is behind the other avatar. The dances cycle though ballroom stuff and occasionally hit on a slow dance pose. I do not feel comfortable with this. Why? I have no idea – projecting a reality into this space? I don’t know. So I ask if we can switch balls. I click pink she blue. Now “she” is leading and I get to play along. She lifts me and dips me – it feels like a joke, like a dance deferred and somehow I am more comfortable with this.

What I find so vexing about this experience is that I do think of this person, or this avatar, or this representation in SL as a friend, only I have no idea why. I really don’t know the person behind the avatar at all. And yet, I feel like I know that avatar and I do enjoy their company. It is an odd connection, but one that seems somewhat familiar from RL. When I was a kid I had friends that I rode the bus with. I didn’t have classes with them, I didn’t hang out with them, and while I knew approximately where they lived, in most cases, I didn’t even know what their names were. And yet, I considered them my friend. I still do even though I have not seen them in decades. SL feels a bit like this. A friendship built out of proximity, filling time while we ride the bus.

I used to just sit around and listen to music but now . . .

As a kid and on into high school and college I used to just sit around and listen to music - sometimes with friends, sometimes by myself. I used to have an amplifier that gave off this wonderful green glow that would illuminate the whole room and I can recall hours and hours of laying in bed with headphones listening to King Crimson, Pink Floyd, Yes, Talking Heads, Genesis. As I got older and the weighty responsibilities of adulthood got weightier and weightier I found that making time just to listen to music was harder and harder to do. Oh, I still have a soundtrack going 24/7 – but often times it is wallpaper – something there to fill the space while I do other things – workout at the gym, run, drive, read, work in my office. I find that even when I have the time to just sit and listen I feel like I should be doing something else – like I should be reading or writing a paper or balancing the checkbook, or making music or – I don’t know – something productive. One of the true joys I have discovered in SL is the space to just listen and feel like I am engaged in something somewhat productive. In clubs I rarely click on dance balls so I manage the dancing animations song by song – if I could actually make the avatar dance by manipulating the keys I would. Or – I have multiple conversations going, or play bass, or learn kung fu. Are these productive activities? Not really, but they seem to be productive enough to fool whatever guilt/work ethic I have into thinking that they are productive. Once fooled – I can inhabit a virtual space, relax and simply listen.

Where to now?

At the start of the class I felt more than prepared to discuss the subject of virtual worlds. Now that the course is over I am not so certain. Perpetually discovering how much I still need to learn, my intention is to continue logging on to SL to gain a better understanding of the environment. Despite the similarity with chat rooms, IMs, FB, and other forms of mediatized communication it has aspects that I have not seen in any other medium. More performative than any of these forms, the sharing of cyberspace via an intentional avatar body creates a virtual environment that is part RL, part acting, and part technology. Yes – I am obsessed with the gaps between these areas – despite Tamar’s objections that I will forget about them the more familiar I become with SL - I am not convinced I want to forget about them. Once this space becomes naturalized, in which the constructed is seen as transparent – as happens with things like language, gender, and culture – then SL and RL blur into one zone. I need to keep in mind that there are both similarities and differences between the two. The next step is to review the observations here and shape them into something – what – I have no idea. In the meantime – it is nice to have Glitch back and I guess I’ll just keep on dancing.

Reflections on the course - rhizome as teaching zone: Complexity and the hive mentality in SL:

In developing a course on Generative Art (offered winter 2009) my colleague and I spent about a year discussing, researching, and debating the best way to approach this topic. Throughout this course I tracked my own engagement with the topic as well as the pros and cons of approaching the subject with a sequence of student projects. Much of our thinking on a pedagogical model built on open-ended questions was developed by teaching this course. When we decided to offer a class on Virtual Worlds we opted to employ the same rhizomatic model.

For those unfamiliar with this idea – in A Thousand Plateaus Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari discuss the rhizome as an alternative metaphor to traditional educational models. Unlike the “tree of knowledge” with roots and branches that grow ever upward, the rhizome spreads out horizontally and can be entered and negotiated from a variety of different locations. As they state, “any point of a rhizome can be connected to anything other, and must be” (7). For Deleuze and Guattari “tree logic” is built upon repetition, on tracing and reproduction of given forms of knowledge. The rhizome, on the other hand, involves mapping and not tracing. “What distinguishes the map from the tracing is that it is entirely oriented toward an experimentation in contact with the real” (12) - so – not just theory, not just practice - praxis. An educational model driven by mapping “has to do with performance, whereas the tracing always involves an alleged ‘competence’” (12-13). Student engagement with this model transpires at the level of personalized understanding through an individual knowledge base and not via the collective assessment or test-driven model of alleged competence.

So – unlike a more traditional approach where as the teacher I might have a body of knowledge that I pass on to the students and then test them to see how much of what I know they now know - the rhrizomatic model functions within a relatively contained subject – such as gen art or virtual worlds - but in which the pathway though the subject is different for each student. Rather than begin with the standard introductory material, the students were exposed to the subject by wrestling with open-ended assignments designed to raise more questions than answers. In the case of the gen art course students presented their solution to the prompt “create a sound producing machine” the second day of class. We then collectively discussed the idea of the machine, of types of sound, and different aspects of each solution. With the recent Virtual Worlds course students were asked to create a Second Life account and design and outfit an avatar by the third class, a project that forced them to gain a greater understanding of this virtual world in a short time frame by exploring a variety of SL locations, avatar options, shops, and interacting with other avatars. These inaugural projects provided the framework and skill set focused on problem solving that were then refined over the course of the term.

The rhythm established for these courses was project, then reflection, and then the theory behind the project. Rather than simply imitate someone else’s solution or parrot the instructors’ understanding of the subject, this process allows the student to understand the material from the inside out, as a personal journey in which their discoveries, ideas, issues, and approaches are all validated. With an open-ended project there are no wrong or right answers, all responses are valid. One of the main appeals of this type of structure is that not only do students often surprise the instructors, classmates, and even themselves with answers to these questions, but they often exceed expectations. As opposed to models that might involve something as proscribed as a written assignment, where students may simply execute the minimum work required (the typical “how many pages does it have to be?” question), the projects, executed and displayed in a collective environment, generally cause students to not concern themselves with minimum standards, and often work to and, at times, beyond their perceived potential.

One of the other positive side effects of this teaching model is that it allows students the flexibility to pursue their own interests. One of my major discoveries this term was how vast SL is. Our initial intent was to use SL as a laboratory space for projects, but also have the students explore other virtual worlds – we made some classic games like Myst, Uru, and WOW available to them alongside classic other world and “cyberpunk” literature by William Gibson, Ray Bradbury, Vernor Vinge, and Jorge Luis Borges. But nine and a half weeks of class time (minus a week for snow days) left precious little time to explore one world let alone many. In a way this worked to our advantage, since the concentration on one world through the eyes of 18 participants all moving in different directions (16 students and 2 instructors) allowed us to develop a complex understanding of this world in a relatively short time period. One of the off-shoots of the rhizome idea is the “hive” mentality – a collective mind that is far more powerful than a single mind – something that is difficult to achieve with a traditional pedagogical model.

Despite this approach to the course, one aspect of it did reflect a more traditional model. When offered to meet in SL rather than in the classroom all of the students opted to physically come to class. So – the space of the classroom became our lab with 18 people on 18 different computers occasionally sharing the same virtual space. This created an environment where clusters of students – some physically next to each other, some not, engaged in exploring this world as both individuals and members of a team.

The course moved from the avatar project, to taking the class on a field trip, to learning to build. Along the way there were scheduled conversations – we greatly appreciate SunQueen visiting us at such an early hour and answering our many questions – to unscheduled – I was delighted that my friend Bobo could join us for a few minutes. Partaking of Gracie Kendal’s 1000+ Avatar Project was a way to document the avatars, but also as a process of socialization as students interacted with Gracie and each other while waiting to have their pictures taken. It was interesting to note at this point in the term that the wild array of images present during the avatar assignment (zebras, hotdogs, hamburgers, pigfaces, etc) was much more contained during the “formal” portraits. As I commented in an earlier blog entry – when we traveled together at the start of the term we elicited comments about how odd we were, I am not sure that would be the case by the end of the class. Habituation? Fitting into a community? Boredom? I don’t know yet. But all of these steps led to the final projects – developed over the last few weeks of class. Bob and I did not prescribe a direction, but suggested that the areas of technological, conceptual, ethnographic, experiential, and reflective that emerged in our class discussions would provide useful avenues.

As happened with the final projects in the gen art class, we were blown away by the variety and complexity of these final projects. We had students explore such things as importing and exporting media (video, sound, and sculpties) from RL to SL and from SL to RL. There were students that explored the cultural or sociological aspects of this world by joining role playing communities, interacting with family members via SL, and arranging a series of “blind dates” in world. There were build projects in the form of an elaborate sound sculpture, the development of homes, and a giant game of dominoes. We had one student write a play about his experiences in SL, and others who documented their mischievous interactions with other avatars via still images and video. These projects provided the class as a whole with an image of SL – as a complex and multifaceted virtual world – that would have been impossible to establish had all of the students worked on the same type of project. My only regret is that we ran out of time to pull all of these varied pieces together. While we did have some time to reflect during the final exam, another class period or two would have been appreciated. It is with this type of reflection that we could speculate on the size and shape of the subject, as well as the individual pathways mapped by each student.

But, the explorations continue. When asked how many students would be back in SL after the class was over nearly all of the them said that they would. The one thing that I wish we had been able to address more fully is the interactive aspect of this space. Many of the students referred to SL in their blogs as “a game,” which in some respects it is, and yet it is also something else. We did spend some time comparing this world to chat, IM, email, Facebook, and chat-roulette (which I have not yet experienced but have been told by a number of people that it routinely consists of penis, penis, penis, someone to chat with, penis, penis, penis). But there is something markedly different about talking with someone you are sharing space with – cyberspace yes, but space nonetheless. Bob has commented that despite the filters and mediatization that goes on in SL there are really only a few neurons that separate one user from the next. I still see it as a distance, but perhaps more reflection will narrow that gap. My hope is when we offer this class again we can dig that much deeper into this delightfully complex world.

Cyberfishing

I wrote this some time ago and have no idea what to do with it. It seems like this may be an appropriate home. So - in lieu of the blog about the final class projects (which is percolating in my brain) I pass these thoughts along.

I used to live in a world where people were always around anytime day or night. At school, dorms, bars, theatres, concert halls, apartments with roommates – there was always someone to talk to – someone to interact with. When the post-adolescent world gave way to grad school and then a job and a home there was always the phone. Who haven’t I talked to in a while? Who’s up? Who wants to play?

The internet made this activity much much more interesting. When the phone got old I moved on to email. In search of constant external stimulation I cyberfish – with all that metaphorical stuff implied – The pond was defined by the depth of my address book as I set the bait, wait for a strike, and reel them in. This is not to imply that my “victims” are some writhing impaled creatures, rather this is simply a way of describing the activity. And hey, I’m gonna release em – either that they will break the line. Now I know that there is probably some deep-seated psychological reason why I do this. Like my parents spanked me too much, or too little, or my potty-training when horribly awry, or that I am in truth an empty shell of a human being that needs to constantly be filled by the ideas of others. But psychobabble aside, I genuinely enjoy the connection, the conversation, the debate, the argument with a friend, close or otherwise.

So - I sat in my cozy living room with a laptop and a beer and fished – sending out multiple emails with, at least to my mind, engaging questions or statements to see who was online, who wanted to play. Once the line was cast I would wait, sometimes getting involved in four or five conversations at once, all taking different directions. I saw this as a kind of conversational equivalent to playing chess with multiple partners spread out across a common space. I liked email –I still do, but unlike my 15-year-old, I could never quite get the hang of I’ Ming. I found it too demanding – too of the moment – too much like one of those frustrating phone interviews where no matter how much you try to remember where and who everyone is they all end up sounding the same.

Email, of course, is different – it is like one of those sonic fish finder things. Even before I open a message I know who sent it. I can do what I want with it when I want. I can wait to respond, ignore it, contemplate an answer, or abandon the conversation altogether. The choice is mine and there is no little annoying ding or constant “are you still there?” prompt to hurry me along. I am in charge, and I can invite people in or turn them away. Beyond the narcissism, what I most like about email is that it takes time – as I read through responses I am forced to listen rather than waiting to talk.

The next evolution, of course, was social networking sites like Facebook. At first I was reluctant to join, I always am when it comes to a new thing that is embraced by tons of people all at once. I am the type of person that will love an album until it is everywhere, then I go in search of more elusive listening material. But, I joined FB – the way most people do I guess, because a friend of mine had joined and I wanted to see his page and what all the fuss was about. I find this a strange and mind-bending world.

I had always sort of fantasized about wining the lottery and throwing a big party and inviting everyone I ever knew. The fantasy wasn’t generated by ego – I didn’t want them all in one place to praise me or anything - I wanted to be on the fringes, unacknowledged, but listening and watching. What I wanted to see was how people from all areas of my life would interact. What would my best friend in 4^th grade say to my wife, or my grad school buddy to my current colleagues? Of course, this is all going on all the time in cyber-space.

FB has everything I liked about living in a dorm - someone is always awake, always ready to talk even if I know them or not. The down side, naturally, is that my pond continues to grow. I speculate about those barely remembered people from High School, or that weird guy from that summer job, or that friend of a friend - why do they want to connect with me? Why do I want to engage in some horrible cyber equivalent of a social disease in which I befriend everyone that my friends have befriended? I constantly wonder, why do they want to talk to me, comment on my photos, write on my wall? And when they don’t I wonder why not. Perhaps, my apprehension comes from the fact that unlike the phone or email I am no longer in charge, I am now out of the boat and flopping around like everyone else. I get lured, snagged and dragged into a conversation with someone just as bored, just as desperate as myself.

And then I went into Second Life. Wow – a simply massive pool of people, and given the international frame, there is literally always someone awake to dance next to, shop near, or chat with. Since SL is built on the foundation of a virtual world it magnifies the idea of sharing information to sharing cyber space. Email and FB are discontinuous and asynchronous, but SL has the appearance of immediacy since controlling an avatar you move, you talk, you respond as you would in RL – but filtered through a heavily mediatized frame. Here I find the IM somewhat palatable since it provides a “private” conversation space amongst the ongoing public chatter. While it shares similar social networking qualities with FB, it is as different from FB as Technicolor is from black and white.

With the social networking sites cyberfishing has taken on a whole new meaning. The pool is huge and ever growing and I can catch people I don’t even know, and, occasionally, don’t even want to talk to. I post a “what am I thinking about,” or make a comment on a dance move or photo, or write on a wall, or respond to someone else’s postings or chat, or investigate an SL profile and bam – playtime. In these spaces I am connecting with people I didn’t even know existed, people I have never met and probably never will meet – all in one user-friendly location. Now, rather than sending multiple emails with a genuine questions to close friends, I find that I lob unusual statements and questions trying to generate a response, any response, from complete strangers, but strangers that may eventually become virtual friends

As this cyberpond continues to increase in depth and density perhaps I will eventually tire of easy prey. Maybe the benefit of so many connections with so many random people is that it will cause me to crave actual face-to-face connections. Perhaps I will return to the bar, to the theatre, to the dorm if for no other reason than to collect new friends with whom to converse. I will get their phone numbers, their email addresses, link to their Facebook accounts, find their avatars and then the process of excitement, apprehension, and aversion can start all over again. Technology giveth and technology taketh away.

I know that the scripters will inherit the metaverse:

So – I am dancing the other night admiring someone’s tambourine. I have not seen one in here yet and it looks like fun. S/he shares it with me and I spend 10 minutes pretending I am Josie (of Pussycat fame) and Tracy Partridge. Then s/he tells me to type the keyword “aflac” into the chat window. All of a sudden my avatar is not my own. I spin, I twirl, I bow and dance to the most adorable Japanese anime-like song complete with little pastel clouds shaped like flowers and bears popping out of my head. I am enthralled. I do it again, and again, and again. And then I realize that since others now have this new toy every time someone types “aflac” we all dance together.

I love this because being possessed by some tiny anime tambourine in RL would cause much concern, but in SL it is a delight. This is where I realize that the scripters will inherit the metaverse. People able to create such complex and fun toys are the future. Who needs to live vicariously through film actors, novel characters, or experience things like amusement parks or bowling alleys when you can just load your avatar up with scripts and be off. This kind of digital possession is not only native to virtual worlds, but begins to play with that gap between analogue RL and coded SL. As the class is winding down I find that I want to play with this gap much more.

My first instinct was to begin to sort of mess about with my friends. To start with simple things like convince them my cat had just wandered over my keyboard by typing gibberish. Or, Jerky Boys style, say more and more outrageous things and then blame it on my imaginary little brother who commandeered my avatar while I was in the bathroom. But – this doesn’t seem fair or right. I like my SL friends and I don’t want to alienate them (unless, of course, they want to be alienated). I write this not only because I know some of them read this blog, but because it feels as wrong as pulling a practical joke on friends in RL – only in RL I can smooth over the bumps if things go awry. And messing with strangers – well that is just too easy.

So – I imagine that there are other ways to play with the analogue/digital divide. I have ideas – but no skills – so I will search for scripters who want to play too. One idea has to do with an altered consciousness. Yea – I know SL already does that – but with complex scripts it could go much much farther. Mimicking the affects of alcohol in here doesn’t make much sense. I mean, every one already looks gorgeous, they will chat with anyone, and dance at the drop of a hat – which, as a RL introvert are at least three key reasons for grabbing a brew. But a time bound hallucinogenic experience in SL might be appealing to more than just me. HMMM. Yea – I need to think about this more. And, naturally, upon further review. folks have already done this. I need to check their wares and see if they have had in mind what I have in mind.

I am not a misanthrope but I play one in RL

Basically I am a loner. I am the type of person that likes long solo car rides, long solo bike rides, getting to the office early to savor that quiet time when I can actually get some work done. Part of this may emanate from control issues – when alone I can go at my own pace, listen to the music I want to listen to, stop, go, do what I please. Most of the experiences that I have had in virtual worlds supported this. Myst is the ideal loner game – wandering around in beautiful empty worlds where all that is there is the residue of a culture that once was. Quiet reflective solitude, and some really cool puzzles to solve. Obsidian and Rhem were built on the same frame. And to a large extent so are traditional video games – I still have my NES and occasionally Mario and I go off to save the Princes battling nothing but bots in strange labyrinthine lands. My experience with WOW had a similar feeling. Granted I only spent about 30 or so hours there – hardly anything compared to the years other have spent - but I found that I could be a loner, ignore requests to duel and to join groups, put my head down and simply execute the tasks set for me by the many bots that litter this land.

So – it was with a kind of arrogance that I set off to team teach a course on virtual worlds. I figured I know virtual worlds and I’m a scholar, all I need to do with Second Life is read about it, study it, spend some time there and I will have it figured out. And I did spend time there – many many hours – but alone on the university land practicing camera angles and learning how to build. Eventually, though, the isolation got to me and I bought a cat (which I named Glitch – I am now on Glitch IV because the first three had – well a glitch) to keep me company. Just like my cat in RL Glitch runs up to greet me when I arrive. And I must admit I look forward to this. I established a ritual of sorts – enter SL – pet Glitch a few times and head off. Return home at the end of the day, pet Glitch and log off. And I realize that this habitual action is part of the seductive quality of the medium.

I never looked for anything to greet me in Myst or WOW or Duck Hunt or Sim Earth. As completely virtual, digital spaces I entered those worlds knowing that when I shut them off they ceased to exist. SL is different. SL exists in real time (or slt) in which events and meetings (even casual meetings) happen within a specific time frame. Like RL SL is constantly changing and evolving. It has the squirrely, squishy, capricious quality of the real – but the real filtered though the virtual in which the virtual becomes naturalized to the point of invisibility. In the future when I want to discuss Baudrillard’s notion of simulation and simulacrum I will simply take my students to SL since here “it is no longer a question of imitation, nor or reduplication, nor even of parody. It is rather a question of substituting signs of the real for the real itself.” It is here where the boundaries of RL and SL begin to blur that the performative aspects of this virtual world are magnified. SL has the quality of live performance in that anything might happen at any time.

It is this perpetual motion aspect that I discovered when I let Glitch wander freely and she would inevitably wander off of the parcel and then end up in my inventory. An email alert let me know she was back. But back from where? What had she seen? Who had she met? Why do I assume she has a will? And this is where all of those layers I see between user and avatars and user begin to collapse. The moment – not a conscious one mind you – I began to think of the virtual cat as having a name, a personality, a will, and looking forward to her hello was the moment that I was seduced by the medium. It is this anticipation that was easily transferred to my SL friends where a simple “Hi Deri” sparks the same feeling of acceptance that it does in RL.

Despite all of this I do keep reminding myself that SL is not real, that the virtual is a temporal and temporary medium and that most of what I am getting from the digital creatures I interact with is pure projection on my part. And then I get a TP invite to someone’s home. The routine that has been established with my “theory friend” is that when we happen to meet in world we will share whatever interesting places we have found. So – a quick greeting and a TP invite and we now “share” the same “space.” Except this last time it was not some fanciful imaginative land but “her” apartment. Instantly I left the casual, almost happenstance wandering of SL and was transported to a highly personalized space (aren’t all spaces in SL highly personalized?). Now I know that this is not a corporeal space but one whipped up by the Linden Lab servers, yet I could not get over the feeling that here I was in the apartment of an attractive young girl that I hardly know. I realize that this sharing was not meant as a suggestion of intimacy but of “hey – look what I got” – the way you might show a friend a new coat or hat or CD. But, just like with Glitch, I started to compress the layers between avatars and read the scene as something more than virtual.

Second Life is seductive in ways that other virtual worlds could never be. Since all of SL is user created – it is all intentional – all scripted – all planned – an yet has the improvisatory aspect of real life. Unlike other virtual spaces where the structure of the “game” controls the action, in SL it is the interaction between users – talking, dancing, fucking, bonding, making, buying, selling, greeting, role playing, etc that propels the action. Devoid of a fixed narrative or code SL is constantly evolving, constantly providing new experiences and new connections. It is this aspect of SL that initially drew me in. Yes I am a loner, but a loner that loves conversation. One of the few things I liked about living in a college dorm was that there was always someone – any time – day or night – to talk to. This is, for me, is the appeal of Second Life, that it is like one gigantic college dorm. Sure there are lots of interesting sexual escapades happening behind closed doors – but beyond that it is a community (a huge community) all in the same “space” continually interacting. Here it is easy to find that guy that lives on the second floor that you don’t really trust but visit every once in a while because he has great weed and studies philosophy. The gal two floors above with the killer record collection that will play you any tune you can imagine. Or the quiet and shy guy down the hall who hasn’t said a word all term until you both realize that you have read all the same books and then spend hours and hours talking about literature. Yes these conversations can happen in RL or via email, or FB, or on something called a telephone – but none of these mediums puts you in the same space with someone thousands of miles away curled up on the same sofa.

I am resistant to allow RL and SL to collapse, and yet I discover that I do have friends in here, I do have folks I look forward to talking with, dancing with, sharing spaces with. Perhaps everyone goes through this in SL – the seven stages of virtual habituation or some equivalent list. I don’t ever expect to get to the point where I push aside the virtual for RL connections with SL friends, but as Tamar pointed out on an earlier blog entry “Emotions on SL are real...the emotional attachment that you make with people you develop friendships with is startling. I know it doesn't happen to everyone...but don't be surprised if it happens to you.” As a teacher I like being proved wrong, it is humbling and reminds me how much I still have to learn.

Have you ever played a game of Mao?

You may have learned it under any number of different names but I first played it as “Mao.” It is a card game in which “the only rule you can be told is this one” – which means that you start the game with no idea what the rules are and have to figure them out by playing the game. Myst has the same basic frame – you are plopped down into a world and through inductive logic figure out puzzles, games, navigation, and ultimately pieces of a complex narrative. When I first entered SL I didn’t quite realize that despite its rather bucolic suburban appearance it was in reality one big game of Mao. Like many – I picked a name that sounded cool – with little thought to meaning or effect – and then set out to construct and dress an avatar by selecting from the many many clothing styles, communities, and choices. While I understood the meaning of these things in a personal way, I gave very little thought to what they might mean to others.

While SL is not a game in the sense that Myst is a game – it is a world structured on a number of game-like rules – many, if not all of which you learn by playing. This is a highly charged semiotic space in which the idea of “natural signs” like smoke indicating fire, rain clouds signifying rain, anatomical parts signifying “male” or “female” do not exist. This is one of the reasons I don’t like the talk feature – it brings a “natural” sign into an artificial world. Without question - SL is a completely intentional world regardless of whether people that enter that world understand this or not. As stated in an earlier blog, I opted for a steampunk look for a number of reasons but gave very little thought to how that would be read by others. Reinforcing this I found that when I first started showing up at rock clubs to dance I heard “we don’t get your type in her very often” on more than one occasion.

“My type”? How do you know my type? Assuming that the visual projected by hair, clothes, skin, animations, etc has anything to do with the user behind the avi seems like frightful leap of faith. Although I do find that the folks that populate these dance clubs (classic rock, country, techno, indie, funk) look very much like I would expect their RL counterparts to look. Why this is the case – I have no idea – fitting in, following an unspoken dress or rule code, just for the hell of it? This is perhaps a side issue – but I have encountered very few black avatars in SL – at least until I teleported to a club to hear some funk.

But this speaks to one of the central issues I see in SL – that in a highly charged semiotic wonderland of intentional signs I find that I do often take those signs for some kind of “reality” or “truth” – virtual or otherwise. I find that I am more likely to strike up a conversation with an avatar based on the way they look – which is not too far off from how I interact with people in real life. An attractive looking male or female just appears far more inviting and less threatening than someone that looks skanky or thuggish. Now I realize that the clothing, hairstyles, tats, attitude, etc in RL are just as intentional as those in SL – but they are generally images that are committed to for a period of time. SL presents what can be called “virtual truths” (for this idea I need to credit Tamar who has commented on this blog). The beauty of a virtual truth is that it is not only an imaginary truth but that it is a temporary truth – easily changed from one moment to the next (which is such a wonderful postmodern/poststructuralist idea.) This point was brought home to me when I ran into someone familiar in SL but who looked radically different from the last time I had seen them. So – it seems that just as virtual truths can change from moment to moment so can the rules of the game – which are never explicit – but always intentional.

The other night I found myself in a familiar club – dancing to some classic rock with a few SL friends – and off to the side of the dance floor was a naked female avatar – complete with all of the various anatomically correct female parts that you can buy in SL - tied to a large “wooden” X. I must admit I didn’t even notice at first – naked or partially naked avis seem run-of-the-mill. But, engaging in a conversation about this with my friends I found that they were somewhat put out by this display – it not being “appropriate” for this particular club. I have to admit if I went bar hopping in RL and entered a place with a live naked female tied to a wooden X I might be taken aback – but in a world populated with folks that can literally change their appearance with one mouse click – who cares? After some rather strong suggestions that this activity should stop the avatar was set free and spent the rest of the night dancing with his/her mistress (who did indulge my IMs and answered some very basic questions about the activity – my main question being what do you do when your avatar is tied up – do you just go get some coffee or something?).

This encounter really made me think about the Mao-like properties of this world. Ostensibly SL is a place where anyone can go to do or say anything they want. I know that folks can be banned from places and that they can transgress the spoken or unspoken Linden laws – but by-in-large it is a free play zone – provided you find someone else that wants to play the same game. But isn’t this what happens in RL? I suppose the disappointing thing about SL is that more and more I find people replicating the same issues, problems, and frustrations of RL in an imaginary world as if Agent Smith from The Matrix had us pegged correctly. If we can’t engage in a fantasy space with intentionally created characters and act any way we want anywhere we go then why enter that space at all? My hope in entering a virtual world is that I am taken out of my RL habits and concerns. This is one of the appealing things for me about Myst - I am forced to meet the game on its own terms since it does not have to meet me on mine. I have yet to find this kind of engagement in SL, but of course this may mean that I have just not found the right people or the right spaces yet - or maybe I have and they were just tied up. As truths change the game continues and in lieu of an image of the bound naked avi I leave with a pic of Derridada getting funky.

“A person who is trying to understand a text is always projecting” – Gadamer in Truth and Method

So – Blair Witch Project scared the shit out of me, as did House of Leaves, and when I was a kid Grieg’s “Hall of the Mountain King” sent shivers up my spine. What connects all three of these things is the fact that they provide the viewer/reader/listener with little more than a frame to scare themselves. Certainly the Symbolist idea of a "suggestive indefiniteness" – where they were able to create a kind of terror with little more than some punctuated silence, a few clock ticks, and an old man muttering about the sound of a scythe – suggests that this kind activity has a rich history. Obviously this is nothing new, but what fascinates me is that as the media changes the space for slippage between what is presented and what is received expands exponentially. I am not suggesting that RL is any less mediated than things like SL – after all we generally speak a language we didn’t invent, wear clothing designed by someone else, quote films, books, and songs created by others – but that liminal gap between one individual and another appears magnified in cyberspace. Each step in the mediatized frame amplifies the potential for deception, misreading, misinterpretation and over interpretation.

Part of the issue is that I place a certain amount of trust in the information my senses garner from RL. Having a conversation with someone face to face there is a feedback loop created though pitch, tone, gesture, intensity, etc that allows me to gauge reactions and level of involvement. Could this all be feigned – sure – but I am also given the opportunity to react to that. Denied this type of interaction cyberspace leaves me generally with an intentional image and words - words often clumsily misspelled. I am not a fan of the chat feature in virtual worlds because it is too specific – even when disguised – and breaks the illusion necessary for the imaginative element to be involved in the suggestions. SL – like RL to a certain extent – is built on a fantasy frame in which projection operates like it does with any text - film, novel or piece of music but with the very important difference of the involvement of a generally unknown person on the other end of the line. So – while I might be able to fantasize about running away with Mr. Darcy he doesn’t have the opportunity to fantasize back.

And this is where my thinking gets fuzzy. Virtual worlds are seductive in a way that previous media only hinted at. I don’t necessarily mean seductive in an erotic or sexual way – although that is certainly part of it – but they present spaces and avatars and experiences that are ripe for projection and fantasy – but a form of fantasy that can talk back. Unwilling to get completely drawn into this world for various reasons I am determined to remain cynical and critical – bracketing my experiences with a seemingly dispassionate theoretical eye. But I am caught by this time and time again. I doubt actions and emotions and consciously avoid any kind of RL sharing, and yet I find that I can be intimidated, scared, sympathetic and entertained – all RL emotions. By way of example I had an extended conversation with a furry the other day (I know I am going on about this group – but they are fascinating!). While I doubt all of the information offered – I have no idea how big his/her virtual member is, I don’t know if they like virtual bondage or not, and I wonder if they are just playing a role and telling me what I want to hear – but the aggression that came through in the chat was undeniable. Now if someone in this world calls me a moron with a below 60 IQ I generally respond in kind either to shut them down or spar. But in SL I didn’t – oddly to spare the “feelings” of the person on the other end. Not knowing who they were gave them power since I didn’t want to offend them.

So – while I don’t really want to reveal anything about who I am in RL I end up saying volumes about who I am because I don’t want to offend some jerk dressed as a skunk doing his or her best to offend and intimidate me. Huh. Kind of makes me wonder what other things slip through. It also makes me wonder how much RL of others I actually encounter. In the end though does it really matter? If SL is a play-full space of slippage that is constructed on a fantasy frame that encourages projection onto any and all objects and avatars then is truth or reality really the point?

The spectacle is not a collection of images; rather it is a social relationship between people that is mediated by images.

What would the Situationists think of Second Life? I have been pondering this question since it was posed by my theory friend (who also tipped me to the 1000+ avatar project - http://1000avatars.wordpress.com/). While I find that I have no idea what the Situationists might think about anything, I am interested in thinking about what their thought might reveal when applied to a virtual world. SL is spectacle – no question – in some cases all spectacle and no substance – and because of this it is ripe for manipulation since it is fundamentally a liminal environment. OK lets get the Marxist shit out front. “The spectacle is capital accumulated to the point where it becomes an image.” SL is free to join. SL has tons and tons of free stuff available to anyone who wants to click on it. You can freely fashion just about anything you can imagine and your skill can create from the digital tools provided. Linden labs supplies a playground for all to enjoy seemingly without asking for anything in return. Wow – it seems like an anti-capitalist paradise – free shit and no strings.

I didn’t do that with this space – nor did we ask the students to do that (and at this point I am not giving up my groovy part free/part paid wardrobe, hair, skin, etc). The avatar project was in reality a call to spending – a visit to the marketplace. We buy lindens or earn lindens and we buy stuff – clothes, hair, fingernails, tattoos, skins, bling, dances, vehicles, homes, chat statements, genitalia, pets for very little RL money – but RL nonetheless. We freely visit clubs, dance, play games, talk, flirt, engage – but everyone seems to have their hand out. If I had to guess at the greatest number of single objects in SL I would have to say “tip jars.” Do I begrudge folks the impulse to make some quick cash off of their digital selves even if it is merely to support that digital self? Not really. But I do find I tip my SL friends – or folks who’s company I enjoy - and I am trying to imagine that type of activity in RL. “Great having a cup of coffee with you here’s five bucks just for being you.”

But Marxist critiques in the world of late capitalism are far too easy – and also – I don’t feel – get to the central issue. The idea I am trying to articulate here is what exactly is the process behind a heavily mediatized relationship? All the rhetoric about friendships, connections, emotional involvement, erotic involvement, healing, communication, etc are perceived relationships filtered through - at the very least - a user, a computer, a server (or two), an avatar, an avatar, a server, a computer, a user. WOW! Plato only ever talked about once, twice, or thrice removed – how fast would his head spin with eight? If you add voice chat and disguise the voice then the mediatization multiplies beyond this even.

So - what do I think the thought of Guy Debord and company says about all this? “The spectacle is not a collection of images; rather it is a social relationship between people that is mediated by images.” And that is the main issue. This is not just true of SL – but any mediatized form – like Facebook, live theatre, film, books, RL. The interaction is filtered, delayed, asynchronous, blocked, glitched, frozen, crashed, frayed, and torn. And I find that I kind of like it that way. No substitution for a “real connection” (whatever that is since all of this goes on in RL also), but the mediatized form offers a kind of position of power much like the age old feminist critique of the “male gaze” – a unidirectional viewpoint protected by a voyeuristic stance. How many people check FB for information on people they don't want to friend, but still spy on nevertheless? There is no RL equivalent of the SL camera that can close up on objects and people without the objects and people being aware of the view. Its like living behind a one-way mirror – only everyone has one. When I first meet someone I can check out their profile to see if I am interested in talking to them. Imagine how many dead end coffee shop, cocktail party, airport lounge conversations could be avoided if you knew in advance that God was in their heart, or they loved kitties, or listened to industrial, or voted libertarian, or hated Kafka, or desperately needed someone to talk to. What I need is a RL app that scans my immediate vicinity and pulls up this type of info on everyone within a 100 yards. And yet – I may prejudge and miss out a life changing experience. Plus - I can only know what someone chooses to let me know. The real question is - should I believe them?

Subsequently – does it matter? SL is a playground – one with certain rules that prohibit griefing and other types of vandalistic acts – but aside from that is fairly wide open – just ask the furries. So in this respect it is a space in which the user can create the content. This is not fully determined by the rules in RL since SL can basically be anything one imagines it to be and thus is a “situation” that is created “to be lived by its constructors.” In many ways it is, and in many ways it is not. Ok – if I can fly why the fuck are their stairs in here? Why do people have jobs in here and get “owned” by someone in here? For me those things are somewhat problematic in RL – why replicate them in SL? If you can literally look any way you want to look or dress any way you want to dress why cop to the idealized plastic form on display in RL? Why not be a ball of light or a question mark or a statue of Don Gonzalo? Why not . . .

The critique has given way to a rant – not my intent. I guess that I am just surprised that given an essentially clean digital slate (but a slate built on a capitalistic, pastoral, suburban frame) as a species we seem to replicate our first lives in our second lives. Or do we? Is it all just mere spectacle – unbound by any RL properties or do these properties slip through despite the media? Is being a stripper, host, musician, builder, etc more liberating than being a clerk, bank teller, teacher, student in RL? If I find any truth in here it is not in the image, but in the conversation. Yes I will judge you on your appearance even though I know it is an intentional body that can change with a mouse click, but do you make me laugh, want to respond, think? These are the same characteristics I look for in friends in RL. Can this be manufactured? Is this mediatized? Can someone clever tell me what I want to hear but also remind me to tip them? HMMMM clearly I need to think on this more.