Second Life is a Carnival, old chum

Damn that was fun! I don’t always get to say that about college classes. Oh occasionally I do – like after dadaday or the genart final projects or the final projects for postdramatic theatre – but it doesn’t happen nearly as often as it should. Part of what makes those days stand out is they feel a bit like recess – pockets carved out of an otherwise “serious” day of study for play-full activity. It strikes me that we don’t do this nearly enough at the college level – or even the high school level. I agree with the early education folks like Maria Montessori and Jean Piaget that play is never a frivolous activity – but a time for experimentation and growth. Rather than a supplementary activity or distraction from the “real work,” play-ful-ness is often the impetus for creativity and real learning.

So – “Avatar Day” – not what I expected – and that is a good thing. As a teacher I love being caught off guard – when a student rises above expectations, points out an overlooked idea in a reading assignment, or solves an open-ended question is unique way. Essentially by telling the students to shape and outfit an avatar Bob and I presented them with an open-ended question to which we did not know the answer. This leaves a great deal of room for surprise and for each student to develop ideas in their own way. Out of the simple rules established – present your avatar and tell us a bit about it – a complex – somewhat chaotic class erupted (I am sure that there is a bit in here about complexity theory – but I will leave that to be developed in a later blog). We built a runway stage on which each avatar was to take focus – providing a space that was designated as the “performance space.” This seemed to work ok. But, why I thought we would need chairs is beyond me. It became immediately apparent that no one was going to sit quietly while the others presented their work. To begin with, half of the avatars couldn’t even fit in the chairs – I mean I really didn’t bargain on Optimums Prime, a Zebra, a Hot Dog, and Cheese Burger. Needless to say – I was delighted that the chairs were unnecessary. And lesson learned – don’t try and contain avatar activity in a traditional space. Perhaps next time we should just meet in one of those giant bouncy things.

But beyond the chaos of size and weaponry – the play-full attitude that the class started with right from the beginning was overwhelming. Now for the thinking part - from time to time I will get all theoretical in this blog. I am always fascinated not by what happens, but how what happens can be used to talk about something else. There is a 20^th century theorist named Mikhail Bakhtin who developed ideas on what he called the “Carnivalesque” – which grows out of the carnival/feast of fools stuff from the middle ages. Essentially what he pointed out about certain literary forms and real world experiences is how the normal everyday rules are overturned and, for a time, the world is free from the deadening control of social etiquette, hierarchies, and authority. Why this comes to mind comes out of how each avatar was presented and the response by the other avatars. Immediately the entire class began riffing on the presentation. Leading questions, double entendres, sexual innuendo, puns, word-play were all established as appropriate responses to the presentations. The question I have for the students is would they have reacted the same way to an in-class presentation? So – a classmate gets up to present ideas from a reading assignment, or a monologue, a movement, a model, a drawing, a film clip – do you immediately start making unusual comments and demanding that they discharge their weapon? From the most visibly complex avatars built with layers or contrasting elements to the more subtle, but no less engaging approaches each avatar opened up with the presented narrative and the explosive responses. This is exactly the point of play – it creates a free zone where you do not need to self-censor – a space that can be used for riffing, for experimentation, for improvisation. Teaching at an art school I feel compelled to point out that this type of space is a creative space. Why we don’t construct spaces like this more often is beyond me. But there it is. Second Life is a carnival, old chum – no question about it.