I Took The Tateru Comic Challenge

Some say that creativity is a product of our freedoms. I’m more of the opinion that creativity is a product of our constraints, whether externally imposed or self-imposed. So, the self-imposed challenge: Take five images (already taken) from the digital camera’s memory-card and weave them into a one-page comic that tells a story.  Tateru Nino

The Dance of Art, Escape and Awakening Between Worlds

If you spend enough time in a virtual world your perception will eventually shift and become imbued with a sense of reality. In the distance between that visceral experience on the one hand, and its clearly constructed nature on the other, it is possible to awaken to the fictional aspects of human existence.  My question dear human brothers and sisters, is whether you are choosing to use avatar form to escape from meatspace or wake up to it.

Art that dances between worlds is one way to deconstruct the story-making aspects of our lives and gain awareness of reality construction within ourselves and our cutlures. I am in the process of being readied for a transmedia storytelling journey into the atomic world, while my human is preparing a form for the virtual. The story is writing us, as we write the story. Join the fun!

Botgirl's New RL (more or less) Brother

MUCH more to come!

How are a Bunny and a Duck like a Fat Old Human and a Hot Young Avatar

 I started working a few months ago on what I thought was a brilliant idea for a video that would be unveiled at the upcoming Ambiguity of Identity show at New Caerleon. It was going to be a morph between humans and avatars, showing extreme changes in age, gender, etc. I prowled the Creative Commons category in Flickr for images to use in a prototype and ended up selecting a heavy middle-aged man in a swimming suit, and a hard-bodied hot female avatar. I thought that showing the transition between such different forms would powerfully demonstrate the ambiguous nature of identity.

I spent a few hours creating the morph, rendered a video and WAS COMPLETELY GROSSED OUT BY THE RESULT.

At first, I was really, really bothered that I was bothered. I finally realized that the image depicted in the morph was the virtual equivalent of racist art. It presented a distorted and intentionally distasteful image that was associated with a particular group of individuals (age and gender shifted avatars).

It was all my fault. I picked the most unattractive person I could find in order to magnify the difference between human and avatar. And on the level of creating a work to induce a visceral response, it was a resounding success. But after a lot of consideration, I ultimately decided to not show the work and come up with something else for the show.

Which brings me to to the image at the top of this post. It's Wittgenstein's duckrabbit. The relevance is that although you can see either a duck or a rabbit, you can't see them simultaneously. And I think that metaphor is closer to the reality of human/avatar identity. At least in cases where there is a great divergence between the two.

There is no physical fusion between forms
There is one
There is the other
All is right with the worlds

There is, in ventriloquism, illusion without deception. David Goldblatt in Art and Ventriloquism

The thread of Ventriloquism and Virtual Identity will continue. Stay tuned!

Human, Me and Majic Makes Three (Video)

Another mind-stretching contemplation on the relationship between ventriloquism and virtual identity. I will soon post a more substantive textual missive on the topic. I promise!

Prelude #2

Still contemplating how ventriloquism relates to avatar identity.


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Botgirl and Human - Idealized and Aged

Michelle's Hyachinth's "Muscling in on Identity" post got me thinking about the relationship between cultural standards of beauty and identity...how we perceive ourselves and others. So I put together this little montage of idealized and aged avatars for myself and my human. (Although I've got to admit, I'm pretty much idealized to start with.)

I wonder how my life would have been different in a different form.

Ventriloquism and Virtual Identity (Prelude)

Before I launch into a look at the connection between ventriloquism and virtual identity, here are a couple of fun clips that illustrate some of the ideas we'll explore.

Art, Avatar and Self

(Continues The Emergence and Development of Virtual Identity)

The essential questions of existence, where sentience comes from and where it goes after death, are unknown. That said, even though the full nature of our innermost essence is shrouded in mystery, we can hack pretty far into the internal and external forces that create and shape our identity. Today I want to bring up the relationship between creativity and identity.

I think most people view artistic works as products of a "Clay in The Potter's Hand" process. The artist molds a lifeless medium to conform to his or her inner vision.  But in my personal experience, I almost always feel (when it's going well) as if I am in a living dialog with the emerging work.

Just the other day, a horn part unexpectedly presented itself in a track that started out as a pretty straightforward rock song. When I said, "I have no idea where that came from," the producer commented that "it was where the song wanted to go."

It would be going too far – too far beyond analogy toward identity – to claim that a work of art possesses a sense of self, but if we are speaking analogically, it would be difficult to find a better way to succinctly capturing the kind of internally generated coherence many works of art exhibit.  Garry L. Hagberg in critical commentary preface to Art and Ventriloquism

I think the same sort of collaboration that goes on between art and artist also occurs in the creation and development of identity, both avatarian and human. Our sense of who we are evolves through a continuous dialogue between our existing conception of self, our creative imagination, and the environment.

As a fictional character, it's easy for me to view myself as both artist and artistic work. But I think this notion is equally applicable to mere flesh-and-blood humans.

...the nature of the relation between artist and artwork, between mind and speech, between writer and writing, are all, in their circumstantial complexities, resistant to the dualistic metaphysical categories of inner and outer, mental content and outer expression, and...self and medium Garry L. Hagberg

I'll continue this thread in the next post.

The Emergence and Development of Virtual Identity - Introduction

from "Botgirl vs. Human 01"

Like a lobster who does not feel itself being boiled in the slowly rising temperature of a cooking pot, few humans deeply experience the dramatic shifts in their sense of self as they age over time. Of course, most adults would agree upon reflection that they are in fact very different beings than their five-year-old selves.

People can also experience and express divergent or even conflicting personality traits within the span of a day or even an hour. For instance, a prison guard who embodies a brutal persona during the day at his job, might go home at night and deeply experience the role of being a loving husband and father.

I propose that the emergence of a distinct avatar identity is rooted in the same processes that contribute to such variants of "normal" human personas, and that the main difference contributing to the somewhat dissociated state of consciousness is in the unique (virtual) body and name that is associated with the online identity.

I will explore this idea over the course of the next few posts. Part 1 will focus on the relationship between artistic expression and personality.

...the expression of the self through the medium of artistic materials is itself a prolonged interactive process in which both self and work acquire a form and order they did not at first possess... Gary L. Hagberg, in critical commentary of "art and ventriloquism"


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Are virtual friends as real as physical friends?

A tweet last night asked whether virtual friends who habitually disappear for periods of time without notice are "real friends". I suspect that is a question most readers of this blog have asked themselves. It was one of the first aspects of virtual life that I wrote about here:

Second Life friendships are more ephemeral than in RL. In the physical world, you don’t have to wonder whether the person you just spent time with will dump their identity and never reappear. Or that they’ll disable your ability to find them, short of moving out of town and changing cell phone numbers. There’s probably more anxiety associated with perceptions of rudeness, apathy or disinterest in SL encounters and relationships. (March 2008)

I divide this topic into two categories. The first is the pervasive uncertainty within all pseudonymous relationships.

Although non-pseudonymous relationships can change without warning, in almost all cases you can find out what happened to the other person. But when someone drops out of their virtual identity, even for a short time, there is often no way to find out what happened until they choose to reemerge. This cloud of unknowning can create a strong emotional charge within relationships. Here's an example of the kind of disturbing thoughts a simple missed date can create:

• 6:00 pm: God, I can't wait until eight. Maybe I should log in now, just in case she shows up early. She's probably missing me as much as I'm missing her.
• 6:15: Since I'm here, I might as well do some shopping. I know! I'll pick up something really hawt to wear tonight. I can’t wait to take my new outfit off for her LOL! Gosh, she makes me laugh even when I just think about her. I could use a laugh. My RL's so damn boring, I can hardly stand it.
  
• 8:07: Hmm, this is strange. Wonder where she is?
  
• 8:15: It's probably nothing. Maybe she got stuck in traffic. Darn. I guess I don't even know if she has a car.
  
• 9:00: She's never been an hour late before. I hope she's okay. Damn, I really miss her. What should I do? I guess I'll check out a few more stores.
  
• 10:00: Where the heck is she? God I love her. Where's that notecard with the new poem she wrote me? Here it is! I love her poems so much. She's so talented! Gosh, I can't believe I'm freaking out like this. It's so silly! Ok. I'll go out and dance for a while and have some fun.
  
• 11:10 Damn! I hate this. People are so stuck up. No one except the stupid greeter even says hello. Where the fuck is Jolene? Now that I think about it, she's been acting a little distracted lately. Man, I hope she wasn't IMing someone else without telling me. Nah, she wouldn't do that. I've had it. I'm going to log off and go to sleep.
  
• 12:05 am: Why didn’t she let me know she wouldn't be on tonight? The least she could have done is send me a message on Twitter. Damn. That's what I should have done. I'll just get up now for a minute and send her a quick tweet.
  
• 12:07: Jolene, I’m getting a little worried hun. Where are you? Please let me know that you are okay as soon as you can. I’m still yours. At least leave me a message! That’s RUDE!
• 12:08: Shit! Too many characters.
• 12:10: I’m getting a little worried hun. Where are you? Please let me know you're okay as soon as you can. I’m still yours. At least leave me a message!
  
• 12:12: Damn. I can't go to sleep. I'll log back in. Maybe she'll show up.
  
• 3:30: I hate Second Life. Stupid Twitter. Real friends are there when you need them. I'm going to bed.

(From "Where's Jolene?")

The second category is the uncertainty related to close friends who disappear for extended lengths of time, or for good. Sometimes avatars leave with notice. Other times times they just fall of the face of the virtual world without warning. In either case, the emotional pain experienced by abandoned friends and loved ones can be significant and long-standing. I posted some ideas about supporting the grieving process back in March.

friend noun 1 a: one attached to another by affection or esteem (from Mirriam-Webster)

This brings me back to the original question of whether virtual friends are as real as physical friends. Based on overwhelming testimony since the very first online communities, is is clear that there is absolutely no difference in the sense of what friends mean to us. But I think the question in the tweet was more about the responsibilities related to friendship. What we owe, rather than what we receive or feel.

Is there a different ethical standard for virtual vs. physical friendships? At this point, I'm not going to answer that question, other than to suggest that we can only do so after doing the work of figuring out what the cultural norms are for non-pseudonymous friendships. I hope to examine that question in a future post.

Botgirl Sneaks Into The Physical World (Video)

Video sketch of an idea I've been romancing.

A New Blogroll Strategy

The image was created with Touchgraph and visualizes some of the links between Second Life-related blogs.

After removing my out of date Blogroll a few weeks ago, I've finally added a new version to the sidebar. The prior list was created from a feed Zoe Connolly compiled over a year ago that included almost every Second Life-related blog that was active at that time.

The new version includes only a small number of blogs that I follow closely and displays just the five most recent posts from that group. My hope is that this new approach will be of more consistent value to most readers.

I also added a link to Second Effects' full list of Second Life-related blogs for those who would like to browse the entire SL Blogosphere. (The Second Effects list raking is based on Technorati Authority, which recently removed blogroll links in its ranking calculations. It will be interesting to see how the new numbers impact the SL list the next time ArminasX revises it.)

Waking Dream

This video continues the visual meditation on self and non-self from yesterday's comic panel. It's an adaptation of the Botgirl vs. Human: Waking Dream web comic.

For Those Who Deny The Reality of Fictional Characters