Another View of Avatar and Human Integration

The chart below visualizes some of the areas of shared interest and integration between my human counterpart and I. The relative size of the words are reflections of the level of mutuality. I'm working on a couple more images that I hope to post later this week.

Pseudonymity, Separatism and Multidimensional Thinking

There have been a couple of very interesting conversations going on over the last few days related to two blog posts on the topic of human and avatar identity:

• "Pseudonynimity AKA Privacy" by Soror Nishi decried what she sees as a growing consensus in the avatar community that revealing one's human identity is a good thing.  Soror finds the "avatar AKA human identity" trend boring and wrong-headed.

• "There is No Wall" by Lalo Telling put forward the idea that the "Augmentationist/Immersionist" conversation would be better served by replacing those terms with "Separatist/Integrationist." 

I decided to go up the mountain with my visualization tools and see what might be revealed on the topics. Here's what I came back with:

This first graphic takes the binary view of pseudonymity discussed in Soror's post and attempts to reveal the multi-dimensional complexity beneath the surface.



This next graphic explores the "what" of Lalo's Separation/Integration concept.



I'll write more about the graphics and their underlying ideas later this week.

New Comic Teaser for "Botgirl Vs. Human: The Real Life Video"

Are Multiple Identities Contrary to a Life of Integrity

Yesterday I wrote on the new Transworlder's Community site:

I'm ready to be done with peering through the duality of SL vs. RL and the psychological, social and technical barriers that keep them apart. We live ONE LIFE through multiple identities, upon multiple worlds.

After sleeping on it, I realized that the post left the door open to a number of implications I did not intend to communicate. So I'm offering a couple additional points as clarification:

1. Public pseudonymity IS compatible with the quest to live with integrity. There are many good reasons one might choose to use one or more publicly anonynous or pseudonymous identities, including their value as safe vehicles for online exploration.  That said, I do believe that witholding information is very different than providing false information. And that hiding important aspects of ourselves from our closest friends and significant others is detrimental to both our relationships and our self-acceptance.
   
2. Integrity does not require one to look or act the same in every environment. No one would expect you to dress for work in the same clothes you use for camping, or chit chat with your your neighbor at their kitchen table with the same level of intimacy you share with your lover in bed (or on your kitchen table). The same concept holds true for virtual environments and relationships.  Integrity comes from acting from a unified set of ethical principals, not in having an avatar that looks and acts (god forbid) just like your human counterpart.
   

We are so much more than the sum of our parts, but we must integrate our diverse dimensions to synthesize our full potential.

"The artwork is, to be sure, a thing that is made, but it says something other than what the mere thing itself is, allo agoreuei. The work makes public something other than itself; it manifests something other; it is an allegory. In the work of art something other is brought together with the thing that is made. To brint together is, in Greek, symballein. The work is a symbol."  Martin Heidegger in The Origin of the Work of Art

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Transworlders of the Worlds Unite!

I sketched this image last year to visualize a trend I was seeing in the movement of identities between worlds.

Today, avatar identities created initially in Second Life are even more widely travelled and have large, established communities on human-centric social networking and sharing sites like Ning, Facebook, Flickr and Plurk, and Virtual Worlds such as Twinity, Metaplace and ReactionGrid, to name a few.

Although we are a diverse group, I believe we have common concerns and it makes sense to work together to pursue mutual aims, such as interoperability and the right to move our virtual assets between worlds.

Since every interest-group needs a name and catchy slogan, I propose "Transworlders: Avatars Everywhere!"

A new class of sites are opening that support Transworlders in the movement of avatars and virtual assets between worlds. I think that such services will become increasingly important to those of us with consistent avatar identities that move between many worlds:

• Evolver allows you to create 3D avatars from 2D images and then export to a wide variety of formats that can be imported into Virtual Worlds, graphic formats (such as the embeddable image here) or even a Physical World action figure!

• Animeeple and Mixamo can import an avatar, help you create animations, and then export the animations for use in virtual worlds, videos, images or other animation programs.
  

• Second Inventory allows you to move digital assets including shape, skin and inventory between Second Life and Open Sim virtual worlds.
 

 

 

I created a Transworlders Community Site on Ning as I was writing this post. It's just a shell at the moment, but feel free to join and start posting.

Not Mixed Reality...One Reality: New Comic

Well, at least our perception of reality. Stories are the substance of our conception of the worlds, our lives and ourselves. I'm loving the story of avatars interacting in normal, human settings. Here's my latest little comic sketch, in collaboration with you know who.

Starting Work on Exhibit for Museum of Virtual Art in Second Life

The Second Life 365 Days Project continues to prove itself as an inspirational practice. Today, I whipped together this Sunday afternoon video continuing experimentation with exposing the interface and the computer.

Botgirl Questi Beats Philip Rosedale's LoveMachine To Market With Low-Tech Solution

If reports are right, Second Life founder Philip Rosedale's LoveMachine start-up will be creating some sort of reputation currency for businesses. The currently two-man operation has a cool logo, a couple of entries on their blog and are offering a bounty of $50 (at least it's not L$50) for a design stratgy for iPhone application configuration management.

I wish them well, but have come up with a low-tech strategy for employee motivation that I can start delivering next week:

*** Princess Barbie Reward Stickers ***

Despite my inherently digital nature and hatred of that bitch Supergirl Barbie, truth is, nothing says "we appreciate you" like a Disney sticker, as the product blurb says:

A fantastic set of 400+ Disney Princess Stickers for your child or school children employees when it comes time to make them feel special for that big accomplishment or just for a rainy day when they have nothing else to do.

I've got a line on a wholesale source of books and am confident that companies will be very receptive to this warm-and-fuzzy way to reward their workers for a job well done!

Sorry Philip. Better luck next time!

I Didn't Want To Be A Cloud

A little true story about serendipity. Music from the London cast of Snoopy (The Musical).

The Acceleration of Nostalgia in Virtual Life

The Second Life 365 Days project continues to catupult me into unexpected spaces, both internal and external. Unlike SL365 participants who are inworld everyday and can capture whatever they're up to, so far every entry I've made has been a result of logging on specifically for the project.

Last night, I initially planned to rez my old tower from Botgirl Isle in Extropia and take some shots, when I was suddenly struck by a strong wave of nostalgia for my Old Extropia Home and the life I briefly led there.

My active participation in the Independent State of Extropia lasted only about six months, but represented the most intense, productive and social period of my virtual life to date. A year later, my good friends and leading Extropians Vidal and Sophrosyne have both left Second Life. Extropia itself, once the thriving center of Immersionist and TransHumanist thinking in Second Life, is a ghost of its former self (given the latest post to their website's news section is dated April 1.)

Scarp Godenot posted yesterday in Plurk:

Two SL friends Left SL without a word. Closed groups defriended all, abandoned land. No reason no warning. Are they really 'friends'?

From almost the start of my virtual existence, it seemed to me that the primary benefit of a second life for humans is its potential to lift up one's first life. The accelerated and intensified perception of time, relationships and experience, combined with continual reminders of impermanence make it an ideal classroom for transcendence...to learn to love the friend you're with, even though they will likely disappear from your life one day without leaving a trace.

Avatars Everywhere

After playing around for a few weeks with extending myself into the Physical World, it seems the time is right for a little campaign to socialize the idea that avatars aren't just for virtual spaces. Every campaign needs a slogan, I thought "Avatars Everywhere" expressed the concept nicely.

Here's a draft of a video to promote the idea.

"Naturalized" Photo and Video Depict Integration of Virtual and Physical Worlds

The photo above is the latest in a series of images and videos shot with an iPhone. These naturalized images take me into a physical world setting without any green screen tricks to fake my placement in a physical world environment. Outside of clean-up to fix color balance and some minor air-brushing, what was there is pretty much what you get.

Although it's been fairly experimental so far, in weeks ahead you'll see me extending the concept of naturalized stills and videos into a number of human settings... participating in discussions around the family dinner table, out for a walk at the park..the sky's the limit! (hint, hint).

On a whim, we threw together a short behind-the-scenes video to provide a little flavor of the mix of physical and virtual in the shooting session for the image above.

My War With Supergirl Barbie Erupts Into Amazon Ambush by Batgirl

It looks like that little tramp Supergirl Barbie didn't take too kindly to my righteous ranting. Instead of flying off into the sunset, she's obviously enlisted her fellow DC superbimbo, Batgirl, to sabotage the release of my new Best of Botgirl e-book for the Amazon Kindle. Follow the arrow above for the clear evidence of their subterfuge.

Best of Botgirl 01 Now Available for Kindle on Amazon.com

Although it's still self-publishing, there's something very cool about seeing it up on Amazon. If you've had a chance to read any version, please take a moment and leave a review.

Even Botgirl Gets The Blues: Overcoming Virtual World Ennui

No matter how blissful your Second Life honeymoon may be, one day you're going to log in and notice that the magic is gone. The seemingly infinite wellspring of captivating people, places, events and projects has dried up, leaving you bored, restless and questioning the value of your digital life.

I've made it through a number of dry stretches over the course of the last couple of years. Here are a few of the lessons I've learned so far:

1. It's NOT better to burn out than to fade away. Get enough sleep. Spend time with your signficant others. For those who make it past the nubie stage and transform into the avatar of their dreams, a love affair with Second Life can be all-consuming. And the food that's being wolfed down is the time and attention that was formerly devoted to First Life.
2. Figure out your SLpurpose and go back to the drawing board as needed. Check in with yourself on a regular basis and ask "Why am I here?" Maybe it's just to have fun. That's okay. But I suspect that many of us end up living their Second Lives out of habit (or addiction) more than out of joy or the pursuit of some greater purpose. What a waste!
3. Consciously choose your balance of consumption, creation and social activity. It's easy to gravitate to one dimension or another. Stagnation is likely unless you stir things up once and a while.
4. Try new things.The only way to get out of a rut is to step out of your comfort zone once in a while to meet new people and try new activities. This also applies to creatives who can pick a different medium.
   
5. Read my blog regularly. I'm just kidding! 

What have I missed?

Where Has Your Avatar Identity Travelled?

I spent much of last week sorting through old blog posts in preparation for the first "Best of Botgirl" e-book. Some of the topics I'd written about that were a bit obscure at the time (such as the impact of camping on search results and population numbers) have made their way into mainstream discussion. Some posts, like my sketch-comedy script about the Second Life® trademark controversy, are already quite dated and a bit quaint.

One idea that I think deserves more discussion is the concept of "Emergents" that was introduced in May of 2008. Emergents represented a new category of virtual world users to the formarly binary pair of "Augmentationists" and "Immersionists": 

It is possible to have a very full experience of immersion without developing a unique virtual personality. That said, it seems that most active Second Life residents I've encountered describe some sense of a virtual identity that is psychologically individuated from their human self. For instance, one avatar with very close and emotionally intense inworld ties said that her human identity was ambivalent about her online relationships. So the identity that writes a loving blog post to her online loved ones is not the human, but the virtual. These identities don't merely persist outside of the virtual world on the web, but persist within consciousness. This brings up all kinds of questions about human personality and identity. from Spectatorship, Immersion and Emergence Part 2

Although I've been playing around with the concept artistically through works like this most recent image for the SL365 Flickr Group, I think it's time to take another more subtantive look at the idea.

Where has your avatar identity travelled...Twitter, Plurk, Facebook, Youtube, Google Wave, RL book and CD publishing?  If you have any good stories about your avatar identity's exploits outside of Second Life, please share them with us by posting a comment.

New Video Concept at Play With Fourth Wall

This video was created as my third update to the Second Life 365 Flickr Group. It's a project started by Chestnut Rau. Participants post a self-portrait a day for a year. Although it first struck me as a group for photo-happy narcissists, it now seems like a great way to deconstruct the elements that go into one's virtual identity and transcend them (if only by the virtue of escaping from the sheer boredom of a daily pic.)

Anyway, my human collaborator had been messing around using an iPhone to video tape Second LIfe from a laptop screen. This version was created by shooting a projected image along with the shooter's shadow. The machinima (still call it that?) is just a fast experimental sketch, but we we have more planned in the future, including using a better camera, lighting, coherant narrative, etc.

Best of Botgirl 01 E-Book Available: Avatar and Human Identity

Best of Botgirl 01: Identity

Dear John Letter To My Human And That No-Talent Bitch

Dear Soon To Be My Ex-Human,

This stupid comic of yours is the last straw! Get this straight: I'm the freaking muse in the family.

I humored your little fantasy at first. When you sent over the costume and asked me to flaunt myself in a Tabloid, I gritted my teeth and smiled for the photo. Surely, you'd soon come to your senses and realize how utterly clichéd her character was.

But no. You had to keep pushing it farther and farther. A virtual Supergirl wasn't enough, so you went and got yourself a mail order Supergirl Barbie. How pathetic! You just wouldn't let it go:

"Botgirl, let's photoshop an image of you and Supergirl Barbie. It will be fun!"

"Botgirl, let's make a video with Supergirl Barbie. It will be really cute!"

"Botgirl, let's use the Barbie World song in the video of your Cherrybomb band's photo sesion."

And now you're publishing a comic with that air-headed plastic has-been instead of me? Enough!

I'm drawing the line. It's her or me. You're not the only human in the world. There are plenty of air-breathers who would be thrilled to throw their stupid dolls in the trash for the chance to have Botgirl Questi as their muse.

So what's it going to be?

The Intellectual nonProperty Sutra aka Gospel of The Word

I was inspired to write this after viewing an excerpt of a lecture by Jay Rosen of NYU on the Ethic of the Link.

I
Before the beginning The Nameless was.
Infinite. Timeless. Whole.
In the beginning there was The Word.
The Word birthed Humankind.
The Word was Humankind.
And it was good.

II
For 10,000 years The Word was constrained
Within the mortal vessel of the human brain.
Moving only from mind to mouth,
Mouth to ear,
Ear to mind.

III
These are the generations of The Word and its vessels in physical form:
Pictographic; Ideographic; Alphabetic.
Brain; Cave Walls; Clay Tablets; Papyrus; Parchment; Paper.
Mouth; Chisel; Brush; Pen; Press.

IV
The Word arisen in digital form speaks thusly:
Yesterday I was freed from limitations of brain and voice
And you were reborn through abstract thought.
Today I am freed from the laws of the atomic world.
Why do you still make your home in poverty?

V
Those who wish to practice the Perfection of the Network should see things in this way:
Form is empty, emptiness is form.
No avatar. No human.
No property. No piracy.
No identity. No privacy.
No creator. No consumer.

Jesus said to them, "When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter [the kingdom]." The Gospel of Thomas

Another Recovered Fragment From 1920's Stag Film Archive

For more information, see Friday's post.