Miso and Maslow

VizThink Sketch
Red = unfulfilled, Yellow = partially fulfilled, Green = well fulfilled, Gold = exceptionally fullfilled

A recent post by Miso Susanowa provided compelling personal testimony that virtual community can meet love and belonging needs typically fulfilled through physical world relationships and social circles. She wrote:

I don't have much of a family in RL; this community is what I think of as my family . . . They gave me a gift more precious than anything: to know that they care about me irregardless of my status, my station or my mistakes; to know I had friends and family. I haven't had much of that in my life and it is a treasure to me worth more than any material thing.

The graphic is a first swing at trying to visualize how different people may leverage their physical and virtual identities to meet Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

I May Live to Regret This: New Virtual Identity Project Launched

Saturday's Meet The Artist session helped me realize that it's time to roll up my virtual sleeves and figure out how to weave my work on virtual identity into a cohesive framework. My plan is to integrate the disparate threads through the narrative approach I've been taking in comics like Social Networking and Identity. I may live to regret this. It's a big freaking project:

• My first step will be to comb through the 700+ past posts here, gather sections that still ring true and do an initial cut-and-paste organization. 

• Next, I'll translate key concepts into a series of infographics using what I suspect will be a diverse range of metaphors and visualization approaches. 

• Finally I'll tie everything together through a (hopefully) entertaining story that brings the infographics to life through a long form comic.

I'll post drafts of graphics along the way, ranging from brainstorming sketches to more fully realized versions. (The image above is what I came up with during a short VizThink session on Sunday.)

That's my plan. Wish me luck. Stay tuned.

Virtual Worlds and Egalitarian Art

I've been thinking a lot about virtual art over the last week in preparation for Saturday's Meet The Artist interview. As I struggled to write the requisite artist's statement, I noticed how easy it is to fall into a pretentious state of mind:

pre·ten·tious/priˈtenCHəs/Adjective: Attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than is actually possessed.

Once I got over my wee self, I realized that what I value most about Second Life art isn't the high-end work of serious artists, but the everyday artistic expression that pervades the culture. It seems that just about everyone I've met who has been involved in Second Life for more than a few months posts images or machinima to media sharing sites or plays around with building or scripting inworld. It seems to me that the power of virtual identity to facilitate creative expression for the many is much more consequential than its role as a new tool for "real" artists.

I'll leave you today with two artist's statements. The first is a visual artist's statement created under my human identity last October. The second is a spoof video I bumped into yesterday on Feedly.

Visceral Example of Real Time CoExistent Human/RP Identity

The Muppets again. This time with a video that brings the image from my prior post on the topic to life. A few minutes into the clip, Jim Henson talks about why Kermit is perceived as a unique living character even when Henson is clearly visible and moving his lips when Kermit is speaking. The playlist for the entire show is here.

The Avatar Formerly Known as the Artist

My human counterpart is slated to discuss virtual art and avatar identity with art historian Rowan Derryth this Saturday June 26 from 4-5pm SLT as part of Prim Perfect's SL8B Meet the Artists' series. So I've been thinking recently about the juxtaposition of art and identity.

On one hand, if I'm an artist (using both the terms "I" and "art" loosely) then the primary medium is virtual identity. The comics, graphics, sketches and machinima are props for the larger performance art of Being Botgirl.

On the other hand, I have a hard time labeling my work as virtual outside the context of virtual identity. At least in the way that the works of artists such as Soror Nishi and Wizard Gynoid are clearly virtual because they are created entirely within a virtual world and designed to be experienced within one.

And as a fictional character, Botgirl Questi is art, not artist:

Avatar Identity: One Visual Metaphor

My Take on the Meaning of Avatar Appearance

There's been a bit of controversy recently in the SL Blogosphere about what, if anything, one's choice in avatar appearance means. It started with a post by Senban Babii focusing on the relationship between avatar appearance and social conformity:

If you go and take a look around the places like infohubs and clubs and the places where Mr and Mrs Average Resident are to be found, you'll actually find an amazing degree of social conformity and lack of individual expression . . . I'm not suggesting that people are turning into mindless clones. Yet, perhaps they already were?

Here's my take on the issue:

1. There is deep multi-dimensional meaning behind the appearance of every avatar you see. 
2. You have no freaking clue about what that meaning is for anyone except yourself.

Extropia Burning

I've been looking for a new horizon
But all I see is Extropia burning
The dream of the Transhuman Grail has vanished
Merlin is a Meeroo
Camelot is Disneyland
I am adrift

 

Avatar vs. Human Artistic Interpretation of Experience

I realize that some people, maybe most people, don't get the purpose of projecting a fictional avatar identity in addition to one's "real" human persona. Outside of it just being fun, I see it as a means to develop the ability to see both the world and our own experiences through multiple perspectives. Here's a small, personal example of how a single thought (Some days it all sounds like blah, blah, blah . . .) is interpreted differently through human and avatar artistic expression.

Human:

And avatar (from my last post):

Blah, Blah, Blah

I've scanned through my Twitter stream and news feeds one or more times most waking hours for the last couple of years. But recently, I've had such a big spike in professional and personal commitments that I've been lucky to to view them more than a few times a day. Surprisingly, I've found that instead of avidly reading and posting when time and attention permits, I've lost a lot of my interest.

I'm still not sure what's up with that, but I suspect it has something to do with immersion. Although the concept of immersion is usually applied to being fully engaged in a game or a virtual world, I think there's a similar phenomenon related to social networks.  When I was attending to a social network multiple times per hour on a daily basis, I experienced a psychological sense of being pervasively present and connected with the people in my stream. There was a strong pull to participate and be a tangible presence in the community.

Now that that my former state of immersion has been lost, sometimes it all seems like blah, blah, blah. That's the inspiration for this video.

Botgirl's Fortune Cookie Wisdom: A Bad Trade

Fortune Cookie Wisdom Wallpaper