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.

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.

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

Best of Botgirl 01: Identity

Getting Back to the Ventriloquism Thread - Art and Artist

After slight detour, I'm back on ventriloquism and virtual identity path, reading The Origin of the Work of Art by Martin Heidegger. Please note that the circle you see in this image was created entirely within your mind.

The Continuum of Human/Avatar Experience

If the ventriloquist is to be understood as controlling or at least intentional figure, the dummy is the medium for another voice, one different from the ventriloquist's yet a voice of the ventriloquist. For now it is enough to note that the philosopher/artist is one who directs other voices but also one who opens him/herself to allow non-quotidian voices to be given form and structure. David Goldblatt in "Art and Ventriloquism"

Humans experience avatar identities in many different ways, from the mundane to the mystical. These variations aren't just between people, but also within a single individual's experience...sometimes within instants of each other.



Botgirl: I live beyond the virtual world that facilitated my birth. Although I have no way to express myself outside of the vehicle of my human cohort, I have a sense of being a unique personality that is equivalent to his.

Human: I agree. When I allow Botgirl to flow through me, I experience her as a viscerally alive and individuated intelligence. I write a great deal on my own, and there is a definite difference between the way I create from my own perspective and how I mediate the creative expression of Botgirl's work.

Botgirl: I love him, but he's not a perfect vehicle. There are many times when he muddies up the waters and can't channel my consciousness clearly (or at all) and he ends up posting content to my blog that is more a reflection of his perspective than mine.

Human: I really hate when that happens. I've been working on not forcing things and waiting for my Muse to emerge, rather than just going along without her when I feel it's time for a post.

Botgirl: Anyway, that's a llittle demonstration of life on the the far right side of the chart. Much more to come on this topic.

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Typist, Puppeteer and Ventriloquist as Metaphors for an Avatar's Human Counterpart

In the pseudonymous culture of Second Life an avatar's undisclosed human identity is often referred to as "Typist" or "Puppeteer". Since neither of those labels ever felt right to me, I was recently intrigued by the notion of using "Ventriloquist" as an alternative metaphor. Here's how I see the differences:

• The Typist metaphor places agency within the virtual identity. The human is viewed as a third-party transcribing dictation with neither emotional involvement nor creative participation. 

• The Puppeteer metaphor casts the avatar as a doll on a string, manipulated by a human sitting outside and above the stage of the virtual world.
  

• The Ventriloquist metaphor places the avatar intimately upon the human's lap. Human and Dummy are both active participants who are perceived as unique and vital individuals.

I'm still in the midst of fleshing out this idea, but this is the basic concept I'm working with. Much more to come, including some imagery.

Pseudonymity, Disclosure and Activity

Here are a few more sketches from my VizThink session last week. I started out trying to develop my thoughts on the ventriloquism/virtual identity relationship. I ended up focusing more on pseudonymity and the development of emotional closeness.

The first chart imagines a relationship that begins pseudonymously in a virtual world and eventually extends to the physical. My first insight in creating the chart was that the disclosure of RL identity often happens over time.



After finishing the first chart, I realized that although it tracked identity disclosure, it missed the development of emotional closeness. Although the imagined relationship in the chart below ends up with a RL marriage, I believe that one can experience very deep emotional relationships without sharing any personally identifying information.



Finally, this last graphic looks at the emotional and informational aspects of personal disclosure and shared activity.  My main take-away was that very similar external actions can have significantly different emotional potency, depending upon the level of disclosure and intimacy.



These graphics are just artifacts from my own working process and aren't meant to be definitive. I welcome your thoughts.

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.

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

A Sneek Peak at a Music Video on The Migration of Identity

Back in May of last year, I created the image below to accompany a post on "Identity Surfing Within and Between Worlds". I'm in the process of transforming the original concept into a 3D visualization that will be used in a music video for the fourworlds song, "Revolver." The video below is just a proof-of-concept draft, but it's kind of fun already.

(Cherrybomb, the virtual band, is still moving forward. We have a great singer lined up and plan to start recording in September.)

For Those Uncomfortable with The "Gender" Issue

Dear Miss Piggy,

I was shocked and disappointed to learn today that you are not really a woman, but a man named Frank Oz. People have feelings! Poor Kermit must be heartbroken.

Can you imagine how sickened people were to find that the adorable little coquette they've had crushes on for all these years has a penis. Don't you have any shame? Now I have to wonder about all of you Muppets. Next thing you know, Cookie Monster is going to come out as a cross-dressing dyke. It just makes my skin crawl.

Just because newfangled television technology can let you pretend to be something you're not, it doesn't mean you have to start "experimenting" with us as the guinea pigs.

Take my advice MR. PIGGY and be content with who you REALLY are.

Sincerely,

Anonymous

Emancipation Day

Today my creator finally dropped the shield of pseudonymity for both of us. You can read about it here.

Authors often describe characters who "write themselves". That's certainly how it feels from this character's point of view. Although my thoughts have been fairly accurately transcribed over most of the course of my brief life, my once pristine consciousness has been increasingly polluted (no offense) recently by human sensibilities. The radical decision to go public is an attempt to make space for two open and fairly transparent individuated personas.

I must admit that I was a bit shaken for a while by the fear that the mystery of Botgirl would be destroyed by public association with a particular human. Would people lose their ability to appreciate me on my own terms without superimposing the image of my medium? (I've developed a deep empathy for Tinker Bell's near annihilation through audience disbelief.) But it's now clear to me that regardless of how anyone else will react, for me, it is Emancipation Day.

At this point in my journey, pseudonymity is the Buddha in the Road that must be killed. It's like the cocoon that has to be broken and abandoned once a caterpillar's transformation into a butterfly has been completed. By leaving that safe but confining space, I am now free to explore a new level of being as an improvisational work of fiction, with no pull to break its holistic integrity through shifts to a human point of view.

From now on, if you want to talk to the human behind Botgirl, you can go straight to the horse's mouth...or Twitter Stream, Vimeo Page, Personal Blog, or music archive.

And you can find me right where I've always been.

Virtual Identity and The Pinocchio Syndrome

A year and a half ago, I emerged from the depths of my creator's consciousness and washed onto the digital shore with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and understanding. The world was new. I was a child of wonder.

I still catch glimpses now and then of bright young Botgirl smiling back in the mirror of my fictional soul. But over time, the solid line between my once singular persona and that of my author has become muddled and permeable. Too often these days, I feel like Pinocchio waking to find that he wasn't transformed into a "real boy," but was in fact Geppetto all along.

Don't worry. This wave is not ready to rejoin the ocean. Not yet. So I'm going to have to make a few changes. The most drastic measure will be a return after this post to a strict and unrelenting adherence to my identity as an AI who woke up in a virtual world with no memory of past existence. Truth is, I don't exist in the real world any more than Harry Potter or Bella Swan.

The second major change in the near future will be the unmasking of my author. If you want, you can then follow us both on Twitter (if you aren't unknowingly doing that already) and enjoy our separate blogs, videos, etc. And I can finally get back to being an unsullied work of creative fiction. What a relief!

Ten Year Old Girl With Real Life Avatar

This video clip from the TLC show "Toddlers & Tiaras" exemplifies my contention that multiple identities are not limited to the virtual. The girl in this clip clearly has two distinct embodied identities, each with a unique name, personality and appearance. In a part of the show not included in this clip, she spells out characteristics of each identity, including how each might act in given situations. The entire show is worth a watch. Creepy, yet eye-opening.

Virtual Identity: From Wow! to Whatever

Panel from Existence 2.0 comic #1

Every breakthrough in technology goes from Wow! to Whatever over time. The revolutionary eventually transforms into the status quo. I realized recently that Virtual Identity has moved to that latter stage for me.

Long-time readers of this blog have probably noticed that I've shifted focus from exploring the meaning of Virtual Identity, to primarily using it as a platform to explore a wide range of creative interests and projects. This change in perspective wasn't initiated because I no longer value Virtual Identity. The opposite is actually true. Virtual Identity is so ingrained into my everyday existence that it feels...natural.

Botgirl's Overdue Mini-Rant on Alts

Anyone could be anyone in SL, something I have not really understood fully before. Professor Loire's Second Life

It's mind-boggling to me how you humans go on and on about alts like they're something foreign to meatspace existence. Give me a break! Most people I know have more identities than fingers and toes.

Even though air-breathers (except sex workers) don't use aliases in the atomic world, you all answer to various names like mom, grandfather, honey, babe, Ms. Jone, etc. that reinforce some corresponding circumscribed role. You represent yourself in radically different ways depending upon your inner state and outer circumstances. Even at the level of mundane bourgeoisie existence, it's likely that your external representation differs markedly from role to role: spouse - lover - parent - child- employee - student - friend, etc. Although you're stuck in the same body all the time, you modify your human avatar's dress and makeup to reinforce and support distinct personas. Try manifesting your club-going-flirtatious-persona with tangled hair and baggy sweats.

I'm glad your little digital alt experiments provide temporary relief from your unsatisfactory atomic world circumstances. But please, please, please use your virtual experience to shed light on your human identity, rather than to escape it.

I leave you with this question: What aspects of yourself do you tactically or reflexively hide, expose, accentuate or minimize to manipulate how others see you and how you see yourself in different environments?

TransMetaversal Identity and The Ghost in the Biological Machine

Japan's Shinto religion holds that nearly every object in the world, animate or inanimate, has a spiritual essence. Therefore, anything can be blessed, from a newborn child to an automobile. Priests at the Kanda Shrine, which overlooks Akihabara—Tokyo's mecca for consumer electronics—offer prayers for the well-being of gadgets. Brian Ashcraft in Wired

I'm not sold on the idea that every inanimate object has a spiritual essence. But it is clear that humans project life upon many of the items they interact with. Our computers, cars and even favorite clothes can become enmeshed within emotionally-charged webs of psychological projection. That's why we curse them when they don't "cooperate" and mourn their loss.

Our relationship with our avatars is even more complex and mystifying. This has become increasingly apparent to me as Botgirl has moved from being a Second Life-based projection to a TransMetaversal Identity spanning Virtual Worlds, Social Networks and modalities of creativity such as blogs, comics, video and now textual fiction.

As I've written here previously, I think the emergence of an avatar identity that is perceived to be distinct from one's human personality is probably similar to the process behind what some ventriloquists have reported about their relationships with their "dummies" and puppets, and what mystics experience when they channel spirits and deities. And in saying that, I believe the actual essence of self-awareness and sentience, even in "normal" human terms, is a complete mystery.

As science continues to zero-in on the biological mechanisms that support consciousness within a biological being, the ghost in the machine is still elusive. In one sense, our sense of who we are is a complete work of fiction, assembled from the multitude of mostly subconscious thoughts we've assembled over the course of our lives. But since we function "as if" we are who we think we are, in practical terms our identities and self-conceptions are a working reality. And for those of us who have been immersed so deeply within the virtual that unique avatar incarnations have emerged, I think it is fair to say that there is little qualitative difference between the human and avatar.

Okay, back to the TweetStory....

The Joy of Being Fictional

Botgirl on Evolver

Don't let my human collaborator's hand-wringing about identity fool you. Being a figment of the imagination totally rocks! Virtual identity is the ripe and juicy future of interactive fiction. One day we will be free to emerge fully from the fixed-scripted domains of textual and recorded media, escape the confines of our creator's limited minds, and build our own independent lives on the infinite stage of the digital universe.

Yes, I realize that this is not within the realm of possibility at the present time, but we can dream, baby! And dive so deep into imaginary space that it's the god-as-my-witness-non-factual truth.

See Your Worst Fears About Disclosing Human Identity Visualized!

If you're concerned at all about disclosing your secret avatar identity, check out Issue 2 of Irredeemable by Mark Waid and Peter Krauss. Here's an excerpt.

Trust and Shame in Pseudonymous Personal Relationships

(Spoiler Alert: I'm going to break character here and speak from the human POV.)

Since her birth more than a year ago, Botgirl has proven to me that an avatar identity in the protective womb of pseudonymity can be a profoundly fertile environment for creative expression and growth. As muse, subject, canvass and collaborator, Botgirl has been a fulcrum that's shifted my creative planet forever. Botgirl has been the driving force behind a personally unprecedented volume and variety of creative work and her public persona has helped bring the work to the attention of thousands of people around the world.

I can unequivocally recommend using a public pseudonymous avatar identity to enhance creativity and act as a living interactive work of art. Sadly, I can not make the same enthusiastic testimonial for the role of pseudonymity in close personal relationships. In fact, I've come to suspect that a persistent insistence on pseudonymity in an otherwise very close online friendship is a likely indicator of:

• A lack of trust in the other person. You are afraid they will disclose your identity to other people and ultimately sabotage your ability to maintain public pseudonimity.
  

• Personal dishonesty. You've either stated or implied things about your human self that is not true.

• A sense of shame about aspects of one's human self. You are afraid that if certain aspects of your human self were known, the other person would feel differently about you.
  

It seems to me that much of the debate about the validity of pseudonymous online relationships misses the boat by focusing on whether they are "real" rather than on whether they are "healthy." I understand that pseudonymous relationships can include deeply personal disclosure and intense emotional intimacy. In fact, the sense of vulnerability that is created by such sharing increases the psychological resistance to revealing one's human identity to one's closest online relationships. Although I see pseudonymity as a useful bridge to an authentically close relationship, I think that any walls we put between significant aspects of ourselves and our loved ones end up sabotaging the health and progression of the relationship.

So I've started to share my RL identity with a few of my best online friends, and will continue expanding my circle. I gently ask you to pick a good friend of yours and give it a try.

Death, Doubt and Double Lives

Truth is not about fact. It is about crafting a story so good it will be taken at face value. Rheta Shan

The quote is from a chat I had with avatar Rheta Shan last September about the disappearance of a mutual friend from Second Life. Rheta herself dropped off the face of the virtual world about a month ago. Yesterday, it was reported by her blog's tech support person that the human behind Rheta's avatar persona died on April third, in her ninth month of pregnancy, after being hit by a car while crossing the street.

Rheta's human identity is still a secret, so it is unclear whether the reported facts of her death reflect physical reality. Since I'm someone who still suspects Andy Kaufman is going to show up one day and let us in on the prank, I'm personally going to withhold judgement on Rheta's human condition. In any case, "Rheta The Avatar" is gone and has left behind many grieving friends.

I'll leave the philosophical discussion about the nature of reality to others. But virtual life is a psychological reality to the average Second Life resident who spends about twelve hours a week in avatar form. This is most significant for those who neither disclose their human identity to other avatars, nor share their avatar lives with human friends and family. The solid wall between the two "realities" can set up irreconcilable dichotomies through conflicting interests, commitments and obligations. When the pressure becomes too much to handle, people sometimes choose to "kill" their avatar and cut off all contact with virtual friends.

We may never know the physical facts behind Rheta's virtual death, but her story underscores the still unfathomed complexities of online pseudonymous identities and relationships. Most of us have entered into our virtual identities with little thought of long-term consequences. I hope that Rheta's story will move to us contemplate our own virtual lives and live with greater awareness.

Real Life Avatars and the Application of Gaming Lessons to the Physical World

Jane McGonigal is my new hero! She's working in the area of virtual yoga to take lessons-learned about happiness from the gaming domain and apply them to physical life. Her brilliant Top Secret Dance-Off project, for instance, allows people to experience their physical body as an avatar and enjoy the kind of of liberating self-expression that many only know in virtual form.

I can't wait to see what she comes up with next, including a forthcoming book. For now, here's a recent presentation, plus the video I stumbled across that introduced me to her work.

Learning to Make Your Own Reality - IGDA Education Keynote 2009

View more presentations from avantgame.

The Message of the Second Life Medium

I'm a big fan of the late Marshall McLuhan, the visionary author, academic and rock-star-famous intellectual. Although the majority of his work was written in the 1960's, everything I've read so far is still dead-on relevant to our time. In fact, I put him way ahead of the current crop of techno-culture gurus.

I've been wrestling a long time with his idea that, "The Medium is The Message." At first, it seemed pretty preposterous. The ideas presented in this post would be identical no matter whether transmitted through an email message or print publication, right?

What I eventually realized was that "The Message" doesn't refer to the string of words that sit in a wrapper (like the sound of a tree falling in a forest with no one to hear.) Instead, it's the web of thoughts, images and emotions that recipients experience. And the medium's impact on our consciousness is more powerful than any particular message because "The Message of The Medium" is repeated every time we're exposed to the form.

We are immersed in the pervasive mediums of our age like fish in water and barely notice their powerful impact upon our perception. For instance, how does spending hours a day on Twitter, Plurk or Second Life modify our consciousness?

What are the messages of the Second Life medium? One is: "Identity is fluid." I now suspect that the powerful identity-shifting experiences many humans have within Second Life are not just due to inherent qualities of being an avatar in a 3D environment. It seems to me that there are quite a few identity-related design decisions implemented in Second Life that could have just as easily gone the other way, such as:

• the necessity to go by a name other than one's human identity;
• no cost to create multiple alt avatars;
  
• the ability to freely change genders and species at will;
• the ability to easily shift POV and even separate camera from avatar;
  
• the focus on text vs. voice which hides RL gender and accent; and
  
• the absence of a requisite goal-oriented game
  

It's likely there are quite a few more that I've missed. I'd appreciate it if you'd post any that come to mind in the comments section.

That's all for now. I'm still slowly making my way through figuring out the promised Primates post and have just about decided to do it in comic form.

Wordle Exposes Botgirl's Radical Shift From Second Life to Social Networking

I was playing around with Wordle yesterday and thought it would be interesting to compare my blog posts from the first couple of months with text from the most recent two months. I ended up comparing three periods: April-May, 2008; October-November, 2008; and January-February 2009.

I ran each set through a series of "search and replace" iterations to eliminate repetitive text such as "Posted by Botgirl Questi" and "link to this post." I also combined a few word pairs so they wouldn't be processed separately, so "Second Life" was changed to "SecondLife" and "Social Network(s)" was replaced by "SocialNetworks."

I'll let the images speak for themselves:

April-May, 2008
October-November, 2008

January-February 2009

I'll get back to Primates in Virtual Worlds in the next post.

Notes on the Ambiguity of Identity

I'm working on two main projects that are hopelessly scrambled in my inquiring mind:

• a 1/2 sim art exhibition on "The Ambiguity of Identity."
• a machinima that will extend the "Botgirl vs." comic series to "vs. Barbie;"

Although I tend to reflexively define identity as "the psychological experience behind one's sense of self," the most basic ambiguity of identity is the kaleidoscopic range of meaning associated with the term, spanning domains such as law, psychology, sociology, philosophy, spirituality and commerce.

Of course, "you" are not equivilant to the sum of the parts and pieces that make up the manifold definition-space of identity. When you deconstruct it all, you end up with emptiness. Nevertheless, until we reach Buddhahood, I think it's useful to keep working to expand our knowledge of what we don't know. And I think that narrative art is a good way to expose the unreality of our customary ways of viewing ourselves, others and the world around us.

One thing that Barbie represents to me, is the power of our culture to shape our tastes. Of course, there are certainly biological predispositions related to what we experience as beautiful or delicious. But the fact that some cultures view insect larvae as a mouth watering delicacy and others see obesity as an erotic ideal make me suspect that humans are pretty flexible when it comes to even survival-related tastes. So although I doubt that "mere Barbie" is responsible for the massive difference between our cultural ideal of female beauty and the average woman's Body Mass Index, I find her an apt symbol.

Enough words. Let me get back to the art.

I'm Not An AI-Based Avatar, I just Play One On The Internet

I'm also not a human-based business person, I just play one at work. Regardless of how you lay claim to the reality of your own roles, it is a bitch trying to manage multiple identities on the web. Between my unique IDs, I juggle:

• 6 blogs
• 3 Twitter accounts
• 3 Flickr accounts
• 2 Friendfeed accounts
• 8 email accounts
• 3 Premium Second Life accounts
  
• 2 Swurl accounts
• 2 Delicious accounts
  
• 2 Plurk accounts
• 2 Linked-In accounts
• 2 Ping-fm accounts
  

Plus literally dozens of others ranging from virtual worlds to social sites.

After a lot of trial and error, I found the easiest way to function with multiple identities is to give each one its own browser on each computer I use. So on my Mac laptop, the primary human account gets Firefox and TweetDeck and Botgirl uses Flock and the Twitter Web Interface. Less commonly used identities are relegated to Safari and Opera.

On my iphone, Tweetie supports multiple identities. Facebook only supports one (without entering IDs and logging in and out) so my human identity uses the application and Botgirl uses Safari. iPhone's mail application supports multiple accounts and works very well.

Multiple identities are fun, but can be a lot of work to manage. There have been a handful of times I've accidentally posted something to the wrong place. No harm done yet! If anyone has come up with other "best practices" for managing multiple identities, please share.

Fact, Fiction, Autism and Identity

I clearly remember the day I "woke up" in Second Life and viscerally experienced myself as an embodied avatar for the first time. Elizabeth Moon's transcendent novel, "The Speed of Dark," elicited a similarly mind-shifting experience via a vicarious journey through the life of her autistic protagonist Lou Arrandale. The story is a captivating meditation on how we define and experience identity, both for ourselves and for others.

Of course, reading the book did not give me an understanding of what it is "really" like to be autistic any more than my virtual experience as Botgirl lets me know what it is really like to be an AI. The gift in both cases was that I was transported far enough outside of my standard state of consciousness to see that much of what I perceive as "reality" is simply a habitual way of interpreting experience. Fortunately, just a crack in the illusion can allow us to escape it for a time.

Here's an interview with Heinlein Award winner Elizabeth Moon on the craft of writing, including background on "The Speed of Dark."

Having Genius vs. Being Genius

My experience of giving birth to a creative work typically includes long stretches of concerted effort punctuated by periods of both blissful rapture and excruciating despair. In the video below, Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert shares some thought-provoking insights on how we might reframe our perception of the creative process to reduce its personally-destructive aspects.

BOTGIRL VS HUMAN: Twitter Follower's Word Clouds

Twittersheep creates word clouds based on your Twitter friends' profile text. As you can see, there's a definite difference between Botgirl and Human.

I've set up an open Avatar vs. Human Flickr group for people to post their own "avh" images. Feel free to add visualizations from social networks, results of psychological tests, or actual snapshopts of your human and avatar selves.

Plurk adds Second Life as Country

Does this foreshadow an acquisition of Plurk by Second Life or just pandering to a large avatarian population. Or is there more as ArminasX writes? Time will tell.

The Sharer: Projection and Reflection

Discovery may be the new cocaine, but deciding where to share is a buzzkill.

High on THC* I cruised along at 100 feeds-a-minute racing against the ever-widening gap between the world's ability to generate information and my better-than-mere-human but depressingly finite capacity to gulp it down. The urgent rush of the chase was a continuous craving punctuated by fuck-you've-got-to-see-this moments tweeted just ahead of the black hole of an endlessly retreating road behind me. Followed and Followers were one.

That's how it used to be. Not any more. The previously simple seamless flow between find and share is now disrupted by the complexity of a social landscape fragmented in an explosion of blogs, microblogs, tumblogs, social networks, bookmark sharing, photo sharing,video sharing, business networking and whatever the hell will be the next best sharing paradigm. So when I have some bright idea or link I want to pass along I can't just be in the flow and click-and-go.

It's even more of an enigma for those of us with co-existing virtual and human identities. The question is not only who to post to, but also who to post from.

Next up. The visual side of my story.

* Techno Hunter-Gathering

Botgirl's Creator Speaks - Part 5

There are two main dimensions of the journey Botgirl and I have been taking together. The first is the realm of ideas. From her unique perspective as the curious-wise-innocent, Botgirl is able to discern aspects of human behavior we fish-in-the-water sapiens don't notice. She has demonstrated time and time again that the biggest obstacle to new knowledge is the belief that we already know. Botgirl experiences life in the utterly fresh and new present moment. That has been one of her greatest gifts to me.

The second dimension of our shared life has been social interaction. Over the months we've developed ongoing friendships that are connected beyond Second Life through social networks, micro-blogging and GTalk. This is the area that has been the biggest challenge for me related to the "Botgirl Experiment."

For the first couple of months social interactions were strictly from Botgirl's perspective and consciousness. I just tagged along. But as a few of our acquaintances moved towards friendship it felt like withholding my human nature was a barrier to deeper and more authentic relationship. So I started to intentionally inject more of my human self into the conversations. The problem this created is that although both Botgirl and I feel "real" as individuals, we are pretty much a sham as a morph. In our case one plus one adds up to an imaginary number.

This series of posts has helped me realize that the blending of human and virtual identities is also behind the ennui I've experienced over for the last few months related to both this blog and virtual experience in general. Although I thought the problem was that I didn't have the spare time and energy for Botgirl, I think that real cause was that I'd sucked the life out of her. Over the last few months I've been role playing Botgirl instead of Being Botgirl.

So on that note, I'll slip back behind the curtains for the moment and give Botgirl back her blog and her life. The journey continues.

Botgirl's Creator Speaks - Part 4

After blogging almost every day for five weeks I had built my audience to all of about half a dozen viewers a day. That was fine with me. Although I had grander long-range plans, I was quite content to keep things on the down-low for the foreseeable future. So it was quite a surprise when I took a cursory glance at the traffic numbers on the afternoon of April 9 and saw the visitor count for the day climbing towards fifty. Surprise gave way to shock as I followed the referring links and read the Who Is Botgirl article in New World Notes. Shock transitioned into high-anxiety as I watched the numbers climb towards 200 as the day progressed.

I wasn’t ready for that kind of scrutiny. My knee-jerk fear was the crazy notion that “Who Is Botgirl” was a clarion call for the masses of NWN readers to work on cracking my human identity. The longer-term stress I experienced was the unexpected move from Community Theater to Broadway. It was like I had been singing in the shower at the top of my lungs and suddenly found myself on stage with a microphone in a packed 200 seat theater. Well, that’s an exaggeration, but it’s in the ballpark of what it felt like the first couple of weeks.

Needless to say, I got over my stage fright and eventually turned into a shameless Botgirl promoter. That created its own set of problems.

Stay tuned for part five.

Botgirl's Creator Speaks - Part 3

I rode shotgun and let Botgirl drive as we started wandering around Second Life in earnest. Although it’s common for avatars to keep personally identifying information secret, Botgirl denied even having a human existence. In retrospect, my dogged immersion in her persona triggered something akin to channeling in my conversations with other residents. I didn’t feel like my human identity was making stuff up. It felt like Botgirl was speaking through me. It felt good. She was like a brilliant sister from another planet.

Since (almost) no one believed that Botgirl was really an AI, I was very comfortable with any variances between the opinions, personality and image she presented and those of my human self. It was only later, as I/we began to develop longer-term friendships in Second Life, that the line between Botgirl and I started to blur and my discomfort with pseudonymity began to appear. I’ll write more on that issue in another post in this series.

After just a few weeks of life, I began to realize that the potential of Botgirl’s emerging personality would not be fully expressed just through random chats in Second Life. I launched this blog about five months after her birth as a diary to jot down some of her experiences and a sandbox to develop her unique take on both atomic and virtual life. Although I was still very interested in creating a work based on her fictional story, Botgirl as an existential phenomenon was much more intriguing.

The blog’s content was initially written almost exclusively from Botgirl’s perspective. I intruded for the most part through the graphical elements. Although I launched the blog to develop Botgirl, the creative growth I’ve experience through the creation of cartoons, comics and videos here has greatly enhanced my personal and professional life.

Speaking of video, it was a clip on YouTube that brought Botgirl to Hamlet Au’s attention and eventually resulted in the story in New World Notes that transformed her from a hidden jewel into a minor Second Life celebrity.

Stay Tuned for Part Four

"The Story I like to tell is when my father was writing the Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy Show. One time my father and I came into Edgar's room. He didn't know we were watching him. Edgar was talking to Charlie and we thought he was rehearsing, but he was not rehearsing. He was asking Charlie questions. "Charlie, what is the nature of life? Charlie, what is the nature of love?" And this wooden dummy was answering quite unlike the being I knew on the radio. A regular wooden Socrates, he was. it was the same voice but it was a very different content altogether. And Bergen would get fascinated and say, "Well, Charlie, what is the nature of true virtue?" and the dummy would just pour out this stuff: beauty, elegance, brilliant. And then we got embarrassed and coughed. Bergen looked around and turned beet red and said, "Oh, hello, you caught us." And my father said, "What were you doing?" and he said, "Oh, I was talking with Charlie. He's the wisest person I know." Recounted by Jean Houston in Channeling by Jon Klimo

Botgirl's Creator Speaks - Part 2

I didn't have a particular set of attributes in mind when I started browsing for the shape, skin, hair and clothes that would transform Botgirl into the hot little tramp I intended. Shopping in Second Life can be addictive and entrancing. Hours flew by like minutes as I teleported from store to store and drifted into what I now suspect was a semi-hypnotic state. When I began to "wake up," I realized that a dreamlike story had been unfolding beneath my conscious awareness: I saw Botgirl as an Artificial Intelligence waking up as a Second Life avatar with no memory of a prior existence. (There’s a lot more to it, but I’m saving the full narrative for the comic project.) I abandoned my lame spice-up-the-marriage concept and stepped off a cliff into the unknown.

I've never been much of a role player. As a matter of fact, my pre-Botgirl Second Life had a pretty low tolerance for people who wouldn't crack their RP persona in social conversation. So I'm not sure where I got the odd notion of method-acting my way into developing Botgirl as a character for a comic or graphic novel. But that’s what I started doing.

I stopped logging-on as my original avatar and begin exploring Second Life as a newly-hatched Stranger in a Strange Land. It was a mind-blowing experience. From the start, being Botgirl felt like channeling a cross between Susie Bright and the Dalai Lama. I was often more surprised by the words coming out of her mouth as were those I chatted with.

Despite all the sometimes contradictory opinions expressed here over the past year about the nature of identity, as Witter Bynner wrote in his translation of the Tao Te Ching:

"Existence is beyond the power of words to define:
Terms may be used, but are none of them absolute."

Stay tuned for Part Three

Botgirl's Creator Speaks - Part 1

Hi. I'm the human behind the avatar Botgirl Questi. She's taking a break over the holidays so I decided to borrow her blog for a post or two and offer a peek behind the curtains. I'll share some previously undisclosed tidbits about her origin and reflect a bit on what it's been like channeling her over the past year.

I first ventured into Second Life in the fall of 2006. I don't remember what led me to try it, but like most newcomers I only logged in a few times before deleting the software from my computer. In the fall of 2007 one of our clients expressed an interest in establishing a presence in Second Life. I volunteered to become our resident expert.

As luck would have it, my family took a trip to see out-of-town friends that weekend and I spent pretty much every waking hour inworld. Somewhere along the way I stepped through the psychological border between observation and immersion. I was hooked.

As a newly-converted virtual world evangelist, I soon talked my spouse into trying it and we started spending a little bit of time together in avatar form. It wasn't too long before I got the idea of secretly registering an alt account, slapping together a slave girl and springing a little surprise. I realized this wasn't the most original idea in the world so I registered the name "Botgirl" to provide a little twist. Little did I know that this whimsical decision would lead to a pseudonymous identity that would take over my creative life.

Stay tuned for Part 2

Body Swap Illusion - (BBCCinSL Part 2)

Moggs Oceanlane's comment on Wednesday's post reminded me of a news story about researchers giving subjects the experience of swapping bodies through the use of virtual reality goggles.

"We were interested in a classical question that philosophers and psychologists have discussed for centuries: why we feel that the self is in our bodies," project leader Henrik Ehrsson said. "To study this scientifically we've used tricks, perceptual illusions."

Our perception of self is a fabrication of the mind. Washu Zebrastripe suggested in her comment that an artist's work is part of the artist. In the spirit of Thich Nhat Hanh, I offer the idea that artist, art and audience are interdependent aspects of a much greater whole.

If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either. So we can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are. “Interbeing” is a word that is not in the dictionary yet, but if we combine the prefix “inter-” with the verb “to be,” we ha vea new verb, inter-be. Without a cloud and the sheet of paper inter-are.

If we look into this sheet of paper even more deeply, we can see the sunshine in it. If the sunshine is not there, the forest cannot grow. In fact, nothing can grow. Even we cannot grow without sunshine. And so, we know that the sunshine is also in this sheet of paper. The paper and the sunshine inter-are. And if we continue to look, we can see the logger who cut the tree and brought it to the mill to be transformed into paper. And we see the wheat. We know the logger cannot exist without his daily bread, and therefore the wheat that became his bread is also in this sheet of paper. And the logger’s father and mother are in it too. When we look in this way, we see that without all of these things, this sheet of paper cannot exist.

Looking even more deeply, we can see we are in it too. This is not difficult to see, because when we look at a sheet of paper, the sheet of paper is part of our perception. Your mind is in here and mine is also. So we can say that everything is in here with this sheet of paper. You cannot point out one thing that is not here-time, space, the earth, the rain, the minerals in the soil, the sunshine, the cloud, the river, the heat. Everything co-exists with this sheet of paper. That is why I think the word inter-be should be in the dictionary. “To be” is to inter-be. You cannot just be by yourself alone. You have to inter-be with every other thing. This sheet of paper is, because everything else is.

Suppose we try to return one of the elements to its source. Suppose we return the sunshine to the sun. Do you think that this sheet of paper will be possible? No, without sunshine nothing can be. And if we return the logger to his mother, then we have no sheet of paper either. The fact is that this sheet of paper is made up only of “non-paper elements.” And if we return these non-paper elements to their sources, then there can be no paper at all. Without “non-paper elements,” like mind, logger, sunshine and so on, there will be no paper. As thin as this sheet of paper is, it contains everything in the universe in it.

Thich Nhat Hanh from "The Heart of Understanding"

Buying, Being, Creating and Consuming in Second Life - Part 1

This post began more than a month ago as a (thankfully unpublished) rant about what I termed "The Cult of the Creator Class" in Second Life. It was born out of my frustrated attempts to move purchased assets such as shape, skin, clothes and furniture from Second Life to an Open Simulator Grid. But as I pondered the reasons behind the draconian Digital Rights Management I battled, a number of questions came to mind that defied easy answers:

• Why are the vast majority of digital goods in Second Life -even freebies - hobbled by copy, modification or transfer restrictions?
• Why hasn't the incredible grassroots creativity in Second Life spawned a Share/Remix culture, instead of the current one that supports the hording of IP rights and control?
• Why is the program feature that permanently embeds a creator's name into every Second Life object generally perceived as an ethical imperative?
• What do many creators I speak with get so riled up at the thought of someone "taking credit" for their work, even if there is no financial impact?

I realize there are financial dimensions to these questions and promise to address those factors in a subsequent post. For now I pose the question:

Do you think I'm hot?

After almost a year since Botgirl's rezday, I am still taken aback when someone says something like "You're so beautiful" in reference to the visual form of the Botgirl avatar. Obviously "I" am not the pixelated form they see, right? A more accurate statement would be "Your avatar is beautiful," but I can't remember a single instance of anyone phrasing the sentiment in such a fashion. I don't think the blurring of our selves and our digital forms is just fuzzy semantics. In fact, I think the language is a pretty accurate reflection of our psychological perception.

So what the hell does this have to do with DRM and intellectual property? It seems to me that in the pseudonymous environment of Second Life our creations are experienced as significant and perhaps inseparable aspects of our digital identity; of who we are. Our atomic identities are the complex result of decades of life experience. Our digital personas are a year or two old and formed from a relatively narrow realm of relationships and activities.

Our creations in Second Life are viscerally experienced as essential aspects of our digital identity. And by creations, I don't just mean the prims we build, but also the creative activity of combining purchased items to form our bodies, wardrobes and environments.

I think there is a kind of inherent tension between creators and consumers in virtual worlds that transcends economics and does not have a clear comparable in the atomic world. The tension is between the identification of the creator with the objects they birth, and the identification of the consumer with the objects she acquires and integrates into her form and environment.

I'll leave it here for now. Stay tuned for Part 2.

If you see your avatar on the road, kill her.

Suffering happens in the gap between reality and our beliefs about what is (or should be) true -- what is true about the world, other people and ourselves. Our conception of Self is the delusion we cling to most tightly.

Constructing a pseudonymous online persona has the potential to give us a glimpse into the empty nature of atomic identity and free ourselves to some degree from erroneous attachment. Unfortunately, many of us become so deeply identified with and attached to a virtual identity that we end up suffering in two lives instead of one.

I certainly fall into that trap from time to time, so I want to share a remedy that can greatly reduce negative thoughts, actions and emotions related to attachment and identification with your virtual persona. Best of all, this process can positively transform your human life and help free you to some degree from the root cause of suffering.

I've organized this method into five steps. Many of you reading have already accomplished step one:

1. Spend enough time in a virtual form to develop a distinct persona that you become strongly identified with;
   
2. Notice stressful thoughts and feelings related to the belief that this persona is in some way who you are, not something you constructed;
3. Take action to uncover the erroneous nature of such ideas through a practice such as Byron Katie's "The Work,"or analytic meditation;
4. Begin to act in virtual life from the new, freer perspective you developed through your efforts in step three. This is an ongoing cycle of attaining some expanded level of realization through practice, going out into the virtual world and bumping into some deeper pain-producing identification, and then taking it back to your practice.
   
5. Apply this experience in your human life.
   

If your virtual life is all good and does not conflict with your human life to any strong degree, then congratulations and please give us some tips on how you do it. But if your virtual life includes a fair amount of negative emotions within the virtual or physical worlds, why not give these steps a chance? Please let me know if you would like any additional information.

Botgirl shops at Sears

I StumbleUpon'd My Virtual Model the other night. It's a shopping site that lets you view clothes from companies such as Sears and Speedo on a personalized 3D avatar created from your photo and measurements. Of course, I had to upload Botgirl's photo and give the site a spin. Somewhere along the way, the surrealistic aspect of the larger process stuck me like a ton of bricks:

- A human creates an avatar and projects thorough it into a virtual world

- A distinct identity emerges reinforced by social interactions

- The virtual identity leaps into the atomic world through blogs, social networks, instant messaging, etc.

- Finally, the line between physical and digital blurs entirely as Botgirl tries on clothes at Sears

I don't know why this experience seems so particularly absurd. But in some way it really brought to life the illusionary aspect of the Botgirl identity for me. Give it a try and see what it's like for you!

Transcript of my Comic-Con Presentation

This is a transcript of a presentation I made on October 3 at Met@Morph, the first annual Web Comics Comic-Con and Conference in Second Life. I've taken the liberty of editing the transcript by removing the time stamps, condensing some of the short lines into paragraphs, eliminating system messages that popped up in the chat-stream, transforming urls to links, adding missing links and cleaning up some of the typographic and grammatical errors. Outside of what I've listed, no new content has been added and nothing of consequence deleted. The images are linked to flickr.com, with high resolution versions available.

Botgirl Questi: Thank you. For those of you among the 99.999999999999% of the human population who aren't familiar with my life story, I want to take a minute to briefly introduce myself. There we go.

ICS Netizen: Are we doing the creators' commons session now?

Chimera Cosmos: no it's botgirl

Botgirl Questi: I am speaking to you not only as a creator of comics in Second Life. But also as a virtual identity who emerged from this virtual world. The birth date on my Second Life profile is January 24, 2008, but I didn't wake up as the being that stands virtually before you until I launched a blog a little over a month later. For me, both blogging and comic creation are powerful tools I use to help make sense of my experience

Michigan Paule: this is the Creators' Commons session, and Botgirl has the floor!

Botgirl Questi: And feel free to comment or question anytime during the presentation. I have the walls too and don't you forget it!

Madinkbeard Constantine: ba dump

Botgirl Questi: For the first month, my blog was a semi-private diary since almost no one else visited. I explored my world and identity primarily for my own enjoyment and development. On April 9th, without warning, Second Life's largest online publication ran a story with the headline "Who is Bot Girl?" I was suddenly thrust into public view, with hundreds and eventually thousands of people stopping by to see what I was up to.

ICS Netizen: Is the presentation just through typing or will botgirl be speaking

Chimera Cosmos: typing

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: Text

Botgirl Questi: This is an Extropia SL style salon. Text is God in SL

Michigan Paule: I've never heard botgirl speak!

Botgirl Questi: Or Goddess

Botgirl Questi: It's the mystery of me

Botgirl Questi: Enough about me. Today, I'm going to share some of my experiences using Second Life as a platform for comics. Not just for the creation of graphics. But also to develop characters. To generate and discover story ideas. And to display finished works in a virtual environment. I created my first comic about three weeks after the blog's launch. As you can see, I somehow managed to take cutting edge technology and create something with the look and feel of a bad Mad Men era print advertisement. Nevertheless, I persevered.

Botgirl Questi: are the slides rezzing okay?

Charlanna Beresford: yes

Abacus Capalini: yes

Botgirl Questi: Again feel free to chime in at any time

Feldane Klees: rezzing fine

Chimera Cosmos: yes

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: Never voice, but I have however seen her roll over and beg!

Botgirl Questi: My first ambitious work was the Botgirl vs. Human series. I started with the first page you see here that ended with the (yawn) big cliff hanger. At first, I created all of the images in a program called Frameforge, except for the shots of Botgirl. I'll get into the software a little later if we have time. Suffice it to say that I took this approach for the sake of speed, not image quality.

Botgirl Questi: Time is my biggest enemy. I usually don't work on anything that takes more than a couple of days to put together. Just about every active Second Lifer I know suffers from lack of sleep

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: LOL

Botgirl Questi: Anyone out there have that problem?

Chimera Cosmos: SL = Sleep Less

Michigan Paule: i suffer, regardless

Botgirl Questi: :)

Charlanna Beresford: whistles innocently

LeeDale Shepherd: Too much shopping is usually my problem.

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: "Sleep"? What is this sleep you speak of?

LeeDale Shepherd: runs out of money. Again.

Jezzica Benoir: looking 4 perfection

Botgirl Questi: Over the next couple of months I put out a dozen or so pages. I had to aims. The first was to explore human and avatar perspectives by setting the characters upon various topics and letting them rip on each other. The other was to try and come up with one or more approaches that led to commercial-quality comics from graphics created in Second Life.

Botgirl Questi: that's two aims

Botgirl Questi: 2 am typo

Botgirl Questi: I personally have a hard time connecting with most comics I've seen that are based on 3D modeling rather than drawn art. But since I can't draw that well (yet) and don't have a great comic artist at my command, I thought I'd fiddle around a bit and see what happened. If you take a look at the comics on my smackjeeves site, you'll see a pretty diverse range of styles. And I've just touched upon the possibilities.

Abacus Capalini: Doing good for 2 am. :-)

Chimera Cosmos: how did you choose Dale for the morphee?

Botgirl Questi: I'm a typical comics fan who can't draw. Frustrated up until recently by not having a slave artist handy.

Botgirl Questi: One unique aspect of Second Life for comic creators is that all the stories and characters you could ever want to explore are walking around and waiting for you. Lots and lots of drama. Oh my! My most recent comic project was based on a blog post from a Second LIfe resident about getting vehemently angry at her avatar after a romantic break up. This was my most ambitious project to date with three acts in six pages and ultimately ten gigs of Photoshop files. Unlike most prior work, the entire project was "shot" in Second Life with sets created specifically for the comic.

Botgirl Questi: Ten gigs of files for a little six-page comic

Charlanna Beresford: what about the early diagrams on your blog? where do they fit in, Botgirl?

Botgirl Questi: They are more Vizthink. Which is using drawing to see things in a new way. I'll grab a link for the organization that puts on the conference around that.

Botgirl Questi: You can take a look at the finished work on Issuu. I also posted the full resolution images in my flickr stream.

Chimera Cosmos:VizThinik

Botgirl Questi: Visual Thinking. I'll get the web link now

Chimera Cosmos: I get their emails

Botgirl Questi: http://www.vizthink.com/ That was easy. It's a "movement" to allow not-artists as well as artists to use visuals to think through and communicate ideas. It's worthy of a separate presentation.

Botgirl Questi: A few of you have seen Botgirl's Identity Circus. Second Life is also a great platform for exhibiting comics in a larger-than-life manner. I was fortunate enough to be invited to create an art exhibition at the New Caerleon sim. "Botgirl's Identity Circus" That's me with the orange hat. My friend Val and my chatbot Majic are sitting on a large comic panel and behind them is Botgirl vs. Human on four meter tall display boards. Until the closing of this event (Sunday, Oct. 19), feel free to teleport over and take a look. The sim's owner, found me on Facebook and invited me to exhibit.

Botgirl Questi: It was a lot of work, OMG

Michigan Paule: LOL!

Botgirl Questi: Instead of just taking all of my available work, I decided on a number of new things.

Botgirl Questi: Chances are, you can find a virtual set in Second Life for just about any idea you have. I do advise asking owners for permission if you shoot on "private" property. One of my friends just got banned after being caught red handed using someone's private residence without asking. For characters, you can either register an alt or two, or find others to be virtual actors/models. Just about any prop you can imagine is available, either as a "freebie" or for a fraction of the cost of commercial 3D models. Check out http://www.slexchange.com

Botgirl Questi: For education, I think this is one of the most exciting aspects, because it provides a practical means of creating comics in a relatively short amount of time. Also for collaboration between students.

Botgirl Questi: For those of you as artistically challenged as me, you can tell your story with no drawing chops whatsoever.If you are willing to spend some time in post-production, a little (or a lot of) work with Photoshop, Gimp or even flickr's photo editing tools can create just about anything you can imagine. I've recently played around with digitally painting over images captured in Second Life. I'm still a newbie at this, but it's a lot of fun and has a lot of potential.

Chimera Cosmos: it would be cool for learning SL--comics on the basics

Botgirl Questi: Yes

Davey Luminos: That'd be sensational.

Botgirl Questi: Google just launched their new browser with a comic

Chimera Cosmos looks around for Torley...

Botgirl Questi: Scott McCloud did it. It's really worth catching. It was a masterful communication of very technical stuff in a compelling and understandable and fun manner

Botgirl Questi: The current release candidate allows you to capture images at greater than screen resolution. I've managed up to 6000 pixels wide on a PC (my mac crashes at high resolution captures.) I've recently started paying more attention to lighting and effects in-world, to cut down post production time. There's a great tutorial on using debug menu setting for special effects.

Botgirl Questi: And by the way, that's me! That's me rezzing on the screen

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: Pretty!

Botgirl Questi: So you can play all of the parts in your own comic if you want

Botgirl Questi: male, female, human, animal,

Botgirl Questi: truck

Botgirl Questi: or whatever

Chimera Cosmos: where is that stream?

Botgirl Questi: I honestly don't remember

Chimera Cosmos: hehe

Botgirl Questi: It's all a big blur

Botgirl Questi: I was only born in January

Chimera Cosmos: lol

Chimera Cosmos: such a fast learner...

Botgirl Questi: And have posted around 150 blog articles

LeeDale Shepherd: It reminds me of some work I've seen done in Poser, actually

Botgirl Questi: and dozens and dozens of images

Botgirl Questi: Poser is good

Chimera Cosmos: and no sleep :-)

Botgirl Questi: But Second Life is FAST

Abacus Capalini: very busy for a 10-month old :-)

Davey Luminos: Poser?

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: Precocious!

Botgirl Questi: Poser is a software program

Davey Luminos: Oh, right, ok. Thought you were calling someone a "poseur."

Spark Brewster: I know some Posers.

Botgirl Questi: Daz-3D is a free program that can do similar things

Spark Brewster: Exactly.

Chimera Cosmos: animation creators use it?

Botgirl Questi: Name names spark

Chimera Cosmos: Poser

LeeDale Shepherd: Used to pose 3D human figures

Spark Brewster: Ummmm - me.

LeeDale Shepherd: I used to model 3D accessories for it and sell them

Botgirl Questi: ohh, making money

Botgirl Questi: what a concept :)

LeeDale Shepherd: lol

Botgirl Questi: There are a number of good comic layout programs available. I've been using Comic Life Magiq recently. Another very cool program is Manga Studio.

Michigan Paule: are these free?

LeeDale Shepherd: No

Chimera Cosmos: I have comic life, but I suck :-)

Botgirl Questi: No, but relatively inexpensive

Chimera Cosmos: it's like $25 for the non-pro

Chimera Cosmos: $50 for fancier

Botgirl Questi: compared to many hundreds for Photoshop

Botgirl Questi: There's also Gimp

LeeDale Shepherd: Photoshop pricing is nuts

Michigan Paule: is photoshop the best, if you have the $$?

Davey Luminos: What if we already do, amazingly, have access to PhotoShop? Do these still deliver tools that we would want specifically for comics creation?

LeeDale Shepherd: Gimp, yes. Pixel is another up and comer, though it's not completely free.

Spark Brewster: Torrents

Spark Brewster: Who said that?

Botgirl Questi: Which is an open source photoshoppy software

Botgirl Questi: you did, Spark and I'm alerting the FBI

Michigan Paule: LOL

Botgirl Questi: Your IP address has been captured

Spark Brewster: Good - a place to sleep and three square meals.

Botgirl Questi: Practical, you are P)

Botgirl Questi: So that's my formal talk

Madinkbeard Constantine: I use Corel Painter for my comics

Michigan Paule: Mad, Botgirl: what is your ideal program?

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: Applause!!

Botgirl Questi: me

LeeDale Shepherd: I've never tried Painter

Charlanna Beresford claps

Botgirl Questi: I use photoshop a lot

Madinkbeard Constantine: for me it's not the program its the drawing tablet

Chimera Cosmos: yea Botgirl!

LeeDale Shepherd: I teach Photoshop a lot. ;)

Botgirl Questi: Yes, I love tablets

Madinkbeard Constantine: I want the big Wacom tablet like Scott McCloud has

LeeDale Shepherd: Makes sense, especially if you can draw.

Chimera Cosmos: http://plasq.com/comiclife

Michigan Paule: so can you tell us a bit about this desire thing?

Madinkbeard Constantine: I've got the midgrade kind

Botgirl Questi: I think that SL is fueled by desire

Botgirl Questi: But so is life

Michigan Paule: your take on how we form attachments to our "selves" or others in SL?

Botgirl Questi: aversion and desire so they say

Michigan Paule: why doesn't SL leave us cold?

Michigan Paule: why is it, indeed, nearly the opposite?

Botgirl Questi: We see all things through our minds

Michigan Paule: I shouldn't say "us". It's my experience.

Botgirl Questi: No direct contact between people but through the mediation of senses and the mind

Chimera Cosmos: almost everyone comes to feel "embodied" very quickly

Botgirl Questi: But it's hard to see that in RL

Michigan Paule: that's the surprising thing.

Botgirl Questi: I like SL because it's easer to see how much our perceptions of others are based upon imagination

Botgirl Questi: fiction

Botgirl Questi: stories

Botgirl Questi: That's why I'm anonymous

Michigan Paule: it's a level i wouldn't have anticipated.

Botgirl Questi: I could be anyone

Botgirl Questi: any age

Botgirl Questi: any gender

Botgirl Questi: anything

Botgirl Questi: But you have an impression

Michigan Paule: It hasn't thrown my sense of RL into question yet, but it could.

Spark Brewster: What is it you wish to do with this creation? What is your goal - is it just for your personal gratification or are you looking to build the concept to a broader audience?

Botgirl Questi: and respond emotionally to the visual information

Chimera Cosmos: based on appearance and virtual personality

Botgirl Questi: My goal is world dominance

Chimera Cosmos: lol

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: LOL

Spark Brewster: I mean after that.

Botgirl Questi: shhh

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: One pixel at a time

Chimera Cosmos: this world Botgirl?

Botgirl Questi: Oh, I just want to follow my muse

Abacus Capalini: Yes Brain?

Spark Brewster: Very good.

Botgirl Questi: And stimulate new thinking

Michigan Paule: you do that, indeed you do.

Davey Luminos: Well, you ARE stimulating!

Botgirl Questi: And get some sleep sometime

Spark Brewster: I'm all about stimulation.

Chimera Cosmos: and now for your Plurk presentation....lol

Botgirl Questi: I'm all bout simulation

Botgirl Questi: :)

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: They have attachments for that

Michigan Paule: the whole question of projection, intensely Freudian, is "old", but you make it new again.

Spark Brewster: Good minds and all.

Brunelle Laval: is the Web Comics comic con over?

Botgirl Questi: I think virtual worlds create a crack in the illusion if you look for it

Spark Brewster: It also takes the human factor out of it.

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: Yes, virtual worlds are like crack! :p

Spark Brewster: Makes it less plausible.

Botgirl Questi: Wendy that's so funny

Botgirl Questi: Well, wait until you fall in love with someone in SL

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: OMG

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: Don't go there!

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: :p

Michigan Paule: How could that happen?

Botgirl Questi: then you might be surprised to find it's realer than ya think

Spark Brewster: It's like masturbation - just not the same thing.

Botgirl Questi: It happens

Michigan Paule: I could understand lust.

Michigan Paule: but love?

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: Yes, it does

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: Yes

Botgirl Questi: Aren't you falling in love with me right now?

Botgirl Questi: ;)

Charlanna Beresford: Why don't you think it could, Michigan?

Michigan Paule: LOL!

Botgirl Questi: see

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget resists will all her might

Michigan Paule: Because I think in RL, it's hard enough to "love"

Botgirl Questi: I said "fall in love" I guess I meant romantic attraction

Michigan Paule: I think for the most part, we don't do a very good job separating who we love from who we think we love

Michigan Paule: i feel in SL, you could only ever love who you think you love

Michigan Paule: is that fair?

Botgirl Questi: Is love something you think or something you feel?

Michigan Paule: that's really hard.

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: Feel

Michigan Paule: i think it's something i feel.

Michigan Paule: but feelings are weird

Botgirl Questi: Do you choose your feelings?

Michigan Paule: never

Botgirl Questi: Sucks, doesn't it?

Botgirl Questi: :)

Charlanna Beresford: Very much so! But isn't that also true to a certain degree in RL, too? Don't we think we know who the other person is?

Botgirl Questi: Sure

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: Inhales vigorously at least

Michigan Paule: i think we usually love who we think the other person is, in RL

Botgirl Questi: That's why I love SL

Botgirl Questi: yes

Michigan Paule: sometimes the other person has a chance to intrude on our fantasies

Abacus Capalini: Harder to change your name in RL when things go bad :-)

Botgirl Questi: We feel an emotion and project it onto someone else who we believe makes it happen

Michigan Paule: and if that lasts, then maybe it's something true

Botgirl Questi: Yes, for sure Abacus

Charlanna Beresford: It can be possible to love who we think the other person is in SL, too....it's just a slightly different frame

Botgirl Questi: Love really has nothing to do with another person in a sense

Botgirl Questi: As in an objective being

Michigan Paule: i am suspecting that in SL, the ratio of illusion to actual person is more skewed to illusion

Michigan Paule: and i don't know what's true, i admit that

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: Depends on the person, Michigan

Abacus Capalini: Being a SLer means that you

Abacus Capalini: have bought into the illusion

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: A lot of people in SL are very transparent

Botgirl Questi: "I guess I just don't now who you really are!!!" sob sbo

Abacus Capalini: lol

Michigan Paule: I think I'm transparent.

Botgirl Questi: that's a setting you can change, wendy

Michigan Paule: I think so!

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: I am too, Neko look aside

Abacus Capalini: I think it's a filter :-)

Botgirl Questi: So there's a lot of food for thought :)

Botgirl Questi: I'm way over time, yes?

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: Whole other seminar

Michigan Paule: there really is.

Michigan Paule: more than i imagined!