My visits to 2nd Life with, and since, our class have been dramatically better than my first few visits on my own. As a non-gamer, becoming aware of how to navigate the interface, what controls I had, and what kind of things and places to look for greatly improved the experience for me. Most of all, being there with others that I knew was a lot more fun.
My avatar is Silverz Mornington, and I gave her appearance a bit of an occult flavour, since 2nd Life is a bit of an occult-like experience for me. Besides, she can fly, which is witchy enough reason on its own.
The best part of the avatar experience for me is flying. I know this may seem trite, but it’s something I’ve dreamed of for years. I think it is also the most realistic avatar experience, since we don’t have the 1st life embodied experience of flying (unencumbered by devices) to compare it to. In contrast, walking in 2nd Life feels awkward, slow, and cumbersome to me.
As to how we engage with media differently as an avatar than as a person, I think again the current limitations of computer-generated imagery leave me less engaged than with 1st Life digitally-generated media experiences. While artwork that grows into 3D from the wall as you approach is kinda cool the first time, it doesn’t really make for a more meaningful or engaging experience after the first couple of images. It’s about novelty, which is great, but that doesn’t last. How could these techniques be applied to deepen the meaning of the artwork, rather than just the superficial viewing of it?
I have found that even attending lectures and public discussions in 2nd Life are, so far, less engaging than in reality. I’m not sure why, since I would think that the anonymity afforded by avatars would allow people to be bolder and more opinionated or vocal than they might be otherwise. I haven’t found this to be true. Conversations I have attended and participated in, so far, seem surprisingly lightweight, both in terms of passion, intellectual considerations and originality. Even when I ask more challenging questions, responses are vague. Maybe I’m just not meeting the right people?
Probably my most engaging experiences have been being in 2nd Life with the class, checking out how everyone modelled themselves and changed their avatars on-the-fly, as well as creating the avatar sculpture, and investigating the mute representation of dead soldiers that Marie and Heather created and uploaded for their New Media project, complete with g-mail accounts and factual biographical information for each one’s profile.
Again, I think the credibility of knowing the real people behind the avatars makes the experience more enjoyable for me. Creating a real sculpture as a group experience, whether using people or objects, would be more engaging for me than plugging into someone else’s virtual one using avatars. I often feel a bit like I’m in a cartoon that I don’t quite get the plot or story-line of.
The 1st person viewpoint of the avatar, and mouselook option, are interesting ways to engage in an open-ended experience. Once the imagery is more filmic or photographic in quality than computer rendered, it might be more engaging to me. However, I have gone to several galleries, interacted with a variety of sculptures, environments and magical-looking creations, but have usually found them less interesting as an avatar in a virtual space than as a person in a real one. My favourite 2nd Life sculpture is the one of Beaudrillard, near OCAD and Art Metropole, in which his simulated self is chained down in 2nd Life, spouting his ideas about simulations. Clever, amusing and ironic, this sculpture could work in reality as easily as in 2nd Life.
The greatest innovation opportunities for media in 2nd Life is the opportunity to collaborate globally, and to create things that are physically impossible. Yet at this point, much of this work seems to be about process over content. I think I’d rather just go to a gallery here. The work may be no more interesting that what I see in 2nd Life, but I can get some exercise, feel the wind, touch the environment, smell the flowers, and eat the snacks.
In terms of avatars as a means for implementing documentary practice, I would not have thought this truly viable until Heather and Marie’s piece. Their concept of memorializing dead American soldiers as mute “witnesses” in 2nd Life represents a significant shift in making avatars meaningful. This goes well beyond anything else I’ve experienced there. This piece made me suddenly realize that avatars can be very powerful tools for presenting documentary-based work in new forms that would be impossible in real life. Their soldiers actually changed my opinion of 2nd Life as a means of creating, sharing and diseminating important and meaningful work. Go girls!
