[iDC] RE: An Inconvenient Youth and Second Life

[dave at edtechtalk.com]

Agreed. It does have that simulacra feeling about it. Sort of a disney
land 'mainstreet USA' of old digital buildings about it.

The interesting thing about it is that people (like the folks on info
island) are starting to realize this and are trying to adapt their
architectural designs to make the best of the advantages and disadvantages
of the space.

It is this development and the inevitable reaction to the realization that
not only the detractors but the advocates that will bring on the next
generation of immersive space.

> That's exact my point when I refered to my short experience in SL. I
> think the US (where almost 100 procent of computer games and online
> worlds are created) has a problem with the reproduction of the nuclear
> family and the wishing of a kind of Barbie/Ken archetype where the
> same house, the same furniture and the same tables and chairs are
> copied or cloned.
> In SL you can find hundreds of reproductions of Le Corbusier or of
> Frank Lloyd Right, it's as the Sims (the popular computer game who is
> the most clear "parent" of Second Life, has discovered architecture
> and city planning.
> When you have characters who fly what's the point making stairs or
> walls? Or to design roads or motorways?
> For me SL is a kind of perverse reproduction of life but without
> death, sweat, smells or poverty.
> In Everquest, the online game I usually played for several years, I
> was playing a female avatar and  another player, a man playing another
> female avatar, asked me to marry "him".
> The marriage thing was a cool thing in EQ, where the weddings in the
> game were attended by guests from the whole virtual world. I have
> attended marriages between vampyres and elfs, centaurs and frogs.
> We asked the "game masters" to come and marry us, it was Sony's
> employees who acted as priests or civil servants and who performed the
> ceremonies.
> We got a letter, very polite, but they refused us the right to be
> married, "two women avatars can't be married. It could upset a lot of
> other players who could experience that as offensive".
> We, Charles, my friend, and me, could not believe what we read. We
> played as wizards and shamans, we fought demons and zombies, we lived
> in a fantasy world where magic and phantasy played an enormous roll.
> Did they mean that two female avatars were "not natural", but all the
> other stuff was it???
> We argued with them for months and we dropped the idea, but it
> strenghtened my these about online worlds as very conservative and
> oldfashioned.
> Ana
>
> ps. the description of the marriage it's a bit of my research about
> Gender in the Online Games, I am writing a book which it's going to be
> released in this Spring, sadly, only in Swedish and Spanish for the
> moment.
>
> On 2/27/07, Brooke Knight <brooke_knight at emerson.edu> wrote:
>> Hi all:
>>
>> I'm an inveterate lurker on the list, but I have to pick up on Steven's
>> comment a few days ago about how he gave a lecture about SL, both in the
>> "real" world and the "virtual" world of Second Life.  We here at Emerson
>> College are currently engaged in the same thing -- as it is opening up
>> as an
>> educational space.  We have students cranking away at building what are
>> essentially avatars of our buildings.  In fact, we have an event
>> tomorrow,
>> where both Trebor and Ulises will be speaking at Emerson and on Second
>> Life,
>> on the Emerson College Island, Emerson Island (145, 109, 23).  Come by
>> at 7
>> eastern and see if it works.
>>
>> In this case, it will be inside the Bordy Theater on the island.  In the
>> "real" world (I've never been comfortable with the distinction), the
>> Bordy
>> Theater is inside of a building alongside other buildings of the same
>> height
>> and size.  On Emerson Island, It stands out as one of the only objects
>> there.
>>
>> So, I ask -- why is it that there seems to be a need to reproduce items
>> that
>> already exist? Is a replica of a real-world place the best way to convey
>> a
>> message, even if it doesn't work in SL?  How is that message different
>> in
>> SL?
>>
>> I'm just worried that we continue to experience the tyranny of the
>> metaphor,
>> as we have so many times in digital media.
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Brooke
>>
>>
>>
>> Brooke A. Knight
>>
>> Assistant Professor of New Media
>>
>> Department of Visual and Media Arts
>>
>> Emerson College
>>
>> 617-824-8760
>>
>> brooke_knight at emerson.edu
>>
>> www.brookeknight.com
>>
>>
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