After much consideration, a lot of pushing around and a some casual editorial sight of hand, I've narrowed our original ideas into several broad groupings:
Observations & Phenomenological, Story Telling & Memory, Ethics, Gender & Body, Identity and Economics.
- Observations & Phenomenology:
Chaotic (Anti)Social behaviour: When the InWorld Studio was purchased it was unlocked and quickly invaded and became a chaotic mess in short order. What real world parallels could be drawn? Would it have stopped? or been forgotten about?
-
A. Each participant of SL sees the world through their own viewer. My afternoon sunset is not the same as that of any other player, even if they are in the same virtual location.
What does this do to subjectivity/Phenomenology? Shared experience?
B . This is clearly a choice of linden labs (the world's author)What does this say about them? How is this different or similar to other games etc?
(Each SL player/Participant is able to set their own 'environmental controls')
- Corporations in SL - (also identity politics, and economics).
Why such strange behaviour with Mega Corps making monuments to themselves in Second Life? They have nothing really to offer in most cases, as the first life products don't make any sense in a virtual world, and in most cases (if not all) do not offer anything interesting or unique to users in a virtual environment. In many ways it seem more like territorial expansionism - and like what we might expect from government empires –– "We claim this swath of land for the country of Nissan cars!"
Has this behaviour subsided in recent years - if so why?
- Story Telling & Memory
Is there social 'oral history' or folk history/narrative in SL? If so what would/could it look like?
- Continuity of individual experience:
How does the idea of a 'Personal Narrative' translate in SL and dovetail into one's won identity and one's identification with/as an avatar.
- Wandering in SL the derive & the arm chair Flâneur:
The organisation of space in SL is very confused. Most often the landscape is fractured, and its hard to get any continuity to one's experience in exploring SL because you can teleport instantly from place to place. This has implications the users notions of place, memory and a narrative of self - in addition to the politics of multiple avatars.
Flâneur - wikipedia
Walter Benjamin - wikipedia
- Ethics
Are normal real life moral codes compromised or redundant in the virtual world?
- The development of taboo within Second life.
In a world where 'anything is possible' what constitutes taboo - are there any taboos that are unique, or intrinsic to virtual worlds and game play - or do they all have direct correlations to real life belief systems and moral codes.
- Original Sin - Can virtual world type games be compared to a human desire to create a utopic societies? If so can their failure or success be seen as a way to test our own capacities as humans? For example can they test our understanding of equality, consequences individual of choices etc.
- Can the development of virtual worlds be compared to a skewed form of expansionism and empire? Compare against western expansion - as a cultural urge to seek a biblical Eden, ie post colonial theory, American 19th C. Manifest Destiny.
- Loss of self
- Can one become a 'new person' in SL and do things that you would not normally do or be able to get away with in real life?
- Gender & Body
These articles mention different topics like gender play, "cross dressing" online, transgender, the relation between real gender and virtual gender and ethics in relation to playing another gender.
The Power of Real-World Gender Roles in Second Life
On line discussion - https://blogs.secondlife.com
Gender Verification in Virtual Worlds - - commented
Gender and Sexuality in Virtual Worlds - commented
Exploring Gender Play in the Second Life Virtual World.pdf
Life Across Boundaries: Design, Identity, and Gender in Second Life .pdf
- Second identity in Second Life? Authorship/Identity/Body politics
Who is the Author when its common to hear people speak of the avatar as 'other' - what is it when the 'other' is an element of self? –– Multiple personae
- Unnecessary reproduction of the 'real'. . .
Second Life is a digital world - you don't have a body, yet we are represented by one which we can infinitely modify. - It is not a physical universe, however people "rent", buy and build all the trappings of the physical body & world –– Apartments with kitchen, bathrooms –– What's the drive / where is the satisfaction found in reproducing all these real world 'things'?
- What role does the avatar body play in the creation of identity in Second Life?
- What is the nature of the relationship between our dealings in "Second life" vs. "Real life"?
How do we deal with virtual and real life both taking place online?
- Economics:
Market & Trade in Second Life
What is money? What is a virtual currency? Linden Labs have developed a currency in SL which can be exchanged with dollars, pounds or almost any other currency.
See also:
US Gold Standard - wikipedia
Virtual world theft heads to real life court
A Virtual Bank With Real Woes - New York Times
Is Virtual Life Better Than Reality?
Anshe Chung Becomes First Virtual World Millionaire
UK panel urges real-life treatment for virtual cash
- The Digital Divide - Those who cannot access / second class, Second Life citizens?
Scarcity economics made it viable for gold digging 'shops' based in China to appear in World of Warcraft. Is there a SL equivalent? - if not (because of a lack of commerce 'scarcity'?) are commercial entities in SL using 'blue collar digital miners' or is there perhaps an absence of disadvantaged players ( as a real world ) economic class in SL? In these bizarre cases were people who might not ever had access to the 'game', because of economic disadvantage given a form of access, though clearly limited, where they would not have otherwise?
0 comments:
Post a Comment