Yesterday I presented my session about avatars and identity play in Second Life. It was more of a workshop than a presentation, and there were some wonderfully fascinating stories people shared about their avatars: why they created them and crafted them the way they did; what decisions they made about identity markers to include; how other people perceived their avatars; and any identity experiments (gender, fashion, race and so on) that they had explored. I really enjoyed hearing people’s stories, and wish I had had the foresight to log a transcript of the chat!! I managed to crash out 5 times during the session :/ This meant I didn’t have time in the end to really recap some of the central points I wanted to make!! Here are some shots from the session of people sharing and participating:
… and a few resources, links, landmarks, copies of slides, free clothes and avatars and so on were given out at the end. If you didn’t get to go to the session (or you missed out because you had to leave early) and would like a gift bag, just send me an im in world!
(My thanks to CDB Barkley, Joanna Trailblazer, Jokay Wollongong, Heidi Trotta, Nick Noakes, Stephanie Misfit, Tasrill Sieyes, Desideria Stockton, Thinkerer Melville, Anne Enigma, Larry Pixel and many many others who contributed in various ways to the session – by sharing stories, posing for photos, letting me use their photos, contributing avatars and giving me freebies to add to the resources kit!)
Next week the NMC is running an entire weeks symposium on “Creativity in Second Life” There are a number of strands: Machinima, Fashion, Sculpture and Modeling, Virtual Photography, and Teaching Environments, social / arts events, and lots of practical and interactive sessions. I am involved in three sessions, all at (sort of) Australian friendly times. Here are the details of these sessions (in Second Life time):
Fri Aug 17 7pm – Fri Aug 17 8pm
Teaching On the Second Life Stage: Playful Educational Strategies for Serious Purposes
Angela Thomas (aka Anya Ixchel), University of Sydney
Kim Flintoff (Kim Pasternak), Edith Cowan University
Theatrical spaces have historically been places used to teach, purge and shape culture. For over a decade, virtual reality has offered a new kind of theatrical space; now, with the rise of social networking spaces, many more people are using the potential of the web to perform, critique and comment on cultural issues. Second Life provides a new and exciting space where students can explore issues that are both personal and global in significance. Teaching strategies which incorporate dramatic and theatrical components are perfectly suited in the Second Life environment for engaging students in playful but meaningful reflection on such issues. This session will involve participants in role-playing, reflection and discussion. Participants will also be encouraged to brainstorm the possibilities of incorporating such strategies into their own educational programs.
Sat Aug 18 4pm – Sat Aug 18 5pm
No More Business Suits Please: Creative Identity Play in SL
Angela Thomas (aka Anya Ixchel), University of Sydney, Australia
Second Life offers a unique opportunity to refashion one’s self and to play with fictional identities. Yet many of us who work inside Second Life feel trapped in our offline identity roles and conform to traditional discourses of femininity, masculinity, appearance, beauty and fashion. Professionals wear business suits, educators cry out for more modest clothing, and artists wear funky coloured skins. In some contexts, people who resist these discourses are discriminated against. This session explores how we might be able to leverage one of the greatest affordances of Second Life—the avatar—for personal, community and professional agendas.
20070818T160000/20070818T170000
Sat Aug 18 5pm – Sat Aug 18 6pm
Panel Session: Reflections on Creativity in Second Life
Moderator: Alan Levine (aka CDB Barkley), The New Media Consortium
Lori Bell (aka Lorelei Junot), Alliance Library System
Jo Kay (aka Jokay Wollongong), Illawarra Institute TAFE, New South Wales
Hilary Mason (aka Ann Enigma), Johnson & Wales University
Troy McConaghy (aka Troy McLuhan), ISM Corporation
Nick Noakes (aka Corwin Carillon), Hong Kong University of Science & Technology
Beth Ritter-Guth (aka Desideria Stockton), Lehigh Carbon Community College
Angela Thomas (aka Anya Ixchel), University of Sydney
Gaza does it again – you might remember Gaza Stripped, an article from Slatenight magazine (now sadly on hiatus for the time being), where Gaza, pictured below, discussed her philosophy about real/virtual/pop art.
Nude Descending is another play on an artistic icon, in which falling nude art pieces topple down a staircase, and if you want to really interact and become art you allow your naked avatar to topple down too.
This exhibition is being shown at the Odyssey Gallery, and also includes all sorts of other interactive and thought provoking pieces. Just DO NOT say a certain phrase or term, or you will be attacked by a tornado and catapulted across to another sim! (I haven’t seen one person not test this, despite the warnings
All art has notecards with commentary and questions for you to ponder about the art work, which helps you understand what intention was had by the artist. How you interpret it though is still dependent upon your own experiences, expectations and belief systems about art and virtuality, so if you visit the exhibition with friends it can raise some very interesting discussions.
Having an avatar has made me much more aware of fashion, the fashioned body, and the relationship between fashion and identity. I think spaces like Second Life where the customisation of the avatar is a constant fascination (which drives the thriving fashion industry) prompt us to become more reflective about fashion and the body as a visual metaphor for identity. The virtual space is also a romantic space which is somewhat dreamlike, a space for imaginary illusions, sensual delight and fiction. It is a playful space. Even when I am teaching inside Second Life (or maybe especially when I am teaching) I play with my avatar’s appearance to stimulate student discussion about these ideas. Sometimes I seek authenticity in my appearance when the gaze is external (like my TV appearance last year) but more often than not I enjoy the indulgence of being playful, and changing my skin / hair / clothes / shoes on a daily basis. Joanne Entwhistle in The Fashioned Body says:
[The] restless Romantic spirit, this indulgence in dreams and fantasies, is what drives fashion.
She also argues that fashion is way of shaping our identities in a way which helps to stabilise our sense of self in a time when identities are increasingly fragmented and fractured. So maybe those of us who are enjoying “playing dress up” as much as I am are actually doing much more than meets the eye – we’re finding that the avatar simultaneously provides us with not only the freedoms and pleasures of playing out our fantasies, but are also a way of dealing with the chaos in our everyday lives.
PS: My rose coloured glasses are also magical: they tell me when my friends come online, they announce when other people approach, and they help me fly fast and high. And the very nice man that made them also customised them especially for me so I could wear my eyelashes at the same time. At one level I sit back and laugh at myself and the investment I have in my avatar. At another level I try to theorise about it. But at the deepest, most honest level, I just enjoy it and don’t care anymore about trying to justify it!
There are so many examples now where pop culture – as exemplified by fiction, fantasy, play and fun – are being incorporated into mainstream and real events or texts. We seem to be undergoing a change in attitude towards pop culture, where fiction, fantasy, play or parody operate within and for truth and reality. The two are conflated more often. Sometimes they work fabulously, but other times they really miss the mark. Here are just a few examples – see if you can determine which ones work, and why this might so!
Example 1: The Devil Wears Prada, showcasing the character based on Anna Wintour, is then used to illustrate points made through an interview with Anna Wintour.
Example 2: The video clip to Lily Allen’s song “Smile” is turned in “Simlish” and a machinima is created using The Sims to perform a re-appropriation of the song.
Example 3: Nalts, a popular youtuber, makes a parody about the Blackberry for the entertainment of his youtube videoblog viewers. BBC pick up his parody and use it to discuss the evil effects of technology in the world.
Example 4: Boh3m3, a popular youtuber, trashes Australian vegemite, a local new station airs a prime time report about it, and Boh3m3 fights back.
Thanks to Sue, I have just found out about this exhibition at LA’s Museum of Contemporary Art. The exhibition itself is one thing to be fascinated with, but I am even more interested to find out that the exhibition has an associated blog, with reviews, links to reviews, commentary, and even video clips of people discussing their work. It’s just wonderful! For example, here is the artist of the cover image for the catalogue (shown above) discussing the ways in which women’s body parts are appropriated to sell books, and ironically it was her feminist statement on this that was selected as the cover for the catalogue:
And here are some of the blog reader comments about their conflicting feelings over the cover.
Like Sue, I think this is really innovative – I can’t think of any other museums or galleries using blogs to engage the public in critical discussions of their exhibitions.
There’s a fabulous line early on in The Devil Wears Prada:
“Fashion is not about utility. An accessory is merely a piece of iconography used to express individual identity.”
I’ve been thinking of analysing this film (along with the TV series “Desperate Housewives”) to add to some workI did in 2005 – “Discourses of Desire in Sex and the City” – about gender, discourse, textuality, feminine identities and the body, in preparation for a conference about semiotics at the end of the year. Well, that is my excuse for watching the movie and all the DVD extras several times over anyway
As mentioned previously, I will be presenting at this conference on Friday/Saturday (who can remember what day it is when you live half the time in US time zones these days?). Here’s a reminder of the details:
“Embodiment in Virtual Environments: Exploring Literacies, Identity, Research, and Community”
Charles Kinzer, Teachers College, Columbia University
Angela Thomas, University of Sydney
I’ll be giving an updated version of a talk I gave last year for the NMC symposium about the avatar and new literacies within the 2 hour session, and we’ll be taking the participants on a little tour of SL, showing machinima, and generally having fun I hope!
There’s a fabulous line early on in The Devil Wears Prada:
