I am writing to let you all know that... well, I am still writing. I am still touring Second Life, and meeting some interesting people. Here's a quick rundown of some of the things I am learning about, which I will eventually write about (perhaps).
I have come across information regarding avatars with real life users who are physically disabled. I met an avatar named Gentle Heron who is affiliated with a non-profit organization named Virtual Ability, Inc. This is a real life organization whose mission is "to enable people with a wide range of disabilities to enter into virtual worlds like Second Life®, and provide them with a supporting environment once there". You can learn more by visiting their website at www.virtualability.org. I have not learned more, so perhaps the information I provide, once I write more about this, will be redundant.
I met another avatar named Starling Ansar whose real life user is deaf and mute. Starling designed an art gallery named Soar for what she referred to as the 'deafie sim'. She has been interviewed by an architecture magazine and told me that "when CNN sent a reporter to cover the deaf sim, she used Soar as the backdrop for her report". I plan to learn more about her, as her experiences in Second Life seem interesting.
I visited a mathematics library under construction in Old Willowdale, a sim that is designed for role-playing child avatars and their families. The sim will officially open on February 1st. Hopefully I will have more info before then, or at the very least I will visit on opening day and write about the celebration. The library is the work of Kya Muircastle, a child avatar who was gracious enough to give me a tour.
This is just a short sampling of more incredible avatars I have met, and the amazing work and creativity featured in Second Life.
For now, this is the extent of my entry.
Sincerely,
Pluton Karas
hello Pluton,
ReplyDeleteit's great to know you are able to meet these people who are contributing so much to the community.
over time, i am sure this blog will become a valuable anthropological resource as you continue to document your travels in such great detail.
:-)
Hi Pluton, and Friends of Pluton!!
ReplyDeleteMy name in Second Life is Starling Ansar. Well, that's my most recent name. I just read Pluton's latest few blog posts and while he, in his clean-heartedness correctly lauds the opportunity for personal and social growth and creativity in Second Life, I fear he also has thrown the ugly baby out with the bathwater too.
The first thing to remember about your Second Life is that its not at all separated from your first life. The hand-puppet is still just the hand of the puppeteer. But it exists behind a veil of anonymity. I wrote a paper abut it years ago, relating it to Freud's "blank screen." And what it does is disinhibit people. It frees us. And that has some wonderful consequences.
Pluton has wisely not gone into the usual critic's cul de sac of focusing on the sex, or the racism that ironically still exists in a world where you can pick and change your sex, or species or skin color, at will.
But back when I was a virtual Geisha (she said flattering herself because it was usually more like virtual call girl)I wrote a paper that was delivered, and surprisingly well received, at a Dewey Philosopher's conference, called "Learning in Virtual Environments, a virtual prostitute's philosophy." It was about how, by iterations of incarnation in this virtual world, people do over the years, actually learn what its like to be a man, if they're a woman, or to see how crazy extreme skinheads think, if they're part Black, or how exclusionary groups can rationalize their discrimination who tout their own inclusiveness. I have done all these things, and I am the better for having had these experiences.
The very anonymity that frees people to flame their political or philosophical opponents from the safety of their bedroom at 4am, frees us to get over it, to become one of them for a month or a virtual "lifetime."
So where Pluton rightly cheers on the ability to build a Memorial Island, like I did, or a Holocaust Museum, or a Gallery promoting the artworks of the deaf, don't discount the weird and offensive parts of SL either. I think it's that too easily abused anonymity, that is so often lamented in the same breath that the brightly noble products of that same freedom are heralded, that is the deeper and more profound, society-wide contribution of Second Life.
If there's one thing you have the chance to do in SL that you cannot do in RL, it's re-invent your self. I have been, amongst other things a published author, a wabbit space fighter pilot, an architect, a guy learning how hard it is to ask women out and face all that rejection and competition, and highly paid consort valued as much for her ability to discuss Quantum Physics or Art History intelligently, as to drive a man crazy sexually. I have paid my family's rent, as a hooker and a builder of garden products, and home furnishings. I have done all this, even though I live in the woods outside a town with a a population of less than 500 people, and I am deaf and 19 years old.
I did that while most of my neighbors watched TV.
Welcome to Second Life, my name is Starling Ansar.
Well said Starling. I agree with your astute observation regarding the focus of my blog's subject matter, for I have purposely avoided interactions with the 'ugly' baby that, as you so clearly illustrate, is not only present and perhaps pervasive in Second Life but is also essential in developing the complex web of virtual experience of which 'we' are both creator and subject. (I say 'perhaps pervasive' because, even though I know the 'ugly' baby exists, I have not actively pursued experiences with him, therefore have no authority to asses how entrenched it is in this virtual world of which I am merely a tourist.)
ReplyDeleteI am glad that you took the time to so eloquently advocate for the baby which I have avoided. It is refreshing to find others who reflect upon their experiences on what may be initially and superficially regarded as a game, an escape, or a waste of time, and who consciously engage in transferring and applying these insights into their real lives.
I am very interested in learning more from you and wish to benefit from your experiences and knowledge. I hope my readers feel the same way.
Sincerely,
Pluton