Hi! I'm an academic in Australia. I teach English Education and my research interests include new literacies, digital fiction, fan fiction, blogging, identity, pop culture, computer games, systemic linguistics, feminism and young people online. Recently I have been teaching and researching in the virtual world of Second Life, where I am known as Anya Ixchel.
As somebody who has been quite evangelical in my comments about Second Life, it comes as a shock to read around the blogosphere and find that other people are just not that into it. Serious gamer research blogs like Terra Nova seem to be fairly dismissive of it, and serious social software research blogs like Many2Many seem to consider it all either hyped up or a world of horrors (citing the seedy sex scene as offputting). But it seems to me that none of these people “get it”. Because Second Life, despite some of its less savoury aspects, really has the best of both worlds - it is a fantastic gaming platform and it is also a fantastic social software platform.
First of all, Second Life has a rich role-playing scene - OK so not all of the role-playing is G rated, but the role-playing I have seen is wonderful. I am so surprised that the “serious” gamers don’t get into this more, because for anybody researching new narrative forms, Second Life provides the best of what’s new and the users themselves are the ones constructing the contexts, storylines, characters and quests. Now I don’t want to open up the debate about narrative vs ludology by seeming to favour narrative, and perhaps WoW is much stronger in its ludic qualities, but the beauty of Second Life is that the users themselves have developed their own MM (well maybe 40 or 50 isn’t massive but still..) ORPG. I’ve been following some of the posts about WoW from other researchers, and I see that WoW has fairly structured, in-built quests, and a limited array of avatars and characters, particularly with respect to female characters. In Second Life the range of possibilities for characters and avatars is restricted only to the player’s imagination. Some of the role-playing has in built quests and ludic elements like combat, rewards, levels and so on, and so again, each role-playing context is different and has different elements according to what the group of role-players want and develop together. This means that Second Life is a wonderful gaming platform for people who have imagination and who want to co-construct complex and diverse narratives and games with others.
Secondly, I am just outright shocked at the lack of interest from some of the people writing about social software. I have been a resident in Second Life now for over a year, and during this time I have:
- met an incredible group of talented educators, writers, media experts, animation experts, engineers, film makers and artists
- taught my class on New Literacies inside the world, which is being featured on a forthcoming television report in Australia
- spoken at a syposium on the “Impact of Digital Media” in connection with the NMC and the MacArthur foundation
- given a keynote at a Linguistics conference about machinima
- been invited to speak at two conferences in 2007 about digital culture / virtual worlds
- worked in collaboration with a number of educators, artists and digital culture commentator on a magazine about the arts and culture in SL
- included references to Second Life in my forthcoming book about literacies and identities in virtual worlds
- not to mention the new friends I have made who have taught me, inspired me, and helped to further shape my thinking about digital culture
Second Life, for me, *is* the ultimate in social software.
Notwithstanding its less savoury aspects. OK, so let me be balanced about this and point them out:
- the seedy sex scene is very offputing for people involved in education like me. I was very concerned and embarrassed about exposing my students to this, but probably overcompensated by sherparding them all carefully through the orientation stage and out of that horrible welcome area as fast as possible. The welcome area in Second Life is just TERRIBLE - its such a shock for new people to be confronted with, i wish it wasn’t there. Even in the orientation area before arriving at the welcome area I had one student griefed, with somebody pushing them off a mountain and screaming obscenities at them. So I can understand if people get that far and think it won’t be worth it. And in the welcome area, newbies are seen as targets for ridicule, sexual propositions, and more griefing. Even when getting my students over to my little plot of land I was worried about the neighbours, and put up barriers so none of them could wander in. Some of my colleagues are fortunate enough to have their own islands for teaching on, and if I am lucky maybe my faculty will give me funding for an island in the future too, but this last semester I only had a small plot, surrounded by all sorts of weird, wonderful, and not so wonderful neghbours (and more about my teaching semester in SL can be read here).
- there is a lot of hype and parabola about how many users are in SL, the platform is buggy, seeming favouritism towards some groups of people over others, there’s an American-centric attitude that pervades everything which is really irritating (not that I don’t love all my American friends, but really….), there are a lot of women who make me cry with frustration because of how they prostitute themselves for Lindens, and there do seem to be some groups of people who are using SL for what I would consider pathological purposes (and I don’t want to even mention what these are on my blog). Issues of race, gender, and socio-economic status are sadly numerous and negative in nature.
Will Second Life remain my platform of choice? Maybe not, but until something better comes along, I will concentrate on all of the amazing and positive affordances it offers for my teaching, research interests and social networking. I don’t really have the time or energy to focus on the negative aspects - I bypass them so that I can just do my work and socialising as effectively and efficiently as possible.
The New Media Consortium will host the 12-day symposium on the NMC campus in Second Life, focusing on the impact of digital media on all aspects of our daily lives. The Symposium on the Impact of Digital Media will explore the ways we encounter and understand digital media — inside such a setting. This virtual symposium is informed by the MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning, a two-year project in which the NMC is helping to explore the impact of digital media on our lives in a variety of ways, and encouraging dialogue among experts, visionaries, and thought leaders from around the globe.
In my dual role as an educator in Second Life and as editor of Slatenight (a magazine about the Arts, education, culture and entertainment in SL) I was invited to plan a live event inside Second Life for Sl residents.
I have planned a four hour series of events, and here is our program:
Friday October 20th 7am-11am - Live Event SLATENIGHT hosted events
* The Avatar as Communication - Dr Angela Thomas, Sydney University (Anya Ixchel, editor of Slatenight)
* Fashion parade: Fashioning the Avatar (showcasing the range of unique identities in SL)
* Remediation of the Art Space in SL - Christy Dena, Sydney University (Lythe Witte, writer for Slatenight)
* Future Perfect: Projections forward to an even better world - Dell Wilberg (creative designer of Slatenight)
* Engaging the Disengaged: Using SL to Revitalize the Undergraduate Classroom - Danielle Mirliss and Heidi Trotta, Seton Hall University, NY (Danielle Damone and Heidi TeeCee, writers for Slatenight)
So, if you are in SL, come along and listen to us - our voices will be streamed into world as will the music, and you’ll probably hear lots of laughing and informal chatting during the fashion show - oh and the musicians tell me I will never be able to shut them up, so you may even hear me getting very stern trying to keep them in line *grin*
If you have Second Life downloaded already, and are a member of the NMC guests group (to access the NMC sim you need to be a guest of the group), here is the SLURL.
For a list of ongoing posts about the many other symposium events (including a talk with Howard Rheingold!), check the NMC Observer.
Slatenight 1.2 is available now - in Second Life at any Slatenight kiosk, and at the website slatenight.com
Articles this issue include the following:
Deus Ex Machina: “God From The Machine” (this one is the most popular by far, discussing the nexus between science fiction and technology, projecting into the future etc)
All the (Virtual) Worlds a Stage
(and another article by me about a theatre performance in SL - images featured on the cover above)
and there’s lots more about art, identity, relationships in SL, musical events, SL lifestyles and more! Phew… and issue 3 is shaping up nicely, with some fabulous articles covering the arts, education, culture, and life in Second Life.
Because of the problems with Second Life last night, I had to improvise myself and actually do my lecture offline, so we talked about performance narratives and I couldn’t resist showing them this one. It is so funny and says a lot about mass entertainment, fandom etc. It’s a must read if you want a laugh
My friend Jayce from Second Life gave me a plane and here I am, Anya the pilot!!! (Thanks Jayce!!!) I modified it to colour it pink, then hovered over my oceanfront property for a bit:
before flying off to admire the beautiful sunset:
and the full moon:
Yes, a little bit of fun in between: visiting schools, lecturing, answering thousands of questions about assignments, sorting out computer problems, doing chapter revisions, sitting on interview panels, going to meetings and attending research seminars. Hectic times right now!
My SL friend Rogue kindly introduced me today to Thinkerer Melville, whose movie “Interview with a Dragon” I blogged about earlier in the week. I was like a gushing fan - sooo excited to meet him after enjoying his SL movies so much! He is planning to make more and *drum roll* I vounteered to act in his next venture! *laughing*
Meanwhile, here is another one of his movies for your entertainment pleasure:
For your amusement and pleasure and something a little bit different today, I am sharing somebody else’s video from Second Life (my flute playing video pales in comparison!):
One of the things I’m really most interested in with Second Life is the potential for roleplaying and storying. Now that I’ve had fun playing with the basics in the world (and spending my hard earned cash on skin, hair and fashion!!) I’ve started exploring the various role-playing sims. Last night I was totally creeped out though when I stumbled across a horror role-playing sim. Loosely based on the computer game, Silent Hill (which is also now a movie), Crimson Falls is a supernatural / horror / violent / psychological drama kind of roleplay.
Pictured here are the crimson falls - the water is crimson allegedly because of the algae but there are some in the narrative that think it is the blood of all the people who were slaughtered at an insane asylum by a crazy doctor. What disturbed me most was the wonderful streaming audio (of jazz and melancholic 50s music), the sound effects of the ocean and birds and living things, not to mention the gorgeously designed textures of buildings and so on - all creating a beautiful context for such horror. So blood spattered floors and bits of human remains were a shock to see… and I had chills seeing it after being lulled into a false sense of security constructed through the beauty of the place.
Here’s a quick video of me playing the flute in Second Life. I’m playing one of the pre-uploaded songs, “Summertime”. But I’ve also been transcribing my own flute music slowly into files that can be read and converted into audio. It’s really quite clever. One of my favourite pieces of music to play is Debussy’s “Syrinx” and I am half way through transcribing and rearranging it to suit right now. Getting the changes in tempo and dynamics is tricky but it can be done thanks to the amazing design of the flute by a Second Life resident named Robbie Dingo.
More than any other online community I’ve studied, I’m having the most fun with this one. It has so many more creative and artistic possibilities, and I’m a great fan of animation. But I also loooove my avatar - crazy but true - I think because she has automatic poses and responses not controlled completely by me it feels like she’s a little real doll. The blurring of calling her “me” and “she” is strange too - because she has a life of her own I see her as more seperate from me yet she is more like me than any other avatar I’ve had (not in looks but in some intangible way I can’t quite articulate) - fascinating
Oh do you like the pink hair today? I couldn’t resist buying a set of different shades of my favourite hairstyle. Yes I know - another $5 spent on dressing myself up. I am addicted to shopping. I’ve been trying to think of a way to make money in SL itself to support my fashion addiction. I went to Barbie’s night club and they were hiring “exotic” dancers for $100s of dollars an hour plus any tips from viewers but despite Anya’s secret urge to try pole-dancing in skimpy outfits I decided not to allow it *laugh*. Something a bit more respectable is the song writing competition I am going to enter. The prize is $10,000 (Linden dollars) which equates to about $50 (Australian). If I win that it would keep me in shoes and clothes and hair and jewellery etc… for a while *laugh*. Incredibly, there are a number of Second Life fashion blogs, magazines, and online boutiques which are hilarious fun. Check out these: Linden Lifestyles, Second Life Boutique, and Second Style Fashionista. My absolute favourite designer (who must be at least $10 richer because of my trade) is Nonna Hedges. In fact, you may recognise some of these items of clothing from my previous posts:
Avatars are a bustling economy - big business But don’t you just love the authentic fashion genre in the images and composition of Nonna Hedges’ ads? It’s brilliant and she is genuinely talented!
And speaking of blogs and e-zines related to Second Life, there are thousands of them! I really like the video blog of Dagny Hemingway because she has some great videos of events (for example when Lawrence Lessig visited she filmed the event). Her blog is called The Faux Press in Second Life. There’s moves afoot for an e-zine called “Avatar Magazine” and people are getting paid to write about avatars! I think I should volunteer
