i have been pondering avatars and their (our?) attributes a lot this
weekend. sitting under a tree with the wild lilac bushes wafting harshly
toward me, even though they were not visible from where i was sitting.
this is relevant, because they made impression, even though they were
not visible in usual ways. in other words synesthesia-oriented
perceptions...
when we consider cutting open a 'physical'
organism and the 'new faces' being apparent as we move further and
further through its surfaces into its depths, i think it is important
that we also think about the position of viewer.
in other words, how
relevant is the dimensionality of an organism, if we as the ones
instigating that organism are capable of more than singular dimensional
movements and senses...or, what is it to consider making love to
something that you can't see in usual ways?
i am thinking about this b.c
i am interested in differentiated ways of considering 'eating'--i need
this consideration b/c i consider meditation and fasting forms of
ephemeral feast. or--could we spend some time in this class considering
Chod--"the radical act of turning your body into a nectar" (b kapil)--in order to
feed ourselves to underworld gods do we turn ourselves into dimension
that will meet their gaping maws? or is it in fact true, that regardless
of what we do, an underworld god could devour our limited
dimensionality?
if the underworld god is death, Yama or some such, then the devouring always occurs, at one point to another, slowly as an ageing body begins to die, then quicker, as it finally shuts down, as a totality. I think one reason that the digital domain is so powerful (only one reason) is because there's the (unfulfilled) promise of eternity - digital works can 'live' forever or at least as long as the databases and technology are supported. it's precisely because of their dividability that they can do so - as I mention above, you can 'heal' one pixel or bit without affecting others.
ReplyDeleteof course the underworld gods will disappear in the final moments as they are embraced; generated, they're completed, they're gone... meanwhile the digital glut increases exponentially and the problem becomes one of modern - read corporate and corporate capital - management, and management of management, and on and on ...
I appreciate your mention of the "(unfulfilled) promise of eternity"--why is the promise unfulfilled?
ReplyDeleteunfulfilled because ultimately digital media will decay like everything else - the universe is tending towards a cold death without matter, albeit in a couple of trillion years. we tend to think of digital media as inherently preserving - and in fact I think they are, at least for the literally foreseeable future - but sooner or later the sun will expand, stars will die out, and so forth. -
ReplyDeleteright. perhaps this more than anything else "the stars dying out"--is why I think it is of value to imagine avatars. whether or not there is agreement on the 'real'-ness of them in that frame, it is certainly a place where they might be able to be everlasting. I know you said previously that you do not believe in ghosts in 'real life'--but I do, and I have had experiences with apparitions of all sorts, including avatar-like alternates to me from other planes. I could go into this if you want, but it is why my roots re speaking and investigation/ investment in this course necessarily include the imagined or psychic imprints of forms.
ReplyDelete"on occasion, she stops by and lightly runs her (imaginary) hand across the bark of the oldest tree high above a canyon where a little stream trickles its way to a massive, restless ocean"-Rodrigo Toscano from Deck of Deeds
ReplyDelete“radiance of one entity transporting another entity into another realm”-R Toscano
ReplyDeleteYou have to say more about this, about experience with apparitions. And given this experience, why would you assume that the apparitions are from other planes, and why they might exist beyond or past the existence of the universe. I've had 'psychic' experiences myself - two in my life that were clearly defined - but I would hesitate to draw any conclusions at all from them. Also, can you say something about 'psychic' imprints?
ReplyDeleteI wonder if it would be a good idea to read Lawrence Krauss' A Universe from Nothing, which is stirring a lot of controversy in the scientific/philosophical communities. I read it yesterday and have problems with some of it, but I think in the main his conclusions are correct... Curious what others would think of it -
Finally, who is Toscano?
What a great suggestion re Krauss book. Will grab it and read. Feels relevant, certainly...
ReplyDeleteI would love to say more about apparitions and manifestations of figures from other planes. I do not assume that they are real, I know them as real--as real to me as I am. I suppose that this relates to how some folks have a fierce knowledge of the reality of 'god' for them--but for me, the planar appearances that slip through the veils between visible and not visible, are as real and relevant to me as I am to myself. perhaps that is reason for my fierce defense of them--
I was intensely pursued by one of these figures (not so much use really in delineation of what kind of figure it was--had the quality of an apparition, was see through, almost did look 'digital')for many years. sought after by them. the relationship that I engaged in with them was not solely 'real' or 'not real'--meaning it was not a psychic experience (or a psychic break for that matter) as opposed to another type of experience. the experience was here, in this plane, from another plane--the figure communicated with me re the other plane, re cosmic selvage, etc.
I do not even think it is of much value to speak to imagined or not re these types of mysterious encounters, but my awareness based in them is one that means that for me to say an imagined avatar can possibly be made real in the body of the believer, is not too far of a stretch.
Rodrigo Toscano is an amazing experimental writer and as I was reading and working with some of his new book "Deck of Deeds" yesterday, I found the above quotes, which felt relevant to the statements that I have been making here re eternity not being impossible or an "unfulfilled promise" if the harsh delineation between 'real' and 'not real' is dissolved and more ephemeral approaches to relationship with forms are engaged.
Sorry to be a skeptic, but how do you know that the figures weren't products of your own imagination? I assume you get this question all the time, when the subject comes up? And what do you think their origin is? There's a very old - 1890s maybe - book from the Society of Psychical Research (SPR) in England, the British Census of Hallucinations that literally tallied apparitions; out of thousands, they come up (I believe; I don't have the book now) with several hundred that couldn't be explained away. They found most of these occurred in crisis situations.
ReplyDeleteI've never had or seen anything like these myself. How do you feel your apparitions and manifestations relate to digital avatars? Did they appear to have 'weight' or bulk, in other words to have thickness?
Thanks -
Just gave a long comment and it got lost in the redirect; you can't return to the text, but just a blank space. What I was asking (among other things) - how do you know you're not generating the apparitions themselves - and what sort of 'thickness' or weight do they appear to have? I haven't had these experiences myself. and how do you know they come from 'another plane'? - I think that 'plane' - which is used a lot of course - is a highly problematic metaphor, implying a surplus that can't be explained, that's always elsewhere - which is where godhead comes into play. I'm not doubting you saw something, but doubting the origin; certainly a scientist would ask for skeptical inquiry. I do believe in science along these lines myself, that whatever is present is ultimately explicable. that comes from my reading of Weyl etc. ...
ReplyDeletehere we go again! the comment has been published in two versions, thanks to a confused redirect. pick whichever you want! :-) and apologies for the confusion; I blame it on blogspot...
ReplyDeleteso weird re redirect. sorry that keeps happening!
ReplyDeleteanyway, no problem re opening it up more here. that is the purpose!
I am not sure that whether or not the figures were products of my imagination is relevant. what I know is that they came to me with autonomous information for me, as well as autonomous identity to me. they are not mere fractures in my psyche or something, if that is what you are eluding to...
my firmness about this is a position/ stance of belief, sense, intuition--more than it is any effort to prove. I am saying that for me, their legitimacy is unquestionable and that, THAT is where their value is.
I think that their origin is from other planes that exist simultaneous to now. I say other planes, because I have seen these places, seen myself there in them, and I know them, I can feel their validity in my body. in other words they are not fake or illusory because I feel their reality.
these figures that are realities did not appear to me as fleeting (like some recall their experiences with "guardian angels") in times of crisis, and the very fact that this type of body-data has been so intensely sought out and spoken about (turned into a rigidity?) in psychiatric circles, feels in a large way, reductive to me. the need to create a name rooted in a specific logic that does not necessarily even relate (and perhaps even excludes) in any meaningful way, to the experiencer's experiences, feels at its base, reductive to me.
I appreciate your asking about the apparitions and manifestations. it is really quite interesting--sometimes they do appear as weighty and dimensional (meaty), but other times, as I mentioned before, really not of dimension at all. in fact, something very different than usual perceptions of dimensionality. if I really try to articulate what they have been like, they are sort of like an intuition of dimensionality, but along with them is a sort of future memory of what they will be like physically. so, it is like looking at a wavering or flickering picture of a plum while also being able to sense its thickness. it evokes real response in my body--that is what I am saying, and where (if it can be considered a spectrum) does hunger or edibility start and end? in other words if I can smell or feel them by sensing them, that is also an aspect of their dimensionality that has to be considered, regardless of how they appear to me if I am gauging them re a strictness of view...
btw--I really believe in a "surplus that can't be [entirely] explained [but can be felt] that's [sometimes] eleswhere"--I am saying that the very thing you seem to be stating as problematic to you here re planes, is very much a reality for me (with above inserts present, of course). it is fine with me if they are from and uphold an else, as long as they come to me from time to time, with these thicknesses of their offerings.
Still not sure what "other planes" means. Certainly the expression doesn't have any meaning that I know of in relation to cosmology. What do the figure look like? There are two things here of course, your personal experience which is unassailable and inviolate and filled in ways that might not be describable in language, and claims you might make in relation to that experience, for example other planes and so forth. Any claims made and any discussion is necessarily reductive; this also occurs for the 'real world' - if I attempt to describe what 1968 'felt like' in Providence, Rhode Island (where I was for much of the time) - I'm at a total loss; I can talk about hippies and stress and anxiety, but the miniscule elements are hardly in memory, and its these elements - the smell of things, sounds from car radios, someone calling someone on the street, and so forth - that really constitute the period and every period, and are unbelievably elusive.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your second to last paragraph, and I'd add whose hunger or edibility? I feel I have to be a reporter here, since we're talking about your experiences, which you have access to, and I don't. So I'm not sure how I fit in, as someone familiar with theory or virtual worlds, say, in relation to them.
And the last paragraph is beautiful, poetic. What's problematic for me isn't your sensing planes, but the potential ontology that's involved if you make (linguistically) claims that they 'exist' say in the same way that the 'real world' exists. Then there are issues of verifiability and so forth. I've taken mescaline twice - my drug intake has always been pretty much nonexistent - and one of the times I saw a towel moving up and down the wall at Vito Acconci's apartment. So is this real? It was my experience; I can chalk it up to drugs, or I can make an ontological claim that 'in reality' the towel is a kind of being that's capable of that. Now what if I had this without drugs? Did the drugs magnify what really is present, or did they create it? In your descriptions, which are drugless - and your descriptions are beautiful and understandable - the only issue is about the claims your experiences engender. I'd ask the same of any avatar situation at all, by the way.
I feel I'm coming across as an ordinary language philosophy, which I'm not; I think there's far more to the world than we know, and far more to being organism, and even farther more to being human. But I think that whatever is here or there, is accountable for within cosmology and contemporary (particle) physics, which are thickets but remarkably predictive themselves. So when I talk about say an avatar in Second Life, I'm bringing in everything from artificial intelligence to cognitive science to phenomenology and psychoanalysis, all of which are helpful - as is perhaps above all, a poetics of the virtual, much as Bachelard has poetics of space or poetics of fire, etc. For me, though, underlying all of this is cosmology and our place(placing) within the cosmos...
Now I'm writing still under codeine! The result of pain from the surgery; I hope I'm making sense here...
How do this apparitions or emanations (con)figure in your work?
And Christine, where are you!? :-)
oh wow. I am sorry you are in pain!
ReplyDeleteI guess it is ok that we have different perspectives about the value of verifiability re these things. it is also ok to me for us to not agree re the presence of "other planes"--because, for me, for a real figure to have told me they are here with me or a version of me or a version of a lover from 'another plane' is itself, enough.
I am sure that there are aspects of cosmology or particle theory that could explain these things, but my experience of them has not particularly been quantifiable as much as created an understanding and knowledge base in me (trust) that I have unveiled here as a way to locate my comments re this class.
I have seen very effeminate figures, figures sort of like furry lights, etc. many shapes, but they are figures (animals or projections of animals?--I am saying that there is a sort of animality-awareness I have about them). is this answering your question?
btw--just for the record, my relation to the figures and the other planes are not "claims"--just have to clarify that. though it might be how you want to refer to them, experiential realities are versions of fact to me, if fact can be located in the honesties of bodhi.
I appreciate the statement of elusivity in your response as well. I think that must be factored in here.
I do not think that other planes exist in the same way that the "real world" exists. I do however, know them to exist. that has really been my emphasis throughout all of my comments re lens thus far in our discussions. that harsh comparisons of this world to another (or something else besides 'world' where things occur and exist and have autonomy) exact replica of it or something is not of concern to me at all. in other words, it does not feel relevant to me to attempt to prove one and disprove another. I want to know about the overlaps, the bleeding through--more than to focus on the gaps.
I find your experiences in Acconci's apartment very beautiful. thank you for sharing. I have no desire to classify that experience as real for you or not, but I can say that if that moving and quaking towel gave you a revelation, you bet I would want to hear it!
again, I do not see my experiences engendering any claims. I see them attempting to point (in a vast way and not with one extended finger as imposition) to the possibility of ulteriorities, of other things being possible, than what are strictly, quantifiable and provable.
I am sharing these intricacies of my body and experience because I feel that they are important parts of considering avatars. if we are going to say that it makes an avatar mourn that a tree in the woods would not hear them cry, you bet I want to attempt to devise ways (based on my experiences emphasizing that different types of intimacy are possible) for the tree to hear the avatar's weeping and vice versa. for all we know a tree and an avatar might have more 'common ground' than an avatar and a human (which we have regularly been talking about here re use and projections), by way of the fact that we as humans 'use' both of them. avatars projection to human need to be represented just like tree is to human use of paper.
and yes, C--please join in if any of this is stimulating to you! if you want we can talk about pronouns re your attached avatars? I asked you something about that the other day.
another way to say it is if an avatar is crying, I want to wipe its tears...which are not my tears and may not even be a "you"s tears.
ReplyDeleteor, how can a human wipe an avatar's tears?
The answer to the last is simple in a way - either an avatar doesn't cry or if it does, it's programmed to, and so you can program it to have its tears wiped away. Since a human is doing the programming, the human is programming the tears and their wiping as well.
ReplyDeleteWhich brings up something across all of the texts - what's meant by 'avatar'? I was initially referring to a construct in a textual or visual virtual world, or a game for that matter - in other words, a representation of a player or user in an online environment. So I think we - at least I - have to be clearer in considering avatars; in your statement "if we are going to say that it makes an avatar mourn [...]" - I'd reply that what makes an avatar mourn is programming. If you mean something other than an online representation - an apparition for example - then you're speaking about something else which may have no relationship at all to it. What psychologically or psychoanalytically happens to an online avatar - happens to the user/performer/viewer etc. Think of them as embodied dynamic real-time illustrations - they're embodied by their users. And in fact it's difficult to 'make' an avatar appear emotional or 'human' at all - I have a book here on this issue, which deals with everything from facial expressions to avatar stances when doing nothing. It's programming all the way down and of course difficult. So if you say in your last post 'if an avatar is crying [...]' this is far afield from virtual worlds, but would hold for apparitions surely.
I think it's problematic to read too much into the online avatars as self-embodied agents; this might or might not happen in 5-10 years time, but it's not the case now. Instead, most of the research I've seen has been about the opposite - how to embody more of the user/controller into the avatar through mixed reality means.
A bleary early morning here in Brooklyn... I did reply to this, perhaps on another post? Nothing's here...
ReplyDeleteA--I want to relay to you here that I got your response/s. I have had to take some time over the weekend to contemplate how to work with the fact that there is a sort of philosophical quality of conversation that I want to be having here that each time I try to open on account of my own experiences, feels to me to be shut down by you.
ReplyDeleteI understand that you have a very particular perspective re avatars and what can be done/ felt by way of them, but it feels to me like with the strictness of your perspective re them, I am going to have to sort-of close what has been my desire to open up my own thoughts and ideas and wonderings re them.
I am curious why you began the non-class with questions re avatars and 'what makes them sad' if you have no interest in considering such questions 'because what they feel is not real'--in other words, I think I may have misunderstood what might be able to be discussed in this non-class in an open and affirming way and due to that misunderstanding on my part, am going to hold back at this point. my experiences and how I understand them are too sacred and vivid to me, for them to continue to be shut down by you due to how you perceive avatars in the context of mere projections and 'use.'
I feel that it is definitely the case that I have shared enough body-content and perspective to show that I have engaged in the course that you offered--and I want to let you know that if there are any more questions you might have re my personal experiences and how I integrate them, I would be happy to get email from you to my personal email regarding that. I am also open to attempting to engage in a different quality of discourse (than what I am most interested in re this) if that would suit you re the class atmosphere.
regardless of whether or not avatars are 'real' it feels of value to me to consider ethics regarding the whole lot of ephemeral beings: avatars, androids, apparitions, etc. I do not, however, have to do that in this space...
please do not take any of this personally. it is not derogatory in any way, nor is it making any negative statement about you. I am just stating how I feel about how the conversations have been going and whether or not I feel willing to continue subjecting my somatic awarenesses and convictions to space of conversation that at its base, refutes them.
Hi, a couple of things. First I respect your decision not to participate or discuss here. I've never challenged you on your beliefs; I do feel that self-critique - which includes me as well of course - is part of learning or thinking. You're saying your experiences "are too sacred and vivid to" you, which already shuts down discussion; you're saying it's all inviolate in a way. I've not doubted your experiences, but the context and ontology is something else. So you've indicated a kind of closure in discussing any of this.
ReplyDeleteAs far as questions re: avatars; in the beginning, the avatars we were considering were emanations into virtual worlds and Christine's work with the virtual human project; neither the virtual human nor Second Life avatars (say) feel anything, but their users/perceivers/creators do of course, and that's what was meant. You call, for the class, your apparitions (etc.) avatars, so then they are related to these other avatars, and just as questions are asked of the SL avatars, they'd be asked about anything here. I'm fascinated by your perception and have never challenged the value you place on what you experience. When you say "the whole lot of ephemeral beings" - maybe there's where the problem lies, because there's nothing ephemeral about virtual avatars, ranging from Japan's virtual idols (Date Kyoko for example) through SL avatars, textual avatars in MOOs, etc.; they're all real, as data-base objects, as sets of permissions and ownerships, and so forth. Apparitions may not be related to them at all.
You seem, finally, to feel that I'm refuting your "somatic awareness and convictions" - I'm hardly refuting the former, which is your experience and which I have no business saying anything about, and as far as the latter goes, if the convictions are conclusions you draw from your experience, surely, these can be discussed, or should I just accept your analysis at face value? I don't accept mine or anyone else's; part of learning (which admittedly may not have anything to do with the Underacademy) is self-examination, which I think is where you draw the line.
So let's leave this alone and hopefully Christine will come in, or some of the other people here? I hesitate to say students, because we're all students in this situation; none of us have any authority over anyone else...
just want to clarify here that the sacredness and vividness of my experiences no more shuts down the conversation than your statement that there is no use in considering the feelings of avatars (when what I want to do is think about those feelings) 'because they are not real, they are programmed' does...so, I think that there is validity in my statement that I am not interested in making my questions prostrate to the particular shape of discussion that has now been laid out here re the last few posts. I guess I just had different intents re this investigation, really, and perhaps to my fault, hoped there might be more open mindedness and curiosity (which for me lays forth a deep equity) than I experienced in your last couple of posts.
ReplyDeleteit is not that I do not want to participate or discuss. it for me is about what I will discuss at this point, based on a quality of tone/analysis (of ontology as a primary focus) which is/ was not the primary site of interest for me re the class. I am open to discussion with the group and feel particularly interested in what you might have to share re your own "self-analysis"--happy to stand by and participate in, witness and engage with that (feral, flickering towels sliding up and down the wall included)--
looking forward to Christine (or anyone else) joining the conversation--this student space...
Hi - my own self-analysis isn't open here, and has little to do with the class; I wouldn't ask anyone to make their self-analysis public in any sort of learning situation in fact. I'd like to hear what Christine has to say. What I said re: avatars and feelings in terms of programming should sufficiently answer the question within that domain - if you have any idea how a Second Life avatar, in fact, could feel, please let me know, because I haven't the vaguest. At least at the stage SL is in, this is a fact; there's no consciousness to an SLavatar. It's not shutting down anything; there's nothing to consider because there's no feelings; on the other hand, there are enormous processes going on within the humans logged into SL. Again, if you have any idea how an avatar in SL could feel, please let me know. I feel we're going in circles here. Thanks, Alan -
ReplyDeleteHello - I've only just discovered this thread of the conversation - sorry I didn't find it sooner. It's very late for me here in the UK and I'm quite tired so I'll be brief for now.
ReplyDeleteI've never had any psychic experiences so I don't feel qualified to comment on those matters. Since a child, I've had (or should I say created) very intense relationships with imaginary characters. These days I channel that into creative work. But I remember times when I almost preferred my imaginary relationships to those in reality. That's where my particular interest in avatars lies mainly - why we humans feel a need for avatars, what is the nature of the relationship/s we create with them? What effect do avatars have on us?
I'll start babbling rubbish if I carry on. I'll come back to this in the morning :-)
I wonder if this need doesn't also apply to dolls, mannequins, puppets, and the like - the transitional objects of Winnicott? I haven't had imaginary characters but have had, a couple of times, 'resonances' with people in pain (actually suicidal in one case and a stabbing in another); in one case, the resonance was over physical distance, and in the other, over temporal. The former was validated, and both have only happened once in my life. But these are extensions (or appear to be; I don't want to make any claims) of the mind, not of the body, not even of the perceptions of the body...
Deletethanks A and C for continuing to be present in this space.
ReplyDeleteagain, for me "fact" or not is of less interest to me than thinking/ employing (even by imagining) ontologies that make possible consideration of extreme future scenarios. or, as A mentioned in the beginnings of this blog scenarios and considerations "that will allow us to skip a few" [years, eras, limits](I am less interested in looking back or even looking at "here" than I am at looking forward or outside of or ulterior to)--anyway, as A stated earlier when prompting C to enter convo. I think that we are at least somewhat missing each others direction so I feel grateful to have another quality of convo inserted here. thanks C!
I am really interested in your created experiences with imaginary characters. the way you describe your imaginary relationships is also very interesting, that there was preference there. that makes sense--they are there with you! they offer to you!
have you ever had any negative experiences with imaginary characters? something I think is very interesting is that imaginary characters can be figures or forms that we have real (as opposed to imaginary) relationships with...
"why we humans feel a need for avatars, what is the nature of the relationship/s we create with them? What effect do avatars have on us?"
I feel grateful for these questions b/c they actually feel in some ways like (akin to) inversions of the shapes that I was posing above. I see in them a desire to consider intimacies. to look into the relationships that are pursued based on need. I know that I definitely consider dolls, mannequins, puppets, etc in the context of intimacies. of ways of touching deeper, of forms for connecting, that alleviate the loneliness--I think ones own bed can be considered in that way as well. as a dear friend of mine (named Lark) and I were talking about this weekend--"beds provide press on all sides--constant press and no separation"--
Excellent description of beds, absolutely.
ReplyDeleteIf you have imaginary characters are the relationships also imaginary? I'm not sure but that all relationships are equally real or equally imaginary...
I wasn't familiar with Winnicott's writing but the Wikipedia entry on him has piqued my interest so I intend to read more (thanks). It's also made me curious about the field of Object Relations and, although I don't know anything about it yet, I can't help feeling there might be an interesting correlation with Object Oriented Programming, at least in terms of the ideas I'm hoping to explore through OOP. Specifically, one of my aims is to explore, using OOP, the idea of the other as a 'black box' in a fictional representation. But perhaps now I'm straying from the subject of avatars.
ReplyDeleteI think the idea of the transitional object is interesting and, yes, I think it does apply to dolls, mannequins and puppets as well as avatars.
I think OOP is something else, at least in relation to transitional objects; the latter are 'quasi-objects' that play psychoanalytically with the subject, and aren't well-defined; the former is completely well-defined...
DeleteIsn't the 'object' of OOP also a quasi-object in the sense that it is "seemingly; apparently but not really" "a material thing that can be seen and touched" (dictionary definitions)? But in the non-material sense of 'object', I agree. Although perhaps an 'object' in code could be programmed to simulate a transitional object in relation to the player/user/interactor's sense of it. But I have to admit, at the moment, I have a very sketchy idea of what a transitional object is. I need to read more about it.
DeleteOh, two more of your comments have appeared, preceding my last one, which weren't visible when I posted that. (Blogger is playing tricks on me ;)
ReplyDeleteCan you have real relationships with imaginary characters? Well, my imaginary characters were created by my self, so assuming that the relationship that I have with my self is real, then the... Ah, I think I'm going round in circles now. I think you have imaginary relationships with imaginary characters. But emotionally, these are simulations of real relationships - or rather, ideal relationships - and if the simulation is powerful enough, imagined vividly enough, then the emotions can be real enough.
However, the simulation is being generated by the self and it's pretty difficult to surprise oneself the way a real other person can surprise you, so after a while the imaginary relationship becomes dull, like reading the same story over and over again, so you abandon that one and start a new one... or turn to real life. That, the tendency to find yourself boring your self, is a negative side in my experience.
On the other hand, I realised that I'd entertained (for want of a better word) myself for a sustained period with the imaginary so perhaps I could channel that into creative production somehow.
Now, considering Alan's point, "I'm not sure but that all relationships are equally real or equally imaginary..." I think that's *very* true. In fact, that notion is central to my idea or metaphor of the other as a 'black box' - i.e. we can not know the workings inside a 'black box,' we can only relate to or interface with its behaviour and so we create mental models of what's going on inside it.
You say "However, the simulation is being generated by the self and it's pretty difficult to surprise oneself the way a real other person can surprise you, so after a while the imaginary relationship becomes dull, like reading the same story over and over again, so you abandon that one and start a new one... or turn to real life. That, the tendency to find yourself boring your self, is a negative side in my experience." - I think this is critical. For the most part, avatars and other 'controlled' objects like dolls etc. don't surprise us; there's no alterity, no radical otherness (in the sense that Levinas' uses it); there's only the promise of increased control. So my avatar will do "whatever I want it to do" - which is why the work of people like Gaz has been so important, I think, in Second Life - he's made piece where he takes over your avatar body, distorts it, turns it into something else that you find more or less unrecognizable.
ReplyDeleteI think along with Levinas, existentialism is important - in both there's the idea of the Other which forms you, constructs in part your project of being-human, being in the world. I talk about this when I lecture a fair amount - if you ask someone for a real-life date online and they say know, you can delete/kill/unfriend/whatever them - and that's that, you're already distanced from them. But in real life, think of, if you're a teenager and ask someone out and she or he says no - you feel demolished, annihilated; it's a kind of radical negation that indicates how deep the social and body relationships are to us.
Apparitions are another story or set of stories altogether, of course, since they appear to be independent, willful, in more or less degree - it's almost as if a ghost can startle, an avatar can't.
Yes, control is the key - we play at controlling the Other, our avatar is ourself and our other at one and the same time.
ReplyDelete"For the most part, avatars and other 'controlled' objects like dolls etc. don't surprise us; there's no alterity, no radical otherness (in the sense that Levinas' uses it); there's only the promise of increased control."
Perhaps this is why dolls, dummies, surrogates, avatars, mirror images/illusions, etc. can have therapeutic uses - e.g. in pain control.
I think so; they also have uses through love; I think the softness of teddy-bears, and their form as well, relates to the breast.
ReplyDeleteControl also has an odd parallel with the Internet itself - there's been a lot of writing about the Net in relation to narcissism - for example you get controlled answers in Google, depending on your location and past history etc. So the Net returns a fractured mirror of yourself...
A--why do you feel that an avatar can't startle in the same way a ghost can? does it have to do with an already existing relationship to the figure--the avatar, so surprise or shock there, will not nec. occur (re an avatar b/c an avatar has been 'programmed')?
ReplyDeleteI admit I am not schooled in avatar culture (if there even is one;)--curious if folks ever 'switch' their avatar with another's avatar so that there could possibly be relational shock? do folks ever experiment like this (that you know of)?
An avatar can't startle because it's totally controlled, especially if it's "my" avatar. It can be misprogrammed and the software or communication can develop a glitch - there are a lot of glitches, for example in Second Life - if you go near the edge of the game-space different physics can take over. Most of this gets ironed out as Second Life develops. You could be startled by another avatar doing something amazing, and you might ask it (in other words the user) how that was done? You could also be startled by the words another avatar types or speaks - these come directly from the user. So an avatar could say "I'm outside your house right now and I'm coming to kill you" - and that would be startling - first, because it could be true (i.e. the user might be outside your house), and second, because something like that would 'break through' the game-space. In general though, avatars have a relatively limited repertoire of behavior, and it's all framed by whatever virtual world you're in. I imagine in World of Warcraft for example that you could be ambushed, but it's basically save within the game; the startling, in other words, is contained/framed, and it wouldn't have at all the same effect, not even with Coleridge's willing suspension of disbelief, that a real ambush would have.
ReplyDeletePeople have switched avatars at times; there's no shock, the controls are the same although the controls specific to an avatar would be different. The relational shock might come through avatar-avatar interaction, but this is really interaction among users; the avatars aren't autonomous but enact what commands they're given. They can appear amazingly complete but as software they're highly limited and their programming is tiny. There's nothing more to them than that; in a sense they're like programmable toys.
So in all these cases, what can and does startle would be the human interactions through the avatars - the avatars are transitive figures in this sense. If avatar Jenny says to my Avatar Julu, really, I've always loved you... and she's run by Susan Graham, I might take this as a statement from Susan to me, through the avatars. This sort of thing happens a lot in net sex - the boundaries between the fantasy and the real are blurred, and the use of avatars as transitional objects makes it possible for people to say things to one another they might not say face to face.
ah, this is very interesting and useful. thank you for sketching out how some of these logics re programming, sex, shock and ambush.
ReplyDeleteso it is not programmatically the case that you can have coded your avatar to do x and then give someone else the controls, so they did not know what your x would be doing? it is all done in live time and current-moment-control, so avatar to avatar is relation dependent based on human to human? is that right, based on your experiences?
sorry for going out of order - I'll read your other post later when can look at the books; I'm going off for a while now. You could reassign keys with your avatar so someone else would have to discover which keys do what. I don't know anyone who's done that. Most of what goes on is people designing complex animations for avatars and scripting objects, which means that the objects can also do things, according to the program. Sometimes the result's quite beautiful, spectacle. But to date, I think, avatar manipulation and SL stuff is fairly limited. I'm always surprised when someone programs something really incredible - objects can interact with avatars in all sorts of ways - but it doesn't seem startling to me. I do get jealous at times if I see an effect that I would love to use/or to have created, but I just don't have the programming ability of people who practically live in Second Life, or who really come from a sometimes self-taught programming background. There's a community that you can call on for help in scripting, and other uses are almost always willing to help you in all sorts of ways.
ReplyDeletethis is very interesting and useful for me. have a good time off line!
ReplyDeleteI think that though you have not heard of anyone doing the "reassignment" piece, that would be a very interesting method for me. the relation to shock and potentially unforeseen stimulus when taken out of strict stand-in uses of avatars. in other words, by embodying the avatar that is not "yours" (in a sense) you come in contact with aspects of yourself you might never have otherwise. new sensations. new feelings, by a sort of contextual force. so, sort of bending the human embodiments of avatar as stand-in from avatar relating to other avatar, to avatar and its revelatory relation to human by way of creating human dis.
possibly, but I've turned my own avatar over to other performers and there's no shock or unforeseen stimulus, etc. it's much more prosaic than that honestly. I don't know if you're in Second Life, but if not, it might be worthwhile for you to try it; you'll see what I mean. they're not living beings; everything is programmed, as I said, and you use specified commands to activate them - labeled animations in your inventory and/or standardized gestures programmed by Linden Lab. I think the same is the case in OpenSim.
ReplyDeleteI see. well perhaps I am perpetually imagining what might be possible ten years or more down the line. my interest in avatars has not necessarily been an interest in virtual avatars in the past.
ReplyDeletehowever, your explanation of the engagements in Second Life have (from the beginning of your talking about it) felt very interesting to me. I guess I am interested in impressions and imprints--the haunt--what remains in the body by way of encounter. this is the kind of thing. I suppose some element of 'being'ness/ autonomy of figure is necessary in order for those types of shocks or unforeseen stimulus to occur.
the haunt or uncanny presencing is always in the background, I think, with avatars. and there's the thinking, however false, that the avatar potentially would outlive us, but carry some of the shards of our being along with it - this touches on Jason Rohrer's gamework I mentioned earlier. So there's something deeply uncomfortable about them as soon as one thinks about them as more than simply function - for example if even your own avatar seems to be staring at you - it's all behind the screen but seems otherwise.
ReplyDeleteThere's a term - "uncanny valley" - which relates to all of this - from Wikipedia: "The uncanny valley is a hypothesis in the field of robotics[1] and 3D computer animation,[2][3] which holds that when human replicas look and act almost, but not perfectly, like actual human beings, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers. The "valley" in question is a dip in a proposed graph of the positivity of human reaction as a function of a robot's human likeness." ...