Liquid Learning

Waiting for myself

An interesting moment in transgressing my own boundaries between self and avatar. Rarely have we appeared together and here only in the name of science.

This video came about from a little research that was carried out in advance of an upcoming, 7th July, symposium that we will be presenting to a remote audience in Kuala Lumpar. We cannot be there physically so my question was, if we decide to use Second Life in what ways can we create maximum social presence?

I am an immersionist, that is I let StevenW build his own space inside SL, yet I am interested in ways to move information in and out of Second Life, punching holes through the membrane and linking in-world and out-of-world experiences. The porosity of SL has changed over time with channels opening for blogging; twitter, web-browsing, SL to Flickr, audio, facebook links, and streaming video. Taking the scenario of a face-2-face conference blended with SL participants I took a peek at the different ways to stream live video into SL. Inspired by posts from both AndyPowell and Rob Smart's blogs I set up a quick trial with Veodia, knowing their live video webstreaming service is now available for free and is offered in a format compatible with Second Life.

So how was it? Well simple, so simple I was left wondering what the catch was, bandwidth issues aside. Here is a quick run through of the steps I followed:

• Opened an account with Veodia, a straightforward exercise;
• Clicked through the screens to start my first broadcast;
• Pressed the appropriate button and let my Apple MacPro do the audio-video and capture;
• Previewed the stream to check I was on air and then copied the rtsp URL provided by Veodia from the live broadcast page;
• Launched Second Life;
• Made a coffee while I waited to get in-world ;)
• Knocked up a quick media screen, set the textures and then pasted the rtsp stream URL into the land parcel settings;
• Pressed the media player button in SL;
• Bingo, there I was alive and kicking in the virtual universe.

Whether we will use this for the symposium I am still unsure, my preference I think would be to have the audience streamed into SL so that we have some sense of those who are watching and listening in the conference room. Testing the set-up with fellow panelists uncovered three issues that are driving me away from using SL as a conferencing tool:

• First and most obvious is the heavy bandwidth requirements for this configuration and the related issue of delay, around 3-5 seconds, between the capture and delivery of the video stream;
• Second is the lack of status or feedback indicators, the kind of thing you find when using a tool like Elluminate where you can ask the audience questions and get feedback through a series of emoticons that includes useful items like the 'hands-up' attention grabber;
• Third follows a similar line and concerns the difficulty in providing a mechanism for live audience participation. Setting up a back channel would be an ideal solution and making use of the main SL chat window would be the natural place for this. Yet to my knowledge it is still impossible to remotely work with SL chat so delegates would need to log into SL if they wanted to use the chat window. The option of using a lightweight client such as AjaxLife might be a solution, if the audience all have SL accounts or deploying a non-integrated chat client bought in through the in-world media browser. Both options are still not ideal.

There is perhaps a fourth reason, intimated at the start of this post, the separation of avatar and typist. My avatar and me do not appear in public together, or least not very often and somehow that feels right. The quandry of where to post snapshots of us both together, Flickr seemed at first the obvious place, confirmed to me that despite the fuzzy boundary between real and virtual identities they remain in many aspects decoupled. SL is a different space and there exists a differentiated person which goes someway to explain my discomfort in completely collapsing our two identities.

Loving your avatar: identity, immersion and empathy

At the Berlin Educa Online conference back in November 2007 I started to tackle the problematic issue of identity and identity play in Second Life. I have been consistently fascinated by what I consider one of the key attractions and confusions of SL, namely the ability to slip into another shell and build a unique presence - within what is arguably the richest and most diverse virtual setting at the present time. A large topic for a short talk - so I took a particular focus on one aspect of avatar identity: how we develop a ‘relationship’ with our avatar. Relationship may sound like an odd word to use but I choose this deliberately as for me it captures something of the  discourse that we often read when we talk about our second lives or indeed the characters we build within other online worlds (see ‘Alter Ego: avatars and their creators’ http://www.alteregobook.com).

From  analyses of blog posts and mailing lists, interviews in-world and face-to-face workshops, and from my personal experiences I discovered common threads that run through many narratives in the evolution of avatars. A number of critical points in the development of this relationship over time could be clearly identified in this mapping activity:

The graph 'Development of avatar identity and empathy in MUVEs' is the visual result of this mapping activity and gathers together these key moments along a continuous time-line that stretches from the beginnings of entering the world of SL to the point of rupture where a second avatar may be spawned to cope the complexities of changing identity in-world. The x axis time-line is plotted against a y axis that I have called 'investment' and represents not simply the amount of time we invest in 'working' on our avatars but also the sense of empathy we begin to develop with our virtual other. Running along the time-line there are two drop-out thresholds marked towards the beginning of this path, where technical, competency and 'care' barriers if not surmounted often result in no further or very limited in-world activity. Beyond these points we trace multiple and changing trajectories that reflect the often complex relations we build with our avatar. On the right-hand side three phrases of being in-world are marked out: exploration, professional activity and playfulness which as can be seen in the detailed description below as often antagonistic to one another:

1. Technical and competency threshold: The early technical and competency barriers can undoubtedly be severe for many, to the extent that even when a powerful enough graphics card and a connection with adequate bandwidth have been located, newly formed denizens enter the world only to find themselves trapped on orientation island. The competency requirements for SL are often understated and form a bewildering mix of manual dexterity, games-based visual grammar and client interface navigation that demand serious and determined attention to master. In a recently published student survey, Steve Hornik posted a reflective response to what were in effect a series of negative comments on the use of SL in his accounting course that illustrate just how frustrating to students these early steps can be:
   
   

   "I did not use it that often because it was hard to understand and was too slow on my computer. I could not grasp how to use it well."

   "Honestly, I got so confused trying to simply walk and talk to people that I just ended up getting frustrated."

   Such comments serve as a reminder to all of us who are rushing forwards to introduce such cutting edge technologies into our learning and teaching settings. This situation is not atypical as Judy Robertson reports in a recent post where she came head to head with the technical difficulties that can plague efforts even at the institutional level:

   "We have two multimedia labs full of computers which are meant to be our souped up fast computers for this module. Alas, these computers meet only the minimum spec for SL but not the recommended spec. This is the difference between a happy well adjusted lecturer and a raving maniac. The computers keep crashing. Sometimes they run terribly slowly. And to add to the circus, there were intermittent network problems. The upshot of all this was that the students got frustrated."

2. Threshold of care:  One of the most difficult moments to pin down in the process of building a virtual identity. It marks a fuzzy boundary beyond which we begin to feel an emotional pull towards our virtual self and yes, we start to care about our avatar. Our creation has become an entity, even a personality, in its own right. How does this happen and how is this possible? The clearest way of understanding this process is one that touches mainly, though not exclusively, on the concepts of social and cultural capital: the building of friendships and connections; becoming part of a community; purchasing artifacts that increase our avatar's aesthetic appeal; a variety of other cultural exchanges and physical engagements that can be as simple as building ones own in-world residence and holding a house warming party.
   
   
3. Schism: As our in-world interactions become more elaborate and diverse a moment is reached where we feel a tension between our single avatar and the multiple roles that our virtual self is able to adopt. We may exist as both a playful representation of our selves alongside a virtual presence that is comprehended as an extension of our professional lives. SL offers a vast range of highly developed sub-cultures and communities that are fun, enlightening and self-revealing to explore yet these require a level of engagement that does not always sit easily with a professional demeanor. Spending time as a neko, vampire, furry, Gorean slave or participating in other roleplaying spaces that  have corresponding dress-codes, social norms and modes of behaviour may begin to sit uncomfortably within the embodiment provided within a single avatar.
   
   
4. Managed instablity: This describes the ongoing flux between playful and professional modes of in-world existence that is, for example, revealed in lengthy discussions amongst educators (cf. SLED list) of what represents a professional appearance in SL with questions posed that tackle seemingly mundane issues of where to purchase 'correct' outfits for teaching and the 'correct' anatomical and visual configuration we expect of students, visitors and tutors alike. As 'AJ' comments (reproduced with kind permission from an original SLED list posting) this in-world tension may result in real-world action:
   

   "Beyond the psycho-babble, the reason for more than one avatar was quite simple.  At the point where my employer, a state institution, began paying the bills for my work as AJ Brooks, I felt it necessary to have a second avatar.  First off, I felt it was the ethical thing to do. Second, I wanted a CLEAR distinction between what I was doing for work and what I was doing for myself, on my own time."

   
   
5. Multiple avatars: Diverse personal definitions of self and approaches to this play/work border are clearly visible in SL profiles. Statements are found that on one hand appear to mark sameness - 'I am my avatar' - and yet on the other hand celebrate difference and possibility - 'Keep SL in SL and RL in RL'. The struggle to stabilise the tensions between multiple modes of existence within a single frame can lead to the spawning of a second avatar - a blank persona that can act as a safety valve allowing these multiple states to co-exist. Multiple avatars in effect offer multiple channels for reflecting the range of roles and identities that we take for granted in our everyday existence. This can be a liberating experience for many as it suddenly frees the creator from the behavioural pressures that dominate formal settings even when they are translated into our virtual and imaginary worlds. Multiple avatars also form part of a strategy for addressing digital reputation management issues that are currently underexposed but of increasing importance to those of us who live and work in virtual spaces.

Many of the moments described above are particularly well summed up in the SLED list post below, reproduced with kind permission from 'AJ', who describes the reasons behind the creation of his small team of avatars:

"I have three avatars. AJ Brooks is my first avatar, 1st rez date coming up in January.  This is the avatar I first came into SL with and to this day use AJ for all things work related.  AJ has never really been one to "socialize" as some of my non-education friends do, such as going to clubs, puttering around, etc...  I did, of course, visit a number of places when I first came in and didn't have a "home", but now when I go out to visit someplace, at least as AJ, it is purely business.  AJ's base of operations is the CHSS Island and is normally on from 9-5 M-F, except when needed for teaching purposes (I use AJ as the avatar for my classes also) and for conferences, etc...  AJ looks a bit like me in so much as I tried to keep facial features similar, height, and hair color also, although I will admit that he is slimmer and a bit more chiseled than I. Very recently, having run out of groups, not being able to drop any more from AJ, but needing to work with faculty, etc..., I needed to start a third avatar, an alt that would be purely a "CHSS Island maintenance guy".  I've shared land ownership, buildings, etc..., plus use that avatar for creating groups related to CHSS business.  This avatar is currently a cyborg but could certainly take another shape, but would probably not be a human form.  This is purely a utility.
Wealthy Mizser is my second avatar and owns an art gallery on Avendale called The Gallery Beleza at Avendale and also own a home on Nevi, which is also one of the five sims that make up the Avendale community.  Wealthy is usually on after 5pm and on the weekends.  Wealthy is blonde with blue eyes has a body worth every linden (as opposed to having to slave for hours at the gym, which is very non-virtual), and is definitely the one to attend a party or other social event, or even to poke around places around SL that really have nothing to do with The Gallery."

Where next? This study marks the starting point for a series of other ongoing investigations that include a review of the social nature of profile building in SL as well as a more detailed engagement with competency frameworks. So ... more to come.

The dangers of habit

Three linked ideas about seeing, the self, life and education. What is that moment when we suddenly notice something or have a moment of recognition - of a thing that has been there, in our line of sight, but has not yet registered, or maybe we saw once and now has faded and now again suddenly it leaps to the foreground of our conscious thought?

*filters* - we begin to recognise filters exist when we realise we can only ever possess a partial perspective on our lives and indeed the lives of others. There is what we 'see' and more importantly what we do *not* see. Filters, arguably, develop from:

*habit* - repetitive actions that brings about:

*desensitisation* - where certain emotions, visual stimuli, intellectualthought become the common place and commonsensical and eventually the unnoticed and in many ways the accepted and unquestioned. Ideologies by any other name.

Deleuze might say question everything, do not accept the obvious, yet do we really have the capacity to live this on a daily basis. If our social life, our existence, is so complicated with multiple possibilities then yes this complicatedness itself seems on the surface 'good' but how do we navigate and choose between these multiple possibilities that are constantly available. Choices in life do not exist on an even plane, they run like deep rivers and to swim against the seemingly natural flow or to strike a new course, against the tides that push us, then we need energy and to fight each 'barrier' to accomplish this and only in this fight do we begin to understand or find illuminated just how deeply embedded we have become in certain modes of being and thinking. Each battle erodes a part of our desire for a certain way of being, gradual compromise, for the sake of simplicity perhaps? Internally we reason these compromises, making calculations of effort versus worth, to leave enough energy for reaching goals that are in many ways undetermined and may exist simply as space for further possibility and that elusive sense of self-satisfaction. Herein, with time, we find that each of us has their own given, relative and culturally mediated sense of happiness.

So education must not simply be about learning to live mechanically in this world but surely to have the tools and abilities to create visions that can provide the possibility for thinking differently and in this, the means to visualise change and paths that might take us there. But this is two-sided in the sense that we need the capacity to deal with change and the challenges presented to our own sense of being becoming in this world. Ways of coping with the unforeseen and the unexpected. Our education, our learning is as much about creating change as it is with dealing with change and the nature of change itself.

Panic: voice kills textual play in SL

Most people (well SLers) will have by now heard, read, blogged the recent announcement by Linden Labs on the introduction of 'Voice in SL'. This has provoked a somewhat wild and wide-ranging debate on the effects, both positive and negative, that this might have on the SL world and the relations between SL inhabitants ... and interestingly the relation between the self, avatar and anonymity when playing in-world. These debates were surfaced in an article in the Second Life Herald:

"... the way many residents feel about SL is that it's an *extension* of RL, and representing the 'self' in avatar form is logically a process of reflecting RL. Other residents see with clarity the almost endless possibilities available in creating an entirely different 'self' (or many selves) from their reality, sometimes extending that 'self' outside of the grid. The rest of us fall somewhere in between these two virtual extremes, or possibly have a foot in both camps (I do). When 'Voice' was announced, a huge outpouring of anxiety was expressed by those who, given their point of reference, felt it was no more than a mortal threat to their keeping the fantasy/anonymity element of SL safe. Others, although quieter, felt it was a positive, necessary step in the evolution of the platform. And of course the rest of us fell somewhere in between.

I made a very quick comment on the full article on the SL Herald blog but felt it worthy of revisiting here. The panic that seems to surround the introduction of voice as expressed by some parts of the SL community seem to me to be generally missing the point in that fundamental shifts in the discursive space of SL must stem from widespread adoption of audio. I question whether this is actually going to be the case? My analogy would be to take a closer look at another audio technology such as Skype. How many people choose to use Skype for text based interaction (IM) rather than voice? For me, voice or text preferences must be understood within the differing contexts within they operate or are indeed situated. In Skype, text/IM is very heavily used by nearly everyone despite the audio option ... why?. Here the subtle divide between partial-asynchronous/synchronous presence is one dimension that provides each communicative modality (voice or text) with a distinctly different texture. I predict (I hate predicting ... but anyway) that it will be the similar for SL and that the balance will be firmly maintained by the appropriatenesses of IM chat except to certain types of human interaction. For some reason there seems to be an assumption that 'voice' is just better than 'text' and somehow users will be forced or coerced by an unseen natural order into voice-based interaction. Why on earth would this happen? Technology is always situated ... there is no natural hierarchy!

[one might also choose a second example here and examine SMS versus voice in mobile phone use]

Susan Sontag's journal writings

If blogs are a mongrel breed descended from the journal then the jottings discovered in the cache of notebooks left behind by Susan Sontag are illuminating to this genre of writing:

"Superficial to understand the journal as just a receptacle for one's private, secret thoughts - like a confidante who is deaf, dumb and illiterate. In the journal I do not just express myself more openly than I could to any person; I create myself."

She continues:

"The journal is a vehicle for my sense of selfhood. It represents me as emotionally and spiritually independent. Therefore (alas) it does not simply record my actual daily life but rather - in many cases - offers alternatives to it."

And finally - after reading about herself in another's journal:

"... Do I feel guilty about reading what was not intended for my eyes? No. One of the main (social)functions of a journal or diary is precisely to be read furtively by other people, the people (like parents + lovers) about whom one has been cruelly honest only in the journal."

Privacy and Web 2.0 technologies

A stimulating post on Web 2.0 and the "end of privacy?" from from Tim Neuman at the Institute of Education inspired by a German article ("Die dunkle Seite des Web 2.0") published on 8th Feb 2006. This is an issue of growing concern to some of us in educational establishments where students do not yet realise the full implications of the persistence of personal data that is being divulged in blogs and other Web 2.0 technologies (such as photo sharing sites like Fickr). It may not yet be standard practise to "Google" prospective employees (I would love to know if there have been any studies that have looked at this) but it is clearly possible to trace personal (non professional) commentaries, viewpoints and persuasions through and across a variety of personal publishing spaces - writings that may not be consonant with, or may even directly hamper personal career goals (disciplinary action being bought against Bloggers at their place of work perhaps being the most high profile examples). It also raises the question of how we manage or even shape our online identities cf. recent stories on spin doctoring wiki entries by US senate staff. Will there be third party tools appearing to manage and monitor our online selves, the tracks and traces we leave across cyberspace.