Re: [-empyre-] Re:[-empyre-]:An Avatar Manifesto::final

[John Klima <klima@echonyc.com>]

all,

a massive post, gonna hit 'em all in one, starting with greg's first
reply. i suggest before hitting reply, to read through it all 'cause
many of my individual replies cross-relate.

Gregory Little wrote:

> I love this idea of spam, although I see it as an avatar, it is the ultimate
> avatar of Kapital, as Alan writes, spewing, flooding, collapsing,
> disappearing.

i think spam is just spam. cheap meat. does it represent capital in the
virtual world as an avatar? i guess, but that's *really* stretching it.
does paper junkmail represent capital in the real world? not really. its
just junkmail. i don't consider a letter from a friend an "avatar" of
that friend, so why would i consider a catalogue from sharper image an
avatar.  

> And this brings me to John's first post.....
> 
> John, thank you again for taking the time to read the whole thing...
> 
> I used to inhabit the spaces you mention, Palace, activeworlds, etc..  I
> recall when I was writing the essay, that the palace was just making
> promises toward the potential to make your own avatar from scratch, but it
> did not exist at that time.

i have an acquaintance who, in 1998, created a whole series of really
nice palace avatars and built a night club. you could make yer avatar
dance, and dance pretty well. she also got someone to hack her own
palace server so questions of acceptability were dismissed, though the
content in no way could have been contrued as questionable by any
communities standards.

>  I later attempted to use one of my avatars in
> the palace, and it did not last long.  They were zapped, I guess
> inappropriate for the fantasy genre...

well, palace is hardly fantasy genre, its anything goes (to a point).
judging from yer images i reckon they were zapped cause they were
she-males with bizzare erections.  umm, build and maintain yer own
palace software and then they won't get zapped (i hope we don't need to
travel down the "censorship" road in re a public, commercial space. in
other words, of course they were zapped, and yer not allowed to run
naked in the real world street either).

> but no where in the manifesto do I
> state that these spaces do not allow you to make your own...

indeed you don't. and that is were the responsibility of the commercial
mud enterprise, in my mind, ends.  if they include the ability to build
or customize, they are off the hook. it's up to individuals to take
initiative and be creative. as i mentioned in my previous post to
melinda, those with the desire to create are the exception, and this is
not the fault of wal-mart (kapital).

>... I am trying to
> get at the reasons people usually don't, as you yourself wrote:  ">and 99%
> of the 2.5 million players *want* to be george clooney or cindy crawford,
> not a 12 legged robot.<"  I am with Melinda, I would find it totally creepy
> to be george, or cindy. I also don't agree that making your own avatar is
> like sewing your own clothes, maybe conceptually, sort of, but in terms of
> difficulty...sewing a pair of pants for myself, I wouldn't have a clue.

i know people who can sew a whole wedding dress but would not have a
clue as to how to make an avatar.  everyone is not the same. i suppose
my tailors would tend towards a "12 legs" rather than a "cindy crawford"
because they are creative people to begin with, but prolly could not
care less about virtual spaces and avatars in the first place.

>  I
> think that people who access these communities do probably have access to
> scanners, digital cameras, they web surf, and could, without great
> difficulty, begin constructing things.

if they cared to. most people use their scanners and digital cameras to
post party and baby pix. not everyone is, or wants to be, man ray
(don't know why i thought of him). again, this is not the fault of
wal-mart, or the cause of an external force.

> It
> is not even that I think that everyone should be making art of their
> avatars, not so-called "high art" at least, possibly a wonderful sort of
> folk art, but art or not is not the issue.

there are lots of communities that are very much about a folk art of
avatars, like the kiss community for example. and i think art *is*
actually the issue.  again, not everyone is or wants to be an artist,
yet your approach to the problem of human expression / individualism /
critical thought (or lack thereof) is that of an artist. "why doesn't
everyone want to be an artist? an individual? a creative person?" your
answer is to blame wal-mart for teaching creativite submission at worst,
and appealing to humanity's lazyness at best. well, part of humanity is
lazy, wal-mart perhaps takes advantage of it, maybe feeds it a little,
but those who are immune from wal-mart are and always will be immune. 


> It is, to me, not really about
> time either, probably could take less time than to buy a pair of shoes and
> put them on.
> 
> I think the biggest misunderstanding, John, concerns how I think about
> Kapital.
> 
> >- the cliched and worn out argument
> >that it's a global capital conspiracy at the root of all this evil.
> >somehow, the egalitarian/utopian online world is insidiously under
> >attack from right-wing sneaker manufacturers who force us all to become
> >nike avat-isements as part of their ubiquitous brainwashing campaign.
> 
> This is not it at all.....Look at Marx, even Adam Smith for that
> matter...Capitalism is a force, a process, a movement...

when i read marx, almost 20 years ago, i thought he might be right about
that human nature thing. i was hopeful that over time, people would
begin to understand our fragile existance, our need to preserve the
environment, and to be nice to each other. but since then i've seen over
and over, endless examples of human stupidity, laziness, and greed that
simply can not be the result of capital as movement or force seperate
from the human condition. capitalism is a reflection, it is the system
that manifests as a result of stupidity, laziness, and greed. it is sort
of a chicken & egg dilemma, but calling it a movement or a force
ascribes attributes that are somehow otherworldly, non-human, seperate
from us.  if it is a force, then who/what controls it, god? aliens? free
masons? which is why i drew the right-wing consipiracy picture in
response to the notion of capitalism as something seperate from
humanity. 

gonna clip out some of the history here:

> ...he stated that capital works toward and
> increasing scale of accumulation, eventually turning everything into a
> commodity...and in the final stage of capital...

capital is an independent entity that has a goal? it works towards
something? why? what's its motive? does it feel, does it have desires?
does it prefer escargot to steak tartar or does it like cheeseburgers?
is it gay or straight? does it get moody?  or is it more a force of
nature, like gravity or the weather? gravity and the weather existed
long before humanity. stupidity, laziness and greed did as well.  lots
of animals are stupid, lazy and greedy.  lots of "idyllic"
pre-industrial human cultures are stupid, lazy and greedy too. they
don't, and never have, lived in a perfect balance with nature (this
notion is just pith-helm anthropology). they kill each other, covet
their neighbors' wives and wigwams, slash and burn forests for low-yield
agriculture. things appear balanced because they never achieve a
critical mass that threatens their environment.  we unfortunately are
fast approaching, perhaps have exceeded, that critical mass - where all
bets could soon be off.  therefore capital is a force whose goal, or
whose final outcome, is the anihillation of humanity?  i don't think so,
capital is not a thing seperate from us, it *is* us.

a few more snips:

> ...It is the core displacement of
> personal values and creative process by the process of commodities and
> accumulation that concerns me most, that is the argument, flawed or not,
> that is at the core of my essay.

and that is exactly what i don't agree with.  if capital displaces
personal values and creative processes, then why is it that more people,
as a percentage of the population, call themselves artists than ever
before in history?  why are there so many damn artists, pro, semi-pro,
or hobby?  if anything, capitalism has given more people more options to
pursue alternatives to the system, to have hobbies in the first place. 
art school enrollments continue to grow, creative communities on the web
spring up every day. more and more people design and sew their own
clothes. some decide to try to sell them in the open market. some
succeed at selling them. some become donna karan. if anything that
marx's ideas, and their flawed manifestatins in communist systems
accomplished, is/was the lock down of an individual in their role as
workers.  sure, you have pride in your work, and you work for the good
of all, but you just work. the marxist approach does not offer more
freedom, does not encourage change or growth or creativity, neither in
theory nor in practice (at least as far as my 20 year old memories
serve).

and on to the other posts:

Gregory Little wrote:
> 
> John wrote:
> >people ARE un-creative. they ARE consumers.
> >creative
> >people are the exception to the general rule of human nature.
> 
> Boy, hate to say it, but that sure does sound like the artist in the
> capitalist system speaking

yeah well, that's what i am. that's what most of us are - just playing
the cards we've been dealt.  it's not really in my self-interest to
claim the unique status of "artist as other." its not a PR campaign to
bolster sales. these notions have little or nothing to do with my
economic model.  i do believe there is this thing called talent. we are
not all born of equal ability.  i can't throw a ball, or hit one with a
bat, i don't feel cheated or oppressed because i'm not allowed to be a
baseball player.  it comes down to the simple observation that some
people are critical and creative and some people are not. some people
want the comfort and security of an SUV regardless of the environmental
and economical impact, and others drive a geo metro *because* of
environmental and economical impact (and because they are easy to park
in NYC. there's that self-interest again, perhaps enlightened in this
case. i drive a geo metro cause i can take advantage of parking spaces
an SUV cant. i can cheat fire plugs, hotel zones, and cross-walks. if i
could buy one of those european "smart" cars in the u.s. i would, but
they are too small to be called "cars" here, so they can't be licensed,
so they can't be sold).

> ...Interesting, yes, within the capitalist system,
> one of Kapital's means of survival is to proclaim that we are by nature
> capitalists, to trick us into believing that capitalism is our nature.  It
> is a convenient argument, the "nature trick", again, it is in Marx.

as i addressed above, i used to think that we had the potential to be
other, and perhaps we still do. i'm not saying that capitalism *is*
human nature (and arguing that it is, or on the contrary, isn't, are
both equally convenient arguments that neither karl marx nor howard
stern can prove positive). i'm saying that capitalism is a manifestation
of history, it's a state of affairs, it's a condition.

> Obviously there are and have been cultures that were not...
not at all so obviously. what is obvious is, since the time we were
kicked out of the garden, we have been spiteful, lazy, greedy, stupid
creatures. true that obviously there are, and have been, cultures that
don't function under a capitalist system - but never has there been a
culture that doesn't fall prey to humanity's baser instincts. it's a
question of scale. in our western civilization, the whole mess has come
to be known as capitalism/market economy/democracy. it is a state of
affairs, it's a manifestation, it's a label and a definition. it is not
an entity. it is not seperate from us, it springs forth from us.

> ...I believe that
> creativity, toolmaking, language, survival of species, are in our nature, I
> do not believe that "people ARE un-creative. that we "ARE consumers" by
> nature"....
> 
> >its not wal-mart's fault.
> 
> of course not, again, as I have tried to point out now on numerous
> occasion's, it is no ones fault, again, the "absent cause".
 
the cause is not absent, the cause is so dispersed that it can't be
pointed to directly (as you state). marx actually endeavors to point at
it, to find the cause, and to call it a force. he tries to isolate it,
to dither gray into black and white.  he finds something to take action
against, and calls on people to do so. and it just ain't that simple.


and on to melinda's last:

Melinda Rackham wrote:
> 
> > > need a new term for  avatar termination....... **avaticide**
> >
> > hows about "deletion"
> 
> nah.. i prefer the romantic to the pragmatic,
> if your ultima mage was just another file you would would have sold her to a
> pimply youth..

i prefer the pragmatic in this case. it is just too dangerous to
personify a file. that's why i quit in the first place. i was spending
my life in-game. and i'd be damned if i was gonna let some pimply youth
take a year of my life for a lousy 2k.
 
> > and that is my point. it is not the cause of "kapital" that people are
> > un-creative.  people ARE un-creative. they ARE consumers. creative
> > people are the exception to the general rule of human nature.  even the
> 
> must agree with greg.. creativity is educated out of most people..i was
> funnelled by the school/university system to be a  physicist and i had to
> reeducate myself in my mid 20's to be able to do "art".. which i saw as
> something that other "special" people did..

are you saying that physicists are uncreative? i'm sure yer not, and you
make my point exactly. you survived. you matured and became capable of
making your own decisions for your own life. education merely presents,
in its (by nature) flawed way, options that allow average people, the
best chance at achieving security and fullfilment, to the best of their
abilities, and to the best of their teachers' and the extant system's
ability. but nobody is average. YOU MADE THE CHOICE. flying in the face
of reason, rather than go for financial security, you decided to do what
makes zero sense in ref to an evaluation of the system as a whole. you
became an artist. you became an artist because marx said that capitalism
is force? i seriously doubt it. you made the decision because it was
right for you. and it took all the way til yer mid twenties to
re-educate yerself? that is what happens to many people.  at some point,
they either decide to succumb to family/societal pressures and conform,
or they don't.  the pressures will never go away, i'm sure they still
exist for you, as they do for me. it's a question of whether you care or
you don't care. the choice is always yours.

in my own case, i went to art school, i made the decision to fly in the
face of reason. i then suffered and made the decision to go the easy
way, go corporate and make lots of money (which i did), and then i
changed my mind again and said, fuck that, i'd rather be broke and have
fun. i made the choice to go back to the alternative, "unreasonable,"
approach to life. i made the decision, and i always have the choice to
take either road. the choice is always mine. creativity was not educated
out of me. it was there and stayed there from the moment i was born. the
system we live under (granted we in the first/western world are the
lucky ones) has always afforded me the choice. nothing is cast in stone.
my destiny is not predetermined, it is not predictable, just as marx can
not predict the outcome of our system.  one can always point to things
that show where marx's conclusions were accurate, but one can always
point to things that show he was inaccurate.  either way, he isn't
right, he didn't "predict the future" any more accurately than
nostradamus.  he guessed accurately and he guessed inaccurately. the
thing i take umbrage with is that he thinks he's right. that he has the
answer.

> i wonder if physicists like george clooney and cindy crawford?

i'm sure some do, some don't, some don't know even who they are, and
some could care less.  to return to the idea of the avatar, the thing
that a virtual world offers, the thing that is appealing to physicists
and artists alike, is the chance to be something they are not.  to
pretend to be a movie star, supermodel, 12 legged robot, or conan the
barbarian.  who cares what that "other" is, the thing that someone wants
to pretend to be. the interesting thing to me is the thing that applies
and appeals to EVERYONE -  this desire to be something else. this is
what deserves my examination, investigation, and creative thought. not
*what* people choose to be, but *why* they want to be something other in
the first place. if i'm looking at the what, then i'm basically looking
at fashion, if i'm looking at why, then i feel i'm looking at humanity.

okay, enuf said.

best to all,
j