Re: [-empyre-] hi

[Ana Valdés <agora@algonet.se>]

Cool, I has been in Palestine several times and spent time with families 
in the West Bank and Gaza. It was clear that "we", the women fron West, 
were not seen as women, I mean, we were allowed to sit with the men and 
to share meals and cores. But the women of the house came only to serve 
us food. We were "androgyns", I mean, we carried male and female 
attributs, because we had cameras and computers and move along without 
male escort.
I has been working with the Gender issue in gaming, I has been playing 
the online game Everquest for a long time. I have several avatars, some 
female and some males. My main char is a tall Barbarian, I met a guy who 
played a female character in the game and we became close friends and 
had some virtual flirt. We joked with the idea to marry us in the game, 
the weddings were at that time a huge social event, where all the 
players were welcome. A game master från EQ team developer acted as 
judge or priest. We wrote a letter to the EQ developer team and asked to 
marry us. They said no, because we played two female avatars, many 
people could be upset if we were allowed to marry.
We were really atonished, a game where we fought against devils and 
wizars, but tho female avatars did not fit in the game.
My idea is to work out a game based in different codes than the Western 
codes. Instead to use the Bible or the European or the American history 
as a timeline my idea is to make some game scenario where muslim women 
and girls could feel their experience and lives count too.
All the games in the world are today produced in the US or in England, 
very few in the rest of Europe. Games as the Sims socialize the players 
as a mirror of a Western society. We live in houses in nuclear families, 
we marry, get children, go to work or to study, spend the free time in 
parties or listening to music.
I want a more complex narrative in the gaming. Its still a pubertal 
industry, made by male programmers and male storytellers and consumed 
most by young males. It has been exceptions, as Brenda Laurel or Roberta 
Williams, but they failed economically and the gender issue is still a 
reproduction of very old fashioned models or stereotypes, Barbie or Tomb 
Raider, nothing between.
Ana

info wrote:

> Hi, Ana, Welcome to empyre.
>
> It is a very interesting bio indeed, I wish to know more about you new
> project "what happens behind the veil" maybe I can help you on it since
> I live in middle-east + I am a game developer.
>
> Sincerely.
>
> Radwan 
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: empyre-bounces@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> [mailto:empyre-bounces@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au] On Behalf Of Ana Valdés
> Sent: Saturday, July 03, 2004 10:10 AM
> To: empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> Subject: [-empyre-] hi
>
> Hi, I am a new member of Empyre and want only to make a short 
> presentation of me and my work. I am a writer, an anthropologist and a 
> critic, working in the fields of Literature, Art and Activism. I has 
> been an activist for many years, spent four years in prison in Uruguay, 
> during the dictatorship, in the 70:s.
> I live in Sweden since many years and write mainly in Spanish and 
> Swedish. Together with an visual artist, Cecilia Parsberg, we started a 
> network called Equator. We arranged seminars, workshops, gave lectures 
> and traveled to Palestine several times. You can see the results of our 
> joint work at the links below my posts.
> We work with new media and old media, we produce films, books and 
> magazines. I am working in the making of an alternative computergame, 
> based on women in the Islam. The worktitle is "what happens behind the 
> veil".
> Best
> Ana
>
>  

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