[-empyre-] [Missive 6] Alterity and dystopia in SL - a response to Dissidents in SL

[Patrick Lichty <voyd@voyd.com>]

I love Ana Valdez' question of representations of people and places "other" 
than the, actually updated 50's modernist dream of corporate america 
remediated from the Streamline/Googie ages to the cybertopian WIRED one.  
>From a historical perspective, it is the reiteration/remediation of the  
American love affair with technology.  The translation of physical dreams of 
the technological utopia reminds one of the iconic imagery of Lang's 
"Metropolis" or Scott's "Blade Runner"; the latter of which I greatly 
perfer.

Valdez' question of where the disenfranchsed are represented in SL is 
somethign that I have been obsessed with.  In many ways, the utopian dream 
alludes to a Western Postmodern failure of the future promised by Star Trek 
or even Blade Runner, in which resources are depeleting, population is 
exploding,, and the creation of Second Life is an urge to "start over, with 
new bodies, new worlds, to replace the ones that we cannot reach within the 
agespan of the Baby Boomer generation.  

However most of my practice has been exploring "cultural cracks", and this 
has led to looking at the things in SL that are outside of the Venn diagram 
of the virtual technotopia. Conversely, the "Id Complex" of SL has its own 
banality, as the gambling, strip clubs, sex shops are shallow expressions of  
circumventing the most basic unfulfilled desires and taboos.  There are a 
few exceptions that are of interest, such as the ban on underage avatars for 
sexual/suggestive purposes, which is abother whole issue in itself.

However, what then is left?  The most basic dytopia is Electric Sheep's 
Nexus Prime (who a student of mine, Artemis Fate, helped develop).  It's a 
Gibson/Stephenson cyberpunk ruin, and fairly straighforward. Another is 
Jennie, an Escapr From New York style urban dystopia - again a pretty close 
remediation from literature and cinema.  It's even ironic that the New 
Orleans/French Quarter aresa han't a single displaced person or shingle out 
of place.

But the question remains - what of the disenfranchised, ugly, homeless?  
There are instances of a soup kitchen in SL, of which I was aware happened 
in mid-2006.  I have not seen many instances of squalor, but it's 
interesting to note that a sizeable portion of avatars are, in fact homeless 
in SL.  This means that they either do not have their financial information 
in the system, do not own land, are alternate identities, etc.

However, this does nto answer Valdez' question.  A good instance might be 
Virtual Darfur, which is more of an awareness/social justice site.

The two aspects of alterity that I have found most interesting are 
represetations of squalor and the "ugly" avatar.  In regards to the former, 
there is a cardboard favela, originally built by Ian AH/Ian Murray located 
underneath Jeremy Owen Turner/Wirxli FlimFlam's glittering PR facility on 
Odyssey.  While Wirxli's Cultural Relations office is meant as the 
futuristic extension of Warhol, I/Man Michinaga moved in with Ian inthe 
shanty after a run-in with an explosive neighbor in Han Loso that caused me 
to sell all my holdings.  

At that time, Man was homkeless, and suddenly crashed in the shanty, 
virtually fought with Ian over the wOOt Loops (breakfast cereal) and 
discarded bottles of Absolut from Wirxli's parties, and bickered about Ian's 
propensity for Swedish editions of Playboy, while I preferred the Hong Kong 
and Croatian editions.  The dumpster outside seemed to usually have lots of 
hors d'ouevres and even though Ian susally took far too long in the portable 
toilet, we get on.
  
http://slfront.blogspot.com/2007/03/man-in-interim.html

The funny thing is that on more than one occasion, class groups have been 
spotted in teh squat, and when I an or I have been inside (I usually park 
there to Instant Message), we have been told to leave because a class is 
visiting.  "But this is our home!", we protest, only to be asked to leave 
our own residence.

On the other hand, the avatars that question the technotopian ideal of 
"always young, always beautiful" are my favorites.  By the way, the other 
model I find most banal are the beautiful alien/faery avatars that again 
merely reiterate the utopian fantasmagoria.  Ian Ah's middle-aged avatar, 
sometimes with a cane, and Beavis Pavlovski's dumpy foreman with cement 
shoes are brilliant examples of breaking the SL lifestyle with really 
evocative shapes.

As a little intermezzo, the usual avatar, or worse yet, the remediation of 
the real life appearance, is completely at odds with the Linden rhetoric.  
The continual rieteration of phrases of "creativity" and "your world" 
deflate when people given the gift of open-ended goals, choose to recreate 
their virtual portrait, their living room, or the standard canon of 
storybook scenarios.  In many ways, it is the well known axiom of giving the 
starving person a vast menu, and no knowing what to order, getting a 
cheeseburger for its familiarity. 

Therefore, the shapes of alterity, in many ways, hold the potential for the 
realization of the technotopian ideal of creativity, diversity, etc., but 
then other questions arise.  Who is behind the avatar, what are their 
choices for that avatar, and does envisioning alterity actually create a 
culture that actually reflects an intentionality that truly desires 
empowering the "other" and the disenfranchised?  

The closest I have found are perhaps Laura Gagliano's Montevideo area that 
was envisioned to create a voice for non-urban Brazilians fromt the Bahia 
and Amazonia regions.  While I have not visited since its completion, I'm 
interested in seeing how this part of its mission is being articulated.  In 
addition, I am in dialogue with Polvo Gallery of Chicago, a prominent Latino 
venue as an incubator for a possible extension into SL on the Columbia site.

Lastly, what, if any, role does dissent and protest have in virtual worlds? 
With the momentary newsblip that the Second Life Liberation Front caused by 
creating a "Virtual Nuke", what potential does dissent have at all on 
servers?  Somewhere between the inability to protest in shopping malls and 
the silent tree falling in the distant woods lies the questionable potency 
of protest in Second Life.

For example when Columbia College Chicago had its annual Manifest senior art 
festival, protesters fought for better health care for contacted security 
guards.  However, when the picketers were dispersed in the physical, they 
arose again in the student center in the public SL projection.  The move was 
lauded as novel by our faculty, but they missed the administrators by 15 
minutes, therefore felling their own silent tree.  

Threfore, a better approach may be a multivalent tactical media approach.  
The real site of engagement is no longer the sever, but the record from ther 
server, post to YouTube and multiple blogs by protesters and their sock 
puppets.  And, if the object of the protest responds, the cycle repeats,  
inviting additional media organs.  This is possibly one of the few ways  
virtual protests could be structured to create larger social ripples.

Visions of alterity in technotopian worlds like Second Life are few, whether 
by defauts imposed by education, economic or cultural privilege.  But this 
does not mean that they do not or can not exist.  P