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

["Ana Valdés" <agora158@gmail.com>]

Hej Patrick for an intelligent answer to my maybe not well so
formulated question. (For us using English as third language is
difficult to be so eloquent and precise as for a native speaker :)
The issues regarding dissidence, representation and activism, virtual
and in real life, are old  in the media landscape. I think about
Velazquez genious painting the Infantas and their dwarfs as monsters
in the court of the Spanish kings in the 16th century. Or Diego
Riberas mural painting being covered up with white painting when
General Motors in Detroit saw the final result, a monument to the
black proletary.
Or Bermanns and Dix Entartete Kunst, banned by Nazi Germany as the
ultimate dissent.
The problem with SL are multiple. We have here a total controlled
society where you (or your avatar) are closely monitorized and
watched. The total surveillance society, controlling your inventary,
the amount of Linden dollars you have left to spend, etc. You can't be
anonymous in SL, your data or "persona" leave electronic traces and
your ability to exerce dissent or criticism are limited.
Yes, dissent as the attack to the Front National office in SL, it's
allowed. I don't think one of those participating in the riot were
banned from SL. Some of the people posting incendiary diatribes
against Linden in the forums were banned or their accounts suspended
indefinitely.
I live in Sweden, one of the most controlled societies in the world,
where our ID keep record of everything we do, health history, crime
record, so on. In Sweden is not a squat, not a place what can be
called "TAZ", temporary autonomous zone, in Hakim Bey's definition.
We don't have "null places", places where old functionalities ceased
and new ones are yet still borns. For me SL and Sweden are quite
similar.
Where is the public space in SL and where are the possibilities to
"subvert" this space and use it in an "activist way"?
The only dissent I have seen in SL was the huge posters with the text
"Take home the troops from Irak", but I think they are gone now.

I know Virtual Darfur and the replic to the Holocaust Museum, but it's
still an orchestrated and well educated dissent, more pedagogical and
educative than vitriolic.

SL need more vitriol and burning tyres to become alive.

Ana


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