[-empyre-] > 1. Re: the Times and SL (G.H.Hovagimyan)

Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com> · Sun, 19 Aug 2007 02:01:41 -0400 (EDT)

On Sun, 19 Aug 2007, empyre-request@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au wrote:

  1. Re: the Times and SL (G.H.Hovagimyan)

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Whew, I've been quiet so far in this discussion. I exhibit and perform in 
RL and SL; my SL work is often used in live performance by others as well. 
I've spent a total of $4 in two years of activity. I'm working on the 
psycho-analytics of projection/introjection in relation to avatars, prims, 
the 'edges' of inconceivable spaces, etc. I also live in NY as GH does. I 
live in Brooklyn, maybe that's a difference. "I don't need an artifically 
constructed media space" either, but if I want to see Geneva, I leave NY. 
Having 'new experiences' isn't the issue; the issue for most of us is what 
we want, how we perceive the world, what we're doing. Geneva 'does it' for 
me as does SL in radically different ways. More below:
G.H. comments:
I live in New York City. One of the most incredible social spaces in
the world. If I want to meet people or have new experiences I walk out
on the street.  I don't need an artificially constructed media space to
do this. My experience with SL is that the amount of effort it takes to
get oriented, understand how to move about and communicate in the SL
world is not worth what you obtain.

The effort for me was literally about 20 minutes. There were some things 
still to learn, how to edit gestures, eliminate the menu screen when 
making a video, etc. But a lot of people I know find the interface simple.
The truth of the matter is that all

media replaces or deadens a part of the human physiology and psyche.

All media? How do you know this? I don't see either my physiology or 
psyche damaged; I can say that as well for any number of people in SL and 
RL. I bird-watch and hike. I also log in.
McCluhan had posited that in the 1960's. It is an extension of the
notion of the original alienation of a worker from their labor in
Marx's Das Kapital and was further iterated in the 1960's by Guy Debord
in his Society of the Spectacle.

Without wanting an argument here, I don't think it's an extension of 
alienated labor - if anything, one's responsible for one's own body in new 
and interesting ways in SL. But this brings up alterity, Levinas, and a 
whole host of other issues - not McCluhan Marx Debord I think.
If you trace the development of SL

you will see that it is very close to the notion of The Matrix movies.

?? There's someone that will save us all?
I find that truly frightening. I also find it amusing that people in SL
think the Postmaster's gallery show of the 14 most beautiful Avatars
was somehow important and verified the importance of SL.

Most SL people I know paid no attention to it. SL people don't need the 
verification any more than you need the verification of RL. (I'm cutting 
corners here, not trying to make an SL/RL split which could of course be 
easily deconned.)
Indeed, that

particular show was a very wry comment on the private obsessions of
people involved in virtual worlds. It was the closest thing I've seen
to a serious critique.

There are others that are better I think, you could use Wark, Dibbell even 
Turkle.
Losing touch with reality or creating another

reality is not something I aspire to. Or let me put it another way, I
am an artist, I disagree with the engineers notion of art and
creativity. When you allow an engineer to dictate how  you are creative
and what form that takes than you have given up your artistic freedom.
This is the case in SL.

Then you shouldn't work with computers at all which are engineer-designed, 
software and hardware built, etc. etc. I'll use available technology of 
any sort intelligently. No one is "dictating" people in SL any more than 
you're "dictated to" when you're asked to cross the street on red. And of 
course you can break through that and so can SL people.
I also find it insulting - a bandying about of "artistic freedom" in this 
manner. I haven't lost anything. Most people I know who work in SL will do 
things in all sorts of media spaces (and non-media spaces as well, however 
they might be defined).
You, GH, might feel you give up your artistic freedom, but I'd be careful 
about blanket statesments.

In SL there is the question of the cartoon and mask as a stand in for
the archetypes of the human subconscious. On a certain level that is
interesting but the playing out of archetypes in an artificially
constructed space defeats the power of the symbol.

Oh heavens, it also elevates it. And there are a lot of other questions in 
SL beyond "cartoon and mask" ...
This is because

raising an archetype is one of the most powerful modes of expression
and communication. There is a schizophrenia between the total dominance
of the public sphere by corporate interests and the split of the public
social and archetypal space into a virtual world. This is very bad.

Why is it bad? Why is it schizophrenic? You're living within 
superstructure everywhere and everywhen, god knows especially in NY. And 
as you know, everything depends on what you do with it, what kind of 
critique or intelligence you bring to it, all sorts of things. It's just 
that the SL "corporate" is a lot clearer, it's economy is more evident, 
etc., and that makes it easier I think to deal with than what goes on 
around us. In our neighborhood we've been fighting Ratner and company for 
maybe 3-4 years now and we're most likely not going to win. The roots of 
power in this fight go deep and twisted, but real people are losing their 
homes as a result of entirely inappropriate eminent domain seizure. This - 
for me - is the real "total dominance of the public sphere by corporate 
interests." I mean my god if you don't like SL and feel it's contaminating 
and ruining symbols and whatnot, there are a lot of other areas to work 
in, online and offline!
It

is an expression of powerlessness and a concurrent move to balance the
split.  That may be the core emotion that I find most distateful and
depressing in SL. It is a sense of powerlessness. Or perhaps it is the
illusion that you are somehow controlling your
persona/archetype/body/space in SL.

In this last sentence, there's a slight contradiction; if you feel that 
sense of powerlessnes than you're not under the "illusion that you are 
somehow controlling." There's a third way of course which is that a lot of 
people are just using the space, working within or against the corporate 
structure, are smart and excited by what they're doing - and maybe, just 
maybe, even not particularly caring about "power" per se there. You'll 
probably find it naive, but I don't find it a lot less naive than most 
people in Brooklyn's response to Ratner.
My own feeling about a lot of this is that the left (I'm not saying you're 
left or right, I'm speaking for myself) shoots itself far too often in the 
foot by desiring a non-corporate purity which just isn't there. You're 
then forced into the position, for example, in relation to SL, of saying 
that everyone else in SL is naive or powerless or whatever - without even 
understanding the space in other dimensions and with other demographics. 
Some of the best and most 'questioning' artwork I've seen has been in SL, 
and it's been as exciting and far more interesting (to me) than what I've 
seen in Chelsea (whatever) galleries (which are far more insidious in 
terms of corporate power, disinvestment, etc. - but that's another argu- 
ment).
I was on a MOO quota board (PMC), we ran KyotoMoo out of the New School 
for a while, I've done a lot of work w/ ytalk blah blah blah I love this 
stuff...
Apologies for coming out of the lurk mode; for what I think are very good 
(personal) reasons, I'm paranoid and quiet on empyre, but I did want to 
contribute here.
- Alan

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