[-empyre-] III arrival

[Jonathan Marshall]

>Interesting, for me the virtual was not the lists, in despite I come
>early to Netbehaviour, -empyre, Nettime, Rhizome and many others. For
>me virtuality come with the online games, the RPG. I played Ultima
>Online and met doctors playing healers and soldiers playing warriors
>and women playing men and men playing women. It was interesting to die
>as an avatar and all the issues the death woke in me.
>Ana

I never did much online RPG - too many hand movements too quickly too continuously, although i played things like Doom and diabolo on my own pc in bursts, and worked on various MOOs, all of which are a different experience.

There the aim for me, anyway, was economy the zen of doing something minimally with complete focus. 
'Death' then became a learning experience, not an involvement, although of course there was always disappointment, and that was affect. 
Nevertheless the situation with trying to 'meld' with the game, still struck me as deeply embodied, based on reflex and feel - a bit like driving a car perhaps when i was young.

But what, for you, made virtual apply in one situation and not in another? Was the 'game' part, part of making the 'virtual'? or was it a performance, a _play_ (in the stage sense? or the venture sense?), something that one pretended about, and thus acknowledged was not 'real' (or real yet) while making it 'real', and of course something that moved you like a play? watching and being part of it, feeling into it?

jon

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