22. January 2009 by admin.

Abstract

This brief essay examines the culture of virtual worlds from the perspective of cultural anthropology. It reviews the linguistic and ethnographic artifacts of virtual world participants as a means of identifying its cultural identity.  This examination provides evidence of social responses to real life in several virtual worlds and expressed in the construction of an alter-culture within that space.  In response to this research, the essay asks whether the culture within virtual worlds reflects independent culture or subculture.

Keywords: Virtual world anthropology, linguistics, ethnography, game communities, alternate reality games (ARG)

In modern social sciences to examine virtual worlds as anything but culture is to invalidate the social spheres in which groups meets. It is more challenging, and perhaps more productive to try to ask whether or not such environments incubate a subculture or a culture in themselves.  If we take the standard anthropologic approach, there is an immediate dilemma.  For cultural anthropologists, virtual worlds are an enigma. The material remains do not lend themselves well to traditional archeological investigation. However,   anthropological study does find substantial opportunity in the assessment in the areas of linguistics and ethnography in virtual worlds.

Virtual worlds are linguistically defined by creoles of art and technology. Its members have routinely fabricated their own language which applies to the specific situations within the environment.  Second Life participants, for example, have SLURS (Second Life URLS) and PRIMS (primitives). Such terms are borrowed, of course, from Computer Science uniform resource locators and digital art’s polygonal modeling systems. 

The lexicon in World of War Craft is far more rich, defining a few hundred acronyms and a variety of adjectives that refer to game-specific situations. These include Powerleveling, Proc, Leet, Nerf’d, or Hume. Unsurprisingly most of these worlds share the common term, RL. RL contrasts the virtual world with real life.

These linguistic distinctions in themselves are not enough to define the culture. In linguistic terms, the language of virtual worlds is a dialect at best.   It reflects a subset collection of terms and the social situation under which they are used.

Ethnographically the culture of virtual worlds is clearly not homogenous. Virtual world members span all the traditional demographics, sometimes even straddling them.  The one homogenous aspect of the largest virtual worlds is there relationship to computer science. These worlds are built upon technology and that skeleton peeks through in the subsumed social norms of log ins and chat.

Where the culture diverges from Computer Science is in its overt effort to return to something human and social.  Numerical ID’s are supplanted with call signs and nicknames.  Object instances are represented by anthropomorphized self.  There is a constant effort to emulate, and then to perfect. In this way these environments could be considered communal efforts of utopian construction.  They endeavor to build an ideal, often defined by the members of that world, or at least evolved by the members. In the classic MMO model, there is a kind of democratic push-pull where designers respond to the needs of their constituents constructing scenarios that entertain and engage. In less game-like worlds, the social members engage themselves in their own world building, creating social microcosms that meet their needs. In Second Life, for example, participants create art societies, emulate physical cities and even create sexual groups.  Are these ethnographic observations of a culture developing itself, or are they merely play emulation?

With such evidence, the virtual world may then be a kind of explorative cultural other. Where the terms of real life cultural participation is defined by a legacy of years, the terms of a virtual world are limited only by an individual’s capacity and efficacy in the world.  Interestingly, this efficacy is often greater than what one experiences outside the virtual environment.  In the virtual world, one enters with a fresh start.  To some extent, they may enter the society as a 3 year old boy or 80 year old woman.  They may declare and define themselves as a leader, follower, innovator, plebian, or king. The practical dilemmas of non-virtual worlds are discarded. 

If the virtual world does not respond well to the way your avatar looks, you can change that avatars look, create a new one, or relocate to a place where your virtual character fits. These are retreat-based solutions to larger social issues, but they offer solutions not terribly practicable in an increasingly pervasive, far-reaching, and culturally normalizing real world.  Beyond the idiosyncrasies of specific cultural bias, there are commonly criticized cross-cultural biases against people with disabilities for example. Yet, many of the disabilities that can be readily recognized in non-virtual worlds disappear behind the smoke and mirrors of avatar based systems.  Such ability hints at the utopian potential to both eliminate discrimination and provide efficacy to individuals who may lack it. Others may argue it is merely play, lacking real address or solution.

Regardless, it is this ability to role-play that affords significant cultural relevance to virtual worlds. They serve not as counter-culture, or subculture, but as alter-culture.  They are place of duplicity, where the non-virtual self supports the virtual self.  They are a more complete version of the alter-cultural activities that many people already play. These include the bawdy explorations of participating in Mardi-Gras or the once-year role play in Halloween.  The fundamental difference is that these alter-cultures are often open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This affords for a new place in the space of the every day, an always available alter-cultural space. 

Yet, when we discard such affect, we often fill it with another discriminator. In game worlds, for example, rank, which sometimes can be purchased, defines a social hierarchy that prescribes one’s abilities, relationships, and potential.  Where it might be argued that this is at least earned, instead of being inherited, it continues to be a purchasable advantage within the social structure.  Likewise early adopters of Second Life find the financial advantage of early investment similarly witnessed in the social history of the United States. 

Despite all of the potential to break with the traditional limitations of real life, the social relationships, the strata, even the anecdotal daily scenarios are familiar.  Even in the least technical virtual worlds of alternate reality games, there are artifact-replicas of real life.  

Are these affinities between real life and virtual life an artifact of the cross-cultural germination of the real and artificial? Or are they the result of a sub culture responding to the main stream culture?  Is it safe to assume that the real leads the artificial?  Are such artifacts waiting to be molted upon successive iterations?

 -Lindsay Grace

(from some of my writing  on games)

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20. January 2009 by admin.

December was a press-rich month for me:
An interview on NPR (1 quote )
http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/Content.aspx?audioID=31545

My game in Gamasutra / Game Career Guide:
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=21467

Make Me an Offer, reviwed in New City:
http://art.newcity.com/2008/12/30/review-make-me-an-offergallery-350-illinois-institute-of-art/

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18. January 2009 by admin.

CALL FOR WORKS
*
Electroacoustic Audio-visual Music*

Submission Deadline: 20th February 2009 (postmark)

This is a call for fixed media electroacoustic audio-visual music works
exploring the interaction between sound and image. Works should be cohesive
audio-visual entities and not just video/film with a soundtrack or music
with a video/film track. The audio within these works should be
electroacoustic in nature.

Works are requested for a PhD research project investigating audience
reception of differing styles of audio-visual composition and the role of
composer intention in facilitating audience reception of electroacoustic
audio-visual music works. This research builds upon the foundations laid by
Leigh Landy and Rob Weale through the Intention/Reception Project (Weale
2006) (Landy 2006).

Works will be presented to a series of audience groups who will then
complete questionnaires and discuss their reception of each of the presented
works. Results from these tests will then be analysed in order to discover
any trends that exist between the different audience groups.

It is hoped that this analysis will form a useful resource for composers of
electroacoustic audio-visual music works providing key information on how
audiences perceive and receive their works. The research will also provide
fruitful information concerning the accessibility of these types of works.

*KEY REQUIREMENTS*

- In this phase of the project, submissions must be fixed media works (as
opposed to ‘live’ performance based works).
- Works must have stereo audio and be for single screen.
- The duration of submitted works should be no longer than 8 minutes due
to testing practicalities or, alternatively, a well-defined self-contained
section of the work lasting no longer than 8 minutes can be identified
within the entire work.
- Composers must be willing to complete a ‘Composer Intention
Questionnaire’ outlining dramaturgic information relating to each submitted
work.
- The composer should own all rights to the submitted works and provide
the researcher with the right to include selected works as part of future
scholarly publications of the research.
- Multiple works may be submitted.

NB: Works of high reputation may be rejected for testing due to issues of
familiarity.

*SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

*All submissions must consist of the following:
1. DVD containing the work to be considered (PAL or NTSC format) and or QTM
file.
Works should have stereo audio and be for single screen.
2. Programme notes (please include duration, year of creation and a list of
previous
performances) .
3. Composer biography.
4. Contact information: email, postal address and telephone.
All requested information must be provided in order for the work to be
considered.

*DEADLINE*

Only submissions received by (or postmarked) Friday 20th February 2009 will
be considered.

Composers of selected compositions will be notified by 31st of March at the
latest.

A ‘Composer Intention questionnaire’ will be dispatched to the appropriate
contact address for completion by the composers of selected works. Failure
to complete a copy of the questionnaire for a selected work will prevent the
work from being used in the study.

Please send hard-copy materials to:

Andrew Hill
C/o Simon Smith
Music, Technology and Innovation Research Centre
0.19 Clephan Building
De Montfort University
Leicester
LE1 9BH, UNITED KINGDOM

Many thanks for your interest.

*References*

Weale, R. (2006) Discovering How Accessible Electroacoustic Music Can Be:
the Intention/Reception Project. Organised Sound 11/2: 189-200.

Landy, L. (2006) “The Intention/Reception Project” in Mary Simoni, ed.
Analytical Methods of Electroacoustic Music. Routledge (New York) pp. 29-53
+ appendix on DVD.

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18. January 2009 by admin.

13th Media Art Biennale
20th Anniversary Special Edition

Competition

The WRO 09 Expanded City competition is open for submissions only for another month, until 15 Feb 2009. The entry form and competition regulations are available online at <http://wro09. wrocenter. pl/entry>http://wro09. wrocenter. pl/entry

Expanded City

Expanded cinema – Gene Youngblood’s term from 1970 – was coined as a name for new forms of artistic experimentation with the language of film. But the term’s underlying concept of synesthetic cinema combining esthetic sensitivity with technological innovation is also relevant to transformations in art arising from the infusion of new tools and the exploration of new views of perception.

According to Youngblood, the new cinema medium – expanding beyond the limitations of the genre and foreshadowing the technological and esthetic diversification of contemporary art – became the most appropriate language for the post-industrial, post-literate, post-mass environment with its multi-dimensional simulsensory network of information sources.

The Expanded city extends the concept of expanded media: The city becomes a metaphor for shared space for exchange and communication, expanding and diversifying through new technologies.

What does new media art contribute to this shared communication space? Is it mere commentary or does it offer new solutions? How does it define that space by exploring its dimensions? How is the city shaped by the appearance of new programmed and programmable agoras? How does contemporary art influence the concept, the substance and the image of a city?

Schedule:

Deadline for submissions02:15:09

WRO 09 competition and main events: 5:10:09

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18. January 2009 by admin.

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18. January 2009 by admin.

Prix Ars Electronica 2009
Online Submission Deadline: March 6, 2009
Contact: info@prixars.aec.at
Total Prize Money: € 122.500,-
Categories: Computer Animation / Film / VFX; Digital Musics; Interactive Art; Hybrid Art; Digital Communities; [the next idea] Grant; Media.Art.Research Award; u19 - freestyle computing

More details about all categories and online submission are available only online at: <http://prixars.aec.at>

INTERACTIVE ART
The ‘Interactive Art’ category is dedicated to interactive works in all forms and formats, from installations to performances. At the top of the agenda is artistic quality in the development and design of the interaction as well as a harmonious dialog between the content level and the interaction level—that is, the inherent principles of interaction and the interfaces that implement them. Of particular interest is the sociopolitical relevance of the interaction as manifested by its innate potential to expand the scope of human action. Jurors are looking forward to encountering innovative technological concepts blended with superbly effective design (usability).

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14. January 2009 by admin.

The Call for Proposals is open for the 2009 NMC Summer Conference, to be held in Monterey, California! On behalf of the New Media Consortium and the conference hosts, California State University, Monterey Bay, you are cordially invited to submit proposals now through February 16, 2009.

The 2009 NMC Summer Conference will feature outstanding keynote addresses by Kathy Sierra, founder of Javaranch.com and by Marco Torres, Apple Distinguished Educator, as well as a special session in recognition of Douglas Englebart, who will receive the illustrious NMC Fellow Award.

Proposals are sought for preconference workshops, breakout sessions, posters and interactive sessions, and NMC’s fast-paced Five Minutes of Fame. New conference tracks join old favorites this year, and propsals are encouraged in the following four areas:

• On the Horizon: Emerging technologies applied to teaching, learning, research, or creative expression, especially (but not only) those in the 2009 Horizon Report;
• Social Media and Networking: This special focus track for the 2009 Summer Conference will set the stage for an in-depth exploration of social media, social networks and related tools, with a special spotlight on their applications to learning, to museum education, and to building communities;
• Best Practices: Highlight your successful projects, practices, or responses to emerging challenges and issues;
• Tools and Techniques: Tried-and-true methods for using technology in the service of education, including sneak peeks at new tools, demonstrations, and tips.

For more information, or to submit a proposal, see the full Call for Proposals.

Travel and lodging information can be found at http://www.nmc.org/2009-summer-conference/travel

Exhibition and Sponsorship information can be found at http://www.nmc.org/2009-summer-conference/exhibition-sponsorship

For complete information on the 2009 NMC Summer Conference please see
http://www.nmc.org/2009-summer-conference.

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14. January 2009 by admin.

Electronic Language International Festival

JULY 27 2009/// SÃO PAULO/// BRAZIL///

27 JULHO 2009/// SÃO PAULO/// BRASIL///

FILE - Electronic Language International Festival – is opening

registrations for its tenth edition that will be held at Sesi
Paulista’s cultural space, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in the period from
July 27 to August 31, 2009. Subscriptions are open from January 1st to
March 10th, 2009. Submissions are free and open to professionals,
researchers and students of the electronic language.

In the last nine years, FILE has shown what’s been happening in the
global networks related to digital and electronic arts, becoming a
reference for studies and research on new media. It has exhibited web
art, net art, artificial life, hypertext, computer animation, real
time teleconference, virtual reality, soft art, games, interactive
movies, e-videos, digital panoramas and electronic art installations
and robotics, through interactive and immersive rooms.

FILE SYMPOSIUM has become a meeting point in the city of Sao Paulo,
proposing discussions and tackling the electronic-digital culture in
its relations to art, science and technologies.

FILE HIPERSONICA, the festival’s sonorous branch, is on it’s 7th
edition and intends to elaborate connections between the world of
images, the world of sonorities and the world of texts. Sound
installations and real time performances will be presented by a number
of groups and collectives, comprising both erudite and pop electronic
music, but also electronic compositions, sound poetry, radio art,
video music and sonic landscapes, as well as Djs and VJs presenting
their sets through specific apparatus and installations with
experimental and immersive projections.

For more information visit:
http://www.file.org.br/file2009/eng/index.php

The following is the same basic information in Portuguese. If you want to learn some Portuguese, you might want to try my Language Learning Game demo

Em Portuguese:

FILE FESTIVAL 2009

O FILE - Festival Internacional de Linguagem Eletrônica – está abrindo
inscrições para a sua décima edição que acontecerá no espaço cultural
do Sesi Paulista em São Paulo, Brasil, no período de 27 de julho a 31
de agosto de 2009. As inscrições estão abertas de 01 de janeiro a 10
de março de 2009. A inscrição é gratuita e aberta a profissionais,
pesquisadores e estudantes de linguagem eletrônica de âmbito
internacional.

Nos últimos nove anos o FILE tem mostrado o que vem acontecendo nas
redes mundiais no que tange às artes digitais e eletrônicas
constituindo referência de estudo e pesquisa para as novas mídias.
Foram expostos trabalhos de webart, netart, vida artificial,
hipertexto, animação computadorizada, tele-conferência em tempo real,
realidade virtual, soft art, além de games, filmes interativos,
e-videos, panoramas digitais e instalações de arte eletrônica e
robótica, através de salas interativas e imersivas.

O FILE SYMPOSIUM se tornou um ponto de encontro na cidade de São
Paulo, propondo discussões sobre a cultura-digital eletrônica em suas
relações com a arte, as ciências e as tecnologias.

O FILE HIPERSÔNICA, braço sonoro do festival, está em sua sétima
edição e propõe elaborar conexões entre o mundo das imagens, o mundo
das sonoridades e o mundo das textualidades. São instalações sonoras e
performances em tempo real de vários grupos e coletivos tanto de
música eletrônica erudita, como de música pop eletrônica, além de
composição eletrônica, poesia sonora, radio arte, vídeo música e
paisagem sonora. Djs e Vjs também se apresentam através de
aparelhagens específicas e instalações com projeções imersivas e
experimentais.

Para mais informações visite:

http://www.file.org.br/file2009/eng/index.php

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14. January 2009 by admin.

Reminder

CALL FOR CHAPTER PROPOSALS

Proposal Submission Deadline: January 15, 2009
Ethics and Game Design: Teaching Values through Play
A book edited by Karen Schrier, Teachers College, Columbia University,
USA, and Dr. David Gibson, University of Vermont, USA
http://www.columbia.edu/~kls2108/callforchapters.htm

Introduction
Ethics is the practice of enacting moral judgment to achieve a better
life—the process of making choices according to one’s own conception
of how to be a good person. Games and simulations can be rich
playgrounds for the practice of these ethical choices, as they offer
the ability to iterate and reflect on multiple possibilities and
consequences. As such, educators and researchers are beginning to
consider the use of games in supporting ethical reasoning and
character development. Moreover, games have been and continue to be
the subject of conversations, controversies, and deliberations about
ethics. Game developers, publishers, and the public often differ in
opinion about the choices made in the creation and promotion of a
game, bringing up larger questions about the role of entertainment,
art, and business in our society. The potential for games to foster
ethical thinking and discourse—and not whether games are inherently
good or bad—will be the thrust of this timely book.

Objective of the Book
Ethics and Games Design will provide a diverse and comprehensive
compendium of case studies, theoretical frameworks, and empirical
research in the emerging field of ethics, values, games, and play.
This book will take a cross-disciplinary approach, inviting research,
critiques, and perspectives from computer science, education,
philosophy, law, media studies, management, psychology, and art
history. The publication has three main goals. First, it will seek to
define this emerging and essential new field. Second, this book will
serve as a collective source for students, educators, practitioners,
and researchers who are interested in understanding the current state
of the discipline. It will locate the field diachronically and
thematically, while highlighting the work of both well-established and
emerging researchers and practitioners. Finally, this publication will
inspire and motivate further interdisciplinary dialogue and research
on the topic of ethics and games. It will frame the major research
questions, issues, methodologies and problems, which we can then use
to both expand and refine the field. Such a rigorous foundation for
the study of ethics will help to appropriately inform future games,
policies, standards, curricula, products, and the like.

Target Audience
The target audience is very diverse, ranging from practitioners of
game development to journalists, to philosophers and educators.
Researchers and students studying game design, media and games will
find this an essential text for understanding how to better design,
teach, and study the current generation of learners. Educators will
use this to further their understanding of the potentials and limits
of games, and how to creatively incorporate emerging technology into
their curricula, standards, and policies. Game developers and
publishers can use this text to further their designs, to help refine
their choices and practices, and to better think through the
implications of their decisions. Journalists, cultural critics, and
reviewers can use this publication to consider alternate ways to view
games and the nature of their controversies. Finally, this text will
attract members of diverse academic, development, and consumer
communities to interact, share and discuss findings, frameworks and
theories.

Recommended topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Definition of the field of ethics and games
• Historical and contemporary context of ethics and games
• Limits and constraints in assessing ethics
• Criteria for studying ethics and games
• Case studies (from researchers, educators and practitioners)
• Ethics and new media literacy
• Teaching ethics skills
• Educational opportunities and limits for teaching values through play
• Schools and the ethics of gaming
• Ethics and standards in game development
• Ethics in the promotion of games
• Communities of play and ethics
• Cheating and games
• Issues of race, sex, violence, and gender in games
• Ethics and the games business
• Future implications and the ethical citizen

Submission Procedure
Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit on or before
January 15, 2009, a 2-3 page chapter proposal clearly explaining the
mission and concerns of his or her proposed chapter. Authors of
accepted proposals will be notified by February 1, 2009 about the
status of their proposals and sent chapter guidelines. Full chapters
are expected to be submitted by April 1, 2009. All submitted chapters
will be reviewed on a double-blind review basis. This book is
scheduled to be published by IGI Global (formerly Idea Group Inc.),
publisher of the “Information Science Reference” (formerly Idea Group
Reference) and “Medical Information Science Reference” imprints. For
additional information regarding the publisher, please visit
www.igi-global.com.

Previosly posted at: http://blog.mindtoggle.com/2008/11/25/games-and-ethics-book/

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13. January 2009 by admin.

The deadline to enter the IGDA’s Student Scholarship Program for GDC09 is next Thursday, January 15th. Twenty-five university students will be awarded complimentary “Main Conference” passes to the 2009 Game Developers Conference. Recipients will be announced mid February.

http://www.igda.org/scholarships/

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