Category: Embodied Experience
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My avatar, myself
My rez day as Kay Jiersen is this week, and combined with visiting a thought-provoking exhibition at GBTH, I have embodiment on my mind. I’ve written about this in the past, but years have gone by and it’s worth considering again. To age or not to age Since Kay was born, my physical self has…
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The virtual movers didn’t break anything
Last year I moved from the US Midwest to New England. The process took months and involved dozens of people. This week I moved from the Fruit Islands in Second Life back to my parcel on the Heterocera Atoll mainland. I did it alone and it took minutes only because I dawdled. I couldn’t help…
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VWBPE’s Steampunk Social
Last night I attended a networking and fundraising event for the upcoming Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conference. The theme was steampunk and the music tended toward the blues. A friend asked why I volunteer with VWBPE (or attend, when I can’t help out). I’m not an educator; sessions on techniques for increasing classroom…
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Where are the SL men?
A Study of Gender Presentation in Resident Profiles in Second Life Public Spaces When I returned to SL a couple months ago, I noticed that there seemed to be a lower percentage of apparently male avatars than I remembered from 2010-2015. I wondered if my chosen destinations were female-leaning, so I began jumping to areas…
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AFK sex, the popularity paradox, and male avatars
Going back into Second Life after three years has given me a lot to think about. I wander looking for interesting things and people, then spend equally as much time pondering what I’ve found. I’ve started several posts but, being a methodical person, I keep stopping and asking myself more questions. Could this be the…
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The world, three years later
Other than volunteering at the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conferences for a couple years, I haven’t been in Second Life since very early 2016. Instead, I played some video games (ArcheAge, Subnautica, No Man’s Sky) and learned to make vector art in the time I had to play at my computer. My curiosity…
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A reborn SL noob after 10 years
I spent a couple hours in Second Life last night, for the first time since August (and, to be fair, I hadn’t explored outside my SL home for several months before that). In the interim my desktop computer died, so I had to do a clean install of Firestorm with no cache and no preset…
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Identity: Tell me, who are you?
Who are you? Who are you now, and is that the same person you always are and always were? I’ve always played with identity. As a child I was imaginative and, let’s say, indiscriminate about the boundary between reality and fantasy. The first sign of this may have been when I was five and screamed…
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Emotional robots and all the feels
With Ex Machina opening (it’s on my list for the weekend Seriously?? Not in wide release?? WTF??), Slate published an article about emotional robots — or at least, the emulation of human emotion by artificial intelligence. It’s a good piece. The human tendency to anthropomorphize means that we only need a tiny hint of emotion and interaction to perceive much…
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Ways we adapt to mix real and virtual
I can’t help thinking of this as I sit on my couch at home and simultaneously sit on one in Second Life, watching the Australian Grand Prix with Jakob. That’s our virtual living room. It doesn’t make sense to try to stream the race in SL — our real televisions look much better and provide commentary…