PseudorealityPrevails

Cave Animals

I visited the caves at Virtual Lascaux.  The textures are gorgeous and the cave is interestingly maze-like, using torches to hint at the direction.  It represented the chaotic, overlapping nature of the drawings well, but one thing it left out was the material imperfection. 

In the real caves, the artists used the imperfections in the rock surfaces to hint at the bodies of animals - a bulge might become a shoulder, a gash might be an antler, or even color variations might be used to suggest modeling and features.

In the virtual caves, it was not that I thought the virtual rocks were not bumpy enough.  It was more a question of what would imperfection be in this environment, and how could an artist use it to better effect?  I suspect the answer probably has nothing to do with virtual rocks.

"Dear John" letter to Facebook

Dear Facebook,

We need to talk.

I am breaking up with you.  Things just aren't working out.  I don't like who I am when I am with you; unfortunately, you bring out the worst in me.  You do have some good features, it's true.  But we are going in different directions. 

I could say that it's not you, it's me, but it is you, too.  You definitely have some problems, I hope you get some help.

I know breaking up by blog is lame, but I need to communicate with you in a way you understand.  I would say that I wish you the best, but I am not entirely sure that I do, so I will not say it. 

I took all my stuff back; I deleted your photos and erased all your messages.  Please do not try to contact me again. 

Sincerely,
My Avatar

The Red Men

In The Red Men by Matthew De Abaitua, a British company that creates custom avatars for the wealthy decides to create a custom town to study perfect marketing opportunities.  By interviewing the citizens of a real town in depth, and uploading all the data into the virtual world, the company hopes to virtualize not only the people themselves, but their behavior in large, complex and fluid social groupings.  Once the virtual town goes online, metrics gathered there will so closely mirror consumer interactions in the real world, that the data generated can be used to better sell: widgets, ideas, subscriptions, statis.

In the book, the project collapses in part due to the difficulty of interviewing and surveilling the citizens; it is too labor- and psychologically-intensive.  In RL, of course, we now do this better.  We outsource the data gathering to the objects of study themselves, and have them upload all their information themselves.  Facebook, Threadless, Second Life - all assign the content generation to the end user, which saves time and increases accuracy.  Plus, they want to: it's fun to make yourself Almost Famous for 15 minutes.

This is not necessarily a dystopian tendency, although it could be.  Outsourcing to the end user can be a bloodless way of describing a democratic approach to creativity, enabled by technology.  But it can also lead to a creative cul de sac where every action and hope is measured and met by someone selling you something somewhere.

Coke or Pepsi?

The bulk of this conference focuses on pre-built and pre-scripted virtual worlds.  The illusion of choice is presented by quantity; here are 19 different shirts for your avatar, here is a game where you collect virtual pets, here is a puzzle with 11 branching pathways. 

But not only is customization not true creativity, it actively diverts it, in the same way that junk food fills you up but provides no nutrients.  A type of choice is involved in selecting skin tones and hairstyles from a menu, but as a closed system it is not creative at all.  It is also perfect for the commodification of those impulses, as finite systems have closely defined elements that can be (and are) packaged and sold.  This environment of faux choice is further compounded by the fact that we live in a culture of commodification anyway, from objects to ideas, and so we're familiar with that context and easily fall into the usual behavior patterns. 

This qualitative difference, between customization and creativity, is where the tech can really be used for good or evil.

Simulacrum reversed

The Javits Center interior is a polygon mesh, appropriately enough for a conference on virtual worlds.