Arwenna Stardust’s Second Life Blog

Over the last month or so I have become aware of initiatives to assist users to create life like or even real time gestures for their avatars. It all seemed like a dream of the distant future - well a couple of years at least! But then I came across this posting from the ACM Tech News today - and it looks as though that distant future is just around the corner!

Avatar Mimics You in Real Time
PhysOrg.com (03/25/0 Zyga, Lisa

A digital avatar capable of mirroring a person’s movements in real time has been developed by researchers at Deutsche Telekom Laboratories, Germany’s Fraunhofer Heinrich-Hertz-Institut, and Israel’s Ben Gurion University. The researchers say the technology opens up new possibilities for touch-free, intuitive human-computer interaction. The prototype system features real-time performance of audio-visual analysis so that the avatar can move immediately. The system’s hardware ingredients are an inexpensive Webcam and a pair of standard headphones, and the system interoperates with a standard PC. Users must wave their hands around at first so the system can identify their skin color, as it depends on recognizing skin color to follow hand and head movements. The system is capable of recognizing a series of 66 parameters that classify facial expression, and there are also high-level facial expressions that users can manually activate with buttons. The system can recognize many basic gestures, including those from the American Sign Language alphabet, by finger position analysis. Future applications include its employment in virtual chat rooms and online call centers, where users are represented by avatars to maintain privacy. In mobile devices the avatar system could function as an interface that promotes user-friendliness.
Click Here to View Full Article

How awesome will this be! except that now everyone will know if I am yawning or dozing off or just staring out the window or doing other things that maybe I shouldn’t! The potential uses seem endless but is it an invasion of our privacy - do I want someone else to know what my real self is doing? It raises all kinds of questions about what we expect our avatar to be and how far it is us and how far it is a fantasy! One part of me is fascinated the other is somewhat wary!

As I have been thinking about ‘what do you need to know’ to be ‘competent’ in SL - it occurred to me to remind people to use their profiles! In my very early days in SL I was a little hesitant to click on someone to view their profile - somehow it seemed like an invasion of their privacy! - but I have long since realised that a) no one knows if you click on their profile (they don’t feel it! honest!) and b) people only put in their profile the things that they are happy for you to read!

I have also learned that it is a VERY useful way of finding new places (check out people’s PICKs),

finding out the LM for their shop(s) (check out their Classified),   finding new groups (just double click on a group name in a persons profile for more info on that group) and occasionally interesting web pages and bits about them in Real Life (Click on 1st life).  It is also an interesting way of discovering about the different online identities that people have and sometime who their friends are!

BUT imho the most useful tab of all on anyone’s profile is the My Notes tab - here you can write notes to yourself about the person - real name, email address, what they are interested in - where you met them etc etc and it is all totally PRIVATE - you are the only person who can read what you have put in the My Notes page! I use it all the time to keep track of all the different people I have met for the first time in SL - I find it the most useful way of keeping notes in SL about people.

And while we are on the subject of profiles - have you looked at your own recently? The more info you put in your profile the more chance there is that others will be able to see what you have in common! And don’t forget photos - SL or RL. Next time you are in SL, have an explore of your profile - and of the other people you meet!

As promised, I have begun a chronological record of the Arwenna’s development.  Searching through the archives, I came across the first photo ever taken of her when she was probably less than a week old. The About Arwenna page contains the photo and some retrospective comments - please don’t laugh too hard!!! :))

Following a long and fascinating thread on the SL Educators maillist and after having written the first post on the About Arwenna page, I have been thinking quite a bit recently about the nature of the relationships that people have with their Second Life avatars. I realise that ‘avatars’ are used in other online spaces too and they don’t always mean quite the same thing - often being primarily a cartoon like character that can be used to identify your postings or similar.  Second Life avatars are significantly more sophisticated and I suspect that people’s relationships with them are generally different.

In the course of the SLED thread I posted the following, partly to confirm to myself my understanding of what an avatar is and why the choice of that word is so apposite.

“There are a number of words that could have been chosen, character, personna, representation etc etc….but ‘avatar’ has a very specific, if not always understood, meaning which I think fits perfectly with Second Life. In classical Hinduism avatars have a very special place. ‘Avatara’ is the Sanskrit word used to specify a manifestation of the god Vishnu - Krishna is one of those manifestations and in the classical lists there are 9 others. Vishnu chose to appear on earth in one of his avatars or manifestations in order to play a particular role and usually to solve a particular problem or teach particular lessons. His avatars were not representations of him but manifestations of those parts of him that were relevant to the situation. In the hierarchy of Hindu gods, Vishnu is the preserver, (Brahma is the creator and Siva the destroyer) but not all Vishnu’s avatars are sweetness and light! Some are destructive, particularly Kalki the world destroyer at the end of each age, perhaps because Vishnu’s role is not to ‘preserve’ goodness but to preserve the balance between ‘good’ and ‘evil’, in order that the world and its inhabitants can progress by riding the waves on the edge of chaos. “

I spent a couple of years many years ago, teasing out the meaning and purpose of avatara to classical Hinduism as part of a Masters thesis and the above is a summary of some of the conclusions I reached. So why is this important?

Well I went on to say

“I have always thought of my avatars (I have 3) as manifestations of myself. They are all essentially me, but different characteristics and reactions and behaviours will be more prominent in different ones as the situation requires. One exists in SL mainly to teach and mentor RL students but happily combines that with learning about SL by being an active resident through owning land, selling creations through her shops and generally playing a role in the wider SL community - just as I do in RL. This avatar may take various forms including a mermaid on occasion but is usually predictably human! Another avatar is a drow, a dark elf, who enjoys experimenting with role playing and who would find it pretty difficult to stand in front of students and role play being a kind and patient teacher! Some of my SL friends know both of my avatars but most don’t (and that can be fun too! seeing how the same person reacts quite differently to 2 different manifestations of me!) ” The third avatar I prefer to keep private.

So for me, my avatars are very definitely aspects of me. Arwenna is the teacher, the builder and generally attempts to be a productive, helpful and active member of her community. She very rarely loses her temper (and then quietly!), she ignores griefers, she helps others out where she can, she has a pretty well developed sense of humour and loves to dance and party. Just like me in real life, she is not very interested in large houses, flash vehicles or conventional fashion but she tries to be both professional and kind in her dealings with others. She is generally relaxed and confident and happy - in others words me in a good mood!

K atipo, on the other hand, the drow or darkelf is very reserved, has a slight chip on her shoulder and enjoys being a little intimidating. My alter-ego perhaps? Certainly not something I am going to dwell on right now - but maybe as she gets around more in the world I will find it easier to identify her true nature!

Steven Warburton at Kings College, London has written far more knowledgably than me on the issues of avatars and personal identity. His blog is on my blogroll and an excellent discussion can be found here. With his encouragement I am going to try to chart Arwenna’s developing personality by describing the series of photos that I have of her. Watch this space!