The Overall Goal and Theme:
Throughout my research, I initially started researching random
topics underneath the bigger domain–digital vs physical
precense–that I'm very interested investigating such as digital
identities, cybernetics, social bots and online communities. Then I
let my research take my flow and interest into more specific medium,
topics, areas of work, which will eventually help me find the
specific topic that I want to work on for my final project.
As you will see, my focus of interest has shifted throughout the
last month of research, all my research and random notes/internet
surfing/looking at artists' work collectively helped me cultivate
the perspective and enabled me to finally sit with my final idea.
1. I’m interested in digital identities that have no physical presence or have mismatched information versus their physical presence. I’m interested in the meaning of existence of such counterfeit identities and the metaphorical idea of having only a digital life in the cyberspace. Do the tasks they perform count as a form of automated labor in the digital space? * As part of my research of understanding better, on a personal level, about how the interaction is between bots or between a real human and a digital social bot.
I had a discussion with my friend, who is a strategist working in an internet-tech company. He says the bot issue online is more relevant than ever. He thinks my entry point of looking at the gap between the physical presence of one’s identity versus the digital presence of one’s identity is very interesting. Back to when internet was just popularized, people used internet as the outlet and safe space where they can create whoever and whatever character, identity, and content they want. The cyberspace was the extension of their physical self. And for many, the cyberspace was the life they could have in real life, the pathway where they kept all the secret and the communities that are inaccessible to them in real life. However, origination of major social platforms like facebook established dominant rules and social proposal where a real identity with matching information as one’s physical identity in real life is necessary and crucial requirement. We are getting further and further away from creating imageries of our imaginations and unthinkable identities on the cyberspace. Rather, we are getting tighter and tighter about correcting online information which needs to be matched to our identification information in order to get reliable user approval. Among these relationships, the most intriguing and impactful one is probably the digital presence’s impact on the physical world.
I started to digging into more artists who address issues and make
social commentaries around the internet space, the relationship
between the digital and the physical space. I found a couple who
truly create very interesting work:
A quote a found through an interview with Abram Bartholl:
“We make this difference between analogue and digital, cyber
and real — you have always that pair of words. You can’t make that
distinction anymore. It’s totally leaping into each other. It’s
already starting with identity theft and the fact that your online
part became way more important over the past five years. There’s no
real border.”
“All these new technologies are so much embraced
and help us a lot, but also it separates us way more than it brings
us together. You feel so connected, but at the same time, you’re
alone."
Interview Here
Constant Dullart - creating 2.5 million instagram bought
followers
Abram Bartholl - “Are You Human?” – examination of
the relationship between the digital and physical world.
Rafael Rozendaal
“you’re using the digital as an impetus
to get people out of digital space. "
Yesterday, I spent time getting to know more about how internet was used for people to create extended version of themselves, building communities and connecting with others. I’m very interested in the idea of the difference between physical net and digital net, and between one’s digital presence and physical presence. Today, I decided to look deeper into “Cyber Cafe” and “Internet Cafe”, concepts and ideas from the 90s. These hubs were physical space serving for the communities where people would go to gain access of internet services for a limited amount of house. I remember going to one of those with my dad when I was a kid. You have to be above 18 in order to go to one. We had a bulky computer at home, but my dad would still go to the cafe just to have access to more games that were too big or too slow to run on own computer at home. Internet Cafe Research and History
People use the internet as a way to generate digital(automated) labor in order to make profit in the physical world. How would that be like in reverse?
Today, I decided to take a step back and looke more about identities in general on the cyberspace. I was recommended to look at Second Life, a game where people create their virtual avatar and interact with each other. The major difference between this game and Sims is that this game has no clear objective or goal, users are allowed to build any world, system and social relationship that they want. All characters are based and used by someone in real life. A fun fact is that real names are actually not allowed/encouraged in this game, which means that you truly don’t know who you are interacting with. I watched a couple of youtube videos from this YouTuber Esteban Winsmore, where he created a very strange looking avatar and decided to visit a virtual strip club in Second Life. He was jumping onto the stage and being doctrines by these very disproportional model-bodies human who acclaim to be the owner of the club. You can hear the real-time conversations over the mic of people who are sitting at home guarding their job duties in this virtual strip club. They got really really mad and started to yell over the mic when Esteban’s character jumped onto the pole on a stage where “only dancer employees” allowed to be on. You can tell these people are not how they look like in the game, and you can tell they are very serious about the order and rules in such a virtual club that they are managing. Esteban’s outlawed behaviors were looked down at and eventually caused him getting kicked out of the bar after keeping hoping his character backed onto the stage.
It’s very interesting to see in Second Life that:
Which made me wonder:
Following up with my discoveries and research from yesterday, I did
more readings today where i found some interesting points. In this
paper called “Digital Identities - overcoming visual bias through
virtual embodiment.” By Davis D.Z and Cansiri, K, it was mentioned
that in game like Second Life, “Although users tend to create ava-
tars that match mainstream beauty standards, such as being tall,
young, and have lighter skin tone (Bloustien & Wood, 2016; Deleuze &
Guattari, 2004), some users may create avatars in animal forms
because physical appearance can be borderless and fluid in virtual
worlds “ Many people with physical unableness use the internet and
virtual world as a platform to compensate what they don’t have fully
in real life, which actually brings them satisfaction. "A
qualitative analysis with Chinese users in a virtual community
revealed that the creation of ideal-self avatars and the abandonment
of PWD’s actual identity increased life satisfaction and positive
moods (Hu et al., 2015). Participants reported that they can protect
their privacy and avoid risks experienced in the physical world
(e.g., being humiliated or being discrimi- nated against).” In this
paper, the authors categorized three paradigms of digital identities
people would create in a virtual world:
1. the complete reconstruction of identity
2. the
combination of virtual-world and physical-world identities, which
sometimes is defined as ‘symbembodied’ (Schultze, 2014; Veerapan,
2011)
3. the employment of physical-world identity in virtual
world.
The authors also emphasized on the idea of parasocial
interaction–referring to the relationship between individuals and
media figures. The relationship between online identity, social
capital formation, and digital work is embedded in the ability to
experience parasocial interaction. Moreover, with the help
technologies, “Virtual media characters also become more authentic
because of higher visual fidelity resulting from increased pixels
and the algorithm process, compared to traditional media figures”.
“The nature of virtual environments allows users to create comfort
zones and supports informal conversation, which may lead to deeper
relationships than are possible in the physical world “ Bargh and
McKenna in their paper “Can you see the real me?” presented with a
research result that people are more likely to present their true
selves on the internet space. “Because of the relative anonymity of
Internet communication settings, including the absence of physical
“gating features” in text-based, non-face-to-face interactions, we
ar- gued that one’s true self is more likely to be active during
Internet than face-to-face interactions. “
* Virtual world as “domains of liquid identity”
* “self-defined rather than pre-ordained” The idea of utilizing the
virtual space as a way to extend our identity and our social
interaction is fascinating. The internet can be the outlet of our
true self, even more than the real life, which brings a lot of new
meanings to the blurred lines between the digital and physical
space. It gives me questions about what can we achieve on the
internet space that can complete or can compensate what’s not
fulfilled in the immediate physical world. It reminds me of the fact
that we look for answers on the internet when we can’t figure out
the simple solutions in the real life. We seem to have specific
input and reliance on the internet space that we cannot necessarily
achieve completely with the physical space. The internet or the
virtual world is used to complete what’s absent in the physical
life. Such an absence doesn’t necessarily need to be an object, it
could be a form of act, a sense of belongingness, a fulfillment of
our mental being, a satisfaction of our individual values and so on.
The nature of the virtual world allows us to define our extended
identities, it provided us with opportunities to enrich our physical
reality. You can execute very specific activities
Precedents
* mourning - Bunny Rogers and Filip Olszewski - Sister Nunn
* Studio Moniker - VR Dancing
* 3DDD Party - Fuzzy
Wobble
* Reddit Pixel War
The natural of the net:
1. RAFAËL ROZENDAAL“THE IDEA IS
THAT THE WEBSITE IS LIKE LIQUID, OR LIKE GAS ... IT ADAPTS TO
WHATEVER ENVIRONMENT IT HAS.”
Keywords:
* Digital net vs physical net
* public
intervention
* extended self and sense of belongingness
* community
* controlled system
* Collective
consciousness
Jess Irish:
In the crowd of people, there are a lot of different people–
perverts, kids, older people. What’s the core human needs?
How does swimming pool bring a sense of playfulness? How to
use such a method to address a serious problem? What motivates my
audiences to join the place: “Am I gonna ago back there?“ “Does my
body change?“ “Do bodies turn into each other?” With nowadays’
digital lives, we are all overwhelmed. Everyone is asked to sign up
with email. Maybe the format will be different that’ attracting
people to come?
Harpreet:
Positive Sentiment is too broad: which positive sentiment you want
people to get from the swimming pool. Pick a specific sentiment from
“happy” or “positive”, which will help you narrow down and take a
more specific form for the project. My precedents are very on point
but they all have and display different goals. Do we need
technologies for this ultimately? Be critical and be questioning
things. How do people interact with each other in your virtual
space/community? What’s interesting about your digital
representation of your physical topic (for example: swimming
pool)that’s a collective surprise for your audiences? Meanwhile, my
classmates offered a lot of references too. Many people like the
idea of doing a collective activity, but the unclear goal and
execution can seem empty. The overall feedback comes down to:
In conclusion: I think providing a platform for a collective experience in order to have a collective positive emotional output should be considered as my framework for my projects rather than the topic. The core problem is still missing and needs to be addressed.