rhyee wrote:
...
2.
Monday Night Colloquia 26 (Closed session), Oct.6, 2011
Guests: Performance artist and educationalist Ken Hudson, and interview "Marshall McLuhan" and "Corinne McLuhan"
http://fivebodied.com/archives/audio/ca ... aui-26.mp3
...
Bob Dobbs
2.
Monday Night Colloquia 26 (Closed session), Oct.6, 2011
Guests: Performance artist and educationalist Ken Hudson, and interview "Marshall McLuhan" and "Corinne McLuhan"
http://fivebodied.com/archives/audio/ca ... aui-26.mp3
...
Bob Dobbs
OK, I listened to all of the MUMs (out of order) Bob posted above.
The last one I listened to was the Oct. 6 MUM, where Ken and iON discussed
Ken's experiences as an avatar (his explorations with his (and in the) chip body).
Tayzay said she really liked this episode, and I concur.
iON discussed Ken's (our) experience of our avatar selves, and how the
wonder and limitless potential of that experience exists in our physical - the
dirty here and now (naturally).
We knew this, but it was a great illustration of ways our experience can play
out, as we decide.
We've heard Bob tell about J.W.'s experience (pre-iON, I believe) of looking out
his window(s) at home and seeing different worlds.
iON brings up these experiences again in this episode, and relates it to the avatar
experience.
iON said J.W. looked out his window, which granted a certain perspective, and
was able to see "varying / different landscapes".
iON is careful to choose his words, because none of these experiences are
"foreign" ("new to our experience at the moment" would be more appropriate),
or "out there", we just thought they were.
Everything is accessible to us this moment.
We are being synced up, whether we are aware of it or not. If you notice
iON's care with phraseology, you'll see how he is cautious not to interfere
with that process.
It's tricky, because iON is making reference to, and bringing in notions and
experiences that we have placed at a certain distance.
iON is assisting in bridging this gap, as he steps lightly around, and addresses
(at least, in part) the labyrinth that created that distance.
What iON says is (paraphrasing), "Imagine waking up one morning and having
your avatar experience - being your avatar"; meaning, your landscape changes,
as does your measurement of your new self as compared to a recent benchmark.
We could say that, waking up to this completely novel experience would be
a leap from the smaller shifts / changes we're seeing in ourselves now.
The perceived difference between what we see on one side versus the other (below),
for example.
At the moment, in our current (physical) experience, although just as limitless as
our avatar experiences, we still have yet to experience what we have as an
avatar - what J.W. physically experienced with the "other worlds".
I found an interesting article that supports what Ken and iON were saying about
people exercising their avatars and actually losing weight.
Here are some excerpts,
Quote:
On many fronts simultaneously, avatars are changing how we think of ourselves,
how we see ourselves, and especially challenging our sense of identity. An avatar
is the quintessential Metalife. It can look like you, even move, talk, and think like
you. But how prepared are you to say it is you? Some part of you? Before you answer,
consider the following study by Stanford researchers Yee and Bailenson, showing the
effect of an altered self-representation on behavior in an online environment:
Participants who had more attractive avatars exhibited increased self-disclosure and
were more willing to approach opposite-gendered strangers after less than 1 minute
of exposure to their altered avatar. In other words, the attractiveness of their avatars
impacted how intimate participants were willing to be with a stranger.
In our second study, participants who had taller avatars were more willing to make unfair
splits in negotiation tasks than those who had shorter avatars, whereas participants with
shorter avatars were more willing to accept unfair offers than those who had taller avatars.
Thus, the height of their avatars impacted how confident participants became.
These two studies show the dramatic and almost instantaneous effect that avatars have
on behavior in digital environments.
More than our behavior in virtual environments is changing. Our sense of personal boundaries,
our relationship to our bodies and to others—all are affected by the rush to avatar ourselves.
...But I want to be clear: I do not consider avatar-ing to be a mind game. This is not, in Sir Ken
Robinson’s elegant locution, a case of arranging a stunt double “to carry our heads from meeting
to meeting.” Avatars alter our sense ratio. They scramble our proprioception. The plain fact is
avatars take us in another body somewhere we have never been before. While some may see
an avatar as the ultimate self-referential indulgence, or others as a kind of psychological recursion,
avatars are doing something new to us.
Whatever your “blink” reaction to this novelty may be, I urge you to consider the following and
reflect. How are these uses of avatars expanding what it means to be human, to be you? And then,
how should we explore that meaning before jumping to premature cognitive commitments which can
keep us from seeing the fuller understanding of what we’re actually up to here?
...
6. An extension of your five senses. Jeremy Bailenson of the Stanford Virtual Human Interaction
Lab says in the Frontline Digital Nation documentary: “The first time we ran the study [of subjects
watching their avatar eat], subjects would report being sick, feeling full, really changing their
physiology. We’re not wired to differentiate experiences like this one [watching your avatar eat in
a virtual world] from actual eating. Digital stuff is such a new phenomenon, if it looks real and feels
real and smells real, the brain tells us it’s real.”
7. A better version of you. According to Jane McGonigal of the Institute for the Future, we
spend three billion hours a week playing online games. McGonigal’s research shows that many people
play games because they feel “I’m not good at life.” But in games you can choose to be a version of
you–an avatar–that is stronger, more beautiful or handsome, a different body size and shape. As other
researchers have found, this better version of ourselves can be used to change behaviors or to feel
better about ourselves generally. Of course as Sharon Begley reported in Newsweek, this versioning of
ourselves can be a two-edged sword: “players who roamed a virtual world as a KKK-clad avatar felt
more aggressive than they did before playing the game, while those whose avatar wore a doctor’s coat
scored higher on a test of friendliness.”
...
how we see ourselves, and especially challenging our sense of identity. An avatar
is the quintessential Metalife. It can look like you, even move, talk, and think like
you. But how prepared are you to say it is you? Some part of you? Before you answer,
consider the following study by Stanford researchers Yee and Bailenson, showing the
effect of an altered self-representation on behavior in an online environment:
Participants who had more attractive avatars exhibited increased self-disclosure and
were more willing to approach opposite-gendered strangers after less than 1 minute
of exposure to their altered avatar. In other words, the attractiveness of their avatars
impacted how intimate participants were willing to be with a stranger.
In our second study, participants who had taller avatars were more willing to make unfair
splits in negotiation tasks than those who had shorter avatars, whereas participants with
shorter avatars were more willing to accept unfair offers than those who had taller avatars.
Thus, the height of their avatars impacted how confident participants became.
These two studies show the dramatic and almost instantaneous effect that avatars have
on behavior in digital environments.
More than our behavior in virtual environments is changing. Our sense of personal boundaries,
our relationship to our bodies and to others—all are affected by the rush to avatar ourselves.
...But I want to be clear: I do not consider avatar-ing to be a mind game. This is not, in Sir Ken
Robinson’s elegant locution, a case of arranging a stunt double “to carry our heads from meeting
to meeting.” Avatars alter our sense ratio. They scramble our proprioception. The plain fact is
avatars take us in another body somewhere we have never been before. While some may see
an avatar as the ultimate self-referential indulgence, or others as a kind of psychological recursion,
avatars are doing something new to us.
Whatever your “blink” reaction to this novelty may be, I urge you to consider the following and
reflect. How are these uses of avatars expanding what it means to be human, to be you? And then,
how should we explore that meaning before jumping to premature cognitive commitments which can
keep us from seeing the fuller understanding of what we’re actually up to here?
...
6. An extension of your five senses. Jeremy Bailenson of the Stanford Virtual Human Interaction
Lab says in the Frontline Digital Nation documentary: “The first time we ran the study [of subjects
watching their avatar eat], subjects would report being sick, feeling full, really changing their
physiology. We’re not wired to differentiate experiences like this one [watching your avatar eat in
a virtual world] from actual eating. Digital stuff is such a new phenomenon, if it looks real and feels
real and smells real, the brain tells us it’s real.”
7. A better version of you. According to Jane McGonigal of the Institute for the Future, we
spend three billion hours a week playing online games. McGonigal’s research shows that many people
play games because they feel “I’m not good at life.” But in games you can choose to be a version of
you–an avatar–that is stronger, more beautiful or handsome, a different body size and shape. As other
researchers have found, this better version of ourselves can be used to change behaviors or to feel
better about ourselves generally. Of course as Sharon Begley reported in Newsweek, this versioning of
ourselves can be a two-edged sword: “players who roamed a virtual world as a KKK-clad avatar felt
more aggressive than they did before playing the game, while those whose avatar wore a doctor’s coat
scored higher on a test of friendliness.”
...
SOURCE - http://metalifestream.com/wordpress/?p=2324
iON says in this episode that the more you engage your avatar experience, the more you are
bringing that experience to your physical / chemical body.
This was a very interesting statement. Now, iON was speaking to Ken, and it is possible that iON
picked up on Ken's emotional / visceral connection with the avatar experience.
I only make the qualification (imm. above), as we know that wherever your joy and desire lies,
therein also lies your avenue for bringing everything together for you in your physical experience,
the dirty here and now.
I really enjoy the gaming / avatar experience, and it is a journey when you engage these
experiences, so I'm right there.
I can't say if iON sees this (the avatar engagement example) for everyone, including those
with no interest in the avatar experience. I'll leave that for someone else to probe.
As far as I'm concerned, I'm elated that this is a factor, because experiencing the chip body in
that way is a blast.
So, Second Lifers, World of Warcrafters, or whomever, get on with your bad self!
As iON (and Bob) has said, these so-called bodies, these extensions of ourselves, are telegraphing /
forecasting what we are about to experience in the physical.
There is no such thing as fiction.
We are engaging with these experiences, before we have them, in a way that sets them up and
allows us to become familiar with them "in the round", as it were, in full, high definition and state
of the art surround sound.
It's as if we're trying on experiences for size, and picking and choosing those which we prefer.
It's a great way to do it.
As iON has said, the pyramids haven't come into their full purpose / use yet, but they were placed
there in our now, so we would recognize and be familiar with them in our future.
It makes perfect sense this way.
We allow our imaginations to create anything we desire; we toy with the ideas, create an experience
with them that we can probe and have fun with, and then those experiences we desire / choose
become part of / merge with our physical experience.
One can't say (yet) if this was the intention behind the creation of our tools - these extensions of
ourselves, but it has played out in a way, shed in this light, that is quite intriguing.
BART