Thursday, October 12, 2006
From virtual to real? I thought it was the other way around
"Buckbee, who is initially focusing on creating 3- to 7-inch statuettes of Second Life avatars, meets clients as his in-game persona, "Hal9k Andalso," and takes the screenshots necessary to turn their digital selves into polymer using the rapid prototyping machines common in industrial design firms. "
...are you SERIOUS? A little statue of your avatar? Come on!? I thought the point of SL was to escape reality, and here we have someone turning the virtual back into the real. I guess people are more attached to their avatars than I thought. Identity has always been a strong pull of SL though. When asked what draws people to second life, the creator of SL said: "Identity ... If you went to Australia, you could be a new you. The thing about "Second Life" is, it's a pretty potent offering that way, right? In the real world you can't change the way you look when you walk in."
So I suppose if people are drawn to the change in identity, they would want that virtual identity to become as much of a reality as possible, hence the real life avatar statue...but still...isn't the main draw of having a virtual identity the ability for infinite change? A statue of your avatar is always going to look the same. I don't know, the whole thing sounds preposterous to me.
...are you SERIOUS? A little statue of your avatar? Come on!? I thought the point of SL was to escape reality, and here we have someone turning the virtual back into the real. I guess people are more attached to their avatars than I thought. Identity has always been a strong pull of SL though. When asked what draws people to second life, the creator of SL said: "Identity ... If you went to Australia, you could be a new you. The thing about "Second Life" is, it's a pretty potent offering that way, right? In the real world you can't change the way you look when you walk in."
So I suppose if people are drawn to the change in identity, they would want that virtual identity to become as much of a reality as possible, hence the real life avatar statue...but still...isn't the main draw of having a virtual identity the ability for infinite change? A statue of your avatar is always going to look the same. I don't know, the whole thing sounds preposterous to me.
// posted by Kate @ 3:08 PM 
