Ethnography Presentation 12/20

This presentation will be a snapshot of spectatorship practices in Second Life and, by extension all avatar-driven virtual worlds. As both representation and direct experience, the immersive world of Second Life places the spectator in a fractured position, in what Ken Hillis refers to as a ‘middle ground.’ Here, the practices of self-aestheticization and self-objectification that are integral to participatory culture complicate more traditional conceptions of spectatorship postulated by earlier apparatus theories. Like the virtual subject, the “gaze,” Hillis tells us, is “neither here nor there yet both at once” and no one and everyone are its object. However, the very notion of the gaze implies a spectator that is removed from representation, from the action on the screen. Does Second Life indicate that we are at the apex of a visually-saturated culture overcome by the narcissistic desire to become part of the image, to become the object of representation? What unique kind of spectatorship is created by the aestheticization of experience in the performative middle ground provided by one’s Second Life avatar?

themes: spectatorship, the gaze, narrative, performance, spectacle, participatory culture, voyeurism, roleplay

Ordinary Affects

Kathleen Stewart’s Ordinary Affects brings theory to the level of the everyday. And by theory, I do not mean a kind of totalizing, structural, big-picture, truth with a capital ‘T’, knowledge of the world.

In other words, “models of thinking that slide over the live surface of difference at work in the ordinary to bottom-line arguments about ‘bigger’ structures and underlying casues obscure the ways in which a reeling present is composed out of heterogeneous and noncoherent singularities. They miss how someone’s ordinary can endure or can sag defeated: how it can shift in the dace of events like a shift in the kid’s school schedule or the police at the door” (4).

For Stewart, ordinary affects are “public feelings…they give circuits and flows the form of life…they are a tangle of potential connections. Literally moving things–things that are in motion and that are defined bu their capacity to affect and to be affected.” As Brian Massumi says, affect is the margin of maneuverability in human agency, it is the “‘where we might be able to go and what we might be able to do’ in every present situation.’” Ordinary affects are the moments of encounters between people and forces.

Cache (Dir. Micheal Haneke)

SPOILER WARNING.

Cache is commentary on paranoia. Georges and Anne Laurent learn than they are being watched. with a hidden camera. Their paranoia is subtly juxtaposed with a more global paranoia as we see and hear the television news reporting on the global war on terrorism. The personal is necessarily intertwined with the political as the 1961 massacre of Algerians comes into the plot. And paranoia is intertwined with race and ethnicity.

Cache is a film that plays on and subverts two fundamental human desires: the desire to know and the desire to see. Forgive me, but I’m going to use annoying film theory terms now. Haneke reflexively calls attention and subverts the pleasures of scopophelia (looking) and epistophelia (knowledge). In most traditional films, these pleasures are satisfied through conventions of filmmaking–establishing shots, point-of-view shots etc–that align our gaze with that of a character. And when our gaze is not aligned with a character it placed in the omniscient privileged position of all-knowing observer. In Cache, however, what we see is constantly being called into question. We thing we are seeing one thing, and then we later learn that we had seen something else. Take the opening scene. A long shot of a house that first appears to be an establishing shot cuts to a scene of a couple watching the very same footage that we had just watched. We are learning that the characters are being watched with a hidden camera at the same time they do. The details of how Georges betrayed Majib, even as they become clarified, still remain sketchy at the film’s conclusion. Just as the viewer’s knowledge is incomplete, so are the characters’. When Anne scolds Georges for not telling her who he suspected was watching them, we see the effect of surveillance. Tensions rise as the couple knows they are being watched. But there is something else going on. Anne is frustrated by her incomplete knowledge, her inability to know the truth that her husband is keeping from her.

Extreme Makeover: Second Life Edition

I have resisted caring about my appearance on SL for quite some time. I mean, I cared in the sense that I wouldn’t wear clothing or have hair that I considered ugly but I didn’t really care in the sense of actually doing much about it. And doing something about it means being a consumer.

Jason gave me 100 linden dollars once and I quickly learned that 100 doesn’t go very far in the SL economy. A while ago, my friend Pannie commented on my “newbie” looks. This was when I had one of the standard “prim” skins and hair. She explained to me that I needed to get textured hair. So we went to the SL equivalent of Necessary Clothing and I bought me some real hair. Pannie also gave me some clothes. Some time after that I was sick of my wardrobe and went to one of the many free or 10L clothing stores and bought some more clothes. But the more I was on SL, the more I was unsatisfied with my appearance. Unsatisfied because I was not representing myself the way that I truly felt comfortable. “I would never wear that” I would think to myself. So why would my avatar wear it?

A few days ago I met up with Mirra and her friend Thanasi. They both had tattoo sleeves–something I had wanted to get on SL. And here are some snippets from what ensued:

[22:35] You: i want a tatoo sleeve
[22:35] Mirra Fredriksson: we need to get you one
[22:35] Mirra Fredriksson: like thanasis
[22:35] You: yeah
[22:35] You: although i dont have too much money
[22:35] Mirra Fredriksson: lol
[22:35] Thanasi: hehe
[22:35] Thanasi: yeah
[22:35] Thanasi: get some monies.
[22:35] You: lol
[22:36] Thanasi: mirra.. take loran to aitui

(I then told them that I only had 84 linden. Mirra only had 100.)

Surveillance

I am still trying to tie these three readings together, so for now here is my attempt to apply the readings to the practice of ethnography.

In “Surveillance and Capture: Two Models of Privacy” Agre distinguishes between surveillance and capture as two ways of thinking about privacy. Under the capture model, “grammars of action” are linguistic metaphors used to specify “a set of unitary actions–the ‘words’ or ‘lexical items’ of action” which are to be tracked or recorded in various manifestations (746). This concept of “grammar of action” is applicable to ethnography as serves as a framework through which to define the choices or behaviors of the subjects of the study. Also applicable is Agre’s elucidation of the effect of imposing grammars of action on reorganizing human activity and capture is “never purely technical but always socio-political in nature” (748). Unlike the surveillance model, which is a “single-factor theory” that tends to promote oversimplification, the capture model allows for a more nuanced, multidimensional analysis (751). He emphasizes “understanding the social relations within which the sociotechnical phenomenon of computing is embedded” is fundamental

Crain’s article on the Mass-Observation movement was fascinating. The idea of plotting “weather maps of public feeling” is essentially an ethnographic practice. Their methodology: day-diaries, surveys, and journalistic coverage. In John Sommerfield’s (and Harrison’s) book The Pub and the People, “he interviewed no one formally but merely drank, watched and listened”–in other words he was a participant-observer.

In “Television: Set and Screen,” Weber attempts to define the specificity of the televisual medium. Frankly, I have read more successful explorations of the medium which might essentialize more than Weber but are clearer in their descriptions of the process of watching. Weber states the television is a stand-in for the individual body. Perhaps this is where TV can connect Second Life-another stand-in for the body. Also, television is simultaneously present and absent and attempts to transcend the limits of the human body. Reality TV is a genre that appeals to this claim as it provides the viewer what it purports to be a “direct” access to reality. As a potential ethnographic tool, reality TV is more useful in exploring the mediation of reality than reality itself.

Machinima- the virtual gaze

For another class, “Emerging Media and Documentary Practice” we divided into interest groups. My group is exploring mapping as an emerging form of documentary (see Murmur for an example). For my individual documentation, I decided to explore the relations between physical place and virtual place and between physical embodiment and virtual embodiment. I recorded machinima of some of my SL experiences–many of which we solitary–and edited together a short video called Virtually There.

While the purpose of doing this was to explore space, I ended up discovering some things that relate to my research for this course. After getting used to the camera controls (sort of) I was able to make a more cinematic recording. There is a pretty obvious break in the video when my avatar is no longer on the screen, and there are close ups and pans of female avatars dancing. When I was there in SL my focus was on controlling the camera. Actually, my avatar actually became a camera because I was in mouse view (or was I holding down the alt key?) But in the editing process, when I re-watched the event I felt very uncomfortable with it. The combination of the provocative dancing animations–very much like stripper dances–and my focusing in, zooming in on the female is me embodying the “male gaze.” The camera fetishized and objectified those avatars.

In the moment, as I mentioned, using camera controls change the focus of the SL experience. And recording these camera movements profoundly changes things. The act of recording changes the reality that the recording depicts.

Exchange with Prof. Pine

 

This is an exchange I had over a week ago with Jason. He suggested that I post our discussion on my blog and so I am taking his advice.

SUBJECT: Research Woes
Nov. 5, 2007

Hi Jason,

I’m having a lot of trouble translating my theoretical ideas into a tangible plan of action (a problem that I seem to have quite a lot…).

Just to refresh your memory, in our last conversation I had expressed my initial interest in aesthetisization and specifically in the CSI cross-over to SL. After having visited the rez, I found it pretty boring and was completely uninspired… The other idea was to focus on the connection between reality TV and SL. Here my issue is not lack of inspiration. With this, I am just confused as to how I would connect the two and research.

In a nutshell, I know that I want to explore the concept of spectatorship in SL. As you said, “what does it mean to be a spectator of yourself?”

I found a great source by Michele White: “Television and Internet Differences by Design Rendering Liveness, Presence, and Lived Space.” She also has a book that I plan on going over The Body and the Screen: Theories of Internet Spectatorship. She touches on some of the issues I have been thinking about- ego identification/mirror stage (psychoanalytic film theory), remediation, reality TV. In one passage, she says that in both television and SL, “there are multiple identifications rather than a coherent relationship between screen images, lived world, and temporal present.” Basically, I am thinking of exploring these multiple identifications- what are they? how are they produced? how does the system design produces a specific kind of embodiment? (And perhaps I could still incorporate reality tv in somewhere. comparing the pleasures obtained perhaps…there is an article by Justin Lewis that explores this “The Meaning of Real Life,” in Reality TV: Remaking Television Culture.)

And that is where I reach a plateau. I am completely unsure as to how, where and with who to research these phenomena. I know that the research doesn’t need to be completely predetermined, but I have no idea where to start. The one thing that I have though of is somehow exploring the various ways that the program allows the user to experience spectatorship- ie mouseview, cursors etc. I would appreciate any advice you could give me.

 

 

Thanks so much,
Lindsay

Subject: Re: Research Woes
Nov. 5, 2007

Lindsay, very nice ideas — I too will look into some of the works you reference. I think you can do two simultaneous things:
- look at micro practices and SL features (mouseview, photo and machinima, avatar-fashioning and avatar as middle voice alla Hillis, and other features that complicate the concept of self-spectatorship (use of voice feature, gesture scripts that make distantiation between user and avatar a messy situation (because the body, tactility, “chorographic” interaction with the avatar connect user to avatar in specific ways).

- look at specific ’social’ practices that involve groups/communities of self-spectatorship — furries and/or sex (blurring of voyeurism and exhibitionism and narcissism), participatory culture - experience economy type constructed situations (CSI), what else…? many more choices — and you will determine how many are too many, or if you even just want one. If you do the sex thing, you could work together with Juan, in part, for example.

I think theoretically you are already there — maybe tracing a continuum between reality tv and this sort of phenomenon, keeping in mind experience/affect economies and participatory culture. Remediation can open up a lot, too (is a “real” embedded in layers of mediation? is mediation necessarily distantiation? Bolter insists that we are concerned with effacing every trace of the medium as we use it; therefore, is self-spectatorship actually about a new sense of and contact with the self rather than (merely) some split of the self…and remediation might run you off course. There are too many things to consider and get fascinated by, so beware.

concrete methodologies — you would need to construct lines of questioning to get at the experiences of users. Also to identify discrete situations where you can track choices made and actions taken. Participation is the primary act. spend time doing the things they do, with them. that will also help you develop appropriate questions. “embedded” questions are most effective; that is, questions that pertain to specific contexts of which you have significant knowledge (like them), rather than broad, abstract questions that only yield equally broad answers. A lot of this is intuitive and a moment-by-moment process. So I think participant observation (you can listen to the chat of others as well, while you do so), with some questioning, and also autoethnography will be sufficient for a short-term project. You could even use the class in some ways — ask us to participate in an experiment during one of our SL meetings. Or simply have us join you in an interview/inquiry into a situation, as we did last night with Ignatius and Waxakla and their research sites/subjects.

Just dive in with some of these things in mind and things develop. I think you should put your thoughts - and even our discussions, on your blog. I’ve posted your blog url’s on our SL group information tab in SL, so you may be getting some feedback.
Jason

Network Society/Engagement

Flows
For Castells, flows are everything and this new society is the Network Society where flows are “purposeful, repetitive, programmable sequence of exchange and interaction between physically disjointed positions held by social actors in the economic, political, and symbolic structures of society” (442) What flows? Capital, information, technology, organizational interaction, images, sounds, and symbols. The space of flows is material organization of time-sharing practices that work through flows. Space of flows is constituted by 3 layers of material supports: (1) Circuit of electronic exchanges, network interactions made possible by information technologies; (2) Nodes and hubs (locations connected to the network); (3) Spatial organization of the dominant elites.

Process
Shaviro articulates many of Castells assumptions using science fiction texts, artists, intellectuals and scientist as examples, manifestations, and metaphors. For Shaviro, “every individual brain is a miniaturized replica of the global communications network” and “self is information pattern rather than a material substance” (12, 13). Castells says that “because of the nature of the new society, based upon knowledge, organized around networks, and partly made up of flows, the informational city is not a form but a process, a process characterized by the space of flows” (429). Building on Shaviro’s statements, maybe the human mind is also a process. Because we are constantly absorbing media and information either actively or distractedly, and likewise we are constantly sending out messages, the mind is in the constant process of “exchange and interaction”. Like Shaviro says, “identity is implanted in me from without, not generated from within” (13).

Connected/Disconnected, Involved/Distracted
Another parallel between Castells at the macro level and Shaviro at the mico happens through Castells discussion of mega-cities where he says that a distinctive feature of network society is “being globally connected and locally disconnected, physically and socially” (436). Here is is talking about the increasing connectedness between global cities yet the simultaneous dislocation of marginalized populations within the cities themselves. This corresponds to what Shaviro deems the “terminal state of the networked consumer: to be intensely involved, and maximally distracted all at once” (26). Acknowledging local populations that are either “functionally unnecessary or socially disruptive” (436) would mean breaking the distraction that comes with connectedness.

New Media Research Tool

For a new media research tool (connected to my SL research) I would design a game that would be something like “Second Life: The Game.” In other words, I would want to create world similar to SL in that there is no overarching objective or “point” but that is far more limited in terms of the what the user can do and where the user can go. The limitations would be specifically aimed toward trying to track the choices made by the user. The questions that I am trying to address are:

• how does participation in the world compare with watching TV, watching a movie? what does it mean to be a spectator of yourself?
• how does participation engender voyeuristic and exhibitionist tendencies?

Autoethnography

Here is the autoethography that I wrote for class some time ago. I decided to post it since I will be now conducting be engaging in more focused autoethnographic research in the coming weeks (explanation to come).

It is kind of cheesy. I am not sure why that is. I am also not sure if this piece of writing qualifies as an autoethnography. And the ending doesn’t make sense. It did when I wrote it at 5:00 am. Oh well.