>>>>My question is how the virtual community differs from the physical community. What might be gained in a virtual community? What might be lost? Are online arts communities best suited to digital media where the art can be easily accessed by other members? How does the lack of physical presence affect the development of digital media?
vrtual community is worldwide distributed.. I mean, members come from all over the world, bringing with them different perspectives, suggestions, ideas, point of views, problems and so on… but this lacks of concreteness.. I mean it is always interesting to talk, to learn to exchange visions but sometimes it looks like an intellectual masturbation loop. Think about rhizome-rhizome raw, I see it as a nest where to grow up but also a place where you cannot continue to grow because of its rhizomatic nature: It is too much "horizontal". So it is a common nest but also an incubator without "escape hole". Now it is linking to NewMuseum… will see… I think it is a really interesting experiment… probably the first and the only one net-community with a museum affiliation.. isn't it?
>>>>How does the lack of physical presence affect the development of digital media?
Think you need "physical presence" in the art world to have the chance to go on with your research in the "virtual world" So the lack of physical presence affects your netart works as a cancer. You don't realize it now… but you will realize it in the future. Too late. Without physical presence, I think it is impossible to build a solid career, and winning some grants it is good of course but it is something without future prospects.
In order for me to properly contextualize what it means to produce art and a sense of community in a virtual environment today, please allow me to draw from my recent and direct experience as an interviewer and co-producer for a documentary of this 10 year Avatar Community that has been using this free software called Digitalspace Traveler: www.digitalspace.com/traveler
I feel that the Traveler Avatar Community is a perfect case study for this timely discussion initiated by our moderator, Perry Garvin.
In my documentary called AVATARA (produced with Donato Mancini and Flick Harrison - 2003), we managed to get a lucid sense as to how members of this Traveler Community approach complex but generalizing topics such as: Community, Art, War and Loss.
Demographically speaking, the Avatars who live in Traveler tend to be Americans from the Mid-West and Deep South with an average age of about 36. The eldest being about 73 years of age. There are as many males as there are females in Traveler. The predominant organized religion in Traveler seems to be a special denomination of Born-Again Christianity.
I believe though that this demographic is gradually expanding in a cosmopolitan way to include ethnic groups and younger citizens.
With regards to the establishment of a virtual Community, Traveler is a very unique case. Around a decade ago, about $50 million US was invested in making this proprietary 3D Voice-Chat Avatar Software. Just a few years later, the company went completely bankrupt and the software (including the community inside the box) almost entirely ceased to exist.
The original company that invested so much money and creative time into creating this software felt more responsible to their investors than the Avatar Community and was hours away from pulling the plug on the entire Traveler Universe.
Fortunately, it was a Traveler citizen and reputable Avatar pundit named Bruce Damer (he wrote the book "Avatars" - 1998) who managed to scrape sufficient funds and legal loopholes to buy the not only the software system and usage rights but also the support hardware as well.
For the sake of increasing his good karma, Damer has now distributed the Traveler software collectively throughout members of the Traveler Community under the auspices of the DigitalSpace Commons and the Contact Consortium. www.ccon.org
As a result, this particular community is used to living on (literally not virtually) borrowed time. I can reasonably say that for at least a year, they lived like squatters on property they were not entirely sure was theirs.
This is why the bulk of Traveler's avatar citizens maintain such a vivid attachment towards mutual support and community development.
As for Art, the Traveler Community, since the Documentary, has had an extremely recent creative Renaissance with people lining up to manage and produce cultural events in Traveler rooms (Elisabet Nilsson - Sweden) and even stage full blown plays in Traveler ("Curio Hector" - Canada).
There are even a couple of Avatar Bands playing from time to time. One is called "The Travelers" and another band is an experimental ensemble and performance-art troupe that is comprised entirely of Avatars that look like Microsoft Chairman, Bill Gates and are called simply, "The Gates".
Other Cultural and Recreational events in Traveler include: Church Services, Drag Racing, Sports, Spoken Word, Dance Nights, Philosophical debates, and Lectures.
In terms of a Higher-Art discourse, there has been some Fluxus style initiatives and anonymous performances taking part all the time in Traveler. The 536 Collective itself is a Fluxus-like organization that has mounted curatorial events in the Traveler Community.
As far as Traveler's Arts-Education potential is concerned, much has been hyped but there is yet to be a comprehensive strategy where Educators in this environment are taken fully legitimately and seriously.
This problem extends to those wishing to use Traveler as a valid Political or Diplomatic Platform. The VR Philosopher Michael Heim has even suggested that Avatar Environments could be used to mediate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict www.mheim.com/iai
Heim's is a noble gesture and I believe that Traveler already has within it the right kernel to affect Social Transformation but I am not sure that society is ready to facilitate discussions with floating cartoon heads at this time.
This may sound like a tangent but I feel that this should be a very important concern for those who feel that the virtual community might be lacking something from the physical assets of an offline community. At this point, the Avatar Community is unable to properly convey the sense of undisputed social legitimacy that an individual might have in the offline world.
If the most distinguished Academic Scholar and/or Politician were to enter Traveler as a cartoon head of a clown or bunny rabbit, would his/her usual words of wisdom have any serious reception by the Avatar community?
This of course, can work the other way around where people with no offline legitimacy can enter a place like Traveler and re-invent their personality and their prestige in order to acquire a new virtual fame and respect that they never had offline.
As Traveler is primarily voice-driven, those who may not be so physically attractive but have articulate thoughts and velvet-smooth voices may be drawn to a community like Traveler where they can suddenly become the Cyber-Elite in a Cheers-Style place where nobody knows your (real) name.
Whether or not people benefit from the re-invention of their formerly offline identity, I think this addresses the root of isolation and loss becomes magnified in Traveler. Citizens run the risk of becoming isolated and lonely as a result of not having their ideas and aspirations taken consistently seriously. Also, as Traveler is a "small town", it is easy for restrictive Elites to form with relative ease and such Elites might restrict a more open-ended Fluxus-like approach to the Arts and Culture.
This problem extends to those in the Net Art Community who wishes to use an Avatar Community such as Traveler as a venue to express their possibly profound musings on the state of Net Art in the early 21st Century.
Looking forward to more postings and replies, Jeremy
From Patrick Lichty: (Moderator's note: If everyone can, please pop your name up top until we get the header issues straightened out. The moderators are startng this currently)
>>>>How does the lack of physical presence affect the development of digital media?
CZ<<<Think you need "physical presence" in the art world to have the chance to go on with your research in the "virtual world" So the lack of physical presence affects your netart works as a cancer. You don't realize it now… but you will realize it in the future. Too late. Without physical presence, I think it is impossible to build a solid career…
As far as building a community of digital artists, I don't think presence matters a bit. Actually, most of my colleagues are individuals I've barely met, or never met in meatspace.
In regardsto building a reputation, I got to 2-3 of the confereces a year, and this helps immensely, although through net.contacts, I built up a network with little or no physical contact.
Relating to a 'high art' career, I would say that a physical presence is vital. The social bandwidth of email is quite narrow, and it's all but impossible to speak at great length and depth about one's ideas. Therefore, I'm considering myself quiter luky to be in New Orleans quite often, and having access to a lot of great people, as well as considering traveling far more than I had before.
Virtuality and physicality have their place and function, but I now see them as complimentary.
Comments
>>>>My question is how the virtual community differs from the physical community. What might be gained in a virtual community? What might be lost? Are online arts communities best suited to digital media where the art can be easily accessed by other members? How does the lack of physical presence affect the development of digital media?
vrtual community is worldwide distributed.. I mean, members come from all over the world, bringing with them different perspectives, suggestions, ideas, point of views, problems and so on… but this lacks of concreteness.. I mean it is always interesting to talk, to learn to exchange visions but sometimes it looks like an intellectual masturbation loop.
Think about rhizome-rhizome raw, I see it as a nest where to grow up but also a place where you cannot continue to grow because of its rhizomatic nature: It is too much "horizontal". So it is a common nest but also an incubator without "escape hole". Now it is linking to NewMuseum… will see… I think it is a really interesting experiment… probably the first and the only one net-community with a museum affiliation.. isn't it?
>>>>How does the lack of physical presence affect the development of digital media?
Think you need "physical presence" in the art world to have the chance to go on with your research in the "virtual world"
So the lack of physical presence affects your netart works as a cancer. You don't realize it now… but you will realize it in the future. Too late.
Without physical presence, I think it is impossible to build a solid career, and winning some grants it is good of course but it is something without future prospects.
and please, remember to support rhizome:
<A Href="http://rhizome.org/support/" target="_blank">http://rhizome.org/support/</A>
yours,
cz
In order for me to properly contextualize what it means to produce art and a sense of community in a virtual environment today, please allow me to draw from my recent and direct experience as an interviewer and co-producer for a documentary of this 10 year Avatar Community that has been using this free software called Digitalspace Traveler: www.digitalspace.com/traveler
I feel that the Traveler Avatar Community is a perfect case study for this timely discussion initiated by our moderator, Perry Garvin.
In my documentary called AVATARA (produced with Donato Mancini and Flick Harrison - 2003), we managed to get a lucid sense as to how members of this Traveler Community approach complex but generalizing topics such as: Community, Art, War and Loss.
Demographically speaking, the Avatars who live in Traveler tend to be Americans from the Mid-West and Deep South with an average age of about 36. The eldest being about 73 years of age. There are as many males as there are females in Traveler. The predominant organized religion in Traveler seems to be a special denomination of Born-Again Christianity.
I believe though that this demographic is gradually expanding in a cosmopolitan way to include ethnic groups and younger citizens.
With regards to the establishment of a virtual Community, Traveler is a very unique case. Around a decade ago, about $50 million US was invested in making this proprietary 3D Voice-Chat Avatar Software. Just a few years later, the company went completely bankrupt and the software (including the community inside the box) almost entirely ceased to exist.
The original company that invested so much money and creative time into creating this software felt more responsible to their investors than the Avatar Community and was hours away from pulling the plug on the entire Traveler Universe.
Fortunately, it was a Traveler citizen and reputable Avatar pundit named Bruce Damer (he wrote the book "Avatars" - 1998) who managed to scrape sufficient funds and legal loopholes to buy the not only the software system and usage rights but also the support hardware as well.
For the sake of increasing his good karma, Damer has now distributed the Traveler software collectively throughout members of the Traveler Community under the auspices of the DigitalSpace Commons and the Contact Consortium. www.ccon.org
As a result, this particular community is used to living on (literally not virtually) borrowed time.
I can reasonably say that for at least a year, they lived like squatters on property they were not entirely sure was theirs.
This is why the bulk of Traveler's avatar citizens maintain such a vivid attachment towards mutual support and community development.
As for Art, the Traveler Community, since the Documentary, has had an extremely recent creative Renaissance with people lining up to manage and produce cultural events in Traveler rooms (Elisabet Nilsson - Sweden) and even stage full blown plays in Traveler ("Curio Hector" - Canada).
There are even a couple of Avatar Bands playing from time to time. One is called "The Travelers" and another band is an experimental ensemble and performance-art troupe that is comprised entirely of Avatars that look like Microsoft Chairman, Bill Gates and are called simply, "The Gates".
Other Cultural and Recreational events in Traveler include: Church Services, Drag Racing, Sports, Spoken Word, Dance Nights, Philosophical debates, and Lectures.
In terms of a Higher-Art discourse, there has been some Fluxus style initiatives and anonymous performances taking part all the time in Traveler.
The 536 Collective itself is a Fluxus-like organization that has mounted curatorial events in the Traveler Community.
As far as Traveler's Arts-Education potential is concerned, much has been hyped but there is yet to be a comprehensive strategy where Educators in this environment are taken fully legitimately and seriously.
This problem extends to those wishing to use Traveler as a valid Political or Diplomatic Platform. The VR Philosopher Michael Heim has even suggested that Avatar Environments could be used to mediate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict www.mheim.com/iai
Heim's is a noble gesture and I believe that Traveler already has within it the right kernel to affect Social Transformation but I am not sure that society is ready to facilitate discussions with floating cartoon heads at this time.
This may sound like a tangent but I feel that this should be a very important concern for those who feel that the virtual community might be lacking something from the physical assets of an offline community. At this point, the Avatar Community is unable to properly convey the sense of undisputed social legitimacy that an individual might have in the offline world.
If the most distinguished Academic Scholar and/or Politician were to enter Traveler as a cartoon head of a clown or bunny rabbit, would his/her usual words of wisdom have any serious reception by the Avatar community?
This of course, can work the other way around where people with no offline legitimacy can enter a place like Traveler and re-invent their personality and their prestige in order to acquire a new virtual fame and respect that they never had offline.
As Traveler is primarily voice-driven, those who may not be so physically attractive but have articulate thoughts and velvet-smooth voices may be drawn to a community like Traveler where they can suddenly become the Cyber-Elite in a Cheers-Style place where nobody knows your (real) name.
Whether or not people benefit from the re-invention of their formerly offline identity, I think this addresses the root of isolation and loss becomes magnified in Traveler. Citizens run the risk of becoming isolated and lonely as a result of not having their ideas and aspirations taken consistently seriously. Also, as Traveler is a "small town", it is easy for restrictive Elites to form with relative ease and such Elites might restrict a more open-ended Fluxus-like approach to the Arts and Culture.
This problem extends to those in the Net Art Community who wishes to use an Avatar Community such as Traveler as a venue to express their possibly profound musings on the state of Net Art in the early 21st Century.
Looking forward to more postings and replies,
Jeremy
Perry Garvin wrote:
> As a co-moderator of this forum I would
>like to welcome everyone to this week
From Patrick Lichty:
(Moderator's note: If everyone can, please pop your name up top until we get the header issues straightened out. The moderators are startng this currently)
>>>>How does the lack of physical presence affect the development of digital media?
CZ<<<Think you need "physical presence" in the art world to have the chance to go on with your research in the "virtual world"
So the lack of physical presence affects your netart works as a cancer. You don't realize it now… but you will realize it in the future. Too late. Without physical presence, I think it is impossible to build a solid career…
As far as building a community of digital artists, I don't think presence matters a bit. Actually, most of my colleagues are individuals I've barely met, or never met in meatspace.
In regardsto building a reputation, I got to 2-3 of the confereces a year, and this helps immensely, although through net.contacts, I built up a network with little or no physical contact.
Relating to a 'high art' career, I would say that a physical presence is vital. The social bandwidth of email is quite narrow, and it's all but impossible to speak at great length and depth about one's ideas. Therefore, I'm considering myself quiter luky to be in New Orleans quite often, and having access to a lot of great people, as well as considering traveling far more than I had before.
Virtuality and physicality have their place and function, but I now see them as complimentary.