Virtuality, Immersion, Simulacra and Avatars

Virtuality has formally been described as “An aspect of reality that is not material” – Wikipedia, 2009. The virtual side of reality comes with a variety of examples, such as viewing something from Space and virtually how we input ideas about the world around us. The virtual world also, on a large scale, presents games which enable an illusion of fantasy and exploratory to appear. To explore this idea we created virtual postcards on Photoshop to send from Space.

Have a look at http://davinakumal.blogspot.com/ ‘s example of her virtual post card creation.

When it comes to virtuality, looking into the studies from Marie-Laure Ryan is very useful and constructive. The former scholar and critic has written several books and articles on issues regarding narratology, fiction and cyberculture.  Furthermore, she looks at virtual reality and human narrative. In Ryan’s latest book, according to Wikepedia 2009, she “embraces a transmedial definition of narrative based on cognitive premises”.

  Immersion has commonly been defined as “common human activity”. A peer of mine explores the idea that in the late 1980’s and early 90’s goggles and gloves were originally used in order to show an example of a virtual world, which furthermore allows you to see and formally touch the virtual world you are in within immersion. Read further into Davina’s blog, http://davinakumal.blogspot.com/ to see the connection between reality and the virtual element we live in.

Within immersion there is such thing as emotional immersion. This involves the acts of getting attached to books and films in an emotional sense. It should be highlighted that this in fact is a common feature for many people. Similarly, if you have enough going on in your body, you can actually get immersed in that sense. For example the constant training from Athletes.

  

The vast majority of what we know in today’s society originates from our influences from the media, this concept links directly to Simulacra. A simulacrum is an image of representation of someone or something.  





The main, most common example used to relate to this point would be the area and population involved with Disneyland. It is obvious that not in anyway are the events or people real and this was used as a clear distinction of reality, or more so what isn’t reality. The previous point was all explored by Baudrillard, and to continue he in great detail emphasises that Disney as a company enables us to constantly engage with different fantasies and myths which overall create hyper reality. As a whole we all have the ability to create barriers between the reality of our own situation and our extended virtual reality.

Finally, I am going to explore the concept of Avatar. Avatars and immersions are both representations of ones self in an additional world, you are an avatar virtually immerse in another world. The concept of Avatar with regards to computers involves the graphical representation of the user and the user’s alter ego. This itself can link directly to my previous post on representation and identity of ones self created through different media forms.

Identity and Representations

There are many ways in which identity is constructed through the means of technology. Who we are formally originates from the roots of our families. Our identity is rooted in our gender, class, political ideas, belief and custom, subculture. They all each individually help define us and construct our overall personalities.

Media and Identity are both closely linked. The example I looked at in detail was the events that took place around the events of the 9/11 bombings. The events were mediated, I found out about the tragedy due to the use of media and its way of communicating ideas. I personally wasn’t in New York when the events took place; my understanding was constructed through the media’s broadcasting. There were broadcasts all over the internet and television, which was the initial way of transferring messages to those, like me, who weren’t actually present at the scene of the tragic event.

The presentation of oneself is constructed in a variety of ways. As humans it has become noticeable that we all perform roles and these roles are fabricated through our identity. Goffman said “Identity is a process”, a way where by in which we create our identity and present to a variety of audiences. An example of this includes writing a Facebook status. This, as a whole, helps someone to present themselves in an online personality they have constructed.

Very rarely you will see a true depiction of someone’s everyday life; to us as “readers” it may be seen to be boring or unnecessary. Instead, the majority of statuses posted will far fetched and exciting. Similarly, the status’ will be in some lights a way of one to post something that needs attention brought to. In today’s society, Facebook is a way to express feelings and emotions and has been to known to explore messages of sympathy when someone’s life is sadly taken from them.

The profile pictures someone individually selects have been chosen out of choice, they aren’t necessarily a true image of what the person looks like. The photos could have been edited or modified to make them look, in their opinion, better.

Furthermore it has been suggested that you could potentially have a different identity online in comparison to your real life identity seen in flesh. Referring back to the Internet being a performance for some people, an example of this could be the website Tumblr. People spend time to develop a page to construct what they believe is their personality, but by doing so without realising they could be creating a different identity to their Twitter or Facebook page. A Tumblr page is a lot more artistic in comparison to Facebook and a Twitter feed as such only allows you to post something of 140 characters at a time, so when doing so you have to be particular in what you say.

Celebrities are in fact becoming more famous through the use of the internet and sites such as Twitter. It is their way of advertising new projects and connecting with their fans.

It is also important to note that identity and interface are closely linked. Designing WebPages helps identify companies and similarly this is done by the layout and choice of colours and images presented to the audience. When having to fill out forms about you on the internet, this raises a lot of diverse issues. Web 2.0 allows drop down menus to help identify ones personality, but are there ever enough drops down menus? Years before, this was the case. There were never enough options available for everyone, when it came to politics and religion the selections were narrow.

So, if it is suggested that we are performing roles, the main question is who are we actually performing to?

Issues of the body: Cyborgs and Artificial life

When someone first asked me what it meant for us to be networked I was always a little confused and misunderstood. Through research I looked into what it actually means to be networked, developing upon the underlying question as to weather we would all ultimately like the internet in our head? It seems a little extravagant and is true to say that 10 years ago no one could ever imagine something so extreme, but through development of technology in today’s society, that “extravagant” idea doesn’t seem so far away now, does it?

Life itself is seen as having unique and sacred properties. The notions of life, also known as “Materialism” share a lot of properties with the nonliving world. It may be a little bizarre to suggest that our life is very similar to one of a computer, but it is in fact true. Regardless of the qualities both have, a humans being their vital organs to allow it to live, and a computer being the properties that allow it to function….. They both are capable of growing, developing, and mending and changing to suit a pattern. Life simply is a self ordering pattern.

1. Cybernetics
In today’s society people are less scared of technology. How a programme works is very similar to how a body works, we recognise and address this by conforming to its codes and conventions. Ie, when a laptop needs charging we will charge it, preventing it from dying in order for us to carry on our research/ study. Then similarly, when a human is unwell, it is known that we go to the doctors and may possibly be prescribed with medication to make us better. Medicine itself is using technology, so once again we are faced with a diverse link between humans and technology that maybe we never thought we would see?!

Another question to boggle our minds is who controls our body?..... Do we as humans control our own body, or when influenced with alcohol doesn't alcohol? Can computers furthermore control our body? A common example of this is a heart pacemaker.  A pacemaker, or commonly known as an artificial pacemaker, is a medical device that uses electrical impulses, delivered by electrodes contacting the heart muscles, to regulate the beating of the heart. The primary purpose of a pacemaker is to maintain an adequate heart rate for one who is suffering from serious medical problems. Modern pacemakers are externally programmable and allow the cardiologist to select the optimum pacing modes for individual patients. Additionally, some combine a pacemaker and defibrillator in a single implantable device.

2. A recent experiement took place in the USA when a man, Kevin Warwick tried to connect himself to the internet. Warwick plugged the internet into his arm…. This may seem a little bizarre, but who is to say that we might be presented with this idea “naturally” in a few years time. Weather or not it is natural is a matter of personal opinion, but sooner rather than later in my opinion it will be the norm before we know it. The internet in ones head is slowly becoming close to the biological norm.

With the internet in our heads being an issue currently raised, the issue of viruses also occurs.  What would happen to the internet in our heads if it got a virus? Would it send us crazy and make us break? These are all issues which should be discussed before any form of invention takes place. Even though it seems unimaginable to think of, it is furthermore something we should consider, as clearly these ideas are just around the corner.

According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyborg ) The term cyborg is often today applied to an organism that has enhanced abilities due to technology, through this perhaps over simplifies the necessity of feedback for regulating the subsystem. 

Finally to conclude I have a question for you all which was raised in my lecture previously….. Would you upload yourself? Some could consider blog posts/ tumblr accounts/ Facebook/ Twitter as a form of this, but I mean proper upload yourself, officially. Weather it could be deleted or replaced is unsure, so would you do it when you die? I know I wouldn’t, but I couldn’t say certainly, because who knows where technology will leave us in 50 years time? 

Issues of the interface

This blog post is going to focus on the complex issues of interface. User interface is a means by which people interact with a particular machine, device or computer programme.

Interface is a boundary across where by two independent systems meet and act upon, or communicate with each other. You may be questioning where you do actually find interfaces, the answer would be everywhere! They are found in both desktops and handsets and it is likely that you will have a relationship with many on a daily basis.

In computer technology there are several types of interfaces that we all use pretty much on a daily basis. To begin I will explain what the varieties of interfaces are and how we use them frequently without necessarily realising we are doing so. A user interface includes devices such as keyboards, mouse’s and menus on the computer system… All of which I have used to create this blog post. The user interface allows the user to communicate with the operating system and complete all documents/ take part in research. Transferring such a simple action into something a little more complex is usually quite hard to understand; in this instant it is easier to imagine the user interfaces as a connection between us as humans and the action that is completed on the computer/ adequate piece of technology. We give the keyboards instructions by tapping each key and it is furthermore the interface, which allows the words to deliver on the screen we are watching.

Software interface is ultimately the language and codes that the applications individually use to communicate with each other and with the hardware. Then finally the hardware interface is the wires, plus and sockets that hardware devices use to communicate with each other.

I'm aware that all the issues discussed above are complicated and a little complex, but the easiest way to get your head round the meanings of interface would simply be that they all individually transfer a message to one and another, allowing us users to use the technology to the best of our ability.

We have spoken in quite some detail about computer interfaces and how our actions deliver us with messages on screen, but a more diverse theory presented is the question as to weather human bodies in itself can be an interface?

This might seem a little ludicrous, but when related to the example of dance matts it’s a little more realistic. We plug in a dance matt to a television, this delivers the most obvious interface, but furthermore as we move around the codes are being delivered on screen as the matt notices when we hit the different areas. This then sets up the question, as maybe interfaces aren’t as simple as initially noted? Interfaces are frequently addressed daily in our lives and maybe we just don’t realise?

If I was to then say that it is possible to define our faces an interface, it might seem again a little far-fetched, but this is in fact the case. A CCTV machine will recognise your face and could easily notice if you have been seen before. Face recognition is a common device used by many. You may not realise your face has been recognised, but it would have been. Walking down the street isn’t as simple anymore, by doing so you would have connected with various interfaces without necessarily even realising!!