here are the links to my seven blog reflections
1. six criteria
2. concepts applied to SL – in relation to tuan’s article ‘experiential perspective’
3. a creative response to space – in relation to certeau’s reading
4. differences and similarities – in relation to simon dalby’s article ‘environmental geopolitics – nature, culture and urbanity’
5. philosophical issues
6. the collaboration process
7. new forms of collaborative online media
as the semester begins to slowly fade out, assignments are coming to a close and with that we say good bye to another year, now is the time to reflect on what has been “the collaborative process” over the past semester if IM2, as well as over the past three years of my degree. overall there has been, like everything in life, the good, the bad and the okay of group assignments. for some, the collaborative process is about as apetising as a can of dog food but for me, i have found that this style of assignment has grown on me, and over the past semester i have come to considerably enjoy this process. most of the time anyway!
other subjects this semester have been focused on real life projects where our roles have been specifically mapped out. everyone knew where they were meant to be. who was responsible for what and so forth. and i think that’s what my group in im2 lacked – although this is something i don’t think we could have helped. no one really knew what they were meant to be doing in terms of their roles, it all just sort of fell into place, one raising their hand when necessary. and to be honest, i don’t know how we could have assigned specific roles at the start of the semester considering we all had no idea of the software we were about to dive into, led alone how good we were going to be at using it. in that respect, this group collaboration process has been more dificult and frustrating that i imagined. not because of the group itself, but more because of the actual project at hand. the programs and tasks have been frustrating and long. and i feel because of this, it’s been harder that usual to enjoy working with others when we’ve all been feeling the same – unmotivated and uninspired. however in saying that, i am lucky i have had a great group to get through these times with!
the communication was kept constant and when discussing new ideas i felt everyone in the group were comfortable in expressing their opinions. this has been positive because we were able to discuss the ideas, not the personality, in order to come up with an overall better product. while meetings and assigned editing/filming times were established, not everyone kept their word and arrivied on time which made it hard to stay motivated sometimes. another group characteristic that is worth mentioning is the fact that for half of the group, myself included, im2 was a choice. we chose this subject as an elective whereas for the other members this subject has been compulsory. this also meant different skills were combined having taken different courses previously which in the end, i think worked as a positive as each member had something different and unique to bring to the table.
when issues about collaboration arose i feel that looking back now, there perhaps could have been more open group discussion. this could have also been set out in a formal collaborative contract at the start of the semester. other things i have learn have been about priorities and coming to learn that for every group member, this subject has not been the priority. it has also been about understanding where others are coming from and accepting that everyone thinks the same. and most importantly, has different work ethics. such is life i guess.
over the last month, every one of my subjects have involved around group work for major assignments. this has meant countless meetings during lunch breaks, emails and messages back and forth and trying to fit in a life around this. the question has been raised countless times of “why do we have to do group assignments so much” with the reply always being the same “because it’s practice for the ‘real world’ “. i have heard many opinions from tutors about this issue with the argument from students being that ‘if someone in your group did nothing at work, they would simply get fired’. however i’ve now realised that this idea is not entirly true. tutors have passed on their wise words explaining that no, they won’t get fired, but you will simply have to deal (all over again) with different personalities, work ethics and priorities.
i have learnt over the last few years and most importantly this semester with an overload of group work, that there is no use fighting against something that isn’t going to go away. if you have brown hair and keep dying it blonde, it won’t suddenly turn blonde forever. in the industy that we are going into, team work is a given. it’s going to be able compromising, speaking up and most importantly, going with the flow. chances are you won’t be in a team every single time where everyone is best friends. and i guess the sooner we all learn this, the easier it will be.
overall, group work within my degre has been a positive experience. i have learnt a lot about myself, my strengths and weaknesses and my style of communicating. my university collaborative experience is done and dusted and i look forward to this process next time.. in the ‘real world’ (gasp!). special thanks to all my groups over the years!
boy.. where did that last week suddenly go to? i haven’t posted for a while however needless to say i still HAVE been thinking about IM2 and in particular my next blog entry for the blog assessment due next week. my entry will be based around certeau’s “walking in the city” and i am going to (attempt) to make a video as i’m feeling a little creative come the end of semester. wish me luck.
in other news, last week my group for ICP ran the RMIT Shoe Drop where we collected second hand shoes from students and teachers. on friday we proudly passed over 15 boxes and some 320 pairs of shoes to the Kids off the Kerb project ‘In your Shoes’. they will soon be recycled and then distributed to those in need. the even went really well, and as it’s probably obvious, was the focus of my week ten.
now in week eleven, im2 will get some love and affection.. editing our machinima on wednesday and blogging soon too! stay tuned.
after reading reb’s post about how the shoot went on monday, i feel inclined to post about it too. the overall feeling/vibe i am getting from majority of people i speak to about the machinma/second life assignment is that it’s killing them. i have not spoken to one person who is enjoying it. and for once, this isn’t because of a bad group. it’s the actual assignment itself. i feel personally that there is no relevance whatsoever of this assignment to anything i will be doing post uni, and while i understand that for many media practitioners it is important to have some knowledge of 3D set building, does it have to be this extensive? nevertheless.. things must go on and there’s no point having a sookie-la-la so here’s an update of how we’ve been going…
we filmed out whole movie last monday week.. four hours and four sore heads later we were done. but as we began checking the footage on wednesday we soon discovered we’d used a faulty firewire and the footage we had was better off in the bin. excellent.
the monday just passed we organised to film again and after a late start when all the group arrived we finally got started. however this week is my week dedicated to my icp project so i had to leave after just half an hour and leave the filming up to the rest of the group. sorry guys.
i feel, along with many others, that despite having a good group for this project, it has been more difficult that it should have ever been because of the style of actual assignment itself. it’s frustrating for each person. and it’s frustrating to work with others who are frustrated. but…will there ever be a way around it?
never mind.. because filming is all done and i’m looking forward to beginning editing soon because after that we’ll be done and this negative attitude will be washed away forrreevvver! fingers crossed the rest of the process goes as smooth as possible 
I have been ‘alive’ within second life for approximately 11 weeks now. Throughout that time I have had some different and eye opening experiences, some of which have been positive and others which have simply been disturbing. Over the past 11 weeks I have also been pondering on the more philosophical issues surrounding the idea of second life, as well as issues surrounding my involvement in set building.
When I first set foot in second life, I immediately began to ask question about the so-called reality we live in here in real life. I’ve touched on this idea in the past, that if there is such thing as a pretend life (SL), then who was to say that real life was actually real after all. Why are we here? Is someone on the other side of the universe actually playing us, moving us around and directing our lives that we think are ‘real’?
While researching this idea of philosophy within second life, I came across this great article titled Perception and Reality in – and out – of Second Life: Second Life as a Tool for Philosophical Reflection and Instruction. The project “explores and exemplifies the philosophical relationship between real and virtual in an educational context, as well as philosophical aspects of issues such as the relationship of user to avatar, relationships among avatars, the relationship of avatars to “their” world, to name only a few.” The project is based on Berkeley’s Philosophy that “to be is to be perceived or to perceive,” and is worth taking a look at.
When I first began building our group’s set on our designated land in second life, I was finding it hard to begin. With so much free stuff including houses, boats and cars, where was I meant to start? Every colour of the rainbow to paint a house with – how would I choose? There are no real rules in what can be built in second life. There are no authorities clamping down on the colours houses are painted or for planting things in the air. And as time has passed I have learnt that this is one of the things that make second life so enjoyable for so many people. Second life is created by the people. By the avatars. By us. The ability to terraform land, make a lake with the click of a button or a mountain in a second allows users to have responsibility yet freedom at the same time. These options to alter, to change are actually the benefits of second life and at the least they add to the whole experience of being, being in SL.
Looking closer at second life has led me to question our reality here in real life. To question the way things just are. Why do we have houses with roofs and four walls. Within my street I have built things similar to how they appear in my own street. The roads are straight and the houses have letter boxes. I find it interesting taking a step back and looking at these simple things and asking why? I also find it interesting thinking about the idea that if second life was designed to become a utopian place, why is it all so similar to real life? Why isn’t it different to satisfy the things we wish were available in RL?
At the beginning, I honestly thought second life was for people with no friends and had nothing better to do than sit on a computer all day. I guess you could say I was uninformed about the real purpose of second life. But now I believe my perspective on this has changed and for the better. For many, second life is about relationships. It’s about coming together to experience new things, to interact. For many, it is about existence. Truth. Knowledge. It moves beyond the email system and the chat rooms where text is all one has to work with. Second life now allows one to express themselves on a deeper level within the online environment.
Recently I have been reading Axel Bruns’ book titled ‘Gatewatching: collaborative online news production’ and are learning more and more about collaborative production of news and the future of journalism through his eyes. He begins with this quote… “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one”. Now millions do. – A.J Leibling. This is the beginning of the idea of users becoming publishers, editors and distributors at the same time and something that I will discuss more later on. The book discusses the shifts that journalism has taken over the last 10 years or less as well as providing interesting case studies on a range of different websites that practice this idea of collaborative online news production including Slashdot and Indymedia.
Gatekeeping refers to a regime of control over what content is allowed to emerge from the production process in print and broadcast media; the controllers of these media (journalists, editors, ownes) control the gates through which content is released to their audiences. However a shift has now occurred which has been coined ‘gatewatching’ and plays on the idea that one will watch what comes out from the traditional news publications with a view to using this information as source material in their own news reports. This can take many forms via websites and I will be looking closer at a couple shortly. Firstly I wanted to mention what I think of this idea – I think it’s a great thing. As most people know, what comes out of news stations, newspapers etc. is highly controlled and often runs through a particular agenda taking on a certain view point and not always showing both sides of the story. Therefore in my opinion, the technology that allows for news to be presented by the people and for collaboration to occur can only be a positive advancement.
This brings us to the idea of the ‘produser’. This term combines the ideas of producer, and user into one, as they are now combined within this type of environment. Online collaboration means that these roles are no longer mutually exclusive. Rather one can log onto a gatewatcher site, add content (producer), edit the content (editor), publish it (publisher) and then return later to read it for themselves (user).
Slashdot is one of the ‘premier gatewatcher sites on the web’ and stresses the productive engagement of users in their processes. The site’s users carry out “100% of [their] news gathering” . Slashdot centrally involves its community of several hundred thousand registered users as gatewatchers and content contributors. While Slashdot doesn’t constitute a fully open publishing system as significant aspects of the editing and publishing processes do not involve users, I think this is a good thing and works well for the smooth operation of the site.
Indymedia on the other hand is moving more towards being increasingly about open editing, as well as open publishing. Indymedia “has established itself as the premiere source for alternate news on current political issues.” It is a network of several hundred and I feel is important as it allows for political news to be published as this might not be possible on other sites.
Axel comments in his book that many commentators have claimed that today’s audiences have become disillusioned with the news and perhaps even lost interest. I agree with axel when he says that maybe it’s not the content or idea of the ‘news’ that people are not interested in, rather the way it is presented in the mainstream media. In terms of getting news, one may look to a variety of sources to get their information – from open news such as what I’ve discussed here, to weblogs, to the traditional sources that have also moved online too. As Herbert Gans put it, “the news may be too important to leave to the journalists alone” but now through collaborative open news production, news audiences have begun to reclaim their place in the news cycle.
this morning we did our first screen shot take and it was.. er.. interesting and eye opening to say the least. last week we had gone through our proposed shots in the order we wanted to capture in, and today we planned to act these out however just take a screen shot and not capture.
what we realised very early on was that some of our proposed shots had been very ambitious and clealy, we don’t have the knowledge or skills to carry out what we thought we could do – we don’t even know if it is possible. reb changed some of the shots around, and deleted the ones that we knew we wouldn’t be able to capture. we also realised quite quickly that we couldn’t get up as close as we would have liked. perhaps we’ll have to have a play around with the camera actions between now and next week.
here are some of the screen shots we took to test out what the screen might be looking like when we capture.
this is sally sitting on the bed in the bedroom. it was taking ages for her clothes to load!
sally turning the tv on
sitting on the couch chuckling to the tv
mum standing in front of the tv telling suggesting sally should get ready for school/to leave the house
walking to the door
out the front of the house, sally or the mum blows a kiss goodbye (we wanted this to be a hug goodbye but it didn’t quite work out)
the mum waves good bye – at least we got her to wave!
mum walks back inside
the car pulls up next to sally. i really like the look of this car – the black makes it scary against the red back lights
this is another shot of sally next to the car. we changed the lighting conditions to test.. it’s looking a bit dark here and wouldn’t work so well on a mobile screen so we’ll have to have a play around with this.
it’s going to be very interesting and no doubt a steep learning curve when we come to capture this next week. some other groups attempted it today however didn’t appear to be having much luck. i think the main thing we’re all realising is just how small it will look on a mobile, and how this is a huge restrction – that and the fact that it’s super hard to film in second life, despite trying to capture any emotion in our characters. oh well.. we can only try our best!
oh… my…. god! today i had the most crazy experience i have had since joining second life a couple of months ago. someone in the group suggested i search around for some pyjamas to begin the film in instead of my little school girl outfit. becky searched around and found a place, so i teleported there. it was called ‘freebies beach’ or something like that.
we walked around for a bit, and then noticed that a lady avita with a huge behind seemed to be following us. so we moved to a different section of the island and watched as she continued to follow me.
now my second life character is dressed and modeled as a young shool girl – pigtales, school dress, high socks, etc etc. so anyway, this lady avitar now has a friend next to her, and they can’t stop staring at me. then they start saying things like “i want to buy her, i want to buy her” and “she’s so cute. shes adorable” “who does she belong to? i want her”.
i replied that i wasn’t for sale. but they kept on saying stuff like “we’ll buy anything for you, anything you want”. they were so obsessive!
i started to run away and they tried to chase after me! in the end i left and went back to our street, but becky stayed behind and they continued to ask questions about my avitar.. such as “can you take us to the street, we want to see her”.
it was so bizaar!
becky wouldn’t let them come onto our land, and obviously it has restictions, and so they got really angry and started swearing. we have denied their friendship and hope that the only memory we have of them trying to buy me is in our minds! eeeekkkk!!!
There’s a few things we need to find…
- book – this is proving to be quite hard to find.. but i’ll keep looking!
- lolly
- I need to figure out how to give someone else the car because at the moment I’m the only one who can drive it, and I’m playing the little girl. Either that or I will try and find the co ordinates so Becky can go there and buy/get it. The coordinates for the car shop are and it’s called 54 219 38 ‘XenoX Vehicle & Aviation Center! Free Ground Vehicles : )’ hooray.
- GESTURES…smile, hug, chuckle, skip – i found a free island and score 900 gestures. there seems to be some that have hug in the name so i’ll test these out tomorrow in the tute as i’ll have someone to hug!
lately i have been taking a closer look at the way my house, my street, my neighbourhood and my city operates and its relationship, if any, with second life. there appear to be many similiarities and of course, many differences considering second life is actually a virtual world and is not really reality. simon dalby’s article ‘environmental geopolitics – nature, culture and urbanity’ found within the ‘handbook of cultural geography’. while reading this interesting peice, i noticed many many ideas and concepts being raised, all of which were either present or not within second life and real life. here i aim to discuss some of these similarities and differences based on my experience with second life as well as my experience in real life, in particular within my street, over the past twenty years.
humanity’s place in relation to nature
“in the process the culture that defines itself as apart from nature is being challenged to re-think the assumption of this separation (Beck 1992). As Dalby then mentions “whether we understand ourselves as modern, urban and apart from a nature that is of no concern to our lives, or as humans who live in an active nature that we change by our everyday actions, has profound consequences for our identities and for how we do geography” raises the question of firstly, whether in real life we see ourself as a part of nature or not, and secondly, is this also the case within second life? i believe in real life, we are a part of nature – we, as in the human race and nature are one because we directly impact on each other. our lives and actions impact on the environment, in comparison to second life, where because it is a virtual world, everything constrcuted can be removed, fixed or changed with the click of a button, and does it even matter in second life anyway? in second life, whether there is nature or there isn’t, whether we build trees on our islands or not, won’t affect our avitars in the slightest at the end of the day. unlike in real life, avitars don’t need oxygen or water to survive and as a result, highlights the difference between SL and RL and their relation to nature within both worlds.
countryside vs city
“FitzSimmons (1989) argued that urbanization is about the reconstitution of social life and about the geographical differentation between city and countryside.” in second life, each place/island/location are all equally as close and as far away from each other. one can teleport themselves with the click of a button or by simply typing in the location of where they wish to travel to – all with a few digits. in second life, in comparison to real life, there are, in my experience, no such thing as a countryside or a city. sure there are islands that have the aesthetic values of a city such as tall buildings and lots of people, but there is nothing there suggesting that this is the capital city of second life. in real life, places are known as the ‘countryside’ because of the far distance they lie from the cities. “lifestyles in rural areas are different from those in urban areas depending on the area, mainly because limited services, especially public services, are available” they do have different characteristics of course, but predominately, the reason they’re called the countryside is because of their particular location. in second life, an island can be called whatever it wants to be, for location isn’t an issue – anything can be accessed no matter where you’re located.
we ARE second life
“put bluntly in the vernacular: the widespread cultural assumptions that ‘we’ are ‘here’ in a specific place on ‘earth’ has to be exposed for the powerful political illusion that it has so long been. we are not on earth. we are earth… we are interconnected through a complex web of economic activities and communications…which have complex consequences in a way that ensures that our actions ‘here’ are inevitably also actions ‘there’.” similarities lie here between RL and SL in that we ‘are’ RL and we also ‘are’ SL. our actions ‘here’ in SL, are inevitabely also actions ‘there’ – what we do in second life, what we create, make and the way we communicate and act is what second life actually IS. the two are not mutually exclusive.
dividing boundaries
“environmental matters are about interaction and connection, not about discrete places and diving lines, whether these are property lines, park boundaries or state borders.” i think this is a strong difference between RL and SL. in my experience with the two, i have found that there are many moe boundaries in RL, whereas in SL everything is open, connections and interactions can be made at any time and unless one has physically put a boundary up around their island, everyone is welcome. in RL we are constently blocked off from entering into many places by fences, boundaries, walls as well as the unwritten law that we just don’t walk into anyones house or property when we get the urge. parks open and close and apart from these entry times, we’re not allowed in. in SL on the other hand, it’s a 24/7 around-the-clock world – you can practically go everywhere and anywhere at anytime of the day or night. it’s also interesting to note than in our street, only one house has a proper fence – all the other properties are clear from boundaries or fences, in comparison to my real street in which every house has a fence.
Beck, U., 1992. Risk Society Towards a Nw Modernity. London: Sage.
FitzSimmons, M., 1989. The Matter of Nature. Antipode 21 (1) 106 20