I continue to hear such interesting information from Stanford’s Virtual Human Interactions Lab. There is an interesting interview, Learning from the Virtual You, with Jeremy Bailenson of the VHI Lab on NPR. There is more info on the findings at the VHIL in the Times article, “How Second Life Affects Real Life” by Kristina Dell.

Is the correct distinction Second Life and “Real” life or should it really be Second and “First” life.  Isn’t it just life; life experienced through a combination of digital and physical bodies?  Isn’t it simply living?  The relationships, the fun, the disappointments, the connections, sadness, passion and joy I experience in virtual spaces certainly seem authentic to me and bleed over into my thoughts and my emotions as I go about my daily business.  I don’t intend to ever use the distinction of “Real” again.  To me it is all real; simply experienced in different spaces.  

Of course, as soon as you determine that all your experiences, no matter where they take place, are real, all those ethical questions come up again. Can you love and be committed to different people in different places?  Is it a wonderful thing or is it infidelity when you have two (or more) loves?  I know that I have raised all these questions before as have many other people.  However, it only seems to get harder to answer the questions the deeper and longer you love, the more connected and committed you feel to your virtual world lover/partner.  Do loves in virtual spaces have overall positive or negative impacts on your physical world loves and relationships? Can your daily relationships compete with the edited nature of in world relationships?  By edited, I mean the fact that you invent your appearance and you pick and choose which parts of yourself and your life you want to reveal or share.  I suspect the more you are yourself the deeper the relationship will be in virtual spaces the same as in your First Life.  Is a deep love in a virtual world a threat to your First Life relationship? In some cases perhaps First relationships are preserved when you can enhance your everyday life with the things you need and do not get to have in your First relationship, by developing an online relationship in which you can experience those things you crave. Or does the experience of  getting some of your very real needs met outside of your everyday relationship undermine your First relationship? REZ magazine touches on some of the things I have been thinking about.

Zasu and I have discussed many times over the last year how we could let our Second Life friends and loves know if something happened to us in our First lives. Our virtual world relationships are so meaningful to us that this question becomes a significant concern.  We used to joke around about opening a virtual slaw business to accomodate this need, because we can not be alone in this concern.  So what we came up with (ok I can only claim credit for the worrying about the problem, not solving it) is having someone in our First Lives, armed with our password (but not our full avatar name), who will alert someone we have identified in sl to tell them what happened. Then this trusted sl person will go to our inventory and follow out the instructions we have left there as kind of a virtual will for notifying our loved ones and disposing of our properties. I searched and searched and found a few comments on this same topic.  One is by Akela Talamasca in the Second Life Insider.  The other is an incredible article by Dusan Writer called “Death in Virtual Worlds: Play, Magic, Grief and the Search for Meaning.” Now I am hoping that you don’t take this conversation as something morbid.  It is no more morbid than in your First LIfe doing what you need to do to make sure that your business and the ones you love are taken care of when your life ends. I am counting on being around a long time, but the depth of my very real feelings causes me to have to think about these things.

–Kara

“…to get the full value of a joy you must have –somebody to divide it with. “

Mark Twain

When I started in sl I definately would not have said that I was interested in social connections and yet now that is one of the three major things that keeps bringing me back. (The others are the visual/creative aspects and the sense of discovery.)  As I have mentioned before, as a noob, I would run off when I thought someone was going to talk to me.  I did feel like a stranger in a strange land and felt anxious about others approaching me.  That feeling was not helped by my getting seriously griefed several times very early on.  But I find that besides my love of building and exploring, I love the connections with the wide array of interesting people from all over the world  who I never before would have had the opportunity to meet.

Relationships in  virtual worlds fascinate me and I love the chance to compare my experiences with others.  I stay on the lookout for blogs, articles, research and books that touch this topic. I recently got my copy of Tom Boellstorff’s new book, Coming of Age in Second Life: Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human.  ( Metaversed Podcast Title: Coming of Age in Second Life ) It should not be a surprise to anyone who really knows me that as soon as the book arrived I read the chapter, “Intimacy”, on sl friendship, sexuality and love. I won’t go into any other details about it at this time, other than to say I plan on reading the book carefully and will talk more about it here in the future.  

I have been negligent in updating my blog in recent weeks and the reason is that I have purchased a new sim.  Every day I have been cramming in as much free time as I can to work on the birth and early childhood of “Joyous Serendipity.”  As it is not ready for prime time yet, I will not include the slurl until a future posting.  I have so loved the entire process of terraforming, working on unifying themes, sometimes purchasing and sometimes making the various elements needed for the island and adjusting and readjusting to get things the way I want them.  A friend asked why did I buy the sim.  I said to be creative and have fun. He asked jokingly and perhaps in disbelief, “you need an entire sim for that?”  Well, I guess I do at this point; I want the entire place to work on from start til finish. I am not sure what happens when you get it done. Perhaps it is something that is never completed but keeps changing and evolving; a canvas that you work and rework, a garden with changing seasons where you continuously introduce new specimens.

And because I have not advertised the slurl and because I have not yet invited friends to take a look in my garden as I till the soil and plant the seeds, it has become our own little eden, where Adam, er Beck and I can run around as freely and innocently as naked babes. And as wonderful as our paradise is, I find that beauty and joy are meant to be shared.  When a sunset fills you with wonder you want to turn to someone else who is also experiencing it.   As I work on my Eden I find myself wanting others to enjoy it too.  Our lives, the good and the bad, are not meant to be experienced alone. We need to be a part of a community.  It is part of our makeup, our survival, our fullfillment.  All these thoughts kept reminding me of the above referenced Mark Twain quote about to get the most out of something you have to share it with someone else.  A lovely paradox.

This is Zasu speaking now, and yes, I HAVE waited far too long to post.  Events ISL left me reeling for awhile, and it has taken awhile to sort everything out.  I have learned, all too intimately and well, that SL is just as real as RL when it comes to relationships.  I thought I knew this, and I did, but only from a positive point of view.  Somehow, the negative seems MUCH more real.

As Zasu, I broke my own personal rule that I had always strictly adhered to ISL; specifically, I entered into a relationship where not everyone was fully informed.  While it did not progress to cybering, it was quite intimate, and a definite betrayal of my alt’s partner.  And betrayal it felt like, in a way that I have not felt across the worlds to my RL partner.

Standing outside myself and looking in, I could be fascinated by this:  why did I feel such guilt over my SL partner, and not once, ever, feel guilt about my RL situation?  Maybe the worlds are more separate in my psyche than I thought.  This realization was actually a relief, as I have been concerned for months that the boundaries between SL and RL were becoming a bit blurred.  

I can also take this lesson into RL, and know that if I ever decided to meet my SL partner IRL, having the two men I love inhabit the same world would likely result in more feelings of guilt on my part.  Much as we want to, much as we talk about it, a real life relationship with my SL partner is no longer feasible.  We’ve waited too long; I’ve come to my senses. 

Zasu

Since becoming immersed in Second Life, I can not believe what I am interested in reading. The Social Life of Avatars: Presence and Interaction in Shared Virtual Environments, edited by Ralph Shroeder and published in 2002 by Springer-Verlag, is a collection of articles by a variety of people on different aspects of avatars and virtual world research.  What follows are some thoughts based on readings from this collection.  The following pictures are all photographs of various avatars taken over time at the Second Life Welcome Center on Ahern.

Avatars are our representatives and our means of connecting and communicating in virtual worlds. Your avatar projects a  certain style, personality, and attitude.  Avatars can be used to express our politics, our religion and our sexuality and we use them to communicate in groups, both casually and in meetings or classrooms and as well as in one on one conversations.

One of the factors that makes up a virtual world is the sense of presence; the feeling that you are there in the virtual world and interacting with that world and the other people in it.  So it is inevitable that the theme of presence runs throughout the Social Life of Avatars. 

In “Social Influence within Virtual Immersive Environments” Jim Blascovich writes that although there is not yet an accepted definition of  presence in virtual worlds, the concept of presence is essential.  He describes it as “a psychological state in which the individual perceives himself or herself as existing within an environment” and he further describes social presence as the “psychological state in which the individual perceives himself or herself as existing within an interpersonal environment.”

A number of people, including myself, have said that speaking through an avatar has helped us become better communicators; has resulted in an improved ability to talk in real life more easily about things that are more personal or difficult to us. The article, “Living Digitally: Embodiment in Virtual Worlds” by T. L. Taylor addressed the topic of self expresson, relationships and embodiment. 

Taylor’s article also addresses the topic of “making sense of plurality” or reconciling the individual’s physical body, the avatar’s body and our mental image of our body.  Taylor mentions that people frequently alternate in talking about their avatar from the first to the third person and that as time goes on it becomes harder and harder to distinguish between our self and our avatar.  Taylor quotes one person as saying “…the more time I spend inworld… the harder it is for me to differentiate between my inworld self and my offline self…The two seem to be merging with each other…”

I was asked recently by a non-virtual world user, “what does it all matter since it is not real?”  If I had not been on a virtual world, I could probably be the person asking that question in all sincerity.  Shortly after that question was asked of me, I was happy to read the following quote from Mikeal Jacobbson in “Rest in Peace, Bill the Bot: Death and Life in Virtual Worlds.”

“A common conviction among people who have no first hand experience of virtual worlds is that it does not really matter what happens in a virtual world because, after all, it is not for real… seeing someone engaged in interaction in a virtual world looks very similar to someone playing a computer game… however, appearances can be deceptive.  In a virtual world, sticks and stones can’t break my bones, but that does not mean that I would not take notice of someone trying to throw stones at me or beating me with a stick. My mind and my emotions are present, and virtual actions can work as causes of effects on my mental state that are as real as anything I might experience in the real world.”

We do not question that communications with someone via the phone or e-mail are real since it does not take place face to face in the real world.  The difference with virtual worlds as a communication tool is that we have an avatar that represents us in the communication process.  While the avatar is not “real” we have extended ourselves into the virtual world through the avatar and we begin to feel one with the avatar that we use for communications.

 A final statement from Jacobbson, ” I began… by comparing the surface of virtual worlds interaction to playing games.  By looking beneath the surface, I found that what people do in these virtual worlds is really no different from what they do at work, at home, or in bars. They are not playing games; they are living their lives.”

–Kara

Not that long ago, I decided to drop in that the Welcome Center at Ahern as I like to do from time to time.  The environment is often an amusing blend of newbies wanting to know how to “play” sl, and those who have been around longer enjoying socializing or showing off their novel avies. The night I am referring to had all the usual chaos, but with one delightful added feature.  Above the crowd and the craziness was a great steampunk style avatar.

I watched for a while and then saw the avatar, Tormented Twilight, through the front opening of the large picturesque item. (So then I was not sure whether to regard the object as an avatar or avatar vehicle.)  I started taking screenshots, which if you know me at all you know is my automatic response. If I breath and my eyes are open, I take pics.  After a few photos, I wanted to get much closer, perhaps even inside, and so I started to look for an entrance.  While I am not sure that you can’t just enter the item at any point, I choose to enter through an opening in the bottom where the steam emerges.  I suppose that was cheeky of me to come uninvited like that, but hey rl and sl do not operate exactly the same.  

My first impression, which still seems true to me, is that Tormented Twilight is funny, helpful and very easy to like. Because I found both he and his vehicle/avatar so interesting, I checked out everything in his profile and googled (there is that verb again) him.  I visited one of the businesses that is listed on his profile and ended up asking him if I could interview him for my blog.  (Check out TT or Tormy’s new blog, The Grid Steamer.) What follows is the result of that conversation.

The first thing that I wanted to know about was about the machinima named Tormented Twight. I could not see at first if it had any relation at all to T. T. other than that it had his name.  I watched the video carefully and could see that the steampunk avatar navigating back and forth in the background throughout the video.  But I could see not other connection to the music performance video of Voicedude Renoir. So that was the subject of my first question. (The transcript has been modified somewhat for ease of reading.)

Kara: So one thing I wondered about TT;  the music video that is online with your name, how is it connected to you? 

Tormented Twilight: Ah hehe, I was at a concert at Inspire Park. And the guy who was playing Voice Renoir, was picking people’s names and making songs out of em. And I guess I was standing there in front of him during the last song. I was also the guy hovering with the blue flames flying around me.

Kara: Obviously you have seen incredible changes in sl. (His rez date is 1-30-2004.)

Tormented Twilight: Yeah mostly upgrades that downgrade : P

Kara: So tell me something you like about how things have changed and something you regret about how things have changed.

Tormented Twilight: Some nifty stuff though, we actually used to have to pay to rez new prims. lol, yeah that didn’t last too long though.  Well I guess the flexis were the really major change, then sculpties, and now Windlight has been integrated into the standard viewer, the glows add a nice effect when used subtley. I’m not sure if I really regret or miss anything persay but I will say I think LL needs to take a serious look at it’s transaction system and make it a priority to fix that.

Kara: Mmmm, when you say transaction you mean selling and inventory? or something else?

Tormented Twilight: I mean during peak times, when lag is high, I try to buy something and get a message that ‘transaction is stale’ or ‘transaction failed’, then my money still gets taken, and I get no product. These last two weekends have been complete terrors for buyers and sellers. If the system knows and tells you the transaction failed why does it still take your money and give you nothing? It should go into some kind of lockdown mode if there’s a bad transaction in the system.

Tormented Twilight: It especially bad for clothing designers who often make their stuff nocopy/transfer then have customers saying they never got a product, they have no way to verify it, LL won’t do anything about it, and they have to rely on their customer’s word, and the customers have to hope the seller will actually resend the item they didn’t get.

Kara: Can you recall a moment that you would say has been the highlight of all your sl experiences; one that you will share? I am interested in any memory of a special moment or best experience in sl.

Tormented Twilight: Well, I guess my real highlight was my first visit to Lumiere Noir’s Ivory Tower of Prims, which is an inworld interactive building tutorial, after I walked through the tutorial, I really got serious about building and spent a lot of my day’s at the Ivory Tower’s Sandbox.  I recommend it to pretty much every new person I meet that’s interested in learning to build.

Kara: So you had tried building before that, but that experience really jump started it?

Tormented Twilight: I had fiddled around of course but yeah, the Ivory Tower is one of SL’s true treasures, Its inworld, you can work through the tutorials as you walk through the place, and you really learn a lot. Of course, there’s a lot of video tutorials available now but it’s not the same thing as standing there, seeing it, and trying it while inworld.

Kara: Do you use other virtual worlds?

Tormented Twilight: I’ve tried a number of other virtual worlds including There and Entropia Universe. Both of them I’ve found to be way too static, and the process of actually making something original is an incredible pain and incredibly costly.

Kara: And do you think that open source vws are going to impact sl significantly”?

Tormented Twilight: Well, there is stuff like OpenSim now but, it still costs money, and its still way behind Second Life. There are other virtual worlds in development using P2P architecture but they simply cannot support the hundreds of thousands of users that SL can. SL is truly the only truly dynamic and interactive virtual world I know, where I can say I wanna make a Brass Duck that shoots steam out it’s nose, and I can ride it, and then I can actually do that.

Kara: When am I going to see this brass duck? lol.

Kara: What is your opinion about the upcoming reduction in the cost of new sims?

Tormented Twilight: Well, I know the sim pricing reductions has made a lot of previous sim owners mad in that they think they’re investments have depreciated but I think its a good thing. There are still pretty hefty costs involved but it does make them slightly more accessible to people who may have not been able to foot the bill previously.

Kara: What is something that you would like people to know about you?

Tormented Twilight: I’ll be anyone’s friend, and I’ll answer any question no matter how silly or dumb someone might think it is. I welcome new friends just as long as someone at least says hello first ^_^ And since I’ve been around quite a long time, I love to share the stuff I’ve collected over time to help new people out, textures, scripts, clothes, and all kinds of stuff.

Kara: That is really nice. Your prices reflect that spirit imo.

Tormented Twilight: Well, like I always say I’d rather make a friend than a sale. ^_^

Kara: I have only been here about 14 mos and in that time I have gone from feeling that I am separate from my avie and being confused when I started to feel the two merging to now when I feel pretty much unified, me and my av. I can not image after being here some years how that might feel. You can see i am fascinated by the human side of all these experiences and I wondered about anything you might want to share in that area.

Tormented Twilight: Well, I guess I feel that way too. Even though you really never know what I might show up as from one day to the next, like when you saw me sporting a Gigantic Robot as an avatar, but I do feel like I’m really projecting myself and personality through SL and my avatar.

Tormented Twilight: I like talking to people who are real characters, not just someone who pops in and asks where the orgy room is and runs around naked. I get a much deeper experience out of SL, which is why I try to encourage new residents to really explore and learn about SL.

I regret not asking Tormented Twilight how he picked out his name. I might just have to stop by again, pull him away from his workshop in the sky, and find out the story.  While I am at it I will ask to see that steaming brass duck.  It would be a pleasure again anyway to meet this individual who would rather make friends than customers.  : )

–Kara

The Quilters in Second Life are hosting an exhibit for two weeks on Cho.  The staging area is set up to resemble the well known annual Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show in Oregon. The Quilters in SL group is made up of fun and supportive people  who have some fantastic quilts on display. Whether you are a quilter or are simply interested in design and creativity, come out and enjoy the quilts. 

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Cho/28/74/62/

–Kara

It is important to make efforts to provide assistance to anyone in sl who needs it, especially help for newcomers.  And hosting a 24 hour music event is a great way to bring attention to I-World, the newest project to provide in world help. I will return at a later date to check out how it works for providing information.  At the time that I visited there were about 70 in attendance on the island with the sound stage. It is also interesting to note that there were protestors carrying signs saying Fix SL. 

Just curious to see what the hype was all about, I came to take a quick peek into Second Life.  I was fascinated by what I saw in my first little look around and began what was has been so far a 13 month long exploration.  I have met some fascinating people and I have had both good and bad experiences along the way, just as we all do in real life.  Then I met someone who is so special to me, that I truly can not imagine my life (virtual or real) without him in it.  I feel like we are still in an early chapter of the Beck and Kara story. I am glad to share some of this story as we live it, though I wonder if it could get boring to others to keep hearing how sickeningly happy we are.  With whom, however,  in my everyday life can I discuss the amazing things that happen to me in my virtual life? With my friends and family not having been in any type of virtual world, I would only cause alarm and misunderstanding by sharing my experiences with them.

Now and then I look to see what others are blogging about on the topic of virtual world relationships; to see what others are experiencing, to see how my experiences of love, sex and commitment in sl compares with the experiences of others.  I haven’t found too much new material on this recently, and would welcome any reading suggestions on this topic.  I recently reread a CNN article (12-25-07) on Why people get married in SL and was struck by a quote from a sl wedding chapel owner, Marcio Moo, who said “second life is only real life with a digital interface…”  That sure rings true with my experiences.  I feel like my real life has been enriched by adding an entirely new segment or layer which contains my sl adventures and best of all my sl love. –Kara

  Pics were all taken at Sandy Clymer’s Pillow Talk. 

Sticky, gooey, decadent, hearty, nourishing, towering, varied, sweet, bitter. My life is a cake; a tall cake with many layers each with different ingredients, many complimentary to each others, but with some layers standing in stark contrast. The layers encompass all the aspects of my life, some are substantial while others are thin and lacey. The layer of disappointments is lemony and sugarless; looking pretty, but not nearly as nice as it appears on the surface and certainly not what was hoped for. The layer made up of my personal interests and continual learning is nourishing, wholesome and tasty and is especially good with milk. The cake that is light and delicate and goes well with champagne contains my spirit and my dreams. Incredibly chocolatey, rich and sumptuous describes the layer of sex and passion. Love is the overlay, the frosting, the mantle that drapes all over and oozes throughout the layers of this wobbling tower of infinite variety, coating and holding it all together in the most delicious and delightful way. Mmmmmmmmm,  Here’s to life and love! Join me. Eat heartily! Love from Kara

These lovely cakes are from Ramos Designs Bakery on Ramos Island.

Act I

Beck and Kara meet.  He shows off the flower pot he learned to make; the only object he has built in his over 2 years in sl.  (Let us not talk about the skills he did master during that time, but let it suffice to say that it took two to practice the techniques he perfected.  lol.) B and K become friends, co-adventurers, fall crazily in love, promise to love for all time……….all the while Kara is documenting compulsively, ardently with 1,000s upon 1,000s of pics.

Intermission

We strive to balance real and virtual worlds in which we are fully, if not passionately, engaged.  Mini breaks or intermissions are about keeping a sense of balance while straddling multiple lives and worlds.  Good thing you have the discipline to initiate intemissions, Beck, my baby, the love of my second life, because I can not voluntarily choose to be without you.  God, I miss you so. Can not wait for Act II. Love from your co-writer, your co-adventurer, the one who loves your soul….

Kara