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Avatars and embodied experience

Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

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Page 1: Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

Avatars and embodied experience

Page 2: Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

Page 3: Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

Virtual approaches as embodied, extended, enacted, and distributed.

Page 4: Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

DO COGNITIVE TECHNOLOGIES…?

increase cognitive capacities and thus enhance human efficiency ?

affect how people and society go about achieving their goals ?

highlight and transform how we view ourselves and our goals?

modify how we cognize and thus change our mental states and nature?

give rise to new forms of cognition?

Page 5: Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

QUESTIONS:

Are avatars disembodied and purely virtual?

Do they have any influence on social coordination?

Page 6: Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

2-D AVATARS/ 3-D AVATARS:

Two-dimensional avatars such as X-Face are small images (black and white bitmap size of 48 x 48 pixels), added to the e-mail.

Three-dimensional avatars are no longer static. They are able to move and perform manual tasks and gradually gain new features, such as voice, facial expressions, etc.

Page 7: Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

TYPES OF AVATARS IN RP GAMES:

(1) avatars generated by the software, such as conversational agents, chatbots

(2) avatars of users / players.

Page 8: Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

Second Life

Page 9: Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

Second Life

Towards the end of August 2007, SL had more than 9 million players. Currently it enjoys less participants than in 2006, when it was at the peak of its popularity.

However, it still EXISTS!

Page 10: Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

FROM MIST TO VARIOUS AVATARS:

Page 11: Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

TYPOLOGY:

ordinary business Caucasian look, ordinary Asian schoolgirl look, kinky mixed look, Afro-Caribbean rasta looknon-human look (animals, hybrids, centaurs,

famous cartoon characters, objects of daily use)

Page 12: Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

TINIES

Page 13: Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

GOREANS

Page 14: Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

FURRIES

Page 15: Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

TRUE BLOODTRUE BLOOD LYCAN CENTRELYCAN CENTRE

VAMPIRES

Page 16: Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

FANTASTIC AVATARS

Page 17: Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

Every newbie is looking for freebies.

Page 18: Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

Meetings and interactions

Page 19: Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

SPIRITUAL GROWTH

Page 20: Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

COMMUNITY LIFE IN SECOND LIFE

Page 21: Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

COMMUNITY LIFE IN SECOND LIFE

Page 22: Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

THE SIMS = FREE WILL

Page 23: Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

THE NEW SELF?

Avatars point out to us that enhancement is not merely a matter of increasing the effectiveness of a person in taking action, but also can mean an altered form of consciousness that expands opportunities for experiences and escape from conventional system of moral constraints (Bainbridge 2013: 91)

Page 24: Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

WHERE IS THE AVATAR??

Page 25: Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

LAKOFF/JOHNSON IMAGE SCHEMAS:

Avatar is not me. Avatar is part of me Avatar is me

(Johnson, M. The Body In The Mind, 1990)

Page 26: Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

Avatar as an embodied extension

Page 27: Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

PROFOUND EMBODIMENT

Human beings are „promiscuoysly body-and world – exploiting. They are forever testing and exploring the possibilities for incorporating new resources and structures deep into their problem-sloving regimes. They are (…) the minds of Natural-Born Cyborgs: of systems continuously renegotiating their own limits, components, data-stores, and interfaces”

(Clark, A. Re-Inventing Ourselves, 2013:123)

Page 28: Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

ATTUNEMENT

“The opening, which is a kind of understanding of the world, being in the world in an understandable way”.

(James Ash, Technologies of captivation: Video Games and the Attunement of Affect, 2013)

(Alex Galloway, Origins of the First Person Shooter, in: Gaming 2006: 39-69)

Page 29: Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

MICHEL-ANGE ARMORIM (2010)

Visual Cognition - "What is my avatar seeing?": The coordination of "out-of-body" and "embodied" perspectives for scene recognition across views.

Three experiments show that observers can take advantage of a virtual avatar that specifies their future “embodied” perspective on the visual scene.

Page 30: Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

Other experiments:

Corradi-Dell'Acqua and Tessari (2010) Dotov, Nie and Chemero (2010)

We could also think of other consequences of having virtual characters, such as the acquisition of new, imaginative motor skills (the ability to fly, teleport, etc.) for the physical body schema

Page 31: Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

THE BODILY-SOCIAL DIMENSION

Page 32: Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

EMBODIED RESEARCH GROUP

1 changing the basic structure of the body and the appearance of the avatar

2. change of sex, 3 changes or multiplication of identity 4 changes or modifications to the main

elements of the environment; 5 (partial) view of the world from the

perspective of an independent observer.

Page 33: Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

Multiple Identities – Protean Personality?

Secondary Avatars Posthumous avatars

17 deceased memebers of family in a research project on acestors veneration avatars.

Page 34: Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

DONGPING ZHENG, MICHAEL F. YOUNG, MANUELA MARIA WAGNER, ROBERT A.

BREWER (2009) 

Virtual 3D gaming environments establish complex situations in which English communication tools, manipulating tools, and created artifacts are embedded. Kulikowich and Young (2001) suggested that such complex learning environments can be educative by affording multiple opportunities to form intentions and pick up information in service to goal-driven action through collaboration

Page 35: Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

BODILY-SOCIAL DIMENSION

Division of labourDifferent experiencesMultiple affiliations Achievement of perfection Trial and errorMultiboxing

Page 36: Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

What’s next?

Page 37: Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

TRANSAVATARS?

„Aspects of my identity are offloaded onto multiple avatars, including semi-autonomous agents possessing a measure of artificial intelligence, which can function as me simultaneously, when I am not currently logged into a computer, and even after my death”

(Bainbridge, 2013: 92)

Page 38: Avatars and embodied experience. RELATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE AVATAR

Thank you!