Wow, i seem to have hit your overdrive button! [Edit: Having now finished my post i take this back and apologise if you took offence as i appear to have written just as much if not more, and i am just as surprised! However, i will not apologise for the length of post as this sort of behaviour could result in creating short posts for no good reason accept laziness and not wanting to waste each others time. And, if you feel that way about my writing then we might as well end this whole thing right now! I am proud i have just spent 2 hours writing this!]
You have covered so much ground so quickly i do not know where to start!
Okay, firstly, i was quite drunk when i wrote that text and i think what i was trying to write was 'Are avatars starting to look more like people or are people starting to look more like avatars?'.
I was at a rock/goth/alt pub having a cigarette outside (such a great opportunity to observe!). I have been noticing how style is changing in all social groups, moving towards a more manicured, well groomed styling. Even groups who wish to appear subversive are starting to look so carefully created. Grunge is dead. In the Nineties we would let it all hang out, long hair, ripped jeans etc. I guess this can be traced back to the late 60's and seventies when being a 'long haired hippie' was a direct way to rebel against the conformity of the Fifties where everyone seemed to where a shirt and tie. Of course it can be argued that the affectation of the 'natural' is still just a style.
But anyway, i digress. I can not help but wonder whether this move towards precision styling for both men and women is somehow inspired by or at least related to the emergence of the virtual avatar - to the accuracy of the digital (binary) ones and zeros as opposed to analogue vaguity. Maybe i am over-observing a shift that is simply rebelling against the last fashion cycle. However, as more and more people - especially a younger generation who were born around the same time as the digital world - have become so used to looking at carefully constructed digital worlds, characters and even narratives. It seems like a natural move to express that aesthetically. Just as the textual language of the internet, 'LOL', 'RFOL' etc becomes part of everyday speech why not the visual language too?
I can not help but think of the PUA or Pick Up Artist phenomenon. A network of males who initially make contact online but then meet up and swap ideas about attracting the opposite sex. In the more extreme cases this is done by encouraging young, socially awkward males to create a 'handle'(or user name) for themselves. They are then encouraged to develop there own 'avatar' in the way they dress, act and speak. A more cohesive and yet exaggerated expression of their identity that is one step removed from themselves. As i see it the idea is to fictionalise part of there personality in order to make social interaction more easy. Maybe this is simply consciously going through a process that we all do anyway but the use of the very term 'avatar' to describe a real life person shows the way the virtual world can come to influence the way we think.
On a darker note, the Columbine killings were inspired by the Matrix on a very artificial level. They created a virtual world from the real. Literally recreating their school within a virtual reality program before the two came together with disastrous consequences. There is no doubt that the avatar in both the real and non-real worlds can be empowering. It derives this power by reducing everything to language but i can not help but wonder whether this process can be wholly positive. And here we find Baufrillard. I want to do the 'Baudrillard and Avatars' post but the words are so charged that i can only talk around it. Plus i feel that he has said it all already. Everything he says on simulation applies here. [Try these: 1 2 3 4]
I can not help but feel that in a world that seems ever more unstable with the perceived threats of ecological and financial meltdown along with the new hidden threat of terrorism that some comfort can be gained from appearing in the 'real' world as a character. The virtual world can feel more comforting because you are just an avatar, your true self is concealed unless you want to show it. It can feel lighter - its just words not me! To take this feeling in to the 'real world' could be very comforting, could take the pressure off, or put another layer of protection between you and the world. Instead of swords, metal armour and banners we have slick hair, perfect makeup and skin, fantastical clothing.
Either way, it is an important, if not the most important field for the contemporary exploration of self. Whether you participate in a virtual culture yourself or not the influence of the ideas used there will become more and more central to our notion of self. Mainly i say this because everyone who does enter one of these worlds is forced to think of themselves as a language. They must go through the process of thinking about themselves as a language. They must attempt to express some part of themselves - be it idealised or not - in a place where expression is not limited by circumstance or culture. A coming to terms with the language of the real in the realm of the personal - the notions of real and unreal/non-real/virtual are almost irrelevant here.
Zizek and avatars
I think Slavoj Zizek on the avatar is essential. As he says in A Perverts Guide to Cinema: 'I want a third pill'. It is not as simple as one world being 'real' and the other being 'fake'. The Second World requires 'real' structures in order to exist. Consumerism, social etiquette etc are all rules participated in by users of virtual worlds in order to create communication. There must be some kind of structure in order to be able to make sense to one an other, just like in the real world. Therefore, the real is an integral part of the 'virtual' so called fictional worlds that have sprung up on the internet. The virtual world is real because we invest in it as we would the real world. We can laugh, cry, love hate etc.
Conversely, It is just as easy to turn the real world in to a fantasy to make it work. Zizek explores this idea in terms of the Matrix, power structures and relationships between the 2 sexes but it applies to the avatar and the virtual world too. The idea of identity in the real world is becoming more and more complex (maybe that is the wrong word) it is becoming more blurred. Male, female, straight, gay, black and white. On a physical level it is easier to change your outward appearance than ever before. Plastic surgery and operations like laser eye treatment are becoming more and more common place. Cheap clothing is everywhere. It is becoming easier to see a world in which we can go shopping for a 'real world' appearance as it is to in the 'virtual world'. I carefully choose not to use the word identity in place of appearance because there is a whole argument already in place about whether appearance equals identity already.
So we see the that we are already avatars and avatars are us. The virtual and real worlds just accentuate this relationship.
Avatars and capitalism
As far as i can tell consumer culture sells to the avatar (to the user) using the same structure as the real world: aspiration. In worlds such as Second Life the basics are given to the 'noob' in order that they can enter the world. But in order to appear 'cool' or 'individual' one must buy new clothes, skin etc using real money. The exact same can be said of the real world! And also, within the rules of consumer culture, you may find that your peers will comment on the fact that they do not appreciate your look etc. in other words they willingly perpetuate the system.
Whether the things we are encouraged to buy in the Second World are directly branded with a Nike Swoosh or are non-branded they are still bought with real money. But, returning to an earlier point - money itself is a mass delusion. Money itself has lost its 'real' value. On money in Great Britain it is written 'I promise to pay the bearer'. You could take a five pound note in to a Bank and they were obliged to give you £5 worth of gold. Do that now and you would be laughed at at best! Here again we see the fiction in the real world being transposed to the virtual world.
We construct our reality in the same way as we construct our fantasy: through language and imagination. The world does not move around us, we move the world to fit our perspective. This is how we can construct new worlds and realities in virtual space and fictions that guide our real lives. Sometimes the two inform each other because they are two sides of the same coin. How apt this simple expression is as alas, the final word must go to capitalism, consumerism has entwined itself around/through/on top of/IS this relationship and makes a quick buck out of both.
Having just discovered this, I sit down with a beer to read and digest.
ReplyDeleteSome thoughts as I read:
1) "Grunge is dead. In the Nineties we would let it all hang out, long hair, ripped jeans etc" Being a narcistic and slightly solipsistic kindofchap, these thoughts have occured to me to. It troubles me that whilst, at the time, it felt so un-artificial and uninfluenced by media constructs, surely it would be naive to argue that we were not argued by photos of Pearl Jam/ Pumpkins/ REM. I agree, however, with your invocation of hippydom with reference to grunge: I do retain a sense that grunge as a movement/ musical style/ subculture was very much a pacific and anti-conformist stance, which (in a way) sought to minimise attention paid to the individual/ the wearer. Whereas (increasingly) I feel that contemporary alt subcultures (let's call them emo, for the want of a better term) seek to place attention on the wearer, taking an aggressive stance to make the wearer more explicit/ loud/ prominent. I think it's important that, whilst grunge referenced 60s hippydom, contemporary subcultures (in the instrumentation as well as in their neon/ loud eye-makeup) reference 1980s I-culture that prioritises the individual.
But anyway, as a cynical older man, I digress.
2) "the accuracy of the digital (binary) ones and zeros as opposed to analogue vaguity" - This is beautiful
3) PUA - I had never heard of this, but agree when you say "Maybe this is simply consciously going through a process that we all do anyway". I would perceive this phenomenon as a formalised (and frightening) refraction of the process of teenhood. I think creating a charater out of yourself is part of the late teen years, and it's only later that you consolidate and align this with the person you are, or become comfortable with that character.
4) I love the Zizek section.
This is a wonderful post.
I agree with what you say about the length of these articles. If I want to communicate in short bursts, I'll use some sort of instant messaging thing, perhaps attached to a game, and abuse you. This vehicle is more useful for the discussions you don't get to have in 'long distance relationships'.
You've reminded me of something. I feel a post coming on.
Money - the value thereof
ReplyDeleteIn my naivety, I know nothing of economics or economic policy (or at least, an insufficient amount about these subjects). So I wanted to understand how governments 'borrow' money (since we are apparently in the biggest debt since money began). And so I spent an evening reading up on economic policy in terms of the Gold Standard (to which you refer, whereby coins and notes become signifiers to a gold signified for which it can be exchanged on demand). This gold standard was scrapped by the UK govt in 1931 to a fiat money system, where there is no need for the representative money (the notes) to be backed up by actual gold ('real' money).
Anyway, I thought that was interesting. Even though I don't entirely understand the ramifications.
Thanks for the positive feedback. I have to say i am quite proud of that one!
ReplyDeleteCheck out 'A Perverts Guide To Cinema'. It is a typically over the top title for Zizek but i wonderful essay in a form that breaks boundaries. If i ever teach i will steal some of his techniques!
As for money, watch Zeitgeist. Much of it is sometimes on Youtube. It is full of some quite over the top conspiracy theories but talks about the way the Bank of America set up a system when it was a burgeoning mew country that means that all banks that borrow money from it can never pay it all back. Interesting stuff.