few notes on Second Life and literature, for the &Now conference (as usual will be presenting online)
1 In Second Life there may be speaking. Speaking is too close for many people who won't speak but will just use the text chat window. When you hear a voice, you are in the presence of the voice, of the person speaking. 2 Chat is safer and cooler, and you can paste text in the chat window, you can save the chat dialog. Pasting text allows you to work things out in advance. You can think in advance, just as you do in literature. You can think in advance and someone will read it later, just as if you were speaking it then. Reading text brings the writer up to date for you. 3 You can write interesting scripts that make objects and avatars do things. Interesting scripts are invisible literature; they're under the hood of the virtual world, and you sense them only by what they make things do. 4 Scripts are performative language, they carry out things, transform bits and bites into the visible. You never see the skeleton of the virtual world, you never read its literature, only its affect, its effect. 5 Objects may have signs above or below them, objects may be inscribed with writing, and with writing, you can create narratives and literature out of objects. 6 Almost everything in the virtual and real world is always inscribed, and even in physical reality, there are no "natural" organisms that are not tended, are unintended, are not tended to. 7 In a virtual world, everything is inscribed and of the ontology of inscription. In a physical world, the real is inert, obdurate. In a physical world, organisms are inscribed, cultured, acculturated, all the way down. 8 Every organism is a literature. _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
