The Avatar as a New Literacy

Slide 1: The Avatar as a New Literacy Dr Angela Thomas | Anya Ixchel

Slide 2: What Counts as Literacy? Living Texts of the Body and Image • An expansive definition of literacy incorporating visual texts : – photographs – moving images – maps – digital game worlds – representations of the body (raced, gendered, lifestlyed) – body art – avatars • How might avatars be ‘read’ institutionally in ways that grant or deny access to particular forms of communication over others.

Slide 4: Theories about The Body as Text • “there is no outside the text” (Derrida) • Corporeal semantics: the body as a text • How do we interpret and construct the body as a text? • We communicate through a textual and corporeal dialogism (Vicki Kirby)

Slide 6: Communicating the Self: identities / bodies / texts Three Key Concepts: 1. We perform our identities 2. People come to know us through repeated performances (“performativity”) 3. We perform through both text and body … performance grounded in its theatrical senses…may need to be brought together with performativity in trying to deal with the complex ways in which bodies and texts fold into one another, crafting and shaping the materiality of texts and of bodies. (Threadgold, 2003: 30) … the body is “a point of overlapping between the physical, the symbolic, and the sociological”. Braidotti (1994: 4)

Slide 8: The Avatar: Desire, pleasure and the conventions of cultural production and reception • Second Life avatar practices reflect a lot of stereotypes of Western beauty • A new body culture – idealised selves • It has its own set of conventions, norms and values which are part of the predictable pleasures its citizens have come to expect. – Enhancement of Self – Fantasy – Glamour – Playfulness

Slide 9: Attitude of many female SL residents about the fashioning of their avatars neatly exemplifies post-modernist feminist thinking within contemporary academic discussions of fashion ‘dressing up equals fun, and fun equals empowerment’ (König, 2004: 140)

Slide 10: “As a spectator I am entertained by my own performance” “Becoming a character in a story is the ultimate narrative experience” (Marie-Laure Ryan)

Slide 12: Semiotic and Psychoanalytic Analysis of Avatars • “The avatar is a direct telephone line to the soul” • Describe the semiotic resources you deliberately inscribed into your avatar and how you think they construct a sense of “self” you want to project to others • Explain why you made these choices from a psychoanalytic perspective

Slide 14: • “I made Julia tall, thin and reasonably well proportioned… enhancements which deviate from my own likeness, creating a more hybrid visual appearance as I wrestle with emotions about body image as a post-pregnant mother” • Symbolic representations of my personality: ethereal, romantic, whimsical: Botticelli’s Venus-like braids and a goddess gown in shades of cream and peach • Yet the “bling” in my necklace is reflective of a more contemporary edge to my personality as a confident modern women • I have faced sadness and grief in my life recently so in my animations I deliberately avert my gaze from others – I spend a lot of time on my own in spaces which reflect nature as I deal with this grief – my offline emotions translated into my avatar and in how I relate (or not) to others in SL

Slide 16: • My avatar predominantly reflects my inner self and therefore has high modality to me • The outer layer of my real body does not represent myself as much as my avatar does – my avatar has a personality, and is real, and it is me, the real me • The most salient aspect of my avatar for me is my black glasses, a symbolic attribute of intellect, and combined with her smart clothes, gives me a sophisticated look • Yet underneath, my shoes bling and give off particle effects, reflecting an inner sense of fun which I think best defines me • My close friend and colleague thinks that since starting this course and spending time as Denver (my avatar), I have “blossomed” offline. My entire identity has changed – my perceptions about who I am, the way I think and interact, and the way I see the world now - has changed as a consequence of the journey Angela has encouraged us to take

Slide 18: Progressive Stages of the Avatar? • Ego: free: me me me – it’s a game, not to be taken seriously • Original choice: realistic or fantasy? • Refining: aestheticisation and enhancement of the self • Accountability: Developing friendships, doing business, teaching your students, being interviewed on TV standing next to your avatar!

Slide 20: My Research with Young People • Accountable to the storylines of their fan fiction, carefully giving themselves weaknesses, scars and ugliness • “Mary-Sue”: a derogatory term for a stereotypical character • We are still constructed discursively by the roles we have been socialised in or the fictions that shape us

Slide 22: Self-censoring, justifications, guilty pleasures, alts “I am a real life male” •I suddenly found myself hanging out and socialising with people that were becoming friends, but did not really know much about me. Most disturbingly, I now had friends that had only ever seen me as a female and I am worried about them finding out I am a 34yo father of 2. •Above my worries about disappointing a friend, was a curiosity about how I managed to get into this situation and what it reflected about me, and about online identity in general •Is there a point in the development of the online relationship then, where it is necessary to be honest about the real you? •This suggested to me that there was a time when I should have told them the truth, and that I had missed it. Are my concerns naiveté? Is this the new reality that is secondlife? Or have I been Machiavellian, and must now deal with an awkward situation? Captain Goodfellow

Slide 24: Reader Responses to the Avatar • “When I first saw Seven I was scared. Her hair was purple, and she stood with her hands on her hips, staring at me. She had a studded collar around her neck and a tattoo on her left arm. My heart started beating fast and all I could see was the giant red word SLUT emblazoned on her t-shirt. I was shocked. These were markers of identity that were not to my liking. Why anybody would choose to advertise such a thing is beyond me” • “When Angela turned into her “granny” av and started moving around and speaking in her granny voice, I suddenly felt embarrassed at my skimpy attire. I also felt an urge to run over to her and try to help her move better”

Slide 26: Avatars and Power • Relations of power are indeed made and re-made within texts of enjoyment and rituals of relaxation and abandonment. • A new ‘ethics of freedom’: freedom of choice, but how free are we? • We have the power to disrupt conventions and marginalisation with our avatars • Young people are doing it – girls becoming Jedi Knights and disrupting traditional gender roles • Are older people are a bit too entrenched? It depends on the persona they want to project: strategically motivated!

Slide 27: The Infamous Swirly Cyclone

Slide 28: Interrogating the Avatar: Issues of Equality and Social Justice • For whom are literacies of the body and image “alive” or accessible? • Whom do such literacies serve? • How do literacies of the body and image interrupt or reproduced social inequities?