Aisling in Unreal Life

Not being a gaming or role-playing person, I approached "Second Life" with my real life eyes rolling far back in my head. Soon my virtual anime eyes will roll at my judgmental attitude because I have decided that "Second Life" (abbreviated SL from here on) rocks!

I don't have anything against gaming or role-playing. It's just that being a full-time student, working two jobs, writing for an online magazine, and trying to maintain some semblance of a life takes up a so much of my time that I don't really have much time to waste. I came into SL thinking it was a monumental waste of time. I had planned to get in, find out what needed to be done, complete my assignment and never return to virtual reality.

However, SL is extremely seductive. Not only is it an amazing place for creatives to go, I've found it has practical applications in what SL terms "1st Life". For example, the magazine for which I write has a chat feature built in. Big deal, right? Every one has a chat group. However, in the next couple of weeks, the members of my site will find themselves sitting in chairs chatting with one another’s avatars. It adds a whole new dimension to the chat experience.

This brings up another interesting point about SL. While reading "Convergence Culture" in class we talked about how technology can be de-humanizing--how people will often shoot things off in an email that they would never consider saying to a person on the telephone, much less in face-to-face conversation. This occurs largely because of the anonymity of email, chat rooms, and/or e-groups. While there is still anonymity in SL, there is a person, even if it's only a virtual person sitting across from you. There are also rules of conduct in SL just as there are rules of conduct in 1st Life. Violation of these rules can result in the loss of one’s SL account. Chat rooms also have rules, however, the main difference is that if one is banned from a chat room it is fairly simple to log in as another user whereas if one is banned in SL one loses all that one has worked on—avatar, house, land, etc. It isn’t as simple as simply logging on again. All of this to me re-humanizes the technological experience.

I took this photo at the office of Peace Potential, a group started by “Duality Kincess.”

Speaking of avatars, meet Duality Kincess.

When we spoke, Duality was dressed as a vampiress. Duality teaches scripting and building classes in SL. Although she stated she was not normally dressed so otherworldly, the classes have themes for which she attempts to dress. When she teaches her class later on, she will arrive as a bat before changing into vampire.


I asked Duality about her avatar—how it compares to hear 1st Life body, etc. and what she hopes to achieve with it.

She stated that she wasn’t really trying to accomplish much with her avatar other than just being herself. She said that her avatar is as close in appearance as she can get to her 1st life body. “Well, as close as I can get to myself after having a Nip/Tuck experience. Lol.” She joked that she had undergone the SL equivalent of such an experience having bought her a new ‘skin’ and new hair. Skins to the uninitiated are forms that can be purchased in a variety of colors, ethnicities, shapes, and appearances. Some skins are extremely graphic rather than the Ken and Barbie versions supplied by SL.

I asked about the office in which were meeting. Who owns it? Who designed it? How much did it cost?

Duality told me that the office was donated by Non-Profit Commons, a group that donates space to non-profit organizations for the purpose of setting up office space. She said that there are 33 offices in the building in which we were meeting. She designed the space herself as all users do. Non-Profit Commons provides the space; the tenants provide the scripts.

Peace Potential is an experiment to see if virtual reality can be used to better real reality. The idea is to invite people of various religious backgrounds to sit, talk, and learn from one another. The hope is that the tolerance learned in SL will translate to tolerance in 1st Life.

Duality didn’t have much to say about my avatar other than getting her some new hair. Since I’m obsessed with my hair in 1st Life I was very agreeable to this suggestion and found some nice red locks for only $L5 which translates to about $.05USD which is considerably less than I spend shopping on eBay.

See? Yet another use for SL. LoL.

Digital Storytelling

Digital storytelling...just what the heck is it? Before taking Dr. Lucas's class I have to say I honestly had no idea what it was. Not only did I not know what digital storytelling was I had no experience working with the Macintosh computers that made digital storytelling possible. I had always heard that Macs were far superior to PCs and definitely better suited to those with a creative temperament. However, since I have always considered my creativity limited to the writing world I never saw any reason to make the switch.

Enter my class, "Technology and the Creative Artist", a class designed to introduce creatives to new and varied ways of creating using technology that not that long ago would have cost thousands of dollars to get our hands on. This class has introduced me not only to new technology, but new ways that even people like me--people who are first and foremost storytellers--can find original ways of telling their stories.

Digital storytelling is one such way. For those of you who don't understand digital storytelling, it is basically a story, with a narrative, told in digital photographs or digital video. Macintosh's iLife software suite contains everything you need to produce a story you can be proud on your first try. GarageBand has hundreds of musical loops that you can mix to create an original score for your story, with little to no musical training required. iMovie allows you to create your digital story by arranging your photos, adding effects such as panning in and out of the image, and creating smooth transitions with fade ins and fade outs. You are in essence, creating a little movie--one in which you are writer, director, and producer. Once you have created your film you can save it, burn it to a DVD, or you can share it publicly on YouTube.

For my part, the experience was so much fun I actually bought a Mac. Let me say it here: what you've heard is true. These machines are unbelievably superior to PCs, even for people like me who are predominantly writers. In fact, it has been my experience that writing a good script is the foundation for creating a good digital story. I don't know why I'm surprised; the movies I enjoy are always ones, which are well written. As previously stated, a digital story is much like a mini-movie, so it's narrative is of primary importance.

The form the narrative takes however can be quite varied. This is something else I learned from my digital storytelling experience. One person in particular had a story that had an unconventional narrative--no words, only images along with a particularly apt song accompanying those images. Watching stories told in such a manner opened my eyes to ways in which I too, can tell stories in different, creative ways.

But is telling a story in a different, creative way really a requirement? Does it help the story? Is it necessary to supply images along with a narrative?

These questions are questions that are covered, in a way, in Andrew Glassner's book, Interactive Storytelling. While Glassner's book looks at the art of telling stories in a gaming venue, he does ask pertinent questions about the incorporation of new media into the art of storytelling. Basically, Glassner states that just adding in media for the sake of adding in media is not really a reason for doing it. What is important, in Glassner's view, is that the media add something to the story. For example, in chapter eight Glassner discusses the arguments that "adding computers doesn't help a thing" (pg. 220) and "interaction doesn't improve stories"(pg. 221). The gist of these arguments is that the addition of computers makes a world less real, and/or the addition of interaction can actually detract from the story itself.

Glassner seems to imply that media should have a purpose, it should serve some necessary function, it should add something to the story rather than be placed in a story simply because it can be added. My experience with digital storytelling is that the media does serve a necessary function. The images, if well chosen, add depth to the story being told. Not only that, but if the story being told is one of a personal nature, the addition of personal images with a well-written, personal narrative adds a dimension that a simple script cannot match. The images open a door to your life, or the life of the story and actually give the author a little more control over the story by allowing the author to show the audience what s/he had in mind during the creation of the story rather than relying upon the imagination of the audience to figure it out.

Posting the story to YouTube also gives the story and the writer a wider audience. YouTube is a something I honestly never thought I would use as I have never seen myself as much of a photographer or filmmaker. However, as Jensen discusses in his book, Convergence Culture, the walls between different forms of media are collapsing, the boundaries becoming more permeable. YouTube is a perfect example of this convergence of media. Now, even people like me with little to no experience or training in the digital arts can produce a film, upload it, and tell her story. It truly is a brave, new world.

Digital storytelling, like all other stories, has its place. There are, of course, stories, which won't translate well to this format; however, there are stories that are perfect for it. It is up to the author to decide how best to tell her story and then use all the media at her disposal to do just that.