Posters, Videos and Other News
First off, I want to thank everyone for “liking” my first post. Such a show of support is not only encouraging for a “newbie” like me, but also proves my thesis that a sense of community and in turn, emotional attachment to a community (whether virtual or actual) is a huge motivator for retention.
Since posting my last entry, I’ve been raking my feeble mind as to how to present my research on this blog and how to involve you as not only participants but “co-researchers.” With that said, I figured that I should have you chime in. Ultimately, I need to give you more background as to what exactly I’m doing and hoping to achieve. Vaneeesa suggested that I post parts of my dissertation (my preliminary work – mostly literature review) on the blog in a serial-type fashion. I’m not sure if such blatant academic jargon would be of interest to anyone, so let me know if you have any ideas as to how I should present my research/thoughts. Of course, what I have so far is only “part 1” of the story – aka MY side of the story. “Part 2” is YOUR side of the story – this is where your participation, feedback, input, etc. will come into play.
You will see that I am using a Gadamerian approach to hermeneutic phenomenology where I use both my preexisting thoughts and feelings about how virtual art is experienced as well as those of others. Ultimately, I concede that even with total transparency, I am still, as a third party, interpreting your experience of virtual art – in other words, I cannot experience it as you do since I do not have the same background, values, culture, etc. as you. The resulting work will be your experiences re-interpreted, to some extent, by my own experiences, prejudices, etc. What is so crucial about having a “community” of researchers at this point is for you guys to draw attention to these inherent prejudices in my work and ultimately, to make me see through your eyes, beyond my limited horizon as an academician.
To start things of, here is a poster I did at the beginning of this year. It gives a nice overview of what I am doing and where I am going with it. You can also check out this video of my presentation. My session starts at 3:53.
Kathleen
experience
Kathleen, maybe one way to start would just be to give us a really general overview of your thoughts…
When you say “museum learning”… do you mean like learning works and cultural contexts of peeps like Pollock and Titian etc… or Turreaud and Roffo etc…
Or do you mean a more general sort of culture / aesthetic acclimatization? IDK if places like WoW have “museums” per se, but no doubt by experiencing the functional and aesthetics of the interface, the venues within the world, etc do impart both a cultural and aesthetic substrate that might reasonably be imagined to permeate the understanding other aspects of work and play.
So maybe a few words about what you think is going on… or what you’re trying to understand… or dig at…
Excellent starting point, Vaneeesa! I am definitely not interested in your first definition of “museum learning.” I define “museum” and in turn, “art museum” in a much broader terms that extent to works that are presented within clearly defined spaces dubbed “galleries” and/or “museums” as well as sims which I affectionately refer to as virtual “Gesamtkunstwerk”. “A Rusted Development” curated by Rowan Derryth is, in my opinion, a perfect example of such works. There are also happenings (to use Kaprow’s terminology) within SL, including your work, that often, if not always, “happen” outside the walls of a museum – and why not, when virtual worlds are in the etymological sense of the word, the only “true” museums. So basically, in a world where anything can happen and everyone can be an artist, how are these experiences interpreted by not only us as human beings with emotional roots in RL, but also as avatars? How does this trifecta of the virtual body, the “meat” body, and the mind affect, if at all, how art in SL is interpreted? How do our emotional connections to art in SL bleed into RL and vice-versa? I’ve noticed, for example, that when I see a work that truly affects me in SL, I will dream about it in RL as my avatar. Ironically, the first time this happened to me was after experiencing Blue Tsuki’s “to Sleep, Perchance…” Pretty freaky huh?!
Whoa! Yes freaky!
You know, I’m not sure that I ever have dreamed as Vaneeesa. haha, well that could be related to how rarely I sleep, but anyway, that IS interesting!
Amazing ideas Kathleen, excited to have more discussion on them.
I know you need focus and data for your thesis. Where are you with that btw? Have you already done a lot of interviews? Or just getting started?
BTW, I volunteer for any time you like, of course. Do you do them in-world? Or another way?
if you copy this and paste it in SL you’ll get the Digital Cultures group and you can click “Join”
secondlife:///app/group/483b1646-1fcb-4d86-10ae-32414cc73c0b/about
AWESOME! Thanks so much, Vaneeesa. I’ll be sure to check it out.
I’ll take you up on that offer anytime, Vaneeesa. Like I said before, I am open to doing interviews (or anything else) outside of SL pending approval of my committee and ethical review board. While I have started doing in-world interviews, I need much more data and volunteers .
So let’s do your “standard” interview — you pick the day / time, summer is fairly flex for me. That way you’ll have one more data point and I’ll have a better sense of how the project’s going.
Kathleen, I’m wondering if these interviews could be published here? Off the top of my head, 2 problems would be
1a. Does it violate interviewee privacy?
1b. Does it violate your IRB Approval?
An interviewee could grant you permission, but then
2a. Are they less candid because they know it’s being published?
2b. Are they more grandiose because they know it’s being published?
These are real issues and to get the “best” dissertation data, to have the cleanest, most defensible methodology, you’d just squirrel all your data collecting away and crunch it for a year or two and then cough up your opus…
But I wonder if the process can be more interactive, participatory, transparent… probably a lot easier to say than to get your committee to go along with, but at least an idea worth considering in our crowdsourced age.
If we really do believe in the “wisdom of the crowd” then is the old model of the solitary researcher locked in the ivory tower obsolete? Must the researcher come down to the messiness of the city and do their work in public?