Tonight at the opening reception of Playing Roles, a participant asked me if I knew what has become of Gary Allan Fine, the sociologist who wrote the seminal book (to rolepaying researchers) Shared Fantasy. According to Google, he is currently a professor of sociology at Northwestern University, on leave, but before that engaged in the study of (amongst a lot of other things, his book production rate leaves me completely in awe) - the reputation of Adolf Hitler...He seems to have left rp-game studies completely?
# posted by Lisbeth at: 22:10 (1) comments

Oh, look, a nice categorisedList of fictional universes at Wikipedia. A little treasure for my worldness research.
# posted by Lisbeth at: 21:18 (0) comments

Tomorrow Im off for the Playing Roles seminar in Finland. My role is to the expert commentator (intimidating - to be an expert..), so basically I get to think about and comment on a lot of great papers, without having to present anything, a fine role to be cast in.

Im basically busy with a lot of work-related and not so related stuff at the moment, hence the low posting frequency, days seem packed from early morning to late evening. I cant remember the last time when I so looked forward to the easter holidays...!
# posted by Lisbeth at: 20:17 (0) comments

Rune is visiting the Center for Games Research today, and I got the impression he would almost feel

neglected if someone didnt liveblog his talk in the good style of all the blogging Scandinavians ;).

So, as the wireless in Auditorium 2 works, here goes:

Rune Klevjer on The Role of the Avatar.
Rune is presenting some of his ph.d. work. A framework for analysis.
He is doing research on single-player games, containing the avatarial camera (the navigable camera representing the avatar's pov). What is the speciality of this kind of game interface?
- compared to other comp games
- compared to mimetic games with avatar relations (lego) and board games (monopoly)
- compared to films
- VR industrial and art

Also related to a more general poetics of fiction and simulation, and embodiment from a phenomenological perspective

The principle of the avatar
Avatar is a principle of mimetic play...
Note on the environment of play:
computer-simulated environments integrate the rules of play, the computer takes us from the rules of the realm of instructions to the realm of regularities, the emphasis on the objects we play with is strengthened, we think of them as specific things, not just tokens, and we interact with them as such
cybernetic realism: the set-up of the mediated computer environment as if we could "really" interact with the world and the objects in it, in an unmediated way (in boardgames, "we" are the simulators, whereas in games, the machine simulates for us, we dont have to relate to the instructions as all).

Virtual embodiment
Mediates agency in real time (and the camera can only go where the body goes, follows its movements)
Mediates subjectivity (who is acting here, mediates your acting self, you cannot break the rules, but have to follow the system's requirements for, for instance, "realistic" movement in space)
avatar both inhabits the enviroment and exposed to the environment (i.e. threat of also being ejected from the enviroment, as is in avatar death), it matters what happens to it (compared to what happens to an instrumental tool)
He shows clips from an experimental game where avatar movement is a bit "fucked up" (they "skate" around on the floors), we immediately focus on this "shrewd" form of movement rather than the "message" of the game, because avatar embodiment means so much to us.

The avatarial camera
A historical development from frame to motion simulator
Camera basic mediator of perception and action (more than traditional camera experience)
Loosing the miniature/microworld - towards a new imperative of realism?

(writers on this perspective: Erkki Huhtamo, Martti Lahti, David Bordwell, CHaim Gingold, David Sudnow)

The imperative of believable embodiment
the imperative of concretisation (not a physical realism, but solidity f.i.)
the integrity of the gameworld (player needs to feel that the world is in charge)
Cinematic realism is about increasing the realism of the matemathical principle of the avatars movement (a very well-behaved ragdoll!)

The nunchacu setup
Avatarial camera (subjective avatar)
Avatarial object (objective avatar)

Avatarial humanoid (link to the storyworld)
Avatarial camera: cinematic embodiment (plane projection, fictional screen, machinic embodiment)

Avatarial integrity is relative
full control of camera = full control of body

If you want dramatic approach to experience, you cant have disembodied camera (no release), cutscenes disallows a space of negotiation (also of bodily movement??)

Now he is talking more specifically about the FPS, but laptop low on battery so will post now.
Lots of interesting food for thought here, it is nice to see how much he also works with the concept of world. Im wondering whether he has thought more about the type of embodiment in relation to our identification with the avatar?
# posted by Lisbeth at: 17:20 (0) comments

Update 25.03: Here was my slides from my guest lecture in Århus today. They were online for a week, but since what Im presenting is very much work in progress, they have been withdrawn.

After having talked, thought, and this week also having written, intensely about death in online worlds for a while, a lot of things are starting to fall into place -and everytime I give a talk, people/players in the audience give new input, feedback and suggestions which gives new perspectives to the work. It's really inspiring - so thanks to the Århus crowd (those of you who read this) for being a great audience!

Some quick notes:
Update 25.03: Today I learned that there is apparently "contract killer" guilds in WoW that you can hire to have somebody killed. Need to check that out (it is apparently only a rumour, but great story). And someone pointed out that (with WoW as example) "death" can also be punishment, as when players hunt other players all over the world to kill them. Have to see if I can find any players writing about that.
- And there is the concept of "corpse camping" to kill people on site when they respawn, that I havent looked into at all, but which still takes place, at least in some of the "old" worlds.
- Someone asked if you can beg for mercy and for not to be killed, when in pvp fight in WoW etc (apparently in WoW you do automatically fall to your knees just before you're killed, I just never noticed); it is only when duelling actually, and someone else asked, if it is in some way possible to die "with dignity". I guess not, if you're looking at what options the gamesystem provides, but I guess there must be some "last deaths" of players quitting the game outthere, that could count for that last dignified death? Have to look into that too.
# posted by Lisbeth at: 23:21 (1) comments

I thought that the internal course and teacher evaluation at ITU is tough enough as it is. Well, I just came across MeinProf.de, an apparently nation-wide German site where university students can rate their teachers ("professors") as a guide for other students. In the right side menu, you can see the current "Top-professors" with the highest ratings in average. From the point of view of students, a brilliant idea. From the point of vies of a socalled "professor", just a wee bit intimidating...
# posted by Lisbeth at: 15:14 (1) comments

As we say in Danish, I'm deadtired (dødtræt). Been writing about death in online worlds for almost 24 hours on/off (got a few hours of sleep, and attended a couple of meetings in between). Finally had enough in writing to submit for conference. It is nice to have some of all my thoughts on this subject in writing.

Will sleep now. Then tomorrow, a bit more "death studies" as preperation for my guest lecture on...death..in Århus on Friday. But then Im done with the subject for this term ;), at least in public!
# posted by Lisbeth at: 22:33 (1) comments

I just got a mail from an online gadget shop, telling me to check out their Communicative Rabbit on sale. It turns out that Nabaztag is a rabbit living off your wifi, and through that informs you of incoming emails, sms', mp3s, weather reports and what have we. It has multiple colours to shift between (so you can set it up to glow pink when your boss sends you emails?!), and it can wriggle its ears, following the movements of another rabbit being manipulated elsewhere, if they are hooked up. It speaks with different voices, on the website you can type in natural language sentences in French or English and check them out. And believe me, you can make the rabbit say anything ;).

What I always knew, I never needed. But if you know of any who has bought and tested Nabaztag, I'd love to hear about it...
# posted by Lisbeth at: 18:40 (1) comments

Distantsun.blogspot.com was previously owned by a Danish blogger (that I still read elsewhere). The site has been taken over by someone else, who has only posted one post. Nevertheless, this post (announcing that the site will be used as a photoblog) has 42 comments, that of course intrigued me. Looking at them, it seems like most are more or less clumsy attempts of sneaking in a link to a commercial product. Since I never get this kind of spam myself, I didnt really know they existed and in this case, the "flattering you and oh, by the way, I'll throw in a link to my website" comments are quite fun, because they are praising this blog, which in reality doesnt exist. Well, perhaps it is because it is friday, I find the subtle irony of this funny! Distant Sun Comment Spam Ironies
# posted by Lisbeth at: 10:08 (0) comments

What happens when blogs turn into books? Well, now it seems that the blog authors turned print authors can participate in a "literary competition". Here goes: BBC on the Blooker Price
# posted by Lisbeth at: 23:01 (0) comments

Me and the rest of ITU's then research management plus members of ITU's foresight panel, summer 2005.
# posted by Lisbeth at: 17:53 (2) comments

Danah Boyd and Judith Donath: Public Displays of Connection">. It's been around for a little while, sadly I didnt come across it before today. Im trying to catch up on the entire social network, social ties, social capital thing in relation to blogs, viral marketing and other net phenomena that fuse branding and networking and I am currently collecting articles on the subject.

And re: mentioned paper and connections: Christian Yde Frostholm, Danish Poet who also succesfully does electronic literature, has started a blog, and he has several nice links to other writers blogging.

For more recent blog finds, see post of March 5 which were by mistake draftet until today.
# posted by Lisbeth at: 10:59 (0) comments

Via online culture mag Søndag Aften, a current example of a very elaborate viral marketing "scam": The Pherotones "research" website: Pherotones. [hormon inducing ring tones, in case you wondered]. For some reason the misunderstood "researcher" fighting public outrage heading this project is a female redhead always dressed in a sexy (?) white uniform (I cant help but ask: is this what (a) man's imagined dream of a female researhcer really looks like???).

Oh, and she even has a blog and according to that, she is supposedly Danish!
# posted by Lisbeth at: 19:51 (1) comments

The Danish Board of Patents is blogging: Første danske styrelse med weblog

Arken, one of our most prominent museums for Modern Art is blogging too (a digression: brugervenlige blogs lists this blog as a "corporate" blog, that's stretching the corporate concept too far, IMHO. I know it's all about branding, but that's a question of the intention of the weblog (most weblogs are about branding at the end of the day), and not related to the identity of the sender. To me, a corporate weblog denotes "a blog written by a corporate company"), i.e. it says something about the identity of the sender, or the category of "institution" the sender falls into.)

Brugervenlige blogs,[user friendly blogs] a course and research project blog.

CVU in Sønderjylland (Southern Jutland) has a nice little co-operative blog about technologies of relevance to teaching. In Danish. CVU is a center for continuing education, several of them all over Denmark.
# posted by Lisbeth at: 15:24 (0) comments