Papers

Reading the Body: Interpreting Three Dimensional Media as Narrative

The papers collected in this volume document the exchange and development of ideas that comprised the 5th Global Conference on Visions of Humanity in Cyberculture, Cyberspace, and Science Fiction, hosted at Mansfield College, Oxford, United Kingdom, in July 2010. As in the past, the conference was driven by questions related to how cyberculture, cyberspace and science fiction can provide new insights into the nature of what it is to be human and the understanding of what it means for human beings to live in communities.

This chapter argues that virtual online worlds are sites for the realization of narrative, in a form of reading that is posthuman and performative. The in-world avatar is the embodiment of an interpreting agent in the virtual world. Such devices accomplish a number of functions in terms of narrative realisation. The avatar contributes to the realisation of narrative through the navigation of the spatial attributes, the setting up of perspective in terms of Point of View (POV) in the reading, and as a character agent in the narrative architecture of the virtual world.
Such characteristics are in the cybernetic relationship between the virtual world as a text, and the responses that can be made to it in reception. Architecture becomes the grammar of reading in the virtual world, with design and code, copyright and address directing narrative. The body of the avatar and the body of the person operating it are joined across the spaces of the digital and the physical in the navigation of the virtual three-dimensional. 

Virtual Worlds, Narrative, Virtual Navigation, Avatars, and Reading
View on interdisciplinarypress.net

Learning Places: A Case Study of Collaborative Pedagogy Using Online Virtual Worlds

Co-authored with Stefan Gelfgren, Published in Multi-User Virtual Environments for the Classroom: Practical Approaches to Teaching in Virtual Worlds, Giovanni Vincenti & James Braman (Eds), IGI Global 31-46, 2011.

The chapter, based on a set of developed teaching scenarios, discusses how virtual worlds, in particular Second Life, can be used in student centered pedagogy; intertwining theory and practice, emphasizing process-thinking, critical perspectives, and strengthen the confidence and independence of the student. Drawing upon experiences from traditional education, Web 2.0-tools, and problem based pedagogy grounded in project work, social media, engineering, and digital humanities, this chapter presents a pedagogy based upon the concepts of participatory culture, and co-creation on the part of students in the learning process. The authors have been involved in developing the core curriculum for a term-long (four month) course for Museum Studies. A problem based, student centered pedagogy is both integrated and contrasted with traditional classroom settings, that are also part of the planning, implementation, and assessment stages of the course. Based upon the practical experience of conducting this course, the article critically discusses ICT and problem oriented learning on a general level – including the benefits and disadvantages for the student and for the teachers. How this approach to learning, from the experiences in virtual worlds, can fit in to the established structure of learning goals, lectures, examination, and assessment is questioned in the chapter, based on the experiences gathered from teaching the course.

Virtual Worlds, Digital Humanities, Experimental Pedegogy, HUMlab, Teaching, Simulative Learning

Spacing Creation: The HUMlab Second Life Project

Published with co-author Stefan Gelfgren in Learning and Teaching in the Virtual World of Second Life, Tapir Academic Press, 2009.

This chapter is both a summary and a glimpse of the future regarding the twelve months of activity in Second Life by the digital humanities lab and studio HUMlab at Umeå University. Art and cooperation have been the emphasis in the early stages of the HUMlab Second Life project. In the few months prior to the authoring of this chapter things began to move quite rapidly for HUMlab in Second Life with numerous projects emerging in relation to the large HUMlab Island. Through a constructivist pedagogical model, and lots of trial and error many lessons have been learned by all involved. Some of the more interesting learning experiences are related in this chapter.

Virtual Worlds, Digital Humanities, Experimental Pedegogy, HUMlab, Teaching, Simulative Learning
View on butikk.tapirforlag.no

En görandets humaniora: skapande i virtuella världar som pedagogiskt verktyg

Published with Stefan Gelfgren in Undervisning på tvären : student- och lärarerfarenheter: den nionde universitetspedagogiska konferensen 25-26 februari 2009 Skriftserie från universitetspedagogiskt centrum, ISSN 1651-5692; 2010:1

This paper discusses the possibilities for the creative use of virtual worlds as tools for learning. Initially it describes the starting points and motivations for this work. It goes on to report the experience of a course in which students in the museum studies program created exhibits in the virtual three-dimensional world of Second Life. The purpose was primarily to provide the students with competence in digital visualization and presentation techniques, but also to give them the tools to combine theoretical perspectives with practical work, and thereby stimulate creative thinking and practice. The experience shows that students, above the intial goals, also gained insight into themselves through community processes, group dynamics, the individual's own role in a working group, in relation to language processing, and the laws of copyright.

Virtual Worlds, Learning, Pedagogy, Pedogical Tools
View on upc.umu.se

Narratives of Creation and Space: Pilgrimage, Aboriginal and Digital

Published in Akadamia Sztuk Pieknych, Warsaw, Poland.

I would like to approach digital media via brief examinations of spatial and narrative discourse networks not often associated with the digital. This approach is meant to suggest that digital media is a product and a producer of a dynamic realignment of cultural assumptions globally, such as what is considered to be 'narrative'. The cultural fields I discuss in relation to digital media are the performance of pilgrimage and some of the story telling systems of the Australian Aboriginal nations. In relation to pilgrimage the 9th century Buddhist stupa of Borobudur on the Indonesian island of Java is examined as an example of a spatial hypermediation that immerses the pilgrim in a story manifest through interactions. The Aboriginal story systems examined move across media forms (spoken word, song, body paint, sculpture, bark painting) to present a participatory narrative grounded in culturally specific understandings of space and place.

My use of the term 'digital' refers to media systems that rely on digital technologies. The major features of digital technologies relevant here are the effectiveness of the technology at constructing spatial relations in representations and the demand of the direct participation of the users as co-creators of what is represented.

Digital, Narrative, Spatial, Story Telling

Rhetoric of the Holy in the Online Virtual Environment of Second Life

Published in Working Papers in Teacher Education, ISSN ISBN 978-91-978323-1-11

This paper discusses three examples of rhetorical holiness from the online virtual world of Second Life. The rhetorical holiness is compared to the representation of beliefs and practices in physical settings. By examining representation of the holy in Second Life it is possible to discuss the shift from older to new media forms in established and therefore comparative contexts. How these movements reflect and affect practices and beliefs is argued as highlighting networks of power and meaning.

Virtual Worlds, Avatars, Second Life, Religion, 3D Narrative
View on use.umu.se
 

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