Nudibranch: To conceptualize 'virtual reality,' "Multimedia" - integration, interactivity, hypermedia, immersion, new forms of narrativity

Harbin ethnography:

... In many ways, without spoken and written language, the possibility to interpret, ethnographically, the virtual, vis-a-vis actual and virtual Harbin doesn't occur.



To conceptualize 'virtual reality' in terms of world wide web representations, I suggest that what's unique about multimedia are the following five characteristics: integration, interactivity, hypermedia, immersion, new forms of narrativity (Packer and Jordan 2000).

Integration refers to “the combining of artistic forms and technology into a hybrid form of expression” (Packer and Jordan 2001: xxx). Second Life makes possible an ongoing integration of media elements in unique ways. For example, a programmer might write scripts in Second Life which bring together the drag and drop programming language Scratch, made by MIT's Lifelong Kindergarten Group in the Media Lab, with new ways of doing things in this Second Life virtual world environment. Second life and Open Simulator are thus designed on the principle of integrating new media elements leading to ongoing hybrid forms of expression. In this actual / virtual Harbin ethnography, comparative field work focusing on relationship between doing unique things, for example, in the warm pool at actual Harbin Hot Springs, and integrating media elements in virtual Harbin in Second Life becomes possible. As an open platform, virtual Harbin is open to further exploration of integrating media elements by avatar-builders, both artistically and technically, - ethnographically. {Similarly, in this actual / virtual Harbin ethnography, comparative field work focusing on relationship between soaking, for example, in the warm pool at actual Harbin Hot Springs and these specific virtual effects, and soaking in one's own home bathtub while visiting virtual Harbin in Second Life becomes possible. When warm water becomes a media element integrated with its effects on bodyminds in conjunction with visiting virtual Harbin, we can begin to interpret new aspects of integration of media elements}. Virtual worlds such as virtual Harbin, influenced, and inspired, by, actual life come to extend the parameters of artistic and technological combining of media elements.





(Interactivity refers to “the ability of the user to manipulate and affect [his and] her experience of media directly, and to communicate with others through media” (Packer and Jordan 2001: xxx). Using this aspect of this characterization of virtual reality, Second Life, and Open Simulator which borrows from the same library of assets, make possible novel forms of interactivity, e.g. building from 'prims' including wavy, water-like and fluid forms from scripts, as well as voice chat and type chat, and avatar gestural interactivity...

Hypermedia refers to “the linking of separate media elements to one another to create a trail of personal association” (Packer and Jordan 2001: xxx). In Second Life, the act of building accentuates this process in unique ways. The sheer number of avatar builders also informs a scale of building that both leads to trails of personal association, but also affects all of the Second Life, and Open Simulator, environments as fascinating group associations...

Immersion refers to “the experience of entering into the simulation of a three-dimensional environment” (Packer and Jordan 2001: xxxi). Second Life is technically a 3-D environment in 2-D. Immersion, in Packer and Jordan's analysis usually refers to the 'gloves' and 'hats' that let one experience media in 'virtual reality,' but both Second Life and Open Simulator are both very immersive from an avatar's perspective...

Narrativity refers to “aesthetic and formal strategies that derive from the above concepts, and which result in nonlinear story forms and media presentation” (Packer and Jordan 2001: xxxi). Multiple new kinds of narrativity emerge in Second Life influenced by the ability to make anything one conceives of out of virtual geometric shapes, thus reshaping possibilities for nonlinear story forms and media presentations... )


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This is from p. 22 of my, since published, "Naked Harbin Ethnography."

MacLeod, Scott. 2016. Naked Harbin Ethnography: Hippies, Warm Pools, Counterculture, Clothing-Optionality & Virtual Harbin. Berkeley, CA: Academic Press at World University and School.



~ http://tinyurl.com/p62rpcg ~ https://twitter.com/HarbinBook ~ http://bit.ly/HarbinBook  ~


Scott MacLeod's
Naked Harbin Ethnography:                
Hippies, Warm Pools, Counterculture, Clothing-Optionality & Virtual Harbin
by Scott MacLeod
sgkmacleod@worlduniversityandschool.org
Foreword by Nelson H.H. Graburn
UC Berkeley Professor Emeritus of Sociocultural Anthropology
http://www.scottmacleod.com/ActualVirtualHarbinBook.html
Academic Press at World University and School
http://worlduniversityandschool.org/AcademicPress.html

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudibranch

(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/05/nudibranch-to-conceptualize-virtual.html - May 25, 2010)