1. Virtual natalities: Creation and procreation play in video games – Lauren Cruikshank
Protagonist choices:
- preset avatars (Mario, Lara Croft)
- customizable avatars (Sims, Miis)
- Victor Wong (Magic Ketchup Blog): Mii creator is the killer app of the Wii
- YouTube video of Spore narrated by Robin Williams.
- procreation (Sims 2) Are babies possessions or do they grow up to be avatars in their own right? Whole slew of marriage/procreation/abortion issues surface here.
Lauren showed us a video of a birth in Second Life. [I love how all the other avatars are just standing around nonchalantly, including the cheerleaders and woman in cat ear suit, etc.]
In Sims 2, men can become pregnant by aliens.
Hannah Arendt‘s theory of nativity. What makes us human isn’t our mortality but our natality.
[Unfortunately, I had to leave before the next two people since I had to catch a bus to Seattle, but they sounded interesting so I’ll post their titles!]
2. Accelerating bodies: Heading for a politics of navigation – Jenny Sunden
3. Replaying the classics: The Internet’s role in creating hybrid scene in the videogame music remix community – Chris Clemens