Review: Gregory Ulmer’s “Avatar Emergency” (Don Rodriguez via DHQ Review)

computatiohumanitatis:

Posted January 16, 2013

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Below is a meditation on (rather than straight-up review of) Gregory Ulmer’s “Avatar Emergency,” an essay published in DQH. I’ve posted one such meditation in the past; please feel free to comment below!

Ulmer, Gregory L. “Avatar Emergency.” English and Media Studies, University of  Florida, Gainesville.

Ulmer’s essay engages Christian and Hindu mythology and cosmology to make etymological, theological, and ontological sense of the early 21st century emergence of the “avatar” in online communities. Ulmer posits that the “Avatar … is a practical point of entry for theorizing the emergence of the new identity experience of electracy, that is supplementing and displacing selfhood, the identity formation of literacy. Playing one’s avatar is to electracy what writing an essay is to literacy.”  Focusing on rhetorics of incarnation and embodiment suggested by the conflation of Vishnu and Krishna, and considering also the myth of Orpheus, Ulmer points out that the literal meaning of avatar in Sanskrit—“descent”—bears substantially upon the ways in which the body and personhood have been construed in Western cultures. More than merely suggesting the notion of identity projection through virtual communication (through avatars linked to email, MMORPG’s, or blogs), Ulmer points out that the avatar has accrued newly ontological status: when I present virtually with my avatar, there is a real sense in which “I,” and not some representation of me, is actually there, imbricated within and interpellated by that discursive system.

Read More

(Source: hastac.org)

Source and Questions

Bourgonjon, Jeroen, Kris Rutten, Ronald Soetaert, and Martin Valcke. “From Counter-Strike to Counter-Statement: Using Burke’s pentad as a Tool for Analysing Video Games.” Digital Creativity 22.2: (2011). 91-102.

http://www.academia.edu/1074357/From_Counter-Strike_to_Counter-Statement_using_Burkes_pentad_as_a_tool_for_analysing_video_games

The authors argue that video games are shifting to a new mode of persuasion through procedural rhetoric in which the meaning derived from gameplay is valued more than adherence to specific rules of gameplay. Gameplay does not involve telling but rather showing the consequences of a gamer’s selective choices within gameplay. The authors employ Kenneth Burke’s pentadic analysis to locate conflicts between representational and procedural levels of gameplay, and the conflict between game developers and players’ motivations. An analysis of Bioshock reveals that in-game decisions center on the agent-act ratio, while real-world decisions are based on scene-purpose, with both ratios pivoting around the central idea of agency.

This article provides a useful model for applying a pentadic analysis to other sites of gameplay. By evaluating in-game and real-world motivations, the authors provide a more useful means to reflect upon dynamics of systems often propagated by video games. This distinction also serves to mark the distinction between representational and procedural levels of play.

Within this article, the authors put players to a test, to see how in-game and real world ethics may intersect with the nature of goal or task-based gaming.  It’s arguable that everything we do, whether in posting a picture on facebook, or playing a video game with friends, to even choosing what to eat is based on a goal.  Within Bioshock, the question becomes when do you allow the objective of the game to override your initial standpoint (i.e. the priest who decides not to use any of the little sisters, but must by the end ofd the game)? With an eye toward Sherry Turkle’s cautious optimism regarding robot companions, should we set up definite boundaries between ourselves and gameplay? Should there be a moment when the invitation to identify with game concepts through video games be cast aside?

Uncanny Valley →

Turkle’s description of the Tamagotchi and Furby toys (both of which I owned and allowed to die) draws heavily on Freud’s idea of the uncanny, in that it is both familiar and unfamiliar.  This has become a major concern in robotics, with the development of the “Uncanny Valley” by Doctor Masahiro Mori.  This theory has become more developed through robotics, noting the exact dip between familiar to unfamiliar within different aspects of movement and appearance.  What is important about dating a robot is that it always remains a robot.  When it dips too closely to dating a human, that’s when the pitchforks and torches might come out. 

Hayes and Flusser

In Does Writing Have a Future, Flusser describes the transition from close reading to hyper reading in his chapter Ways of Reading:

 ”A fully enlightened consciousness no longer needs to be intelligent, to be about extracting meaning.  It can concentrate on creative amalgamation.  This transition from the old ways of reading to the new involves a leap from historical, evaluative, political consciousness into a consciousness that is cybernetic and playful, that confers meaning.  This will be the consciousness that reads in the future.” (p.85). 

In Hayles’ description of close and hyper reading from How We Think, she shies away from Flusser’s assertion that hyper reading is the way of the future.  As Digital Humanities develops machine reading, the continuum stretch from human to machine reading with close and hyper reading falling as the more moderate poles along the spectrum.  However, each pole has its disadvantages as “patterns still need to be observed [by close reading]…on the other hand, machine reading may reveal patterns overlooked in close reading” (74).  The bitextuality that Maryanne Wolfe argues for teches a flexibility in reading, one that is able to read for patterns while also appreciating the aesthetic qualities from which they originate (75).  

A bitextual consciousness then does not allow the cybernetic, playful consciousness of Flusser’s future replace print consciousness, but rather functions in tandem as an extension, wherein neither context becomes the primary mode of thinking, such as the extended cognition of Andy Clarke wherein Otto’s notebook is as valued as Otto’s neural network.  

Cultivating Deep and Hyper Attention

Hayles points to a gulf in departmental curriculum that looks down upon hyper reading as ineffective and inferior to the traditional close reading of the literary tradition.  She quotes a teacher as saying, “I can’t get my students to read long novels anymore, so I’ve taken to assigning short stories.”  However, instead of humoring or catering to the shift toward hyper attention, Hayles argue that curriculum should cultivate both types of attention by noting the affordances and limitations of each, and framing them in an interactive way that incorporates both of them.  

The Ad-Hocracy

In Jenkins’ white paper, he advocates that new media literacies should be considered a social skill.  In reorienting new media literacies away from the technology itself, the STEM disciplines are attempting a similar task.  Dr. Steve Fiore recently held a discussion regarding 21st century interpersonal skills, an organization funded by the DOE to “position 21st century readiness at the center of US K12 education by building collaborative partnerships among education, business, community and government leaders” (www.p21.org).  They accomplish this by fusing the “3Rs and 4Cs,” combining critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity with traditional K12 curriculum.  Although I feel that this is a movement that Jenkins would encourage, it is also directly tied to corporate interests in creating a workforce that is attuned toward the ad-hocracy (Jenkins 41).  Although Jenkins states that classrooms do nothing to teach students how to operate within ad-hocracies, should this be the vehicle for integrating new media literacies/interpersonal skills?

The Internet is for…

Huerta and Sandoval’s study of telecenter operations brings to mind my own experience at a public library.  We had ten computers set aside for internet access, and I sat at a desk in between them where I managed sign-up lists, time limits and usage.  4 of the 10 monitors were immediately visible, and while we enforced the time limit without mercy (two 30-minute sessions per day), we rarely commented on the content of the actual session.  Only once or twice would someone bring up the importance of their work over someone’s use of the computer for facebook. We would point out our policy of the time limit, and ask them to wait for their name to be called when a computer was available.  The only time we questioned content was when patrons who were clearly under 13 were using teen/adult chatrooms that  required the patron to state that they were older than 13.  Even then, no action was taken.

However, when working in an academic library, content was an important issue, and availability was key instead of time constraints.  We had 6 computers available for public use.  These were blocked so that users could only access .edu and .gov sites. They needed to display their drivers’ license or student ID (if they were enrolled at a different university) to access these computers.  And if every computer in the library was full, community members could be asked to give up their computer for a student enrolled at the university.   The primary argument for this policy is that as an academic library, students of the university were the priority.  The 6 public access computers, and even the fact of public access at all, was due to the library being a federal depository.  Staff was available to assist with any questions, but did not teach.  

The distinction between these two spaces points toward issues of identification.  As an academic library, it identified more with the priorities of the university rather than those of a public library.  Despite the presence of multiple computer labs for students wherein community members are not given access, the academic library still sought to replicate those services rather than function as embedded within both the academic and public spheres as a library, not as a computer lab.  

Despite the telecenter’s similar appearance to an internet cafe, the presence of the institution in providing online coursework and certifications privileges a work-oriented perspective.  Teleoperators do not view chatting as a worthwhile activity, despite it being another resource, but not an institutionally-approved resource. In this case, I ask how the center identifies itself.  Is it a place for the community, or for learning? I don’t believe these terms are mutually exclusive, but I do think a focus on learning prioritizes specific methods of learning decided by the sponsor rather than by how the community learns best.

Procedural Empowerment?

Looking at Melissa and Britney’s stories, I find it difficult to categorize them as either empowered users or computer-mediated users as suggested by Selber.  Both women are able to navigate different contexts of use and learn to use their computer skills to not simply accomplish tasks but also to inform themselves of events and feel connected.  

I’m particularly interested in how Melissa began her computer skills, in that she was able to transfer print-based knowledge to the computer. To learn Excel, she read the book. My grandmother has a considerable collection of such manuals.  Anytime she wanted to learn something, she bought a book for it.  Although this may seem like applying the declarative knowledge of a book to the task of a computer, it speaks more to procedural knowledge of how to find information.  Embedded this process is the traditional concept of a library: if you want to know something, go to the library, which privileges the book as a source of information to aid in accomplishing a task. 

Despite using the computer strictly as a tool to accomplish tasks at her job, Melissa acted as an empowered user by identifying impasses and solutions, consulting other resources to solve it, and even used it to teach her son to spell. 

The largest distinction between computer-mediated and empowered users stems from an ability to use resources—to learn through a book, or to find solutions rather than feel isolated and impotent. Encouraging users toward using multiple literacies and problem-solving skills, relies not just on reconfiguring the computer away from the tool model but encouraging values that are often demonstrated in community and group literacy models where collaboration is not simply a task but a way of thinking.

Metalanguage

In “A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies,” Cope and Kalantzis chase the ever-elusive quest of achieving transfer across curriculums through their metalanguage of multiliteracies. Moving toward concepts of Design, they create a pedagogy based on Situated Practice, Overt Instruction, Critical Framing, and Transformed Practice. However, they provide little evidence as to what these look like, as other classmates have pointed out.  

Even with a developed metalanguage for such skills, there is no guarantee that the metalanguage developed within an institution will be practiced outside of that space.  This pedagogy is oriented toward drawing an awareness to context, but may be unrecognizable outside of its own space, as has been discussed.  Other environments yield few affordances for metacognition.

The concept of transformed practice involves moving between modes, or transduction as Kress would call it.  Instead of transforming an object through the student, it is instead molded into another form without changing its essence.  This seems to undermine the perceived goal of transformed practice, to move through various contexts rather than across.

It seems that New Literacy Studies has trouble defining itself simply because there is no concrete example of what exactly they’re trying to accomplish.  Most of their work describes unraveling different practices, or at least locating the different constructs that shape these tangled literacies.  

However, I do want to take a moment to appreciate how everyone has a different vocabulary for describing these places.  Not that I think there should be a standard vocabulary, but it seems that half the fun in NLS is coining your own phrases.

My favorite so far: “literacyscapes” (A New Literacies Sampler, p.15).