Group members:
Jennifer Sundén
„Material Virtualities“
In our summary, we will concentrate on key points that we found necessary and important for our understanding of the text. This certainly does not replace a closer look at the details and examples given by the text. Our goal is to get everyone on the same page and make the general message of the text clear, not to give you an excuse for not reading it ;)
-----The text “Material Virtualities” by Jenny Sunden is based on a research project she did in a text-based online world for two years.
Central Statement:
"The online condition is fundamentally constituted trough a mediation between an embodied self and a textual I, simultaneously divided and intimately connected through typed-in enunciations." (p.3)
In our own words:
Since virtual realities and virtual characters are created by a “real” person (the typist) they always have link (back) to reality. Characters in virtual reality are based on “real” values and often are shaped by similar criteria as our “actual” reality.
Introduction:
- Virtual characters as well as the typist are neither completely seperate nor can they be seen as one. The two overlap.
Female Cyborgs:
- In contrast to male cyborgs for whom actual male characteristics are used as a template and certain aspects of these characteristics are exaggerated, the portrayal of female cyborgs is based on characteristics which naturally belong to women but which have been severly overdone and amplified thousandfold. This means that the “female” becomes the embodiment of danger.
Material Textuality
· “The I that writes the text is never,itself, anything more than a paper I”- or perhaps rather a digital I in online realms, which gives readers the freedom to interpret the text regardless of who is writing/typing - > text is no biographical imprint of authorial intensions -> the author is dead after the moment of writing.
à Text is dynamic and therefore subject to constant change, even just by the act of reading it. (p.8ff) In text-based online world bodies are text.
· Cybertechnology functions as a mediator between the embodied self and the created character in virtual world.
“Nevertheless, it is important to remember that communication technologies depend on human bodies, technologically as well as symbolically:” With tools and technologies, we can reach further away, but our phxsical bodies still remain the first and the last step of each communicative act.”(p.11)
Chapter 2
- Despite the possibility to create a chracter far from reality, people chose to stick to values which are of the real world like age, sex, gender, look.
- Users seem to be tied so much to reality that even the typist's actual sex, look or age is of interest.
- Even characters who seem far-fetched/imaginative are based on the reality we know. (à humanoid features, mundane conversations)
- Certain skills and features (e.g. programming language, laptop) are needed to participate à Participation is exclusive, to some extent (WhiteAngloSaxonProtestant, p.80).
- This results in the creation of a limited reality (online realism) rather than a general reality.
Questions:
Describe the two different approaches to explain the term ‘transgender’ in the text. (p. 66)
Why do we not want others online to lie to us?
How does the concept of dynamic text apply to online realms?
Is it possbile to apply Sunden’s concept to VRs like SecondLife?
Despite the fact that everything is possible only few things are rarely done. Why? – Why is an online character similar to a “real” person?
Comments (3)
christian said
at 5:58 pm on Dec 5, 2007
Feedback( Simone, Ahmed, Christian)
In general, we liked that your summary is
- short
- well structured
- easy to understand
We would have preferred a more precise and clear division of the whole summary:
You could have put a numerical scale with sub points to enable the reader to know which part of the text you are summarising in which paragraph, e.g.
I. Introduction
a) Female Cyborgs
b) Material Textuality
II. Chapter 2
a) Imaginative Bodies
b) …
What is really good about your proceeding is the fact that you quote ‘the central statement’ and explain it in your own words. For us it is also a very important quotation because it summarises a part of the text very good, but we would have liked to include the discussion of sexed and gendered bodies to make it ‘the’ central statement: Jennifer Sunden analyses in detail how these bodies are typed into being (The main question that this chapter tried to answer was what kind of sexed and gendered bodies are typed into being in character descriptions in WaterMOO, p.89)
In your introduction we wished to have the two terms ‘doubleness’ and ‘constructedness’(p. 3, italic) mentioned. You explain the two terms in your introduction very clearly, you could have just added the terms into brackets.
We think that you did a great job in summarising complex ideas such as your point about Female Cyborgs. You managed to explain very complex concepts in simple and few own words which were easy to comprehend.
christian said
at 5:59 pm on Dec 5, 2007
Again, you summarised the part about Material Textuality in an appealing way by using a suitable quotation and explaining it in your own words. We liked that you adopted the idea that, as you already stated, a ‘text is dynamic and therefore subject to constant change, even just by the act of reading it’ because for us the quotation ‘the text is experienced only in an activity, a production’ (p.8) seemed to be very important. Good is also your emphasis you put on the idea that ‘in text-based online world bodies are text’ and that ‘our physical bodies still remain the first and the last step of each communicative act’ (p.11).
We think that your description of Chapter 2 contents the main arguments, shortly depicted. For an easier understanding we would have liked to have more page numbers. Concerning your last point it irritated us that you put online realism in brackets right after limited realism. We are not sure if the author wants to say that online realism is the same as limited reality, although it seems to be logical.
You have stuck to the guideline to keep it short which, in our opinion, was very difficult in regard to such a complex text and thus gives the reader the chance to understand the main points of the text. We liked your work as a whole. Well done!
Amanda said
at 12:34 pm on Dec 6, 2007
You did a good job! I liked the way you condensed this long and complex text down to a few but important key statements.
I just would appreciate to read how Sunden points out the concept of "writing oneself into beeing" to exist in the cyberworld. Moreover it would have been nice to mention how she reverses MCLuhan's idea that communication technologoies (resp. media) are an extension of our bodies: "As communication technologies might be viewed as prosthetic extensions of physical bodies, MUD characters can be interpreted in the opposite direction. They could be seen prosthetically extended in text in the direction of the keyboard and the typist. From the point of view of virtual beeings, the material body is the extension (and not the starting point)." (p.82)
All in all, as I said, I think you did a great job and helped the reader very much to understand the text.
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