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Master of Electronic Art
Mediated Body 591
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Avatars, Presence and Immersion Overview The term "Avatar" most originally refers to a physical embodiment of the Hindu god Vishnu . The term was widely adopted during the 1980 and 1990s to describe any visual representation of a user in a virtual environment, especially on computer screens in Internet chat rooms and computer games. The term was also used in Neal Stephenson 's novel Snow Crash (1992) to describe extremely sophisticated virtual reality manifestations of characters. "Presence" refers to the overall sense of "being there", and "having agency" that a person has in an environment. The lack of presence in virtual spaces is a common phenomenon, compared to constructed real environments. This issue of the visual representation of the embodiment, and the overall sense of presence, is a major focus in the craft of both games and Virtual Reality systems design. It is largely the need to create compelling interactive experiences that drives new technology developments in this area. The phrase "Immersion" commonly occurs in discussions of art, literature, virtual reality and games. The arrival of digital technologies has confused the specific meaning of this term, but it seems to an "ideal" state of engagement or focus, closely connected to "presence". Another recent development is that of "augmented reality", in which aspects of the real and virtual worlds are presented together.
Primary Reading "Landscape, Earth, Body, Being, Space, and Time in the Immersive Virtual Environments Osmose and Ephémère" by Char Davies in "Women, Art, and Technology." Judy Malloy, ed. London, England: The MIT Press (2003), pp. 322-337, illus. Available on-line at http://www.immersence.com/ "Supporting visual elements of non-verbal communication in computer game avatars" by Kujanpää Tomi and Manninen Tony, November 2003 Level Up Conference Proceedings in the Digra on-line library http://www.digra.org/dl/display_html?chid=http://www.digra.org/dl/db/05163.24426 "Gamescapes: exploration and virtual presence in game-worlds" by King Geoff and Krzywinska Tanya, November 2003 Level Up Conference Proceedings in the Digra on-line library http://www.digra.org/dl/display_html?chid=http://www.digra.org/dl/db/05163.05167 Play/view/read The Sims, or some other video game.
More Neal Stephenson 's novel Snow Crash (1992) is often credited with popularizing the use of the word "avatar" to describe audio-visual representations in virtual environments. His descriptions, and the storyline, remain a compelling vision of what virtual environments might one day become. " Chapter 3 Living Digitally: Embodiment in Virtual Worlds " by T.L. Taylor www.itu.dk/~tltaylor/papers/Taylor-LivingDigitally.pdf (originally from From R. Schroeder (Ed.) The Social Life of Avatars: Presence and Interaction in Shared Environments . London: Springer-Verlag, 2002.)
"Explorations in the use of Augmented Reality for Geographic Visualization." Hedley, N., Billinghurst, M., Postner, L., May, R. and Kato, H. (2001). Presence, 11(2), 119-133. Available on-line at http://www.hitl.washington.edu/cgi-bin/mit.cgi?refno=364 An American company specialising in the Haptic '(sense of touch) aspect of virtual environments across many fields of application, including games, education and medicine. "Augmented Reality for a Casual User: Designing Tools for Interaction with the Virtual World" by Suomela Riku, Mattila Jouka, Räsänen Eero, Koskinen Timo June 2002 Computer Games and Digital Cultures Conference Proceedings in the Digra on-line library http://www.digra.org/dl/display_html?chid=http://www.digra.org/dl/db/05164.48577 |