Thursday, January 7, 2010

Avatars on Avatar. Narrative vs. Meaning.


"...hermeneutic analysis, embraces the social, cultural and textual context of the narrative and interprets it meaning against this background. In psychology it mostly means interpretation of personal narratives with reference to identity." from The Science of Stories by János László
My human's "personal avatar" participated in a panel discussion on Tuesday about the Avatar movie. While fourworlds was pontificating from the podium,  I was sitting in the audience marveling at the diverse and sometimes contradictory interpretations of the film that were presented. Although each person had witnessed the same sequence of events over the course of the film's narrative,  the meaning derived from the experience was widely varied.

One potential benefit of developing an avatar persona that is distinct from the human, is the opportunity to notice how identity shapes the psychological construction of our internal story of "reality". I added a couple of arrows to a photo of the event (captured by Crap Mariner) to visualize the experience of dual perspectives.

(The video of the event will eventually be available on Rezzed TV.)

1 comment:

Kanomi said...

I don't even believe Avatar is a genuine anti-war movie, since it was conceived and spewed in the bowels of the very propaganda complex that allows these travesties to go on.

But even, even if for one second that it is, how is the travails of some blue avatar clown even comically cosmically anywhere even as real any Central Asian from Afghanistan to Pakistan to Iraq to Yemen to Palestine who got their head blown off by an Imperium of Imbeciles and a murderous kleptocracy of fools.