Second Loop

I found this great blog in a comment on New World Notes the other day, with a lot of interests similar to mine. Check it out : Second Loop - The feedback between us and our avatars

Identifying with, avatars, pets, lovers

“The partners do not precede their relating; all that is, is the fruit of becoming with: those are the mantras of companion species.”

“I am not posthumanist; I am who I become with companion species, who and which make a mess out of categories in the making of kin and kind. Queer messmates in mortal play, indeed.”

- Donna Haraway, When Species Meet

There seems to be something similar in the experience of avatars, pets and lovers. I see people with beautiful dogs, with beautiful flowing hair, standing with grace, and I would not necessarily give those characteristics to their owners. It makes me think of the many sets of companion photos of people and their avatars. Surely, with avatars, there’s a clear idea of what people want to look like. But in creating my avatar, I find that the constraints are such that it is too hard to model what I would ideally want to look like, or actually, I don’t even think about what I would want to look like, so much as I think of creating an interesting looking avatar. Still, when people see my avatar, I cringe a bit, because I know there’s some assumption that what Azdel Slade looks like “reflects” on the me in RL…”