[iDC] SL, MIIM, knowledge and capital (cc Newton)
Simon Biggs
s.biggs at eca.ac.uk
Mon Jun 29 09:17:33 UTC 2009
I have changed the thread title as this has moved a long way from Jackson
and fame.
I think SL is an extremely interesting model which portends the development
of further examples of massively immersive interaction media (let¹s call it
MIIM - I find the MMORPG concept, with its focus on games and role playing,
limited I do neither in SL). Somebody asked me the other day whether I
thought SL is the future. I replied that I didn¹t but that it was a
prototype of what could become the future. If I think MIIM has a future then
why don¹t I think SL has one too?
Firstly, it is not an open system founded on open protocols. It is a
proprietary system that is owned by a private unlisted corporation. This is
not a criticism of Linden for a private company they have been very good
with things like IP, interoperability and access. However, it is very
unlikely that this form of constitution will lead to the development of the
sort of open system that will be required if it is to satisfy the many.
Corporate interest will be the bottom line. The web is a good example here.
Nobody owns the system, although bits of it are privately (or publicly)
owned. As has been observed many times, the success of the web has been
driven by its openness.
Secondly, SL functions as a close replica of the social organisation we in
the West take for granted as a social reality, consumer capitalism. Many
people on this planet (and apparently on the list) aren¹t really that keen
on this model and would prefer to explore others. Furthermore, there are
many cultures around the world where Capitalism is not the dominant cultural
mode (although few cultures escape its influence). A good proportion of the
world¹s population do not live within a Capitalist culture. Why would they
want to join an MIIM that is predicated on a cultural model they have little
involvement with?
Thirdly, SL struggles to work across other cultural differences, especially
linguistic. SL is primarily an English speaking world and, more
specifically, an American world. Other important cultural differences
(ethical, religious, etc) also present problems in SL. Even the issue of age
is important, with two historically separate SL¹s existing (one for adults
and the other for kids the Teen Grid). However, the idea is that these two
will become one (if that hasn¹t happened already I¹ve not been in SL or a
few weeks). Having a small child I can say that there is a lot in SL I
wouldn¹t want them to visit unsupervised. Of course there is a lot in RL I
don¹t want them to enter unsupervised but I can control that to a degree,
entering such places (a red-light district, a hard-core club, a Rio favela,
take your pick) with them, allowing an insight into how people live and
behave with minimum risk. In SL this is far harder, especially as there are
predators about. However, I agree in principle that there shouldn¹t be
different MIIM¹s where there are gatekeepers controlling who and who cannot
enter. That is censorship. Like many people, I am not sure how to deal with
this problem.
At some point an open MIIM protocol will begin to emerge that is both
accessible and easy to learn and use (like http and html). VRML (which so
far has failed to establish itself) is an example of what it might look
like. When that happens we may begin to see the emergence of what will be
the future. In the process, due to its openness, we might also see many of
the issues that bedevil SL and inhibit its capacity to be a really
successful MIIM resolved. I argue this because it is when knowledge and its
means of production are freely circulating that problems get solved. As
Newton observed, this is when the labour of the many becomes freely
available to all (although he actually said something about standing on the
shoulders of giants).
Regards
Simon
Simon Biggs
Research Professor
edinburgh college of art
s.biggs at eca.ac.uk
www.eca.ac.uk
www.eca.ac.uk/circle/
simon at littlepig.org.uk
www.littlepig.org.uk
AIM/Skype: simonbiggsuk
From: patrick lichty <voyd at voyd.com>
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 20:59:22 -0500
To: 'Christian Fuchs' <christian.fuchs at sbg.ac.at>, 'Julian Kücklich'
<julian at kuecklich.de>, 'idc' <idc at mailman.thing.net>
Subject: Re: [iDC] Michael Jackson and the death of macrofame
In this
> sense we could also call playbour the Taylorization of leisure. Like
> other forms of affective or immaterial labour, playbour is not
> productive in the sense of resulting in a product, but it is the
> process itself that generates value.
But consider Second Life. It is for many people a sense of Playbour in that
it creates an environment where people pay for the service that allows
themselves to create their/LindenLabs' content for free, or to arrange
pre-built/purchased props for enjoyment. In this case, it is not just the
process that creates value, but it is also the interaction that also doubly
brings capital into the environment, either on the side of labour-value or
in terms of acceleration of capitalization of the subject. Therefore, we
have a concomitant multiplying of capital under this model of playbour here.
My question is whether the residents of Second Life understand this and
accept it as analogous to regular visits to an amusement park, game arcade,
or MMORPG where they make game content (I know SL is not a game), the rank
and file are oblivious, or if there are modalities of resistance (Hobos and
Freebie Stores being only two).
Mechthild? Simon?
Patrick Lichty
- Interactive Arts & Media
Columbia College, Chicago
- Editor-In-Chief
Intelligent Agent Magazine
http://www.intelligentagent.com
225 288 5813
FAX 312 344-8021
voyd at voyd.com
"It is better to die on your feet
than to live on your knees."
-----Original Message-----
From: idc-bounces at mailman.thing.net [mailto:idc-bounces at mailman.thing.net]
On Behalf Of Christian Fuchs
Sent: Friday, June 26, 2009 6:56 AM
To: Julian Kücklich; idc
Subject: Re: [iDC] Michael Jackson and the death of macrofame
And how is this category of playbour or play-labour connected to Michael
Jackson? Was Michael Jackson a playbourer, a capitalist, an immaterial
worker, or something else? If there is no theoretical way that allows us
to distinguish the class position of Michael Jackson from the class
position of a precarious call center agent or a precarious
singer/dancer/writer etc, and we consider them all as part of one
"class" or describe them all with one category such as "playbour", then
such categories do not make sense because they too much intermingle
different socio-economic life worlds. So what categories should we use
for describing the political economy of Michael Jackson? Is playbour a
sufficient category=
Christian
Julian Kücklich schrieb:
> Hi all,
>
> Trebor asked me to write "a succinct, one paragraph definition of
> playbour." Okay, here goes:
>
> If we assume that play is distinct from "ordinary life" (Huizinga),
> and that it constitutes an "occasion of pure waste" (Caillois), then
> playbour is the re-entry of ordinary life into play, with a
> concomitant valorization of play activities. Insofar as life (bios) is
> always productive, and be it only in the sense that it produces waste,
> the extraction of value from play can be seen as a form of waste
> management; and insofar as play can be seen as a waste of time, the
> logic of playbour demands that time be wasted efficiently. In this
> sense we could also call playbour the Taylorization of leisure. Like
> other forms of affective or immaterial labour, playbour is not
> productive in the sense of resulting in a product, but it is the
> process itself that generates value. The means of production are the
> players themselves, but insofar as they only exist within play
> environments by virtue of their representations, and their
> representations are usually owned by the providers of these
> environments, the players cannot be said to be fully in control of
> these means. Playbour is suffused with an ideology of play, which
> effectively masks labour as play, and disguises the process of
> self-expropriation as self-expression. However, exploitation and
> empowerment, subjectification and objectification, wastefulness and
> efficiency coexist in the ambiguous "third space" of playbour, where
> these binary oppositions break down, and thus open up new
> possibilities of intersubjectification.
>
> Hmm, maybe not so succinct, but it'll have to do for now. I'll try to
> condense it to 140 characters and tweet it later.
>
> Julian aka @cucchiaio
>
> 2009/6/25 Trebor Scholz <trebor at thing.net <mailto:trebor at thing.net>>
>
> Hi Julian,
> Great, could you re-join the discussion with a succinct, one
> paragraph definition of playbour
> and a very short argumentation of why neither play nor labor
> easily fit the situation?
> Cheers,
> Trebor
>
> ----
> Written tersely, typed imperfectly, and then sent from my phone
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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Priv.-Doz. Dr. Christian Fuchs
Unified Theory of Information Research Group
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Austria
christian.fuchs at sbg.ac.at
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Editor of
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Global Sustainable Information Society
http://www.triple-c.at
Fuchs, Christian. 2008. Internet and Society: Social Theory in the
Information Age. New York: Routledge.
http://fuchs.icts.sbg.ac.at/i&s.html
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