Friction Addiction

I think I understand friction. It's the way that you can take a group of people across cultures into the forest and they would each come out with a different adjective to describe it. Unspoiled, boring, sacred, dangerous, refreshing, dirty, clean, obstructive, open, cathartic, novel. Some would see trees as a natural resource others as a natural treasure, some as inanimate and without character, some would see an aura around them. Even among those who see this aura (and if you don't I feel sorry for you), there are different ideas about how important they are and how they can best be protected.

Tsing's exploration into Indonesian conservation/preservation is wonderful because she explores (fricative) views as diverse and the bio-region they squabble and struggle over. She guides us gently away from universalism and into a realm of "awkward understanding." Thinking about global connections under the lens of universality is viewed as quaint and dangerously complacent I read the focused my analysis on the final section: "Freedom." Tsing follows friction in Manggur over two decades and through multiple "histories." Addressing the problems of organizing a rebellion across so much friction was what really got me thinking about the problems of global environmentalism.

Taking into account the utopianism of student activists, the romanticism of outdoors-men, the rights to habitation of the natives and threatened species, the needs of the market-place, and the transcendental nature of personal experience in a rain-forest. We see the Manggur as closer to what it ever could be through a theorized definition, such as "protected wildlands."

Without the natives struggling against an immediate threat, and the support of environmental activists worldwide, victory may not have been won. This can be viewed as evidence for a "universal vision," but I like the way Tsing examines the different histories and motivations for the environmentalism the "overlap of understandings" (256). This helped me personally understand friction as something that isn't necessarily abrasive, but complex.

With such a tapestry of histories and desires, the world is better understood as in-understandable, better that we celebrate our confluences than mourn our conflicts.
It makes us view our challenge as ethnographers as it is: one of collecting understandings, and forming connections between them, but not necessarily finding harmony. I applied this to my ethnography. Is it fair that I just interview evangelical sim-owners? What about the perspective of converts, or sex shop owners, or rigid atheists who view evangelism as invasive? What frictions exist in the world of second life, a place where ease of communication facilitates unprecedented interactivity.

Evangelical like me

This is a snapshot of an evangelical training slide-show at one of second life's Christian rooms. I went to the website listed at the end of the slide show and they have these pamphlets for sale, for anyone who might want to spread the gospel. I shot them an email about the possibilities of meeting in SL, as I haven't been able to track anyone down within the program.

PS. I heard that this Week's The Office features second life. I haven't seen it, but it seems that SL is spreading around older media and may soon hit full on fad status.

Patches

I had some good reading time this week, so I did some more snooping around Connected. I noticed that Jackson's "Stitch Bitch" has a similar patchwork feel, as well as having "patchwork" in the title. I've noticed that my tolerance for reading in this style is much higher than normal. I can blow through like 20 pages of Connected without batting an eye. The hypertext style seems to resonate with my contemporary attention-span.
Jackson goes through chunks of difference between her life and the life of her alter-ego in hyperspace. She lists differences between life, fiction and hypertext (and hyper-fiction). Organized into little bursts of a concept, with an example from pop culture, and perhaps a dash of hermeneutics. I like when she admits her disdain for the term "hypertext" calling it a "spiky" word, that reminds her of a rooster on a go-cart (uhhh ok whatever you say Shelley Jackson). This kind of interpretation , as she puts it, "leaves you naked with yourself at every leap." When hypertexting the frequent interruptions give the interaction with the discourse more of a dialogged feel. The style is similar to Shaviro's. Perhaps they are innovators in a new academic style that is more readable for this hypertextual readers.
The "schizophrenia" and uncertain path of doing online research, as opposed to book research, has been transformed into "book" or article reading, as best as it can be. In these cases it is to provide an example, but what if we started doing all sorts of research this way? When I am looking for information on a film I am studying I start at the IMDB, but could wind up anywhere, from a page about the director, to one about a film that influenced the film makers that will help me better understand what I am writing about.
In boiling down Christianity to e-vangelism to e-vangelism 2.0 to Jesuit's combating SL immorality with e-vangelism. I used hypertext hopping to understand what was popular, pertinent and researchable. The internet, being a populist medium gives wandering an advantage over calculation. Had I known what I wanted to study when I began, I might have gotten stuck with a topic that was a dead-end. Hypertext keeps our eyes and minds open, if a bit unfocused.

IM conversation=revalations

A conversation I just had with a good friend who's in ministry college...

[12:54] triumph2nd: hey can you help me with something for school
[12:54] moonpatrolpdx: yeah whats up
[12:54] triumph2nd: not like now, but just keep your ear open
[12:54] moonpatrolpdx: ok
[12:54] triumph2nd: I'm doing an ethnographic study of e-vangelism
[12:55] moonpatrolpdx: aight
[12:55] triumph2nd: do you know much about it
[12:55] moonpatrolpdx: like internet evangilism? or evangilism?
[12:55] triumph2nd: like internet evangelism
[12:55] moonpatrolpdx: hmm
[12:56] triumph2nd: more specifically in web 2.0
[12:56] triumph2nd: user interfaced social networking programs
[12:56] moonpatrolpdx: hmm i dont know if i know much about that
[12:56] triumph2nd: like myspace or second life
[12:57] triumph2nd: preferably second life
[12:57] moonpatrolpdx: i know thre are certian ministries that have myspace websites
[12:57] triumph2nd: that's a start
[12:57] moonpatrolpdx: http://www.myspace.com/xxxchurch
[12:58] triumph2nd: jesus!
[12:58] triumph2nd: I'm at work man
[12:58] moonpatrolpdx: oh
[12:58] triumph2nd: that's funny though
[12:58] moonpatrolpdx: well anyways chech them out when you can
[12:58] triumph2nd: yeah
[12:58] triumph2nd: is it really porn?
[12:58] triumph2nd: i didn't look i clicked away
[12:58] moonpatrolpdx: xxxchurch.com the number one christian porn site as they say
[12:58] triumph2nd: how does that work?
[12:58] triumph2nd: slutty nuns?
[12:59] moonpatrolpdx: no its not porn its a site where they minister to people in the industry
[12:59] triumph2nd: ohhhh
[12:59] triumph2nd: i'm going back then
[13:00] moonpatrolpdx: instead of standing outside of conventions yelling at the people, they get a booth space inside and talk to pornstars, and give out bibles that say "Jesus loves porn stars" on the cover
[13:00] triumph2nd: woah
[13:01] triumph2nd: i see someone debated ron jeremy
[13:01] moonpatrolpdx: yeah the pastor of xxxchurch went on tour with ron and they had a debate series around the country
[13:01] moonpatrolpdx: thought they stand on oposite sides of the fence, they actually became friends
[13:01] moonpatrolpdx: was cool
[13:02] moonpatrolpdx: ron even helped them do a comercial to keep kids away from porn
[13:02] triumph2nd: what's their position exactly? porn is morally wrong for christians?
[13:05] moonpatrolpdx: im not sure what there exact mission statement is you would have to find that on their site but i would be willing to be that they would say something like, porn destroyes peoples lives, from the people involved to the people who watch.
[13:05] triumph2nd: oh hmm
[13:05] moonpatrolpdx: i read one of the dudes books and thats kind of the idea i got from it but it might say on their website or something
[13:05] triumph2nd: yeah, thanks that's actually perfect for my project
[13:05] triumph2nd: like exactly
[13:05] moonpatrolpdx: sweet
[13:06] triumph2nd: I am examing placement of scripture "Bilboards" in second life
[13:06] moonpatrolpdx: some of their videos are funny if you get a chance to watch them
[13:06] triumph2nd: evangelical groups put them next to ad's for porno to counter act them
[13:06] moonpatrolpdx: like pete the porno puppet
[13:06] moonpatrolpdx: really
[13:06] moonpatrolpdx: ha
[13:06] triumph2nd: yeah
[13:07] triumph2nd: like you'll be looking a an ad for a sex club in second life, then you'll turn around and see John 3:16
[13:07] moonpatrolpdx: weird
[13:07] moonpatrolpdx: ill be interested in all of your findings through your research
[13:08] triumph2nd: yeah I'll keep you abreast

I might develop a more specific area of research around these "porn wars".... http://www.myspace.com/xxxchurch

An altered state

This is me praying at the alter of SL's most popular evangelical ministry. I can't say it did much for me, but I'd like to talk to other prayers and get there take on what SL prayer does to fulfill RL spiritual needs. Too bad it was a ghost town...

Amendment to My Autoethnography

My first experiences with RL evangelicalism really softened my skepticism of the practices. I don't mean the general ones where Jehovah's Witnesses came to my door, or when I dated a Catholic girl who would try in vain to make me pray with her etc... but when a relative stranger grabbed my hand and asked me if I knew Christ.

I used to be a fairly regular hitch-hiker, and after spending hours thumbing in vain, I'd find myself very grateful to whomever might pick me up. Almost invariably the driver would fit one of three profiles: ex-hippie who used to hitch back in the day, a depressed sad-sack, who will complain about the misery of their lives until they drop me off (I think these people pick up hitch-hikers with the secret hope that we will do them in), and evangelical Christians. Where I used to roam, the latter made up more than 75% of my benefactors. I would always get the spiel.
There is something about a hitch-hiker that implies being lost (although as any good hitcher knows... not all who wander are lost). To an evangelical Christian, picking these people up helps someone in need and gives them an opportunity to discover the love of Christ. Generally they start with, "do you know Jesus." Then perhaps ask me to pray with them, or offer to say a prayer to help get my life "back on track." Grateful and wanting the ride to go smooth and long, I am as affable as possible. I lie. I try to change the subject. I clasp their hands, close my eyes and mouth something.

While I was exploring the Cyebrsaint's guide to online evangelism, I couldn't help but recall the attempts that were made on me in RL. Further I wonder if people online ever "fake it." There might not be a powerful motivation, like 50 miles of road, to encourage such behavior, but in some of the examples I read, the convertee seemed like they just really needed someone to talk to, and might have agreed to anything to keep the conversation rolling along.

Bingo!

I was considering going onto a Christian chat room to attempt to observe the process of spreading "the word" to a confused internet wander, but I can see that someone has already done it for me, complete with notes on their reactions and a full chat log. I will duplicate this, only from the perspective of a non-Christian observer (myself).


http://house-of-hope.net/chat/first.html

Designing Reality

I remember the discussion we had in class last week, where we talked about the significance (and frustrations) of the continued existence of the burning life grounds, months after the, supposedly temporal, event took place. In RL, if you went to the playa now, it would be deserted. Part of what makes SL so wonderful for some might be that magic. In RL you would starve and face the elements out on the playa without a community of burners to help sustain a society, but thanks to the magic of SL, you can have that experience, of being the only one at burning man/life.

After reading Smith, I couldn't help but think about SL in the terms of the literal and the magical. Flying around vs. politely apologizing for the inevitable bumps we take as avatars with slow processors. When describing the features of ARK, I couldn't help but marvel at what the possibilities of playing around in an atmosphere where you control the force of gravity. Also consider the metaphor of the machinima in SL, and how they could be metaphorical for information capture in RL, and how, while the enhance the possibilities of the program for skilled users, such uses of magic limit the general teachability of SL. I remember some of the problems I've had getting it to work.

Information capturing techniques in SL, are so advanced that you could record every sight and sound of your (avatar's) whole SL existence. Could this be a grim look into the a future of ubiquitous computers? Will it be that grim? Safer? Right now we are facing these questions in America. Will new technology lead to Big Brotherism?

I couldn't stop thinking about the disadvantages of a sophisticated "point-of-sales" system, while working in a restaurant. While they do a lot of you job for you (calculations, tracking ordering, some act as a virtual waiter captain, telling you where to seat new parties), POS systems take away from your ability to do you job your way, and make defrauding the company (sometimes it's nice to "buy" your friends drinks) impossible. Conscious of POS's surveillance, crafty waiters always find a way to do what they want, but the observe effect of knowing your every move is being tracked (down to the time it takes to run food after the orders are up) does encourage a sort of obedience. This obedience is false and born out of fear. When a server finds a way around the meddling POS, they exploit it in spades.

As Agre writes "no matter how thoroughly the capture process is controlled it is impossible... to remove the elements of interpretation, strategy, and institutional dynamics. You may not have to tip a robotic waiter, but would the dining experience be the same without a smiling face?

Determining a designs usability, while evaluating it's expressional qualities, is a valuable conceptual tool to carry with me when critiquing SL (something I do now without such tools). Any program, or theoretically any designed "thing" can be examined in these terms. I had a great sandwich earlier today, but it wasn't very usable. In fact, it was a sloppy mess. The sandwiches designer spent too much time thinking about the wonderful effect (expression, maybe) the marinara would have on the meatballs, but not about the functionality of a drippy hero. Not an especially apt example, but I use it because it shows just how mundanely this concepts can be applied. They really shine when applied to a full user interface virtual world, where considerations of usability must be put into every one of the many complex functions, but the fact that they can still be applied to a sandwich (sorta) points out just how powerful they are as theory. When we deconstruct complex new forms of communication like this we get to see them for what they really are new "things" that can teach us lessons about what good design is, rather than abstract metaphors that fall short of who ever (if anyone) designed RL.

Are You an Auto, an Ethno or a Graphy?

"Autoethnographers vary in their emphasis on the research process (graphy), on culture (ethnos) and on self (auto)" (740). I would say I am a auto. I have a background in fiction and am quite self-interested.

What is unstated in this semantic breakdown of what were all doing here, is that a good autoethnography is all three. My process will be a little dab of each. I will do my best to give a frank description of my personal experiences in SL, use traditional ethnography methods, including conventional qualitative interview (in this case more like reflection) techniques and focus on the cultural forces of SL. My excuse for taking an unscientific approach (even for the already questionably scientific genre) could be this, also from the article:

"The question is not "Does my story reflect the past accurately?"… "What are the consequences my story produces? What kind of person does it shape me into? What new possibilities does it shape me into? What new possibilities does it introduce for living my life?"

Also the references to Kuhn defending the process....

Following the process of a genuinely interested researcher, with the most sincere possible of human experiences fueling the interest, from idea to IRB, also provides good framework, and an interesting story to boot. Ellis and Bochner have equal part instructional essay and an ethnography of sorts!