Member present: Liliann Ling, BloomingMind Loon, and Kristy Handrick

Announcement:

1. I am really appreciate that everyone join and participate in this group. Lots of people have been to our website (http://www.inaea.org/). If you have any idea or commend please don’t be hesitate to post on the website! InAEA need your support~

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3. If you want to announce information through this group, you may send the group notice in world or you can contact me through our website.

4. If you want to use the meeting place for your exhibition, please feel free to contact with me.

5. If you have any idea about meeting topic, please let me know.

Discussion topic: Visual and culture, and visual / virtual culture

[Visual culture combines two parts, one is visual and another one is culture. Our culture is based on our daily life style. Most of our culture is visual. All items we use, all ritual we have are visually can be seen. In the real world, visual culture is one of the biggest parts of our life. It is more obvious in the virtual world. Visual images make, influence, and change our culture. What do you think about visual culture in the virtual world, how it create/change the virtual culture? Will it change our real life culture? ]

I see virtual world an extension of real world, so they are interrelated to each other. People are taking “real world” visual culture to virtual world. Virtual world exaggerate visual culture from real world. I don’t really see a lot of difference, but virtual world provide a special environment to represent those visual culture and by the nature of virtual world, I think, namely anoumous, those visual culture affect people different.

Visual culture in the virtual worlds changes the online gamers’ perceptions and gradually affects their real worlds. However, we need to be very careful that we do not generalize all different types of users’ perceptions and experiences.Sometimes, people would like to simulate the RL visual culture in virtual worlds and sometimes the virtual world exaggerates visual culture from real world. They both depends on the creators’ desire.

There are too many different cultures and countries in SL, if we never really been there… will we be influence by these virtual world visual culture? We are interactive with virtual visual culture in SL. In the movie, we are only a viewer

The virtual culture will be different from RL culture eventually. Even though it is a virtual world but users gain their real experiences. Do you think this is like the creating of sub-culture? like comics… I don’t think it will be a sub-culture, I think it will be another culture. They are equal cultures, no majority and minority differences. It is not because of the population, but because the influence. If you spend enough time in SL, you see lots of different culture, and you interact with lots of people from different culture background. you will see, people is changing themselves into the same direction… therefore, they can really talk and understand each other. Communication should based on the same experience, in other words, it should based on similar culture.

Now, we are talking about those people who are advanced users in SL. As you may not know, many people still cannot catch up with the SL navigation and avatar culture so they quit. Beginners may not enjoy their experiences because they are used to be told what to do/what to click… Users in the virtual worlds need to be proactive and explore the virtual worlds actively. The advanced users will influence and make their own culture and the beginner users will follow and learn from the advanced one… if we know what we see means what, SL is not that difficult. It is another visual communication question need to be solved in SL….

Field trip:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/RAW/196/123/29
RAW ART GALLERY & SCULPTURES