
Hello Avatar
Rise of the Networked Generation
B. Coleman(Author)
MIT Press
Published on 4. November 2011
Book
Hardback
216 pages
978-0-262-01571-4 (ISBN)
Description
An examination of our many modes of online identity and how we live on the continuum between the virtual and the real.Hello Avatar! Or, {llSay(0, "Hello, Avatar!"); is a tiny piece of user-friendly code that allows us to program our virtual selves. In Hello Avatar, B. Coleman examines a crucial aspect of our cultural shift from analog to digital: the continuum between online and off-, what she calls the "x-reality" that crosses between the virtual and the real. She looks at the emergence of a world that is neither virtual nor real but encompasses a multiplicity of network combinations. And she argues that it is the role of the avatar to help us express our new agency-our new power to customize our networked life.By avatar, Coleman means not just the animated figures that populate our screens but the gestalt of images, text, and multimedia that make up our online identities-in virtual worlds like Second Life and in the form of email, video chat, and other digital artifacts. Exploring such network activities as embodiment, extreme (virtual) violence, and the work in virtual reality labs, and offering sidebar interviews with designers and practitioners, she argues that what is new is real-time collaboration and copresence, the way we make connections using networked media and the cultures we have created around this. The star of this drama of expanded horizons is the networked subject-all of us who represent aspects of ourselves and our work across the mediascape.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United States
Publishing group
MIT Press Ltd
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Interest Age: From 18 years
Product notice
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
47 figures
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
499 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-262-01571-4 (9780262015714)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
11/2011
MIT Press
€43.99
Available for download
Persons
B. Coleman is Assistant Professor of Writing and New Media in MIT's Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies and Comparative Media Studies. She is Faculty Director of the C3 Game Culture and Mobile Media initiative.