Readings for 11/17/11: Ulmer Part Three: The Categorical Disaster

Source:

Ulmer, G. L. (2005). Electronic monuments. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 

Excerpts:

Chapter 5: Formless Emblems (Testimonial)

Chapter 6: The Agency of the Image (Upsilon Alarm)

Overview & Synthesis:

Chapter 5:

            In this section, Ulmer goes through a MEmorial construction for child abuse to illustrate to reader how to construct their own. He points out that “Electronic monumentality addresses the responsibility of revising and registering within the digital apparatus the borers and boundaries of an American national identity” (115). The goal then is a recalibration of distinction at every level of being, including logical, psychological, ethical, and political. (115)The MEmorial should reduce resistance my supplementing literate tourist experience with electrate image designed to “expose one’s own presences as shadow or blind spot in a collective field of value” (116). The heterogeneous standpoint is at the core of the methodology and looks at the paradox of group subjectivity in and through electracy, as the space is not geometric but warped (118). By looking at the question of borders and categories and connecting associated fragments with signifiers and themes, MEmorials treat the event as both an idea and atmosphere or mood.

            In terms of the Gift or Concetto Ulmer explains that a sign provides meaning by the relationship between its parts – a material element and a concept (120). In electracy, chora replaces topos as the mode of organization and classification. The basic unit of signification in Lacan’s theory is not the sign but they emblem, which is intended to convey knowledge and truth in a brief and compelling form to persuade the reader and impress itself upon memory (121). Ulmer continues on to explain that the emblem “is a specific divide used within the allegorical mode” and within a MEmorial it juxtaposes abject values with social ideals (124). The emblem is a way to make the literate sign something electrate (125). It embodies the abstractive power of writing in a specific social rule and place, this preventing the sign from collapsing when it is brought down to earth (125). “The choral emblem situates meaning generation materially within the practices of an institution” (125). He discusses Lacan’s L-schema saying that the main point of the schema is to demonstrate that the symbolic relation is always blocked to a certain extent by the imaginary axis (128). This shows the “outside-inside or extimate nature” of subject formation as alienation. Therefore the benefit of the MEmorial is that it reveals to its makers “the location of the border that passes through them” (129).

By discussing mourning, Ulmer explains that the purpose of the MEmorial peripheral is to open further through to the relation between private and public experience, individual and collective actions, events, and behaviors (130). This is contrasted to a conventional memorial that simply commemorates loss as sacrifice on behalf of a public, collective value. The point he makes is that this usually leaves out recognition of the specific behaviors brought about by sacrifice. He further explains the purpose of the peripheral as “to make a case for losses of life (or other kinds of expenditure) whose public, collective relevance as sacrifice are not recognized” (131).

            In terms of what he calls “formless value,” Ulmer explains that the formless operations of base materialism, horizontality, pulse and entropy bring abject experiences into discourse without uplifting them into beauty or significance (132). This gives access to the abandoned and neglected modern sacred so that the MEmorial can follow up and articulated the unacknowledged values found at this level of experience (132). He suggests that the formless quality does not resemble anything but instead has disparate properties by accidental features (134). He comes back to the idea that a premise of the MEmorial is that the affect of abjection is felt collectively as well as individually (135). Thus, the first step in designing it is to notice that abject loss that the community acknowledges is a problem but has not accepted as a sacrifice or value (134). “The MEmorial addresses abjection in both individual and national identity, having to do with a lack of fit, a certain disparity between the two sides of what is compared in an identity condition” (134).

Ulmer explains that “the purpose of a MEmorial is to witness and testify regarding the event of a public problem, to shift it from the private individual status of one at a time, each case in isolation, to a cumulative public status of sacrifice on behalf of an unrepresented national value” (136).  We should attempt to bring abject losses to attention without transposing them into abstractions or ideals. For example, in his child abuse example, Ulmer reminds us that the abuse is not the value but the sacrifice necessary to maintain the value. The “sublime” he mentions names a feeling that the MEmorial exposes, externalizes, and articulates (137). This feeling of the sublime, he explains, “augments the initial sting of recognition that motivated its selection and transforms the process of design into an ethical encounter” (138).

Ulmer again returns to the emblem, explaining that we use it to write a disaster that we cannot think or feel (138). He points out that electrate writing is not as clear and simple as the truth, but obtuse and complex as the real. Therefore, the egent must write in a deconsultation: a memory, a disaster, a morality (139). It is electracy that makes it possible to revisit our relationship to disaster and to events that resist every effort of problem-solution (140). Ulmer explains that the Jacobin mode of vanguard problem solving is to establish Committees of Public Safety in your area of interest (142). However, the EmerAgency approach to policy problems is neither from this nor the perspective of instrumental engineering (143). Instead, it is to find oneself the feeling of a Committee of Public Safety.

Chapter 6:

            Ulmer explains that what makes writing the disaster reproducible as a practice for egents is the simplicity of the means (147). Simply, it is to make an allegory, juxtapose some documents, and the human sensorium does the rest. Commemoration is the kind of memory supported and augmented by digital technology and the educational practice of the MEmorial (149). By dreaming beyond any concept we are able to witness the relationship between language and the real and become aware (149).

In terms of agency, Ulmer explains that the MEmorial does not define or analyze the disaster but discovers its mood and through attunement makes it matter to ‘me’ (154). The mood here is virtual. The MEmorial is just a way to map and participate in this mood construction by tracing the series of pain (154). Thus, the egent writes the field of justice “following the metonymic connectivity, contiguity, the intensities of desire indexed in machinic assemblages” (155). Each MEmorial introduces a set of machinic indexes into the Internet prosthesis where they can be added to the virtual map and collaborative deconsultation (155). The MEmorial also addresses the gap between the disaster and the public’s ability to respond (157). However, it does not offer a reason, but simply marks this blank with a temporary, abject hypothesis (157).

            In his discussion of the “Y,” Ulmer mentions that spontaneous disaster memorials are the vernacular point of departure for the MEmorial (158). He says that in the conductive logic of choragraphy the “why” posed rhetorically in the wake of every disaster is juxtaposed with the Pythagorean “Y” and its revival in “The Agency of the Letter” (159). In reference to the CATTt, he proposes that every tree structure of literate analysis become a rhizome of electrate feeling and that every Y-binary becomes a multiplicity (160). He later uses the anecdote comparing the Y to a wishbone.

Ulmer points out that “the testimonial linked to the peripheral takes the designated public problem as a vehicle, a semantic domain figuring virtually a portrait of my political unconscious” (160). With this, we should not explain the issue at hand, but let it explain us for the testimonial. We are testifying by mapping the recognition scene (160). Ulmer puts the first step for testimonial as “passing through customs,” where one begins a transversal to map the entanglement of the private and public dimensions of an event looking for the scene of recognition where disaster becomes self-portrait (161). Ulmer points out that the MEmorial attempts to provide an image that holistically evokes the tangle of competing stories in a matrix, a block that brings them into a network (166). This comment connects his comparison to the MEmorial as “felt” and interlocking. He says that “Memorials are not texts but felts, including the punning overtone of a category that cohere around a feeling or mood” (167). The disaster is not written by weaving, but instead filling the gap between things, like finding the hooks and eyes in felt to form digital links. He points out that the point of communication between the sender as a representative of cultural values and the receiver as a character in a narrative diegesis is similar to the analogy the monster is to the story what the problem is to society (169). 

            Ulmer once again reiterates that the MEmorial is self-addressed in the middle voice and the action is reflexive, extended through a networked environment to become a group subject (171). The identity of collectivities and groups is found precisely in behavior or at least that is where to find values that do not speak their name – those that are abject, formless (174). The rule of a MEmorial is that it must be attached to an extant memorial for acknowledged sacrifice so that the juxtaposition establishes the public and collective nature of the abject sacrifice (175). The mood is not in us, but we are in it. We are testifying, not arguing. Therefore, the MEmorial shoes us not our fate, but our situation as the Internet serves as a living monument (176).

Questions & Reflections:

1. Ulmer says that society already recognizes this problem of child abuse and tries to fix it but the MEmorial may bring a new dimension to the attention to it. However, if one of the intents is to affect public policy, how will this be any different? Public policy has already attempted to address it – will any attempts caused by the MEmorial have any more influence or would they be just as futile toward change? I feel like they may only be able to give more recognition and appreciation rather than actual large-scale change.

2. I’m having trouble seeing how Ulmer’s proposed peripheral of the Upsilon Alarm relates the children’s names to the Challenger memorial. Yes it draws attention to the issue, but how is it related? Wouldn’t some people think that it is wrong to combine the two memorials as it takes attention away from the original commemoration? I think I need this further explained to me. 

3. I feel like Ulmer’s connection of the Y and why here is important, but I only partially comprehend it. What is the background? I’m having trouble connecting this fully without this knowledge. 

Readings for 11/10/11: Ulmer Part Two: Make It New(s)

Source:

Ulmer, G. L. (2005). Electronic monuments. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Excerpts:

Chapter 3: The Call (Abject Monuments)

Chapter 4:Transversal (Into Cyberspace)

Overview & Synthesis:

Chapter 3:

This chapter looks at the MEmorial in context, in order to illustrate its two constituencies of the peripheral and the testimonial. The main goal in this section is to illustrate how a news event may provoke an egent into action.

First, in a term called reasoneon, Ulmer discussed how reason and neon merge in a hybrid modality. He explains that the neon sign “forms an emblem that anticipates the consulting practice that remains to be invented” where the egent conducts and inquiry into the unending disaster (61). Here, the EmerAgency proposes to apply an electrate mode of knowledge to the dilemmas of contemporary (in)justice (60).

Ulmer then goes into discussion of the auratic axes in order to explain how one writes a disaster. He describes that what clarity is to literate truth, aura is to electrate truth (61). Commemoration in electracy therefore becomes intelligence not confined to mourning, but instead extended to personal and public reasoning (62). Because the MEmorial consists of two parts, peripheral and testimonial, these combined takes are able to show how a consultation on a social issue articulated in a news report cohere around the rhetorical sense of trauma (63).  Ulmer brings up the challenge for the transition of literacy to electracy as how the emotional fallacies in contrast with critical reason created a new mode of reason for the categorical image (62). He counters this by saying that because designed as a corporate or collective entity, the EmerAgency is able to construct another abstract machine “capable of intervening at the same level of the group subject addressed by the spectacle” (63). This begins with news. The MEmorial is able to translate an invent into an emblem, where the formula is news + art = testimonial (63). Because the aura is a sign of recognition, the MEmorial becomes testimonial when “the egent designs it as an image, figure, parable, emblem, using some feature of the news event as an objective correlative for the witness’s state of mind, mood, attunement to the world” (65). Ulmer then proceeds to include examples in he chapter to show contributions to the MEmorial tradition and offer insight into the EmerAgency consulting. These readings help to show us an arts approach to monumentality. They demonstrate how artists think about news events using medium and style, and then how they are able to create a movement contrary to the appropriation of the image of disaster into the spectacle. In terms of this counter-monumentality, Ulmer comments that MEmorials are not only reflexive but transitive, as they are intended as interventions in public policy formation (74). By including a critique of values and beliefs, counter-monumentality provides the potential to contribute to a deconsultancy on public policy. The MEmorial is intended to bring out an extra dimensions, he human question, the disaster as a collective self portrait, in order to contribute to this (74).

Chapter 4:

            In this chapter, Ulmer looks at the news as a part of entertainment. He then attempts to provide context for the MEmorial by illustrating the potential for arts and entertainment practices to produce a methodology capable of grasping a situation holistically in an image. He points it out as a transversal series and seeks to explore it throught the conductive inference logic of electracy.

            He describes news as a “feature of the institution of entertainment, meaning that the information is structured as a commodity” (83). Because it is structured this way, he says, we know more but care less about what happens in these events (84). The MEmorial attempts to counter this by implementing an abstract machine. This means writing images for group subjects in order to make intelligible the collective status of a multitude of individual behaviors (84).

In conjunction with this, he introduces the idea of the simulacrum, a term related to the transversal assemblage of abstract machines (85). Ulmer then proceeds to provide us with a set of documents, including a news story, to illustrate the features of machinic assemblage. These show an image category, its transversal, and the simulacral effect of virtuality emerging as an effect of a series. Ulmer’s point is to show how images mediate individual and collective experience in electracy (87).

Ulmer also introduces the idea of a cognitive map, which in a MEmorial helps citizens to grasp their position within a historical field (90). In terms of cyberspace testimony, he describes how transcendence serparates the image of the body from the material body (95). Therefore, the news event is able to serve as a metaphor for evoking the feeling of what it is like to be in someone else’s situation (95). It is this agenda setting power of pop culture that is able to transform a set of images and narratives. He comments that “the notion of cyberspace is relevant to us to the extent that it provides some insight into the transformation of human experience in electracy and the era of the spectacle” (96). In terms of the spectacle, the goal in becoming images is not to eliminate categories, but to renegotiate them.

Ulmer comments that commemoration in the public sphere is dominated by this idea of the spectacle. He explains that commemoration is a “collective process that sanctions certain images and not others, around which group subjects form” (100). It is the intent of the MEmorial to intervene in this process to democratize selection and sanctioning of the icons that influence national identity (100).

In terms of identity, Ulmer brings up the idea of the gaze. He comments that the self-scrutiny of the gaze is the basis within electracy for the emerging group subject (101). Because cyberspace is customizable, communicative capacity is enhanced. Therefore, in the new electrate apparatus, the clear distinction between subject and object is replaced by choragraphy (103). In it, the observer is no longer part of the subject-object binary gaze, but instead only one part of a network. Then, the challenge for the MEmorial is to learn how to write from this standpoint of only being a figure within a field of warped space (105).

Ulmer continues on to bring up the ideas of the impresa and emblem for how the egent testifies with respect to disaster. The impresa represents the principle of individuation and the emblem is more general and addressed to a larger audience (107). In terms of the transvaluation of virtue, the MEmorial treats a disaster as a source for understanding contemporary values. It does this as a mode of self knowledge rather than attempting to impose on this disaster a predetermined meaning (109).

In summary, Ulmer points out that though his model, we are under the assumption that digital imaging is a social machine.

Questions & Reflections:

1. On page 69, Ulmer mentions the idea of collective memory. And this ties into the idea I’ve gotten from his work as us working together in commemoration to form that collective memory. Do you think that this idea ties back into the idea of collective intelligence that Jenkins mentions? We might be working together to form this collective memory, but isn’t it just as important to tie it into the sense of the individual?

2. I’m slightly confused as to Ulmer’s connection of reasoning and neon into reasoneon. I think I get the neon effect he is talking about, but how are the two connected?

3.  I am interested in exploring further this idea of how cyberspace is customizable and therefore able to provide this communicative capacity. Without cyberspace do you think Ulmer’s same ideas could be adapted to still be applied for the same purposes, maybe in a different way? Or are they unique?

Reading for 11/3/11: Ulmer Part One: Theory Tours

Source:

Ulmer, G. L. (2005). Electronic monuments. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Excerpts:

Preface

Introduction: The EmerAgency

Chapter 1: Metaphoric Rocks (Founding Tourists)

Chapter 2: The Traffic Sphere (A MEmorial Prototype)

Overview & Synthesis:

Preface

            Ulmer opens by calling attention to the power of catastrophes to motivate collective as well as individual reflection on the meaning and purpose of life (x). He introduces the idea of the MEmorial as a hybrid combining image and text. It combines both the features of a topical essay and the vernacular shrines that people have used to respond to disasters (xiv). As an analogy, he compares this project as being to the networked classroom what the argumentative paper is to the literate classroom (xvi). By aligning subjects with problems and public policy he suggests that EmerAgency adds to the existing arrangement by contributing this “dimension of the fifth estate whose purpose is to witness, monitor, the process relating knowledge, problems, and politics” (xiv). He describes mourning as a behavior of both individual and collective identity formation, psychologically and socially. Tourism plays and important role at both levels and contributes to the invention and maintenance of American national identity. Thus, we could use the new transinstitutional reach of the Internet to contribute to a new dimension of civic sphere with this (xv).

Introduction

Ulmer begins by introducing Virilio’s ideas. Virilio argues that new technology and instantaneous interactivity presents a threat to democracy. He also points out that public space in real time becomes an image in some medium and poses the transformation of the worldview each individual holds into one single perspective (xviii). Ulmer counters this by arguing that it is not the mind being overwritten but its boundary, the border between the self and the “collective” of human existence. He uses the EmerAgency experiment as a response to Virilio by designing a practice to address the loss of borders experienced in the virtual city (xix).

Chapter 1

Ulmer introduces the Florida Rushmore project to illustrate the application of the MEmorial. The purpose of the EmerAgency is to use the concept of tourism to produce a new kind of tourist destination and behavior around which we might form an electrate civic sphere (4). The MEmorial pushes beyond idea into mood, feeling, and desire (6). While MEmorialization is not tourism, this provides an analogy for how to use the information highway to participate in public problem solving (9). It shows how new communications technologies can help people participate in public problem solving. Ulmer suggests to think of it more like a permanent, pervasive town hall meeting rather than travel. The MEmorial is intended to expand this public participation in monumentality into a permanent Internet deconsultancy. Additionally, it could help to adapt the invention of tourist destinations as an analogy for authoring the images that underlie the group subject and to make them available as sites of possible collective education (16). Then, the task of the EmerAgency to produce an electrate practice capable of focusing attention on our collective behavior (30).

Ulmer comments on several works that influence his creation and adaptation of the EmerAgency. He first applies the idea of “theoria” by discussing how theorists in Ancient Greece were also tourists since they traveled to a site of importance to see the sights and get their own world view (5). Ulmer uses the classic tourist guidebook as an example of old literacy that only conveys information. He points out that the MEmorial will have to have a new form or rhetoric by saying it must “bring into composition the qualities of modern (electrate) space” by demolishing the perspectivist window and metaphors for thought (7). Ulmer goes on to connect this by saying that the MEmorial visualizes at least a part of this formation of coherence, in which electrate society is held together by collections of meaningless signifiers (28). Ulmer comments how these monuments may be examples of the rhizome that Deleuze and Guattari propose as the result of the “abstract machine” that creates collective identity from group subjectivity (12). He says that tourism is rhizomatic because it “offers a possible point of access to a group subjectivity” (12). He also draws from Joseph Beuys’s “social sculptures” (Show Your Wound, Tallow) to illustrate how by representing the wider context of social failure, the sore spots of the community may be grasped pathically as features of identity (27). And finally, he discusses Lacan and the three exigencies, Real, the Symbolic and the Imaginary as being held together by the Symptom, which he describes as “the peculiar notation of the human dimension” (28).

Chapter 2

This chapter goes into the MEmorial as a prototype. Ulmer says that the challenge to democracy is to educate an electrate citizenry that could navigate the new cyber cityscape without losing agency. Ulmer uses the controversy over the Vietnam Wall memorial before its construction to highlight the dangers of hegemony in a post-cyber world. He also provides a link between car crashes and war. Similarly, with his illustration of the NRA, he points out that citizens may instead worship the object and not the ideas behind the object. He argues that the MEmorial compensates for these things because it seeks to memorialize those which has been categorized as formless values, things that are not worthy of public recognition except as anomalies, errors, or accidents (50). These untransformed, nonstranscendent, untransposed and unredeemed things he calls “abjects” (43). But “What memorials are to ideals, MEmorials are to abjects” (43). Ultimately he argues “the relationship between catastrophe and memory must be reorganized once again for an electronic apparatus, which continues the mnemonic tradition in its own way” (45).

Questions & Reflections:

1. Do you think that some of Ulmer’s ideas could apply to existing Internet outlets? If so, which? If not, do you think that any might have the potential to be altered to fit the prototype he portrays?

2. Do we normally make connections between our actions (such as driving) and our freedoms (that we indirectly gain from war)? If not, do you think adding an abject to this would be beneficial or not for society?

3. When Ulmer mentions the use of the peripheral in chapter 2, this brings up the idea of a mass communication theory I have studied, the Elaboration Likelihood Model. Could the ELM be applied to guide the application of the MEmorial to make it more effective? 

WoW Aca-Fan Fiction: Xamari’s Journey: More Than Just an Adventure, a Lesson in Life

Xamari, Blood Elf Hunter

Her long platinum blond hair ticked her cheek as a chilly gust of wind blew; ruffling the long, sleek gray robe she wore. She was thankful she had this to keep her warm. Normally it wasn’t what she preferred to wear, but she looked fierce in it. Still, she was out of place here. Her hair that normally sparkled in the light of the sun that shines relentlessly in her homeland looked dull and bleak. Her normally rich, golden skin looked ashy and cold. Despite the weapons she had to protect her, she still felt vulnerable. She longed for the familiarity and safety of what she knew. All she wanted was to get back to Silvermoon. To walk through the warm breeze on the fields of Evergreen Woods, with grass tickling her legs while the sun blinds her, reflecting off of the gleaming spires of buildings and the colorful, shiny windows that adorn them.

Xamari alone in The Sepulcher

Xamari was scared. It was dark. It was unfamiliar. She had the creeping feeling that she would never get out of here. No one was around and she had just lost her only companion. She stood alone on the hill in The Sepulcher of Silverpine Forest, looking past the slate grey tombstones of the graveyard and along the path leading into the foggy unknown. Could she try leaving again? Last time she was brutally attacked and injured. Just like the time before that. And the time before that. Bloodfang Stalkers and Giant Rabid Bears roamed the land surrounding the area. Would it be any different this time? She felt trapped. For sure she’d be attacked again and she couldn’t handle these beasts without some help. The first time she ventured out, they had killed her beloved pet Dragonhawk. She needed him. Without him now, she was weak and alone.

She was alone in general. Almost no one was here. The Sepulcher was deserted and desolate. Normally she considered herself an inexperienced but brave blood elf, yet now she was nervous. What on earth can I do? she wondered. She couldn’t leave by foot and she couldn’t use her Hearthstone. She couldn’t ask for help but she needed to get out. Where was she? Where was everyone? Who could she talk to? How was she going to get home? Could she even get home? Just when she thought it couldn’t get worse, it started raining.

Entering the Undercity with Licha, Eloj, and Maurician

Xamari didn’t even know how she ended up here. She was originally in Brill to work with her companions Eloj, Maurician and Licha on some quests. But once they had done what they intended, they went their separate ways. Feeling ambitious, Xamari thought she’d take a stab at exploring the land and seeking out some new quests on her own. When she couldn’t find much, she attempted to go back and find the portal to Silvermoon City but got lost in the Undercity. Now Xamari was all for adventures, so she explored a little, but with no purpose in mind she soon grew bored.

Xamari and the Orb of Translocation

Eventually she found her way back to the Orb of Translocation and to Silvermoon. She had followed Licha from Falconwing Square to the portal and was sure she could backtrack. She ran through vaguely familiar areas, the Court of the Sun, Murder Row, and The Bazaar. She couldn’t remember exactly but she thought she was on the right track. However, once she got to The Bazaar she hit a dead end. She wandered around for a while, completely perplexed. After walking in and out of all the buildings and around the whole area, she couldn’t even find the way she had come in! She was completely and utterly lost. Disheartened, she gave up and used her Hearthstone to return to the inn in Tirisfal Glades, where she had last set it.

Back in Brill, Xamari was left with nothing to do but explore. Maybe if I go on a few quests and explore the land a little I could get used to this place, she thought to herself. Or even better, maybe I’ll have an easier time finding home. She still had an unfinished quest waiting for her back in Silvermoon. She hated letting her people down and knew that no matter what, she’d return to finish it. She couldn’t – and wouldn’t – let them down. She’d be back. The question was just when and how.

Xamari started on a fresh quest to take up her time, but thanks to her unreliable sense of directional intuition, she quickly got lost during her venture. Injured shortly after, she found herself resurrected in a new and completely unfamiliar place, The Sepulcher.

She had just recently used her Hearthstone to return to Brill, so that was not an option. Xamari was restless to get home or at least somewhere she knew, but she would just have to wait. Looking to waste time, she explored the area. But unfortunately it was relatively small. No one was around but a Hunter Trainer named Matt Bruxworthy. With time to spare, she learned the Concussive Shot from him, a new skill to add to her arsenal. Inside one of the buildings, she raided the jack-o-lantern a few times, getting some Tricky Treats. Outside, she looked around again. Surrounding The Sepulcher there were rolling hills. She could leave, but which direction would she go? Her map was of little help. It didn’t matter though, because despite her attempts to leave the area, those vicious creatures roaming these lands always stopped her…

…As Xamari stood here, on the hill of The Sepulcher, looking out into the unknown, the events of the past few hours haunted her. Her stomach ached. She longed for the company of Dragonhawk and the sight of familiar lands. If only she waited a little longer, at least she could get back to Brill…

…Xamari opens her eyes as the Hearthstone transports her back to the ­­­­­­inn in Brill. It isn’t exactly where she wants to be; yet it is much better than the place she had just been. It is late and the sky is a dark eerie shade of green. The streetlamps flicker in the brisk night air, sending chills down her spine. Ready to get out of here, she is determined to succeed in finding her home and sets out on a mission.

On her way to the Orb, Xamari agrees to go on a small quest for Magistrate Sevren. She stops briefly to speak with Deathguard Linnea at Death’s Watch Waystation in Tirisfal Glades, earing herself 55 copper in the process. In a stroke of luck, she also runs into Shelene Rhobart, a leatherworking trainer. Eager to start begin a profession, Xamari asks her to teach her some new skills. She learns how to create light armor kits, hand-stitched leather boots, cloaks, bracers, and vests. As a hunter, this knowledge could come in handy for making leather armor.

Xamari in the Court of the Sun in Silvermoon City

Xamari continues eagerly, running through the Undercity and the Ruins of Lordaeron, where she finds the Orb of Translocation. She arrives in Inner Sanctum in Sunfury Spire. As she emerges into the Court of the Sun, even in the dark of the night she is comforted by the warm colors and friendly sight of rich reds and golds. The sky gleams a majestic purple, welcoming her back.

Xamari's map of Silvermoon City

Once again she begins her trek through Murder Row. She quickly makes a pit stop into Silvermoon City Inn to transfer her Hearthstone by speaking with Innkeeper Velandra. On her way out, she grabs a handful of treats from the pumpkin. Eventually, Xamari winds up in the Walk of Elders where she stops to take a look at her map. She isn’t sure where to go and unfortunately her map is not really any help. Pocketing it again, she trusts her instincts and continues to follow the path to The Royal Exchange. Not remembering this area from her trip before, she looks at map again, realizing that she is going opposite way. Figuring it is too late to backtrack, she might as well explore. Entering into Farstrider Square, Xamari walks around and soon finds that it loops back into Court of the Sun where she once started. Frustrated, she starts again, this time making sure she goes from Walk of Elders to The Bazaar. Yet when she gets there, she is once again faced a giant door she remembers from her last visit. She can’t get through but thinks that the other side might lead her across The Dead Scar, past the Ruins of Silvermoon, and back to where she wants to be. She can see it in front of her, but she can’t get through it. Perplexed, she waits…

…Her eyelids, heavy with sleep, open slowly as she hears footsteps coming nearer. She quickly scrambles up from the spot against the wall where she was resting and looks around. A male blood elf comes near, hurrying quickly and purposefully. Sensing that this may be her only shot for help getting exiting the city’s winding walls, she calls out to him. 

“Hold on a second!” she says eagerly, but he continues on.

“Wait! Please! I need your help!” she yells loudly. He stops abruptly in his trail and turns around sharply. 

“Yes, what do you need?” he asks disinterested, as if she has bothered him.

“I’m so thankful that I’ve run into you! I’m terribly lost and so ashamed but I can’t seem to find my way. I’m dying to get back to Sunstrider Isle to finish a quest I am working on, but can’t seem to find my way out of Silvermoon City! Do you happen to know the way?”

“I didn’t need the life story, but yeah, of course I do. I know these streets like the back of my hand. I practically have the map memorized. Just follow me!”

Xamari follows the strange blood elf, who is obviously much more familiar with the layout and intricacies of Silvermoon City than she, as he effortlessly leads her out of the Bazaar, across Shepard’s Walk, through the South gate of the city, and onto the rolling green hills of Eversong Woods. Xamari is elated as her feeling of homesickness subsides and relief floods her body.

Eager to get back to the quest lingering on her conscious, she begs one more question of him, asking the quickest way she can return to Sunstrider Isle. ­­­­­He takes her to meet a Dragonhawk Master, where she purchases a ride on one of them. Almost immediately after arriving back on the Isle, Xamari finds the Orb, the last object she needs, and finishes the quest. She can’t help but beam with pride for her actions. She is overwhelmed with emotion as feelings of elation consume her from her accomplishment, her excitement to be home, and her appreciation for the strange elf’s help.

Xamari in Eversong Woods

With the task at hand now complete, Xamari takes a second to look around and admire the beauty of her homeland of Eversong Woods. Rolling emerald green hills envelope shimmering gold buildings, ornamented in beautiful jewel-toned colors. The sun reflects of every surface, enveloping her in warmth…

…Crossing the dreary gray Ghostlands has been a challenge. Everywhere she turns is a vicious creature, waiting to attack her. Luckily Xamari has her pet spider, The Duchess, along for companionship and protection. After assisting Apprentice Vor’el by getting rid of some of the Greater Spindlewebs and Ghostclaw Ravagers roaming the fields, Xamari looks for a new challenge. She runs into Ranger Belonis, a hunter trainer. In no rush, she decides to learn the Ranged Attack that will allow her to disorient targets, causing them to be unable to move or attack for four seconds; a helpful skill if she needs to get away quickly. After trading 15 silver and 56 bronze for her lesson, she continues on.

When crossing the Tranquillen area, she comes across High Executor Mavren who may have something good to offer her.

“It’s an honor, really,” he says, explaining a new quest to her. “Windrunner Spire is the original home of Lady Sylvanas Windrunner, queen of the Forsaken and former ranger-general of the elves. But now it’s been overrun by the mindless Scourge.”

“What would I have to do?” Xamari asks, skeptical about taking on any task, honorable or not, if she doesn’t have the skills to complete it.

“You will need to slay eight Deatholme Acolytes and ten Fallen Rangers before returning to me.”

“I can do that,” she responds with confidence. “Where do I find them?”

“Take the road south until it branches,” Mavren directs. “Follow the right fork and after crossing the Dead Scar continue southwest. You can’t miss it.”

“Sounds great, I’ll be back in a flash!” Xamari says with a smile before darting off into the distance with The Duchess by her side.

As she runs in the direction of Windrunner Spire, she isn’t surprised that the rest of the Ghostlands is riddled with obnoxious, aggressive creatures. Xamari and The Duchess work side by side to battle Arcane Devourers and Mana Shifters, reminiscent of the wormlike creatures she battled in her days on Sunstrider Isle, as they travel through Sanctum of the Moon. Avoiding the trap of the Dead Scar, they wade through the Elrendar River to evade the Risen Hungerers.

Xamari and The Duchess slaying a Zombified Grimscale

When she comes to Windrunner Village, she continues to the edge of the village, where the coast meets the water. Here she finds various cooper veins to mine for ore. Minding her own business, she is promptly surrounded and attacked by Withered and Zombified Grimscales. These hideous creatures are not difficult to destroy, but small and annoying in their large numbers. The bent over tan creatures with spiky red hair vaguely resemble small Gargoyles. Xamari and The Duchess work together to take out as many as they can, picking up some copper loot along the way. Turning back to the inland, they follow the inside of the cliff lining the beach. On the way, Xamari is bombarded by Phantasmal Seekers and Stonewing Slayers, but has no problem in taking them down in conjunction with her pet. These creatures are ugly too. Especially the Slayers, who look like large gray gargoyle bats with creepy, yellow eyes. Yet, they provide a pretty hefty loot of copper. At the edge of the cliff, she finds the path leading up to Windrunner Spire. She heads up, nervous and unsure of what awaits her.

Xamari in Windrunner Spire

            Along the way, she finds the Deatholme Acolytes and Fallen Rangers. Ahh, so these are what he was talking about, she thinks to herself. How eerie. They look almost ghostlike. But she doesn’t have time to think much more. Before she knows it, a Ranger is upon her. Xamari and The Duchess work their way to the top of the Spire, taking them down one by one. At the top, a round circular platform overlooks the ocean. A gorgeous view, Xamari doesn’t have time to take it in because four creatures surround her at once. Fighting as if it was her last shot, Xamari gives it all she’s got. But unfortunately, combined they are too strong for her and it’s not enough. In an attempt to save her life, she jumps off the platform and onto the rocky shore below…

…The waves lap the shore, breaking over the stony sand and boulders lining the beach. From the cliffs overtop, Xamari looks up at the dark gray ominous sky and watches the clouds move across the gloomy horizon. It is almost nightfall. She had been working all day to cross the terrain to come here, to this spot, and accomplish her quest. The moon, hinted with a blue hue, casts a glowing light over her fair skin. Isn’t it beautiful? she mutters to herself as she glances at her surroundings. Despite being here for a while, now is the first time she has had a chance to appreciate the prominent and stunning coast of the Ghostlands. Looking down, she sees the rocky ground she had some short time before jumped onto. It was a long way from the platform and she was lucky to survive the fall. Heck, she was lucky that she was able to come back and finish killing off the Deatholme Acolytes and Fallen Rangers. The Duchess didn’t fare so well, but luckily she was able to revive her. Ending her reflection, Xamari realizes it is getting late and it will only get darker from here on out. She heads back down Windrunner Spire and through the hills to report the success of her quest to High Executor Mavren…

Xamari and Eloj at the Ziggurat

…Back in Tranquillen, Xamari runs into her old companion Eloj and his pet Dragonhawk. Hoping for some help in another quest she ropes him in to joining her.

“Eloj! How good to see you again! Are you interested in helping me out with some trouble at the Underlight Mines?”

“Sure, why not! I could use some learning experience. What do we have to do?” Eloj responds.

“Deathstalker Maltendis told me that the mines to the southwest have been overrun by a clan of gnolls, the Blackpaw. The mines are an important strategic asset for the ongoing campaign in the Ghostlands so we need to take them back. He wants us to kill eight Blackpaw Gnolls, six Blackpaw Scavengers, and four Blackpaw Shaman.”

“Alright, where do we go?” he asks.

“It’s outside of town to the south, right past the Ziggurat. Follow me!” Xamari says with excitement…

…The job in Underlight Mines is done, but Xamari doesn’t feel the same sort of satisfaction she normally does. In the process of their battle, Eloj got killed. She feels somewhat responsible for dragging him into the whole mess in the first place. It wasn’t even really that important. She got caught up in trying to impress the people of the Ghostlands and prove that she could really live up to her reputation. Returning to Tranquillen alone, she reports to Maltendis.

“That’s a fair job of butchery you managed there, hunter,” he says, congratulating her and rewarding Xamari with six silver.

But somehow, the money just doesn’t seem quite worth it…

Level 17 Xamari

…As Xamari travels to Orgrimmar to meet up with some old friends, she thinks to herself. She doesn’t want to be arrogant, but she can’t help but be proud of her accomplishments. In just a short time, she has come so far. Still not an expert hunter, she has gained numerous skills and a newfound confidence. Always up for adventure, she isn’t one to turn down a challenging quest. With The Duchess by her side, she has little to fear. Her weapons arsenal has multiplied many times over. As a skilled marksman, she is progressing along nicely. She traded in her profession of leatherworking to become a miner and a skinner. Still at the apprentice level, she has a lot to learn, but the motivation to do so. Her outfit is better too; she even has a cape! Yet at the same time, none of this really matters in relation to what she has learned in her heart. Xamari has come to appreciate the value of one’s friends and companions. It has been a tough road for her. She has lost several pets and one friend because she was blind sighted by her drive for success. But, learning from her mistakes, she realizes now that life is all about balance. From here on out, she vows to not take those around her for granted or to sacrifice loved ones for something that matters less than they do.   

Readings for 10/27/11: Culture, Gender and Player Intervention in WoW

Source:

Nardi, B. A. (2010). My life as a night elf priest: An anthropological account of World of Warcraft. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Excerpts:

Part Three: Cultural Logics of World of Warcraft

Chapter 6: Addiction

Chapter 7: Theorycraft and Mods

Chapter 8: Gender

Chapter 9: Culture: WoW in China… and North America

Coda

Overview & Synthesis:

Chapter 6

            In response to the discussion about addiction in terms of video games, Nardi introduces the idea of “problematic use,” or the potential for aesthetic activity to become overwhelming. Aesthetic activity is potentially dangerous because of the quality of passion it caries (Nardi, 2010, 129). Because it requires balance and proportion, intense passion can turn extreme and overwhelm us, creating this problematic use. However, she argues that this use is not the fault of the game, but instead players bring their problems to the game. Lack of self-regulation or vacancy in a player’s life precedes video games and the games themselves do not cause problematic use (Nardi, 2010, 125, 133). While problematic use might displace important activities, we must reach beyond the game for an explanation of why some people play to excess. Also, problematic use only makes sense when compared in context to these other competing activities. As far as the term, Nardi (2010) argues that cultural terms like addiction can stretch exaggerate and distort what they express (133). For some players, ‘addiction’ can have positive connotations, showing connection to and understanding of the game. However, problematic use is confusing because it arises from a passion for activities we are deeply attached to and on their own are not “always bad” (Nardi, 2010, 135). Therefore, we continually wrestle with the ambiguousness between positive aesthetic experience and negative states of excess.

Chapter 7

            Nardi chooses to use Theorycraft and Mods to illustrate the capacity of WoW to stimulate participatory activity outside of the game. Theorycrafting is the discovery of rules that can’t be determined through play (Nardi, 2010, 137). According to Nardi, this is a serious analytical activity. For example, players might design and perform quantitative experiments and analyze results to solve game mechanics. Modding on the other hand allows players to create and install software modules to add new functionality (Nardi, 2010, 143). This can include altering the user interface. This little bit of permitted entry allows players to contribute significant bits of player experience to be codified and incorporated into the game (Nardi, 2010, 143). Mods serve as a collective resource, helping to reduce player effort, make visible invisible parts of the game, enable information sharing, aid players in coordinating with one another, and capture aspects of play history (Nardi, 2010, 146). Because they can change the game to a decent extent, they affect both players who use mods and those who don’t. As part of a larger movement toward participant production on the Internet, Nardi (2010) points out that modding establishes an ethos that allows for a more open relationship between people and technology (150).  Both Theorycraft and Mods help to enrich and deepen experience through reflection on play.

Chapter 8

Nardi examines how gendered experience in WoW is constructed through patterns of discourse and game design. In the game, discourse is usually led by males and contains sexualized and homophobic language, establishing that males are the dominant gender. This dominance and use of language that is prohibited in many everyday settings is embraced, exaggerated, and given free expression. As far as the interactive gendered landscape, Nardi divides it into two planes: the dominant and the secondary. The dominant plane dampens heterosexuality where players can enjoy a relaxed space to play and the secondary plane sustains heterosexual flirtation and romance where people can play with no-strings-attached. As far as game design, WoW contains elements of strong appeal to women, such as visual experience, while the harsh masculinity of environments is still dominated by men. The game also contains activities that are cross-gendered. Despite the games combination of masculine and feminine elements, female players are still a minority.

Chapter 9

            In her study of Chinese WoW players, Nardi found that the setting in which the game was played was not only different but also very important. Internet cafes provided a mixed reality of virtual and physical social interaction; this social atmosphere is crucial to player experience (Nardi, 2010, 179, 181). Nardi (2010) argues that this is helping to redefine and reshape virtual experience into a hybrid, mixed reality of the virtual and physical (181). One of the reasons the social experience of play is more important is because Internet cafes provided a way of escape for Chinese players. The sociability of the game amplified the sociability of the playing setting. In reference to game design and culture, Nardi (2010) points out that there is a common core of participatory aesthetic experience that transcends national and cultural borders (194). Because of this, she argues, WoW and other social games are emerging as global artifacts that appear to sustain alternatives to or displacement of traditional media, even in different cultural contexts (Nardi, 2010, 196).

Coda

            In her conclusion, Nardi (2010) again describes WoW as a work of art and argues that as a visual-performative medium, good video games engage and stimulate visual, cognitive, and social capacities (197). As part of this, she sees rules as necessary for nurturing and preserving a reliable experience. As cultural entities, games don’t come to life until actually played so they depend on significant player contribution. While WoW appears feminist, player culture is masculinist and performance is a focal concern. Games allow for players to experience unconscious cross-cultural encounters through software. While games provide spaces to create new work relations, provide possible platforms for education, or serve as encounters with other cultures, they are still appealing because they provide frolic and tomfoolery (Nardi, 2010, 203). Overall, Nardi (2010) argues that multiplayer videogames have generated hybrid physical-digital spaces of visual-performative activity (201).

Questions & Reflections:

1. In chapter 6 on addiction, Nardi (2010) mention how problematic use can be defined as play that displaces important activities such as schoolwork, maintaining friendships or family activity (125) This reminds me of a mass communication theory I once studied called “Displacement Hypothesis,” which basically says that the large quantity of time spend with media serves to displace time that would ordinarily be spend doing other important activities. How does the kind of activities players displace by playing affect problematic use? Is excessive use okay if it only displaces other media use? Do we need this other media to function in society? Is this better than displacement of real life responsibilities? What if someone has a lot of free time on their hands or a void in their life? It is good to use games to fill vacancies? Or could people be doing something better? Are we giving up too much by gaming? As Nardi (2010) asks, just what should people be doing rather than playing games? (136).

2. What does character choice have to say about identity? Particularly in terms of gender dynamics? How does culture influence this? Here we only see the U.S. and Chinese cultures, how do you think other cultures would affect this?

3. Nardi (2010) asks just how far WoW can stretch in its boundaries and across cultures (195). My question is why it doesn’t go further already. In the beginning of the book, she tells us that WoW is available in North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia Russia, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere. While available in all these places, she mentions it is only available in English, Chinese, Korean, German, French, Spanish, and Russian (Nardi, 2010, 8). However, there are many more languages spoken in these areas and all over other parts of the world. This seems relatively limiting to me in comparison to other forms of networking media such as social networking sites and the likes. Why doesn’t the game exist in more countries and languages? Yes, it surely takes more time, effort, and money to produce in these varied regions, but obviously it is popular and likely to profit if spread out further. 

Readings for 10/20/11: Play in WoW: Aesthetic Experience, Rules and Performance, and Work vs. Play

Source:

Nardi, B. A. (2010). My life as a night elf priest: An anthropological account of World of Warcraft. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Excerpts:

Part Two Active Aesthetic Experience:

            Chapter 3: Play as Aesthetic Experience

            Chapter 4: A New Medium

Chapter 5: Work, Play and the Magic Circle

Overview & Synthesis:

Chapter 3

Nardi uses the term aesthetic experience to “express an active, participatory relation to artful material and collective activity” (41). Also associated with activity theory are the three levels of activity of a human subject: action, object, and activity (42). She mentions how in WoW, play is rewarded with advancement and the intermittent reinforcement of unpredictable rewards.

Dimensions of aesthetic experience

Aesthetic experience is a subjective disposition toward activity that is complexly phased where both the journey and destination are rewards and within which we can be fully present (43, 49). It is composed of means-end relations, phases, and collective expression. Means-end relations means activity flows toward a satisfying completion and its own fulfillment or ends. It requires an internal structure of differentiated phases. And in terms of collective expression, it connects us to others in relations of community and ‘common life’ (48). Thus, aesthetic experience is “participatory engagement in activity that is organized in distinctive stages and in which a satisfying completion is the end point of actions which are themselves pleasurable” (48).

Chapter 4

Accodrding to Nardi, WoW constitutes a new digital media combining visual experience and performance (52). The visual is constituted of various things including the game world, characters, and attire, while the performance has competitive contests such as quests, raids, duels, and battlegrounds.

Performance

Performance is central to WoW, take for example the importance of raiding and different performance tools such as gear and guild progression. The scrutiny of player performance is deployed to direct and improve, as the character in virtual world is only known to others through performance. Other issues of performance include mastery, agency, and empowerment

The software artifact

Nardi refers to the visual-performative medium as a “digital entity encoded in rules” (61). While players attend to the precise ways in which digital rules shape experience,

interpretation and reshaping can take place only within those narrow limits allowed for by the constitution of technology (72). Rules are enforced automatically through software and remove a source of social authority with whom to negotiate rules of play. Software has the force to shape online life and the relationship between games and people must be understood in more complex terms (63, 64). While WoW was engineered to require sociability for the most challenging content, it weakly developed community as shared commitments and durable social bonds. Therefore, she argues, rules direct and motivate the activity of players and quality of experience is produced by the rules in dynamic interplay with human action (70, 73).

Rules may nuture

Nardi mentions that with some effort the ill effects of digital rules can be managed, for example by using hacking to transform rules or by cheating, such as faking rolls or ninja-ing. However, she argues that rules are good as resources preserving good design and artistic imagination. Rules can be nurturing, protective, and caring as they conserve a rich complex play experience (76). She also illustrates WoW’s design as a work of art that contributes to the participatory aesthetic experience and the sense of community (79).

Performance and participation

Nardi characterizes video game participation as comprised of 3 elements: interpretation (figuring out how game rules work), reconfiguration (builds the player’s game world by selecting objects and actions from a fixed set offered by the game), and construction (adds new game elements such as player-created software modification) (85).

The spectacle of images

The visual is an important part of game experience. Vivid artwork includes colors, character images, animations, buildings, game geography, and more. However, textual representation is also very important. In WoW, visual elements don’t need filling in because they are intact and complete in themselves (89). These visual can operate as theatrical performances on a virtual stage because players do not merely watch but themselves act.

Visuals here work double duty – players can gaze appreciatively at surroundings and simultaneously these features invite them to participatory activity (92). Nardi argues that “video games afford arenas of activity in which visual experience is unified with active performance” (93). Therefore, participation in virtual worlds is not simulation but performance.

Chapter 5

Work and play

Nardi discusses the connect and disconnect between work and play and how these boundaries are not simple. She says, “shifting subjective boundaries between voluntary and involuntary, work and play, problematize a simple dichotomy” (97) In a gaming context, nuances of work are context dependent (99). She defines game play as “an identifiable human activity whose structure includes both subjective dispositions, such as a sense of freedom, and specific cultural constructs such as rules” (104). While WoW is a voluntary activity, some players experience certain aspects of play as worklike such as farming, pressures of raiding, etc. The elements of work can enter in two ways either through the seriousness and dedication which players refer to as work or the obligatory actions necessary to accommodate the larger play activity (102).

A partial separation of play and not play

Play has consequences outside itself and cannot be entirely separate It can be interrupted by bodily needs or social needs, and can provide professional ideas. Play is a “complex activity expressive of a duality in its relation to ordinary life (113). Nardi points out that play may be subversive, moving to arenas in which its modes of activity suggest new ways of acting”(110). Additionally, gaming also allows players to take up the challenges and disappointments of contemporary life to work through them in fantasy.

The magic circle

Magic circle is a protected space defended against the encroachments of everyday life (94). Within the circle, the meaningfulness of play is bound within the activity of those who actually play. It creates its own collective social order and creates a feeling of being apart together (116). This is constituted in 3 ways: through knowledge about structures and activities that occur inside its enclosure, in specialized discourse, and in designated spaces of play that mark and confine it (117) The circle is productive of considerable geniality, intimacy, amiability and positive sociality. Nardi says “Players cross the threshold out of ordinary life to engage distinctive kinds of performative activity in a game space in which the rules are different, the culture unique, the rewards sensible only within the enclosure” (120).

Questions & Reflections:

1. Nardi offers a discussion on cheating on rules in video games, such as hacking or faking rolls and ninja-ing in WoW. Do you think that this is morally wrong or just player intervention and part of regular game interaction? Would you cheat in the game? What about in games other than video games, is that okay?

2. Related to the discussion on work vs. play, how do you think games are portrayed when they are studied for academic reasons? Is this work or play? For example, when playing WoW in our class, how do you feel about it?

3. Thinking about the separation of the boundaries between work and play and other aspects according to what Nardi said, what do you think are some clear examples of work and play? What are some things that can be misconstrued as both?

Readings for 10/13/11: World of Warcraft: Are Online Sociable Games the New Way to Study Culture?

Source:

Nardi, B. A. (2010). My life as a night elf priest: An anthropological account of World of Warcraft. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Excerpts:

Prologue

Chapter One: What is World of Warcraft and Who Plays It?

Chapter Two: An Ethnographic Investigation of World of Warcraft

Overview & Synthesis:

In the prologue, Nardi (2010) discusses the importance of games in penetrating “unlikely arenas of human activity” such as education, business, the military, and religious organizations (p. 5). She introduces World of Warcraft and emphasizes is technological value in constituting new human relationships and collaborations. She sets the stage for the rest of the book by telling the reader it will serve as an account of her ethnographic study to reveal the player’s perspective in the game. Here, Nardi (2010) aims to examine play as an active aesthetic experience, understand play in its contemporary digital manifestations, and provide an interpretative ethnographic reportage (p. 6, 7).

The World of Warcraft logo

Chapter one provides a background to WoW, its world and its workings, introduces key terms, and discusses some of the social aspects associated with the game. Nardi starts off the chapter with an anecdote of one of the raids she was involved in to help give the reader a sense of what it is like.

Following this she delves right into the background of the game. Based on a fantasy theme, WoW takes place in a medieval setting where players battle monsters, gain treasure, conduct business, practice crafts, and improve their characters. Characters are divided into races. Players are able to create multiple characters that join “guilds,” or groups with officers and a chat channel. There are different channels, such as general chat which broadcasts to a large area, “yelling” for a smaller local area, and “say” for a small local area. It is a game of movement and everything within the world is to human scale. As a virtual world, or a set of linked activities chosen by the player and carried out within a three-dimensional virtual space, the game offers a focused experience that provides a refuge or “escape” from modernity for some players (Nardi, 2010, p. 13). Like most games, play here involves a contest, but is simply a way to keep score and is not violent with the graphic visceral realism found in some other games. “Parties” and “raids” are temporary groups formed to accomplish a goal; this is how players are able to word together in the contest.  The core contest in the game is the battle of killing computer-generated monsters. However, there is also player vs player, where players can attack and kill the characters of others.

            As a MMORRPG, or massively multi-player online role-playing game, Nardi reasons that WoW is a social world as much as a game. She argues against the negative stereotype of the gamer as a young, self-absorbed male with few social skills as the WoW population has considerable variance in demographics such as age, gender, and social class. Nardi (2010) describes WoW players as generally “active people looking for intense, engaging, online experiences that complemented similarly engaging offline activities” (p. 24). She comments that one of the most striking aspects of the game is how it can bring together social classes for authentic shared activity. She believes this diverse mix of players is a positive aspect of the game, helping not only play but the negotiation of the language and boundaries within the game as well. Nardi points out how playing together allows people to draw on existing social connections as well as using the virtual world as a stimulus to real world interaction. WoW has also been able to bring people together by joining families, groups with shared characteristics like religion or sexual orientation, and others through the game.

People playing WoW at BlizzCon 2008

Chapter two outlines her efforts in composing this ethnography. Nardi (2010) feels that the new cultural forms emerging in virtual worlds offer a chance to take an anthropological perspective on fresh sets of natives and their exotic ways (p. 28). In her research, she observes the WoW culture through the “participant-observation” method, where she played around 20 hours per week in addition to reading her guild’s website and reading about the game on the Internet. Her research methods consisted of interviews, observations, participant-observation, informal conversation, document analysis, and outside media. She analyzes WoW through two strategies: activity theory and by looking at the “accretion of a multitude of details that impart a sense of the everyday texture of experiences in a culture” (Nardi, 2010, p. 30). Nardi’s goal is to understand the culture, the native, and to try and make sense of their activities.

Questions & Reflections:

I’ve studied anthropology before and something that has intrigued me by it is the act of immersion by the anthropologist completely in a culture they can never really be a part of. They are not native to that culture, and while they can assimilate, it will never be the same because they were not born into it. What interests me here is how World of Warcraft differs. In the game world, no one is born into it. Everyone creates their own life through their character. Not everyone is equal in this game culture, but they have the possibility to be – since everyone starts out the same and grows. In WoW, the anthropologist could be just another character, whereas is they were to travel to the remote Amazonian rainforest or desert of Africa they would stand out as an outsider.

When first starting this book, I was skeptical about the idea of the game as a culture. But here, Nardi describes how guilds had interpersonal conflicts and a sense of ethos, just like groups would in any other culture. That helped me to relate it to real-life cultures and I’m much more open to the possibility that it could be a culture and could be studied anthropologically.

1.                    On page 16, Nardi comments that selecting a race, gender, and cosmetic attributes are important decisions. She says this matters because players will be looking at their characters a lot. But this isn’t a good enough explanation for me. Why is it so important? If you didn’t like the way your character looked or if you got bored, couldn’t you simply create a new one? She says you are able to create more than one, so why not? And also, how do these cosmetic attributes play a role in the player’s identification with the character?

2.                    On page 15, in her discussion of sociable chat, Nardi metnions that although most is game-related, some supply small details reveling something of their personal lives and a feeling of intimacy may develop. This reminds me of an interpersonal communication theory I once studied called social penetration theory. This theory basically says that relational closeness develops from the superficial to intimate through self-disclosure. I have looked at this through regular contact, but I am interested in seeing how it plays out in the virtual world. How do relationships develop differently in WoW? Does the rate of development or intensity of relationships differ here? If so, what makes that process different?

3.                    On page 32, Nardi asks the question that plagues the discipline of anthropology “are you perturbing the culture you are studying by your very presence?” In response to this, she points out that so far she believes she has not caused any perturbations apart from stimulating some players to reflect more on their experiences and she can not identify any risks posed by the research. This makes me wonder, is the virtual world the way out of all of these unwanted effects caused when studying other cultures? Can we study online cultures without any side effects?