Digital Cultures / Discussion Group
Where do Virtual Babies and Digital Ethnography intersect? Besides iRez, they intersect in an ongoing discussion group in Second Life, Digital Cultures. Founded by Tom Boellstorff and hosted by Tredi Felisimo, every other week this group spends an hour in conversation about a topic in Digital Ethnography and related ideas and practice. Today’s topic was Attachment, for which host Felisimo invited new virtual mom Carissa to join the group.
Virtual Conversation
Digital Cultures is a small, engaged group of thoughtful participants. After today’s conversation I invited Carissa to join us and talk a little about her virtual maternity experience and, BAM, Carissa is already a published iRez author! I’ve done a couple of “Tweet Chats” which were interesting, but they tend to have a lot of participants, a lot of tweets, a lot of repetitive retweeting, and while you have to like the Open Web aspects of it, I’m just not certain Twitter is the best platform for a substantive conversation. Or perhaps I’m wrong to think of Tweet Chat in that way, perhaps it isn’t the conversation but the appetizer. In any event, Digital Cultures offers a rich, engaged hour that is more about ideas than most platforms I’ve chatted on. iRez authors Kathleen Cool and Katie Vizenor have both, I believe, been seen at Digital Cultures conversations, although I think they’re both embroiled in writing this winter and may not surface till spring.
R E L A T E D . L I N K S
• irez.uk/category/city/digital-ethnography
• irez.uk/category/city/virtual-community
• Digital Cultures Group in SL
• Library in Thothica – SLURL
• irez.uk/author/carissa
• irez.uk/author/canarybeck
• irez.uk/author/katcool
• irez.uk/author/kvizenor
Agnes Sharple
Botgirl Questi
Bumblebee (Wendz Tempest)
Canary Beck
Carissa Arthurine Somerset
Eva Marie
Fuschia Nightfire
George Coghill
Ironyca Lee
Jeremy Owen Turner
Joseph DeLappe
Kathleen Cool
Katie Vizenor
Krista Hoefle
Kristine Schomaker
Lizzie Gudkov
Aero Bigboots
RMarie Beedit
Marmaduke Arado
Isabella Medici
Nadya Tolokonnikova
Nathan Shafer
Pixel Reanimator
Ravanel Griffon
Scarlett Luv
Strawberry Singh
Tabitha Raincloud
Toni Tyldesley
Trilby Minotaur
Vanessa Blaylock
Xue Faith
Yordie Sands
I’ve been to a couple of Digital Cultures meetings and really loved the conversation. I actually met a few people that I have become serious dissertation buddies with. You are right, I have dug a ditch deep deep in the ground for the writing period, but I am beginning (hopefully) to poke my head up to see the sky and make sure the world still exists! 🙂
Katie, you’re alive!! 😀
Actually Tredi has gotten very busy and she’s put the Digital Cultures group on hiatus. 🙁
It was really a wonderful group and I hope it will return. There are lots of Virtual World groups and activities I’ve never had a chance to explore, but from the little I’ve seen, this group was one of the best.
I recently heard a Douglas Rushkoff talk where he lamented the “old” net days of BBS’s like “The Well” where you “spent hours crafting a post and wound up sounding smarter than you are IRL”… vs… eg… the Facebook Status update, where you work hard to sound clever, but ultimately sound less smart than you are IRL.
I tried to express that in my post last week, “Another Internet is Possible”
http://irez.uk/2013/07/16/another-internet-is-possible/
It’s so nice to “see” you again Katie! 🙂