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You wrote the book, Avatars.
Where does the word "avatar" come from?
Damer: That came from Chip Morningstar while he was working at Lucasfilm
creating an environment called Habitat. And he and others tried to
figure out how to describe their embodiment in the world, and he took the
term from Sanskrit, an ancient human language of India. It means "a god's
embodiment on the Earth." In other words, if a god came to Earth, the form
they would take is called an avatar.
You've obviously been extremely involved in the development and promotion
of these virtual worlds. Why you?
Damer: As a kid I was always building imaginary worlds in my mind. Then on
paper as a cartoonist, I would create fantastic cityscapes with vehicles and
such, and build them out of sand. Then I got into the Programmed Data
Processor computer in 1981 and thought that it could be used to create these
worlds in graphics some time in the future. I had visions of avatars and
robots, a virtual moonscape. And now I have a company that models robotics
for NASA--moon mission designs--which is ironic, as it was a vision I had as
an 18-year-old, and poof, one day I wake up and I am doing it for real.
What is your interest in avatars about?
Damer: That's all about human culture, a human face on cyberspace. That's
the most fascinating thing of all, don't you think?
Can you give a sort of chronological progression from Maze Wars to Second Life and beyond?
Damer: We are making a
Why do you think these environments matter? I hear a lot of skepticism
out there.
Damer: Some criticize the environments by saying they take people away from
"real" contact. But for several decades "real" contact has become a complex
recipe that includes phone, telex, messages/letters/memos, media, etc.
Face-to-face conversation is a smaller and smaller fraction of our
communications. I see virtual worlds as bringing us a bit back toward
embodied person-to-person conversation but also allowing people to have a
creative element--"come visit my cool place, see my cool garb"--so it is
more engaging, colorful and expressive.
So what can Second Life and There and other virtual worlds
offer that all that real-life stuff can't?
Damer: That's simple: All the cognitive stuff like flying, wild dress,
different modes of communications. Hey, it's a bit like Burning Man in here!
Of course these environments wear you out cognitively faster and that's a
problem--at least for codgers like me. Try navigating around for hours and
communicating and see if your brain turns to mush. It is related to a kind
of overload tracked by NASA in their extra-vehicular activity training and
missions. In always trying to keep track of where you are in space (or a 3D
virtual space), you use different parts of your brain than in simple
texting, so you can get brain tired--unless you are 11, of course.
Kellie Amiga (from the audience) asks: What impact will virtual worlds
like Second Life have on communication? Do you see this as a
revolutionary idea, like email?
Damer: I think of virtual worlds as being the only truly new communications
medium of the 21st century, combining elements of the phone, teletype,
theater, movie making, etc. It's all brand new in human experience. So like
film in 1906, we don't see the full impact at this time. They will look at
Alphaworld and Second Lifeand think "keystone cops" compared
to the worlds of 2036.
Blue Vale (from the audience) asks: Do you think that this will develop
into a medium for everyone or will it stay limited to the enthusiasts? And
do you see a wide-open standard developing for virtual worlds like the Web?
Damer: That is a tough one. The modes for communications--the market
share--is really divided up more than in 1995. You have IMing, texting,
massively multiplayer online role playing games and VoIP. There are a lot of
ways to be "with" someone in and through cyberspace. So virtual worlds will
necessarily get a slice of the pie. The question is, how big a slice? The
one issue that virtual worlds have to overcome is the amount of energy and
time needed to be invested by users to feel a part of the medium and commit
themselves to it for a long period, not just a "look see."
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