Paper Dolls (Copies without Originals)
[Note: this post has been edited to correct a few errors.]
The complex relationships between real life and Second Life give rise to paradoxes and strange phenomena, such as copies without a source, because "reality" is never fully in real life or in Second Life, but in some liminal space in between.
Let me tell this as a story. Meet Luth, a dear friend of mine. She's a Second Life resident, its most successful animator, a successful SL entrepreneur, and a distinctive personality. She helps others and she also tells it like she sees it, without worrying too much about how it will be received. Luth is a real character.
One of Luth's colleagues is Elika of ETD fame, and Luth asked her to consider making a hair. Luth felt a little odd about showing her a picture of her RL self, so instead she gave Elika a copy of the picture she takes to her RL stylist when she gets her hair done:
What Luth looks like in real life, with her real-life copy of this model's hair, is unknown. This artist's rendering in Photoshop will have to suffice:
Some time passes, and the ETD Luth hair style is released. Though Luth's hair is almost invariably black and red in Second Life, the ETD Luth pack contains about 20 different color combinations. The model in the following vendor image is not Luth, but someone else who sorta (I guess) looks like Luth (green eyes and of course the hair).
Alongside dozens or more likely hundreds of other Second Life avatars, Luth wears ETD Luth, which is one of several reproductions of a reproduction of an image, which is reproduced on RL Luth's hair every time she gets it done in real-life, which is surely a reflection of her real-life (and Second Life?) personality and aesthetics.
What is the source of all these copies? Is it the hair worn that day by the unknown model in the photo? The image in the mind of the stylist who created that style? Some other image that stylist was looking at? Or is it the avatar Luth, since the hair style is, in fact, named Luth? Is it the real-life also nameless person behind the avatar Luth? Or perhaps it is the image in the mind of Elika--derived from the picture Luth sent as well as her perceptions of who Luth is--that is the truest source of this hair. There are as many sources as there are copies.
Not wanting to be left out, I, too, wear ETD Luth, sporting (of course!) the Chinese reproduction.
This blog post is dedicated to the memory of Jean Baudrillard.
The complex relationships between real life and Second Life give rise to paradoxes and strange phenomena, such as copies without a source, because "reality" is never fully in real life or in Second Life, but in some liminal space in between.
Let me tell this as a story. Meet Luth, a dear friend of mine. She's a Second Life resident, its most successful animator, a successful SL entrepreneur, and a distinctive personality. She helps others and she also tells it like she sees it, without worrying too much about how it will be received. Luth is a real character.
One of Luth's colleagues is Elika of ETD fame, and Luth asked her to consider making a hair. Luth felt a little odd about showing her a picture of her RL self, so instead she gave Elika a copy of the picture she takes to her RL stylist when she gets her hair done:
What Luth looks like in real life, with her real-life copy of this model's hair, is unknown. This artist's rendering in Photoshop will have to suffice:
Some time passes, and the ETD Luth hair style is released. Though Luth's hair is almost invariably black and red in Second Life, the ETD Luth pack contains about 20 different color combinations. The model in the following vendor image is not Luth, but someone else who sorta (I guess) looks like Luth (green eyes and of course the hair).
Alongside dozens or more likely hundreds of other Second Life avatars, Luth wears ETD Luth, which is one of several reproductions of a reproduction of an image, which is reproduced on RL Luth's hair every time she gets it done in real-life, which is surely a reflection of her real-life (and Second Life?) personality and aesthetics.
What is the source of all these copies? Is it the hair worn that day by the unknown model in the photo? The image in the mind of the stylist who created that style? Some other image that stylist was looking at? Or is it the avatar Luth, since the hair style is, in fact, named Luth? Is it the real-life also nameless person behind the avatar Luth? Or perhaps it is the image in the mind of Elika--derived from the picture Luth sent as well as her perceptions of who Luth is--that is the truest source of this hair. There are as many sources as there are copies.
Not wanting to be left out, I, too, wear ETD Luth, sporting (of course!) the Chinese reproduction.
This blog post is dedicated to the memory of Jean Baudrillard.
posted by Allecto Brissot at 9:45 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home