Post # 13- Research Methods and Becoming Artemesia

The Guild--Avatars =]

In both the movie, Avatar, and the webshow, The Guild, Gee’s ideas of a third character are strongly intact.  We see the main character in Avatar adopting the role of the avatar in order to infiltrate their land, however we see a new breed of avatar come to life, so to speak, as he melds sensibilities he had with those of the avatar people.  And, in The Guild, a web show which parodies MMOGs (in particular WoW, though it is never expressively mentioned), Kodex, the main character draws on her in world persona in order to bypass her nearly debilitating shyness and non-confrontational manner to bring a serious win to her guild.  In both of these examples (and more, I am sure) a third character arises—one that is neither fully the player or the avatar.

                I, Avatar

Pearce’s fourth section of her book dwells on this idea many times, especially in the section labeled, “I, Avatar” and the sections dealing with Pearce’s presentations as Artemesia.  Pearce describes the sensation as , “the screen image of the various ‘mes’ dissolves like a bubble, but Artemesia still exists inside Celia” (216).  This phenomenon extends past Pearce’s merely logging off and feeling like Artemesia.  Instead, it transcends into her working life manifesting in presentations given by Artemesia and books being co-authored by Artemesia.  In fact, Pearce even states that one publisher wanted an agreement signed by Artemesia, despite knowing full well that she was the avatar of Pearce.  Artemesia is not merely an avatar, but, in essence, a person made up of two people—the limitations and concessions of the avatar itself and Celia.

Artemesia

                I think it is interesting to note that people cosplay their characters at gaming conventions, embodying their characters at a time when it is completely okay to do so.  In many ways this is what Pearce does.  She can fully be this third person when presenting at conferences with Artemesia because she is one half of Artemesia.  It may confuse people, as Pearce comments, and maybe even serve as nothing more than amusement, but it can work, and in essence three people are giving that presentation—Pearce, the avatar, and Artemesia.

                One intriguing question that Pearce brought forth in this section is who creates who?  Does the player create the character?  Or does the character, situated within a culture, create the player?  Where do the lines drawn between the two begin and end?  Pearce offers one suggestion, claiming that they create each other, that the culture both are participating in, in this case The Gathering of Uru, helps to shape who exactly both Pearce and Artemesia are.  I wonder though who gets the most.  Logically it may be Artemesia that gets ‘created’ as it is Pearce (the player) who constructs her, but I think the player equally changes.  The intersection of different people and different practices has the ability to create the player, so to speak—and it definitely has the ability to create the third identity.

              

  Field Work

                The two sections, Three and Four, deal with the process of cyber ethnography, in particular Pearce’s experience with it.  This detailed version of how  she conducted her study was interesting and could prove to be very beneficial for someone desirous of conducting their own research on a similar topic.

Within Section 3, Pearce lays out for the reader the methods she undertook while completing this study.  She employed a mixture of field work, interviews, immersion into the culture, and observation (of which immersion and observation could be lumped into field work).  She hit stumbling blocks along the way, questions such as “How immersed is too immersed?” and “What happens when I finish this study?,” questions which ended up being shaped by both her study and the culture. 

Within Section 4, the section I believe I found the most interesting of the entire book, Pearce provides us with a journal of sorts—her field notes told in a very narrative structure, allowing us to essentially glimpse through a window the day to day actions and reactions which occurred in her study.  We are privy to Pearce’s emotions and struggles in a very unscientific manner.  I enjoyed this, maybe because I am a writer, but also because it seems to be a good addition to a more scientific, just the facts ma’am approach.  While I don’t believe it could stand alone as a valid study, I do believe it offers a very much needed other perspective to a study.  It was also enjoyable to read, though at times I was confused at who was talking—which, I suppose, just goes to show how fluid the three facets can be (player, avatar, character).

Questions

1) Can you think of any MMOGs where players are allowed to make disabled characters if they so  

      chose?

2) How do you think you would react to a presentation at a conference being given by an avatar?

3) Why do you think some of the MMOWs Pearce speaks about have such outdated technology 

      when it comes to saving chat logs?  Even AIM saves logs.