Second Gender
I've updated my Second Life avatar, Kei Mars.
Having had the same basic shape for almost my whole (coming up to) 7 years in the virtual world and I felt it was time to change. I love the old Kei Mars to bits of course, but familiarity breeds contempt and I wanted to reinvigorate my Second Life.
Gaming Virtual Unisex...
Very important to me in this task was the desire to make an avatar which reflected my nature much more closely. So the first thing I did was try and make an androgynous shape that can be dressed either male or female and pass.
OK, the 'male' on the left in the top image and the right of image below isn't exactly macho, but have you met me in real life? The point is that both the avatars you see share the same body shape. It's make-up and clothes that make them look different, see?
It's a political thing for me. I feel a strong need to express a strong, positive image of my transgender identity and so it's important for me that this virtual manifestation of myself is true to that messaging as well. Put another way, I've talked in the past about personal branding becoming more and more crucial in the age of the social network. This move has really brought my virtual world identity far more 'on-brand'.
...Uncanny Valley Girl
My second objective was to try and make the avatar look more physically like me, whether as boy or girl. I do think I've succeeded in this to a strange and almost disturbing degree.
It's weird. When I'm inworld, I sometimes find myself astonished by how much like an (admittedley idealised) version of me the avatar looks now. I've smoothed out the wrinkles of course, and I couldn't get away with some of the outfits I'm wearing in Second Life in the real world, but somehow, I feel like the new avatar's definitely more animated with my spirit than the old one.
In a way it's a spooky old Hallowe'en foray for me into the uncanny valley, that strange, theoretical, robotic nether kingdom of human facsimiles that look and act almost, but not quite like the real thing and hence cause enough cognitive dissonance to disquet us deeply.
I think as virtual worlds continue to become more prevalent, each one of us who are immersed in them will encounter our uncanny shadow selves in the hidden valleys of our subconscious. It's inevitable.
I'm learning to live with and love mine, that's all.
It's immaterial
There's a school of thought within the virtual world community that belittles (or at least disapproves of) the realistic. It runs a little like this -
"if you can exist in an entirely immaterial universe which doesn't obey the normal physical laws, where you can fly, be a different species, create gleaming spired cities of the imagination, then why go counter to those possibilities by creating an identity and a world around that is rooted in mundane reality?"
I understand the impulse to embrace the fantastic in such environments, but ultimately I personally find that loosening the shackles from reality to such an extent that you float free is self defeating for me. The virtual world and the experience becomes too immaterial and I find I can't invest emotionally in it.
So like a tether to the real world, it's important for my avatar and my personal environment to remain reasonably realistic and grounded. That way I can truly marvel at how amazing the virtual world, its inhabitants and their creations are.
Boomerang
I've not been in Second Life for a while now. My perception was tarnished by experiences I had as a Second Life based professional, running a virtual world agency. But this reboot has encouraged me to spend more time in there and explore more. And I find that, once again a private individual, I've started to recapture the enthusiasm I had for it when I first set foot beyond the veil of virtual reality for the first time back in January 2004.
Second Life has changed since then. It was once a village - we all knew each other and we were all helping define what it was for and what it was going to be like.
Now it's a vast world - harder, shinier and more impersonal, but so big that there's always a surprise around the corner. Technically it's slicker and more robust (but still endearingly flaky and error prone like the old days). It's changed, but it's stll, deep down, an amazing place and an amazing collective achievement.
Personally (and virtually) I'm pleased to be back.
Part 10 (of 12)
This is part of a year long self-portrait project. I'm doing one shoot a month for the whole year. Click through to each month's set below.
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All right!
Mona Compleine is a transvestite, artist, writer, musician and maker of many things, whom I'm happy to be able to call my friend. We first met a few years before the birth of Six Inch Killaz, our erstwhile transgender punk band which I've written about in exhaustive detail here and elsewhere. We met because we were both self-publishing comics (and in Mona's case, zines as well) and we got on not only because of a shared liking for DIY culture and punk music (and the punk ethos), but obviously also because of our penchant for crossdressing.
Mona's not really been that keen in the past to talk about our time in Six Inch Killaz, mainly because of the painful way it all ended. But I'm happy to say that she's broken cover and started up a flickr photostream that sheds some light on her side of the story as well showing other artefacts from this very creative period of her life.
There are some images on her stream that have particular resonance for me, including some Six Inch Killaz images, flyers and source material that I've either never seen, or not seen for years and years.
There are also some scans of covers and content pages of Girly, the entertaining and campaigning transgender zine that Mona was producing around about the same time that the Killaz were demonstrating the same political principles on stage and out and about.
Finally, and most cool is a selection of scans from Mona's copious scrapbooks, which were always a source of wonder and jealousy for me. Such images they contained, and such riches, glamour and humour in the juxtapositions.
Now I can enjoy them again, and so can you. All right!
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Stop press! Gig in Soho this Saturday 16th
Deathline are a late addition to the bill at the SeeSound Saturday all-dayer this Saturday, 16th October on Tin Pan Alley (Denmark Street). We agreed to step in for a cancellation at short notice as our friends the awesome Suicide Party are playing. Reason enough. We're onstage at 6pm, with Suicide Party soon afterwards. It all starts about 3pm.
It gives us the opportunity to carry on road testing new songs from our forthcoming, untiltled second album. Demos are going up on our Facebook page all this week. Check them out.
SeeSound.co.uk presents
9.15-9.45 Human Wave Attack
8.25-8.55 Ross & The Wrongens
7.35-8.05 Suicide Party
6.45-7.15 Tales Of George
6.00-6.30
Deathline
5.15-5.45 Clacka
4.30-5.00 The Outdoor Types
Saturday 16th October, 2010.
Formerly Peter Parkers Rock n Roll Club
4 Denmark St.
Soho WC2H 8LP (map)
Tube: Tottenham Court Road
Doors 3pm
£3 entry
Connect with Deathline
Deathline are seeking bookings from December 2010. Contact us on this email address, or via any of the channels below.
» MySpace: myspace.com/thedeathline
» Facebook: facebook.deathline.co.uk
» Last.fm: last.fm/music/deathline
» Soundcloud: http://www.soundcloud.com/deathline
» Twitter: twitter.com/Deathline
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I'm a Musician, writer, photographer, designer, transgendered z-list celebrity. Insomniac's boyfriend. Tragic glamour and sleepless nights are my fellow travellers. Skinny jeans and pointy shoes are my mode-us operandi. I like cats. Especially the ones who talk. Oh, and David Lynch.
