self-representation and misrepresentation

hi, im andrew mahon.

i study Design + Technology at Parsons here in NYC.

i made digitallyFit.

i have long had interest in the notion of self, and identity, as it pertains to digital visuality, particularly the internet.

so, first, lets look at visual self-representation, and misrepresentation.

before visual tools, the transcendence of the self into bits began with early text based communication tools.

early examples include:

dial up BBS:

irc, a simple chat protocol:

and MUDs, or multi user dungeons:

despite their lack of visuality, early text-based communication established some of the norms that would carry forward through today. two notable precedents:

1. a handle or later, icon, can say a lot about themselves.

ie. catgrrrl_1987 is probably a 21 year old girl who likes cats.

2. often times one's virtual representation is disparate from their real self.

Sherry Turkles, an MIT professor, observed the early shift to self misrepresentation online.

in a wired article from 1996, Turkles comments on how MUDs often give

"people the chance to express multiple and often unexplored aspects of the self, to play with their identity and to try out new ones." [1]

the ability to "try out new ones" led to some interesting things. Turkles talks about a Midwestern college student who:

"plays four characters distributed across three different MUDs. One is a seductive woman. One is a macho, cowboy type whose self-description stresses that he is a 'Marlboros rolled in the T-shirt sleeve kind of guy.' The third is a rabbit of unspecified gender who wanders its MUD introducing people to each other, a character he calls Carrot . . . Doug's fourth character is one that he plays only on a MUD in which all the characters are furry animals"

with Ultima IV came the idea of the avatar, the first visual representation of self on the screen.

while in Ultima IV, becoming the Avatar was the player's goal, the idea of a digital visual representation of self was born.

ultima online later took this visual representation and broadcast it to the world of online players.

the idea of the avatar quickly spread through digital media, with incarnations being found in many places.

as a supplement to text in forums:

on forums, signature images also arose to help fill the need for virtual identity.

using these small visual tokens, people quickly learned to say a lot about themselves within certain circles:

on computer forums, members represent themselves as their computer specs:

on car forums, as their cars:

and on AIM, as a small logo representing one of many things:

likely represents someone either likes NASCAR, or, less-likely, Tide detergents.

each small token of self allows others to develop a sense of what someone is about. without direct interpersonal interaction, the bits of identity conveyed through an avatar or it's adjuncts is often the extent of ones virtual identity.

as time passes and technology increases, we develop more thorough means of visual self representation online.

a great, and very accessible example is Second Life.

self-representation is core to second life, and with it comes self-misrepresentation. people take on a variety of personas for a variety of reasons.

second life is one of the first mediums where self-representation is [usually] conveyed through a human image.

moves representation into a more personal, self-reflective realm.

certain trends of self-misrepresentation in second life are apparent.

1. the doppelganger self

2. the dissimilar self

3. the abstracted self

4. the idealized self

the virtual idealized self is what inspired digitallyFit.

digitallyFit began an an experiment to determine how people would act if given the option to modify their own image.

new york is vain! people will do anything to look better.

given the prompt of 'better then the real thing,' i thought..

given a mirror that can simulate self modification procedures, what would people do?

digitallyFit not only asks users to question their desires, it also provides a record of those sub and concious desires.

digitallyFit emulates a quick fix solution to any physical problem.

still a prototype!!!

some technical things:

digitallyFit was built using openFrameworks.

an C++ framework for creative coding.

there are two cameras, one in the front of the screen, one in the rear.

the image is projected from the rear.

props were created to simulate real like procedures.

implant pump

liposuction vacuum

tan spray bottle

originally, the pump and spray bottle were wireless using xBee but,

there was trouble powering the lasers, so we moved all of the functionality into the wired vacuum.

each tool directs a laser onto the screen, and sends a serial signal to the computer. upon receiving the signal, software looks for the laser, and begins treating the image with the prescribed effect. blah blah...

future ideas?

interactivos?