Coded Cultures, Vienna 2009 Collapsing Locality – Ludic Locations Mathias Fuchs Programme Leader MSc Creative Games, MA CreativeTechnology MSc Creative Games, MA CreativeTechnology

Mathias Fuchs: Mathias Fuchs: Collapsing Locality – Ludic Locations [7:11] Moira Lee: I speak Dutch slightly, Polish and russian [7:11] Jaymee Spitteler: i study english [7:11] Camp Bench whispers: Threecheers Noel you've earned L$2. [7:11] Jaymee Spitteler: really [7:11] Jaymee Spitteler: thats awsome

Mathias Fuchs: Mathias Fuchs: Collapsing Locality – Ludic Locations [7:09] Jaymee Spitteler: do you speak english? [7:10] Diodoros Uggla: I like languages [7:11] martine Lagerlof: ich au [7:11] Jaymee Spitteler: me 2 [7:11] martine Lagerlof: me 2 [7:11] Jaymee Spitteler: thats awsome

Mathias Fuchs: Mathias Fuchs: Collapsing Locality – Ludic Locations [6:52] Jaymee Spitteler: i was attacked [6:52] Jaymee Spitteler: his name was something with carter at the end [6:52] Jaymee Spitteler: he destryoed my avatar [6:52] Uggla: funny [6:53] Uggla: just looking if your push protection works

Mathias Fuchs: Mathias Fuchs: Collapsing Locality – Ludic Locations [6:45] Gayla Capalini: kawaii... heh [6:45] Gayla Capalini: Amicco cute! =D [6:50] Jaymee Spitteler: excuse me [6:51] Jaymee Spitteler: sorry [6:51] Jaymee Spitteler: do you speak english [6:51] Kota Dovgal: ??w

Mathias Fuchs: Mathias Fuchs: Collapsing Locality – Ludic Locations [7:11] martine Lagerlof: i speak english and some french [7:12] Jaymee Spitteler: i have to write an exam tomorrow [7:12] Jaymee Spitteler: medieval english literature

Mathias Fuchs: Mathias Fuchs: Collapsing Locality – Ludic Locations [7:12] martine Lagerlof: and can understand spanish, german, and indonesian [7:12] Diodoros Uggla: interersting

Mathias Fuchs: Mathias Fuchs: Collapsing Locality – Ludic Locations [7:12] martine Lagerlof: my bf is half indonesian [7:12] Diodoros Uggla: im jealous of spanish lol [7:12] Jaymee Spitteler: Get lost! [7:12] Diodoros Uggla smiles

Mathias Fuchs: Mathias Fuchs: Collapsing Locality – Ludic Locations [7:12] martine Lagerlof: you simply buy el pais each weekend [7:13] martine Lagerlof: thats what i did, one year long [7:13] Diodoros Uggla: I see

Mathias Fuchs: Mathias Fuchs: Collapsing Locality – Ludic Locations [4:17] Teleport completed from ndlife/Seychelles/18 5/182/22 [4:17] Connecting to in-world Voice Chat... [4:17] Connected [4:19] Taylor Edenbaum: ladies first [4:20] Taylor Edenbaum: setz dich doch

Mathias Fuchs: Mathias Fuchs: Collapsing Locality – Ludic Locations [4:21] Romeo Bergmann: Hallo Kinder, ist das Schwein schon fertiggebraten? [4:22] Ramona Danick: wie setz ich mich? [4:22] Taylor Edenbaum: rechte maustaste auf bank [4:22] Romeo Bergmann: na siehste, so geht das [4:23] Taylor Edenbaum: rechte maus taste auf die bank

Mathias Fuchs: Mathias Fuchs: Collapsing Locality – Ludic Locations [4:25] Taylor Edenbaum: und wo kommst du her? [4:25] Ramona Danick: kreis unna [4:27] Taylor Edenbaum: aha, wie alt bist du denn? [4:27] Ramona Danick: 35 [4:28] Taylor Edenbaum: oh, schon so spät ich muss leider gehen [4:28] Ramona Danick: bb

Mathias Fuchs: Mathias Fuchs: Collapsing Locality – Ludic Locations [6:58] Jaymee Spitteler: where are u from [6:59] Diodoros Uggla: Sweden [6:59] Jaymee Spitteler: ah kewl [6:59] Jaymee Spitteler: im from germany [6:59] Diodoros Uggla: oh eine deutche frauleine [6:59] Diodoros Uggla: wunderbar

Mathias Fuchs: Mathias Fuchs: Collapsing Locality – Ludic Locations [7:13] martin Lagerlof: in the beginning i had to look up lots of words [7:14] martin Lagerlof: but now i can easily read most of it without a dictionary [7:14] naonao1025 Planer: ????> [7:14] dogkeeper Bing: ????? [7:14] Jaymee Spitteler: okay girls gotta leave

Mathias Fuchs: Mathias Fuchs: Collapsing Locality – Ludic Locations [7:14] Jaymee Spitteler: have a good time [7:14] Jaymee Spitteler: its been nice meeting u [7:14] martin Lagerlof: yes feel the same!! [7:14] Diodoros Uggla:.hug Jaymee [7:14] martin Lagerlof: well wishes [7:14] atsushi Heron shouts: ????? ???? [7:14] martin Lagerlof: well wishes

Mathias Fuchs: Mathias Fuchs: Collapsing Locality – Ludic Locations [7:31] Diodoros Uggla: Fell in the wrong hands she offerd me money so I could pay my study [7:31] Diodoros Uggla: in return I had to live with her [7:33] Garry Best : you were disrouted when you lost your mother? [7:34] Garry Best: o sorry [7:34] Camp Bench whispers: you've earned L$7.

Mathias Fuchs: Mathias Fuchs: Collapsing Locality – Ludic Locations [7:35] Garry Best : too many people [7:36] Diodoros Uggla nods I know [7:36] Diodoros Uggla: anyway [7:36] Diodoros Uggla: it was a chance to get my life back on trail [7:36] Garry Best : did it take you a long time to get over it [7:36] Garry Best : to be yourself again?

Mathias Fuchs: Mathias Fuchs: Collapsing Locality – Ludic Locations [7:37] Diodoros Uggla: well I try to forget is mostly [7:37] Diodoros Uggla: just sometimes it plays back up [7:37] Garry Best : i understand [7:37] Diodoros Uggla: it wasn't too bad being her slave [7:37] Garry Best : memories tend to come back uninvited

Mathias Fuchs: Mathias Fuchs: Collapsing Locality – Ludic Locations [6:55] Jaymee Spitteler: u dont know this guy i am lokking for [6:55] Jaymee Spitteler: dont you [6:55] Joey: meh [6:55] Diodoros Uggla: im sure he realises [6:55] Jaymee Spitteler: he put kind fo spell on me [6:55] Joey: you are a dangerous kind of lady [6:55] Joey: to mess with

Mathias Fuchs: Mathias Fuchs: Collapsing Locality – Ludic Locations [6:56] Jaymee Spitteler: i ha my hands on the head, and my legs [6:56] Jaymee Spitteler: grew out of my stomach [6:56] Jaymee Spitteler: and stuff like that [6:56] Jaymee Spitteler: and i had serious problems fixing it [6:56] Diodoros Uggla nods [6:56] Diodoros Uggla: normal

Mathias Fuchs: Mathias Fuchs: Collapsing Locality – Ludic Locations It is a common assumption of cyber-anthropologists, that an increase in virtuality leeds to an increased level of internationalism, cosmopolitan lifestyle, and a global, borderless image space. [Rath, 1987] [Fassler, 1999] [Ascott, 2000] The national territories supposedly dissolve, borders become meaningless and cultural differences melt into a ubiquitous image space, sound-pool and hypertext archive. The pilot projects of telematic art, connected the teepees of First Nation chiefs with European media centres [Ascott, 1989] or Wien with Vancouver - creating a virtual supermerger city called “Wiencouver”. [Grundmann, 1984].

Mathias Fuchs: Mathias Fuchs: Collapsing Locality – Ludic Locations Contemporary social networking environments attempt to look cosmopolitan as well. SecondLife promotes an open and free toy society of semi- anonymous avatars from all around the globe, who peacefully share islands, clubs and shopping malls. The potentially cross-cultural 3D agora turns out to be as Philistine as can be, a petty bourgeois low-cost paradise with garden gnomes, ducks on ponds and ornamental trees in pink and white.

Mathias Fuchs: Mathias Fuchs: Collapsing Locality – Ludic Locations The islands and meeting spaces attract groups of similarly styled visitors who quickly agree to fall back into their regional jargon, dress code and political conventions. Go to France Pitoresque, to Japan Resort, or to any of the SecondLife art places to find out how locally restricted and narrow- minded the World Wide Web can be. These locations are characterised by an extreme homogenisation of appearance and talk. Foreign languages are not strictly forbidden - they are often cherished as exotic and cool -, but the practice is less then monolingual, it is controlled by a totalitarism of jargon below the level of language or even dialect. [12:39] tchopi Shippe: des banleurs [12:39] Connecting to in-world Voice Chat... [12:39] Connected [12:39] tchopi Shippe: rien d'autre [12:39] : Drop tuna salad sandwich from your inventory on you too ~~ enjoy! [12:39] apache Kips: t la poupette [12:39] beuzatom Orfan: et le magicien prend un bain de boue lol [12:39] rzella Boa: héhé [12:39] fra Pelazzi: c'est vous Nirina? [12:39] melya Galaxy: coucou !!

Mathias Fuchs: Mathias Fuchs: Collapsing Locality – Ludic Locations SecondLife is a conglomerate of cyberprovincialism rather than an international community. I would like to suggest that there is a counter-trend to expanding locality in Virtual Worlds, a user-generated trend of imploding locality. Locality collapses into a digital Mega-suburb of gym-trained, cyber- solarium tanned bores who have set their daylight zone to eternal noon. There is however hope in virtual geography. When Erik Champion stated that “Being Not-there May be More Achievable” [Champion, 2006] he suggested that en route from real tourism via augmented reality and augmented virtuality to full immersive virtual reality, we might stop by at a locative state of being not-there. Unlike tele-presence this form of negative presence has a distant vicinity to an idealised travel destination. It “creates a sensation of place (as a cultural site) in a virtual environment in contradistinction to a sensation of a virtual environment as a collection of objects and spaces.”

Mathias Fuchs: Mathias Fuchs: Collapsing Locality – Ludic Locations Locality beyond national borders has been understood as - International Solidarity - Internationalism - International Design - Globalisation - Cosmopolitan Culture - Cosmopolitan Cultures - Cosmopolitanism - Cosmopolitical Action - Cyperprovincialism by different authors at different moments in time. It is to be hoped that “Cyberprovincialism” is not going to be the last stage in the dialectics of expansion and implosion of locality.

Mathias Fuchs: Mathias Fuchs: Collapsing Locality – Ludic Locations References: Ascott, Roy: Aspects of GAIA. Telematic Installation, ars electronica Linz 1989 Ascott, Roy: Art, Technology, Consciousness. Bristol 2000 Champion, Erik: Evaluating Cultural Learning in Virtual Environments. Brisbane 2006 Fassler, Manfred: Cyber-Moderne. Wien New York 1999 Grundmann, Heidi (Ed.): Art + Telecommunication. Wien 1984 Rath, C.D.: The Invisible Network. London 1987

Coded Cultures, Vienna 2009 Collapsing Locality – Ludic Locations Mathias Fuchs Programme Leader MSc Creative Games, MA CreativeTechnology MSc Creative Games, MA CreativeTechnology