Tom Boellstorff Coming of Age in Second Life

Upcoming OC Event



Dear DCR Members:

I hope you will join us for a private reception on Monday, June 2nd at the Beall Center for Art & Technology at University of CA Irvine featuring author Tom Boellstorff. Featured Guest:

Tom Boellstorff Coming of Age in Second Life
and a private showing of
LIVE featuring nine media artists

Monday, June 2, 2008
6:30 to 9:00 PM at the
Beall Center for Art and Technology at UC Irvine
Conversations with Tom Boellstorff author of Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human: http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s8647.html

Millions of people around the world today spend portions of their lives in online virtual worlds. Second Life is one of the largest of these virtual worlds. The residents of Second Life create communities, buy property and build homes, go to concerts, meet in bars, attend weddings and religious services, buy and sell virtual goods and services, find friendship, fall in love--the possibilities are endless, and all encountered through a computer screen. Coming of Age in Second Life is the first book of anthropology to examine this thriving alternate universe. Tom Boellstorff conducted more than two years of fieldwork in Second Life, living among and observing its residents in exactly the same way anthropologists traditionally have done to learn about cultures and social groups in the so-called real world. He conducted his research as the avatar "Tom Bukowski," and applied the rigorous methods of anthropology to study many facets of this new frontier of human life, including issues of gender, race, sex, money, conflict and antisocial behavior, the construction of place and time, and the interplay of self and group.


Coming of Age in Second Life shows how virtual worlds can change ideas about identity and society. Bringing anthropology into territory never before studied, this book demonstrates that in some ways humans have always been virtual, and that virtual worlds in all their rich complexity build upon a human capacity for culture that is as old as humanity itself. Private Viewing of LIVE What is the meaning of "live" when the majority of our day-to-day interactions are so mediated? LIVE featuresnine artists who sample and transform data, photographs and video from the Internet and incorporate it into their sculptures and installations.Either extracting live footage or transmitting data in real time, they cull from diverse sources including Congressional speeches from C-Span,websites with Iraqi war casualties, a critique of consumerism from a peer-to-peer network and on-line video surveillance. As the artists isolate ideas and images from the steady stream of unrelenting data, they produce thought-provoking, aesthetic and "live" works of art. Sponsored by:


Greenberg Traurig
3161 Michelson Drive Suite 1000
Irvine , CA 92612 T 949.732.6500
http://www.gtlaw.com/ Reception and Speaker 6:30 to 9:00 p.m.
Location:

University of California, Irvine
Claire Trevor School of the Arts

712 Arts Plaza
Irvine, CA 92697-2775
Cost:

Early registration: $35
At the door: $45

Advance registration closes at 10:00 am on June 2, 2008.
Hosted By the Hive:
Phillis Lane
Victoria Duff

Digital Coast Roundtable
www.digitalcoast.org Registration:
For your convenience you can register online through Paypal by clicking the button below:


Or call Phillis Lane at 714-398-8287