Avatar – Part 3: Future of the avatar

ModSquad December 14, 2009

Excitement continues to build for the theater release of James Cameron’s upcoming epic, “Avatar,” on December 18th. The film is a 3D science-fiction action movie starring Sam Worthington as Jake Sully, a paralyzed Marine who becomes reborn as an alien species – his “Avatar.”

While it’s uncertain exactly how the movie intends to use it, Cameron’s use of the word “avatar” is probably different than the one we encounter in our industry and the hype surrounding the film inspired us to delve into the word itself. This three part blog series will explore the use of the word avatar as we know it, the origins of the word and the varying cases in which the word “avatar” has been applied.

The notion of the avatar has come a long way from the historical, religious sense to how we use them today in our online communications. The story of avatars and virtual worlds is far from over as technology and popularity of using an avatar continues to grow. The question we’re asking today is where does our concept of avatar go from here?

Avatar technology continues to grow in both 2D and 3D forms. Our avatars will share our expressions and represent us in ways that will cross the boundaries of real life and static, graphical representations. Avatar portability allows us to use the same graphical representation across multiple platforms, bringing our “other self” along to different destinations.

Even then, the use or definition of the avatar may not stop at the computer. CNN introduced (semi) practical holograms into the mainstream back in 2008. Recently, futurist Ray Kurzweil delivered the keynote speech at Germany’s Trendforum conference via holographic projection. How practical is this? Kurzweil himself predicts that by 2020 we will regularly interact in virtual environments and even be able to touch each other virtually.

On the future of technology in the virtual world space,Tim Leberecht explained it well in his article “Going human with Shy-Tech” “Their common thread: technology in disguise, with front ends that are becoming touchable, intuitive, and human-centric. Mueller coined the term “Shytech” for this phenomenon: technology that can afford to be nonintrusive because it is fully immersive.”

Hologram avatars would still keep avatars in an intangible position, but consider James Cameron’s idea of an avatar. In “Avatar,” a human inhabits a physical body and controls it from a remote location. Earlier this year Honda demonstrated a brain-machine that could control a robot by thoughts alone. Much like the hologram, it is possible that one day we could meet up and interact as our robot avatars.

These are wild concepts and lead to some interesting discussion about what an avatar is and could be. The ideas we’ve discussed in this post do not cling to our stated definition of what an avatar is but it’s likely that the definition can grow just as much as the possibilities of avatars do.

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Avatar – Part 2: Origins of the word

ModSquad December 7, 2009

In the first part of this series we discussed the word avatar and gave the modern definition as a graphical representation of one’s self, personality or alter-ego while engaging in online communication. Avatars take on many forms in the computing world, but the word itself dates back thousands of years.

The word “avatar” comes from the Sanskrit word अवतार (avata-ra) which means “descent” or “coming down from far away.” The idea comes from the Hindu religion, where it implies a descent from a higher realm of spiritual being into lower forms of existence. Many of these ancient avatars were said to have had special powers and were used for certain purposes on Earth. This concept dates back to 500 BC and earlier, used for years in oral traditions before being recorded in an ancient Hindu text known as the Garuda Purana.

The Gurada Purana tells of the ten avatars used by the god Vishnu to perform special tasks in the human realm. Vishnu’s avatars, known as Daśāvatāra, took many forms such as a tortoise, boar and even the Buddha himself.

It wasn’t until thousands of years later that the term avatar as we know it made an appearance in the realm of the metaverse. Arguably the first use of “avatar” in computing games comes from Ultima IV, an RPG released in 1985. The player is tasked by the character Lord British to become the Avatar, a shining example of spiritual enlightenment to ensure peace.

It is interesting to note the theme of limitation used to describe the Hindu avatars. Avatars were a “lower form” of being, limited in what they could do in comparison with their godly nature. In many ways our avatars are limited versions of ourselves. Even though they escape aesthetic barriers, they are not granted the level of function that we have as physical human beings.

This entry was posted in Digital Engagement, Moderation, Offbeat and tagged avatar, avatar the movie, avatars, gaming, history, james cameron, metaverse by ModSquad. Bookmark the permalink.

Avatar – Part 1: Defining the modern avatar

ModSquad November 30, 2009

Part 1 – Defining the modern avatar

While many folks are still confused by the term “avatar,” its use is becoming more widespread as culture and communication continue to move online. We will explore the various forms and applications of the avatar, but for this part of the series we will need to place a definition to begin our journey.

An avatar is a graphical representation of one’s self, personality or alter-ego while engaging in online communication. Avatars can range from simple, static 2D graphics to complex, animated 3D forms controlled by the user.

We see avatars in many forms of online communication. AOL instant messengers are using avatars when they place a “buddy icon” next to their name. Forum users will often use a picture under their names to represent themselves on their posts. Even a social network user who opts for a cartoon or other image that is not their photograph is using an avatar. It can even be argued that an altered personal photograph is in fact an avatar since it is not an “actual” representation of the person.

These are the simpler uses of an avatar but a person’s self representation online can be manifested in more complicated forms in virtual world spaces. Perhaps the most enabling of area of avatar creation is Second Life, a 3-dimensional world created entirely by its users. There are almost no bounds to what a person can be in this world. A person can run around as a tiny rabbit, a giant robot or even just themselves. Areas like Second Life give online communicators an incredible reach of self-representation.

Avatars allow people to connect what they are reading (or hearing, as the case may be) with the person generating it. They allow faces and visuals to enter in to the conversation on a platform that is often nameless or faceless. Whether an avatar enhances or detracts from the communication, they certainly provide more dimensions for absorbing it.

Read more: Avatar – Part 2: Origins of the word and Avatar – Part 3: Future of the Avatar

This entry was posted in Digital Engagement, Moderation and tagged avatar, avatar the game, avatar the movie, gaming, james cameron, metaverse mod squad, virtual world by ModSquad. Bookmark the permalink.