it was another good day at State of Play V.
one of the highlights was the panel session on 'Space, Place, and Culture inside Virtual Worlds'.
Kevin Collins - who has a background in architecture and teaches at the School of Law at Indiana University - talked about the way in which structures in both Real and Second Life can influence human / avatar behaviour. specifically, he recognises at least three ways through which this is done, namely:
- the physico-instrumental (eg, through the design of walls and landscaping / terraforming);
- the symbolic (eg, designing libraries to resemble cathedrals); and
- the psychological (eg, through the use of colour in, say, the opposing (sports) team's locker room).
these are, of course, spaces which are also informed by geographers (be we physical geographers or cultural geographers), user-interface design, and game-design; intuitively, some of us know these principles already. Kevin talked, for example, about how if we place an avatar at the top of a cliff face, the human will experience a strong sense of vertigo. he also raised the issue of the perceived need to address the physical comfort of avatars, in terms of, say, providing seating, seat design / orientation, and sitting posture. nevertheless, it was interesting to hear these thoughts espoused from an architectural perspective.
another speaker on the same panel was Yee Fen Lim, who teaches at the Centre for Asia-Pacific Law & Policy at the Nanyang Technological University here in Singapore. she presented a fascinating thesis comparing land sales in Second Life with the provision and sale of public housing in Singapore, from a legal perspective. from the perspective of legal frameworks pertaining to countries in the Commonwealth, land sales in Second Life shares much in common with land sales in Real Life, with respect to:
- its definability / identifiability;
- its presumptive right it affords the owner to exclude others; and
- its discretion afforded to be put to use / exploited.
the other speakers on this panel were Erik Champion and Jeff Malpas. the chair was Yehuda Kalay. Erik teaches game design, and Jeff introduced himself as a philosopher. Yehuda is an architect. to me, it was very interesting that on a panel about 'Space, Place, and Culture inside Virtual Worlds', no one identified himself or herself as a geographer.
the final panel session - entitled 'Building Virtual Worlds' - was another highlight for me.
not only did we have the pleasure of listening to a Linden (in this case, Jean Linden (RL: Jean Miller), who is the Director of International Initiatives), but (and arguably much more significantly), her fellow panelists included Michael Wilson (CEO of there.com) and Hui Xu (founder and CEO of HiPiHi).

Jean Linden, rose among the thorns :-)