Self-representation

The role of bodies in forming and performing identity is also of importance. Within the literature on the psychological roots of identity it is also stated that “our bodies … affect our identities through how we feel, what we can do and how other people treat us” (Phoenix, 2007; 49).

Since appearance can often be interpreted by other people, bodies can be used as a way of presenting a particular identity to the world, and for some bodies can become conscious “body projects” to manipulate this means of representing identity to others .... Foucault describes this process of altering ones body to create an identity as a “technology of self” (Phoenix, 2007; 49 – 50).

In her coda to this discussion on body and identity Phoenix states: “Of course, no body is entirely malleable.” (2007; 50)

This last statement is, of course, not as applicable when one is considering virtual worlds. Since these environments enable interaction between people to be conducted entirely online, the absence of direct visual and audio contact and the flexibility the technology provides for creating digital representation, enables users to adopt new identities without physical constraints, becoming an idealised “body project”. These are not necessarily entirely unconstrained however:

Users were not involved in progressive explorations of self-construction but instead relied on stereotype and caricature that allowed a kind of unreflective appropriation. Underlying these performances were assumptions about what kinds of bodies and identities were deemed as legitimate. (Taylor, 2002; 58)

54 A constraint imposed by the technology (as opposed to the self-imposed one described above) is the amount of flexibility some virtual worlds offer participants over their representation, which varies across types of virtual world, or in the types of privileges granted to users. Active Worlds Europe provides citizens (subscribers to the service) with between 10 and 20 avatars from which to select at any one time. As a user moves from space to space within the environment they are given a choice of avatars appropriate to the space which can be male, female or neither. Within the research into Microsoft V-Chat, Cheng, Farnham and Stone were able to group their categories of avatars into human-male, human-female, animal, object abstract and child (2002, 99). Second Life has male or female shapes for all of its users that can be personalised by manipulating approximately 150 different metrics. Clothes can be added and more sophisticated skin and hair to create a more individual look, and also demarcate users as more experienced in (and more prepared to spend money on) their inworld lives. In addition, looks can be more radically adapted by adding extra objects to parts of the avatar’s body, and changing the underlying shape, to create appearances that range from simple inanimate objects (such as cardboard boxes) to detailed recreations of figures from mythology or popular culture. However, estimates are that only around 6% of users choose a non-human look (Au, 2007).

Despite some tendencies to apply their own constraints on choices of avatar, allowing flexibility in avatar choice is important for participants in virtual worlds. In the virtual world “Active World”, developers found that this was the most common request by users (Schroeder, 2002b; 7). As Taylor (2002; 51), states:

Ultimately, digital bodies tell the world something about your self. They are a public signal of who you are. They also shape and make real how users internally experience their selves.

Limiting the choice, therefore, creates frustration amongst the users, since it denies them the opportunity to inform the community about who they are, and also to fulfil an act of reification of their own conception of self. Annetta, Klesath and Holmes (2008) conducted a study that took place in Active Worlds, in which users can either be “residents” in which case they have a choice of “100 different avatars ranging from humans to abstract objects such as a motorcycle, helicopter, or animal”, or “tourists”, in which case the choices are just male or female. Half of their students were

55 given resident status, half were given tourist status. The students in the tourist group reported that their lack of choice reduced their experience of social presence. Those in the residents group changed avatars until they found one they felt suited their mood on the day, the roles they had been assigned within the tasks they had been set and how they wanted to be perceived in those roles. The students were also asked to complete a Jung-Myers-Briggs personality inventory, which attributes personality types to respondents to a questionnaire based on four scales. No correlation between avatar choice and psychological profiles was detected, and indeed the students reported that they saw no correspondence between these psychological profiles and their own perceptions of self.

Performance of self occurs in text-based communication through specific self-attesting statements (Macfadyen, 2008; 563). Macfadyen notes that there are stages through which this self- attestation occurs; the first is demonstrating affiliation or membership of a particular nation, or ethnicity, which Macfadyen labels as Idem-identities (2008; 564). This is then followed by a more individuated set of statements in which the participant’s Ipseity is performed, i.e. the elements that make them an individual (Macfadyen, 2008; 564 - 565). After this, learners will then attest their new Idem-identities as part of the new group in which they are taking part (Macfadyen, 2008; 566) and attest to how they may be individuated within this new identity (Macfadyen, 2008; 565).

Participants in MUDs have the ability to label themselves with a set of descriptions regarding their appearance and assign settings to gender, artefacts carried, and movement descriptors (White, 2001; 130). Even though MUDs are purely text-based environments, these labels can be used to create a body image. Gender classifications can be more flexible than in real life, or in virtual worlds. White (2001; 129) reports a MUD with ten genders available for participants to choose from (“neuter, male, female, splat, Spivak which is named after a programmer, royal, plural, second, either and egotistical”). Participants may also attempt to convey gender through the use of language perceived to be stereotypical of that gender (Tompkins, 2003; 202).

Representations can be divided into anthropomorphic and polymorphic (Murray and Sixsmith, 1999; 316). Each may have their advantages. The anthropomorphic argument is that “for a sense of "presence" in virtual environments, the virtual body must closely resemble (both visually and

56 sensorially) the body of the user” (Murray and Sixsmith, 1999; 325). Anthropomorphism supports presence in two ways:

 "Geometric mappings" of the body from the virtual to the physical (Sheridan, 1992).

 Identification through a similarity in the visual appearance of the person and the virtual body (Held and Durlach 1992).

The argument for polymorphism is that:

the represented body in VR does not have to closely map the person's body in real life. In effect, it is envisaged that people could experience a radically reconfigured body, say from their usual anthropoid experience, to that of a lobster. It is not that you experience yourself through the lobster; rather, you experience the architecture of the body as that of a lobster. (Murray and Sixsmith, 1992; 325 – 326).

Murray and Sixsmith (1992; 328-329) quote Penny regarding his mapping of a virtual body with extra limbs to that of the physical body in that "The mind maps to this new body almost effortlessly... (suggesting) that the mind can quickly draw a new internal body representation to allow control of the new body" (1994:262).