--------------------------------------------------------- -- CULTURAL FORMATIONS IN TEXT-BASED VIRTUAL REALITIES -- --------------------------------------------------------- By ELIZABETH REID emr@ee.mu.oz.au emr@rmit.edu.au A thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Cultural Studies Program Department of English University of Melbourne January 1994 Copyright (C) 1994 by Elizabeth Reid, all rights reserved. This text may be freely redistributed among individuals in any medium so long as it remains unedited and appears with this notice. Any commercial use or republication requires the written permission of the author. -------- ABSTRACT -------- Beginning with an understanding of virtual reality as an imaginative experience and thus a cultural construct rather than a technical construction, this thesis discusses cultural and social issues raised by interaction on 'MUDs', which are text-based virtual reality systems run on the international computer network known as the Internet. MUD usage forces users to deconstruct many of the cultural tools and understandings that form the basis of more conventional systems of interaction. Unable to rely on physical cues as a channel of meaning, users of MUDs have developed ways of substituting for or by-passing them, resulting in novel methods of textualising the non- verbal. The nature of the body and sexuality are problematised in these virtual environments, since the physical is never fixed and gender is a self-selected attribute. In coming to terms with these aspects of virtual interaction, new systems of significance have been developed by users, along with methods of enforcing that cultural hegemony through power structures dependant upon manipulation of the virtual environment. These new systems of meaning and social control define those who use MUDs as constituting a distinct cultural group. --------------- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS --------------- First and foremost, my thanks go to Chris Healy, my supervisor, for his support, encouragement and advice, all of which have been invaluable. Secondly, I would like to thank the English Department for sponsoring my use of the University of Melbourne's computing and network facilities, which enabled me to undertake this research. I would also like to thank Richard Oxbrow of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering for allowing me to use the computing facilities of that department, and Lochard Environment Systems Pty. Ltd. for providing the printer used to produce the final version of this thesis. To Pavel Curtis and Kerstin Carosone go my thanks for help with proof-reading and 'beta-testing', and to Daniel Carosone goes my especial thanks for emotional, technical and culinary support. Lastly, I should like thank all the people who have made this thesis possible by allowing me to join them in their virtual play and especially for allowing me to quote from examples of this play and from their reflections upon it. ------- PREFACE ------- Parts of this thesis have been published in "Electronic Chat: Communication and Community on Internet Relay Chat" in _Media_ _Information_Australia_ No. 67 (February 1993) 61-70. The previously published excerpts are spread throughout this thesis, and amount in total to approximately 2000 words. -------- CONTENTS -------- Introduction: Virtual Reality--Imagined Space Background: A History of Interactive and Networked Computing and the Evolution of MUDs Interactive Computing Networked Computing Interactive Networking MUDs: Networked, Interactive Virtual Realities Chapter One: Communication and Cultural Context Making Sense of the World Making Sense of Each Other Disinhibition and Social Experience Chapter Two: Power, Social Structure and Social Cohesion Hierarchies of Power on MUDs Adventure MUDs: Survival of the Fittest Social MUDs: Cooperative Appreciation Social Cohesion on MUDs Chapter Three: Identity and the Cyborg Body Self-Made People Ungrounding Gender Cyborg Sexuality The Cyborg Self Conclusion: Cultural Formations in Text-Based Virtual Realities Bibliography Appendices Appendix One: The Vanishing Room Appendix Two: The Double Bluff Appendix Three: The First Case of Cross-Gendered MUD Playing Appendix Four: The Evolution of Communication ... Amongst Players ... and Wizards Appendix Five: The Expression of Feelings on 'Nemesis' Appendix Six: The LambdaMOO Player Survey Appendix Seven: Character Generation... ...Complex ...Or Simple -------------------------------------------- INTRODUCTION: VIRTUAL REALITY--IMAGINED SPACE -------------------------------------------- Cyberspace.... A graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding...[1] Virtual Reality, or "cyberspace"... takes alternate reality a step further [beyond books and movies] by introducing a computer as mediator, or imagination enhancer.[2] Cyberspace: A new universe, a parallel universe created and sustained by the world's computers and communication lines... a new stage, a new and irresistible development in the elaboration of human culture and business under the sign of technology.[3] Since William Gibson coined the term in his best-selling novel Neuromancer, cyberspace' and virtual reality have been part of late twentieth century culture, and have been infused with a variety of cultural and emotional meanings. Gibson himself envisaged a direct neural connection between humans and computers against a background of urban decay and personal alienation. The film The Lawnmower Man depicted a meld of mind-altering drugs and computer-controlled sensory stimulation which offered a new stage for the evolution of mankind, either toward godlike wisdom or satanic evil. The popular media have posed cyberspace as the new frontier and the new promise of the twentieth century. Gibson's 'console cowboys'--virtuoso cyberspace users hacking at the edges of the law--have been incarnated in media coverage of groups such as the infamous 'Legion of Doom'. Arcade games incorporating datagloves and headsets have become the latest fad in entertainment. Business Week filled its October 5 '92 issue with special features introducing virtual reality technologies and applications to its readers. Clifford Stoll's best-seller _The_Cuckoo's_Egg_ promoted cyberspace as the site of new levels of international espionage, betrayal and tyranny, inhabited by glamorous foreign spies and dedicated heroes. Technically speaking, the term 'virtual reality' is most commonly used to refer to systems that offer users visual, auditory and tactile information about an environment which exists as data in a computer system rather than as physical objects and locations. This is the virtual reality depicted in "The Lawnmower Man" and approximated by the 'Virtuality' arcade games marketed by Horizon Entertainment. This thesis is not about these kinds of virtual reality. I do not wish to talk about cyberspace or virtual reality as technological constructions but as cultural constructs. In common with Howard Rheingold I do not see virtual reality as a set of technologies, but as an experience.[4] More than that, I believe that it is primarily an imaginative rather than a sensory experience. I wish to shift the focus of attention away from the gadgets used to represent a virtual world, and concentrate on the nature of the user's experience of such worlds. I contend that technical definitions of VR beg the question of what it is about such systems that sustains the illusion of reality in the mind of the user. A list of technical components does not explain why it is that users are prepared to accept a simulated world as a valid site for emotional and social response. The systems that I will describe in examining virtual reality as a cultural environment are technically simple. I have chosen to refer to a family of computer programs known as MUDs. MUDs are networked, multi-participant, user-extensible systems which are most commonly found on the Internet, the international network that connects many thousands of educational, research and commercial institutions. Using a MUD does not require any of the paraphernalia commonly associated with virtual reality. There is no special hardware to sense the position and orientation of the user's real-world body, and no special clothes allowing users to see the virtual world through goggles and touch it through 'datagloves'. The MUD interface is entirely textual; all commands are typed in by the user and all feedback is displayed as text on a monitor. A simple PC can act as a gateway into this kind of virtual world. Instead of using sophisticated tools to see, touch and hear the virtual environment, users of MUD systems are presented with textual descriptions of virtual locations. Technically, a MUD software program consists of a database of 'rooms', 'exits', and other objects. The program accepts connections from users on a computer network, and provides each user with access to that database. As Pavel Curtis describes, users are presented with textual information describing them as being situated in an artificially constructed place which also contains those other participants who are connected to the MUD program.[5] There are many hundreds of MUD programs running ...
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