Wayne Madsen | SL Archetype
Statement
There are a variety of urban legends. There are cautionary urban legends, mysterious urban legends, but there are also people who become urban legends. These characters are defined by the culture around them and become mythical through their relationship to that culture. A comic book guy becomes an urban legend, not solely because he owns the most comics, but because something stimulates a cultural memory to remember him as an urban legend.
Second Life mimics everyday experience. Users mimic real life through their avatars and through the environments they move through. As in real life, urban legends can be discovered in Second Life. We wanted to find the comic book guy archetype inside Second Life to recognize his status within the system. In the beginning, we tried to find comic book sites through the use of the search engine within Second Life. By using keyword searches, as well as keyword inquiries to other avatars, we visited locations that might lead us to the discovery of the possible archetype of the comic book guy.
Virtual space in Second Life is similar to hyperlink space in internet navigation. The physicality of Second Life is deceptive: the reality of virtual space is only the coexistence of simultaneous virtual locations. Space is not dependent on moving from point A to point B, on moving from one location to another; space is not a distance but a form of identity. Identity in virtuality stems from the locations/sites we visit, not through the physicality of the locations, or the physical relationship of the locations. Users are defined by where they go and who they interact with. The archetype’s identity is to be defined and discovered through the exploration of their virtual space, using a system that is begun by the archetype.