Rethinking Virtual Commodification (or, The Virtual Kitchen Sink) by Lori Landay/L1Aura Loire

A virtual home, rented or on one's own land, whether similar to an actual world home or some other kind of space, is not just a simulacra of the familar to make the metaphors of place manifest in a virtual world. It is not just a mirror image, but its own place, a locus of experiences that have occurred there, and are now a part of me. I still do not see the appeal of a virtual kitchen, but I have also spent enough time in the virtual world Second Life now to know that people's uses of commodities are often creative and ludic, providing frames for play and interaction that stimulate the imagination in ways I could barely glimpse a year ago. Maybe that could even include the kitchen sink.

The first machinima piece included in The Journal of Virtual Worlds Research, this was published as an Interactive Online Exhibit and Demonstration with accompanying notes in the special issue on Virtual Economies, Virtual Goods and Service Delivery in Virtual Worlds: https://journals.tdl.org/jvwr/article/view/860/625. For six months, the machinima was only available in the journal, but now that there is a new issue of the journal out and the machinima is no longer easily found on the front page of the journal site, I am posting it on youtube as well.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• machinima
• Second Life
• virtual world
• commodification
• virtual economy
• L1Aura Loire
• new media
• visual culture
• consumerism
• educational
• commodity
• ludic
• SL
• virtual place
• virtual goods