I had deliberately left it quite late in the evening last night before venturing into Second Life (SL) as I wanted some time on my own to refamiliarise myself with the SL environment, the user interface and to ensure I had the latest update from from SL as I knew that there would be a Second Life Treasure Hunt game commencing next week. I also wanted to ensure that I had Team 2's SL contacts added to my SL contacts list.
I didn't get too far when I was approached by Dagma Kiranov (a.k.a. Iris Bosa) who had also popped up late into SL. After about 20 minutes typing messages between eachother - that strange typing motion that the avatar undertakes to inform the other user(s) that they are typing has been likened to "stroking the cat", Iris added her own metaphor by suggesting, given Wray's costume, that it looked like I was "playing the piano" - Iris asked "can I change my voice?". This struck me as an odd comment to make until I realised that she was talking about the speech feature within SL that was added several months ago. I plugged in my microphone headset and began to talk to Iris, like one does with Skype and presumably using the same kind of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology that Skype uses. It became clear what her question meant.
In Second Life, and indeed in other virtual worlds, the user invests a lot of time and effort to create their avatar and their "virtual" identity in a way that they want to be seen and perceived by other users within that shared world. One was able to further enhance that identity with the kinds of words and phrases that they used to talk to one another. In my mind's ear, I can "hear" Wray talking with a deep, rich, urbane voice, not too dissimilar to that of Christopher Lee's voice. But of course, the experience that the other user gets is not that of Wray sounding like Christopher Lee, they get Wray sounding very Kentish and not terribly deep, rich or urbane - you could almost hear the record scratch at that moment as reality breaks into the virtual world and these whole persona and identity that you have carefully created begins to unravel before your eyes.
Whilst there has been a lot of work in identity in terms of roles, gender, sexuality, demographic variables; I am not so sure whether any has been done on voice as an identity construct in terms of accent, dialect, pitch, etc. The inclusion of the speech feature within SL is a very interesting addition to the software's capabilities, but I wonder if it will have a detrimental effect on one's virtual presence and identity?
Keywords: avatar, identity, IDGBL2009, second life, virtual worlds, voice
Comments
Indeed, it has been really interesting... I was searching for the way to modify the 'avatar' voice.
It is great how we can open to new challenge via small misunderstanding and attempts.
I suppose hearing the voice of the other person can play a considerable issue. I personally felt more at ease. But of course it is a big surprise to hear the voice of an avatar when it is so different from Christopher Lee
I love serendipity - discovering something quite by accident.
Alas, the illusion of Wray sounding like Christopher Lee has been shattered beyond repair. It reminds me when motion pictures went from silent to "talkies" and a number of their top silent movie stars careers came to a shuddering halt because they didn't sound. Just imagine that great romantic lover, Rudolph Valentino, sounding like Joe Pasquale?
But it does say something that our voices are tended to be overlooked in terms of our identities. Maybe there is a research project in there somewhere?
There are some fascinating issues here. It is not so *very* long ago (OK - three or so year, which is probably a long time in technology!) that Linden (originators of SL) declared that they would not introduce a speech function until they had the "voice marking" technology available to enable users to do the say "customisation" with their voice that was possible for appearance and dress. The caved in quit quickly - i think due to pressure from those wanting to use SL as a practical teleconferencing system - but that is just my speculation.
I much prefer to avoid voice in SL, and have a similar feeling about recent excursions into World of Warcraft, where it is common for players to have a Skype channel open while they play. For me, it ruins the narrative coherence.
Thinking of World of Warcraft, there is a distinction between servers (versions of the game) that run as "role-play" or "non role-play". That is, on some servers plays are required to remain in role all the time - as "warrior" or "mage" - rather than just talking to one another *about* the game.