摘要：The original usage of avatar referred to the incarnation or human appearance of a deity, particularly Vishnu, in Hindu mythology. The term was adapted to cyberspace to name one’s online persona. This usage has come to include every aspect of one’s online representation, from the icon on a blog, or an email signature to the figure one plays in Second Life. Avatar, then, is a practical point of entry for theorizing the emergence of the new identity experience of electracy, that is supplementing and displacing selfhood, the identity formation of literacy. Playing one’s avatar is to electracy what writing an essay is to literacy. The point addressed in this essay is that an avatar is not merely the appearance of one’s representation, since through interactivity and even telepresence, I am t/here with my image. What is it to be/have an image? The answer begins with noting the literal meaning of the avatar in Sanskrit: "Descent." Vishnu has descended (taken on embodiment) nine times, to correct a disordered world condition. This essay initiates a review of the cultural archive to see what is known already about our question (representations of "descent"). It is perhaps obvious, considering the prominence of Christianity in our heritage, that the West accumulated a huge amount of information about becoming body. Two examples are referenced in this introductory piece: Krishna and Orpheus.
Loading...
