Ontology of Avatars
December 26, 2020In an increasingly virtual world, our means of communication, self agency, and expression have been relocated towards representational and abstract simulations of existence. With the additional freedom to shift between identities and identifiers, online, we have the ability to choose and curate what will represent our presence and individuality. Bazin’s Mummy complex can be applied beyond the advent of photography into 2025, where the fundamental need to maintain a presence that surpasses the body has led to the creation of Avatars and virtual vessels. Avatars are not new. However, the ontological shift from virtual representation to the ability to manipulate and control a 3D object, is significant, specifically in dealing with likeness of human individuals. The phenomenologically passive nature of a 3D object elicits a conversation of who is in control, who is being controlled, and who gets to make decisions about these dynamic bodies?
The creation of an Avatar is one of birth, modification, revision, and reflection. As an avatar is made, she reflects one’s own physicality. Watch the avatar stare at you stare back at her, as if she somehow realizes the limitations of her domain, and you of yours. Reaching into the virtual Aether provides physical reassurance and permanence, reflecting the limitations of Our domain. Simultaneously, the action is a vain one; while the limitations of physicality are transcended here, there is no guarantee of permanence and security in virtual form.
An avatar is made by creating a series of data points in a 3D modeling software that correspond to spatial coordinates. This allows the computer to reproduce a mesh upon which additional programs tell the computer how to render the image based on physical lighting parameters. A 3D model is ontologically a very ‘passive’ object, due to its receptive nature. It is meant to be used and manipulated by a user or developer. A 3D object can be animated, manipulated, morphed, destroyed, etc. It is supposed to receive the action of another agent.