Cybernetic Self Project Research

Network Self - How I as an individual present my self on the internet socially.

Sociomateral - Technology that encourages and helps social interactions.

Autopoiesis - Meaning a system that can reproduce and maintain itself, so in this case us as people developing and maintaining our self portrait by expressing ourselves through appearance and interests.

Something to think about: Present and demonstrate how people portray themselves in MMORPGs like World of Warcraft and compare it to their personality in real life and explore how they become some one they are not in a virtual world.

Or how people embrace and express their own personality in virtual world and through virtual characters.

Primary Research

How do I present myself in MMORPG as an individual?

I play “The Elder Scrolls Online” on the Playstation 4 which involves the player creating a character to play as in the game. The character creation scenario allows the player to choose a gender, a race (Human, Orc, Elf etc.), a play style (Archer, Mage, Fighter etc.) 

• As an individual I immediately go against my own personality and who am I by choosing the female gender for my character. 
• I choose a Wood Elf which is a race who are seen as keeping to themselves and only helping their own kind because of what they believe in, but me as a person I like to see my myself helping others no matter the race or religion, the keeping to myself is pretty accurate however.
• As my play style I chose an archer, a player who can be mistaken as a coward because how far away they can be from the fight, this is also true to my personality as I have never had a fight in my life and prefer to avoid any kind of conflict. E.g. if I chose a fighter this would completely go against my personality to avoid a fight or conflict. 

There are other MMORPGs if in the modern age “The Division” for example that allow me to express my real life personality mainly through digital appearance. A game called Dead Rising 2 has the element of allowing the player to walk into any shop in a mall during a zombie apocalypse and wear any combination clothes they want so they can express their look in co-op. Myself for an example prefers the character of the game to wear a skater outfit which defines my personality in real life of having an interest in skate boarding and listening to metal music which is the stereotype against people who like to ride skateboards.

What do I need in technology to accomplish communication with other players in MMORPGs?

• A gaming console or PC which is the basic requirement to at least play video games and use other types of social platforms.
• A modem to allow access to the internet.
• A headset and/or a keyboard to communicate with other players via voice chat or text chat (popular with PC)

With all this gaming online and communicating with other players is possible.

What is the difference between socialising on video games and socialising in real life?

I have found that I feel more confident and prefer to make friends through socialising on video games then maybe approaching someone in the street or in a shop and many other gamers would agree. The reason for this is because players online don’t have to reveal personal details to become friends with someone which makes it impossible for people to judge one another, players have a Gaming ID  they can hide behind and that is what other players will refer to them as so players don’t even have to reveal their real names to each other.

Character Development

Our first studio session was about how to brainstorm ideas for creating a character that we would then use in an animation. The tasks involved very basic sketching to help us shape and picture our character and then we drew the character more tightly from a front view and then a side view. The tasks set was to teach us the basic steps necessary to invent a character from scratch and then take that idea to further its design that can then be used within an animation.

Sketching

The first step was to sketch away, when creating a character always use a obvious feature of yourself to apply to your sketches. I chose my hairstyle as a feature to apply to most of these sketches so a spiked style that goes over the characters face at an angle. 

Feedback - At first I was told that I was thinking too much about my drawings and that I was using small lines because I was actually trying to draw a character. Instead I was instructed to try and draw with my eyes closed and use really long lines. The idea was being that after drawing a couple of long lines the brain would start to see where a character could be formed which then you follow up on.

After applying the feedback to my sketches I was really surprised to see that my drawings were actually taking an interesting form and at the time I was thinking that I would never be able to draw as good as this in all my life but I just did.

After a couple of sketches we were told to try and draw a character in different poses so as soon as any pose entered my mind even a flash image I put pencil to paper and to be honest I was very surprised at my ability to accurately draw anything that came to mind.

Production Layouts

The second step was to take the sketches of character ideas and come up with one final character. We had to tightly draw a character with little detail at a front and side view perspective, the aim was to capture just the characters shape and form. Grid paper was used to draw the character because we could accurately keep the front view and side view the same size proportion.

Feedback - The image above with the 3 drawings was my first attempt at drawing my character. The front view was a success but the side view was more of a stick character. The third drawing to the right was an example from my tutor and he told me to think about the characters form and have a heavy focus on curves to give the character depth and realism.

The image with 2 drawings above was my final design and after applying the feedback my side view had real depth and realism, this has changed how I think about drawing because I realised that I drew with too many straight lines which doesn't allow the character to come to life.

What Have I Learnt?

Most importantly I have learnt how to draw, after this session I have a completely different way of thinking and approach to sketching. When it comes to brainstorming character ideas I will no longer try to draw an actual character idea from my mind I will very loosely draw shapes and forms in different poses. Next when it comes to finalising a character I will use my sketches to draw a front and side view with curved lines to create realism.

The session has left me very happy and eager to try the new sketching and brainstorming technique with my own projects in the future.