{"id":526,"date":"2021-11-08T16:15:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-08T16:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/?p=526"},"modified":"2026-06-29T13:52:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T13:52:08","slug":"videos-on-avatars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/?p=526","title":{"rendered":"Videos on avatars"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Our Digital Selves: My Avatar is Me by Draxtor
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https:\/\/youtu.be\/GQw02-me0W4<\/a> 1:13:56<\/p>\n

Heather’s review.<\/p>\n

A long film that dives deeply into multiple aspects of avatars in virtual worlds.  Touching story of how the disabled can use VWs to explore friendship and relationships.<\/p>\n

As of November 2021, Draxtor is still a resident of VWs and can be found communicating about them. <\/p>\n

 Video description from YouTube:<\/p>\n

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[ ***WINNER JURY AWARD & WINNER AUDIENCE AWARD BEST DOCUMENTARY @ Riverside International Film Festival, Riverside, CA, 2019 +++++WINNER JUDGES CHOICE AWARD @ Monarch Film Festival, Pacific Grove, CA, 2018+++++AWARD OF RECOGNITION @ IndieFEST Film Awards, La Jolla, CA, 2018++++SEMI FINALIST @ Hollywood International Independent Documentary Awards, Los Angeles, CA, 2018 ****]<\/p>\n

[**** blogs about this film:<\/p>\n

Virtual Ability = <\/span>http:\/\/blog.virtualability.org\/2018\/0…<\/a> + <\/span>http:\/\/blog.virtualability.org\/2018\/0…<\/a> + <\/span>http:\/\/blog.virtualability.org\/2018\/0…<\/a> + <\/span>http:\/\/blog.virtualability.org\/2018\/0…<\/a><\/p>\n

Deanya’s guest blog = <\/span>http:\/\/www.draxtor.com\/blog\/2018\/5\/17…<\/a><\/p>\n

Inara = <\/span>https:\/\/modemworld.me\/2018\/05\/18\/empo…<\/a> <\/p>\n

Strawberry = <\/span>https:\/\/strawberrysingh.com\/2018\/05\/1…<\/a><\/p>\n

Ryan = <\/span>https:\/\/ryanschultz.com\/2018\/05\/17\/dr…<\/a> **** ]<\/p>\n

\u201cOur Digital Selves: My Avatar is me!\u201d tells the story of 13 ability-diverse global citizens as they explore their identity through artistic expression and making a home for themselves in the VR Metaverse. <\/p>\n

Filmmaker Bernhard Drax travels from Los Angeles to rural South England to explore why people ranging from 24 to 92 years of age find solace and inspiration in a user-created digital wonderland that only exists inside their computers.<\/p>\n

Drax sends his documentarian avatar Draxtor Despres into the virtual universe of Second Life as well as next generation VR platforms like High Fidelity and Sansar where he meets a 40-something disabled Chicago native feels best represented by a colorful superhero gecko and Cody LaScala – confined to a wheelchair his entire life – who makes his avatar an exact replica of his physical self.<\/p>\n

The film follows researchers Tom Boellstorff and Donna Davis as well as leading technologists in Silicon Valley who intend to – as they say – \u201cdesign the future of social VR with disability in mind\u201d. <\/p>\n

As Boellstorff and Davis finish up their 3-year study on embodiment and place-making in VR, made possible by a grant from the National Science Foundation, the film comes as a compressed visual compendium to a seemingly unlimited array of possibilities for human interaction via the embodied symbolism of the avatar. <\/p>\n

Unique in its narrative approach, \u201cOur Digital Selves\u201d weaves together physical and virtual cinematography as the protagonists\u2019 backstories are re-enacted via real time animation [Machinima].<\/p>\n

Contact drax at draxtor dot com for more information<\/p>\n

[copyright 2018 draxtor\u2122…and media for all!]<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Strangers in Paradise, CBC Documentary<\/h1>\n

https:\/\/www.escapistmagazine.com\/cbc-documentary-looks-at-second-life-cheaters<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/fifth\/2008-2009\/strangers_in_paradise\/video.html<\/p>\n

Heather’s review:<\/p>\n

This is a haunting documentary about 2 women who gave up their real lives in pursuit of virtual relationships. In both examples, the couples met in real life and the resulting relationship was either non-existent or weird. <\/p>\n

This video has been tagged by the CBC as showing examples of gaming addiction and provides links for the left-behind spouse as “widows”, i.e. World of Warcraft Widows, Everquest Widows, etc.<\/p>\n

It seems to want Flash to play now (since 2008\/2009) and I won’t bother.  But it is a hugely disturbing video for me and very important.<\/p>\n

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\n  Our Digital Selves: My Avatar is Me by Draxtor https:\/\/youtu.be\/GQw02-me0W4 1:13:56 Heather’s review. A long film that dives deeply…\n<\/div>\n
Continue reading “Videos on avatars”<\/span>…<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":527,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[266,59,267,265,65,67,27,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-addiction","category-avatar","category-documentary","category-gaming","category-second-life","category-virtual-worlds","category-vr","category-xr","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=526"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":529,"href":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526\/revisions\/529"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}