Reading with the body : interpreting three dimensional media as narrative

• This chapter argues that virtual online worlds are sites for the realization of narrative, in a form of reading that is posthuman and performative. The in-world avatar is the embodiment of an interpreting agent in the virtual world. Such devices accomplish a number of functions in terms of narrative realisation. The avatar contributes to the realisation of narrative through the navigation of the spatial attributes, the setting up of perspective in terms of Point of View (POV) in the reading, and as a character agent in the narrative architecture of the virtual world. Such characteristics are in the cybernetic relationship between the virtual world as a text, and the responses that can be made to it in reception. Architecture becomes the grammar of reading in the virtual world, with design and code, copyright and address directing narrative. The body of the avatar and the body of the person operating it are joined across the spaces of the digital and the physical in the navigation of the virtual three-dimensional.

Subject headings

HUMANIORA  -- Annan humaniora -- Kulturstudier (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Other Humanities -- Cultural Studies (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Avatars

Cyberculture

Cybernetic

Embodiment

Narrative

Navigation

Posthuman

Reading

Spatial

Virtual worlds

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kap (subject category)