1. Do you have any experience (musical or non) in any type of virtual world, specifically one involving the creation and manipulation of an avatar? If yes, please describe it.
I don’t have much experience in virtual worlds. However, I am reminded of my junior high years when I had a Giga Pet. Part of the reason these were so popular was because of the the temporality. As Christine summarized of the Garner and Grimshaw: ““Dirt” aka temporality is necessary for virtual reality to be regarded as truly convincing. Things must age and decay, consequences for actions must exist as in reality.” The Giga Pet aged, became dirty, and required food and play frequently. Although I enjoyed it, I was often distraught when the puppy had died when I neglected it during the school day. It was a small virtual world but it was mine.
4. Can you think of an example of a time where you “heard” a sound, only to find that it did not actually happen or exist? Can you think of a time where you mistook a virtual sound as something real?
Yes! I think my entire family would agree that I’m always hearing things. Most frequently, I think that someone has said my name or called out to me. Part of that is related to how we are trained to hear our names. We can pick it out a crowd of voices all talking at once. Likewise, I often think that I hear other frequent sounds. Sometimes I think I’ve heard my phone make the noise for a text or email when it hasn’t.
Another related experience is one that I have with dreams. I discovered many years ago that I cannot wake up to music. If I have an alarm set to radio, my dreams become ones of me singing and performing the music from said radio. I sing with all the various voices that I hear. It will go on endlessly. I can only wake up to loud buzzing or beeping sounds.
6. Do you imagine yourself attending a virtual concert (not a virtual broadcast of a live concert) in the future? Why or why not?
I suppose that I could but I don’t plan on joining any virtual worlds, other than for the purposes of our upcoming assignment. Although I found Dr. Harvey’s article interesting, I find live performances much more special.