The cover of the graphic report.
[Update: Readers can download digital versions of all the findings here.]
After a year of research spanning four continents and interviews with dozens of people across the virtual world of the Internet Dancing Ink Productions is pleased to announce the release of our findings from the Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds project on Thursday, January 29 at 6 PM Eastern at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs. Space is limited so please RSVP to attend the event.
The report will include a trilogy of deliverables, including formal public diplomacy policy recommendations for the Obama Administration; a broadcast-quality short machinima documentary; and a graphic book chronicling the people, places and findings of the project.
On Friday, January 30 we will hold a discussion in the virtual world of Second Life and via Twitter to discuss and release the findings. More information about that will be posted later. For those who cannot attend the live event, all of our reports will be downloadable via the web.
Dancing Ink Productions is grateful to the Richard Lounsbery Foundation for funding this groundbreaking project and the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs for hosting it. We are also profoundly grateful to the worldwide residents of Second Life for opening their cultures, hearts, homes, places of worship and creativity to us on this quest.
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3 comments:
I'm Looking forward to the Second Life presentation.
A few people left comments and when we attempted to post them, they never appeared. We are hoping this is just a lag problem and that the comments will appear. In the meantime, however, someone took issue with the cover of the graphic report, perceiving it as "seductive," and I responded. Though the original comment does not appear, I am still going to post my response so if you return, reader, please don't feel that you were deliberately kept from commenting.
The graphic on the cover has gone through many incarnations as we chose an image. Many of the Muslim women we met in Second Life choose to wear hijab, even if they do not choose to do so in the physical world. This particular avatar belongs to a woman from Doha, Qatar, who also wears traditional Muslim attire in the physical world. We perceive her as appearing thoughtful (which, in fact, she was) not "seductive." The image was taken from a snapshot that appears in the book, in context. It was taken at a virtual fatwa, held by a Muslim cleric to discuss and interpret Koranic verses for Ramadan.
If our goal was to present a "seductive" or "stereotypical" image we could have chosen from among the many images that we collected that do not appear in the report at all for that very reason. Avatars often appear "seductive" to some people because they do not have the inevitable imperfections of physical bodies and their motions are scripted.
Amazing work - I will try to make it to the Second Life presentation!
http://arexistence.blogspot.com/2009/01/understanding-islam-through-virtual.html
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