Melody Owen

Social Creative Virtual Worlds and Multi-Species Worlding: I am actively exploring and building in as many social creative virtual worlds as possible. While this has been my methodology, the goal is to learn the mechanics of building in each and choose the best tools (ie worlds) with which to present my thesis work. I have been building galleries as a way to learn about the cultures and limits in each world. Though virtual worlds have existed since computers, starting with chat rooms and expanding into 3 dimensional spaces, SCV worlds are exploding at the moment. I have been making lists of worlds and their attributes. The other side of my research is to do with Jacob von Uexkull's concept of the umwelt as an embodied form of perception experienced by every form of life - and Merleau-Ponty's concepts around worlding which similarly explore embodied perceptions and voices of different species and how each has their own way of "singing the world." My idea is to use these virtual worlds as staging spaces for installations exploring concepts around multi-species worlding with 3D collages and sound trees - as it feels that new human made virtual worlds are opportunities for reinvention and re-imagining of realities and are resonant and exciting in their organic states of emergence and failure.