Art & The Avatar: Ambiguity of Identity in 3D Worlds Questions

I thought it was very interesting how Artistide Despres refers to digital worlds as places where, "people would be able to communicate, create art without many fences: place, race, etc., as only a communication between mental avatars." Interesting thought that would be ideal in a Utopian world. My question regarding this statement is, because people, by human nature are judgemental, how does a virtual world with living human beings made of flesh and emotion able to stem away from the basic human reaction to judge? Just because the space has turned digital and race, sex, and gender don't matter in a sense, there is still a human controlling an artificial world, wouldn't art still be the subject of criticisms just as much if not even more in a virtual world?



Another question I have regarding this article focuses around the idea of immersion. I have been to several comic conventions where many artists are against the digital world and still very much dependent on analog art. Because this article talks about being able to reach individuals globally and doing so by avatars that can easily be multiplied, alters and even discarded is this really representational as analog art? If an avatar can be easily multiplied, discarded or altered how could they truly be a factual representation of self identity?

Because an avatar is clean, and simple (in the sense that it does not have to eat or has bodily smell) I can see how one might enjoy living in a digital world more so than a real world. Avatars are interesting to me because they show how people want to be, or want to look often times. The idea about creating an avatar that looks very similar to the self is like combining reality with virtual reality, which are two very different things. When you log out of second life time stops and picks up again where you left off, it doesn't do that in reality, yet people see themselves differently in both perspectives. I like the idea of facing my realistic self in a virtual world, it feels like a new and very innovative way to view oneself, kind of a step up from looking in the mirror.