ABOUT THE WORKSHOP

Multinational workshop and a hot topic in webcasting and presentation
is Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML), which means data 
representation in 3 dimensional virtual space. A growing community is
linked by electronic communication and developing construction of
personal representations - Avatars as a cyberspace parallel to the
mythical incarnations.

The human body is  not so much the history of its representations as of 
its modes of construction."  Michael Feher, ed. (Ramona Naddaff, Nadia
Tazi) Fragments for a History of the Human Body, 1989

Avatars have according to status and definition in virtual space certain
predefined shapes, habits and activities defining their entities 
(by scripts).

Checking of the state of the "common databody". Can the individual no 
more have a single databody? The thoughts of Stone, that one common 
databody is  defined by a certain amount of users of a community in
cyberspace, can be  usefull, when several participants want to define
a new virtual persona in dataspace together - in collaborative work.  
The virtual person is no more linked to the limited personality, gender
and body.

Stone describes in her work "The war of desire and technology at
the  Close of the mechanical age",1995, the in/difference between 
person,  personality, persona, subject and self. It is now necessary 
to understand the physical position of the self in virtual systems 
independantly from the body.

The metabody can be developed in a common net process. The
3 dimensional representation of the databody by e-mail and image
transfer as factor of the  body can be constructed here in a
test surrounding (see Douglas Davis, who is starting "magic of 
words and images" in his online projected metabody).
 
Possible representation formats beside analog historical metaphors  
evolved in discussions and constant work at the workshop and were 
compared with existing efforts on this topic.

Which models for orientation in real or virtual life can be used? 
The aesthtics of computer rendered worlds is  aproblem since user 
friendly  applications are available. Render modes and textures entail
a specific corporate structure.

How emancipation from analog retrospective metaphors is possible?
What metaphors we can use ? Which independant mental models we can 
develop and which are working for navigation in dataspace?

The world known expert on visual human cloning - professor Nadia
Magnenat Thalmann shown in her lectures the state of art in modeling 
shapes and behavoir of computer representations of persons.

Participants from Austria, Slovakia, Switzerland and Ukraina tried in 
frames of 14 days workshop implement their own ideas of selfrepresentation in cyberspace
with the help of available hardware and software systems and assistance 
provided by sponsoring companies.

EQUIPMENT AND PROGRAMS

INSTITUTIONAL COOPERATION