Digital Theatre: Considerations and an Analysis of Live Performance Practice in Second Life

This thesis comes as a result of the increased pervasiveness of online social environments. As more
and more people gain access to the World Wide Web, areas where people can socialise and connect
over large distances instantly have sprung up to facilitate this unprecedented level of
communication. One part of this new influx of social networking sites includes 3D visual
environments where users can interact using virtual representations of themselves. As these
interactive areas become more and more popular the artistic applications of them are being
explored. Established artists have begun to use these online spaces as an extension of their artistic
practices while new artists are being born from this new emergent online culture. This thesis will
explore how artists new and old are interacting with the newly established online world and the
unique considerations they are having to engage with that come from the virtuality of these social
spaces. There are many online 3D environments available on the internet, such as There, EverQuest
and World of Warcraft. There are too many to be included within this thesis, however, so I will be
concentrating my discussion on Second Life, a 3D environment that has recently started to support
its growing culture of artists and performers.