Epilogue: Returning to the Scene of the Crime
When Collaboration (and Virtual Immortality) Dies
Epilogue: Returning to the Scene of the Crime
It may have become apparent to readers of this Epilogue that, unlike the previous lexiae in this analysis, the flow is decidedly linear. I have provided links that move in only one direction. And this was a conscious and selfish choice-- perhaps even an arrogant one. Although it flies in the face of hypertext theory to deny the reader some authorial control, I am asserting myself.
I beg your indulgence to allow me to conclude with a powerful revelation (at least one that was powerful for me): My exploration of the MOO as a medium has been at once intensely academic and intensely personal. It would not be inaccurate to say that I have mourned the "loss" of The Loft. Perhaps the secret desire that accompanied this project was to establish some sense of immortality; to create a virtual presence that would live long beyond our graduate course and perhaps even beyond or corporeal selves. Three years later, I have returned to "the scene of the crime." I have come full circle and better understand Joyce's thesis.
He acknowledges that Anne Johnstone need not be alive for her character to continue. A wizard or another person with her password could easily inhabit that account again and, in essence, revive her. "But it was ever so," Joyce argues. "These things happen. A letter arrives from a dead woman a day or week beyond her death. We revive her, see her in mixed and mortal time between the preliminary and the inevitable, create for her a proximate geography." (313)
And he posits a response from a MOO devotee: "In the future she wouldn't have to die, not really. When MOO's become graphical, where there's really VR, there could be an avatar of her. You could revive her, move her through space....You wouldn't need language, words get in the way." (313) But Joyce disagrees. In my experience with The Loft, his thoughts are born out. The words, rather than being in the way, were all that survived. The images fell to broken links, but the words still appeared in the MOO interface. Joyce argues that we have to die. And this is very likely true.
Pieces of The Loft have vanished. Others could go at any time. I could change internet service providers and not repost my files. Dr. English could recycle our MOO avatar. In truth, the virtual body remains but the "spirit" or spark that drove it already has been lost. I, or one of my peers, could reanimate The Loft, but, lacking the original files, it would never be the same.
I would not belittle Anne Johnsone's memory by saying that a graduate project is as important or as memorable as a real person. But I will say that the diminishment of each teaches similar lessons (although with differing degrees of emotional severity): Virtual immortality is impossible. Server changes and death conspire against us. I am not sure if Anne's Work Room still exists at Brown's Hypertext Hotel. Indeed, I can't be sure it ever existed-- except by taking Michael Joyce at his word. But I purposely have not visited the space to verify the facts. I choose instead to believe that her virtual home remains. And, in many ways, it does-- in an essay by Joyce, in my mind and memory, and in the inspiration for an experimental MOO fiction. I can only hope that Carla's, Dean's and my presence on the MOO serves as a similar catalyst in the future.
Joyce explains:
Against the commonly cited momentariness of MOO experience and the evanescence of the selves that form within it, there stands the rhythm of recurrence on unknown screens elsewhere; the persistence of certain "objects" that, like the consumerist flotsam of temporal existence (a brown bottle or a sailboat), mark the swell and surge of lives lived in body, space and time; and the mark of the momentary itself, meaning within meaningfulness not against meaninglessness. Thus like any poetic text, the MOO aspires to moral discourse and to inscribe our mortality. (314-315)
The word-- whether print or digital, fiction or non-fiction-- profoundly connects us. Despite being removed from each other by electrons, computer terminals, and code, the MOO has the potential to connect us on a profoundly personal level. This digital medium allows us to span great distances, forge friendships and touch the lives of others all from our computer.
As I began repairing the damage to The Loft, I noticed that our umbrella was no longer in the virtual foyer. It had been removed by someone and taken to her virtual home. I have no idea who she is. I don't even remember her online name now. All that I remember (as the pronouns indicate) is that the player name was feminine. Perhaps she visited our MOO and forgot she had picked the umbrella up. Perhaps she found the umbrella in another location entirely.
When I repaired the image link for the object, I returned the umbrella to The Loft. I regret that decision now. I should have made a copy of the object and left the original in its new home. A piece of our virtual flotsam had found its way to another space on the MOO-- perhaps constructing a new story. And by removing it, I inadvertently played the role of murderer; killing the unpredicted, unforeseen collaboration; hastening the death of yet another story.
For now, I will have to invest time as I can building new objects for The Loft. And I will watch as the virtual tides sweep some of these objects away. And as I prepare to leave graduate school, I have a simple hope-- that those same tides will bring other items and visitors to The Loft allowing our fictional story to endure.