This site is a place to keep track of my thoughts and notes about anthropology in general, and especially the anthropology of virtual worlds. Most of this site is an invisible collection of my notes and thoughts. As I form those thoughts into sensible sentences and paragraphs, I sometimes make them public.
Topics here include academic research and thoughts about virtual reality, learning, perception, phenomenology, presence and immersion in virtual spaces. Other topics I track include neuroscience, biological anthropology, open source virtual reality, prehistoric symbolism, and the early neolithic. I am also very interested in the use of virtual worlds for the recreation of archaeological and historical sites.
Since 2006 I have been enjoying and studying virtual worlds. My current working definition of virtual worlds is that they are shared immersive 3D spaces where people can create and spend time together. I lead weekly tours of the largest existing open-source Metaverse, the hypergrid-enabled, multiplatform, decentralized, interconnected infinitely-scalable universe of virtual worlds which run on opensource software called Open Simulator.
My interest in virtual reality goes back to the late 1980’s when I experienced demonstrations of giant headsets and interactive rooms during the first wave of VR excitement in San Francisco. Today I build worlds in OpenSim, make and animate non-human avatars in 3D software (mostly Blender), and attend the San Francisco VR Meetups where the future of VR is being imagined and created.
You can reach me at anthropola@gmail.com