FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Please contact in the USA:
Tracy Spaight, 832-651-8778, tspaight@gmail.com and
Carlos M. Pomares, 201-683-9995, carlos@e-gms.com

Please contactin the UK:
Bruno Ceschel at Chris Boot Ltd, email: bruno@chrisboot.com,
tel: 020 7639 2908

ALTER EGO REVEALS THE PEOPLE BEHIND THEIR AVATARS

Alter Ego is a cool concept book, presenting the phenomenon of the contemporary avatar (the virtual characters gamers choose and design to engage in online virtual worlds). Portraits of gamers from the United States, Europe, China, and Korea (including leading figures of the gaming world) are paired with images of their alter egos, graphically dramatizing the gap between fantasy and reality.

With an introduction by one of digital culture's leading observers, and a glossary of relevant terms, each of the seventy pairs of images are accompanied by detailed profiles and engaging stories about the person behind the keyboard. Sometimes hilarious and always visually exciting, Alter Ego is both a guide to the new world of the avatar and a serious contribution to the debate about the future of society in the digital age.

Images from Alter Ego have been exhibited at galleries in London, Amsterdam, Paris, Stockholm, and Berlin. The portraits were recently exhibited in Second Life and are currently on display at the Portland Arts Center through June 30, 2007.

The book is now available through Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. For more information and images, please visit www.alteregobook.com

About the Authors:

Robbie Cooper was born in 1969. He won an Ian Parry scholarship in 1992 for his essay on Somalia and his work has been widely published in Liberation, the Sunday Times magazine, Geo, GQ and Esquire. His Alter Ego photographs have been exhibited at galleries in London, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Berlin, and Paris.

Julian Dibbell is one of digital culture’s leading observers. Author of My Tiny Life: Crime and Passion in a Virtual World (1999, described as ‘the best book written about the dynamics of online life’), he writes regularly for Wired magazine, Feed Online, the New York Times, Rolling Stone and the Village Voice.

BOOK LAUNCH AND EXHIBITIONS

Book Launch in Second Life
Tuesday 15 May 2007, at 6pm London / 1pm NYC / 10am San Francisco

Alter Ego Virtual Exhibition in Second Life
Tuesday 15 May – 29 May

Abundance Island in Second Life
To visit the exhibition, click on the following link to teleport to the exhibition location (must have Second Life installed):

Alter Ego Exhibition at Platform International Animation Festival
7-30 June 2007 at the Portland Art Center, Portland, Oregon, USA
www.platformfestival.com

EXTRACT FROM THE BOOK

Name: Jason Rowe
Born: 1975
Occupation: None
Location: Crosby, Texas, USA
Average hours per week in-game: 80
Avatar name: Rurouni Kenshin
Avatar created: 2003
Game played: Star Wars Galaxies
Server name: Radiant
Character type: Human marksman / rifleman
Character level: 55
Special abilities: Ranged weapon specialization

The difference between me and my online character is pretty obvious. I have a lot of physical disabilities in real life, but in Star Wars Galaxies I can ride an Imperial speeder bike, fight monsters, or just hang out with friends at a bar. I have some use of my hands – not much, but a little. In the game I use an on-screen keyboard called ‘soft-type’ to talk with other players. I can’t press the keys on a regular keyboard so I use a virtual one. I play online games because I get to interact with people. The computer screen is my window to the world. Online it doesn’t matter what you look like. Virtual worlds bring people together – everyone is on common ground. In the real world, people can be uncomfortable around me before they get to know me and realize that, apart from my outer appearance, I’m just like them. Online you get to know the person behind the keyboard before you know the physical person. The internet eliminates how you look in real life, so you get to know a person by their mind and personality. In 2002 at the UO Fan Faire in Austin, I noticed that people were intrigued by me, but they acted just like I was one of them. They treated me as an equal, like I wasn’t even the way that I am – not disabled, not in a wheelchair, you know. We were all just gamers.

Name: Philip Rosedale
Born: 1969
Occupation: CEO / Founder
Location: San Francisco, California, USA
Average hours per week in-game: 5
Avatar name: Philip Linden
Avatar created: 2002
Game played: Second Life
Special abilities: Godlike powers

I wanted to create a digital version of reality, and specifically wanted to make a place where many people could build things together and generally explore their imaginations. As thinking beings, we can imagine a world much better than the real one. Second Life lets us actually build that imagined place.
Many outsiders see video games as an uncreative or anti-social activity. If the challenges placed on you by a video game are simple and dumb, then playing those games will make you simple and dumb. The challenges that stand between you and success in Second Life are often more complex than those you face in real life. I think that playing Second Life is actually going to make you smarter, hour-for-hour, than being in the real world.
Like the economist Ted Castronova says, we are going to see a lot of our collective energies move into cyberspace. I think that is going to be a lot more than most people think. Imagine much of the real world gathering dust in a couple of decades. Imagine New York as a big museum.

All the photographs in this press release are available for free press usage.
When using free press release photographs please refer both to publication of the book: “Alter Ego by Robbie Cooperis published by Chris Boot, $29.95.”

All photographs (c) Robbie Cooper